Thursday, December 13, 2007

Cynthia McKinney

Marc Cooper is not exactly my favorite writer -- in fact, he's just the sort of Naderite "progressive" I cannot stand. But his piece excoriating Cynthia McKinney's Green Party presidential run is worth noting.
HERE’S SOME NEWS YOU MIGHT USE about Barack Obama. Did you know he was, in reality, a government plant, a sort of Manchurian Candidate activated by Big Brother to confuse black people?

That’s the political gospel according to the recently self-proclaimed Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney as she launched her national campaign this week from Houston. When asked by someone in the small audience at Texas Southern University about Obama, McKinney responded: “Look at the Colin Powells, the Condoleezza Rices, the Ward Connerlys... We have to be careful with the black people who are put before us by the media.”
What nonsense! By this "logic," one can attack any black leader who attains a wide public following. Equating Obama with Rice is disgusting.

Some progressives (including one noted conspiracy theorist who, I happen to know, once worked for McKinney) take the attitude that "If you've heard of 'em, they're no good." That stance is entirely self-defeating. Obama may not be my first choice, but I would have no problem voting for the guy in the general election.

Cooper goes on to take some cheap and unfair shots at McKinney -- almost as cheap and unfair as her shot against Obama. Someone else will have to rise to her defense on those scores; I have no longer have any use for that woman.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

There's a measure of truth to the claim that anyone who rises near the top will become co-opted by the system (or destroyed; see: Howard Dean).

That's true whether the original impetus of such a person was legitimate or not.

Looking at Obama's 'evolution' on such things as Middle East policy, going to get schooled by the PTB and taking a politically correct line out of alignment with his message of change, and he's well on his way to being changed, in my view.

Most significant third party bids end up helping the establishment's pick, whether a Perot or a John Anderson, a George Wallace, and etc. They get used to split off a given party's normal vote and put in someone who wouldn't normally get in. Bullmoose Party, anyone?

Again, that occurs whether the third party candidate or 'new' 'reform' figure wants it or not.

...sofla

Anonymous said...

using her logick, that would place Cynthia herself in the "suspicious" witness box.
Story goes, Years ago in a secure lab, She was "cleansed" by the "mind sweepers" to pose as a very left black mouth, so that she can be "awakened" today for this crucial election in order to spread "babylon" (confusion)and paranoia.

Just a thought
from Atlas

Anonymous said...

I sort of have to agree about Obama. Ever notice how the corporate media gives John Edwards (my first choice since it doesn't look like Gore will run) so little airtime? It's because they're afraid of the policies he endorses and they know that if he's elected there will be big changes in this country.

Obama has always struck me as sort of wishy-washy and unwilling to make bold, definitive statments when it counted. If you've got the bully pulpit in the senate you should use it to go on record about the pressing issues of the day.

Just as the previous poster mentioned what the media did to Howard Dean in 2004, there's something very fishy about the fact that he's such a media darling. That tells me, just as it does with Clinton, that the person cannot be trusted and will not faithfully represent the people but will instead bow to corporate power.

Jamie in Boston

AitchD said...

In other news, how damaged is Pelosi? What do her Democratic colleagues in the House say?

Anonymous said...

you're totally wrong on this one. Look at the efforts of the MSM to keep the public in the dark about Ron Paul. Besides,she said we should "take a look at carefully at who the media puts in front of us'. She did not come right out and say what you accuse her of.

Whatever you may think of McKinney because of her ties to John Judge, it doesn't change the fact she is the most honest person in this election.

Anonymous said...

Just to add, Obama has done much more to warrant suspicion from just his 3 years of voting records than McKinney has done over the past decade.

Joseph Cannon said...

Well, YOU may be suspicious, but I am not. I have disagreed with some votes, but you'd have to be a loon to consider mere disagreement evidence of conspiracy.

Actually, I like John. He received unfair attacks from the trannies when he refused to endorse the bombs-in-da-buildings hallucination. Remember when guys like John Judge were considered wild and "out there"? By current conspiracy-buff standards, he's a careful old fuddy-duddy.

That said, when he was a younger man he did indeed say "If you've heard of 'em, they're no good." Ridiculous. That statement is not only ultra-paranoid, it is inescapably anti-democratic, since it automatically exempts from consideration any political leader who has a mass following. Lots of people have heard of RFK; far fewer have heard of Michael Ledeen.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Cannon here are a couple pithy quotes for your quiver

"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day."
Theodore Roosevelt, April 19, 1906

"I have the greatest admiration for your propaganda. Propaganda in the West is carried out by experts who have had the best training in the world — in the field of advertizing — and have mastered the techniques with exceptional proficiency ... Yours are subtle and persuasive; ours are crude and obvious ... I think that the fundamental difference between our worlds, with respect to propaganda, is quite simple. You tend to believe yours ... and we tend to disbelieve ours."
Soviet correspondent based five years in the U.S.