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It seems that when a candidate tells the truth in a plainspoken manner, he is guilty of being "angry." The first laughable thing about this meme is that there is somehow something wrong with anger. Our country is in utter shambles. And I know it hurts to say this, but it is shameful and a disgrace to the world. That is just the simple reality of how far we have fallen from the principles and ideals this country was founded on. It breaks my heart, but it is the truth.
Anyone think we shouldn't be angry?
Second, its amazing how quickly the corporate media paints anyone with a serious populist message in some negative way - often times they come up with the stupidest things. For Howard Dean, who built a massive grassroots movement that frightened the establishment greatly, it was that he was a "yeller." We should be laughing out loud at the lunacy of that as a criticism in a political race for President. But that just goes to show you the absolute power of the propaganda machine that is the corporate media: it worked.
With Edwards it is the "Edwards is (just) angry" meme. The "just" in that phrase is unspoken but implied; the implication being that he is somehow not someone to take seriously. The media pundits who perpetuate this meme ought to be laughed out of jobs by the public. It's ludicrous to try to paint a man who is talking about the very core ideals of our democracy - populist action, action by the people, for the people, the teardown of monopoly power holders and the distribution of political power to the people, and support for the working class who built and continue to sustain anything great about this country - as some sort of a fringe raver. But that's their attempt.
It's even more ludicrous to attempt to sell the notion that voting for Edwards is voting for chaos, which is what most people hear when they hear the word "anarchy." The media is actually arguing against the very principles of our constitutional democracy as though they are somehow anti-American! That's how far we have fallen into lunacy my friends.
As a side note, Edwards is the furthest thing from a true anarchist as you can get. But he is, or at least his message is, populist and true populism scares the shit out of the elite power-brokers that currently own and run this society. Yes, that statement has a lot of "rhetorical devices" in it, and can sound a little extreme - but I challenge you to really reflect on it, and I believe you'll be forced to acknowledge the truth of it.
Finally, as I conclude I want to say a brief word about how media propaganda works. It is not always a conscious conspiracy. That what I think people misunderstand and why some people have a hard time accepting the role the media plays in undermining and suppressing true democracy. When you are part of the elite echelon of society you already accept the basic ideas and values that got you there. In other words, you don't need a conspiracy to figure out ways to paint someone like John Edwards as a "fringe" candidate. You simply believe that he is, and your talk about him reflects that. You don't secretly "know" that Edwards is telling the truth and thus feel some conscious need to "stop" him. You simply believe that he is not telling the truth, or not someone to take seriously, and your natural biases and inclinations reflect that.
What you report, what you don't report, how you frame it, who you hire to do your reporting - all of these things - are often a matter of subconscious rather than conscious subscription to the anti-democratic ideas of the ruling class. There is much less instances of a bunch of people sitting in a smoke-filled dark room plotting "how to be evil" and much more where their ideology subconsciously effects how the present information, who they hire to report, what they chose to emphasize, etc.
A lot of what happens in the corporate media is not a tacit conspiracy - it is simply people who have already accepted the basic propaganda of the elite and respond to the rest of the world through that lens. Which is not to say that there is never an active conspiracy to undermine some element of democracy among the people, but you need to appreciate that it usually isn't necessary. Even the CEOs and ultra-power brokers in this society typically don't think in terms of "plotting" some conspiracy. They simply are truly totally brainwashed into the propaganda model.
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