In my post, The Obama Zeitgeist, I wrote:

Barack’s message of Hope and Change found greater resonance in the Democratic electorate than Hillary’s message of Experience and Leadership.

I suggested that this turn to hope and idealism found resonance in the teachings The Urantia Book re its depiction of The Seraphic Planetary Government, and in its distinction between ideas and ideals.

Now that the Dem primary is over, it is fair to ask whether this hypothesis has relevance to the general election between Obama and McCain. I submit that today’s joint poll conducted by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News answers that question in the affirmative. The Journal reports :

Asked to respond to two statements, 59% of voters said they believed “This is a time to have a president who will focus on progress and help move America forward,” while 37% of voters favored the statement, “This is a time to have a president who will focus on protecting what has made America great.” Just 4% said they weren’t sure.

What’s more, 54% said the statement that “This is a time when it is important to look for a person who will bring greater changes to the current policies even if he is less experienced and tested,” identified more with their personal view, while 42% said the statement that “This is a time when it is important to look for a more experienced and tested person even if he brings fewer changes to the current policies,” was more in line with their view of the race.

That’s a 12% differential between the past and the future.

The Zeitgeist rules!

HOLLYWOOD, CA (C.U.News) The godfather of Republican dirty campaign tricks, Lee “Willy Horton” Atwater, revealed through one of the world’s most respected psychics today that Billary would be the stronger candidate against John McCain in the 2008 presidential election.

In an exclusive interview granted to this reporter, the medium (who insisted on anonymity, and only after she was satisfied as to my claim of being one of the world’s most diligent vagitarians) said that despite the difficulty in penetrating the third circle of hell, where Mr. Atwater currently resides, her confidence in the accuracy of the transmission was “very high.”

In a related development, Hillary Clinton, out on the campaign trail today in Prestonburg, Kentucky, cited Atwater’s former apprentice Karl Rove as confirming the psychic’s pronouncement:

“There has been a lot of analysis about which of us is stronger to win against Sen. McCain, and I believe I am the stronger candidate,” said Clinton, repeating a line from her stump speech. Then she veered from her usual argument.

“Just today I found some curious support for that position when one of the TV networks released an analysis done by - of all people - Karl Rove, saying that I was the stronger candidate,” said Clinton. “Somebody go a hold of his analysis and there it is.”

Yes, there it is. Rove joins his current employer, Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch, and former Billary basher extraordinaire, billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, as Hillary BFsF.

Anyone who hasn’t noticed the rabid up-tick in the perceived toxic ties between the presidential candidates and their religious affiliations gets a sincere “get well soon,” because you have to be in some kind of coma. The only one who appears to have escaped the holy vetting is Mrs Clinton, which may speak more to the fact she has no real religious associations outside of the little prayer circle she attends in the Senate.

But look. As Clinton thrashes wildly in dead air preparatory to plunging to her political death, Obama and now McCain are getting the religious scrubbing of a lifetime because they’re going to be the nominees. The reasons the electorate is finally paying attention to their religious ties however, run a lot deeper than Fixed Noise’s manufactured crisis ‘o video loops of Jeramiah Wright, or the totally whacktard theologies of the neocon nutballs associated with McCain.

Like it or not human beings are hard-wired to long for something higher, deeper, and more profound than material reality; a higher universe reality— the world of spirit. Religion is a personal and real reality for most of humanity. But when institutionalized religion becomes sanctioned by the state, tacitly or overtly, we’re all in danger of policies being directed by the personal interpretations of the religion-specific values held by a small number of people. Remember: the last time we tried mixing government with religion, we wound up burning people at the stake.

The recent erosion of the fragile wall between church and state produced by policies and attitudes of the Cheney-Bush debacle, which either directly or indirectly facilitate the bizarre theories of a coming apocalypse, are unfortunately only one of several afflictions currently threatening our liberty.

Here’s a check-list of a dozen things, in no particular order, that lovers of freedom and liberty should monitor as frequently as they would a weather station— with constant vigilance. . . followed by examples of how they are threatening our liberty right now, every day.

Usurpation of unwarranted power by either the executive or legislative branches. Signing statements— what, 157 at last count?

Machinations of ignorant and superstitious agitators. Rush Limbaugh; Anne Coulter; Shaun Hannity; Bill O’Reilly; Glen Beck. . .

Retardation of scientific progress. Stem Cell Research; Terri Schiavo. . .

Stalemate of the dominance of mediocrity. “Stay the course” Bush; health care crisis; no energy policy; no higher moral vision. . .

Domination by vicious minorities. Swift boat morons; Fox News. . .

Control by ambitious and clever would-be dictators. George Bush ala Dick Cheney. . .

Disastrous disruption of panics. Global War on Terror; Gasoline prices; subprime lending crisis. . .

Exploitation by the unscrupulous. Haliburton, KBR, all other war profiteers. . .

Failure of social and economic fairness. Toleration of poverty; no higher education for the poor; ridiculous minimum wage; no health care; no working immigration policy; unfair taxation. . .

Union of church and state. Neocons and Bush on a mission from God; “In God we trust” on our money; paid Christian ministers in the House and Senate. Every elected senator or Congressman knows how to pray, and they certainly can pray on the record if they want to. But there’s no place for paid or voluntary professional clergy of any religion to be in our House and Senate, leading our elected representatives in prayer or worship.

Loss of personal liberty. Habeas Corpus; NSA spying; Fear mongering government regulations.

And now, because I follow Jesus,

let’s close with a short prayer, shall we?

Both energy-things and spirit values are colored by their interpretation through the mind media of consciousness. —The Urantia Book

[T]he content of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind. - Alvin Toffler, Future Shock

In the clip below, Dan Abrams takes a Repug congressman to task for questioning Obama’s patriotism. But it’s what happening on an unconscious level that concerns me here.

Notice that in the first few seconds of the set-up, Abrams mis-characterizes what’s going on in the picture. Obama, Richardson, and Clinton are standing in front of a US flag,* the latter two standing behind Obama with their hands over their hearts. Abrams says that Obama had “his hands down when the pledge of allegiance was being played.”

Wrong. It was the National Anthem that was being “played.” Putting one’s hand over one’s heart during the anthem is not a matter of convention at all, as anyone who’s ever attended a professional sports event can testify.

Let’s give Abrams the benefit of the doubt that he wasn’t consciously sabotaging his own argument here. What he did accomplish, at an unconscious level, was to propagate an element the right wing smear meme that Obama can’t be trusted because he’s not patriotic. And nothing the silver tongued Abrams can say subsequent to the set up is going to displace the symbolic impression of a presidential candidate who won’t place his hand over his heart when saying the pledge of allegiance.

This plays right into the Repugs media strategy of defining a candidate in the media before he can define himself. Witness what they were able to do to John Kerry in the 2004 election.

Kerry’s greatest strength was his status as a decorated Vietnam vet who had volunteered for duty. In contrast, one of the greatest weaknesses of his opponent was the latter’s own “service” record, which included being placed by his rich daddy into a champagne unit of the Air National Guard ahead of far more deserving candidates (and from which he was AWOL much of the time); opting out of a voluntary assignment to Vietnam; and forfeiting his million dollar taxpayer funded pilot’s by refusing to take a medical exam that, had it come back positive for drugs, would have resulted in his immediate transfer to the Army and to the front lines in Vietnam. Despite all this, by the time the Rovians were done sticking their propaganda needles into their Kerry voodo doll (with a huge assist from the MSM), he had become the villainous zombie and Bush the conquering hero.

This is all part and parcel of what cognitive scientist Dr. Drew Westen, author of “The Political Brain: The Role of Emotions in Deciding the Fate of the Nation,” describes as “a network of associations, bundles of thoughts, feelings, images, and ideas that have become connected over time.” In Westen’s terms, Rove succeeded in altering the components of the network of associations from which the candidates’ respective narratives were derived. Negative feelings that should have been directed at Bush were displaced and transferred wholesale to Kerry.

The same thing is happening to Obama now that he is emerging as the likely Democratic nominee. (For other components of the “network of associations” being used to define his “character,” see my previous post “The Manchurian Muslim Candidate.”)

It’s only after the virus of disinformation slips past the watchdog of the mind that its pernicious effects can be seen in the body politic. By then, it’s usually too late. As Foucualt would have put it, the representation of the reality displaces the reality itself.

The medium is still the message, Dan.

*The photo itself is almost certainly photochopped; Clinton was made to appear midget-sized next to Richardson, much more size distortion than could be reasonably assigned to a wide angle lens.

According to the tireless efforts of patriots like Matt Drudgery and Rush Limpbot, a political catastrophe of the highest order can still be avoided.

In a scoop that left the MSM swooning with envy, Drudgery uncovered Barak Obama’s middle name.

“Hussein. Hussein!,” thundered Limpbot in an exclusive interview I had with him today.

“I mean, they don’t even try to hide the fact that his last name rhymes with Usama,” he said, wiping a flek of spittle from the corner of his mouth.

When I pointed out that Middle East expert Professor Juan Cole stated that Hussein is an honored name in Semitic cultures, shared by individuals like staunch US ally, King Hussein of Jordan; and that 14 of 43 U.S. presidents have Semiitc names, and that Barak means “blessed,” Limpbot grew visibly angry.

“Juan Cole? That anti-Armageddon Islamofascist terorrist sympathizer? Don’t you be quoting the likes of him around me, or you’re outta here.”

“Okay,” I said, looking down at my notes. “Perhaps you could clarify for my readers just who “they” are.”

“The fact that you even have to ask makes me wonder about where your own loyalties lie, buddy. Say, I don’t see you wearing a U.S. flag pin,” he said, suspicion evident in his tone.

After I explained that, like Obama, I don’t believe in wearing my patriotism on my lapel, and besides, the pins are made in China and probably contain heavy doses of toxic lead enamel, Limpbot sneered:

“Always an excuse with you people. I suppose that like Barak Hussein Usama, you don’t hold your hand over your heart when you sing the national anthem, either.”

Ignoring the taunt, I asked whether his overt racist characterizations of Obama as “Barak the Magic Negro,” and a “Half-rican” (white mother, black father) wasn’t getting enough traction, and perhaps that was why he was now employing the Barak-as-undercover-terrorist meme. Limpbot replied:

“Look. That picture of him wearing the turban was leaked to Matt by someone from within the Clinton campaign. Did you hear her on Meet the Press last night, qualifying her statement that Usama Obama isn’t a Muslim, as far as I know? Even the Clintonistas suspect something is not right with this guy.”

“And, and– then there’s the fact that this guy was sworn into the Senate on a Quran; a freakin’ Quran, for Chrissakes! And that as a kid in Indonesia he went to one of those madrass-ass terrorist training schools. And that his so-called Christian pastor thinks Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakan is some kind of George Washington!”

After pausing to catch his breath, he continued his rant.

“And then there’s that slip up by that radical black activist wife of his about her being ashamed of being an American. Well, why don’t they just both move to Iraq and live with all those other America haters? Hell, I’ve got people who know where they can get themselves a couple of brand new suicide vests, cheap.”

After I pointed out that he was confusing Obama with another black legislator, Keith Ellison (aren’t all Blacks the same?), who happens to be a Muslim and was sworn into his House seat using Thomas Jefferson’s copy of the Quran; and that CNN had debunked the madrassa story by actually sending a reporter there to investigate; and that his wife’s words were taken out of context, Limpbot got red in the face. Cutting me off with a wave of his meaty hand, he railed:

“Don’t go messin’ with my narrative, mister. There’s an election coming up and Hillary is fading fast. We spent years and millions of taxpayer dollars defining her as a conniving, femma-nazi bitch. We spent less time defining John Kerry as an anti-war coward, however…” he said, his voice trailing off.

Shaking his head violently and reconnecting with his lizard brain, he continued.

“But there ain’t a whole lotta time left to define Barak Hussein Usama as someone equally as loathsome.”

“Barak to the Future,” I quipped, trying to regain his confidence.

But it was too late. Rising angrily out his chair, he grabbed a handful of Oxycontin and Viagra pills from a candy dish and threw them at my head.

“Get the hell out here before I call my Blackwater guys and have you escorted out of the building. Hell, out of the godamnned country!”

I got up, switched off my recorder and left.

Note to self: Never try to humor a corporatist, race baiting, fear-mongering, right wing authoritarian reactionary.