A Look Under the Hood at the (Potential) Obama Administration
[Hat tip to Lisa… this one merits a post.]
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 StaffObama’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 shining 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…
The best analog we have in history here is the administration of FDR, where the president was compelled by the perils of increasing popular discontent to provide the space for popular power. It was a development paradigm, eg, the TVA, so there is an ecological apsect to this that is completely and critically different. Barring the revolutionary transformation of society in one fell swoop, the system is going to require some duct tape and bailing wire to hold it together for the time being, or folk will literally starve. This will likely require a Keynesian intervention of some kind (or it all goes over a cliff, and Obama’s administration is counted by history as more of the same shit). Key here is a public works jobs program; and if we don’t fight like crazy for one that focuses on reparing biospheric damage, then shame on every one of us. Just as urgently, however, we have to rebuild an antiwar movement worthy of its name. There are some obstacles, the greatest being the attitude that we should give Obama a chance before we start hectoring. That’s dead wrong… immoral in fact. Every day that these occupations go on is a terrible sin; and our silence and forebearance are forms of complicity.
My disagreement with current paradigms on the left is that the “ultraleft” (as Charles calls it) engages in do-nothing abstentionism unless it controls a process (seldom, if ever), and the “practical” left wants us to suspend our criticism of the center on behalf of some nonsense called center-left unity. So we can be either irrelevant or dishonest. Time we started learning to walk and chew gum at the same time.
We have some serious evils in our faces right now; and if we are going to confront them, then we need to list them, organize against them, and make that opposition felt in the principalities and powers. Big pharma. Big food. Big war. Big oil. Big banks. Big prisons. And the big-dick culture of me-first domination and revenge.
I have a litmus test, if anyone is interested. Let’s see if Guantanamo is closed in the first month of the new administration. Start taliking about it now.
Stan Moore:
I agree in principle with the viewpoint expressed above. The problem with closing Gitmo as a symbol of change is that everything that is being done at Gitmo and exposed to view can be and is being done at alternate locations around the world in high secrecy. I would change the status quo in other ways, such as repudiating torture in specific binding doctrine that is transparent to all, producing a doctrine that people are not punished as “terrorists” unless or until they are convicted in fair trials with due process, and putting a capable overseer in charge of the process, such as perhaps Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights as Attorney General of the United States of America.
I also see an opportunity for Obama to use crisis to create a new paradigm in handling the banking and financial/securities crisis. I would like to see Obama do something that is similar to, but opposite what Ronald Reagan did to the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Union (PATCO). Remember how Reagan refused to negotiate with that union and put the nation’s well-being at risk by firing the entire union and hiring non-union controllers while operating the nation’s airport control towers with management for a period of time. Barack Obama is in a position with banks failing left and right to say in effect: “if you cannot do your work without driving yourselves out of business, then I will use government initiative to replace your entire industry with a system that is fair, honest, transparent, secure and profitable to the public.”
I don’t see why government could not literally take over retail banking and operate it with standards that benefit the public and reward the taxpayer with banking fees that put a positive balance into the public Treasury. But some other arrangement could be enacted — the point is that Barack Obama is not mandated to preserve a failed and utterly disastrous financial system at massive taxpayer expense.
Obama could quickly and easily solve the credit confidence problem, too. The solution is not to give hundreds of billions of dollars to the banks to loan out or pay themselves as bonuses and dividends to investors. Paying that money out of the public treasury instill further loss of confidence because the banks simply wait for more bailout money because they know other banks well enough to understand that they cannot be trusted and thus will not risk their own assets. The solution is to create confidence within the banking system by meaningful regulation. Banks and investors need to be regulated to ensure that they CANNOT create disaster for themselves because they CANNOT overleverage their investments and CANNOT market derivatives at high leverage rates beyond their own reserve capabilities and CANNOT mix high and low risk instruments and so on and so forth. The way for Barack Obama to create investor confidence is to make sure through powerful regulation that the industry CANNOT harm itself and CANNOT harm the public interest as it has. You do not do that by throwing money at the problem, which is like throwing gasoline on a fire.
Extinguish the fire of finance by regulation and then rebuild the finances in orderly manner, and it could be done quickly if Barack Obama saw to it.
This is a good time for Left Coalition Power to come into play. There needs to be an unmistakable attitude by the Left that Barack Obama took the vote and he must take the responsibility to earn that vote by actions and not rhetoric alone.
Stan Moore
7 November 2008, 9:01 amPetaluma, CA
rootlesscosmo:
The Emanuel appointment reminds me of Clinton’s first announced Cabinet choice, Zoë Baird for Attorney-General. This was derailed when Baird turned out to have employed an undocumented nanny, but the choice of the General Counsel to Aetna Insurance was as clear a signal as could be wanted that any “health plan” produced by Clinton’s Administration would make room for the insurance carriers at the table. Similarly Emanuel is an unmistakable signal that AIPAC and the Likudnik wing of the Democratic party have nothing to fear from President Obama.
A big difference is that when Clinton took office, the early-90’s recession was already ending, while the current one is just getting started (this morning’s business pages report retail sales seriously down, which is a very bad sign.) But whether misery will become so acute as to require New Deal-scale restructuring I don’t know; it seems to me public attention is a lot more distractible now than it was in 1932. In general when it comes to forecasting I follow the example of the Edward Gorey character:
A lady, born under a curse,
7 November 2008, 10:38 amUsed to travel about in a hearse;
From the back she would wail,
Through a thickness of veil,
“Things do not get better, but worse!”
Kim Sky:
yes indeed, life has rapidly returned to the customary chord, not-so-nice. the joy for that short moment in time was worth every minute of it!!! i love, loving my neighbor, and being given license to do so, this is sweet.
articles are being to pour in, the disappointment for Pakistanis is a good example, it was explained that they so wanted to be in the streets celebrating, and some of them did, except for remembering that Obama had promised to take the war to Afghanistan. so, so, sad, all these hopes, Obama has been given the most profound opportunity to literally change the face of the world . . .
as he has stated the economy is first on his list, well, that’s looking darn scary too.
i discovered an economist that makes sense, the first time ever, all the lingo is delivered in a way that totally makes sense. Dennis Kucinich has hired him to create a Roosevelt-type Brains Trust of economic and political advisers to develop a program to re-industrialize America and save it from succumbing to the kind of polarization that was known as the Spanish Syndrome after the 16th century, and the Roman Empire syndrome before that . . .
great stuff . . .
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney07012008.html
i sure wish Obama was doing this !!!
i understand he has to get power behind him, has to walk twenty lines at once, but as Michael Hudson points out in his article: “I can only hope that Mr. Obama will not pull a Tony Blair New Labor turnabout and revert to Clinton’s pro-Wall Street, anti-labor type of policy. If that really were to happen, it would cause such disillusionment that it could fracture the Democratic Party irreparably.”
yep, that’s the truth, a whole lot more is going to be fractured than the democratic party!
chao, kim
7 November 2008, 12:04 pmLisa:
THE WORLD APPLAUDS OBAMA’S VICTORY
– November 05, 2008
America has hopefully left the dark period of post-9/11 `temporary madness,’ to use the words of writer John Le Carré, and is re-emerging into the daylight. The grim era of President George W. Bush and his mentor (and real president), VP Dick Cheney, is at an end.
But they have handed a poisoned chalice to president-elect Obama. Three foreign wars – Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia - national bankruptcy, an enraged Russia, the entire Muslim world seething with hatred for the US, a wave of Islamophobia at home, growing anti-Americanism in Latin America, India developing nuclear weapons that will one day threaten the USA, and on and on.
Obama will have to deal with all these problems and a fast-emerging China while trying to fend off the powerful special interests in Washington that have already been putting the squeeze on him: the military-industrial-petroleum complex, big pharma, the Israel and farm lobbies, bankrupt auto makers, the finance industry, old folks, and black groups clamoring for more federal funds…
The Republicans have certainly gotten what they so richly deserved – irrelevance and ignominy. Under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, the party veered off to the extreme right, and even flirted at times with Mussolini-style fascism…
As a North American, I am enormously proud of president-elect Barack Obama and of the nation that elected him. Yesterday’s epic vote does much to relieve America of the lingering shame and burden of slavery and mistreatment of its people of color. I don’t think any black man will be called `boy’ again after Obama’s victory. His election marks America’s important demographic shift from a mostly white nation to one of mixed race and multiple cultures.
I can only hope and pray that Obama will end the Bush administration’s foul legacy of lying, assassination, kidnapping, torture, secret prisons, supporting despots, and whipping up hatred of Islam while playing to Christian religious fanatics and doomsday cultists. America’s once proud name was disgraced and dragged through the mud during the Bush years. I was often ashamed to be an American and racked by sorrow over how low my nation, whose uniform I once proudly wore, had sunk…
By January, the worst, most incompetent, most destructive president in US history will be gone. Alas, a lot of his most pernicious acts, like stuffing the Supreme Court and Appeals Courts with right wing ideologues, curtailing individual liberties, unleashing security organs against citizens, institutionalizing torture, and militarizing foreign policy, will continue when he is long gone.
Some historians claim people really do not make a difference. Historic change comes from economic or social trends, they insist. Wrong. One man, Barack Obama, has made history and is going to make a lot more over the coming years. I salute him.
Full article:
http://www.ericmargolis.com/political_commentaries/the-world-applauds-obamas-victory.aspx
7 November 2008, 1:18 pmKim Sky:
Obama victory sparks racist attack in Staten Island
Brutal Hate Crime . . .
Submitted by WW4 Report on Fri, 11/07/2008 - 03:10.
On Nov. 4, Election Night, as spontaneous celebrations of Barack Obama’s victory broke out all over New York City, Liberian immigrant Ali Kamara, 17, was brutally beaten by four white men armed with baseball bats who screamed “Obama” at him near his home in the Stapleton district of Staten Island. Kamara, a Muslim whose family arrived in 2000, was returning home at around 11 PM when the men jumped out of a car and assaulted him. He was left with a head injury which required staples. “Our hate crimes task force is investigating and treating this as a possible bias crime,” said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. (Daily News, Nov. 6; ABC Eyewitness News, Nov. 5)
7 November 2008, 2:21 pmMichael Anderson:
An Alternet article this morning gives us some idea of his (continuation of) Clinton-esque foreign policy. He will definitely have to DO something domestically, with this morning’s figures on October job losses.
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/106196/?page=entire
7 November 2008, 2:45 pmSusan/catlady:
We can “talk” to Obama and Biden right now. Obama’s transition website, change.gov, is set up for citizens to make suggestions to the new administration. There are several pages under “Agenda,” listing current policy. A search for “Guantanamo” comes up zilch.
The foreign policy page at change.gov has a curiously truncated paragraph on Russia that does not address the latest story on Georgia and Russia in the NY Times. Over at Moon of Alabama, b asks why it took so long for the story to break.
7 November 2008, 3:35 pmLisa:
Analysis
Obama: return to elite status quo
By Larry Chin
Online Journal Associate Editor
Nov 7, 2008, 00:32
The election triumph of Barack Obama and the return of power to the Democrats was a cause for a split second of relief, but not elation.
What the world learned is that it will not be subjected to a McCain-Palin presidency, which certainly would have ushered in horrors, violence, and insanity that likely would have dwarfed those of Bush-Cheney.
But the arrival of Obama as the new imperial figurehead of the Anglo-American empire is not a victory of, or for, the people. It will not signify a dramatic upheaval, in any way, and by no means is any sort of revolution at hand.
Nor is Obama’s ascendancy about “you.” It is about “them.”
This election was a necessary rotation of management, scripted at the highest levels of the Anglo-American elite.
The shifting of the deck chairs
The empire — bloated, sickened, and on the verge of systemic collapse from eight years of sucking on its own Bush-Cheney poisons — is retrenching for its own survival.
Eight years of Bush-Cheney delivered unprecedented power, control and trillions in loot. But in the end, the bottom-line results proved insufficient. Bush-Cheney did not make good on their promise to conquer the Middle East, secure all of the energy, and maintain American primacy. Their hubris and reckless arrogance has proven to be too big an international public relations nightmare to cover up.
Although the Republicans did steal millions of votes, as predicted and tracked by Bradblog, Black Box Voting, and Greg Palast. It became clear, as election night unfolded, that Obama would be permitted a win, encoded on Republican voting technology, and beamed across a corporate media that had already begun to favor Obama and the Democrats months earlier.
The “change” that a Barack Obama presidency will bring to America and the world will be one of style, not substance: a return to the centrist corporate globalism of the Clinton and Carter eras, complete with regurgitated Democratic Party elites from those administrations, and new neoliberal politicians touting similar ideologies.
Full article:
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3977.shtml
7 November 2008, 3:53 pmcharles:
and the “practical” left wants us to suspend our criticism of the center on behalf of some nonsense called center-left unity.
^^^^
Who is the pratical left who proposed suspension of criticism ?
How about a march on Wall Street ?
Passed by the Detroit City Council on September 22, 2008
Resolution by Council member JoAnn Watson
Whereas, The Federal Government has bailed out Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae for a
reported 200 billion dollars; and
Whereas, The United States Congress is in the process of bailing out a number of
Wallstreet investment banks for a reported 700 billion dollars; and
Whereas, The Big Three auto companies are seeking federal loans of reportedly 25
billion dollars; and
Whereas , The Chrysler Corporation was bailed out by the federal government in 1979
for billions of dollars; and
Whereas , the State of Michigan has been in a one state economic recession for several
years , while Detroit has been hit by an economic depression and an economic
hurricane
Whereas, Massive numbers of foreclosures and predatory lending by firms in
connection with the very Wallstreet firms that are now bailed out by the US
Government have devastated Detroit and Michigan, yet the US government has
not included bailout of foreclosed families and citizens in their great economic
despair , the citizens whose taxes will bailout the Wallstreet banks;
THEREFORE BE IT
Resolved, That the Detroit City Council calls on the Congress to bailout the City of
Detroit and the people who are the victims of the housing and mortgage crisis;
and be it further
Resolved, That the Detroit City Council demands that Congress strictly re-regulate
Wallstreet and prohibit future, financial ,speculative regimes as that of the last
ten years or so and be it further
Resolved, That the City Council urges our Congressional delegation to make
sure that any new credit guidelines are not so strict as to negatively impact
centers throughout the country; and be it further
Resolved, That the U.S. Senators from Michigan and Detroit-based Congressional
Representatives be urged to immediately institute earmarks to demand a
national moratorium on foreclosures for at least two years, a one billion dollar
economic package to create WPA-style jobs for heads of households in
Detroit, and tax credits for small businesses; and be it finally
Resolved, That the City Clerk send copies of this resolution to Michigan’s US Senators,
7 November 2008, 4:08 pmMichigan’s Congressional Delegation and The Governor of Michigan.
Susan/catlady:
Ralph Nader, interviewed at Counterpunch:
7 November 2008, 4:47 pmLisa:
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 “progressives”, 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.
Full article:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21167.htm
7 November 2008, 6:07 pmLisa:
A Paradigm Shift in America’s Intellectual Community
By Pablo Ouziel
Global Research, November 6, 2008
Contrary to popular belief, the big change in America’s society stemming from the recent presidential elections, was not the election of the first African-American president. The most important event has taken place in the intellectual community, in which a paradigm shift has taken place and few have noticed.
The new era of voting for the lesser of the two evils has penetrated the core of America’s critical intellectual community, and some of the biggest voices for change have endorsed Obama. In effect, what has taken place is the union between those opposed to imperial ideology and those endorsing it. Although this serious event has gone largely unnoticed, American intellectuals will need to reflect on its consequences seriously if they are to contribute to the building of a stable future for humanity as a whole, and in particular to mending the tarnished corrupt fabric of American society…
…After listening to Obama’s first speech after his victory, a victory he said was of the people, what Petras is saying seems disturbingly accurate when looked at through the prism of critical discourse analysis. One can look back now to the presidency of George W. Bush and listen to his rhetoric. What has been his message throughout the last 8 years? When Obama’s core messages are compared to Bush’s, it becomes apparent that the coming presidential plans are not too different to current presidential policies.
Even more disturbing, is the fact that when Bush spoke throughout his presidency there was always a slight cynical reaction by the majority of the public, as most of the surveys have shown time and time again. However, last night the cynicism seemed to have vanished and the hope of a new American century was reborn with full force, to the clapping thunder and joyous splendour of the reborn American people. With every word uttered by Obama one could see how the empire was not gone, Bush almost killed it, now Obama the symbol of hope, together with all the American people in unity, are going to reconstruct their country and the world, restabilising America’s faltering hegemony.
Full article:
http://globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=10833
7 November 2008, 7:24 pmStan:
Susan/catlady, thanks. Okay, there’s the website (the change.gov). If it’s that easy, then we should encourage people to write; and to make a record of what they wrote and when. In fact, post there and crosspost/link to blogs, I’d think. Here’s what I just sent (took one minute):
Okay one more:
Woo-hooo, fun.
7 November 2008, 7:34 pmVictoria:
Can we stop this?
Matt Stoller writes: “The Washington Note is reporting that former Clinton official Larry Summers is one of the leading nominees to become the Treasury Secretary for the Obama administration. In 1999, Summers was one of the key proponents of the banking deregulation that led to the rise of ‘mega-banks’ and the current financial crisis. At the time, Senators like Byron Dorgan and policy advocates like Public Campaign were warning the financial deregulation, but Summers did not listen. In addition to this remarkable lapse in judgment, Larry Summers has argued that women are innately less gifted in science than men, that ‘Africa is Underpolluted’, that child sweatshop work in Asia can be justified, and that energy used to oppose job destroying trade agreements was ‘very, very badly misplaced.’
“President-elect Obama spoke eloquently and often about the perils of deregulation and trade agreements that do not include worker and environmental protection, and excesses on Wall Street due to governance failures. Let’s ask him to put someone in charge who did not actually help cause the current crisis, who did not contribute to the bleeding of America’s industrial base, and who is not part of the corrupted failed elite that has ravaged our country.”
7 November 2008, 9:29 pmSign
http://action.openleft.com/page/petition/nosummers
Stan Moore:
Well Amigos–
Reality intervenes. And I say that there WILL be profound change during the Obama administration. Obama will be a catalyst for this change, but the change will not be to his liking.
Americans are overdue for a wakeup call, as several have highlighted in this thread. Hard times have a way of sharpening focus, and I think more and more Americans are going to finally wake up and see what is what. And they are going to want change they can believe in. And they are going to realize that change is not going to be given by benevelant politicians of the corporate parties. It will have to be taken through forceful usurpation called people power or true democracy.
The Who sang: “Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.” And then they sang: “We won’t get fooled again.”
I’m startiog to feel a little better about the change Obama is going to catalyze and I am proud of all the people who are plotting the change that we can believe in.
Many people have important contributions to make in this process. I am very glad to have stumbled across Stan Goff, who is one of those old non-commissioned officers who made the U.S. Army a formidable force. Stan knows tactics and strategy and networking and communicating and how to get things done.
And others who contribute here have gifts of perception, analysis, and means of collaboration.
It is an interesting time to be alive and I look forward to learning things of great value from the unfolding of history.
Stan Moore
Petaluma, CA
Stan Moore
7 November 2008, 10:43 pmPetaluma, CA
Lisa:
Conned Again
By Paul Craig Roberts
November 09, 2008 “Information Clearinghouse” — If the change President-elect Obama has promised includes a halt to America’s wars of aggression and an end to the rip-off of taxpayers by powerful financial interests, what explains Obama’s choice of foreign and economic policy advisors? Indeed, Obama’s selection of Rahm Israel Emanuel as White House chief of staff is a signal that change ended with Obama’s election. The only thing different about the new administration will be the faces.
Rahm Israel Emanuel is a supporter of Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Emanuel rose to prominence in the Democratic Party as a result of his fundraising connections to AIPAC. A strong supporter of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, he comes from a terrorist family. His father was a member of Irgun, a Jewish terrorist organization that used violence to drive the British and Palestinians out of Palestine in order to create the Jewish state. During the 1991 Gulf War, Rahm Israel Emanuel volunteered to serve in the Israel Defense Forces. He was a member of the Freddie Mac board of directors and received $231,655 in directors fees in 2001. According to Wikipedia, “during the time Emanuel spent on the board, Freddie Mac was plagued with scandals involving campaign contributions and accounting irregularities.”
Full article:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21177.htm
9 November 2008, 6:48 pmLisa:
Obama’s Council on Foreign Relations Crew
By Steve Watson
Global Research, November 9, 2008
Meet some of president elect Obama’s leading foreign and domestic policy advisors and likely administration members, every one of them a prominent member of the Council On Foreign Relations.
Will these people bring about “change” or will they continue to hold up the same entrenched system forged by the corporate elite for decades?
Full article:
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10867
10 November 2008, 2:16 pmMichael Anderson:
An interesting take on the Obama Administration, and the “future” (if you want to call it that) of Conservatism…
http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2008/11/sarah-palin-is-the-future-of-conservatism.html#more
The linked articles on the site are interesting, too.
10 November 2008, 3:53 pmm.c.:
Lisa,
Another description might be: new CoS=Nacy Pelosi’s former #1 bagman
10 November 2008, 4:31 pmLisa:
Obama’s Change Orgy
By Dr. Elias Akleh
November 10, 2008 “Information Clearinghouse” - - After Obama’s presidential victory a euphoric feeling swept the streets of most of the States. Thousands of people gathered in the Grant Park in Chicago, thousands others went into the streets of their cities celebrating this occasion. They called it a historic election, a nonviolent revolution, a dream comes true, a breakthrough and a victory over racism. Obama was called a hero, a savior, and some even called him a messiah. Obama’s call for change has become an orgy that tantalizes peoples’ feelings and hopes.
This “change Orgy” became contagious and spread to other countries especially in Africa, where Kenya, the birth place of Obama’s father, declared a national holiday to mark Obama’s victory. Since American foreign policies have a direct impact on almost every country in the world, many world leaders, especially African leaders were hoping to start a new fresh page with Obama’s administration. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the Bush administration felt empowered and justified to be more condescending towards the rest of the world, and felt free to do anything and everything to expand its control around the world. With Obama in the Oval Office world leaders are hoping for a “good” change…
Unfortunately, a large majority are not aware that race is not the core issue of the struggle. It is, rather, a class struggle; the few filthy rich against the poor. Many colored rich minorities had, and still, enslave the poor of their own color. Let us remember what military black previous Secretary of State Collin Powell and his successor Chevron’s Condoleezza Rice had done to the blacks of America
Obama is no different. He will soon be exposed the person he really is; just another wolf in sheep clothing. Obama’s promises to protect the middle class are just empty promises. This was obvious after he approved the $700 billion (plus interest) bailout to give more tax money to corrupt bankers, who will use that money to buy weaker banks. The money should have been used to pay portions of the mortgages the middle class owe to the banks, so they could keep their homes…
Full article:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21193.htm
10 November 2008, 5:11 pmStan Moore:
see Lunberg’s comments at this link:
http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=243&Itemid=1
Here we see that the “change” promised by Obama in economic terms will be what we find in our pockets (instead of dollars) as Peak Oil’s reality removes the possibility of economic growth…
And by the way, if you like good Depression-Era (themed) music, I just love the song “One More Dollar” by Gillian Welch from her “Revival” album. A great line goes: “could you spare me a coin and a Christian prayer — my luck has turned against me.”
Stan Moore
10 November 2008, 8:18 pmPetaluma, CA
m.c.:
A lesson in epistemology in reference to my last comment, aka a teachable moment. Take a few moments to ponder:
The new Dem Senate is hopeless even if they get 60 votes. The House is more grassroots & thus more difficult to control from Wall St. & K St. through the West Wing. Emanuel is a signal that unruly Dems will have their money spigot turned off in 2010 if they don’t tow the line. House Dem leadership is awful imo. Jim Clyburn is the only one I trust at all. If you see more of Chris Van Hollen on the TEEVEE Set he was Rahm’s right hand man up to now.
Cheers,
12 November 2008, 4:13 pmMichael Anderson:
Jeremy Scahill has a pretty good list going so far of this G.H.W. Bush and Clinton SUV-with-big-V8 administration lineup:
http://www.alternet.org/audits/107666/this_is_change_20_hawks,_clintonites_and_neocons_to_watch_for_in_obama%27s_white_house/?page=entire
Guess we’re gonna party like it’s 1999, huh? If Obama REALLY DOES attempt to get anything resembling real “change” out of this crew of pirates, they’ll take him out. Obama’s election may have been about race, but this administration is looking more and more like it’s about shutting down any movement from below.
I read a piece in Harper’s a few months ago about the next investment bubble—-look for a “Green Energy” Ponzi scheme masquerading as saving the planet.
20 November 2008, 2:39 pmStan:
Obama as Yeltsin
29 November 2008, 12:57 pmMichael Anderson:
I don’t know if anyone here is a Noam Chomsky fan or not (I go back and forth on him), but I thought this article on Alternet was pretty frank, jives with Stan’s analysis on disdaining the “main thrust”, and is a good jab at advertising:
Chomsky: Is There Truth in Obama’s Advertising?
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/108964/?page=entire
8 December 2008, 10:01 amStan:
This isn’t the most well-written piece he’s ever done…. some overloooked editing I suspect (like I should talk). But this is a nicely formed (slightly edited) thought:
8 December 2008, 10:49 amMichael Anderson:
Being in the music biz, I heartily concur! (sarcastic half smirk)
8 December 2008, 11:38 am