Norman Solomon: Obama’s Clarifying Win: The Fly on the Wall Is the Wall

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/07/8790/

Obama’s Clarifying Win: The Fly on the Wall Is the Wall
by Norman Solomon


Barack Obama’s triumph on Tuesday night was a victory over a wall that pretends to be a fly on the wall.

For a long time, the nation’s body politic has been shoved up against that wall — known as the news media.

Despite all its cracks and gaps, what cements the wall is mostly a series of repetition compulsion disorders. Whether the media perseveration is on Pastor Wright, the words “bitter” and “cling,” or an absent flag lapel-pin, the wall’s surfaces are more rigid when they’re less relevant to common human needs and shared dreams.

“We’ve already seen it,” Obama said during his victory speech in North Carolina, “the same names and labels they always pin on everyone who doesn’t agree with all their ideas, the same efforts to distract us from the issues that affect our lives, by pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy, in the hopes that the media will play along.”

snip//

The media pretense of being a fly on the wall has often been preposterous. In the real world of politics — where power brokers and manipulators proceed with the cynical axiom that perception is reality — the fly on the wall is the wall. The political press corps is not observing reality as much as redefining it while obstructing outlooks and constraining public perceptions.

Yet, in North Carolina and Indiana, voters had more votes than all the pundits did. Pundits lost. Voters came out ahead. So did Obama. And so did the body politic.

We’re still up against the media wall. But when dawn broke on Wednesday, that wall wasn’t quite as high or mighty. And the nation might be able to see a little more clearly beyond it.


Norman Solomon is an elected Obama delegate to the Democratic National Convention. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” A documentary film of the same name, based on the book, was released this spring via home-video outlets including Netflix. For further information, go to: www.normansolomon.com

[Peace Patriot]

1. Love that metaphor! How 'bout we swat ourselves some flies, eh?

The "fly on the wall" IS the wall. So we'll have to swat ourselves some BIG flies--the flies that are buzzing round the near dead corpse of our democracy, like a fermented wall of disease and decay. Splat! SPLAT!!! A very satisfying endeavor--and very necessary.

[Canuckistanian]

2. That's the problem - it isn't as easy as swatting flies

You're going to need a metphorical bulldozer to tear those walls down.