Hey Durruti,
Is there a link to the Larry Pinkney article you posted above?
Emanuel
TruthMove Forum » TruthMove Main Forum
Election Predictions! (52 posts)
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Posted 15 years ago #
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"Yes, but the MSM was the primary decision-making entity that determined their A or B choice, how the debates would go, who would be heard, etc. They locked out any third parties from all discussion, so no real threats were presented to Obama from the left, only from the religious right, and Katie Couric single handedly took out Palin early on."
i think that's a little bit of an oversimplification. it was hardly an A or B choice. and it is hardly all predetermined by the media. this is actually quite insulting to all those of us who followed the candidates throughout the primaries, and made informed decisions to support whichever candidate we chose to support. There were 8 candidates in the democratic party - and 7 in the republican.
and you can hardly claim that these candidates were not vetted in a public forum.
Here's a list of the debates that took place in the democratic party alone:
5.1 April 26, 2007 – Orangeburg, South Carolina 5.2 June 3, 2007 - CNN 7:00pm EDT - Manchester, New Hampshire 5.3 June 28, 2007 - PBS - Washington, D.C. 5.4 July 12, 2007 – Detroit, Michigan 5.5 July 23, 2007 - CNN - Charleston, South Carolina 5.6 August 4, 2007 – Chicago, Illinois 5.7 August 7, 2007 – Chicago, Illinois 5.8 August 9, 2007 – Los Angeles, California 5.9 August 19, 2007 – Des Moines, Iowa 5.10 September 9, 2007 – Coral Gables, Florida 5.11 September 12, 2007 5.12 September 20, 2007 – Davenport, Iowa 5.13 September 26, 2007 – Hanover, New Hampshire 5.14 October 30, 2007 - NBC 9:00pm EDT - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 5.15 November 15, 2007 - CNN - Las Vegas, Nevada 5.16 December 4, 2007 - NPR (radio only) - Des Moines, Iowa 5.17 December 13, 2007 – Johnston, Iowa 5.18 January 5, 2008 - ABC 8:45pm EST - Manchester, New Hampshire 5.19 January 15, 2008 - MSNBC 6:00pm PST - Las Vegas, Nevada 5.20 January 21, 2008 - CNN 8:00pm EST - Myrtle Beach, South Carolina 5.21 January 31, 2008 - CNN 5:00pm PDT - Hollywood, California 5.22 February 2, 2008 - MTV 6:00pm EST - MTV Myspace Debate 5.23 February 21, 2008 - CNN 7:00pm CST - Austin, Texas 5.24 February 26, 2008 - MSNBC 9:00pm EST - Cleveland, Ohio 5.25 April 13, 2008 - CNN 8:00pm EDT - Grantham, Pennsylvania 5.26 April 16, 2008 - ABC 8:00pm EDT - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
while i agree that the two party system is flawed - we have not seen any traction among 3rd parties. i guess it is relatively easy to blame 'the media' for this - but clearly the public is NOT supporting these 3rd party candidates. here is a breakdown of fundraising as of 09/21/08:
Chuck Baldwin: Last Month $35,377. To Date $131,457.
Ralph Nader: Last month: $658,040. To date: $2,977,570.
Bob Barr: Last month: $ 221,434 To date: $859,435 The August total is somewhat better than Mike Badnarik’s $178,000 for August 2004.
LNC, Inc.: Last Month: $134,085 To date: $1,180,856
These figures are unimpressive - to say the least. in particular - Ralph Nader has run for president multiple times - yet appears unable to gain the public's support. and as HOward Dean pointed out in 2004, nearly half the signatures Nader gathered in a failed attempt to get on the Arizona ballot were from Republicans. A significant amount of his campaign kitty comes from Bush-Cheney donors. And, said Dean, "you accepted the support of a right-wing, fanatic Republican group that is antigay in order to help you get on the ballot in Oregon" -- a reference to the Oregon Family Council, which produces a "Christian Voter Guide" and campaigns against gay marriage.
do i like the american system? no. i don't. but - i do not believe that, by default, that negates the sincerity of the american public in choosing to very vocally support a set of IDEALS. it will be up to us to hold Obama to those ideals. but - you have to admit - we have a hell of a good start. when was the last time you saw people dancing in the streets to celebrate the landslide victory of an african american president to speaks of social justice, equality, environmental stewardship, fiscal responsibility and a social contract to provide healthcare in an equitable and fair way to the public?
i have no problem standing up and applauding these ideals - and the public mandate to pursue them.
Posted 15 years ago # -
John -- you are not alone in your reaction, for example, Rob Hopkins, Transitions Network founder, on the election result:
Why, for today at least, I’m celebrating Obama’s victory
I feel I just lived through a seminal moment in history. Yes, I know all the reasons why we ought not be excited about Obama’s election as President of the US (it will inevitably go sour at some point, his Afghanistan policies, he is still an economic growth man etc. etc. etc.), but just for now, for a few days, I want to bask in the glow of something really quite extraordinary having happened.
...
I was struck by how different the world will be when it sits down in Copenhagen for the climate change negotiations, for the first time with a US delegation not sent there to fudge, sabotage and undermine.
I fear that people want to hope that some moves in the right direction will come from "above" but I think we are going to have to do it all from "below" -- I expect Obama will, essentially, continue with the "business as usual" agenda...
Posted 15 years ago # -
Why are we just finding out now that Palin thinks Africa is a country? :(
Posted 15 years ago # -
Posted 15 years ago #
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A Look Under the Hood at the (Potential) Obama Administration
By Joshua Frank
November 06, 2008 -- - Tuesday’s celebration hangovers have finally started to wear off, and the pieces are beginning to fall into place. Change will be coming to Washington in January, but it is difficult to decipher what form it will take. Early clues, however, suggest that Barack Obama’s administration will prove unlikely to alter the fundamental political machinery that has led us into war and economic turmoil. Below is a brief summary of Obama’s potential choices for a few key roles in his administration.
Chief of Staff
Obama’s key White House position will go to Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois. While Emanuel knows his way around the corridors of Washington, qualifying him in the traditional sense, this alone doesn’t mean he’s the guy you want drawing up Obama’s policy papers day after day.
For starters, Emanuel is a shameless neoliberal with close ties to the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), even co-authoring a strategy book with DLC president Bruce Reed. Without Emanuel, Bill Clinton would not have been able to thrust NAFTA down the throats of environmentalists and labor in the mid-1990s. Over the course of his career, Emanuel’s made it a point to cozy up to big business, making him one of the most effective corporate fundraisers in the Democratic Party. He’s also a staunch advocate of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.
Emanuel’s shinning moment came in 2006 as he helped funnel money and poured ground support into the offices of dozens of conservative Democrats, expanding his party’s control of the House of Representatives. Emanuel, who supports the War on Terror, and expanding our presence in Afghanistan, worked hard to ensure that a Democratic House majority would not alter the course of US military objectives in the Middle East.
In short, Rahm Emanuel is not only a poor choice for Obama’s Chief of Staff; he’s one of the least progressive picks he could have made. While he may have decent views on abortion, tax policy, and social security, Emanuel’s broader vision is more of the same: war and corporate dominance.
Treasury Secretary
For arguably the most important position Obama will be appointing, the President-Elect may pick well-regarded economist Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Volker is one of Obama’s closest economic advisors and is thought to be the top-choice for the position of Treasury Secretary.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Volker, in an attempt to cut inflation, dramatically raised interest rates, which helped the elite maintain value in their assets but strangled the working class as credit dried up.
In his book, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, David Harvey writes that Volker personified one of the key facets of the neoliberal era.
“[Volker] engineered a draconian shift in U.S. monetary policy. The long-standing commitment in the U.S. liberal democratic state to the principles of the New Deal, which meant broadly Keynesian fiscal and monetary policies with full employment as a key objective, was abandoned in favour of a policy designed to quell inflation no matter what the consequences might be for employment. The real rate of interest, which had often been negative during the double-digit inflationary surge of the 1970s, was rendered positive by fiat of the Federal Reserve. The nominal rate of interest was raised overnight … Thus began ‘a long deep recession that would empty factories and break unions in the U.S. and drive detour countries to the brink of insolvency, beginning a long-era of structural insolvency’. The Volker shock, as it has since come to be known, has to be interpreted as a necessary but not sufficient condition of neoliberalism.â€
In supporting Henry Paulson’s bailout package, Volker would not re-regulate the banks nor provide more power to shareholders, he’s simply carry on one facet of neoliberalism: tightening federal budgets which inevitably will put great budgetary pressure on federal agencies.
Another potential pick for the post is Robert Rubin, who served under Clinton in the same position and is currently Director and Senior Counselor of Citigroup. Rubin played a key role in abetting another neoliberal objective: deregulation. Where Volker was hung up on economic austerity, Rubin pushed for more deregulatory policies that ended up shifting jobs, and entire industries, overseas.
Rubin even pushed for Clinton’s dismantling of Glass-Steagall, testifying that deregulating the banking industry would be good for capital gains, as well as Main Street. “[The] banking industry is fundamentally different from what it was two decades ago, let alone in 1933,†Rubin testified before the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services in May of 1995.
“[Glass-Steagall could] conceivably impede safety and soundness by limiting revenue diversification,†Rubin argued.
While the industry saw much deregulation over the years preceding these events, the Gramm-Leach-Biley Act of 1999, which eliminated Glass-Steagall, extended and ratified changes that had been enacted with previous legislation. Ultimately, the repeal of the New Deal era protection allowed commercial lenders like Rubin’s Citigroup to underwrite and trade instruments like mortgage backed securities along with collateralized debt and established structured investment vehicles (SIVs), which purchased these securities. In short, as the lines were blurred among investment banks, commercial banks and insurance companies, when one industry fell, others could too.
Robert Rubin is in part responsible for supporting the policies that pushed us to the brink of a great recession. When the subprime mortgage crisis hit, instability and collapse spread across numerous industries.
Another name that is in the hunt for the top spot is Lawrence Summers, who served during the last 18 months of the Clinton administration. Summers is greatly responsible for expanding Rubinomics and is credited by many for the collapse in the derivatives market, which later imploded the housing market.
Defense Secretary
While Obama’s choice for this important role is speculative, quite a few fingers are pointing to Richard Holbrooke.
After Gerald Ford’s loss and Jimmy Carter’s ascendance into the White House in 1976, Indonesia, which invaded East Timor and slaughtered 200,000 indigenous Timorese years earlier, requested additional arms to continue its brutal occupation, even though there was a supposed ban on arms trades to Suharto’s government. It was Carter’s appointee to the Department of State’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Richard Holbrooke, who authorized additional arms shipments to Indonesia during this supposed blockade. Many scholars have noted that this was the period when the Indonesian suppression of the Timorese reached genocidal levels.
During his testimony before Congress in February 1978, Benedict Anderson of Cornell University cited a report that proved there never was a United States arms ban, and that during the period of the alleged ban; the US initiated new offers of military weaponry to the Indonesians at Holbrooke’s request.
Over the years Holbrooke, who is philosophically aligned with Paul Wolfowitz and other neoconservatives, has worked vigorously to keep his bloody campaign silent. Holbrooke described the motivations behind his support of Indonesia’s genocidal actions:
“The situation in East Timor is one of the number of very important concerns of the United States in Indonesia. Indonesia, with a population of 150 million people, is the fifth largest nation in the world, is a moderate member of the Non-Aligned Movement, is an important oil producer — which plays a moderate role within OPEC — and occupies a strategic position astride the sea lanes between the Pacific and Indian Oceans … We highly value our cooperative relationship with Indonesia.â€
Other foreign policy advisors may also include the likes of Madeline Albright, the great supporter of Iraq sanctions, which killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Madeline Albright, when asked by Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes about the deaths caused by U.N. sanctions, infamously condoned the deaths. “I think this is a very hard choice,†she said. “But the price–we think the price is worth it.â€
Samantha Power, that great cheerleader for humanitarian intervention, also has Obama’s ear and may even entice him to put U.S. forces in Darfur.
“With very few exceptions, the Save Darfur campaign has drawn a single lesson from Rwanda: the problem was the US failure to intervene to stop the genocide. Rwanda is the guilt that America must expiate, and to do so it must be ready to intervene, for good and against evil, even globally. That lesson is inscribed at the heart of Samantha of Power’s book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. But it is the wrong lesson,†writes author Mahmood Mamdani in the London Review of Books.
As Mamdani continues: “What the humanitarian intervention lobby fails to see is that the US did intervene in Rwanda, through a proxy … Instead of using its resources and influence to bring about a political solution to the civil war, and then strengthen it, the US signalled to one of the parties that it could pursue victory with impunity. This unilateralism was part of what led to the disaster, and that is the real lesson of Rwanda … Applied to Darfur and Sudan, it is sobering. It means recognising that Darfur is not yet another Rwanda. Nurturing hopes of an external military intervention among those in the insurgency who aspire to victory and reinforcing the fears of those in the counter-insurgency who see it as a prelude to defeat are precisely the ways to ensure that it becomes a Rwanda.â€
Other names in the running include John Kerry, who as many know, ran an antiwar campaign for president in 2004. A full supporter of the War on Terror, with a hard-line on Iran, will certainly not alter the U.S. relationship in the Middle East.
Regarding the Department of Defense, it looks as if Robert Gates will still control the top spot, with no alterations made to the DoD or its inflated budget.
The Next Step
While the election of Barack Obama is a blow to George W. Bush-Republicanism and a gain for racial equality in this country, it is in many ways only a symbolic victory. The future of the U.S.’s foreign and economic agenda will continue to be saturated with ideologies and individuals that are directly responsible for our current predicament, both in the Middle East and domestically.
Celebrating the end of the ugly Bush era is one thing. Celebrating the continuation of their policies with a different administration in the White House is quite another. With these prospective appointments, Obama seems to be moving backwards to Clintontime. This may be sufficient change for some, but it far from a progressive push toward social, economic, and environmental justice.
For significant change to happen, the kind that is needed in order to mend the wounds of the Bush years, we have to put down our Obama signs and force Congress and the new administration to end the wars in the Middle East, and push for regulating the financial industry while providing true universal health-care and economic safety-nets for all Americans.
Given the make up of his potential advisors, we’re in for a long uphill battle. So let’s drop our illusions and start organizing, beginning with a discussion of what “organizing†even means in today’s political climate.
Joshua Frank is co-editor of Dissident Voice and author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush (Common Courage Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of the new book Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland, published by AK Press in June 2008. Check out the new Red State Rebels site at www.RedStateRebels.org Read other articles by Joshua, or visit Joshua's website.
Posted 15 years ago # -
Hey, I finally found a piece of Obama news that isn't hair-raisingly awful. Who says I'm a curmudgeon?
Obama considers stars for Cabinet by Politico.com Wednesday November 05, 2008, 12:18 PM
President-elect Barack Obama is strongly considering Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Environmental Protection Agency, a Cabinet post, Democratic officials told Politico.
RFK Jr.’s cousin, Caroline Kennedy, who helped Obama lead his vice-presidential search, is being considered for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, although some Obama officials doubt she would take it. Obama is indebted to the Kennedy family for a hearty endorsement at a crucial point in the Democratic primaries.
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Alas, the next paragraph reads:
Obama’s transition planners are weighing several other celebrity-level political stars for Cabinet posts, including retired general Colin L. Powell for secretary of Defense or Education, the officials said.
Posted 15 years ago # -
And now more bad news re: Rahm Emanuel (from Paul Watson):
The son of a man who helped carry out this slaughter has now been selected by Obama to be his chief-of-staff. Cries of “sins of the father†lose their gusto when one considers the fact that, after the 1996 re-election of Bill Clinton, Rahm Emanuel “Was so angry at the president’s enemies that he stood up at a celebratory dinner with colleagues from the campaign, grabbed a steak knife and began rattling off a list of betrayers, shouting ‘Dead! … Dead! … Dead!’ and plunging the knife into the table after every name.†Sounds like a nice guy.
In his book, The Plan: Big Ideas for America, published in 2006, Emanuel sketches out his ideas on how to “fight against the spread of evil and totalitarianism.†In addition to fortifying “the military’s ‘thin green line’ around the world by adding to the U.S. Special Forces and the Marines, and by expanding the U.S. army by 100,000 more troops,†Emanuel suggests “we must protect our homeland and civil liberties by creating a new domestic counterterrorism force like Britain’s MI5.â€
Posted 15 years ago # -
Obama has rolled out his economic team:
David Bonior (Member House of Representatives 1977-2003)
· Warren Buffett (Chairman and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway)
· Roel Campos (former SEC Commissioner)
· William Daley (Chairman of the Midwest, JP Morgan Chase; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Commerce, 1997-2000)
· William Donaldson (Former Chairman of the SEC 2003-2005)
· Roger Ferguson (President and CEO, TIAA-CREF and former Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve)
· Jennifer Granholm (Governor, State of Michigan)
· Anne Mulcahy (Chairman and CEO, Xerox)
· Richard Parsons (Chairman of the Board, Time Warner)
· Penny Pritzker (CEO, Classic Residence by Hyatt)
· Robert Reich (University of California, Berkeley; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Labor, 1993-1997)
· Robert Rubin (Chairman and Director of the Executive Committee, Citigroup; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Treasury, 1995-1999)
· Eric Schmidt (Chairman and CEO, Google)
· Lawrence Summers (Harvard University; Managing Director, D.E. Shaw; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Treasury, 1999-2001)
· Laura Tyson (Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley; Former Chairman, National Economic Council, 1995-1996; Former Chairman, President's Council of Economic Advisors, 1993-1995)
· Antonio Villaraigosa (Mayor, City of Los Angeles)
· Paul Volcker (Former Chairman, U.S. Federal Reserve 1979-1987)
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That seals the deal. Unless you get a mass movement in the streets you're screwed.
Posted 15 years ago # -
hmmmm i find some of these comments to be objectionable:
the dangerously double-talking “Emperor†in black face - Barack Obama. ..... to neutralize and destroy the ongoing Black liberation struggle for justice and equality in this nation, and in people’s liberation struggles throughout the world.
this strikes me as vindictive and offensive. it would certainly offend black people. unless, of course, this guy has a crystal ball and is able to peer into the future - it is downright offensive in its intentions.
quotes like this also stand out also:
pro-apartheid Zionist, corporate Wall Street-backed, slippery tongued Barack Obama
histrionic crap.
Posted 15 years ago # -
from: http://mikeruppert.blogspot.com/
REFLECTIONS ON REFLECTIONS
Andy Edwards
Mike, sir I've stuck it out with you for close to five years and I'm not backtracking now...but-
I think we might be getting a little off track here. “
Until we change the way money works…†Sir, we have not accomplished this and so must we not assume that Obama’s campaign money (largely bank and establishment money) was injected precisely to deliver this result of a leader who can bring people together?
And if so, for what purpose, because the last time the elites did anything for the good of the masses was….well when was that?
Isn’t it convenient that Obama represents, merely by his Democratic alliance, a bigger and more controlling government and yet he is hailed as our savior from the infringements on personal liberty by the state? What a perfect time facing multiple emergencies to bring in the face man. Is not the Patriot Act the most aggressively anti-freedom piece of legislation to come to pass?
Now, I am of the belief that a new world order is less a collected conspiracy than it is the direct result of the psychology of the perennial, imperial state mindset. A position in line with Ron Paul, Austrian economists and the libertarian message, but that sure as shootin’ doesn’t mean I’m against ANYBODY who can come in and make fundamental change. Black, white, space alien, democrat, green party-- you name it and as long as it embodies the truth I’ll get behind it.
I believe you probably understand state corruption and its roots in greed and power as well as anyone and I am guessing that by setting forth the idea that there is a ‘new dawn’ via an Obama presidency you are stepping beyond the rubble that’s falling right now, accounting for various obstacles, and ultimately seeing the moneyed interests pressed from the picture by way of the financial meltdown so as to allow (though not necessarily by orchestration) Obama to actually, truly make choices to tear away the controlling state apparatus which seeks at this moment to extract the residue of our civil liberties. Tell me this is true.
Or tell me that Obama will simply listen to the people. Tell me Congress will listen to him. Tell me anything so I can understand how another moderate liberal will not continue his empire’s path toward totalitarianism.
Tell me that what you foresee is the elite taking to the hills with their loot, peak oil stepping fully to the stage and Obama leading us in some kind of controlled capitulation/reconciliation to reality---the reality of depleted resources; a thing which simply does not allow business to continue as usual.
Because this requires me to believe that the elite is content with their aquifers and extradition treaties and their underground bunkers.
Please tell me you see Obama immediately coming to a number of realizations about our global situation and he, having been imbued with a truly humanitarian spirit and superior intellect will thus choose, against all odds, to steer the nation in manner as libertarian, constitutional and compassionate as possible. Even if that means defying the controllers of the Fed, Zbig, Zbig’s sons, the Trilaterals and whoever else.
Because this requires me to believe that these people who move smoothly between academia, politics and business and who have spent more money on luxuries than I’ll ever see in my life, are now resigned to give up the controls on the machine.
I hope this is what you’re looking ahead to because it cannot be that you’ve missed the facts of Obama’s campaign being managed for several years, funded by the global elite and suspiciously anti-Bush just when that’s exactly what we needed. What the left needed to get back on the boat, so to speak.
This requires me to accept that the same brand of men who manufactured the Fed and bombed millions of human beings in the name of empire and progress are now okay with turning things over to the “barbarian hordes†who they so loathed for so long such that they risked everything in their silent coups.
Now, I’ll return here to my disclosure: I like Obama as a man, I believe he is the most respectable, intelligent dude to step to the fore in many election cycles. More importantly, I shed my tears on Tuesday night because I saw, even if it was an illusion, the hem of the America we were intended to be. I saw people vindicated, shed of their guilt and honestly moved from the idiocy of the Bush years. I am human. I am American.
However, I will return promptly and properly to my skepticism while allowing for Barack Obama to actually be the man of heart and strength that we wish him to be and ask: how in the name of all that is holy will Mr. Obama come to grips with the near almighty power of the impersonal state seeking through money and momentum to push him where it wants him, and further how will he self manage his own complicity in that state as he has knowingly or unknowingly given a face and made personal this machine--this machine that has been dangerous to liberty since its inception—how? And why?
Because I wonder frankly how a president who owes so much to the Wall St. banking institutions with their CIA affiliations can actually operate within the beast---and I wonder this because I know that this is what we are actually wishing him to be.
We need to face the facts that we are asking of Obama that he become no less than JFK/Thomas Jefferson/Ghandi with better Secret Service protection.
Please tell me you see globalization crippled by peak oil ASAP and Obama using his mandate to promote actual production of actual goods here in America so that we might free ourselves of the illusion of the consumer based economy. Please tell me that when our President sees this real crisis, among others, that he will enact a Manhattan Project-like drive to rebuild our rail system.
Because I wonder frankly if he’ll even bring the troops home. And I wonder this because I know that George Bush didn’t get us there. The men behind the curtain did and we can’t know for sure what happens back there and if they have retreated. Why would they now?
Or is it rather that the best we can hope is that he’ll simply and quickly tell us the truth about our situation. Tell us that we can no longer live with the arrangements which make us a superpower consumer and global empire. Will he just step up and deliver the bad news like the doctor who diagnoses and prescribes and does not sell the latest bullshit big pharmaceutical placebo?
Because I’m thinking that the most important step in dealing with reality, is knowing what reality is. Lost in the woods, we must not wait for them to build a grocery store. Lost in the woods, we must survive. Will Obama be a voice in the wilderness or will he rather continue to spin the yarn until it is too late?
Mike, sir, please tell me that Mr. Obama will concede to China and Russia and step off the path to ceaseless resource wars.
Sir, I don’t believe that this is going to happen in four or even eight years.
I kind of doubt we’ve got even another one year of business as usual.
Sir, tell me that Obama is a bad enough mutha to open media outlets again or that he is merely inspirational enough that Chris Matthews will report the whole truth for once.
This letter is of course, unfair. No one knows what will happen. We predict.
And is there really any solid reason to predict that anything will be any different?
I’d be happy with Patriot Act repealed.
That alone would allow me to vote for Obama when next he fights.
But I predict not even that most glaringly tyrannous little document will change one bit.
Please prove me wrong Mr.Obama. Seriously, please.
Posted 15 years ago # -
John A:
"hmmmm i find some of these comments to be objectionable:
the dangerously double-talking “Emperor†in black face - Barack Obama. ..... to neutralize and destroy the ongoing Black liberation struggle for justice and equality in this nation, and in people’s liberation struggles throughout the world.
this strikes me as vindictive and offensive. it would certainly offend black people. unless, of course, this guy has a crystal ball and is able to peer into the future - it is downright offensive in its intentions."
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The gentleman you're quoting is black. He's a former black panther and political prisoner. Many blacks have been extremely offended by Obama's cynical, politically motivated attacks against African American culture. So Glen Ford writes:
"An eagerness to embrace racist political icons such as Ronald Reagan, while vociferously denying that white racism is and has been "endemic" to America. This man must also be willing to without hesitation denounce, repudiate and otherwise vilify other Black individuals - even those who have been personally dear to him - at the first sign of white displeasure with that person.
A compulsion to telegraph whites that he shares their disdain for Blacks as a group. This specially endowed individual must be prepared to castigate Blacks in every arena of life, from incompetent child-rearing (the cruelty of fried chicken breakfasts) to failures of Black manhood (acting like "boys" rather than responsible adults), the shame of Black female promiscuity (stopping black girls from having babies out of wedlock is "the single biggest thing that we could do to reduce inner-city poverty") and Blacks' collective lack of good hygiene ("You know what would be a good economic development plan for our community would be if we make sure folks weren't throwing their garbage out of their cars"). But the Black man who would woo white presidential votes must have the smarts and discipline to never, never, never subject whites to such egregious, blanket group criticisms.
"This specially endowed individual must be prepared to castigate Blacks in every arena of life."
He must possess an imagination fertile enough to declare that Blacks have already come "90 percent of the way" towards racial equality - a statement without statistical validity based on any social or economic indexes, but one which assures whites that their long suffering at the hands of bothersome Black complainers is nearly over. This Black president-to-be must implicitly promise that his own election will provide the missing ten percent, and bring the race issue definitively to a close.
We have learned that whites took the candidate's words to heart, en masse. A CBS/New York Times poll taken one week before the election showed that 68 percent of whites believe that Blacks and whites "have about an equal chance of getting ahead" in American society. This fantastic conclusion was clearly inspired by Barack Obama's singular success, since less than half of whites gave that answer in July. Even more astonishingly, 43 percent of Blacks said the same thing -a response unlike any ever recorded in the history of professional polling, and totally divorced from Black realities. We have learned that Obama-L'aid kills healthy Black brain cells.
We have learned that Black politicians and activist-poseurs have an infinite capacity to celebrate not having engaged in struggle with Power, and that the Black masses can be made drunk by the prospect of vicariously (through Obama) coming to power. Having failed to make even the mildest of demands on Obama in return for unquestioning support, Black misleadership vowed they would press for firm commitments on issues of importance to African Americans once Obama had passed the final hurdle. (White progressives who were similarly self-neutered during the campaign also promise to begin acting like real people's advocates, any day now...just you wait and see.) We have already learned that "Progressives for Obama" of all ethnicities, who failed to put pressure on the candidate early on, when it might have made a difference, are full of crap.
We have learned that even in failure and collapse, the Lords of Capital are smart enough to know they desperately need a new face, and are willing to bankroll the Black man who can provide it. During this election cycle we learned that capital can switch its party allegiances in an instant, first vetting and then jump-starting the Black candidate who would become the biggest campaign spender in U.S. election history, by far. In 2008, the Democrats became the party of Big Capital, whose choice was Barack Obama. We have learned that capital is never blind to color, when it can be used to capital's advantage."
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John A:
"quotes like this also stand out also:
pro-apartheid Zionist, corporate Wall Street-backed, slippery tongued Barack Obama
histrionic crap."
Seems perfectly accurate to me.
Bear Stearns, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, as well as Goldman and UBS, etc. etc. all gave substantially more to Obama than McCain. Even the Carlyle Group and Blackstone joined in the fun.
Zionist? You betcha. I won't bother rehashing the quotes.
So what do you object to? Slippery tongued? Time to put down the Obama L'Aid and come to terms with reality. The only way Obama will move in a remotely progressive direction is if he receives continued and sustained criticism -- combined with mass action -- from the people who put him in office. Defending his (indefensible) positions will not only ensure a continued right-ward shift, it will make you an accomplice in his (inevitable) crimes.
Posted 15 years ago # -
Defending his (indefensible) positions will not only ensure a continued right-ward shift, it will make you an accomplice in his (inevitable) crimes.
Urm, that sounds like an accusation that the disinfo freaks level against us when they accuse us of being "LIHOP shills" etc... This clearly isn't appropriate and should be withdrawn!
Posted 15 years ago # -
"Sounds like" is not sufficient. Explain your position logically.
There are some who argue that in the face of an atrocity, doing nothing or remaining neutral ("you can't be neutral on a moving train") constitutes complicity. It's a fair argument. But that wasn't even the argument I was making.
I am saying that DEFENDING someone who is committing an atrocity constitutes complicity. To do so is not only to stand idly by but to take an active role in helping to perpetuate said atrocity.
I could have gone even further and suggested that anyone knowledgeable of Obama's voting record (which nine tenths of the population is not), but who nevertheless make a point of defending him is complicit in the crimes committed in his name (which so far, are substantial). I didn't do that.
I used the word "will". Which is to say that if and when Obama goes from enthusiastically voting for atrocities to directly authorizing them, we would be far better to condemn than justify. Even now, I think it far better (whether moral or utilitarian) to maintain a realist -- and harshly critical -- stance from the get go, than to don rose colored glasses.
This would seem to be self-evident. Even FDR had to be dragged kicking and screaming into supporting unions. This is not an understatement. Read Sharon Smith's "Subterranean Fire". FDR regarded his role as to "preserve capitalism" or, as a prominent Kennedy adviser later put it, to "prevent capitalism from destroying itself". Obama is a similar creature to FDR, though so far he is tempting the fates by going in the opposite direction (overcompensating, some would call it) and appointing only right-wing advisers in the realm of economics and foreign policy.
I am not condemning people who voted for Obama. I recognize the seeming utility of lesser-evilism. But it won't work. To be perfectly honest, I was horrified by the spectacle of Obama's election. I haven't seen such cult-of-personality hero worship since Hitler. Hitler vowed to rid the world of communism and Jews, Obama promises hope. But the mania remains the same.
Minus a mass movement, Obama and his super-Zionist/super-capitalist/super-militarist entourage will lead the world right into the jaws of Hell.
What kind of self-respecting radical would cheerlead the appointment of Rahm Emanuel? Not me.
Not me.
Posted 15 years ago # -
Anyone remember this?
Meet the new boss
Same as the old bossPosted 15 years ago # -
funny - now Obama is a super-zionist. yesterday he represented death to Israel.
the day before that he was palling-around with left-wing terrorists. today he is a super-capitalist.
the day before that he sat in a radical christian church for 20 years. and the day before that he was a muslim.
and lets not forget that he voted to kill the babies that survived abortions.
and you accuse US of drinking the Koolaide?
LMAO!!
it is relatively easy to find people who will seek to demonize Obama. i suppose you could post it all here. but some of us recognize the shrill cries coming from BOTH ends of the political spectrum - replete with inflammatory language and doomsday predictions - is more a reflection of our confused incendiary times - and the people who espouse them - than they are of Obama.
i do not hero worship Obama. i do not pretend to KNOW what his leadership will do to this country - and the world. but - i am not prepared to condemn the hopes and dreams of millions of people who are standing up - in historic numbers - voicing their support for the ideals he ran on: environmental stewardship. economic social justice. an end to the war in Iraq. an end to right-wing religious fundamentalism legislating from the supreme court. the pursuit of renewable alternaive energy. national reconciliation and foreign diplomacy.
these are the ideas he ran on - and the reason millions of people are in the streets - celebrating.
i see no value in seeking to undermine Barack Obama - and the momentum of ideas - based on cut-and-paste OPINIONS laden with racial and inflammatory epithets - designed to rip away our hopes and dreams for the future.
if Obama betrays the trust of those millions of people who right now hope and dream for a better future - i will join you in condemning him. but - for now- i see no problem is congratulating HUMANITY for standing tall on the issues - and taking this huge historic first step towards achieving them.
Posted 15 years ago # -
I see both sides. I was actually a little disappointed in my own inability to really celebrate Obama's victory. I cried a little, honked my horn, and screamed like everyone else, but I had a nagging skepticism that always kept me in check. I feel somewhat traumatized by 8 years of Bush and 5 years in the truth movement.
We have a black president. He invoked civil disobedience and the civil rights movement in his victory speech. He says he wants us to be involved in the democratic process. I think we're going to have to oblige him on this, whether he likes it or not.
I think we have to remember that this guy is no MLK. With time and circumstance, he may become such a transformative character, but for now, he's solidly establishment. That's the path he decided to take, and he took it all the way. You don't raise a billion dollars and become the most powerful man in the world by speaking truth and revolution. The role people like MLK (and us in the truth movement) play is to stand outside the cultural, paradigm bubble, to truly look at things objectively, and to communicate the truth, even if only 1% of the population is listening and hearing. We are the true leaders.
I do think that in the back of Obama's mind there are still the memories of being different, aware of injustice, of community organizing, of the plight of billions of poor and oppressed people around the world. Perhaps the state of the world and the actions and words of the movement can help reawaken his more radical side.
His initial appointments are looking very predictable and disappointing. He's got a huge mandate, I don't see why he's not pushing a little harder on the progressive side of things.
Posted 15 years ago # -
The reason Obama's initial "appointments" are so predictable and disappointing is that he achieved the presidency by strong-arming other "Democrats" into accepting the great 800 billion swindle (plus Pentagon package) -- and he knows it. That's why he is president. He didn't ride a grassroots wave into the White House but a stack of bills from Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.
There's no point hammering the dulcimer. Not here anyway.
I suspect that come spring, the last of the hand-over-the-eyes "Democrats" will be accepting cold hard reality. Perhaps not. When Clinton was bombing medical facilities in Sudan and throwing the workforce in jail he was praised as a progressive. It's not unlikely that the legion of fools in the Democratic Party will afford Obama the same cover.
I won't be along for the ride. Like I said: if people wish to see progressive polices enacted they need to hold Obama's feet to the fire sooner rather than later. Absent a mass movement the Democrats will do as they always have, which is to further a backward agenda while preaching social progress.
Posted 15 years ago # -
jeez dude. the man is not even in office yet.
all of us here worry about these points you make. but we just do not PREDICT his performance in advance - while insulting huge demographics of people in the process - like you do.
it was not just the 'hand over the eyes democrats' who you call 'fools' that elected Obama.
it was not just progessives that elected Obama.
Obama won in a landslide.
i notice you take quite a few pot-shots at the 'backwards agenda' democrats - as you call them. yet, i see nothing about the vile policies of the right wing of this nation - and the deregulation libertarians - that took the world to the brink of environmental and economic collapse.
ahhh...... lets lay it all at the feet of our young president elect - and blame the democrats now. lets forget the disgusting rightwing hatespeech and propaganda and pillaging of the treasury and environment we have seen for the last 8 years. lets forget the 1 million dead in Iraq because of Dick Cheney and his crew of neo-conservative rats - who sold us forged documents and fear and loathing as a national policy - and literally fiddled while Rome burned to the ground.
yes - now that we are at the brink - lets lay it all at the feet of Barack Obama -and work to poison the well - and undermine his credibility- and the good will of the public who support him - before the man has even been sworn into office. lets insult all his supporters. that's a great strategy for educating the public.
Posted 15 years ago # -
Durruti said:
The reason Obama's initial "appointments" are so predictable and disappointing is that he achieved the presidency by strong-arming other "Democrats" into accepting the great 800 billion swindle (plus Pentagon package) -- and he knows it. That's why he is president. He didn't ride a grassroots wave into the White House but a stack of bills from Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.
As John said, I think we do all share many of your basic concerns. None of us are putting a halo over Obama's head. If you are concerned about Obama, it might be best for you to simply present facts about him. I assume I have a lot to learn.
But to turn that around, don't you have any appreciation for what just happened? Virginia, North Carolina, and Indiana voted a black President into office. Watching John Lewis and Jesse Jackson respond was really very moving. Watching the world celebrate the end of the Bush reign was cathartic. Knowing that Palin won't be in office is the only reason I can sleep tonight. There are many reasons to celebrate.
I don't find your characterizations above to be very accurate.
First of all, I think in some unfortunate pragmatic sense that Obama and the Democrats made the right call supporting that bill. They knew it wasn't going to solve the larger problem, but standing in the way at that point in the election could have been really damaging to the Obama campaign and the whole party. It was a lose this battle to win the war moment, and I'd say that decision worked out in their favor.
Second, Obama collected more contributions than any candidate in history. And 90% of that was from individual contributions.
Here's a list of the top twenty donors to the Obama campaign. I suggest reading the bit at that top about how "the organizations themselves did not donate."
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycl...
The top twenty donors above accounts for $10 million out of the $580 million he raised. That's a whopping 1.7%. He very seriously could have turned down all their money. And the list is not just 'evil bankers.'
So, what's with the partisan spin?
Posted 15 years ago # -
John A:
"i notice you take quite a few pot-shots at the 'backwards agenda' democrats - as you call them. yet, i see nothing about the vile policies of the right wing of this nation - and the deregulation libertarians - that took the world to the brink of environmental and economic collapse."
--
I was under the impression that the Democrats (as a party, and with a handful of notable exceptions, not including Obama) WERE and REMAIN right wing extremists. I was also under the impression that many of the folks responsible for the current financial crisis are the same folks Obama just appointed as his “economic teamâ€.
Jonn A:
"lets forget the 1 million dead in Iraq because of Dick Cheney and his crew of neo-conservative rats - who sold us forged documents and fear and loathing as a national policy"
--
Much of your nation (and most of the world) certainly loathes Bush and company. I wonder if they will loathe Obama with equal fervor when he steps up bombing campaigns against Pakistan and increases troops in Afghanistan, as he has promised and has Brzezinski will no doubt insist. Or (God forbid) if he decides to attack Iran -- perhaps with a nudge from “I am a Zionist†Biden or the new Chief of Staff. Recall that " Emanuel is also a prominent hawk regarding Israel, attacking the Bush administration from the right for criticizing Israel's assassination policies and other human rights abuses". The Clinton example is not comforting. I certainly hope that people will see through the humanitarian rhetoric that Obama is likely to espouse in pursuit of imperialist projects. But like I said, I haven’t seen this type of cult of personality since Mussolini. It’s scary stuff. Quite obviously Obama was placed in power to put a new face on the empire. If he proves me wrong I’ll be thrilled.
John A:
"yes - now that we are at the brink - lets lay it all at the feet of Barack Obama -and work to poison the well - and undermine his credibility- and the good will of the public who support him - before the man has even been sworn into office."
--
The brink of what? If you mean the brink of disaster I’m in full agreement.
I’m not sure what you mean about undermining his credibility. Propping up politicians and protecting their “credibility†is not my thing. I’ll leave that to the lemmings at DU. If Obama gives some indication that he’ll chart a different path than that of previous administrations I’ll be the first to applaud. Appointing Robert Kennedy Jr. as head of EPA is certainly a positive development. But it’s overshadowed by a torrent of jaw-droppingly negative developments – and he hasn’t even taken his fake oath yet! Hence the generally negative tone of my posts on the subject of his soon-to-be presidency.
I have one great hope for the Obama administration. Make that two hopes. The first is that he ignores Brzezinski and doesn’t usher in WWIII. The second is that Americans finally wake up from la la land. The people on this forum may not have any illusions about Obama (or only tempered illusions), but the people I saw interviewed on election night are in for a rude awakening. Obama may be able to snooker some people into believing that his hands are tide, that he inherited a disaster that he can only marginally repair, but I’m hoping the “masses†will see through the bullshit.
The solutions are all there. They just can’t be enacted within the state capitalist system. In this sense Obama’s hands really are tied. The system is in a downward spiral from which there is no egress unless the entire rotten edifice is completely overhauled. Capitalist solutions will only exacerbate the problem. Liberal reforms will amount to plugging wholes in a dam about to burst.
Truthmover mentioned the moving spectacle of people celebrating the supposed end of neoconservatism. I too was moved. But I was also saddened. Because I have studied Obama’s positions and because I am a student of history.
My hope is that the American people will realize that it’s not about a particular administration. The problem is systemic. A solution will require real people power and real democracy and real organizing. This will be the lesson of Obama’s inevitable failure. The savior was a false prophet because there is no savior. Except ourselves.
Now, I will qualify my statements by saying that Obama will undoubtedly be more amenable to change than McCain would have been IF there are hoards of people in the streets demanding he do the right thing. This in itself makes his election potentially groundbreaking. But that’s a big if. And it won’t be achieved by defending backward policies or putting Obama the man over Obama the politician. It won’t be achieved by singing his praises. It will be achieved by rigorous criticism and organizing from the left. I'm not sure why this is so hard to stomach.
P.S.: This is just some friendly advice from a guy up North. We have the second largest country in the world but the population of California. For all intents and purposes the United States government owns the Canadian government. Therefore I’m very interested in how things turn out down there ;)
Posted 15 years ago # -
Here's an Obama voter who has the right idea...
The Election: It Had to Be this Way
By Timothy V. Gatto
November 07, 2008 "Information Clearinghouse" -- The Democrats winning Congress and the White House just had to happen. If we are ever going to change this country from an empire to a representative democracy, we have to rid ourselves of the notion that one corporate political party can do anything toward that goal. Barack Obama will be the catalyst for a new movement, away from false hope and false promises, not because he will deliver to the people of this country anything worthwhile, but because he won’t. This will be the final nail in the coffin of our corporatist society.
There are so many so-called “progressives†that have believed that it was the Bush Republican neo-cons that have gotten us where we are. This is wishful thinking. The Democratic 110th Congress did nothing but rubber-stamp every bill that was put before it. Democrats have blindly caved in to fear of being called “anti-patriotic†if they voted against the meaningless war in Iraq. They put their political fortunes ahead of their conscience at every opportunity, from Pelosi taking impeachment “off the table†to voting for the new FISA bill that granted telecoms immunity from illegally working with the executive branch to illegally eavesdrop on US citizens. They passed every military budget and went along with almost every Bush attack on our civil liberties. How one could possibly imagine that Barack Obama or any other Democrat could undo the damage they helped to create is just wishful thinking.
This election had to happen this way if we are ever going to understand what we are up against. I voted for Barack Obama because it happened to be a win-win situation. The truth must be told and this is the only way to tell it. When the phony left, the ones who claim not to be liberals, but “progressivesâ€, understand that there is not a dime’s worth of difference between the Corporate GOP and the Corporate Democrats, then we will see our way to a rebirth of our civil liberties. This is the only way to convince the die-hard Democrats that their party has changed, and not for the better. The American Empire is alive and well operating in concert with the DNC, make no mistake about it. I wish I was wrong, in fact I would welcome any type of change towards a real representative government that put the people first, but I am saddened when I write that all indications don’t point that way.
The time for real change is now. I must tell you that the change we seek will not come from the President-Elect, but from the disgust and anger we will all feel when corporate interests and the Military Industrial Complex (corporate welfare) dominate the Democrats agenda. War will not end; it will be moved to different theaters. We have seen both Obama and Biden accuse the Russians of aggression towards Georgia when most Americans realize that it was the other way around. These facts should not be lost on anyone. Many Progressives tell us that they will “hold the Democrats feet to the fireâ€. This is also wishful thinking. They said the same thing after the 2006 election. Their feet were unfettered and the only thing that was held to the fire was their concern for the majority of Americans that have been disgusted with their county’s behavior. Nothing changed with that Democratic Congress; excuse after excuse was silently borne by those Americans that should have known better.
Now the time has come to actually put up or shut up. Mr. Obama has already chosen a Democratic interventionist in Joe Biden, a man who never saw a war he didn’t like. The self-proclaimed Zionist that has stood with AIPAC since its inception, a man that ranks right up there with Bush when it comes to Iran and Palestine. Obama has also kowtowed to the Israeli’s, and there doesn’t seem to be any hope for those that want America to look at both sides of the tensions in the Middle East. We will blindly follow the Israelis as far as they wish to take us, for their own self-interests.
This is what we have to look forward to. We can count on the Democrats to put Wall Street first with more massive bailouts instead of fixing the root of the problems we have. Corporate self interest and government intervention will be the norm. I can see four years ahead when the Democrats will claim that President Obama only did what he had to do to ensure another term so then he will really be able to “fix†things. Maybe by then the majority of Americans will realize that they have been taken for a two decade ride. I can hope that by the time the next Presidential election comes along; both corporate political parties will be regulated to the dustbin of history.
I don’t want to make money or live in a militarily strong country. I don’t want to see America rule the world. I just want our country to do the right thing when it comes to its citizens. I want the middle class to grow again. I want our children to get a first class education. Terrorism is overstated and used to disguise wars for resources. We should be spending our time devising new alternative energies. We should be spending more on cancer research and less on weapons of war. We should be able to feed and clothe our poorest of citizens. We should stop borrowing against the future and we should be working to cure the ills of today. One more M1A1 Tank will not feed a community. The statues quo is criminal. It was devised and put in place by criminals. They should be charged for crimes against humanity.
Will this happen? I don’t believe it will. The next chance that comes along, recycled neo-cons will be put back in office four or eight years hence. We will continue to use the world for our military stomping ground. That is, unless we learn from what the new Democratic Congress and the new Democratic President will bring. I’m afraid we will again be hoodwinked. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I’m hoping that won’t happen, but I have my doubts. I can only hope that Americans see this for what it is, and that’s just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Unless the Democrats develop some kind of conscience, or the American people develop some kind of awareness, I believe we are in for a very rough ride. Still, it has to be this way. I couldn’t have planned it better myself.
Posted 15 years ago # -
More antidote to Obama L'Aid. It goes down rough but it beats fruit-flavored cyanide...
Obama’s Change Leaves By The Back Door
Tom Eley Countercurrents November 7, 2008
Three days after Barack Obama’s election victory, the initial moves by the president-elect to prepare his administration already show that his policies will be determined not by popular expectations, but by the domestic and foreign policy interests of the American financial and corporate elite.
Obama and Democratic congressional leaders are well aware that these policies—further measures to secure the social interests and personal wealth of the financial aristocracy at public expense and the continued use of military violence in the Middle East and Central Asia—clash with the will of the electorate, which sought to reverse these policies by sweeping the Republicans out of power. That is why the Democrats are seeking to dampen expectations of a serious change of course.
The personnel of Obama’s transition team and his first major appointment stand in obvious contradiction to his campaign rhetoric about "change," "new politics," and "building a movement from the ground up." The individuals selected are all fixtures of the political establishment, with close ties to powerful corporate and financial interests.
Obama’s transition team, which will assist in assembling his cabinet, is headed by John Podesta, former chief of staff to Bill Clinton and one of Washington’s most successful corporate lobbyists. Co-chairing the transition team are Valerie Jarrett, a long-time Obama advisor, Chicago real estate executive and influential figure within the Chicago Democratic Party machine, and Pete Rouse, a Washington insider and Obama’s senate chief of staff. (See: "A closer look at Obama’s transition team").
Obama’s first appointee is Rahm Emanuel, who will serve as his chief of staff. The Illinois Congressman is a leading member of the right-wing Democratic Leadership Council. While running for Congress in 2002, he supported Bush’s bill to authorize military force against Iraq. A former investment banker, he has close ties to financial interests and is one of the biggest recipients of campaign cash from banks and investment firms.
Sources close to Obama have leaked names on the list of candidates for the position of treasury secretary—no doubt as a means of reassuring Wall Street. Included are former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, former Clinton treasury secretary and current Citigroup executive Robert Rubin, another former Clinton treasury secretary, Lawrence Summers, and Timothy Geithner, the New York Federal Reserve Bank president.
All of these individuals played leading roles in the deregulation of the banks and investment houses that facilitated the super-profits and massive CEO compensation packages of the 1990s and first half of the current decade, and contributed to the financial collapse that is now plunging the US and the rest of the world into the deepest recession since the 1930s.
Geithner has played a central role in the government bailout of Wall Street banks and other major firms, such as insurance conglomerate AIG and the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
As Federal Reserve chief under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, Volcker was responsible for the high interest rate "shock therapy" which decimated American industry in the early 1980s and led to the impoverishment of entire regions.
There is much speculation that Obama will ask current Defense Secretary Robert Gates to stay on in the same capacity, at least on an interim basis. Gates recently gave a speech expanding the doctrine of "pre-emptive war" to include the use of first-strike nuclear attacks.
Other names broached for the positions of defense secretary and secretary of state include former Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell, outgoing Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, and Anthony Lake, who as Clinton’s national security advisor played a key role in organizing the US-NATO war against Yugoslavia.
Obama’s actions since Election Day have been calculated to signal to the ruling elite his readiness to defend their interests and not be swayed by the will of the electorate. To underscore his intention to seek a consensus with the defeated and discredited Republican minority, he will meet on Monday with Bush. The traditional White House meeting between a president-elect and the outgoing president normally takes place much later in the transition period between administrations.
To demonstrate that his first priority is shoring up the major banks, Obama’s first post-Election Day meeting will be held today with his top economic policy advisers. The meeting will include Volcker, Rubin and Summers, along with billionaire investor Warren Buffett, former Clinton labor and commerce secretaries Robert Reich and William Daley, Clinton economic advisor Laura Tyson, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, Time Warner Chairman Richard Parsons, XEROX CEO Anne Mulcahy, Residence by Hyatt CEO Penny Pritzker, former Bush administration Securities and Exchange Commissioner William Donaldson, and Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm.
Meanwhile, a series of statements by leading Democratic figures have emphasized their intention to pursue a "centrist" policy—by which they mean a conventional, i.e., right-wing, policy.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, spelled this out in no uncertain terms on Wednesday, advising Obama that he must "bring people together to reach consensus" on issues like the economy and the war. "A new president must govern from the middle," she said.
Leon Panetta, former chief of staff to Bill Clinton, said, "He’s got to lower some expectations, indicate the limits he’s confronting."
A basic premise of the talk about lowering expectations and delaying making good on campaign promises for health care reform, middle class tax cuts and other social measures is the claim that massive increases in the budget deficit preclude such outlays. Of course, the worsening budget crisis is the direct result of the allocation of more than $2 trillion in taxpayer money to bail out the banks, with the auto companies and other industries lining up for similar government handouts.
No Democratic leader has explained why there are unlimited taxpayer funds available for the banks, but no money to address the increasingly desperate economic situation facing the working class, including millions of home foreclosures, soaring utility shut-offs, collapsing retirement accounts and mounting layoffs.
The media has joined in the effort to dampen expectations. Newsweek warns, "Obama Won’t Meet Everybody’s Expectations." The San Francisco Chronicle explains, "Surely, President-Elect Barack Obama must prepare his supporters for the difficult circumstances that he, and this country," must undergo.
Yesterday’s New York Times published an article, "Obama Aides Tamp Down Expectations," describing Obama’s efforts to "temper hopes that he would be able to solve the nation’s problems." "The economic crisis" the Times notes, "will certainly complicate Mr. Obama’s more ambitious domestic efforts."
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
- Truth Rising
On the same day, under the headline "Next Administration Shows Signs It will Seek Middle Ground with Business on Thorny Issues," the Wall Street Journal reassured the moneyed elite that in an Obama administration, "a bill that would make it easier for unions to organize workers, efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and a slew of contemplated taxes will likely take a back seat." The article continued, "Several of Mr. Obama’s top economic advisers, including former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, billionaire investor Warren Buffett, and former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin—are moderates and reassuring figures to the business community."
Obama’s first moves as president-elect have underscored some basic political facts. First, there is a fundamental contradiction between the hopes and aspirations of the vast majority of people who voted for him out of anger and disgust with the Bush administration and the Republicans, and the class character of the Democratic Party and the social and economic interests it defends.
Second, these moves underscore the cynical and fundamentally anti-democratic character of the electoral process itself, in which promises are made by candidates who know full well that, once in office, their polices will be determined not by election promises but by the demands of the ruling elite and the exigencies of American imperialism.
A closer look at Obama’s transition team
By Joe Kishore
Barack Obama’s transition team is a collection of Washington insiders, former Clinton administration officials, corporate and banking executives, and individuals with roots in the Chicago Democratic Party political machine.
The Obama-Biden Transition Project is led by three co-chairmen. They are John Podesta, former chief of staff for Bill Clinton; Valerie Jarrett, a long-time Obama adviser, Chicago real estate executive and influential figure in the Chicago Democratic Party; and Pete Rouse, Obama’s Senate chief of staff.
John Podesta
Podesta, chief of staff for Clinton from 1998 to 2001, will serve as the Transition Project’s leader. Podesta is a long-time Washington insider, where he served, beginning in the early 1980s, as legal counsel for a number of congressional committees. As is the custom in Washington, Podesta made use of his political influence to establish a lucrative Washington lobbying firm, the Podesta Group.
Podesta authored a recent book entitled The Power of Progress: How America’s Progressives Can (Once Again) Save Our Economy, Our Climate, and Our Country. The lobbying firm of this "progressive" includes among its top clients the oil giant BP, defense industry corporations Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, biotech firms Genentech and Amgen, Swiss pharmaceuticals corporation Novartis Interational AG, and Wal-Mart.
Podesta has the dubious distinction of having been ranked the third most powerful lobbyist in Washington DC by the Washingtonian. According to the newspaper, BP, whose "pipeline problems and refinery fires have created regulatory and public relations issues," has turned to Podesta, who "has quietly been guiding BP through congressional hearings."
For Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, Podesta has been busy "trying to sell Congress and the Pentagon on another version of their Stryker troop transport vehicle."
Podesta is president and chief executive officer of the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank. The center was set up with substantial funding from billionaire investor and Obama adviser Warren Buffet.
Valerie Jarrett
Jarrett began her political career in 1987 under then-Chicago Mayor Harold Washington. She became deputy chief of staff for Mayor Richard Daley and later served as Chicago’s commissioner of the Department of Planning and chair of the Chicago Transit Board.
Jarrett has also held leading positions on the Chicago Stock Exchange (member of the board from 2000 to 2007 and chairman from 2004 to 2007), the University of Chicago Medical Center (chairman of the board of trustees), the University of Chicago (vice chairman of the board of trustees) and the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry (board of trustees).
Jarrett is the CEO of The Habitat Company, a real estate development firm in Chicago. She has been a top executive at the company since 1995, becoming CEO in 2007. Habitat has worked closely with the Chicago city administration to oversee public housing, receiving millions in local and federal subsidies.
A Boston Globe article from June 27, 2008 ("Grim Proving Ground for Obama’s Housing Policy," by Binyamin Appelbaum) describes the state of one 504-unit public housing complex, Grove Parc Plaza, located in Obama’s former state Senate district.
"About 99 units are vacant, many rendered uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage. Mice scamper through the halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale—a score so bad the buildings now face demolition."
"Grove Parc has become a symbol," the newspaper noted, "for some in Chicago of the broader failures of giving public subsidies to private companies to build and manage affordable housing—an approach strongly backed by Obama as the best replacement for public housing."
The Globe reports "thousands of apartments" throughout Chicago, overseen by Habitat, that are characterized by similar disrepair. The Habitat Company "managed Grove Parc Plaza from 2001 until this winter and co-managed an even larger subsidized complex in Chicago that was seized by the federal government in 2006, after city inspectors found widespread problems."
There is some talk that Jarrett will be named housing secretary in the Obama administration.
Pete Rouse
Pete Rouse is an interesting case, whose political trajectory says much about the Obama campaign. Rouse was the chief of staff to Tom Daschle, the former Democratic leader in the Senate. Rouse was known as the "101st senator" in Washington circles due to the power he commanded, particularly when Daschle was the majority leader. He has worked on Capitol Hill for over 30 years.
After Daschle lost his seat in 2004, Rouse decided to take a position as chief of staff for Obama, then just beginning his first term in the Senate. The fact that an individual with Rouse’s history and political ties decided to throw in his lot with a freshman senator with little political power or influence indicates that Obama was being groomed at an early stage by sections of the Democratic Party establishment, including Daschle, for bigger things.
Rouse has been a strong advocate of bipartisanship and "reaching across the aisle" to work with Republicans.
Also included on the Transition Project are:
Carol Browner, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency for eight years in the Clinton administration. After 2001, Browner took a position at the Albright Group, a firm headed by former Clinton administration Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that advises businesses on policy.
William Daley, brother of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. Daley was special counsel to President Clinton on trade (helping pass the North American Free Trade Agreement) and Clinton’s secretary of commerce from 1997 to 1998. After leaving government, Daley took a position as president of SBC Communications and later served as Midwest chairman of JPMorgan Chase and Bank One. He serves on the boards of directors of airline manufacturer and defense contractor Boeing and drug giant Merck.
Michael Froman is president and CEO of CitiInsurance, a branch of banking giant Citigroup. During the 1990s, Froman served in the US Department of Treasury as deputy assistant secretary for Eurasia and the Middle East, and later as chief of staff.
Federico Peña was secretary of transportation (1993 to 1997) and secretary of energy (1997 to 1998) under Clinton. After leaving government, he took a post in Vestar Capital Partners, an investment firm
Posted 15 years ago # -
Posted 15 years ago #
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Obama Positioned to Quickly Reverse Bush Actions
Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team.
Posted 15 years ago #
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