Waiting for Obama to Make His Move

Moment of Truth

2010-02-24T20:38:00.000-08:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/moment-of-truth_b_470870.html

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Robert Kuttner, Co-Founder and Co-Editor of The American Prospect
February 21, 2010 10:00 PM

March 2010 will either be remembered as the month when the scales fell from Barack Obama's eyes and he realized that the bipartisan fantasy, given the current Republican Party, is a fool's errand. Or it will go down in history as the moment when Obama had a chance to change course and emerge as a leader -- and flinched. Which will it be?

Right up until the moment of the February 25th summit on health reform, the administration seems determined to send out mixed signals. The president has been stressing all of the areas in which his own plan overlaps some Republican bill or another. But, as Obama surely knows, most of the supposed areas of consensus are superficial.

For example, in theory both Obama and the Republicans would allow health insurance policies to be marketed across state lines. But the Democrats' version would include consumer safeguards. The Republican counterpart would encourage insurance companies to re-incorporate in the state with the weakest regulation and promote a race to the bottom.

Bipartisanship was also the word du jour when the president announced his fiscal commission. Everything is supposedly on the table. Yet no Republican seems willing to raise taxes. And no Democrat worthy of the name would sacrifice Social Security. If we had the nerve to restore progressive taxation in this country, we could have our fiscal balance and our social investment, too. No bipartisanship there.

When Alan Simpson, the Republican co-chair, was in the Senate, privatization of Social Security was one of his big causes. Under the commission's rules, it will take 14 out of 18 votes to recommend a blueprint for budget reduction. I asked a senior member of Obama's economic team how they expected a commission to reach agreement with this kind of requirement, given that Republicans block all Senate action using a much more modest supermajority. He had no good answer.

Yet the narrative of the day, articulated by Evan Bayh, Pete Peterson, and repeated by one journalist and pundit after another, is that "Washington" has become "dysfunctional." Sen. Bayh's recent op-ed in the New York Times is enough to make you vomit.

Our most strident partisans must learn to occasionally sacrifice short-term tactical political advantage for the sake of the nation. Otherwise, Congress will remain stuck in an endless cycle of recrimination and revenge. The minority seeks to frustrate the majority, and when the majority is displaced it returns the favor.
The blame, in other words, is absolutely symmetrical. That's just malarkey. But it has become pervasive conventional wisdom.

Jackie Calmes, writing in the New York Times, treats a massive lobbing campaign by foes of social insurance as dispassionate expert analysis in the public interest.

Many analysts say the president and Congress could send a strong signal to global markets by agreeing this year to a package of both long-term tax increases and spending reductions, especially in the popular entitlement programs, that would not take effect until 2012. That is the recommendation of two new studies, one by the National Research Council and the National Academy of Public Administration and the other a separate joint project of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
Well, many other analysts say Pete Peterson, who funds so much of this tripe, is a billionaire scoundrel who is using an economic catastrophe brought about by his chums on Wall Street to cut the Social Security of people who don't have his massive wealth to fall back on.
There is nothing dysfunctional about "Washington." The Republicans have simply decided to use the filibuster to block anything that President Obama proposes, and the president, thus far, hasn't quite mustered the nerve to take them on.

As John Podesta puts it, we have a kind of perverted parliamentary system, in which the opposition party has the power to block, but the governing party doesn't have the power to govern. Kind of like Italy before it got a quasi-dictator, or France during the Fourth Republic.

Or the kind of failed states where nobody governs, and power reverts to tribes, mobs, and warlords (or in our case, to Wall Street.)

So it's show time. As Finley Peter Dunne's Mr. Dooley famously said, politics ain't beanbag. Either Obama has been playing chess all along, and he will soon spring his elegant trap on the obstructionist Republicans, or he has been playing beanbag.

Option One: The televised summit happens. It's clear once and for all that there is no common ground to be had. And Obama gives the speech we've all been waiting for.

"My fellow Americans, I've gone the last mile to find consensus, but the Republicans have made clear by their actions that they put destruction of my administration ahead of the needs of the American people. I can't let that happen, because the stakes are too high. So I am asking the House to pass the Senate bill, and then to improve the law using the budget reconciliation process."

His approval rating jumps ten points overnight just because the voters admire guts in a leader, and will settle for some sign of a pulse.

Option Two: the Republicans offer him a few scraps. He takes them. Negotiations keep dragging on. Game, set, match, Republicans.

Option Three: Obama attempts to pull off Option One, but the House and Senate Democrats are so sick of this drama, and the bill has become so toxic, that he can't muster the votes. Since the bill passed the House last November 7 by just five votes, one Democrat, John Murtha, has died. A second Democrat has changed parties. And the one Republican who voted for the bill, Joseph Cao of Louisiana, has switched to the opposition. That leaves the Dems down one. The proposed "Cadillac tax" on premiums of good insurance, the diversion of Medicare funds, the punitive mandate on individuals, coupled with the relative free ride for employers who fail to provide insurance, are even more unpopular now than in the late fall. A double defeat for the president.

It would take an uncharacteristic leap of leadership for Obama to opt for a Democrats-only bill; and even more leadership to get the Dems to vote for the thing. If he pulls it off, and also improves the bill along the way, it will mark a welcome change of direction -- but only the beginning of a long road back to the presidency we thought we were voting for. Stay tuned.

Many Are Dying For Our Having Hoped Obama Would Not Practice Imperialism

2010-02-20T12:09:00.001-08:00

Imperialism is psychopathic and evil (including demonic evil). People need to !!!WAKE UP!!!, give these things their PROPER NAMES and !!!STAND UP AGAINST!!! EVIL COLLECTIVELY!!!!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Many-Are-Dying-For-Our-Hav-by-Jay-Janson-100216-174.html
February 18, 2010

By Jay Janson
In retrospect, does it not sound terribly naive that we would hope a U.S. president whose candidacy was selected and backed by our most powerful bankers would be permitted, just maybe, perhaps by virtue of his being black and well spoken, to modify the intense imperialism that has characterized all previous presidencies since, if not including, that of Teddy Roosevelt and before?

He said he would bomb Pakistan and he has.

He indicated he would be willing to sacrifice men, women and children to assassinate leaders of those warring against American occupations and he has.

He said he would, and he did, send more troops to broaden the war against Pashtun Taliban, formerly the Reagan approved and recognized government of Afghanistan.

He has praised Americans for having fought the Vietnamese in their own country and keeps American troops in Iraq, though he called Iraq a "dumb war." when seeking the votes of citizens no longer supporting that war.

He has praised European settlers for their westward march across America without acknowledging the death and suffering of the indigenous peoples of the continent whose nations the settlers from across the sea conquered

He pre-justified the week long massacre of Gaza, and kept silent during the chilling dispatch of four hundred Palestinian children along with over a thousand of their relatives and friends

While still a candidate, he signed on to giving hundreds of billions of dollars to bankers who favor, propagate and profit from wars.

We could have been pretty sure Obama would never condemn the industrial investment banks of Henry Ford, Rockefeller, General Motors, General Electric, IBM, Dupont, Joe Kennedy, Prescott Bush, Averell Harriman, Brown Brothers, J.P. Morgan, Chase Bank, Allen and John Foster Dulles, Standard Oil of New Jersey, Union Carbide, Westinghouse, Gillette, Goodrich, Singer, Eastman Kodak, Coca-Cola, ITT, and media magnates William Randolph Hearst, the UP Syndicate, the Chicago Tribune, and others for having backed Adolph Hitler and invested in arming the Germany of the Nazis up to superpower status, knowing full well (and in most cases pleased) that Hitler persecuted Jews and Communists.

Obama has always proclaimed capitalism and the United States as, overall, "a force for good in the world."

"Hope springs eternal." is the saying often applied to circumstances that don't appear to warrant hope.

Zen Buddhists, practicing a strict application of highly disciplined mind, understand "hope' and "fear' as two sides of the same coin.

Just as fear can have a negative function, hope can paralyze, can be made to substitute for action and can becloud accurate appraisal and decision making.

Both hope and fear anticipate something that has not yet happened. For example, hoping that a certain damn will not break is similar to fearing that it will.

Fear and hope, not unlike prayers evoked in their name, are retreats from endeavor, a postponement or avoidance of involvement. As does fear, hope lessens the awareness and attention so critical to decisive action.

Millions of progressives, even if not completely hooked by the campaign slogan of "change" hoped that Obama would be different. But, as the wise saying goes, "Hoping doesn't make it so."

Before the election our priority was getting a Democrat elected as America's first black president, and we felt obliged to lay low so the rabid and ignorant right wing plurality out there would not associate Obama with criticism of America, or the peace movement which corporate media characterizes as appeasement and weakness. Immediately after inauguration Obama bombed Pakistan as promised (a promise most assuredly meant for the ear of the military complex).

During our present generation, the lies, misrepresentations and treachery of U.S. presidents (Obama now included), Congresses and a Pentagon subservient media cartel have caused a multi massive amount of Muslim children to fall in harms way of lethal U.S. military action in Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq again, Pakistan and Yemen. This merely continues a century long history of vicious and cruel armed Western imperialism in Muslim lands: various sub-Saharan African colonies, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Syria, Jordan, Palestine and Iraq, since the Ottoman empire was sliced up for England and France with United States of America in profitable acquiescence.

Our hope was incredibly misplaced, that once in office, Obama would have acted contrary to his promises of bellicose intentions and as an exception to all his imperialist predecessors, that he had only pretended to be a hawk before an war indoctrinated electorate in order to gain office. A capitalist chief executive allowed to place the lives of children being slaughtered by U.S. military in poor Third World countries above the interests of Wall Street war profits would have no precedent.

Extremists fighting for justice in a world of U.S. military hegemony hold the millions of Americans limiting themselves to only hoping for a safer fate for foreign children, guilty and responsible as the Commander-in Chief Obama's other officials of U.S. corporate governance.

Americans in general have a good amount of leisure but little or no interest in the crimes of their government abroad. Among them are many Americans who are personally disturbed or uncomfortable particularly about their awesomely powerful military taking the lives and limbs of children. But the greater part of pangs of conscience is devoted to hoping rather than any action at all. Those who seek news and information beyond that twisted on TV and in tabloids, will know of daily atrocities by the same boastful military that though having a large military facility less than three hundred miles from the Haiti earthquake zone did little more than block the aid coming into the Port-au Prince airport from other nations, disembarking its fine Navy hospital ship from Maryland only three days after the quake struck.

Since hope and fear are two sides of the same coin, obviously fear of retribution beyond that of 9/11 is more prevalent than the hope that our killing will cease.

No One Remembers Obama?

2010-02-20T11:39:00.000-08:00

More and more, Obama seems to be a Matrix Man: He came out of nowhere and no one remembers him! Scary!

http://nationalconversation.typepad.com/the_national_conversation/2009/11/no-one-remembers-obama.html

NOVEMBER 30, 2009
From Information Pollination Blog
No One Remembers Barack Obama From Columbia
November 30, 2009 / 11:49 am • Dr. Melissa Clouthier

An email is going around with this as the content:

NOBODY REMEMBERS OBAMA AT COLUMBIA

Looking for evidence of Obama’s past, Fox News contacted 400 Columbia University students from the period when Obama claims to have been there, but none remembered him.

Wayne Allyn Root was, like Obama, a political science major at Columbia who also graduated in 1983. In 2008, Root says of Obama, “I don’t know a single person at Columbia that knew him, and they all know me.

I don’t have a classmate who ever knew Barack Obama at Columbia . Ever! Nobody recalls him. I’m not exaggerating, I’m not kidding.”
Root adds that he was also, like Obama, “Class of ‘83 political science, pre-law” and says, “You don’t get more exact or closer than that. Never met him in my life, don’t know anyone who ever met him.

At the class reunion, our 20th reunion five years ago, who was asked to be the speaker of the class? Me.

No one ever heard of Barack! And five years ago, nobody even knew who he was. The guy who writes the class notes, who’s kind of the, as we say in New York, the macha who knows everybody, has yet to find a person, a human who ever met him. Is that not strange?

It’s very strange.” Obama’s photograph does not appear in the school’s yearbook and Obama consistently declines requests to talk about his years at Columbia, provide school records, or provide the name of any former classmates or friends while at Columbia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Allyn_Root#column-one

Here’s the Wiki on Obama at Columbia: http://www.wikicu.com/Barack_Obama

The New York Sun has a story from 2008 that calls Obama’s time at Columbia “a mystery”:

Senator Obama’s life story, from his humble roots, to his rise to Harvard Law School, to his passion as a community organizer in Chicago, has been at the center of his presidential campaign. But one chapter of the tale remains a blank — his education at Columbia College, a place he rarely speaks about and where few people seem to remember him.

Contributing to the mystery is the fact that nobody knows just how well Mr. Obama, unlike Senator McCain and most other major candidates for the past two elections, performed as a student.

The Obama campaign has refused to release his college transcript, despite an academic career that led him to Harvard Law School and, later, to a lecturing position at the University of Chicago. The shroud surrounding his experience at Columbia contrasts with that of other major party nominees since 2000, all whom have eventually released information about their college performance or seen it leaked to the public.

Here’s the Snopes column on Obama’s “thesis” at Columbia.

Back in 2008, Tom Maguire had some theories from this time in Obama’s life. I suspect that the more people dislike what President Obama is doing, the more curious about his opaque past people will become.

Like Global Warming, the election of Obama is turning out to be the biggest hoax ever!

Barack Obama statue removed from Jakarta park

2010-02-16T05:41:00.000-08:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100215/ap_on_re_as/as_indonesia_obama_statue

Barack Obama statue removed from Jakarta park
By ROD McGUIRK, Associated Press Writer
Mon Feb 15, 1:43 am ET

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Authorities removed a statue of Barack Obama from a park in the Indonesian capital due to a public backlash and moved it Monday to a nearby elementary school that the U.S. president attended as a child.

The bronze statue, inspired by a childhood photograph of a 10-year-old Obama in shorts with a butterfly perched on an outstretched thumb, had been targeted by critics since it was erected in the Jakarta park last December. Detractors argued that an Indonesian hero should have been honored instead, noting that Obama still could pursue policies that hurt Indonesia's interests.

Obama, whose American mother married an Indonesian after divorcing his Kenyan father, went to school in the capital from 1967 to 1971 and is regarded fondly by most Indonesians.

Edi Kusyanto, a teacher at the affluent government school Obama attended, said the 43-inch (110-centimeter) statue would be standing in the school grounds by the time the president visits Jakarta from March 20-22.

"There is no controversy about the statue being here. Everyone at the school welcomes it," Kusyanto said.

The statue was erected with private funds raised by the Jakarta-based nonprofit group Friends of Obama Foundation, but Jakarta Gov. Fauzi Bowo is paying for its relocation.

Ron Mullers, an American living in Jakarta who came up with the idea for the statue and raised money for it, declined to say whether he thought moving it was an overreaction.

"It's a beautiful statue and it had become a tourist attraction," Mullers said.

"My feeling is that the park is a place where more Indonesian people can see it," he said.

Still, he said he was happy that the statue might inspire the school's students to follow their dreams.

Heru Nugroho, leader of a Facebook campaign to remove the statue, welcomed the move but added that the decision had taken too long. He said he would now drop court action seeking the statue's removal.

Indonesia is home to the world's largest Muslim population and many here believe Obama will improve relations with the West.

Obama: Averse to Leadership and a Lousy Politician to Boot

2010-02-12T13:51:00.000-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Obama-Averse-to-Leadershi-by-Leonce-Gaiter-100211-90.html

February 11, 2010
By Leonce Gaiter

They called Karl Rove Bush's Brain, largely because while the man himself was full of conviction, he was notoriously light in the attic. Full of conviction, but no genius was George. Obama, on the other hand, has been touted for his smarts. Even when he began making patently foolish political/policy moves, clearly listening to voices who had been consistently wrong in their areas of expertise (economics for one, warfare for another), it was assumed he was playing a game so deep, so intricate, mounting a strategy so multi-dimensional that the rest of us mortals should simply sit back and sigh in awe.

So much for multi-dimensionality. I'm beginning to miss conviction.

Obama has taken a huge mandate and enormous political capital and squandered it as shamelessly as Pamela Anderson does her self-respect. He ignored voices warning of a jobless recovery and the need for a robust stimulus; now the jobless recovery is here and threatens Democratic prospects in the mid-term. He ignored voices warning that the American people reward politicians for making things better, not for keeping them from getting worse.

He showed a constitutional aversion to leadership on healthcare and grossly fumbled the politics. He ignored those who suggested that it was fool's politics to strip health care reform of its most popular and understandable aspects, like Medicare expansion for those 50 and over and a public option to compete with private insurers. He has proven tone deaf to messaging and has allowed Republicans, a group that helped drive the country to the verge of financial collapse and whose political cynicism and opportunism currently show a breathtaking contempt for the America; he took this bedraggled group and served them the upper hand as if he were their valet.

He has mired us in an Afghanistan expansion that has all the earmarks of a quagmire. He has alienated his most ardent supporters, enabled his most rabid critics, and lost the youth vote that helped put him in office. And he recently announced a Hoover-esque spending-freeze-amidst-downturn and tried to sell it as a route to Keynesian stimulus, making himself look both personally weak and politically dimwitted simultaneously. The Multi-Dimensional Man has accomplished this in just one year. Maybe it does take a sort of genius.

As a politician, Obama fails to realize that the American people want a captain at the helm. They want to believe that the ship of state is being steered--somewhere, anywhere, but steered. At least they know the Republicans will steer the ship. It will probably be toward the rocky shoals, but we Americans have are incapable of long-term thinking and crave momentum. We don't think about where we'll end up. We simply sigh with relief at the sensation of movement.

Obama is akin to the Captain on a ship under attack who turns to the crew, bloodied bodies all around, and tells them to do what they think best.

It's time for the verdict. Obama ran a great campaign, but he is no leader, and he's an abominable politician. During the primary, he was fortunate in Hillary Clinton's bloated walrus of a campaign and in the general election, fortunate in the fact that John McCain is, well, insane. But Obama made good moves throughout. Now that he's in charge, he's proving himself incapable of the political equivalent of simultaneous walking and spitting. You have to wonder who was responsible for his nimble campaign moves. David Plouffe, who managed Obama's 2008 White House campaign, is the obvious candidate.
One sure indicator is Plouffe's resurrection in the face of Obama and his fellow Spinelesscrats turning the slight setback of Scott Brown's Massachusetts win into a self-inflicted bloodbath of the mind. Plouffe was called in to stanch the pearl clutching and convince Democrats that there was, once more, a political brain inside the body for the upcoming election cycle.

His first order of business was to insist on the importance of passing the health care reform bill, which Democrats seemed perfectly happy to abandon and thus prove themselves weak, ineffectual and proud of both. We now have barely audible murmurings of pushing the bill through the Senate via reconciliation. Score one for the brain.

But has Obama so desiccated his political body that the reintroduction of the brain won't matter? His populist rantings ring hollow in light of his demonstrated fondness for the Big Money Boys. He condemnation of huge Wall Street CEO bonuses rang so thin that his later statement that he did not "begrudge" such bonuses as "part of the free market system" was taken as de facto endorsement and appropriately attacked. Real hopey changey there. Again, Obama demonstrates the political inability to walk and spit simultaneously.

The tragedy is that this was foreseeable. The Democratic primary electorate bought Obama's BS about "changing the way Washington works," and "bridging divides" in this country. It was either political snake oil, or painful naivete, but we heard soothing words from a black face (with a comfortingly white mother) and heard Pavlovian choruses humming "Kumbaya" as images of the ruthlessly sanitized Martin Luther King danced in our heads. Clinton was "mean." We didn't want "mean." She had a "political machine." We hated that. We were above it. Mark Penn was a bad man. Icky ick. We wanted purity.

Well, we now know that purity does not beget winning politics. In fact, the opposite is true. If we want policies that improve our lives, we have to be willing to sully our self-image for them. Maybe we'll have learned that lesson by 2012.

Obama Bows to the Whining of the Rich

2010-02-10T06:16:00.000-08:00

By Sam Pizzigati, Campaign for America's Future
February 10, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145620/

The Heritage Foundation, the right wing’s most lavishly funded think tank, doesn't much like the federal budget plan the Obama White House released last week. Heritage hired guns are blasting the Obama blueprint for fiscal 2011 as perhaps the “most irresponsible budget ever.”

What has the wealthy and their biggest fans so upset? Certainly not the deficit, the cause for concern they profess so earnestly.

Growing budget deficits, as economist Polly Cleveland pointed out last week, can actually work to rich people’s advantage, in part because the rich hold so much of the government’s debt. The interest payments the rich collect on that debt “tips” America’s top-heavy distribution of wealth even more their way.

The rich can live — quite well — with budget deficits. But taxes drive them crazy, and President Obama’s second budget is proposing, over the next decade, $970 billion in new taxes on America’s most affluent.

But do these tax hikes, as critics charge, “soak the rich”? Not hardly. Obama’s budget, if adopted, will inconvenience the rich, not soak them.

For the rich, that may be almost as bad. Rich people simply detest inconveniences. Unlike people of modest means, they can afford to avoid them — and the U.S. tax code, for years now, has made that affording ever easier.

Just how easy becomes painfully clear upon perusing the fine print of the tax changes the Obama White House is proposing.

One example: Under current law, corporate CEOs can classify their workers as “independent contractors,” a neat maneuver that denies workers the benefits normal employees receive and saves corporations vast sums that end up inflating executive paychecks. The Obama budget proposes new rules that would make these corporate misclassifications more difficult to cook up.

Current law also lets corporate execs who get nailed cheating consumers deduct off their taxes the punitive damages courts order them to pay. How convenient. The new White House budget would make executives and their companies much more likely to eat these damages, on their own.

Another convenience the rich enjoy and exploit: Current law gives the IRS only three years to discover whether wealthy tax filers are neglecting to report income from foreign assets on their tax returns. After three years, the IRS can’t levy any penalties on the wealthy tax avoiders they catch. The Obama budget proposes to double this statute of limitations to six years.

The income the wealthy do already report, meanwhile, will face higher tax rates under the Obama budget plan. In the 2011 federal fiscal year, couples making over $250,000 a year — and individuals over $200,000 — will pay taxes at a 39.6 percent rate on ordinary income over $373,650.

These taxpayers, under the Obama plan, would also pay higher taxes on dividends and “capital gain” income from the sale of stocks and other assets. The current 15 percent tax rate on these income streams would jump to 20 percent.

Some super-rich taxpayers — the top guns at hedge funds, venture capital firms, and other investment partnerships — would pay even more under the Obama budget plan. These power suits have been claiming the bulk of their income as “capital gains.” The Obama budget, if Congress goes along, would nix that claim.

In 2008, 25 hedge fund managers took home at least $75 million. In 2011, under the new Obama budget, the top 25 would pay taxes on most of their millions at a 39.6 percent rate, over double the current 15 percent capital gains rate.

But these hedgies and their awesomely affluent friends really have little reason to angst about these new rates. By any reasonable historical yardstick, they’ll be doing just fine if the new Obama budget gets through Congress as is.

A half-century ago, in 1961, income over $400,000 — around $3 million today — faced a 91 percent tax. In 2011, if the Obama budget plan goes into effect, the top rate on income over $3 million would sit at 39.6 percent, less than half the top tax rate on America’s richest back in the mid-20th century.

Politicos and pundits ignored this historical perspective last week. Debate in and around Congress instead revolved almost totally around hand wringing over the size of the federal budget deficit.

Lawmakers and commentators worried about the deficit, in a more rational world, wouldn't be ignoring America's tax-the-rich history, since higher taxes on the wealthy — and the corporations that manufacture them — offer one obvious route to deficit reduction. But mainstream policy wonks in Washington have essentially written off higher taxes on the rich as a viable deficit-reduction strategy.

The latest evidence of that write-off: The mainstream wonks at Washington’s Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center last week promoted a new paper said to prove that “raising taxes only on the rich won't close our budget deficits.”

This paper, condescendingly entitled Desperately Seeking Revenue, argues that tax increases on the rich would have to be “huge” to bring the federal budget deficit down to manageable levels by 2019, so huge that these rates would imperil national “economic efficiency.”

How high, under this mainstream Brookings Tax Policy Center analysis, would taxes on the rich have to go to significantly narrow the deficit in 2019?

If taxes rose only on couples making over $250,000 and individuals over $200,000, the analysis notes, the top tax rate would have to rise to 77 percent to bring the deficit down to 3 percent of GDP in 2019, the target Obama budget director Peter Orszag has set. To meet the 2 percent target the Tax Policy Center prefers, that top rate would have to rise “to nearly 91 percent.”

That the United States had a 91 percent top tax rate in effect for most of the quarter century after World War II — and survived quite nicely — goes unmentioned in this mainstream analysis.

A curious omission. In the 1950s and early 1960s, with a 91 percent top rate in effect, the annual federal deficit never once hit as high as 3 percent of GDP and only once hit as high as 2 percent. These same years saw the greatest increases ever in U.S. middle class prosperity.

Tax rates on the rich, a closer look at the Tax Policy Center analysis makes clear, wouldn’t even have to go all the way to 91 percent to work some serious deficit-reduction magic. The Tax Policy Center experts, in their analysis, have made a series of assumptions that, taken together, overstate the actual tax rate on the rich needed to get the deficit, a decade from now, down significantly.

These assumptions dramatically reveal just how incredibly stunted — on taxing the rich and powerful — the mainstream political imagination has become.

The Tax Policy Center analysts assume, first, that top tax rates between now and 2015 cannot possibly be raised beyond the 39.6 percent the Obama White House has proposed. Second, they assume no increase in corporate taxes.

But if corporate tax rates were hiked — to the point where the federal government received as much of its income from corporate taxes as the government regularly received before the 1980s — and if tax rates on top-bracket income rose over 39.6 percent before 2015, taxes on the rich wouldn’t have to hit 91 percent a decade from now to significantly reduce the deficit.

The new Obama budget actually does include a variety of tax increases on corporations, particularly on those that use their foreign operations to avoid U.S. taxes. But the White House has, notes tax analyst Linda Beale, “scaled back its proposals aimed at companies that shift profits offshore” since last year.

What happened? General Electric, Microsoft, Caterpillar, and other corporate giants have been complaining. The White House listened.

The White House now needs to listen to the rest of us. And we need to raise our voices loud enough to be heard.

President Obama and the CIA: What Must Be Done

2010-02-03T13:51:00.000-08:00

http://www.truthout.org/president-obama-and-cia-what-must-be-done56605

Tuesday 02 February 2010
by: Melvin A. Goodman, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

This is the second and final installment of Melvin Goodman's series on the Obama administration and the intelligence community. Part one can be read here.

New presidents (and President Barack Obama is no exception) fall in love with three Washington institutions: the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency and Camp David.

The Camp David love affair makes sense; it contributes to the president's physical and mental health. The infatuation with the military and intelligence communities, however, can create serious problems for both the administration and the nation.

President John F. Kennedy learned this lesson during the Bay of Pigs in 1961, but recovered the following year to avoid humiliating diplomatic and military blunders during the Cuban missile crisis.

The suicide bombing attempt on Christmas Day as well as the successful suicide bombing of a sensitive CIA base in Afghanistan should be President Obama's wake-up call regarding the dysfunctional state of the intelligence community. Both events point to systemic failures at the major intelligence institutions. Unfortunately, there is no sign of a learning curve for the Obama administration in dealing with the intelligence community.

What the CIA should be and what it should do is less clear than at any time since the beginning of the cold war. There should have been major reform of the intelligence community with the end of the cold war, but there was none.

The intelligence failures that contributed to the 9/11 terrorist attacks created an opportunity for reform, but the flawed thinking of the 9/11 Commission and the Congressional rush to judgment led to changes that have made a bad situation worse.

The creation of a Director of National Intelligence (DNI), tied directly to the White House, has led to an even more centralized system of intelligence that stifles creative thinking and runs the risk of politicized intelligence.

The establishment of a National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC) did not prevent the near calamity on Christmas Day, despite the collection of sufficient intelligence to stop the Nigerian suicide bomber.

The serious problems that need to be addressed include the militarization of the intelligence community, which must be reversed; the weakness of oversight over a flawed intelligence process, which must be restored; the illegal actions of the National Clandestine Service, which must be investigated; and the impact of the reforms of the 9/11 Commission, which must be corrected.

President Obama's failure to request a National Intelligence Estimate before making his decision to place more troops in Afghanistan conveys a recognition that the intelligence community lacks credibility. But no steps have been taken to reverse the steady decline of a deteriorating institution. What needs to be done?

Demilitarize the Intelligence Community

The Bush administration boasted of a marriage between the Pentagon and the CIA, and the Obama administration has done nothing to weaken the connecting tissue between the two bureaucracies. The Department of Defense is the chief operating officer of the $75 billion intelligence agency, controlling more than 85 percent of the intelligence budget and intelligence personnel.

The undersecretary of defense for intelligence, a retired general officer, has veto power over the ability of the DNI, the so-called intelligence czar, to transfer personnel and budgetary authority from one intelligence agency to another intelligence agency.

The Pentagon has moved into the fields of clandestine collection and covert action, without the constraints of oversight that theoretically limit the undercover activities of the CIA.

The military dominates the field of satellite imagery and analysis that is used to critique the defense budget, to gauge the likelihood of military conflict in the third world and to verify and monitor arms control agreements.

The military command has wrenched control of two of the three most important positions in the intelligence community from the civilian leadership, with retired general or flag officers now serving as intelligence czar and as undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

Meanwhile, the CIA is becoming a paramilitary institution and neglecting its primary mission to provide strategic intelligence to policymakers.

Revive Oversight of the Intelligence Community

President Obama's greatest (and most inexplicable) failing in his stewardship of the intelligence community has been his unwillingness to enforce genuine oversight of the CIA.

The president does not want to assign blame or search for scapegoats, but he fails to understand the premise that an honest review and investigation are needed in order to learn the lessons of the past and avoid repeating past mistakes in the future.

The decline of the CIA has coincided with the reduced oversight role by the Congressional intelligence committees, which were established in the 1970s as elite, bipartisan committees.

Unfortunately, the Gingrich revolution in the Congress in 1993-1994 had a partisan impact on the intelligence committees, introducing term limits on members of the intelligence committees and permitting increased power for the Senate and House armed services committees in monitoring the intelligence community.

The oversight committees have become advocates for the CIA, particularly for its clandestine operators. Senate intelligence chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and House intelligence chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) have demonstrated no interest in returning a statutory Inspector General (IG) to the CIA or in pursuing agency excesses in renditions, detentions and interrogations (RDI) as well as the Pentagon's domestic surveillance and collection of intelligence and the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping. Public accountability must be re-established in order to restore the integrity and credibility of the entire intelligence community.

Nearly one year ago, the IG of the CIA announced his retirement. The IG, John Helgerson, was responsible for important investigations and inspections of CIA failures, including the 9/11 failure, the shooting down of a missionary plane over Peru and the CIA's program of RDI. Not only has the president refused to name a replacement for Helgerson, he has named a former deputy director of the CIA, John McLaughlin, to investigate the Christmas Day intelligence failure.

McLaughlin is known throughout the intelligence community for his participation in providing false intelligence to the Bush administration in the run-up to the Iraq war, as well as his efforts to cover up the important findings of Helgerson's IG reports.

The Obama administration named John Dunlop to investigate CIA's use of torture and abuse, although Dunlop has dragged his heels investigating the CIA's destruction of the torture tapes. This combination of factors ensures that the agency culture of cover up will continue to prevail.

Reform Clandestine Operations and Covert Action

If the cold war and the Soviet threat generated the rules that governed the use of covert action, then the end of the cold war and the dissolution of the Soviet Union demanded a re-examination of clandestine operations, creating new requirements and, perhaps, fewer operations.

Despite the failures of covert action, virtually every reform proposal, such as the Brown Commission in 1996 and the 9/11 Commission in 2004, called for more spending on such operations.

The fact that the CIA's National Clandestine Service wittingly passed tainted intelligence to several US presidents in the 1980s and 1990s that was obtained from Soviet and Russian double agents was reason enough for a major shakeup of the clandestine corps. The misuse of clandestine tradecraft that led to the successful suicide bombing of the CIA's most important facility in Afghanistan points to the urgent need for reform.

Past failures of the system include the CIA's support for military organizations in Central America despite their long history of human rights abuses; regime change and assassination plots in Iran, Chile, Vietnam, Cuba, the Congo and Guatemala; and the misuse of fabricated or specious intelligence collection in order to politicize intelligence. President Obama has not addressed these problems and, moreover, he has permitted the CIA's ideological drivers for the RDI program (Steven Kappes and Michael Sulick) to manage the agency.

Revisit the "Reforms" of the 9/11 Commission

The 9/11 Commission failed to use the powers it had been given to explore the reasons for the successful terrorist attacks in 2001, deferring unnecessarily to the White House's use of "executive privilege" and CIA Director George Tenet's refusal to allow commissioners to debrief prisoners held by the CIA. Worst of all, the commission created a new bureaucratic structure for intelligence that has weakened the community. The commission's recommendations led to the creation of the DNI and the NCTC, the two institutions most responsible for the near disaster on Christmas Day.

The DNI failed to allocate additional resources to the problems of Yemen and al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula, despite sufficient intelligence collection pointing to increased terrorist activity. The DNI also failed to create a High-Value Interrogation Group, which could have been used to interrogate the Nigerian bomber, Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

The NCTC failed to develop a sophisticated Google-type search tool for its database that would have allowed a successful search for Abdulmutallab, whose name had various phonetic spellings. The State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the CIA also contributed to the Christmas Day failure.

President Obama indirectly conceded that the entire intelligence system had failed when he deplored the fact that "no one intelligence entity or team or task force was assigned responsibility for doing a follow-up investigation" of the intelligence collection on the Nigerian bomber, his trip to Yemen, and his contacts with al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula.

In other words, more than eight years after the 9/11 attacks and nearly seven decades after Pearl Harbor, we still lacked a centralized operational system capable of exploiting the excellent intelligence collected to prevent attacks against the United States.

* * * * *

There is a serious difference between the current CIA failures and past CIA failures. The CIA corruption of the 1960s and 1970s during the Vietnam War led to the creation of the Congressional oversight committees as well as a Congressional review function for covert action.

The Iran-contra scandal of 1987-1988 led to the creation of a statutory or independent IG at the CIA, appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate. But the 9/11 and Iraq war intelligence failures, marked by bureaucratic corruption and incompetence at the CIA, have not been accompanied by a reform effort designed to correct systemic failures.

The Obama administration has sought no accountability for the CIA's extra-legal activities in RDI, and has authorized greater use of CIA drone attacks, which have contributed to instability in Pakistan and increased anti-American feeling throughout the Middle East and Southwest Asia.

The Congressional oversight committees have not investigated the extra-legal activities of the post-9/11 era, and the Senate Judiciary Committee failed to support its chairman's call for a bipartisan accounting of these activities.

The failures of the DNI and the NCTC in the Christmas Day events and the National Clandestine Service in the suicide bombing in Afghanistan have been similarly glossed over.

The Congressional oversight committees have not examined the use of CIA aircraft in Pakistan, which have resulted in numerous civilian losses and threaten the stability of an ostensible ally in the confrontation with terrorism.

In a democracy, where laws are derived from broad principles of right and wrong and where those principles are protected by agreed procedures, it is not in the interest of the state to flout those procedures at home, or to permit extra-legal activities abroad, which have complicated the task of maintaining credible relations with our allies in the battle against terrorism.

The CIA's most important mission remains the preparation of independent analysis of international issues for senior decision makers; therefore, it is essential to protect the integrity of objective and balanced intelligence. The CIA gives far too much attention to support for the Pentagon and to current intelligence. In the past, CIA analysis served to contradict or at least temper the worst-case analysis of the Pentagon, but this is no longer the case.

President Harry Truman created the CIA to produce strategic intelligence that was not beholden to policy and political interests; President Obama must restore this mission.

Barack Obama in the Crosshairs: Is the military threatening to kill Obama over US war policy ?

2010-02-03T09:26:00.000-08:00

http://www.examiner.com/x-18425-LA-County-Nonpartisan-Examiner~y2010m2d1-Barack-Obama-in-the-Crosshairs-Is-the-military-threatening-to-kill-Obama-over-US-war-policy

Barack Obama in the Crosshairs: Is the military threatening to kill Obama over US war policy ?
February 1, 9:10
LA County Nonpartisan Examiner
Carl Herman

John Hankey is the author of the following compelling analysis that considers if President Obama is under threat to comply with US military orders for supporting war escalation (and its funding). This is part one of two. For part two, click here.
John is the creator of the stunning and historically accurate documentary, "Dark Legacy: George Bush and the assassination of JFK." A 10-minute excerpt from the video is at the end of the article.

This documentary is the historical favorite of my history students and the single-best JFK assassination analysis that I’ve reviewed. “Dark Legacy” walks viewers through the independently verifiable evidence that has two-thirds to three-fourths of Americans conclude the US government story of President Kennedy's assassination is provably false (these polls include ABC, CBS, FOX, PBS).

John did not start out as an Obama admirer; he wrote that Obama looked hand-picked by the darkest fascist forces within our government and was surrounded by them in his campaign. John currently observes that perhaps Obama has burned them; leaving them behind when he became President.

John had an interview with veteran JFK assassination analyst and author, Jim Fetzer, to discuss this topic. Jim also interviewed me to discuss unlawful wars in Iraq, Iran, and the role of the CIA.

The parallels between the administrations of Barack Obama and John Kennedy are stunning:

1. Both engaged in what might be called "Election Deception" During the 1960 election, Kennedy attacked Nixon for being soft on communism, particularly Cuba. In his book, 6 Crises, Nixon complained, bitterly and accurately, that this was an unscrupulous deception on Kennedy's part. Kennedy had been briefed that Nixon and the CIA were planning a full scale invasion of Cuba. So, even though he knew it wasn’t true, Kennedy attacked Nixon from the right, claiming that he, Kennedy, was more of a hawk on Cuba than Nixon. As soon as he got in, Kennedy told the CIA to forget their invasion plans; the CIA went ahead anyway at the Bay of Pigs; and Kennedy fired the top three men at CIA for disobeying his orders.*1 The military shared Nixon's perception that Kennedy was a liar and a traitor.

During the 2004 election, Obama surrounded himself with hawks like Zbigniew Brzezinski, and attacked Bush from the right, saying that he had neglected "the right war," the war in Afghanistan, and that he, Obama, would transfer troops and treasure to the effort in Afghanistan. However, once he got in, Obama brought none of the Brzezinski people with him. None of them. Not Richard Clark. Not Anthony Lake (both of whom were very active in Obama's campaign, and are very deep-cover operatives for the darkest side of the Pentagon). And, as you will see, Obama fought bitterly with the military over their desire for more troops.

2. Both Kennedy and Obama experienced a dramatic change of attitude toward the military early in their presidencies. Even if Obama did not perpetrate a deception to win the election, after he was sworn in got in, his thinking and attitude toward the military began to change dramatically, sharpen and harden against them. This directly parallels what happened to Kennedy.

I don't regard Bob Woodward as a fundamentally reliable source, but to be an effective liar he has to tell important truths sometimes. And I believe there is good reason to credit the story he tells below, inadvertently revealing the development of Obama's thinking on the war in Afghanistan. It describes a briefing given by Obama's National Security Advisor, Jim Jones, to the military commanders in Afghanistan:

During the briefing, [Marine Brigadier General] Nicholson had told Jones that he was "a little light," more than hinting that he could use more forces, probably thousands more. "We don't have enough force to go everywhere," Nicholson said.

But Jones recalled how Obama had initially decided to deploy additional forces this year. "At a table much like this," Jones said, referring to the polished wood table in the White House Situation Room, "the president's principals met and agreed to recommend 17,000 more troops for Afghanistan." The principals -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Gates; Mullen; and the director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair -- made this recommendation in February during the first full month of the Obama administration. The president approved the deployments, which included Nicholson's Marines.

Soon after that, Jones said, the principals told the president, "oops," we need an additional 4,000 to help train the Afghan army.

"They then said, 'If you do all that, we think we can turn this around,' " Jones said, reminding the Marines here that the president had quickly approved and publicly announced the additional 4,000.

Now suppose you're the president, Jones told them, and the requests come into the White House for yet more force. How do you think Obama might look at this? Jones asked, casting his eyes around the colonels. How do you think he might feel?

Jones let the question hang in the air-conditioned, fluorescent-lighted room. Nicholson and the colonels said nothing.

Well, Jones went on, after all those additional troops, 17,000 plus 4,000 more, if there were new requests for force now, the president would quite likely have "a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment." Everyone in the room caught the phonetic reference to W-T-F -- which in the military and elsewhere means "What The F(expletive) ?"
-- Bob Woodward; The Washington Post; Jul 1, 2009; A.1;

My take on the above is that Obama came in somewhat open minded on Afghanistan. In his first month in office, he asked the military what they needed; they told him, and he gave them 17,000 troops without a blink. When they turned around and asked for another 4,ooo just a few months later, Obama was disconcerted. If these guys knew what they were doing, they should have been right the first time about how many troops they needed. But without a complaint, he gave them another 4 thousand men. When the generals started to press for more, Obama had his w-t-f moment, and sent Jones to straighten them out. Jones was telling the generals that requesting more troops would be showing Obama that they are clueless. Obama has tried to show his awareness that there are thousands of lives in the balance.

Kennedy had his Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment at the Bay of Pigs, and again during the Cuban Missile Crisis*2. He came to see his military advisors and commanders as blind-to-the-point-of-insane ideologues. And the quote above I think shows that Obama's developing vision of the military has closely paralleled the development of Kennedy's vision of these professional killers.

3. Kennedy faced, and Obama faces a military full of ideologues
Curtis LeMay is the most infamous of the insanely rabid military advisors Kennedy had. LeMay, against specific orders, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, sent a U2 spy plane flying into Russian airspace, apparently hoping that the Russians would think this was an attack and push the red button. LeMay was confident that in the full-scale nuclear exchange that would follow, the US would suffer 30 to 50 million casualties, tops, but the Russians would be wiped out. Hurray! We'd win! LeMay and his peers were livid that Kennedy was refusing to send troops to Vietnam.

For the past eight years, Bush has forced into retirement those military leaders with an objective approach to fighting "terrorism"; and he has promoted Muslim-hating Christian ideologues who seek a new-age Christian Crusade against the Muslim heretics. *22

An objective military observer must question the idea of equating "insurgents" with "terrorists": There has never been even a suggestion that the Taliban were involved in attacks on the US. The Taliban government of Afghanistan offered to hand over Osama if the US could provide evidence of his guilt. But the US invaded instead of providing evidence. In this context, the "insurgents" are, essentially and merely, patriots who oppose the domination of their country by foreign troops. This is a common view within the Obama administration:

Supporters of (Vice-President Joe) Biden's view (that no more troops should be sent) argue that adding more troops would actually make the problem worse, not better, because the Taliban draw support from the fiercely nationalist Pashtun ethnic group in Afghanistan and Pakistan, who will mobilize to resist a long-term occupation. "The real fact is, the more people we put in, the more opposition there will be," says Selig Harrison, a longtime observer of Afghanistan at the Center for International Policy. (Rolling Stone *3)

One need not agree with this view to recognize that it is reasoned and legitimate. But this viewpoint is not represented in the military that Obama inherited from Bush. Senior officers with this point of view were forced into retirement under Bush. And Obama is faced with commanders such as Lt. Gen. David Barno, a "counter-insurgency" advocate who served as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan: "We're going to be involved in this type of activity in a number of countries for the next 15 to 20 years." Barno does not just want to wipe out the Taliban. He wants to expand the conflict to other countries and carry it on for generations. What does Barno's plan, to kill Afghan patriots, have to do with eliminating "terrorism"?

And a more terrifying question: These trained killers from the military currently have the blood of hundreds of thousands of Muslims on their hands. They have watched at close range as 1000's of young American soldiers have been slaughtered. How do you supposed they feel about a Black president, born to a Muslim father, trained in Muslim schools, telling them they can't have any more troops for their holy war against Muslims? "Rabid" seems a likely answer.

I am not the first to see the parallels between Kennedy’s and Obama’s conflicts with the military.

The first article I saw on this topic was by Berkeley Professor Peter Dale Scott. *3 Robert Parry has written importantly on the topic (see *12).

Lawrence Wilkerson, a former top aide to Secretary of State Colin Powell, observed in the Rolling Stone article*3, "It's going to take John Kennedy-type courage to turn to his Curtis LeMay and say, 'No, we're not going to bomb Cuba’. It took a lot of courage on Kennedy's part to defy the Pentagon, defy the military — and do the right thing." I must assume that Wilkerson is not familiar with the details of how John Kennedy's conflict with the military ended. See section 8 below for some of those pertinent details. There can not be a reasonable doubt that the military killed JFK.

4. Kennedy sought out Military advisors not committed to or dominated by the Pentagon. Obama has done likewise. The "Jim Jones" from the long quote (in section 2 above), is a familiar figure; that is, he reminds me of the kind of man that Kennedy brought in to advise him. He is a former Marine general. He has impeccable "toughness" credentials. But he is not a Muslim-hating ideologue, out to wage a modern crusade against Islam, to win back the holy land, I mean the holy oil, for Jesus. So he was forced into retirement by Bush. But Obama picked him up out of retirement and made him National Security Advisor. Kennedy had such people in his administration. Roger Hillsman was a WWII hero, who Kennedy made his undersecretary for South East Asian affairs. Hillsman looked at Vietnam, and saw what Kennedy saw; and he saw what many observers of Afghanistan see today:

1) an utterly corrupt, inept, cowardly, self-interested puppet regime with no constituency among the local people;
2) a dedicated, heroic, entrenched opposition with roots 1000 years deep among the locals; and
3) an ideology-driven military willing to make ridiculous promises of success, "if only we can get just one more troop increase"; with a nearly unlimited thirst for "insurgent" blood; and with no understanding of the limits of their power.

5. The military overtly challenged Kennedy’s right as commander-in-chief to set policy. Their treatment of Obama has been similarly outrageous.
Kennedy rejected the military’s recommendation for an invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs; and the military, led by the CIA, went ahead with it anyway. JFK rejected the military’s suggestion that the US should overthrow Diem, the president of South Vietnam; the military not only organized Diem’s overthrow, they assassinated him. And of course, for three years Kennedy steadfastly refused their pressure to commit combat troops to Vietnam. Obama's military has similarly challenged his right to set military policy.

After Obama sent Jim Jones to Afghanistan to let his generals know that they had gotten all the troops they were going to get (as described in section 2 above) Stanley McChrystal began a campaign for more troops that was insubordinate to the point of being illegal. The endnote below (*3) contains the full story as outlined in Rolling Stone. McChrystal responded to Jones' visit and message by writing a demand for 40,000 troops, which he immediately, and illegally, leaked it to the press. The Republican leadership demanded that McChrystal be brought before the Senate to have a national stage for his defiance of Obama's attempts to set policy. McChrystal went on 60 Minutes to complain that Obama was not listening to him; and then flew into London to publicly call Obama "shortsighted". Obama flew to Europe and ordered McChrystal to meet with him on his plane. Two days later, Jim Jones rebuked McChrystal for failing to “follow the chain of command."

But on December 1st, Obama caved in to McChrystal and committed to send an additional 30,000 troops; even though the American public, the Democratic leadership in the Congress, and his closest advisors were overwhelmingly dead set against it. What happened? Obama tried, in this speech, to maintain a shred of dignity and authority by saying that the primary role of these troops would be to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people; and he promised that they would begin to head home in 18 months. Eight days later, he was roundly contradicted on every score, simultaneously, by a quartet of men we ought to regard as his underlings:

Hamid Karzai, the US installed, officially illegitimate "president" of Afghanistan, who owes his position, security, and daily bread to the US, overtly contradicted Obama's statements about the limits of the US commitment, telling a press conference that "Afghanistan's security forces will need U.S. support for another 15 to 20 years"*5

On the same podium, on the same day, Robert M. Gates, US Secretary of Defense (and Karzai's apparent puppet master) echoed this same affront to Obama, saying "it will be some time before Afghanistan is able to sustain its security forces entirely on its own ... whether that's 15 or 20 years".*5 (It should be noted in red letters that Gates was appointed by Bush, and carried over by Obama.)

On the same day, the LA Times reports McChrystal told the Senate, "that the U.S. needed to signal a long-term commitment in Afghanistan".*5

Such calls for a long term US commitment not only contradict the stated policy of the President, but they are overt provocations to legitimate Afghan nationalists. They not only undermine official US policy, but they serve the recruiting efforts of the "insurgents;" thereby putting the lives of American soldiers at greater risk; and not only constitute insubordination, but speeches by the military constitute an illegal and anti-democratic attempt by unelected military officials to dictate political policy, a virtual military coup of the President’s powers and duties.

6. Both Obama and JFK were faced with faced with overt threats of assassination. On November 22, 1963, Dallas was filled with wanted posters calling for Kennedy to be given the death penalty for treason. The NY Times carried an op-ed on September 29, 2009 talking about the “very dangerous” climate now in America, “the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination.” Four days later, on October 3rd, the Wall Street Journal pointed to three overt physical threats to Obama: a poll on Facebook asking whether the president should be assassinated, a column on a conservative Web site suggesting a military coup is in the works and Rep. Trent Franks (R., Ariz.) calling Mr. Obama "an enemy of humanity." *7

JFK felt, and Obama feels, threatened by the military
JFK encouraged and assisted Hollywood in the making of "Seven Days in May," a fictional account of a military coup in the US. Kennedy wanted this story to be told. He thought the American people needed to be alerted to the threat to democracy posed by the military. No one knows what went on in his head, but it is reasonable to conclude that he felt this was a real and important threat. Robert Parry has written that Obama had a “Seven Days In May moment”, meaning that he felt the threat of a military coup, when he began trying to withdraw troops from Iraq. (This is another critically important news article. see *12)

The Rolling Stone article says that in October, "the Pentagon and top military brass were trying to make the President an offer he couldn't refuse." Now - "an offer he can't refuse" is a reference to the movie, The Godfather. In the movie, the man who receives the "offer he can't refuse" wakes up and finds that the head of his prized horse has been cut off and put in the bed next to him while he was asleep; in order to send the message: "We are brutal. We are killers. We got into your bedroom. If we had wanted to kill you, we would have. Next time we will. If you want to live, don't let there be an next time." The author of the Rolling Stone article does not have superhuman powers of perception. But he has written a detailed article on the relations between Obama and his military. And he has included this suggestion of overt threats of death made to Obama by the military. And the article goes on, "They (the generals) wanted the president to escalate the war — go all in by committing 40,000 more troops and another trillion dollars to a Vietnam-like quagmire — or face a full-scale mutiny by his generals." And what is "a full-scale mutiny"? It means a coup. That is what it means, clearly, plainly, and simply.

The insightful author of this insightful article, Robert Dreyfus, clearly feels that the military wants Obama to feel threatened.

7. Kennedy was plagued, and Obama is plagued, with a Secret Service that is grossly incompetent. If you need proof beyond Kennedy's murder, see the endnote*8 The failures of the Secret Service to protect Obama are worse. At the very least, it can be said in favor of Kennedy’s Secret Service that they did not allow the shooters onto the White House grounds. The incident of the so-called "Party Crashers," has to give Obama pause. The Salahis, the uninvited guests, the husband and wife team who walked into White House reception for the Indian Prime Minister, easily penetrated the most high-security affair to take place at the White House in recent memory. The Indian Prime Minister is regarded as a prime target for Muslim extremists, and everyone present could be considered at great risk from a security lapse. Whatever else can be said of the Salahis, they presented a starkly clear message to Obama: "you are not protected. Your Secret Service is criminally negligent, if not just criminal.”

8. Is the Military threatening to kill Obama? The evidence of the involvement of the military in the assassination of JFK is, I think, beyond dispute*9. Certainly, this evidence has given every president since Kennedy nightmares about the risks involved in taking on the military Kennedy, like Obama, was under fierce pressure to send troops to Vietnam.*10 And as you will see, the military has taken steps to make Obama feel that his life is in grave danger at their hands.

Vice president Biden, and Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, have both been outspoken in their opposition to sending troops to Afghanistan. They are both Obama spokesmen. It may be assumed that at all times they speak for the president. And yet they spent the 10 months before the President's Dec. 1 speech, undercutting the President's final decision to send troops. *11 Does that make any sense? Two weeks before the President’s speech, Obama’s ambassador to Afghanistan wrote Obama a memo in which he warned against sending troops to support a regime so corrupt that it enjoyed no popular support. This ambassador, Karl Eikenberry, is a retired Army general and former commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan. He is one of the not-insane commanders that Bush pushed into retirement; and Obama brought back him back in. Eikenberry’s memo against sending troops was immediately leaked to the press, and showed up on the front pages of the LA Times and NY Times. There was no outcry from the White House about the leak, suggesting that Obama approved it. Does that make any sense? It appears that the President was undercutting his own position, 2 weeks before taking it? Pelosi and the other Democratic leaders have taken similar positions as Eikenberry. They might be accused of pandering to the American people, who are broadly opposed to sending more troops; but it would be unusual for congressional Democratic leaders to undercut their president in this way. The Bob Woodward article, presented in section 2 above, reveals a President with no plans to send troops, taking steps to confront those military leaders with desires for more troops, and telling them to forget it. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!! What happened? Why did Obama suddenly change the position that his spokesmen had been taking for nearly a year; the position that he was promoting, through his ambassador, just two weeks before; that other leading Democrats had been promoting; and that he had stated so forcefully to his commanders in the field? Why did he suddenly decide to send 30,000 troops to kill and be killed in a cause he knows to be hopeless?

This is NOT a small deal. No? It can’t have been a whimsical decision on his part. It must have been based on something. We should be able, then, to look at the events in the news and identify some major occurrence that would cause such a shift. No? Let's see. The central feature behind Biden’s and Emmanuel’s position was that the Afghan puppet regime was too corrupt to win popular support. *13 Just recently, the regime proved too corrupt to even stage an election, even after the UN ruled the last election fraudulent and illegitimate. Could this miserable failure, to stage an election, have changed Obama's mind? No. In fact, reports from Afghanistan are that the corruption and incompetence of the puppet regime have only gotten worse. *14

When you come up with an answer, for any of these questions, I would be very grateful if you would let me know. Because I don’t like my answer. But here it is:

A military coup, of sorts, has taken place. This coup, this wresting by force of power from the hands of the President was accomplished in two separate events.

The first event involves the so-called "Party Crashers." The Salahis managed, not only to enter, but they proceeded to first shake hands with the two most outspoken opponents of sending more troops: Joe Biden, and Rahm Emanuel. And the Salahis then they shook hands with Obama himself. They had gained entrance through the intercession of the Pentagon*21. Whether or not they told the President, "Send troops or die", they unquestionably told him, through their actions, "The Secret Service can’t, or won’t, protect you. Your life is over when the Pentagon says it's over." This is not speculation; or interpretation. It is clear; unequivocal; basic. No?

But wait! There's more! The Rolling Stone article is so much better than the author intended! I know that he did not mean a "coup" when he wrote that the generals were threatening a "full scale revolt". I don't think he meant a death threat when he wrote "an offer he couldn't refuse". And I don't think he grasped the import of this remark:

Even worse, the administration has to take into account the possibility of a terrorist attack, which would allow the GOP to put the blame on the White House. "All it would take is one terrorist attack, vaguely linked to Afghanistan, for the military and his opponents to pounce all over him," says Pillar.

Robert Dreyfuss, the Rolling Stone writer, is saying that Obama caved because of the threat of another "terrorist" attack. Now. The suggestion that US military was complicit in the crimes of 9/11 is similar to saying that the Secret Service was complicit in the crashing of the Obama’s White House party: it’s indisputable. The Salahis could not have entered if the White House had the Secret Service not let them in. Indisputably. And none of the planes could have hit any of the buildings on 9/11 if the US air defenses had not gone completely to sleep. The Pentagon attack is particularly egregious. The official story is that 50 minutes after the 1st plane hit the World Trade Center, US air defenses, on flaming red alert, designed to defend against supersonic missiles and jet fighters, not only failed to stop a slow moving humongous 757, they failed to get off a shot! Not a single shot in defense of the most highly defended building on the planet. The following week, Richard Meyers, who was in charge of US air defenses on 9/11, instead of being court-marshaled and shot, as he clearly ought to have been, was promoted, to the highest position in the military: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.*15

For part two, click here.

Footnotes:
*1 Kennedy's cancellation of the invasion is not widely known; but it is documented in the US Government publication of the official investigation, a document entitled Operation Zapata.
*2 During the missile crisis, Kennedy's advisors told him that the Russian missiles in Cuba were not armed, and advised an attack and invasion. It has come out from the Russian side, that the missiles were ready, armed with nuclear warheads, and the local commanders were authorized to use them. Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense at the time, has made much of this his book and DVD The Fog of War.
*3 P.D. Scott: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15752
Robert Parry: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/022009.html See also *12
The following are highlights from the Rolling Stone article depicting the efforts by McChrystal to force Obama to implement McChrystal's foreign policy, rather than Obama's:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/30493567/the_generals_revolt

The military's campaign to force Obama's hand started in earnest in September, when the Commander's Initial Assessment of the war — a highly classified report prepared by McChrystal — was leaked to The Washington Post. In the report, McChrystal paints a dire picture of the American effort in Afghanistan, concluding that a massive increase in troop levels is the only way to prevent a humiliating failure.

On Capitol Hill, hawkish GOP congressmen seized the opening to turn up the heat on Obama by demanding that he allow McChrystal and Petraeus to come to Washington to testify at high-profile hearings to ask for more troops. "It is time to listen to our commanders on the ground, not the ever-changing political winds whispering defeat in Washington," declared Sen. Kit Bond, a Republican from Missouri. Attempting to usurp Obama's authority as commander in chief, Sen. John McCain introduced an amendment to compel the two generals to come before Congress, but the measure was voted down by the Democratic majority.

As the pressure from the military and the right built, McChrystal went on 60 Minutes to complain that he had only talked to Obama once since his appointment in June. Then, upping the ante, the general flew to London for a speech, where he was asked if de-escalating the war, along the lines reportedly suggested by Vice President Joe Biden, might work. "The short answer is: no," said McChrystal, dismissing the idea as "shortsighted." His comment — which bluntly defied the American tradition that a military officer's job is to carry out policy, not make it — shocked political observers in Washington and reportedly angered the White House.

For his part, Obama moved quickly to handle the insurrection. One day after McChrystal's defiant London speech, the president unexpectedly summoned the general to a one-on-one meeting aboard an idling Air Force One in Copenhagen. No details of the discussion were released, but two days later Jim Jones, the retired Marine general who now serves as Obama's national-security adviser, publicly rebuked McChrystal, declaring that it is "better for military advice to come up through the chain of command."

"Petraeus and McChrystal have put Obama in a trick bag," says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a former top aide to Secretary of State Colin Powell. "We had this happen one time before, with Douglas MacArthur" — the right-wing general who was fired after he defied President Truman over the Korean War in 1951.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/30493567/the_generals_revolt

*4 Eichenberry, 18 days before Obama's Dec. 1 speech announcing 30,000 more troops, wrote a memo to Obama urging him not to send Americans to die defending a regime as utterly corrupt and worthless as the puppet regime in Afghanistan. latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-obama-afghan12-2009nov12,0,2561752.story
*5 LA Times 12/9/09 http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-afghan-mcchrystal9-2009dec09,0,224382.story
*6 LA Times, 12/16/09 latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-afghan-special-forces16-2009dec16,0,2135079.story
*7 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125452861657560895.html
*8 The secret service manual requires the planners of a motorcade to pour on extra protection when there is a sharp turn in the route, which requires that the car slow down. Agents should, therefore, have been positioned all over Dealey Plaza to insure that there were no open windows. That is standard procedure. Instead, there were no secret service agents at all on the ground in Dealey Plaza. The protective motorcycle escort was ordered to stay behind the President's vehicle. The limo is equipped with handles on the rear trunk lid, and steps built into the bumper, to accommodate agents riding on the back. The agents were waived off this position and moved into a following car. The driver should have stepped on the gas when the first shot was fired. Instead, the driver braked and slowed, for the next 6 seconds. Only after Kennedy was shot in the head did the driver take off.
*9 I've spent 40 years researching, and 10 years making a documentary that makes this point in spades. (I'll gladly provide you with a copy. It is available on Amazon if you'd like to read the reviews.) In the video, you will see a video interview with Aubrey Rike, the man who loaded Kennedy's body into a bronze casket. You will also see a video interview with Paul O,Neil, the Bethesda Naval Hospital sailor who unloaded the body from a grey shipping casket, 20 minutes before the bronze casket arrived at the facility. An FBI memo, shown in a section of the video narrated by Walter Cronkite, says that it was obvious that Kennedy's wounds had been altered. Pre-autopsy photos also show this mutilation of the body. And one of the doctors from the Dallas emergency room, in an excerpt from a NOVA special, points to an autopsy photo of the entrance wound on Kennedy's right temple and says that the photos show it was altered before the autopsy began. The military had complete control of the body and the autopsy. They, and no one else, altered the critical head wound. This was an entrance wound to Kennedy's right temple. It was fired from the so-called "grassy knoll". It exited the back leaving a gaping 4-inch hole in the rear of Kennedy's head. The wound to Kennedy’s temple was altered to disguise it’s characteristic appearance as an entrance wound. But the alterations were done at least 5 hours before Oswald was charged. The autopsy room was full of admirals and generals. These men were acting as part of the conspiracy to murder. There is no room for reasonable debate on any of these points.
*10 The movie JFK does an amazing job of making this point. The movie presents a "Mr. X." This is not a fictional character. The man's name was Fletcher Prouty. He was the Pentagon liaison to the CIA. And he was deeply and directly involved, as shown in the movie, in the dual efforts of JFK both to eliminate the CIA, and to withdraw from Vietnam.
*11 Biden:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/09/biden-begs-obama-no-more-troops-to-afghanistan.html
Emanuel: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/world/asia/19afghan.html
Eikenberry: latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-obama-afghan12-2009nov12,0,2561752.story

*12 Robert Parry says the same things has happened to Obama's stated plans to withdraw from Iraq http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/022009.html

*13 You can NOT win a war against an insurgency that is more popular than you. You can go on fighting forever, which is what the generals have stated is their anticipated outcome. But you can not win a peace without a government that is a just and fair and popularly supported.
*14 In fact, conditions in Afghanistan continue to deteriorate. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091211/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan
Dec. 11, 2009
Top UN official in Afghanistan to leave in March
Gareth Price, head of the Asia program at Chatham House, a think tank in London, said “it's clear now that the Afghan government isn't working."
*15 My favorite is a lecture given by a physics professor, Steven Jones. Jones was a tenured, admired physics professor at Brigham Young University. Jones is a devout and conservative Christian and Mormon. He voted for Bush. But his physics students asked him to explain the collapse of the buildings at the World Trade Center, particularly building 7. He enthusiastically approached the question as a teachable moment. At first he approached the question as one of basic physics:

"Can the heat from jet fuel and office supplies explain the collapse of a steel structure?" He concluded, with enormous anguish, that it cannot. He was tortured by the implications for many months. And then he woke up one morning and remembered that he was a leading expert, on a world-class level, at chemical analysis. (The first time I googled his name, his published papers on his techniques for determining the chemical content of crystalline structures is what came up first.) And, having determined that the official story of airplanes and jet fuel could not account for the collapse of the buildings, he determined to use his expertise to analyze samples of dust from the World Trade Center to search for evidence of what did, in fact, bring down the buildings. He found abundant of evidence (metallic microspheres) of steel having been evaporated (such tiny microspheres are created when steel is evaporated) and also abundant samples of the military grade demolition explosive, thermate, including the wrappers for the explosive. Thermate is virtually the only way that steel can be heated to sufficiently high temperatures that it evaporates. But I have several other DVD's besides the one by Professor Jones. All of this information, including the videos, are available online.

John Hankey is the author of the following compelling analysis that considers if President Obama is under threat to comply with US military orders for supporting war escalation (and its funding). This is part two of two; for part one, click here.
John is the creator of the stunning and historically accurate documentary, "Dark Legacy: George Bush and the assassination of JFK." A 10-minute excerpt from the video is at the end of the article.

This documentary is the historical favorite of my history students and the single-best JFK assassination analysis that I’ve reviewed. “Dark Legacy” walks viewers through the independently verifiable evidence that has two-thirds to three-fourths of Americans conclude the US government story of President Kennedy's assassination is provably false (these polls include ABC, CBS, FOX, PBS).

John did not start out as an Obama admirer; he wrote that Obama looked hand-picked by the darkest fascist forces within our government and was surrounded by them in his campaign. John currently observes that perhaps Obama has burned them; leaving them behind when he became President.

John had an interview with veteran JFK assassination analyst and author, Jim Fetzer, to discuss this topic. Jim also interviewed me to discuss unlawful wars in Iraq, Iran, and the role of the CIA.

John's article, printed with his permission; part two of two. For part one, click here:

So the military, under the Bush administration, was indisputably complicit in the events of 9/11, if only by the most jaw-dropping incompetence; incompetence that was warmly rewarded by the Republican White House. So when the Republican leadership says Obama's attempts to reduce troops and spending in Iraq and Afghanistan threaten to unleash a new terrorist attack, this is a genuine threat from genuine blood-covered terrorists.

The Fort Hood shooting is this “terrorist” threat made real. There is much in the story of Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, to suggest that he was a Manchurian Candidate, that he was “programmed,” through hypnosis, to do what he did. Though such a thing can never, by it's very nature be proved. (If you have ever seen a demonstration by a professional hypnotist, you already know that anyone will do anything under hypnosis and that they will have no recollection afterward) *16. However, there are a number of things about the case of Malik Hasan that are especially persuasive that he was under military control: *17

1) Hasan had at least 13 email contacts with a radical Muslim imam. The Imam told Al JaZeera that the first of these emails, sent 11 months before the shooting, sought the Imam’s approval for Hasan’s shooting his fellow soldiers. *17b Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee's intelligence subcommittee, said that he has confirmed that Hasan wired money to Pakistan. *18 There has been much discussion in the “news” about the fact that the FBI took no steps to apprehend or otherwise stop Hasan. But the contents of his emails have not been released. That is highly suspicious. Can we conjecture that if the contents were innocuous, that they would have been released? Sure we can. The Imam found his house under attack within 24 hours of his publicizing the contents of those emails. But this discussion is a distraction from the flashing red light: the FBI did not even open a file on Hasan. That is not preposterous. It is very clear in its meaning. There is only one conceivable explanation, and an obvious one. If the FBI failed to take steps as basic as opening a file, it is because they were ordered not to do so; by another agency of the federal government. Again, that is hardly speculative. It should be basic common knowledge: if a drug dealer gets picked up by some police agency in possession of a bag full of drugs; and walks out the door, without being arrested, with his bag of drugs, and without a file being opened, it’s because he’s undercover. Apparently some agency of the federal government ordered Hasan to send these emails. That is speculative, but no other explanation will suffice.*19 And certainly, the FBI was ordered not to open a file. Of this there cannot be any doubt.

2) Similarly, the FBI's excuse for not opening a file, was that they discovered that Hasan was doing research on the attitudes of Muslims serving in the US military. How they made this determination, without opening a file, is a mystery to me. But let that alone for the moment. For whom was Hasan doing this research? Duh. No? But the attitude of the media to such obvious questions is “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

3) Lee Harvey Oswald had been set up by the CIA to appear to be an agent of Fidel Castro. But the FBI investigated all this evidence and determined that it was a fraud. *20 So for Hasan to have been set-up in a similar fashion would be par for the course. Fletcher Prouty (see endnote 11) was tipped off that Kennedy's murder was a military plot by the fact that Oswald's entire bio appeared in the papers in Australia, where Prouty was when he learned of the crime, before Oswald was even charged. The NY Times and Fox news were spreading the contents of the FBI's non-files / non-investigation, showing Hasan to be an Arab terrorist, while they were still reporting that he was dead, before they knew that he was still alive. That is, someone on the inside was distributing this insider knowledge about a guy who supposedly was of no interest. It seems clear as day to me that it was a set-up.

4) Now, this is my favorite part. In the 1944 detective movie, "Double Indemnity”, Edward G. Robinson, the detective, is alerted that something foul is going on because the insured dead man had an insurance policy with disability as well as death benefits; but when he broke his leg, he didn't try to use the disability benefits in his policy. Why didn't he use it? He must not have known he had an insurance policy. His wife purchased the policy behind his back, and then killed him. OK. Now answer this:
If Obama actually wanted to send troops to Afghanistan; if he actually wanted to move the American people to see the necessity of "fighting terrorism there before it becomes terrorism here;" why did he not wave the bloody shirt from the Fort Hood shooting? Why did he not claim Hasan to be a terrorist? Why did he not use him as an example of the continued threat? Obviously, then, Obama was not part of any plot to kill soldiers at Fort Hood to justify a continued war on "terror".

And now, you do the math. Add 1 + 1. Add “Party Crashers” to “programmed shooter” and what do you get? You get Nancy Pelosi as president.

But things have changed since 1963, haven’t they? The military has matured. It is not so rabid, blood thirsty, and wild, as it used to be. They wouldn’t overtly threaten to kill the President in this way, would they? The threats to which Obama caved were political threats, not physical ones. No? No. 1) Obama is a master politician. He’s not afraid of a political fight. He is more capable of winning support for his position than any of his opponents. And besides, the American people are against sending troops, so this is an easy victory. I don’t see how political threats could force him to send young men and women to their deaths, for a cause he and everyone around him knows is hopeless. Counter insurgency in support of a corrupt regime is killing for the sake of killing. 2) The military was, at the very least, complicit in the 9-11 murders of 3,000 Americans. 3) They were apparently involved in the murder of 13 soldiers at Ft. Hood. 4) So it doesn’t seem times have changed for the better. Eisenhower said that the greatest threat to our national security came from what he called “the military industrial complex” in this country; a ruling elite with enormous political power. These people had the deepest support for Hitler during WWII. And they orchestrated a performance by the media, the Secret Service, the FBI, the mafia, and the military that murdered JFK; and they have kept the truth suppressed ever since, the ridiculousness of their cove-story not withstanding. They just passed a 630 billion dollar defense budget, in a world where the primary threat is a few hundred men with hand-held weapons. What reason is there to think that they would hesitate to kill Obama? Do you suppose they like having a Black man as President?

So. Perhaps you are convinced that Obama was persuaded, by threats against his life, to send troops. If so, there is a more terrible question lurking out there. Were they threatening? Or were they practicing? Or both?

When I was first confronted with these ideas, my impulse was to see Obama as a coward, as lacking the courage that Lawrence Wilkerson suggests Obama needs to stand up to the generals (see the end of segment 3 above). But a "full scale revolt" of the generals does not merely imply the death of Obama. A military seizure of the government would entail far more deaths than his, certainly many thousands. President Johnson, in choosing not to pursue Kennedy's killers (no-doubt well known to him), faced a similar choice: the threat of a full scale revolt – that is, a military coup; civil war, death and prison camps for many thousands, if not millions. But Johnson and Obama are not the only ones confronted with difficult choices. The information presented here suggests that your democratic government has already been seized. It is not in the hands of your democratically elected President. And what are YOU going to do about it, Patriot? Are you going to be a sheep and a traitor, a collaborator? Or an insurgent?

In our political system, it is virtually a given that all politicians are corrupt. The politician wants to get elected; so he takes money from thieves; the best do small things to help the people; but they all do what they think they have to to keep the money flowing in. But people are people. They occasionally get carried away by an idea, or by the moment, and they get inspired to think that real virtue is possible, even for them. And for such people, at such times, there are other forms of coercion. Blackmail, for example. Further, all politicians know, and the media too, that to admit certain truths means, at least, political death. And on occasion, there is the real murder of an individual who thinks he can, and does, serve the interests of the people. John Kennedy was such a one. And such a murder is a great lesson to all the living about the facts of life. My point is that “coercion with the threat of death” is a real tool used by the ruling elite. Typically its use is extremely low key, I’m sure. But on occasion its use may be sufficiently high profile to be identified. And I think we can see this clearly with Obama. I believe that the evidence shows that the military has overtly threatened, at the very least, to kill Obama. I believe they are also, in preparation for the day that he stands up to them, practicing to kill him. I would ask you please to disseminate this as widely as possible, as the most practical way to oppose their ability to do this. I apologize for its length.

I’m full of misgivings about this article. It seems plausible that Obama is a Kerry-like operative, and this “threat” provides Obama a pretext to explain to people in his immediate base the reason for his actions. When I see his continuation of Bush policies at every level and in every area (I’m sure you have your own list) it disheartens me to the point of despair. But a close study of John Kennedy’s history is useful; and demonstrates that it is plausible that, like Kennedy, Obama is choosing his battles and trying to accomplish what he feels he can without throwing away the midterm elections. It is certainly the case that if this were 1963, the people who are criticizing Obama and calling him a sellout, would be criticizing Kennedy, and calling him a sellout. It is not unimportant that 40 million people who were without xxxare going to have medical insurance.

John Hankey is the author of JFKII, the Bush Connection; a 103-minute documentary detailing the evidence linking George Bush Sr. to the assassination of John Kennedy. The video is available for free on the web, at BushKilledJFK.com, and at Amazon.com. You can reach him at xjhankeyx@yahoo.com

Footnotes:

*16 The assassin of Robert Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan, is the best example, since his case was the most thoroughly examined. The papers splashed the idea of his being a radical West-hating Palestinian across the front page. But Sirhan was a Christian. He and his family liked the Kennedys. He had no recollection of the shooting. And every eye-witness says that his gun never got with 3 feet of Kennedy’s front, while Kennedy had powder burns on the back of his head, that the coroner said were left by a shot from not more than 1 inch. Photographs showing CIA operatives, known Kennedy haters, around the Biltmore hotel that night, have been recently uncovered.

The shooters of John Lennon, George Wallace, and Ronald Reagan fit similar profiles, but their cases have not been so carefully investigated.

The CIA spent 30 years researching hypnotism, but they learned nothing and there are no files. As I said, if you’ve ever seen a hypnotist at work, you will see that a person under hypnosis can be gotten to do anything. But that not everyone is susceptible. Sirhan was hypnotized by court appointed psychiatrists. He was demonstrably susceptible.
*17 The link will take you to a stunning report on the shooter from the NY Times. You have to read through to the end to get to the most amazing quotes from his neighbors. He was, apparently, a friendly, lovable guy.
The tenants generally saw him leave early and come home late in the afternoon, usually in his fatigues. He never had visitors, they said, but he was friendly with his neighbors.
“The first day he moved in, he offered to give me a ride to work,” said Willie Bell, 51, who lived next door. “He’d give you the shoes and shirt and pants off him if you need it. Nicest guy you’d want to meet. (Boy! you sure don't find that quote in the headlines.)
“The very first day I seen him, he hugged me like, ‘My brother, how you doing?’ ”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/us/09reconstruct.html?scp=3&sq=%22Why%20the%20War%20on%20Terror%20Is%20a%20War%20on%20Islam%22&st=cse
17b http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=9410718 “Fort Hood: Hasan Asked Awlaki If It Was Okay to Kill American Soldiers” Please note that this is ABC news online. This story has been utterly suppressed. It was never broadcast by ABC, or carried by any major newspaper. Within 24 hours of the publication of this report, Awlaki’s home was bombed by Yemeni war planes. You didn’t know Yemen had an airforce?
*18 http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/111309dnentcharges.4179b70.html
"I have confirmed through independent sources that there were communications and wire transfers made to Pakistan," McCaul said in a prepared statement provided by his spokesman. "This Pakistan connection just raises more red flags about this case and demonstrates why it's important for Congress to exercise its oversight authority."
*19 Curiouser and curiouser. Obama ordered the FBI to investigate themselves to determine “whiskey tango foxtrot” they were doing in this case. And the day they finished their investigation, he ordered them to do it again, only this time with outside supervision. Immediately after the shooting, Obama ordered a total clampdown on leaks of information about the case. There is clearly much more going on here than meets the eye: http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-fort-hood9-2009dec09,0,399074.story
*20 John Connally, who is implicated in the JFK assassination, called LBJ to urge him to pursue this avenue in order to justify an invasion of Cuba. The call was recorded and is available on line both in transcript and audio form. The CIA claimed to have a photo of Oswald visiting the Cuban embassy. But the photo does not remotely resemble Oswald, and the FBI investigation says Oswald was elsewhere at the time. Further, Oswald's representation of himself as a member of the genuine pro-Castro "Fair Play for Cuba Committee" (FPCC) proved to be a complete fraud. He was the only "member" of his local chapter. He set it up without authorization from the actual FPCC. The address he used on his leaflets for the FPCC was that of a CIA office run by the former head of the Chicago FBI, Guy Bannister.
*21 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/30/AR2009113004420_pf.html
“People familiar with the inquiry into how the Salahis were able to attend Tuesday's gala, even though they weren't on the official guest list, said the Salahis exchanged e-mails with Michele S. Jones, special assistant to the secretary of defense and the Pentagon-based liaison to the White House. It was unclear how well the Salahis know Jones, but Jones includes the Salahis' lawyer, Paul W. Gardner, as one of her 50 friends on Facebook.
*22 Both Obama’s National Security Advisor, Jim Jones, and his ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eichenberry, were pulled by Obama out of retirement, where Bush had forced them. The most egregious case of the promotion of Christian ideologues is that of Lieutenant-General William "Jerry" Boykin, the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Intelligence under Bush and a leading figure behind the prisoner abuses in Iraq and at Guantanamo.

Writing for the Los Angeles Times on October 16, 2003, columnist William Arkin pointed out that Boykin sees the "war on terror" as a religious war between Judeo-Christian civilization and Satan, with Islam of course cast in the latter role. According to Arkin, Boykin told a religious group in Oregon, in June, that radical Islamists hate the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian ... and the enemy is a guy named Satan." He continued to say that "our spiritual enemy will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus".
Boykin, a 30-year veteran of the US Army's Delta Force, the Central Intelligence Agency and Army Special Forces, told another audience, in reference to operations he was involved in in Somalia in 1993, that "I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol." Arkin further reports that Boykin believes that President George W Bush was not elected to the White House by mere mortals, but chosen by God, and that he himself received his orders from God. Arkin also noted that Boykin's concept of "war on terror" is quite different from the way the US president looks at it. Boykin sees it as a war against Muslims.

Though most individuals in the military have the common sense not to speak as openly as Boykin did, the entire notion that "insurgents" need to be killed, held by all the leading brass, is fundamentally similar. That is, upon what basis do we condemn these men to death? Because they are insurgents against a foreign occupier? How can that be? There is a justification that is not stated. Clearly. And why not? Because it is racist, and/or religious.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FE11Aa04.html

That concludes John's essay. Thank you for your attention.

Local perspective: Part of my professional duties as a teacher of economics and government is to produce competent adult citizenry. This includes realization that our nation’s policies and money are managed at a broad community level, and these issues have tremendous local impact. Of course, we all want human beings to be individually successful and enjoy their unique, beautiful and powerful self-expressions. Concurrently, we recognize our commitment to local success is strongly dependent upon the success of the community, and that government policy and economics are drivers.

Our status in early 21st Century human history is that we suffer from a long history in government and money of human interrelationship well-described as vicious antagonism. Governments frequently use war as a foreign policy, despite its illegality and dependent upon public ignorance, with horrific consequences.

Obama's Outreach to Americans: Empty Rhetoric, Business As Usual

2010-02-02T13:55:00.001-08:00

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/01/obamas-outreach-to-americans-empty.html

JANUARY 29, 2010
Obama's Outreach to Americans: Empty Rhetoric, Business As Usual
by Stephen Lendman

The response to Obama's first State of the Union address was predictable. Democrats loved it. Republicans were skeptical to critical, while the media tried to have it both ways.

The New York Times called his tone "colloquial, even relaxed" in quoting him stating "the worst of the storm has passed," then The Times saying "Americans are concerned, even angry." He urged Democrats not to "run for the hills," called for an end to "tired old battles," and focus(ed) intently on the issue of most immediate concern to the nation, jobs."

A Times editorial headlined "The Second Year," saying "The union is in a state of deep and justifiable anxiety about jobs and mortgages and two long, bloody wars. President Obama did not create these problems, and none could be solved in one year. (He) used his (address) to show the country what he has learned and how he intends to govern in the next three years. (It) was a reminder (of his ability) to inspire with a grand vision and the simple truth frankly spoken. It was a long time coming."

A Wall Street Journal editorial headlined "Staying the Course (but) with a little more humility, and a touch more bipartisanship....But whether this outreach is anything more than rhetoric will depend on a change of policy." It "could be a long year," concluded The Journal.

CNN.com was more upbeat saying "Obama outlines ambitious agenda for 'lasting prosperity,' noting that the "president struck an optimistic tone and avoided lofty rhetoric in stating that the cost of inaction will be great."

The Washington Post's EJ Dionne called Obama "a conciliator (who's) willing to fight."

The Post's Eugene Robinson called his rhetoric "determined, patient, forceful, good-humored, at times even mischievous. He looked relaxed and in control. (For) the first time in months (he) reconnected with the language and themes that got him elected."

Time.com headlined "Confident Republicans Give Obama a Frosty Reception." At the same time, columnist Joe Klein called his speech "a terrific performance....easily digestible, user-friendly....but it was also a fighting speech....This was Obama at his best."

In its customary supportive role, The Nation magazine's Robert Dreyfuss headlined "Two Cheers for Obama on Foreign Affairs," saying "it was a pleasure to listen to (him), especially after eight years of his predecessor's alarmist warnings and warlike thundering (so) let's take a moment to appreciate Obama's speech last night."

The Nation's Melissa Harris-Lacewell called his address a "National Rorschach Test....given meaning by the viewer more than by the subject. (Obama tried) to break through this psychological angst....to remind Americans of the situational constraints he faces; to shift....despair back to optimism," and remind people that the crisis began under his predecessor. "As he has done exquisitely since the campaign, (he) contextualized these difficulties within a broader historical sweep (by) insist(ing) that the "American story....is replete with examples of gritty determination (to overcome) seemingly insurmountable obstacles."

From the Financial Times: "Obama pledges renewed focus on jobs" as his "number one" priority (while) at the same time pledg(ing) to right the economy and continue pushing for healthcare and financial sector reform."

Speaker Nancy Pelosi sounded the Democrat response saying:

"Tonight, President Obama presented a vision to the American people of a stronger union, a new foundation for prosperity and a thriving middle class. Working together, we will adopt a bold agenda for our economic growth."

Republican Senator Orrin Hatch called Obama "completely tone deaf (by) blaming all our problems on George W. Bush (and) doubl(ing) down on his commitment to a Washington-knows-best strategy that will only make matters worse."

From House Minority Leader John Boehner: "The American people were looking for President Obama to change course tonight, and they got more of the same job-killing policies instead."

As a candidate, Obama promised change, a new course, sweeping government reforms, addressing people needs, and "ensur(ing) that the hopes and concerns of average Americans speak louder in Washington than the hallway whispers of high-priced lobbyists...."

A year later, hope is disillusion, frustration, and anger over promises made, then broken with a growing awareness that Obama represents business as usual, a reality rhetoric can't change.

His top political, economic and national security officials are former administration members - from Wall Street, the military, and other key power centers for continuity, not promised change.

He presides over a bogus democracy under a homeland police state apparatus, embraces torture and political persecution like his predecessor, and continues unbridled militarism, imperial wars, and a shocking disregard for the law.

A January 27 Dana Priest Washington Post article revealed a secret Obama "hit list," the same policy George Bush authorized to kill US citizens abroad claimed to be supporting terrorism "against the United States or US interests," whether or not it's true.

He looted the federal Treasury for Wall Street, plans new monetary measures to control the world's money, and favors handouts to the rich at the expense of beneficial social change.

He embraces the same Bush administration policies, targets dissenters, Muslims, Latino immigrants, environmental and animal rights activists, and lawyers who defend them too vigorously.

He spies illegally on Americans, destroyed decades of hard won labor rights, wants public education privatized as another business profit center, and scorns democracy in favor of hard-line rule.

He backs rationing healthcare, destroying Medicare, and enriching insurers, drug companies and large hospital chains. He wants legislation passed to empower agribusiness, let corporate polluters reap huge windfall profits by raising energy costs, and create a speculative bonanza for Wall Street with a new carbon trading derivatives scheme.

He wants all Americans monitored with a national ID card, favors preventive detentions for uncharged detainees, and opposes protection for whistleblowers and journalists to protect their identity.

He ignores growing poverty, hunger, and homelessness, refuses help for budget-strapped states, and chooses rhetoric, theater, deceit and cynicism, not progressive change to address a national emergency.

His State of the Union address reflected "yes we can," "hope (and) change," and another pledge that "Tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before....The time to take charge of our future is here," at the same time he invaded Haiti, occupies the country with 20,000 combat troops, obstructs essential aid from reaching millions, and claims it's a humanitarian mission.

Rutherford Institute president and constitutional lawyer, John Whitehead, says he's "afraid (of) the state of the nation" in his January 27 augustforecast.com article, citing "Ominous developments in America (that) have been a long time coming," covering some of the above perspectives and more.

"As national borders dissolve in the face of spreading globalization, (it's likely) that our Constitution....will be subverted in favor of international laws....The corporate media (act mostly) as a mouthpiece for government propaganda, no longer....as watchdogs, guarding against encroachments of our rights....We have lost our moral compass....Americans have largely lost the ability to ask questions and think analytically....we no longer have a sense of right and wrong or a way to hold the government accountable," the way Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence - that when government fails the people, it's their right "to alter or abolish it," and replace it with one that works.

In his January 27 article titled "State of the Union Rhetoric, 2010: Economic Euphemisms and Internal Contradictions (Part II)," economist Michael Hudson cited growing dangers, unlikely to be addressed or reversed:

-- America's "road to debt peonage;"

-- "Debts that can't be repaid;"

-- rising defaults;

-- the illusion of "borrowing out way out of debt;"

-- an economic recovery favoring oligarchy, "the FIRE sector - finance, insurance and real estate - not the 'real economy;' "

-- America's "Bubble Economy (leaving) families, companies, real estate and government so heavily indebted that they must use current income to pay banks and bondholders," making it unavailable for goods and services; and

-- the "most dangerous belief that the economy needs the financial sector to lead its recovery by providing credit," when, in fact, Wall Street wrecked the economy by "predatory lending....casino gambling," and looting the federal Treasury to cover losses.

Hudson worried that Obama's speech would "celebrate this failed era." In fact, his policies embrace it, will continue to going forward, and proposing a discretionary spending freeze, the part most important to increase, is counterproductive and ludicrous. Specifically he said:

"Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years. Spending related to our national security (meaning militarism and imperial wars), Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will not be affected. But all other discretionary government programs will."

A Road to Perdition Agenda

Obama's rhetoric hides a failed agenda he'll continue, serving capital and militarists, not people in dire need. He wants more business tax cuts and windfalls to stimulate growth and new jobs, repackaged Reaganomics that cost record numbers of job losses in the past two years, well over 500,000 in December alone based on the broader household survey.

As a result:

-- real unemployment tops 20%;

-- 11 million full-time jobs were lost since late 2007;

-- over four and a half million jobs were lost since Obama took office;

-- a record 9.3 million Americans work part-time;

-- in 2009, a record 2.8 million homes were foreclosed, realitytrac.com saying "a massive supply of loans.... loom(s) over the housing market," many to become delinquent in 2010 and beyond, perhaps for years; and

-- an epic debt overhang crushes the economy, exacerbated by a $13 trillion giveaway to Wall Street; another $10.7 trillion pledged amounting to a virtual free money blank check; and similar largess goes for militarism and homeland security at a time dire people needs go begging.

Smooth rhetoric belies Obama's failed agenda, one he'll continue without progressive change under new leadership that cares, what neither party offers nor ever will with priorities leaving millions out of luck and on their own.

Support for Bernanke and health care "reform" damaging Obama

2010-02-02T12:55:00.000-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Support-for-Bernanke-and-h-by-JohnPeebles-100126-740.html

January 29, 2010
By JohnPeebles

Obama's unconditional support for Bernanke's Senate re-nomination flies in the face of common sense. Meanwhile, the media spins the nomination as vital to the economy. As Coakley's loss showed, the Democrats' attempt at health care reform represents a political liability.

I've been reading with considerable chagrin the seemingly endless well of support Obama has for Bernanke. This from HuffPo:

"'He has my strongest support. I think he's done a good job,' Obama told ABC News.

"What we need is somebody at the Federal Reserve who can make sure that the progress that we've made in stabilizing the economy continues. I think Bernanke is the best person for that job,' the president said."

I may not be the greatest of political minds, but I don't see how Obama can tap popular political sentiments by supporting Bernanke. Obama seems to be apologist-in-chief for Wall Street and its shameless plug for public aid. I don't know where the President gets his news, but he must not know that Wall Street recorded record profits and bonuses last year.

Much advantage came out of sweetheart loans and credit facilities offered by the Federal Reserve, which dwarf the $700 billion TARP. Dumping toxic debt for US Treasuries is a great money-making proposition for Friends of the Fed, a group of private bankers spearheaded by Geithner. In these exchanges, taxpayers are left holding the losses, which are socialized. The profits, meanwhile, go to Geithner's and Bernanke's cronies on Wall Street.

Obama couldn't offer a juicier political plumb to the Republicans than his enduring support for Wall Street and its agents in his administration. The more difficult the economy, the more contrasting the opulent lifestyle of the New York banking elite with the mainstream popular consciousness. As millions go jobless and homes foreclose, the Bernie Madoff-type gamblers who control the Fed's money-making machine are feeding major discontentment. The scene from Gangs of New York where the homes of wealthy Upper West Siders are raided comes to mind...

Projecting infinite support for the bankers' allies inflames nearly infinite popular rage bubbling under the surface. In the past, this anti-incumbency may have been limited to groups like the tea-baggers. Yet the Republicans have considerable experience hijacking popular movements, and could easily direct the anti-Washington emotions into a far broader political force to use against the Demos.

According to the article, McCain advocates holding Bernanke to account. The Republicans' reaction to the bailout crisis has been shrewd. They've picked at Obama's close connections to Wall Street, without directly criticizing him they can take shots at Bernanke at Geithner, who really do make ideal punching bags, being insiders. Should any attempt at in the real economy recovery fail, the Republicans will be able to blame Obama's policies as favoring the elite Wall Street bankers at expense to the general public. Rather than create distance between himself and Wall Street, Obama's become their apologist. Obama received many millions from Wall Street, and the quid pro quo has been protection for their profits through the crisis, which was a product of their unchecked greed.

Bernanke was at the heart of the creation of the mess, the creation of the housing bubble.Bernanke and his predecessor Alan Greenspan encouraged easy money policies that allowed so much capital to flow into already inflated mortgage securities markets. As chairman of the New York Fed, Geithner protected the interests of Wall Street prior to his selection as Treasury Secretary.

In one sense it doesn't matter whether Bernanke averted a larger crisis. The amount of money which flowed into privileged Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs is a tremendous political liability. The American people are tired of being treated as second-class citizens and made to fork over billiosn for what's essentially a bankers' mistake (although of course the MSM packaged the collapse as a purely subprime phenomena--waiters getting McMansions--when in fact the derivatives trading based on mortgages was fifty times larger. Even today, the total notational amount of derivatives exceeds $260 trillion, I believe, an amount no bailout can cover in the event of default. Yes, you could argue that such a massive pile of IOUs constitutes a risk of systemic collapse, but not if the shadow banking system hadn't been created which made permissable such huge over-leveraged bets.

Already a year into his administration, perhaps Obama can no longer draw on Bush ineptness to blame for economic problems. Bush and his laissez faire regulatory policies may have helped set the circumstances that allowed mortgage fraud, but Congress--majority Democratic since '06--gutted the regulatory environment and Glass-Steagall.

Obama likely wants to keep Geithner around because their replacements create even more uncertainty, which Wall Street certainly doesn't like. It's highly unlikely that the political liability Obama created by supporting Bernanke will be worth whatever support Wall Street can provide in terms of future campaign donations. If however Obama is willing to sacrifice himself politically for the bankers, he will leave as his one-term legacy a new low in bowing to the corporate interest over his own.

The best summation of the case against Bernanke's re-nomination comes from Webster Tarpley (his website is here.) Tarpley includes a letter to be sent to one's Senators here.

So thorough has the Senate been compromised to Wall Street, I'm not sure if Bernanke can be opposed. According to another HuffPoarticle, through bureaucratic maneuvering Democratic Senators are lowering the bar to only 50 votes required for re-confirmation.

I am guessing a vote in support of Bernanke nomination might cost incumbents 5 points or more if they face election this year. That's assuming of course that they face populist opponents, or rivals who aren't as compromised in their loyalties to Wall Street. As we saw with Goldman Sachs, Wall Street insiders have a habit of winning no matter who wins.

Terrorizing the stock market

Geithner's threat that the stock markets would go down if Bernanke weren't re-nominated (video) has generated a myth central to the mainstream media's reporting on the crisis. The idea, just one in a tapestry of misinformation, is that Bernanke is good for stocks. With relentless spin, the financial media casts each day's market performance on the idea that Bernanke's will be re-nominated. When performance is bad, it's blamed on the "uncertainty" associated with Bernanke's failure to be confirmed.

A market so soft as to require coddling by the chairman of the Federal Reserve can't be so strong. Actually rejecting risky banking practices actually represents a helpful step towards economic self-healing. If we are to believe the economy needs more liquidity--i.e., the Fed purchasing more Treasuries--then the market is surely incapable of generating growth independent of the price of money--a bearish sign indeed. Constantly adding more debt--the dollar is really an IOU by the Fed--creates a bubble as those "assets" flow into markets, re-inflating them.

It may be testament to how frail our economy has become that we rely on so much "production" in the form of GDP from our financial services sector. If we had an economy making things, perhaps the Fed, or even interest rates--wouldn't be so vital. Instead, as our manufacturing economy has declines, it's been replaced with the service sector--a euphanism for underpaying, menial jobs, and the financial sector, whose share of GDP has risen to 40% or from approximately 15% in 1980. Not surprisingly, with this shift in economic priorities has come a media habit of Fed watching, reading the proverbial tea-leaves to divine the future direction of the economy.

Enough of all that. As I'm sure you know, things have gotten worse for all but the richest of Americans. It is worth noting the role the media plays in glossing over the real state of our economic decline, which of course ushers in greater apathy and complacency.

Health Care Reform spun by media

It's worth noting the media spun the Coakley defeat in the Massachusetts Senate race as a referendum on health care reform. Yet the health care reform presented to the Senate could hardly be considered progressive. The massive build-up in forcing people to buy private health insurance is better considered a coup for the for-profit insurance industry. Look no further than Evan Bayh (D-IN) for an indication of where health reform stands. Bayh's wife serves on the Board of Wellpoint, the largest health care insurance company in the U.S.. If Bayh supports the bill, it can hardly mean it threatens the status quo, or Wellpoint's profits.

I did read one article that properly characterized the Massachusetts vote as criticism of the so-called health care "reform." The Republican victor in the race, Scott Brown "built his entire surge against Coakley around his promise to be the 41st senator to block the bill -- this in Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts. He must be pretty confident that the bill has become politically radioactive, and he's right." (Robert Kuttner, "A Wake Up Call from Massachusetts", commondreams.org,1-18-10)

Kuttner goes on to bring up Senator Byron Dorgan, who "began the year more than twenty points ahead in the polls of his most likely challenger, North Dakota Governor John Hoeven. By the time he decided to call it a day, Dorgan was running more than twenty points behind. The difference was the health bill, which North Dakotans oppose by nearly two to one."

I'd read that many progressives had stayed away from the polls. Participation was down. Also, as Bev conover points out, the hand-count favored Coakley. Black box voting means there's always a chance of election fraud.

In the end, health care pseudo-reform poses as a measly, inadequate replacement for a public option. Rather than represent real reform, the Obama compromise is weak, overpriced, and friendly to insurers. Posing as reform, the health care bill's demise represents a victory for common sense and a rejection of spiraling health care costs.

I do think we need reform, as do many Americans, so I'm not opposed to it outright like some are. I've heard many people, coincidentally those with jobs and health insurance, complain about "Obamacare." They've been thoroughly propagandized by hate radio and the Right to believe they're better off paying for it themselves, at least until they're 65 and Medicare will be there--theoretically--for them.

I wonder if the anti-Obamacare people will like paying these bloated costs when they're older. While they can complain about the inadequacies of the reforms, few are in a position to bear the costs of their retirement, much less the burdens associated with gaps in government-paid health care. While they're young and employed, they detest government-provided care. When they're old, less employable, will they so eagerly shun the safety net?

Looking at the numbers, there's no way Medicare will be able to cover all the projected health care expenses for the Baby Boomers. Coupled with worsening state budget situations, and a freeze on domestic spending proposed by Obama, a major crisis looms and hole in the safety net widens.

Already, a bigger and bigger chunk of Social Security payments go to feed the gap between what Medicare pays and what supplemental insurance provides. (Just check out an older's person's annual Social Security return.) Retirees will have to eat more and more of their own health care costs. All that money they'd paid into Social Security and Medicare has simply been absorbed.

Without cost controls and a major effort at wellness, the total costs of health care will continue to zoom. As a result premiums will increase. Theoretically, bringing more people onto health care insurance rolls can reduce the burden on Medicaid. Then again, if Massachusetts--the only state with mandatory health care insurance for all--is an example, premiums will sky-rocket.

The costs of health care are simply too high to be borne by the elderly. They will be met by higher taxes. In the absence of real change, get braced for the giant health care ripoff. Don't fret, just get ready to go abroad for treatment, if you can afford it.

Author's Website: www.jbpeebles.blogspot.com

Your disappointment in Obama is your teaching moment

2010-02-01T13:20:00.000-08:00

http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/1486/1/

Carolyn Baker
CarolynBaker.net
Fri, 29 Jan 2010

It's the end of the affair, and the stale taste of limerence stays on your tongue. You were promised the sun, moon, and stars, and you desperately wanted to believe it was real, especially after the betrayal of your former relationship of eight years. You had considered escaping-riding off into the sunset to another country where he couldn't find you, or so you hoped. You feared for your children and what he was setting them up for. You feared for yourself in the face of his brutality and intrusiveness into your life. Though you wouldn't admit it, you secretly prayed for assassination or some elaborate exposure that would take him down.

Then along came Mr. Wonderful with his irresistible smile and infectious inspiration. He wooed you with his charm, that smile, and his engaging discourse-so articulate by comparison with the unintelligible babbling you had put up with for eight years. He cared about you and your children. No longer were you alone; like Martin Luther King, he had a dream-a dream congruent with yours, and the passion you both shared for the dream was hypnotic and felt deeply spiritual. You actually thought that he was a messenger sent from another world to rescue you and take you out of the nightmare. He used transcendent terms like "hope", "change", "yes we can." And not only were you totally surrendered to his embrace, but you begged everyone else to do the same. He's our only hope, you told them and yourself. You could scarcely contain your ecstasy when they all chose him in the last hours of the eight years you had all excruciatingly endured.

It was a new day, one year ago at this time. Your sighs of relief could not have been longer or deeper. You and your children were now safe at last.

But today, you ponder reflectively the past year, and what you have now come to understand is that the hero you married is a prisoner. You believed him when he told you he was free and at liberty to make the changes he proclaimed. You trusted him, committed yourself to him, and fought for him. And now you discover that he's betrayed you and that his actions really aren't that divergent from his predecessor's. In fact, he is a prisoner of the same forces that terrorized you for the previous eight years. Fooled again. Betrayed. You sink into despair and depression. You talk to your friends-the others who also believed in him. You feel those old and familiar emotions you felt from 2001-2008 that you thought you'd never have to feel again. "What can we do?" you ask. "What are our options?"

The affair is over, and you don't know whether to cry, rage, get drunk, stay stoned, or rethink leaving the country. You've married a prisoner; you've made another bad choice. You feel bitter and perhaps a little self-loathing. In fact, you want to take a shower because you feel dirty all over.

OK, I could be talking about a real love affair here between two people-one a professional con artist and the other, an enabler. Or I could be talking about a nation of hopeful citizens who wanted to believe so desperately that their new hero would reverse the course set forth by the sociopaths of the previous administration and lead them forward to a better, more humane life, a more bonded community, a saner world for themselves and their children.

What we all must ask ourselves at the end of a relationship that turned out badly-a relationship at the end of which we felt betrayed and disappointed is quite simply: What is my part? Why did I make this choice? What did I not wish to see? What were the red flags I chose to ignore?

This week, Michael Moore was interviewed by Democracy Now and confessed his sense of betrayal and disappointment with Obama's first year. What I heard from him and hear from almost every progressive liberal who expresses similar sentiments is a jaw-dropping naïveté regarding the nomination of candidate Obama and the system he represents. It is the epitome of the definition of insanity: repeating a behavior proven erroneous without exception, time after time, yet expecting that the next time, the result will be different.

Yet both sadly and fortunately, as is true whenever the betrayer shows his true colors, this is a teaching moment for the enablers. And this particular teaching moment is more important, more momentous than any in our national history. Why? Because of what is at stake in terms of the future of the planet, and that future is inextricably connected with a paradigm to which we have been "married" as a people since the birth of our nation.

Last week's Supreme Court ruling lifting limits on campaign financing by corporations was truly the last nail in the coffin of democracy and sealed the fundamental definition of fascism attributed to Mussolini which was simply, "the corporate state." Abramoff rules, and politicians no longer have any reason to function other than corporate whores. As a friend suggested to me a few days ago, members of Congress should now dress themselves in NASCAR uniforms indicating which corporations own them so that we don't need to bother researching the facts but can see them wearing the information on their bodies.

During the 2007-2008 hyperventilating euphoria of progressives regarding the candidacy of Obama, my website, Speaking Truth to Power, was exposing Obama's corporate connections and forecasting that little if anything would significantly change with his election. I was labeled Debbie Downer from Doom and Gloomville and called a conspiracy nut. And so here we are: Revelations from Matt Taibbi and others regarding Goldman Sachs as the largest contributor to Obama's election campaign, an escalation of war in Afghanistan above and beyond the proportions of Bush's war in Iraq, Obama's sanctioning of Bush's policies on torture, Obama's prone position in relation to Wall St. and his choice to surround himself with economic advisors who were directly responsible for creating economic collapse-I could continue ad nauseum. The similitude between the policies of Bush II and Obama are so glaring that last week, progressive journalist, Danny Schechter, asked, "Has Obama Become Bush II?" (I am particularly fond of the Photoshopped image attending the article-a picture worth more than a thousand words.)

In this teaching moment, those disappointed and despairing of their tryst with Obama have a golden opportunity to ask themselves what his betrayal of them reveals regarding the political and economic systems of America and the reality that no politician can even be nominated for the Presidency by the two-party monstrosity, let alone elected, unless that candidate is permanently dressed in his or her NASCAR uniform. If you do not ask this question, you will continue living out the definition of insanity with every national election because you refuse to look deeply at the fundamentals of how the corporate state functions. You will cover its rotting stench with come cloying cologne of "hope" and thereby not only enable your betrayers but waste precious time by not attending to life and death issues.

My 2006 book, U.S. History Uncensored: What Your High School Textbook Didn't Tell You, endeavored first and foremost to leave the reader with an understanding of who owns and operates the American political system. Others have offered their brilliant analyses-Naomi Klein in Shock Doctrine, Mike Ruppert in Crossing The Rubicon, and Kevin Phillips in Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism. Your failed love affair with Obama is now your teaching moment-a critical opportunity to research these four books above and buy out of the putrid, perfidious American political system and buy into making your local community resilient and self-sufficient.

I have long since rejected the American political system and have not voted in any national election since 2000, nor will I again in my lifetime. To do so is to buy into a system that has created what for years I have termed the Toxic Triangle of energy depletion, economic meltdown, and environmental devastation. Every drop of human energy I invest in that system is energy divested from working with my community, my neighborhood, and my loved ones to respond to the current and coming horrors that have been wrought by the three "E's": catastrophic climate chaos, multitudes of environmental refugees, impending global food shortages, the depletion of safe and clean drinking water worldwide, widespread droughts and environmental disasters, unprecedented energy depletion, environmental illnesses and pandemics, and global economic cataclysm.

Visionaries such as Buckminster Fuller, E.F. Schumacher, and Herman Daly have demonstrated that global challenges are most effectively addressed on the local level, where pragmatic responses and options can be created as an alternative to investment in the fantasy of global solutions. That is to say that in the 21st century, "global" is synonymous with "corporate" and therefore guaranteed to exacerbate rather than grapple with the daunting issues confronting the earth community.

Some individuals argue that focusing on re-localization forces us to ignore the global corporatism of an international ruling elite. My response is to ask why we must do one or the other. It is crucial in my opinion to be aware of the powers that be and their machinations, but I must also ask, what realistically, any of us can do to alter or avert their agenda? The answer is nothing; however, there is much we can do to protect ourselves and our communities from it by becoming self-sufficient and resilient.

On Inauguration Day, 2009, I was intrigued as I watched the swearing in of Obama, by the presence of one man standing behind and to the right of Obama--none other than Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia. I doubt that the positioning was intentional, but for me, it was symbolic. It forces me to ask, which interests, which ruling elite families are "standing behind and to the right" of Obama? To what extent is he their creation and theirs alone? For that reason, I chose a photo of that symbolic moment to accompany this article. Take a closer look and think about it deeply. On Inauguration Day, I scoured the internet to find a photo of Rockefeller standing behind Obama during the Oath of Office because I knew its symbolism would later be appreciated by many more Americans than just me. This moment is the moment I had in mind.

Some enablers are capable of changing their behavior and making saner choices. For example, those that have a magnetic attraction to prisoners might find themselves losing interest because they have discovered the deeper meaning of freedom-the ability to create with the support of others, authentic, meaningful responses that do not seduce one into the prison system itself.

This particular affair is over. The "hopium" has worn off. It's time to choose whether you will pursue another affair with another prisoner or walk away from all forms of incarceration, theirs and yours. This is your teaching moment.

Carolyn Baker, Ph.D., was an adjunct professor of history and psychology for 11 years and a psychotherapist in private practice for 17 years. Her latest book Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse, is unique in its offering of emotional and spiritual tools for preparing for living in a post-industrial world. Her other books include: Coming Out From Christian Fundamentalism: Affirming Sensuality, Social Justice, and The Sacred (2007) , U.S. History Uncensored: What Your High School Textbook Didn't Tell You (2006) and The Journey of Forgiveness, (2000) She is available for speaking engagements and author events and can be contacted at carolyn (a) carolyn baker.net

Obama Muslim Quotes

2010-02-01T05:11:00.001-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=tCAffMSWSzY#t=28

Capitalist Tool

2010-01-30T05:16:00.001-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Capitalist-Tool-by-Michael-Collins-100127-259.html

January 27, 2010
Capitalist Tool
By Michael Collins

Just a few cynics doubted the magnificent procession of then Senator Barack Obama to the highest office in the land. He was the redemption of our past sins, the proof that we were a better nation than we had been. After all, race has been at the center of American politics since Bacon's Rebellion was crushed in 1667 but we were moving beyond that. And we did.Race was set aside for most of those who voted.

As it turned out, the campaign wasn't about redeeming anything other than the bill that Wall Street presented to the citizens of the United States in October, 2008. The financial system was grinding its gears, about to flame out in a series of big investment bank failures. The Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, told a private session of Congress that absent immediate aid, the financial calamity would be so devastating that Congress should prepare for riots by outraged citizens.

The people spoke in unison as they hadn't in decades. No bailout! Congressional staffers were swamped with a flood of telephone calls, emails, and faxes. The people's will and wisdom was honored and the first bailout proposal was defeated 228 to 205 in the House of Representatives.

Undeterred, The Money Party swung into action. They hit the offices of reluctant supporters and plied them with "contributions" (also known as legalized bribes). More importantly, they put on a show of political unity, something they like to call bipartisanship. Both presidential candidates showed up in Washington and spoke to their party caucuses. They worked their magic and the bailout was complete. Wall Street was saved to wage class war against the citizens once again, at will, with few if any restraints. The prize -- the biggest wealth transfer in history, the looting of the Treasury for private firms, and a free hand to pay their bonuses as they saw fit. It was and is all about them.

Capitalist Tool

President Obama won the election amidst a great hope for change that he'd promised.

What did we get?

Right away, the new president turned the Treasury and economic policy over to consummate, long-term Wall Street insiders, Tim Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, and Larry Summers as economic guru. Geithner "was one of our nation's top regulators" for Wall Street during the great rip off of the Bush years and Summers had helped repeal those pesky laws that restrained big banks from dangerous investments. The foxes were in charge of the hen house. There were more bailouts and the Federal Reserve extended $23.7 trillion line of credit for the big banks.

Then, there were the attempts to help citizens with epidemic foreclosures and usurious credit interest rates. We did get a Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights but the president and Congress forgot to cap those huge credit card interest rates. Unfortunately for the millions of victims of mortgage fraud, the president and Congress couldn't quite figure out how to pass a modest foreclosure relief bill. The sponsor of that legislation threw up his hands, as the president sat it out, and said, the banks "frankly own the place!" No kidding.

It didn't stop there. A few months into the era of hope and change, we found out that the administration was heavily staffed with CitiBank insiders who were doing their best to keep that tottering zombie walking as though it were alive.

All the while, the jobless rate rose month after month until real world unemployment reached 17%. That single digit unemployment figures we get don't include workers who simply give up looking for jobs after months of finding nothing. They're unemployed, none the less.

Instead of focusing on jobs, the administration became obsessed with passing a health reform bill. It was reform, but not for citizen health. It seems that the health of the insurance companies was a bit off after years of bad investments and acquisitions. They needed 40 million new customers and a central role in the new plan. They got both. Citizens are now about to get a Frankenstein health bill that they can't afford. Hard to pay those premiums if you're out of work, or earning flat wages for the past ten years.

Tonight, we're told that domestic programs will be frozen for three years while foreign aid and military expenditures for Obama's new war in Afghanistan won't be touched.

And, to add insult to injury, the president just announced that a big part of NASA will be privatized with the corporations "too big to fail" launching our astronauts into space.

We are nothing to them

It doesn't take much to figure that out.

We lose our jobs. The insiders have theirs forever.

Our wages are flat while Wall Street fat cats get ever increasing bonuses.

We lose our health coverage while Congress, the Judiciary, and the Executive branches enjoy the best insurance around.

Commercial credit for most is tight but the big banks have trillions in credit.

Organized crime would never have been this insensitive. At least, they realized that they needed customers with a few bucks to place a bet.

We are in the great decline of the ruling elite, addled by nepotistic inbreeding and cronyism beyond imagination; coddled by the government that they bought and paid for; and ready to take everything that isn't nailed down, only to blame the people for having nothing.

Welcome to the new klelptocracy where insiders make the rules then claim the high ground of intelligence and morality after winning a game they rigged in the first place.

Once, we had a real hope that endured despite the challenges. It helped produce major changes when we demanded them. Now, we're left with scraps from the movable feast that is devouring the nation and we're expected to say, "Thank you sir, may I have another?"

HOPIUM DRUG WEARING THIN

2010-01-30T05:06:00.001-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/HOPIUM-DRUG-WEARING-THIN-by-Bruce-K-Gagnon-100126-400.html

January 26, 2010
By Bruce K. Gagnon

Obama's announcement that he will propose a three-year spending freeze on all federal programs except for "military, veterans affairs, homeland security, and certain international programs" [read CIA] is just more of the slight of hand we are growing accustomed to seeing from the magician.

The good cop-bad cop corporate dominated Congressional scene in Washington DC wants us to believe they now care about the "middle class". We know they gave up on poor people long ago. But these little mid-course adjustments are just intended to calm the voters down. There is no real change going to be coming our way. The only change we are going to see are the few pennies that fall on the ground while the corporate banksters are looting the national treasury.

The fact that Obama, the Democrats, and the Republicans all agree that the Pentagon budget must have a firewall built around it to protect it from any cuts is all the evidence any of us need about where this country is really heading. Obama is now preparing his 2011 budget and the weapons industry publication Defense News ran a headline on January 20 called "Defense Contractors are Confident About Fiscal 2011 Budget."

The word has already gone out from Obama and the Democrats who control Congress. The military industrial complex does not need to worry during this economic collapse. You will be taken care of. It is everyone else in America that needs to be worried.

The U.S. now spends more than the rest of the world combined on the military but still Obama is going to increase military spending in 2011, just like he did in 2010.

We will see more cuts in social spending but the military will be protected, just the way the Democrats and Republicans have taken good care of the banks and are now going to take good care of the insurance companies. And as their reward, following this bad Supreme Court decision on campaign finance reform, the corporations will kick some money back to the compliant political hacks in both parties who play the game the right way. It's called "the free market."

Right now the corporate agenda is putting us all into a box. They are reducing our options to make effective political change possible. It is without a doubt a return to feudalism - the 21st century variety where we get a car and a color TV.

The oligarchy is having fun right now watching us scramble around as we try to figure out what we will do in response to their policies. More people everyday are saying they are done with the Democrats, which is good, but Mr. Big has a trump card. They will throw out a Sarah Palin and watch the frightened liberals run back to Obama prior to the 2012 national elections. And the oligarchy will sit and laugh over that one and slap each other on the back and take a swig of their expensive champagne and take a deep draw on their fat Cuban cigars.

In the meantime the oligarchy will fund the likes of Glenn Beck on Fox News who has become adept at following his instructions to seed hatred among the people. His latest gambit is that "progressives" are the new version of the 1950's "commies under every rock" trying to subvert the nation. Beck is stoking the fires of hatred and making sure that the growing legions of working class poor people keep their eyes off the real enemy - the rich corporate fat cats who pay Glenn Beck's salary.

Obama is much like Glenn Beck in that he sold his soul to the corporations. He is doing their bidding and willingly selling his political base down the river for a chance to grace the halls of the White House. The power structure knew he was ambitious and they had thoroughly vetted him long ago and had nurtured his meteoric rise in American politics. He too is doing what he has been told to do.

The similarities between Obama and Glenn Beck are that neither of them seems to have a conscience.

Our only hope is that people reject both of these cards in the deck. We have to reject the good cop and the bad cop. We have boycott both parties. The Democrats are showing us daily (in Washington, in our state legislatures, and in our town governments) that they will not fight for the people. Why should we stand and fight for them any longer?

I see that the hopium drug is wearing thin out there in TV land. The people are finally waking up from their long sleep. We must make sure that once they fully awake that they see some real political organizing going on in their communities that is ultimately relevant to their lives. That is our job. Increase the political options. Increase the level of political dialogue. Articulate a vision for the future that offers real hope to the people.

The Obama Brand: Feel Good While Overlords Loot the Treasury and Launch Imperial Wars

2010-01-28T14:56:00.000-08:00

By Chris Hedges, Nation Books
Posted on January 25, 2010, Printed on January 28, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145358/

Editor's Note: The following is an adapted excerpt from Chris Hedges' book, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (Nation Books, 2009) that first appeared in Tikkun magazine.

Barack Obama is a brand. And the Obama brand is designed to make us feel good about our government while corporate overlords loot the Treasury, armies of corporate lobbyists grease the palms of our elected officials, our corporate media diverts us with gossip and trivia, and our imperial wars expand in the Middle East. Brand Obama is about being happy consumers. We are entertained. We feel hopeful. We like our president. We believe he is like us. But like all branded products spun out from the manipulative world of corporate advertising, this product is duping us into doing and supporting a lot of things that are not in our interest.

What, for all our faith and hope, has the Obama brand given us? His administration has spent, lent, or guaranteed $12.8 trillion in taxpayer dollars to Wall Street and insolvent banks in a doomed effort to re-inflate the bubble economy, a tactic that at best forestalls catastrophe and will leave us broke in a time of profound crisis. Brand Obama has allocated nearly $1 trillion in defense-related spending and the continuation of our doomed imperial projects in Iraq, where military planners now estimate that 70,000 troops will remain for the next fifteen to twenty years. Brand Obama has expanded the war in Afghanistan, increasing the use of drones sent on cross-border bombing runs into Pakistan, which have doubled the number of civilians killed over the past three months. Brand Obama has refused to ease restrictions so workers can organize and will not consider single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans. And Brand Obama will not prosecute the Bush administration for war crimes, including the use of torture, and has refused to dismantle Bush's secrecy laws and restore habeas corpus.

Brand Obama offers us an image that appears radically individualistic and new. It inoculates us from seeing that the old engines of corporate power and the vast military-industrial complex continue to plunder the country. Corporations, which control our politics, no longer produce products that are essentially different, but brands that are different. Brand Obama does not threaten the core of the corporate state any more than did Brand George W. Bush. The Bush brand collapsed. We became immune to its studied folksiness. We saw through its artifice. This is a common deflation in the world of advertising. So we have been given a new Obama brand with an exciting and faintly erotic appeal. Benetton and Calvin Klein were the precursors to the Obama brand, using ads to associate themselves with risqué art and progressive politics. This strategy gave their products an edge. But the goal, as with all brands, was to make passive consumers confound a brand with an experience.

Obama, who has become a global celebrity, was molded easily into a brand. He had almost no experience, other than two years in the Senate, lacked any moral core, and could be painted as all things to all people. His brief Senate voting record was a miserable surrender to corporate interests. He was happy to promote nuclear power as "green" energy. He voted to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He reauthorized the Patriot Act. He would not back a bill designed to cap predatory credit card interest rates. He opposed a bill that would have reformed the notorious Mining Law of 1872. He refused to support the single-payer health care bill HR 676, sponsored by Reps. Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers. He supported the death penalty. And he backed a class-action "reform" bill that was part of a large lobbying effort by financial firms. The law, known as the Class Action Fairness Act, would effectively shut down state courts as a venue to hear most class-action lawsuits and deny redress in many of the courts where these cases have a chance of defying powerful corporate challenges.

Obama's campaign won the vote of hundreds of marketers, agency heads, and marketing-services vendors gathered at the Association of National Advertisers' annual conference in October. The Obama campaign was named Advertising Age's marketer of the year for 2008 and edged out runners-up Apple and Zappos.com. Take it from the professionals. Brand Obama is a marketer's dream. President Obama does one thing and Brand Obama gets you to believe another. This is the essence of successful advertising. You buy or do what the advertisers want because of how they can make you feel.

Celebrity culture has leached into every aspect of our culture, including politics, to bequeath to us what Benjamin DeMott called "junk politics." Junk politics does not demand justice or the reparation of rights. Junk politics personalizes and moralizes issues rather than clarifying them. "It's impatient with articulated conflict, enthusiastic about America's optimism and moral character, and heavily dependent on feel-your-pain language and gesture," DeMott noted. The result of junk politics is that nothing changes -- "meaning zero interruption in the processes and practices that strengthen existing, interlocking systems of socioeconomic advantage." Junk politics redefines traditional values, tilting "courage toward braggadocio, sympathy toward mawkishness, humility toward self-disrespect, identification with ordinary citizens toward distrust of brains." Junk politics "miniaturizes large, complex problems at home while maximizing threats from abroad. It's also given to abrupt unexplained reversals of its own public stances, often spectacularly bloating problems previously miniaturized." And finally, it "seeks at every turn to obliterate voters' consciousness of socioeconomic and other differences in their midst."

The old production-oriented culture demanded what the historian Warren Susman termed "character." The new consumption-oriented culture demands what he called "personality." The shift in values is a shift from a fixed morality to the artifice of presentation. The old cultural values of thrift and moderation honored hard work, integrity, and courage. The consumption-oriented culture honors charm, fascination, and likeability. "The social role demanded of all in the new culture of personality was that of a performer," Susman wrote. "Every American was to become a performing self."

The junk politics practiced by Obama is a consumer fraud. It is about performance. It is about lies. It is about keeping us in a perpetual state of childishness. But the longer we live in illusion, the worse reality will be when it finally shatters our fantasies. Those who do not understand what is happening around them and who are overwhelmed by a brutal reality they did not expect or foresee search desperately for saviors. They beg demagogues to come to their rescue. This is the ultimate danger of the Obama Brand. It effectively masks the wanton internal destruction and theft being carried out by our corporate state. These corporations, once they have stolen trillions in taxpayer wealth, will leave tens of millions of Americans bereft, bewildered, and yearning for even more potent and deadly illusions, ones that could swiftly snuff out what is left of our diminished open society.

Empire of Illusion

Obama is a product of a deeper cultural reality that I describe in some detail in my book Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.

In the contemporary world, celebrity worship increasingly encroaches on reality. And this adulation is pervasive.

The frenzy around political messiahs, or the devotion of millions of women to Oprah Winfrey, is all part of the yearning to see ourselves in those we worship. We seek to be like them. We seek to make them like us. If Jesus and The Purpose Driven Life won't make us a celebrity, then Tony Robbins or positive psychologists or reality television will. We are waiting for our cue to walk onstage and be admired and envied, to become known and celebrated.

"What does the contemporary self want?" asked critic William Deresiewicz, adding:

The camera has created a culture of celebrity; the computer is creating a culture of connectivity. As the two technologies converge -- broadband tipping the Web from text to image; social-networking sites spreading the mesh of interconnection ever wider -- the two cultures betray a common impulse. Celebrity and connectivity are both ways of becoming known. This is what the contemporary self wants. It wants to be recognized, wants to be connected: It wants to be visible. If not to the millions, on Survivor or Oprah, then to the hundreds, on Twitter or Facebook. This is the quality that validates us, this is how we become real to ourselves -- by being seen by others. The great contemporary terror is anonymity. If Lionel Trilling was right, if the property that grounded the self in Romanticism was sincerity, and in modernism was authenticity, then in postmodernism it is visibility.

We pay a variety of lifestyle advisers -- Neal Gabler calls them "essentially drama coaches" -- to help us look and feel like celebrities, to build around us the set for the movies of our own lives. Martha Stewart built her financial empire, when she wasn't insider trading, telling women how to create and decorate a set design for the perfect home. The realities within the home, the actual family relationships, are never addressed. Appearances make everything whole. Plastic surgeons, fitness gurus, diet doctors, therapists, life coaches, interior designers, and fashion consultants all, in essence, promise to make us happy, to make us celebrities. And happiness comes, we are assured, with how we look and how we present ourselves to others. There are glossy magazines such as Town & Country that cater to the absurd pretensions of the very rich to be celebrities. They are photographed in expensive designer clothing inside the lavishly decorated set pieces that are their homes. The route to happiness is bound up in how skillfully we show ourselves to the world. We not only have to conform to the dictates of this manufactured vision, but we also have to project an unrelenting optimism and happiness.

The Swan was a Fox reality makeover show. The title of the series referred to Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale "The Ugly Duckling," in which a bird thought to be homely grew up to be a swan. "Unattractive" women were chosen to undergo three months of extensive plastic surgery, physical training, and therapy for a "complete life transformation." Each episode featured two "ugly ducklings" who competed with each other to go on to the Swan beauty pageant. "I am going to be a new person," said one contestant in the opening credits.

In one episode, twenty-seven-year-old Cristina, an Ecuador-born office administrator from Rancho Cordova, California, was chosen to be on the program.

"It's not just the outside I want to change, but it's the inside, too," Cristina told the camera mournfully. She had long black hair and light brown skin. She wore a baggy gray sweatshirt and no makeup. Her hair was pulled back. We discovered that she was devastatingly insecure about being intimate with her husband because of her post-pregnancy stretch marks. The couple considered divorce.

"I just want to be, not a completely different person, but I want to be a better Cristina," she said.

As a "dream team" of plastic surgeons discussed the necessary corrections, viewers saw a still image of Cristina, in a gray cotton bra and underwear, superimposed on a glowing blue grid. Her small, drooping breasts, wrinkled stomach, and fleshy thighs were apparent. A schematic figure of an idealized female form revolved at the left of the screen. Crosshairs targeted and zoomed in on each flawed area of Cristina's face and body. The surgical procedures she would undergo were typed out beside each body part. Brow lift, eye lift, nose job, liposuction of chin and cheeks, dermatologist visits, collagen injections, LASIK eye surgery, tummy tuck, breast augmentation, liposuction of thighs, dental bleaching, full dental veneers, gum tissue recontouring, a 1,200-calorie daily diet, 120 hours in the gym, weekly therapy, and coaching. The effect was suggestive of a military operation. The image of a blueprint and crosshairs was used repeatedly throughout the program.

Cristina was shown writing in her diary: "I want a divorce because I think that my husband can do better without me. And it would be best for us to go in different directions. I am not happy with myself at all, so I think, why make this guy unhappy for the rest of his life?"

At the end of the three months, Cristina and her opponent, Kristy, were finally allowed to look in a mirror for "the final reveal." They were brought separately to what looked like a marble hotel foyer. Curving twin staircases with ornate iron banisters framed the action. A crystal chandelier glittered at the top of the stairs. Sconces and oil paintings in gold frames hung on the cream-colored walls.

The "dream team" was assembled in the marble lobby. Massive peach curtains obscured one wall.

"I think Cristina has really grown into herself as a woman, and she's ready to go back home and start her marriage all over again," said the team therapist.

Two men in tuxedos opened a set of tall double doors. Cristina entered in a tight black evening gown and long black gloves. She was meticulously made up, and her hair had been carefully styled with extensions. The "dream team" burst into applause and whoops.

"I've been waiting twenty-seven years for this day," Cristina told host Amanda Byram tearfully. "I came for a dream, the American dream, like all the Latinas do, and I got it!"

"You got it!" cheered Byram. "Yes, you did!"

Reverberating drumbeats sounded. "Behind that curtain," says Byram, "is a mirror. We will draw back the curtain, the mirror will be revealed, and you will see yourself for the first time in three months. Cristina, step up to the curtain."

Short, suspenseful cello strokes were heard. There was a tumbling drumroll.

"I'm ready," quavered Cristina.

The curtain parted slowly in the middle. An elaborate full-length mirror reflected Cristina. The cello strokes billowed into the Swan theme song.

"Oh, my God!" she gasped, covering her face. She doubled over. Her knees buckled. She almost hit the floor. "I am so beautiful!" she sobbed. "Thank you, oh, thank you so much! Thank you, God! Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for this! Look at my arms, my figure ... I love the dress! Thank you, oh! I'm in love with myself!"

The "dream team" burst into applause again. "Well, you owe this to yourself," said Byram. "But you also owe it to these fantastic experts. Guys, come on in."

The crowd of smiling experts closed in on their creation, clapping as they approached.

At the end of each episode, the two contestants were called before Byram to hear who would advance to the pageant. The winner often wept and was hugged by the loser. Byram then pulled the loser aside for "one final surprise." The double doors opened once more, and her family was invited onto the set for a joyful reunion. In celebrity culture, family is the consolation prize for not making it to the pageant.

The Swan's transparent message is that once these women have been surgically "corrected" to resemble mainstream celebrity beauty as closely as possible, their problems will be solved. "This is a positive show where we want to see how these women can make their dreams come true once they have what they want," said Cecile Frot-Coutaz, CEO of FremantleMedia North America, producer of The Swan. Troubled marriages, abusive relationships, unemployment, crushing self-esteem problems -- all will vanish along with the excess fat off their thighs. They will be new. They will be flawless. They will be celebrities.

In the Middle Ages, writes Alain de Botton in his book Status Anxiety, stained glass windows and vivid paintings of religious torment and salvation controlled and influenced social behavior. Today we are ruled by icons of gross riches and physical beauty that blare and flash from television, cinema, and computer screens. People knelt before God and the church in the Middle Ages. We flock hungrily to the glamorous crumbs that fall to us from glossy magazines, talk and entertainment shows, and reality television. We fashion our lives as closely to these lives of gratuitous consumption as we can. Only a life with status, valued physical attributes, and affluence is worth pursuing.

Hedonism and wealth are openly worshipped on shows such as The Hills, Gossip Girl, Sex and the City, My Super Sweet 16, and The Real Housewives of ... series. The American oligarchy, 1 percent of whom control more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined, are the characters we envy and watch on television. They live and play in multimillion-dollar beach houses and expansive modern lofts. They marry professional athletes and are chauffeured in stretch limos to spa appointments. They rush from fashion shows to movie premieres, flaunting their surgically enhanced, perfect bodies in haute couture. Their teenagers throw $200,000 parties and have million-dollar weddings. This life is held before us like a beacon. This life, we are told, is the most desirable, the most gratifying.

The working classes, composed of tens of millions of struggling Americans, are shut out of television's gated community. They have become largely invisible. They are mocked, even as they are tantalized, by the lives of excess they watch on the screen in their living rooms. Almost none of us will ever attain these lives of wealth and power. Yet we are told that if we want it badly enough, if we believe sufficiently in ourselves, we too can have everything. We are left, when we cannot adopt these impossible lifestyles as our own, with feelings of inferiority and worthlessness. We have failed where others have succeeded.

We consume countless lies daily, false promises that if we spend more money, if we buy this brand or that product, if we vote for this candidate, we will be respected, envied, powerful, loved, and protected. The flamboyant lives of celebrities and the outrageous characters on television, movies, professional wrestling, and sensational talk shows are peddled to us, promising to fill up the emptiness in our own lives. Celebrity culture encourages us all to think of ourselves as potential celebrities, as possessing unique if unacknowledged gifts. It is, as Christopher Lasch diagnosed, a culture of narcissism. Faith in ourselves, in a world of make-believe, is more important than reality. Reality, in fact, is dismissed and shunned as an impediment to success, a form of negativity. The New Age mysticism and pop psychology of television personalities and evangelical pastors -- along with the array of self-help bestsellers penned by motivational speakers, psychiatrists, and business tycoons -- all peddle a fantasy. Reality is condemned in these popular belief systems as the work of Satan, as defeatist, as negativity, or as inhibiting our inner essence and power. Those who question, those who doubt, those who are critical, those who are able to confront reality, and those who grasp the hollowness of celebrity culture, are shunned and condemned for their pessimism. The illusionists who shape our culture, and who profit from our incredulity, hold up the gilded cult of us. Popular expressions of religious belief, personal empowerment, corporatism, political participation, and self-definition argue that all of us are special, entitled, and unique. All of us, by tapping into our inner reserves of personal will and undiscovered talent, and by visualizing what we want, can achieve (and deserve to achieve) happiness, fame, and success. This relentless message cuts across ideological lines. This mantra has seeped into every aspect of our lives. We are all entitled to everything.

American Idol, a talent-search reality show that airs on Fox, is one of the most popular shows on American television. The show travels to different American cities in a "countrywide search" for the contestants who will continue to the final competition in Hollywood. The producers of the show introduced a new focus, in the 2008-2009 season, on the personal stories of the contestants.

During the Utah auditions, we meet Megan Corkrey, age twenty-three, the single mother of a toddler. She has long, dirty-blond hair and a wholesome, pretty face. A tattoo sleeve covers her right arm from the shoulder to below the elbow. She wears a black, grey, and white dress reminiscent of the 1950s, and ballet flats. She is a font designer.

In an interview Corkrey says, "I am a mother. He will be two in December." We see Corkrey with a little blond boy, reading a book together on a beanbag chair. Breezy guitar music plays. "His name is Ryder." We see Corkrey kissing Ryder and putting him to bed. "I recently decided to get a divorce, which is new." The guitar music turns pensive. "The life I had planned for us, the life I'd pictured, wasn't going to happen. I cried a lot for a while. I don't think I stopped crying. And Ryder, of course, you can be crying, and then he walks by, and does something ridiculous, and you can't help but smile and laugh." We see Corkrey laughing with her son on the floor. "And a little piece kind of heals up a little bit."

The montage of Corkrey's life fills the screen as the rock ballad swells. "I can laugh at myself, while the tears roll down ..." sings the band. We see Corkrey and her son looking out a window. She holds her son up to a basketball hoop as he clutches a blue ball.

"It was kind of crazy, I found out Idol was coming to Salt Lake, and I'd just decided on the divorce, and for the first time in my life it was a crossroads where ANYTHING can happen! So why not go for what I love to do?"

Corkrey enters the audition room. The judges -- Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson, and Kara DioGuardi -- are seated behind a long table in front of a window. They all have large red tumblers with "Coca-Cola" printed on them. They seem charmed by her exuberant presence. She sings "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" from Show Boat. Her performance is charismatic and quirky. She improvises freely and assuredly with the rhythms and notes of the song, beaming the whole time.

"I really like you," says Abdul. "I'm bordering on loving you. I think I'm loving you. Yeah, I do. Simon?"

"One of my favorite auditions," Cowell says in a monotone.

"Yes!" grins Corkrey.

"Because you're different," continues Cowell, sternly. "You are one of the few I'm going to remember. I like you, I like your voice, I mean, seriously good voice. I loved it."

"You're an interesting girl. You have a glow about you, you have an incredible face," says DioGuardi.

The judges vote.

"Absolutely yes," says Cowell.

"Love you," says Abdul.

"Yes!" says DioGuardi.

"One hundred percent maybe," smiles Jackson.

"You're goin' to Hollywood!" cheers DioGuardi as the inspirational rock music swells.

"YES! Thank you, guys!" Corkrey screams with delight. She runs out of the audition room into a crowd of her cheering friends. The music plays as she dances down the street waving her large yellow ticket, the symbol of her success.

Celebrities, who often come from humble backgrounds, are held up as proof that anyone, even we, can be adored by the world. These celebrities, like saints, are living proof that the impossible is always possible. Our fantasies of belonging, of fame, of success, and of fulfillment are projected onto celebrities. These fantasies are stoked by the legions of those who amplify the culture of illusion, who persuade us that the shadows are real. The juxtaposition of the impossible illusions inspired by celebrity culture and our "insignificant" individual achievements, however, eventually leads to frustration, anger, insecurity, and invalidation. This juxtaposition results, ironically, in a self-perpetuating cycle that drives the frustrated, alienated individual with even greater desperation and hunger away from reality, back toward the empty promises of those who seduce us, who tell us what we want to hear. We beg for more. We ingest these lies until our money runs out. And when we fall into despair we medicate ourselves, as if the happiness we have failed to find in the hollow game were our deficiency. And, of course, we are told it is.

Human beings become a commodity in a celebrity culture. They are objects, like consumer products. They have no intrinsic value. They must look fabulous and live on fabulous sets. Those who fail to meet the ideal are belittled and mocked. Friends and allies are to be used and betrayed during the climb to fame, power, and wealth. And when they are no longer useful they are to be discarded. In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's novel about a future dystopia, people spend most of the day watching giant television screens that show endless scenes of police chases and criminal apprehensions. Life, Bradbury understood, once it was packaged and filmed, became the most compelling form of entertainment.

The moral nihilism of celebrity culture is played out on reality television shows, most of which encourage a dark voyeurism into other people's humiliation, pain, weakness, and betrayal. Education, building community, honesty, transparency, and sharing are qualities that will see you, in a gross perversion of democracy and morality, voted off a reality show. Fellow competitors for prize money and a chance for fleeting fame elect to "disappear" the unwanted. In the final credits of the reality show America's Next Top Model, a picture of the woman expelled during the episode vanishes from the group portrait on the screen. Those cast aside become, at least to the television audience, non-persons. Life, these shows teach, is a brutal world of unadulterated competition. Life is about the personal humiliation of those who oppose us. Those who win are the best. Those who lose deserve to be erased. Compassion, competence, intelligence, and solidarity with others are forms of weakness. And those who do not achieve celebrity status, who do not win the prize money or make millions in Wall Street firms, deserve to lose. Those who are denigrated and ridiculed on reality television, often as they sob in front of the camera, are branded as failures. They are responsible for their rejection. They are deficient.

In an episode from the second season of the CBS reality game show Survivor, cast members talk about exceptional friendships they have made within their "tribe," or team. Maralyn, also known as Mad Dog, is a fifty-two-year-old retired police officer with a silver crew cut and a tall, masculine build. She is sunning herself in a shallow stream, singing "On the Street Where You Live." Tina, a personal nurse and mother, walks up the stream toward her.

"Sing it, girl! I just followed your voice."

"Is it that loud?"

"Maralyn, she's kind of like our little songbird, and our little cheerleader in our camp," Tina says in an interview. "Maralyn and I have bonded, more so than I have with any of the other people. It might be our ages, it might just be that we kind of took up for one another."

We see Tina and Maralyn swimming and laughing together in the river.

"Tina is a fabulous woman," says Maralyn in an interview. "She is a star. I trust Tina the most."

Maralyn and Tina's tribe, Ogakor, loses an obstacle course challenge, in which all the tribe members are tethered together. If one person falls, the entire team is slowed. Mad Dog Maralyn falls several times and is hauled back to her feet by Colby, the "cowboy" from Texas.

Because they lost, the members of Ogakor must vote off one of their tribe members. The camera shows small groups of twos and threes in huddled, intense discussion.

"The mood in the camp is a very sad mood, but it's also a very strategic mood," says Tina. "Everyone's thinking, ‘Who's thinking what?'"

The vote is taken at dusk, in the "tribal council" area. It resembles a set from Disney World's Adventureland. A ring of tall stone monoliths is stenciled with petroglyphs. Torches flicker above. A campfire blazes in the center of the ring. Primitive drums and flutes accompany the scene.

The Ogakor team arrives at dusk, each holding a torch. They sit before Survivor's host, Jeff Probst.

"So I just want to talk about a couple of big topics," says Probst, who wears a safari outfit. "Trust. Colby, is there anyone here that you don't trust, wouldn't trust?"

"Sure," says Colby.

"Tell me about that."

"Well, I think that's part of the game," says Colby. "It's way too early to tell exactly who you can trust, I think."

"What about you, Mitchell? Would you trust everyone here for forty-two days?" asks Probst. "I think the motto is, ‘Trust no one,' " answers Mitchell. "I have a lot of faith in a good number of these people, but I couldn't give 100 percent of my trust."

"What about you, Mad Dog?" asks Probst. "These all your buddies?"

Maralyn looks around at her team members. "Yes," she says unequivocally. "Yes. And, Jeff, I trust with my heart."

"I think friendship does enter into it at some point," says Jerri. "But I think it's very important to keep that separate from the game. It's two totally different things. And that's where it gets tricky." Jerri will say later, as she casts her vote, "This is probably one of the most difficult things for me to do right now. It's purely strategic, it's nothing personal. I am going to miss you dearly."

"Jeff," Maralyn breaks in. "I'm conjoined with Tina. She is a constellation. And, the cowboy [Colby]! The poor cowboy has dragged me around so many times [during the obstacle course challenge]. I appreciate it."

"I'd do it again," laughs Colby broadly.

"Hey, you hear that? He'd do it again!" says Maralyn.

It is time to vote. Each team member walks up a narrow bridge lit by flaring torches, again looking like something out of Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room, made of twisted logs lashed with vines, to a stone table. They write the name of the person they want to eliminate and put it in a cask with aboriginal carvings. Most of the votes are kept anonymous, the camera panning away as each person writes. But as Tina, Mad Dog Maralyn's best friend and "constellation," casts her vote, she shows us her ballot: Mad Dog. "Mad Dog, I love you," she says to the camera, "I value your friendship more than anything. This vote has everything to do with a promise I made, it has nothing to do with you. I hope you'll understand." She folds her vote and puts it in the cask.

"Once the vote is tallied, the decision is final, and the person will be asked to leave the tribal council area immediately," says Probst.

Five people of the seven voted to eliminate Maralyn.

"You need to bring me a torch, Mad Dog," says Probst. She does so, first taking off her green baseball cap and putting it affectionately on Amber, who sits next to her and gives her a hug. The camera shows Tina looking impassive.

"Mad Dog," says Probst, holding the flaming torch Maralyn has brought him, "the tribe has spoken." He takes a large stone snuffer and extinguishes the torch. The camera shows Maralyn's rueful face behind the smoking, blackened torch. "It's time for you to go," says Probst. She leaves without speaking or looking at anyone, although there are a few weak ‘byes from the tribe.

Before the final credits, we are shown who, besides her friend Tina, voted to eliminate Maralyn. They are Amber, who gave Maralyn a farewell hug, along with Mitchell, Jerri, and Colby, Maralyn's "cowboy."

Celebrity culture plunges us into this moral void. No one has any worth beyond his or her appearance, usefulness, or ability to "succeed." The highest achievements in a celebrity culture are wealth, sexual conquest, and fame. It does not matter how these are obtained. These values, as Sigmund Freud understood, are illusory. They are hollow. They leave us chasing vapors. They urge us toward a life of narcissistic self-absorption. They tell us that existence is to be centered on the practices and desires of the self rather than the common good. The ability to lie and manipulate others, the very ethic of capitalism, is held up as the highest good. "I simply agreed to go along with [Jerri and Amber] because I thought it would get me down the road a little better," says young, good-looking Colby in another episode of Survivor. "I wanna win. And I don't want to talk to anybody else about loyalties -- don't give me that crap. I haven't trusted anyone since day one, and anyone playing smart should have been the same way."

The cult of self dominates our cultural landscape. This cult shares within it the classic traits of psychopaths: superficial charm, grandiosity, and self-importance; a need for constant stimulation; a penchant for lying, deception, and manipulation; and the inability to feel remorse or guilt. This is, of course, the ethic promoted by corporations. It is the ethic of unfettered capitalism. It is the misguided belief that personal style and personal advancement, mistaken for individualism, are the same as democratic equality. In fact, personal style, defined by the commodities we buy or consume, has become a compensation for our loss of democratic equality. We have a right, in the cult of the self, to get whatever we desire. We can do anything, even belittle and destroy those around us, including our friends, to make money, to be happy, and to become famous. Once fame and wealth are achieved, they become their own justification, their own morality. How one gets there is irrelevant. Once you get there, those questions are no longer asked.

It is this perverted ethic that gave us Wall Street bankers and investment houses that willfully trashed the nation's economy, stole money from tens of millions of small shareholders who had bought stock in these corporations for retirement or college. The heads of these corporations, like the winners on a reality television program who lied and manipulated others to succeed, walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses and compensation. In his masterful essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," Walter Benjamin wrote, "The cult of the movie star, fostered by the money of the film industry, preserves not the unique aura of the person but the ‘spell of the personality,' the phony spell of a commodity."

According to C. Wright Mills, "The professional celebrity, male and female, is the crowning result of the star system of a society that makes a fetish of competition." Mills added:

In America, this system is carried to the point where a man who can knock a small white ball into a series of holes in the ground with more efficiency and skill than anyone else thereby gains access to the President of the United States. It is carried to the point where a chattering radio and television entertainer becomes the hunting chum of leading industrial executives, cabinet members, and the higher military. It does not seem to matter what the man is the very best at; so long as he has won out in competition over all others, he is celebrated. Then, a second feature of the star system begins to work: all the stars of any other sphere of endeavor or position are drawn toward the new star and he toward them. The success, the champion, accordingly, is one who mingles freely with other champions to populate the world of the celebrity.

Degradation as entertainment is the squalid underside to the glamour of celebrity culture. "If only that were me," we sigh, as we gaze at the wealthy, glimmering stars on the red carpet. But we are as transfixed by the inverse of celebrity culture, by the spectacle of humiliation and debasement that characterizes tabloid television shows such as The Jerry Springer Show and The Howard Stern Show. We secretly exult, "At least that's not me." It is the glee of cruelty with impunity, the same impulse that drove crowds to the Roman Colosseum, to the pillory and the stocks, to public hangings, and to traveling freak shows.

Celebrity is the vehicle used by a corporate society to sell us these branded commodities, most of which we do not need. Celebrities humanize commercial commodities. They present the familiar and comforting face of the corporate state. Supermodel Paulina Porizkova, on an episode of America's Next Top Model, gushes to a group of aspiring young models, "Our job as models is to sell." But they peddle a fake intimacy and a fantasy. The commercial "personalizing" of the world involves oversimplification, distraction, and gross distortion. "We sink further into a dream of an unconsciously intimate world in which not only may a cat look at a king but a king is really a cat underneath, and all the great power-figures Honest Joes at heart," Richard Hoggart warned in The Uses of Literacy. We do not learn more about Barack Obama by knowing what dog he has bought for his daughters or if he still smokes. This personalized trivia, passed off as news, diverts us from reality.

In his book Celebrity, Chris Rojeck calls celebrity culture "the cult of distraction that valorizes the superficial, the gaudy, the domination of commodity culture." He goes further:

Capitalism originally sought to police play and pleasure, because any attempt to replace work as the central life interest threatened the economic survival of the system. The family, the state, and religion engendered a variety of patterns of moral regulation to control desire and ensure compliance with the system of production. However, as capitalism developed, consumer culture and leisure time expanded. The principles that operated to repress the individual in the workplace and the home were extended to the shopping mall and recreational activity. The entertainment industry and consumer culture produced what Herbert Marcuse called ‘repressive desublimation.' Through this process individuals unwittingly subscribed to the degraded version of humanity.

This cult of distraction, as Rojeck points out, masks the real disintegration of culture. It conceals the meaninglessness and emptiness of our own lives. It seduces us to engage in imitative consumption. It deflects the moral questions arising from mounting social injustice, growing inequalities, costly imperial wars, economic collapse, and political corruption. The wild pursuit of status and wealth has destroyed our souls and our economy. Families live in sprawling mansions financed with mortgages they can no longer repay. Before the meltdown, consumers recklessly rang up Coach handbags and Manolo Blahnik shoes on credit cards because they seemed to confer a sense of identity and merit. Our favorite hobby, besides television, used to be -- until reality hit us like a tsunami -- shopping. Shopping used to be the compensation for spending five days a week in tiny cubicles. American workers are ground down by corporations that have disempowered, used, and now discarded them.

This article was in part adapted from Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (Nation Books, 2009).

Reality check: Obama gropes for a strategy

2010-01-28T10:55:00.000-08:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20100128/pl_politico/32143

John F. Harris
Thu Jan 28, 2:22 am ET

President Barack Obama on Wednesday night tacked to the right with appeals for tax cuts for small business and new investments in off-shore oil drilling and nuclear power. He tacked to the left with renewed vows to let gays serve in the military and to get U.S. troops out of Iraq.

He sounded at times like a Bill Clinton-style centrist, at others like a bank-bashing populist. He taunted Republicans, and also presented himself as a lonely tribune of cooperation and bipartisan civility in Washington.

In a favorable light, his State of the Union speech may have revealed the mind of a leader who has never cared much about traditional ideological categories and is determined to create his own results-oriented composite of ideas from across the spectrum.

Less charitably, the address could be interpreted as the work of a president who is desperately improvising by touching every political erogenous zone he and his advisers can think of.

Under either judgment, however, it was inescapable that his 69-minute speech — for all the rush of words and policy ideas — was a document of downsized ambitions for a downsized moment in his presidency.

It was presented to the Congress and a national audience with all of Obama’s usual fluency and brio. There were flashes of wit, as when he noted ruefully that “by now, it should be fairly obvious that I didn't take on health care because it was good politics.”

And there were flashes of defiance, with Obama delivering what the White House clearly intended to be the headline quote: “We don’t quit; I don’t quit.”

But there was no mistaking throughout this box-checking, loosely bundled speech how different the political context in the winter of 2010 is from the winter of 2009.

Obama came into office promising to shatter expectations of what was possible in Washington. The talk then was of a presidential “big bang” — health care, global warming, and financial reform legislation all in one year — and chief of staff
Rahm Emanuel boasted that his motto was to “never let a serious crisis go to waste.”

With the big-bang strategy officially a failure, Obama’s speech revealed in real-time a president groping for a new and more effective one. The speech was woven with frequent acknowledgements that the laws of political gravity applied to him after all.
The first and most pressing legislative goals he identified were a comparatively small jobs bill that has passed the House but is languishing in the Senate, and a Bill Clinton-style menu of tax incentives for business.

Health care, the consuming issue of 2009 and the one on which Obama aides insisted they should be judged, did not show up until more than halfway through.

Even then, it was on a notably defensive note. He acknowledged of his signature domestic proposal that “the longer it was debated, the more skeptical people became,” adding that, “I take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly to the American people.” Despite a year of presidential speeches and legislative maneuvering, he said, many people are asking themselves, “What’s in it for me?”

Legislators should pass what he called good policy even if it is bad politics, he asserted. But Obama offered no clarity at all on exactly when or how this would happen after the stalemate caused by the Republican capture of Ted Kennedy’s former Senate seat in Massachusetts.

His tepid rallying cry: “As temperatures cool, I want everyone to take another look at the plan we've proposed.”

That line fit the theme of the night. This president was in a political jam when the evening started. And it was hard to see how he was in any less of a jam when the evening ended.

In many ways his tone belittled the speech’s substance. There were only a few of the rhetorical acrobatics and lyrical flights that mark Obama’s most cultivated speeches. Instead, the language was more straightforward, more informal, more accessible — the words of a realist rather than a romantic.

But if the speech reflected his cramped circumstances, it probably did nothing to alter those circumstances.

The president and his aides have been awash in advice for the past few weeks, and the speech sounded as though they had decided to serve up a buffet of all of it.

For those who thought he needed to take a step to the right and show more outreach to Republicans, there were calls for the parties to transcend “pettiness” and “work through our differences.” He bragged about how he had cut taxes for most families and talked up a spending freeze.

For those who thought he needed to show he was listening to the liberals who were most excited about the original promise of his presidency, there was his vow to act on his campaign promise of ending discrimination against gays in the military. He promised that he would move ahead with energy legislation, which includes the politically volatile “cap and trade” provisions to limit carbon emissions, though he did not try to rebut the widespread analysis that there is virtually no chance these will pass the Senate this year.

For those who thought he needed to stand up to special interests and tell big bankers where to get off, he did just that. He promoted a proposed new fee on banks and crowed, “I know Wall Street isn't keen on this idea, but if these firms can afford to hand out big bonuses again, they can afford a modest fee to pay back the taxpayers who rescued them in their time of need.”

For those who thought Obama needed to be more modest and contrite, he delivered just that — saying he “deserved” some of his “political setbacks.” He did the same for those who thought he should be less detached and project a more human connection to the lives of real people. There were references to the letters from average Americans he reads nightly and to the struggles of Allentown, Pa., and Elyria, Ohio, and Galesburg, Ill.

It was overwhelmingly a domestic policy address. Though the president was absorbed for months in 2009 with his review of policy in Afghanistan, where 100,000 U.S. troops now serve, the war there was dealt with in two paragraphs.
Iraq also came at the end, with a reference that was brief but resounding about his long-term goal: “But make no mistake: This war is ending, and all of our troops are coming home.”

A speech with parts to satisfy so many different constituencies and perspectives could not fully satisfy very many people. This was reflected in the early reaction.

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) criticized the president for continuing to express willingness to work with Republicans, arguing that Obama should have been more forceful about calling the Republicans out for obstruction.

"The fact is, we have an opposition determined to bring him down," McDermott said. "I don't know when he's going to get the message. ... They're not going to help him at all. Watch. I've been doing this a long time."

On the other hand, Rep. Joe Wilson — the South Carolina Republican who gained notoriety last year by shouting “You lie!” during an earlier Obama speech to Congress — was staying positive.

“On the issue of national security, I was pleased that the president reiterated the value of sending 30,000 more reinforcements to Afghanistan," Wilson said. "I very much respect the president’s decision to listen to our commanders on the ground. ...”

Another conservative was much less complimentary. On POLITICO’s Arena feature, the Heritage Foundation’s Rory Cooper complained that the speech “seemed to have dozens of authors as it contradicted itself and his policies often and emphatically.

“He said he didn't want to relitigate the past, when the primary focus of the address was exactly that,” Cooper said. “He said he didn't want to penalize bankers, right after he gloriously announced his punitive tax on bankers who have paid back the U.S. Treasury in full with interest. He said he wanted to control spending, and then rattled off a laundry list of liberal investments.”

Also on the Arena, Obama got an assist from Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the 2004 Democratic nominee, who said his work with Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut shows that progress on energy legislation is realistic this year.

“The inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom that this issue has stalled is dead wrong,” Kerry said.

Obama knows his challenge is to get other Democrats to share Kerry’s optimism, not just on energy legislation but on the larger promise of the administration. “To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve problems, not run for the hills,” Obama said.

How to Squander the Presidency in One Year

2010-01-26T14:23:00.000-08:00

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/22-7

January 22, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
How to Squander the Presidency in One Year
Hey, Conan Obama: How About Now? Can You Hear Us Now?
by David Michael Green

There's only one political party in the entire world that is so inept, cowardly and bungling that it could manage to simultaneously lick the boots of Wall Street bankers and then get blamed by the voters for being flaming revolutionary socialists.

It's the same party that has allowed the opposition to go on a thirty year scorched earth campaign, stealing everything in sight from middle and working class voters, and yet successfully claim to be protecting ‘real Americans' from out-of-touch elites.

It's the same party that could run a decorated combat hero against a war evader in 1972, only to be successfully labeled as national security wimps.

Just to be sure, it then did the exact same thing again in 2004.

It's the same party that stood by silently while two presidential elections in a row were stolen away from them.

How ‘bout dem Dems, eh?

One year ago today, there was real question as to what could possibly be the future of the Republican Party in America. That's changed a bit now.

And, speaking of ‘change', the one kind that Barack Obama did actually deliver this year was not that which most voters had in mind after listening to him use the word incessantly, all throughout 2008. Obama and his colleagues have now managed to bring the future of the Democratic Party into question, just a year after it won two smashing victories in a row.

Personally, I'm not real bothered by that. Today's Democrats are, almost without exception, embarrassing hacks who deserved to get stomped a long time ago.

What really upsets me, however, is what these fools have allowed to be done to the name of progressivism, and to the country.

Barack Obama has now, in just a year's time, become the single most inept president perhaps in all of American history, and certainly in my lifetime. Never has so much political advantage been pissed away so rapidly, and what's more in the context of so much national urgency and crisis. It's astonishing, really, to contemplate how much has been lost in a single year.

It was hilarious, of course, when Michelle Bachmann invoked the Charge of the Light Brigade at a rally against "Obama's" (has he ever really owned it?) health care "initiative" (isn't that too strong a word to use?), quite oblivious to the fact that the actual historical event was one of history's greatest debacles. Obama, on the other hand, seems to be actually reliving the famous cock-up in the flesh. Except, of course, that he doesn't really "charge" at anything. He just talks about things, thinks about things a real long time, defers to others on things, and waits around for things to maybe happen.

This week, though, something actually did happen. Alas, not precisely what the president had in mind, however.

But the election in Massachusetts was only slightly less inevitable than the sun rising in the east each morning. It was the product of an amazing collection of abysmal choices and practices over the last year that has produced a meltdown of equally amazing proportions for this president and his party. It is fitting that it comes on the anniversary of the president's inauguration, a moment filled with so much hope for so many just a year ago.

What has Obama - this Conan O'Brien of presidents - done wrong in order to produce this devastating outcome? The short answer is: Just about everything imaginable.

More specifically:

* He does not lead. Americans, especially in times of crisis, want their daddy-president to pick a point on the horizon and lead them to it. Often - especially in the short term - they don't even care that much which point it is. They will happily follow a president whose policies they oppose if he will but lead.

* And if he will demonstrate some conviction. I have never seen a president so utterly lacking in passion. This man literally doesn't even seem to care about himself, let alone this or that policy issue. He doesn't seem to have any strong opinions on anything, a sure prescription for presidential failure.

* He has therefore let Congress ‘lead' on nearly every issue, another surefire mistake. Instead of demanding that they pass real stimulus legislation - which would have really stimulated the economy, big-time, and right now - he let those dickheads on the Hill just load up a big pork party blivet of a bill with all the pet projects they could find, designed purely to benefit their personal standing with the voters at home, rather than to actually produce jobs for Americans. And on health care, his signature issue, he did the same thing. "You guys write it, and I'll sign the check." Could there possibly be a greater prescription for failure than allowing a bunch of the most venal people on the planet to cobble together a 2,000 page monstrosity that entirely serves their interests and those of the people whose campaign bribes put them in office?

* Well, yes, now that you mention it. If you really want to bring your government crashing to the ground, why not spend endless months negotiating with vicious thugs, who will never vote for your legislation anyhow, because they are so entirely devoted to your destruction that they're willing to call you a granny murderer? What a great and winning strategy!

* Another possible strategic move even stupider than deferring to Congress to write major legislation is to cozy up with the least popular people on the planet - including, in fact, the real-life granny killers. Got an economy that is so raw it's leaving thousands in literal peril of losing their lives? Why not draft some legislation to bail-out the people who created that mess and guarantee that they retain their multimillion dollar bonuses?!?! You know, the same folks who are always talking about how great capitalism is and how important it is to take risks! The same ones who are always telling us how awful the government is - the same government that saved them from extinction. Those folks. That's right, bail out with outrageous bonuses the very people who need it least and who caused billions of people around the planet to suffer, while leaving everyone else to fend for themselves! That'll raise your presidential job approval ratings every time! And while you're at it, bring in the much beloved health insurance and pharmaceutical corporate lobbyists, and negotiate a deal with them to craft your high profile health care legislation! What voter can't get behind that?

* Another brilliant presidential tactic is to be such a Mr. Happy Nice Face that you acknowledge no enemies for the country, or even yourself. Not the health care corporate vampires who suck the blood out of Americans from San Diego to Bangor, providing absolutely no value-added health service whatsoever, while denying treatment to deathly ill human beings at every opportunity, all to rake in billions more in profits. Not the reckless pirates on Wall Street who bet all our money on insane gambles that wrecked the global economy, took government bail-out money to survive, and yet are still drowning in bonuses as rewards. Not the Republican Party who spent three decades downsizing the middle class, plunging the country into wars based on lies, deregulating every protection in sight, fattening up corporate cronies, wrecking the environment, trashing the Constitution and polarizing the country politically. And not even a catastrophic climate disaster speeding toward the planet with relentless determination. No! We must all be happy and talk nice! No bad guys. Not even the bad guys can be bad guys.

* While you're at it, if you're trying to run the most failed presidency ever, a really good idea is to campaign in the grandest terms possible, and then deliver squat. You know, talk about bending the arc of history. Invoke Martin Luther King's dream and his struggles and even those of the slaves. Ring the big bells of generational calling. Remind voters every thirty seconds that the country badly needs "Change!". Then get elected and turn around and continue the policies of your hated predecessor in every meaningful policy area. Only with less conviction. People will love that.

* A related brilliant move is to mobilize a giant army of passionate volunteers dedicated to putting you in the White House, and then do nothing with them once you get there, other than taking them completely for granted and never calling upon them to do anything in support of your agenda. Be sure to deflate their enthusiasm in every way possible.

* Even more importantly, if you're trying to run your presidency into the ground you'll definitely want to avoid mobilizing the general public behind your agenda. To make sure that you don't repeat the great legislative victories of FDR or LBJ or (unfortunately) Reagan or (really unfortunately) Little Bush, never use their method of appealing directly to the people. Never express your legislative program as a moral imperative, a great calling to the nation. Never attempt to rally the public behind your cause. Never express any urgency. And never call upon them to demand that Congress pass your bills. Then, you can rest assured they won't!

* And let's take it up a whole ‘nuther level, while we're on the subject. A successful president is one who articulates a strong and compelling narrative for the nation. So, in your quest to avoid rising even to mediocrity, be sure to leave a great big gaping canyon where that whole narrative thing is supposed to go. No New Deal, no Great Society, no New Frontier or War on Terror for you. Nope! Just a thousand little projects with little non-solutions to big problems. Hey, why not inject yourself into Cambridge, Massachusetts community police politics while you're at it! Or the New York State Democratic Party gubernatorial primary! Or you could deliberate for weeks about which breed of dog to get for your kids! That's a great use of the president's political capital!

* As long as you're walking away from the grand narrative, why not let the opposition define you as well? Let them say anything imaginable about you, and never respond. You're a socialist! No, you're a fascist! No, you're both! At the same time, no less! You're a granny killer! You're not really even an American! You're taking over the US for the Muslims! You're a massive taxer and spender! You're running around the world, apologizing for America everywhere you go! No worries. Just remember the golden rule, and your presidency is sure to sink: Never engage, never respond, never preempt, never attack, never fight back.

* In general, you'll also want to take the most important power the president has - the bully pulpit - and totally piss it away. Appear everywhere at once, all the time, saying lots of nice words, about a thousand different issues. But never with passion, never with compelling simplicity, never with repetition, and never with urgency. Pretty soon you'll turn being everywhere into being nowhere. Everyone one will tune out your ubiquitous self. Give up the high moral ground which is the most important asset of the office you hold, and you'll make sure that no one ever listens to you anymore. You will persuade the public of nothing. Except that you are irrelevant.

* But you can do better still. Help your enemies, so that they can crush you more effectively! Start by not even realizing they are your enemies. Then, treat them with greater respect than your friends, even though they've run the country over a cliff. Defer to them at every opportunity. Consult with them even as they insult you to your face. Allow them to run Congress, even though they have small minorities in both houses. Never force them to vote against simple, popular legislation. Never call their bluffs. Never associate them with the destruction they've caused. Never label them the treasonous hypocritical liars that they are. Help them to resuscitate the comatose near-corpse of their political party, just before it's about to die, so it can rise up and savage you.

* Another great trick for crashing a presidency is to pick all the wrong priorities to ‘fight' for. Imagine, for example, if FDR had substituted for his ‘Day of Infamy' speech right after Pearl Harbor a ringing call for an American revolution in cobbler technology! Yes, that's right, in response to the devastating surprise attack by the armed forces of the Empire of Japan, what if the president urgently called upon us all to start making really amazing shoes?! Before it's too late, and we all get blisters on our feet! Similarly, Mr. Obama, your spending the last year on (jive) health care and jetting around the world dipping your toes into foreign policy problems while Americans are losing their jobs and their houses is a fine way to kill your presidency. Guaranteed to work every time.

* And, finally, perhaps the most important thing one can do - and the thing that helps explain many of the other items above - is to adopt really, really pathetic policies. If you're doing a stimulus bill, for example, make sure that it's too little money, not targeted at real stimulative levers in the economy, costs a lot, doesn't kick in for a year or two, gives away about a third of the money to ineffective pet projects for Republican while none of them vote for it anyhow, and leaves the unemployment rate stuck at a miserable ten percent. Or, if you're doing a bail-out of the banks for the purpose of producing the liquidity essential to restarting the economy, let them take bonuses as big as they want, and don't actually require that they loan out to anyone the money you've given them. Or, how about spending nearly all your political capital on ‘health care' legislation, which is really an insurance company boondoggle bill instead? That's really what the people want, eh? No wonder Obama's not out there writing the narrative, fighting the good fight or crushing his enemies. Even he can't get excited about his own priorities, so extraordinarily abysmal are they.

All of this represents the best prescription I can imagine for wrecking a presidency, and Obama has followed it with exacting precision. Indeed, doing so would appear to be his only real passion. It's almost as if he were a Republican sleeper politician in some party politics version of the Manchurian Candidate, planted to arise on cue and destroy the Democratic Party from within.

And thus - while anything's possible, of course - I am hard pressed to see how the Obama administration is anything but finished. Consider his options from here.

He could turn to the right, like Clinton did in 1994. But the first problem is that he's already there. If you look carefully at his policies, he is basically running George Bush's third term. Regressives (conveniently) forget that. They call him weak on national security, even while he dramatically escalates the war in Afghanistan, hardly draws down in Iraq, breaks his own promise to close Gitmo, and smashes through the $700 billion mark in military spending for the first time, not even counting Afghanistan's costs. They ignore his Bush-cloned policies on state secrets, renditions, executive power and other civil liberties issues. They forget that Bush's health care bill was far more socialistic and far more fiscally irresponsible than Obama's, and that his bail-outs and stimulus actions were almost identical. So, in short, for Obama to turn to starboard at this point would literally require him to outflank the GOP to its right. Moreover, the Limbaughs and Becks and Palins would still excoriate him, no matter what. Worse still, such policies would only make the lives of ordinary Americans a lot worse, just as they have been doing for thirty years now. So what could be gained by a turn to the right?

Second, he could go small-bore, as Clinton also did in the 1990s. But, of course, these aren't the 1990s. FDR didn't win four terms during a Great Depression and a world war by focusing on school uniforms and V-chips. This is not the 1930s or 1940s, but it's close. People are hurting, frightened and angry. Obama is suffering badly already because he is not addressing their very tangible concerns. More of the same policy-wise will produce more of the same politically. Going this route, he'd be lucky if the public was kind enough to let him finish his single term as a James Buchanan wannabe, then go home.

The obvious solution, of course, would be a sharp turn to the left. Go where the real solutions are. Fight the good fight. Call liars ‘liars' and thieves ‘thieves'. Do the people's business. Become their advocate against the monsters bleeding them dry. Create jobs. Build infrastructure. Do real national health care. End the wars. Dramatically slash military spending. Produce actual educational reform. Launch a massive green energy/jobs program. Get serious about global warming. Kick ass on campaign finance reform. Fight for gay rights. Restore the New Deal era regulatory framework and expand it. Restore a fair taxation structure. Rewrite trade agreements that undermine American jobs. Rebuild unions. Fill the spate of vacancies in the federal judiciary, and load those seats up with progressives. Rally the public to demand that Congress act on your agenda. Humiliate the regressives in and out of the GOP for their abysmal sell-out policies.

All of this could be done, and most of it would be very popular, especially if it was backed by an aggressive and righteously angry Oval Office advocate for the people who knew how to use the bully pulpit to shape the narrative, to market ideas, and to mobilize public support.

But I doubt Obama has anything like the constitution for that sort of presidency. I think his personal disposition is so strongly controlling of his politics that he would rather preside as a three year lame-duck over a failed one-term presidency, than actually throw an elbow or two and make anyone uncomfortable. Think how unpleasant it would be.

Moreover, by blundering during the only chance he'll ever have at introducing his presidency, he's now created an additional set of problems for himself which may well be insurmountable, even if he were to now try to live up to his campaign billing. He needs Democratic votes in Congress to do much of anything, but they're all focused on the looming tsunami of next November. The very same people who might have swallowed hard and reluctantly followed the lead of inspirational new president Obama one year ago, today will join everyone else in the world and spit in the eye of useless, feeble, washed-up Barack. He's got zero leverage over his own party in Congress now. As for the public, it's gonna be pretty hard to now market himself as the great enemy of the people's enemies, when he's just finished a year of making secret sweetheart deals that benefit Wall Street bankers, health insurance pirates, and pharmaceutical predators, all while leaving his own base and the public he's supposed to be serving out in the rain. Politicians can reinvent themselves, but you need time and there are certain limits of plausibility that cannot be ignored, any more than you can ignore the laws of physics.

Of course, I don't give a shit about Barack Obama anymore, other than my desire that really ugly things happen to him as payment in kind for the grandest act of betrayal we've seen since Benedict Arnold did his thing. But what about the country?

Not so good there, either, I'm afraid. What happens when you have two parties to choose from, and one of them wrecks the country with dramatically evil policies so radical even backward America hates them, but then you turn to the other party, which spends an entire year on the campaign trail promising change, only to turn out nearly identical to the first lot when in government? What do you do?

One option is to find another party. To some extent that is happening, but absolutely not where it should be. The tea partyers are the ‘alternative' vision for salvation in today's America. (Very) unfortunately, they are not alternative in any sense, have almost no coherent vision whatsoever, and - as the possible third right-wing party for voters to choose from, out of three, obviously offer zero salvation whatsoever. All the tea party lunatics seem to know is that they don't like taxes and they don't like federal spending. But they can't even tell you what they'd cut if they actually controlled the government. My guess is that it would be nothing, just like the Republicans before them, or else they'd slash entitlement spending, which would surely make them one of the flashiest flashes ever to get royally panned by the public.

The other option, which the voters are now exercising, is to continue a process begun in 2006 of voting for the party which is not the party in power. Today, that means Republicans, as witnessed in Virginia, New Jersey and now Massachusetts. The absurdity of this, of course, is that it was these exact same people who created this astonishingly thorough mess we find ourselves in. What is Mitch McConnell or John Boehner or Sarah Palin going to do for Americans who don't have jobs? Cut taxes they no longer pay (and thus also further increase the national debt, by the way)? What will they do for those same folks who've lost their health insurance? Kill Democratic plans, even when they're nothing but corporate giveaways anyhow?

Americans will simply be more sick, more broke and more unemployed two, four or six years from now than they are at this moment, if they put the Republicans back in control of the government.

Of course, there's one other possibility, which is that this time the Cheney Party goes balls-to-the-wall, bringing down on our heads a full-on fascist dictatorship, serving corporate interests in total, and likely launching a couple of good wars abroad to complement the complete repression of dissent and freedom of expression at home.

Ridiculous? I try pretty hard every day - and it takes some work - to keep my most apocalyptic totalitarian nightmares for this country in check. But think about this chronological sequence for a second: The Democrats get killed in November for doing nothing while the public suffers. But they are still seen as the party in power in 2012, so they get killed even worse, with Obama sent packing and Palin or her equivalent moving into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But the new radical GOP regime's policies are even more detrimental to voters than Bush's or Obama's. Maybe the public is distracted for a year or two by some bullshit foreign policy ‘crisis' or another, but pretty soon they're getting real restless. After about six years now of suffering badly, they're getting real surly, and ‘anti-incumbent' doesn't begin to describe the mood of the country. Now they really want some serious change.

Of course, anything can happen - but which part of that sequence seems improbable? And if the answer is none, then the salient question becomes: What does the regime do at that point, faced with an angry mob? What are the Dick Cheneys and Sarah Palins of this world committed to? What are they capable of when pressed?

I don't think those questions really require a response. I think we all know pretty well the answers.

This is the country that Obama - the great Hope guy - is bequeathing us.

Dante said "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality".

Better stock up on the mist sprayers, Barack.

Hope and Change Died When Obama Took Office

2010-01-23T16:51:00.001-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Hope-and-Change-Died-When-by-Grant-Lawrence-100121-520.html

January 22, 2010
By Grant Lawrence

US President Barack Obama suffered a painful defeat in Massachusetts. With mid-term elections looming, it means that Obama will have to fundamentally re-think his political course. German commentators say it is the end of hope.

Source: Spiegal Online

President Obama and his Administration have only recently understood the misguided approach of completely misleading the public on campaign promises with slick programs to fool the American people.

From creating a larger surge in Afghanistan, preparing for a long term occupation in Iraq (even though there are promises of troop withdrawals, the US will be there for years to come), expanding wars into Pakistan and Yemen, giving trillions more to the banksters, preparing to turn over all financial regulations to the pirates at the Fed, intentionally creating a privatized healthcare plan to make the insurance companies richer, pushing for greater privatization (corporatization) in schools, protecting the Telephone Companies and those that Spy on the American people, protecting the Torturers, a lack of a real economic program to create jobs, and the list goes on and on.
So now there is a plan to tax the banksters for their crude, rude, and greedy behavior towards the American people. That is a populist message that may be too little, too late.

There was an opportunity to implement the hope into real change, but that is gone now. Indeed the Obama Administration never planned on implementing real change but instead created a smokescreen of change while continuing business as usual.

President Obama and his Administration has only recently understood the misguided approach of completely misleading the public on campaign promises with slick programs to fool the American people.

But the American people, like the people of Massachusetts, have had enough. With real unemployment reaching 20%, with record numbers of people on food stamps, with record foreclosures, with record homelessness, with record number of bank closings, and with a record of real economic disaster, the times call for a real structural change of the economy and New Deal Programs to avert disaster.

Instead President Obama implemented a near NeoCon strategy on the economy and on Foreign policy hoping that it would be good enough to fool Americans and still richly feed the Military Industrial Complex.

The Obama strategy of trying to fool the fools with more of the same is not working. But in reality under our present system, President Obama or any American President has little choice but to feed the Military Industrial beast at the expense of the American people. The last President to really try something different was assassinated in Dallas.

The American economic system and the real Power Structure has to be changed. Until the American people are willing to move beyond the fake Republicrat System set up by the Financial Elite that run and control the country, it will always be business as usual.

President Obama, or any American President under our present system, can only kill Hope with the illusion of Change. Sadly, that is the best that we can hope for.

NOW they say the hype was unwarranted

2010-01-23T11:15:00.000-08:00

http://www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/6443/

Sheila Liaugminas | Wednesday, 20 January 2010
NOW they say the hype was unwarranted

On the car radio a couple of days ago, I caught an interesting interview on Beeb radio with Tina Brown about media in decline and President Obama in….well, decline. Brown now claims he should have never been so built up in the first place.

What great vision we have in hindsight.

That same night, I caught a fairly stunning Jon Stewart Daily Show that actually faced the reality that Obama may be “just a guy” after all, instead of a messianic figure.

Both broadcasts will be available for a limited time, no doubt. I recommend them to anyone with a little time and willingness to listen. They both mark a cultural turning point.

Here’s the Tina Brown interview. [It expires in three days so I'm not making the link hot]

“In an interview for Hardtalk, Tina Brown, the Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Beast, talks to Stephen Sackur about the state of American politics. Was the hype over Obama justified?”

(News tease: No, she says, not really. After all, he was an inexperienced, new senator from Illinois when he began running for president. She claims she never drank the Obama Kool-aid…)

And here’s the Stewart segment that had to be hard for the guy to do.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

The First 364 Days 23 Hours

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

After all the political calculations (an interesting skit there), he had to conclude that Bo the family dog pushed Obama’s falling ratings up an extra six points, thankfully.

Where was this sort of honesty before?

Obama's First Year: The Expectations Crisis

2010-01-22T15:44:00.001-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Obama-s-First-Year-The-Ex-by-Bob-Burnett-100122-571.html

January 22, 2010
By Bob Burnett

On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. A year later,voter approval of the Obama Administrationhas declined and the GOP victory in the Massachusetts Senate race is a chilling indication that Congressional Democrats will lose seats in the mid-term elections. What explains the Dems reversal of fortune?

The obvious explanation is the economy. America's working families are struggling; unemployment is high and good jobs are hard to find. Many Americans feel the US is headed in the wrong direction.

Despite the fact that the recession was the responsibility of the Bush Administration, the Republican message machine has done a good job blaming Dems, convincing working-class voters that "government caused the problem." Surprisingly - because Barack Obama is such a superb speaker - the White House has lost control of the political narrative. President Obama hasn't been able to reprise his message of hope and convince voters that he's leading them out of the darkness.

Americans are frustrated. To working families, "bail out" funds appear to have gone to Wall Street instead of Main Street. There's righteous anger that the profiteers responsible for the 2008 economic meltdown have prospered while the rest of us have suffered. Meanwhile, Republicans have done a good job tying Democrats to Wall Street - it's a variation on the historic GOP refrain that Dems are the Party of west and east coast elites.

Nonetheless, a better explanation for America's sour mood is that the US is in a crisis resulting from diminished expectations.

Since the end of World War II, Americans have clung to a myth that promised the US would always be the land of unlimited opportunity and progress. As a result, we expected our standard of living to rise every year, our children would have a better life than we have had, and our grandchildren will have an even better life. The 2007 bursting of the housing bubble led to the 2008 financial crisis and, in 2009, the destruction of the myth of inevitable progress. Now, Americans are depressed because they no longer expect a better, brighter tomorrow.

As the dust of the financial crisis settles, it's become apparent that for the last decade, Americans have been living beyond their means. Between 2000 and 2008, real median household income went down 4 percent. During the Bush Administration, the only folks who did well were the wealthy; everyone else got short changed. This reality was hidden by widespread deficit spending; the financial services industry cajoled Americans to spend more than they earned. Whilefinancial inequalityincreased, working families went deeply into debt using credit cards and home-equity loans. Then the housing bubble burst, taking with it the myth of inevitable progress. Suddenly, many working families realized they couldn't afford to own a home or buy a new car. Americans became discouraged and angry.

One of the basic rules of American politics is that voters prefer a positive message; they want to believe that progress is inevitable. In 1984, Ronald Reagan won reelection because he convinced the electorateit's morning in America. Reagan promised Americans a better, brighter tomorrow; he assured working families they could "have it all" if they only voted Republican. Sixteen years later, George W. Bush echoed the same sentiments when he guaranteed that our lives would get better if the GOP cut taxes and de funded government.

In contrast, Jimmy Carter lost voter support when he gave his infamousCrisis of Confidencespeech in 1979. Carter was brutally honest when he observed, "there are no short-term solutions to our long-range problems," but he turned off voters when he stated, "there is simply no way to avoid sacrifice."

For thirty years there has been an unacknowledged "third rail" in American politics: don't ask Americans for sacrifice. After 9/11, George Bush told us to go shopping; on September 27, 2001, he said, "Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America's great destination spots. Get down to Disney World in Florida." There was no call for sacrifice.

On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama inherited a double-sided problem: the worst American economy in eighty years and voters who believe in the myth of the free lunch:government will fix whatever ails America and it will do this for free. Obama has made progress repairing the economy, but hasn't dealt with the expectation crisis. Democrats haven't been able to counter the Republican claim that Americans can have it all if government gets out of the way.

History teaches that at the core of every problem there is an opportunity. The expectations crisis is an opportunity for Obama to redirect America. The President needs to take command of the political narrative, convince voters that the US has gotten off track and the only way to recover is to pull together for the common good. Obama must replace the magical belief in inevitable progress with the historic American myth of the benevolent community.

Obama blasts campaign funds ruling

2010-01-22T15:05:00.000-08:00

http://english.aljazeera.net//news/americas/2010/01/20101222911243628.html

FRIDAY, JANUARY 22, 2010
05:44 MECCA TIME, 02:44 GMT

Barack Obama has denounced a ruling by the US supreme court that will lift restrictions on campaign donations by corporations.

The US president vowed on Thursday to work with Democrats and Republicans in congress to come up with a "forceful response" to the court decision, saying the ruling would lead to a "stampede of special interest money in our politics".

The supreme court ended limits on corporate spending for US political campaigns on Thursday, a ruling which will effect this year's congressional races and the 2012 presidential contest.

The ruling on Thursday, with four of the nine judges dissenting, was a defeat for the law's supporters who said that ending the limits would unleash a flood of corporate money into the political system to promote or defeat candidates.

Obama called it a big victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and other powerful interests.

Strong dissent

The ruling by the conservative majority transformed the political landscape and the rules on how money can be spent in future presidential and congressional elections, which have already broken new spending records with each political cycle.

The justices on Thursday overturned supreme court precedents from 2003 and 1990 that upheld federal and state limits on independent expenditures by corporate treasuries to support or oppose candidates.

Al Jazeera's John Terrett explains how the court order will affect congressional elections Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said the limits violated constitutional free-speech rights.
"We find no basis for the proposition that, in the context of political speech, the government may impose restrictions on certain disfavoured speakers," he wrote.

The court's conservative majority, with the addition of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both Bush appointees, previously voted to limit or strike down parts of the law designed to regulate the role of money in politics and prevent corruption.

The court's four liberals, including its newest member, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was appointed by Obama, dissented.

In his sharply worded dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said: "The court's ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the nation."

Film controversy

The case began when a conservative group, Citizens United, made a 90-minute film called Hillary: The Movie that was very critical of Hillary Clinton, now-secretary of state, as she sought the Democratic presidential nomination.

Citizens United wanted to air advertisements for the film and distribute it through video-on-demand services on local cable systems during the 2008 Democratic primary campaign.

But federal courts said the film looked and sounded like a long campaign advertisement, and therefore should be regulated like one.

Hillary: The Movie was advertised on the internet, sold on DVD and shown in a few theatres.

Campaign regulations do not apply to DVDs, theatres or the internet.

The court first heard arguments in March, then asked for another round of arguments about whether corporations and unions should be treated differently from individuals when it comes to campaign spending.

After a special argument session in September, the conservative justices gave every indication that they were going to take the steps they did on Thursday.

What Hope for Obama?

2010-01-22T15:04:00.000-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/What-Hope-for-Obama-by-Bob-Ranney-100121-949.html

January 21, 2010
By Bob Ranney

A recent article I published in our local paper delineating my disappointments with the Obama administration got many responses, most of which missed the mark. My point was not that Obama is failing, but that the system is failing Obama. Yes, he has been a disappointment to me in some ways, but to evaluate him, one needs only compare him to his predecessor.

The system supports action by leaders like Bush/Cheney, but obstructs action by Obama/Biden.

Anyone who believes in Abe Lincoln's America of the people, by the people, and for the people, should advocate for the return of power to the representatives of the people Congress - from the hands of corporate lobbyists and the executive branch. Only Congress was authorized to declare war, but they have handed that power to the executive. The executive has handed much of that power covertly to the CIA and, through "privatization" to corporations like Blackwater.

With power in the hands of the executive, it is easy to manipulate intelligence and enter into inappropriate wars, and even easier for those behind the scenes to manipulate a weak executive into doing such things. With power in the hands of Congress, collective debate and popular input has a much better chance of cooling tempers and tempering powerful ambitions.

At present, precious little legislation protects the people, while most protects the power and wealth of the top 1% via corporate rights. With power removed from corporate lobbyists who not only advocate for, but actually write legislation - Congress would once again be charged with representing the people as well as special interests.

Finally, military budgeters should be required to do social/cost benefit analysis of expenditures for weapons against expenditures for things like schools, health care and food distribution, the U.S. should bind itself to international law, and a cabinet level Department of Peace should be empowered to seek solutions to world problems.

If he were given his head, I believe Obama would lead us toward these ideas, but the system, structured to continue our economic dependence on war, weapons, and corporate domination, ties his hands. The last president who tried on his own to stop this process, was sent prematurely to his grave at Arlington.

The saddest part is that so many little people seem to believe that someday their chance might come to be rich and powerful that they are willing to kowtow to those who already are and give up any real chance of relief for their own future and that of the world at large.

What hope is there for a democratic system so engulfed in power and greed that the average citizen can't see through it?

Author's Bio: I am an OEN editor, a retired medical management consultant, writer, musician, wood worker(boat builder), fisherman, and Vietnam era veteran who abhors imperialism and the wars it spawns.

The Two-Ness Of Being Barack Obama, Pt. 2

2010-01-22T14:44:00.000-08:00

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010010321/two-ness-being-barack-obama-pt-2

By Terrance Heath
January 21, 2010 -

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face. W.E.B. DuBois -- "The Souls of Black Folks"

The outcome of the Massachusetts special election makes one thing clear: It is time for President Obama to embrace his inner angry black man.

These words will no doubt as offensive to some as were Harry Reid's words about then candidate Obama. They are also just as true concerning President Obama as Reid's were of candidate Obama. They must be heeded if the president hopes to accomplish his agenda.

Returning to Reid's comments and the ensuing controversy, a question comes to mind — the same that came to mind in the wake of Jimmy the Greek's unfortunate comments. In Reid's case, however, the question is much more appropriate: What exactly did Reid say that was untrue?

The authors quote Reid as saying privately that Obama, as a black candidate, could be successful thanks, in part, to his "light-skinned" appearance and speaking patterns "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

"He [Reid] was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama -- a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,' " Halperin and Heilemann say.

"Reid was convinced, in fact, that Obama's race would help him more than hurt him in a bid for the Democratic nomination," they write.

In a statement to CNN, Reid said, "I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words."

"I sincerely apologize for offending any and all Americans, especially African Americans for my improper comments.
Reid had been chastised and has chastised himself for a "poor choice of words."

Again, there's nothing incorrect in what Reid said. In fact there's nothing offensive in what he said, because it's not offensive if it's true. Some people might be offended that he even brought up the subject, because of what it implies about race in America, where actual racist statements often get a pass if prefaced with "Not that I'm racist..."

If Reid's comments were offensive at all, it was merely the offense of failing to maintain the polite fiction about race in America.

Polite fiction refers to a social scenario in which all participants are aware of a truth, but pretend to believe in some alternative version of events to avoid conflict or embarrassment. Polite fictions are closely related to euphemism, in which a word or phrase that might be impolite, disagreeable, or offensive is replaced by another word or phrase that both speaker and listener understand to have the same meaning. In scholarly usage, "polite fiction" can be traced to at least 1953.[1]

... Polite fictions can slip into denial. This is especially the case when the fiction is actually meant to fool some observers, such as outsiders or children judged too young to be told the truth. The truth then becomes "the elephant in the room"; no matter how obvious it is, the people most affected pretend to others and to themselves that it isn't so. Again, this can be used to humorous effect in comedy, where a character will seem bent on working overtime to make it possible to maintain the polite fiction.

In other words, it is the equivalent of daring to mention that someone broke wind in room full of people who are perfectly aware of it (they have noses, after all), but are far too polite to ever think about mentioning out loud what is as plain as the noses on their faces.

It may even be a polite fiction that Reid's "poor choice of words" was what caused the controversy, when perhaps that they were said by someone who looks like Reid was a significant cause of the ruckus. But since Reid and others (including Obama) have mentioned his "unfortunate choice of words," allow me to state it more plainly than Harry Reid could ever get away with.

If Barack Obama looked like Flava Flav and sounded like ... well ... Jesse Jackson, there is no chance he'd have even had a shot at becoming president. Even the conservatives who are cynically making hay out of the whole thing know that. Reid knew it. I guarantee you that Obama knew it, in the same way that millions of African Americans know it's true.

But Reid's comments have prompted another discussion, one that is focused on what Reid actually said, rather than the politics – was the senator right?

Many prominent African Americans who spoke to ABC News today were offended by Reid's use of the word "Negro." But they also said his observation was true – that Americans in general find lighter-skinned African Americans more socially acceptable than those with darker skin, especially if they speak eloquently.

"As an African American who is light skinned with so called curly hair, that represents my proximity to white culture. I am treated far differently than African American people with natural hair, and darker skin," said Michael Eric Dyson, professor of sociology at Georgetown University.

Retired Gen. Colin Powell has said that among the reasons for his success among whites are that "I speak reasonably well, like a white person" and "I aren't that black."

There is empirical evidence that both Dyson and Powell are right. Numerous studies indicate that lighter skinned blacks are more likely than dark skinned blacks to be elected to public office and be hired for jobs.

There is also empirical evidence that many white Americans have difficulty distinguishing between angry and non-angry black men.

A research team led by psychologist Jenessa Shapiro of the University of California, Los Angeles conducted a preliminary study and three experiments to determine whether whites are more likely to perceive facial expressions as threatening if the face in question belongs to an African-American male. Their disturbing results are detailed in their paper "Following in the Wake of Anger," which was published online Tuesday in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

In the key experiment, 36 white American college students viewed an online slide show in which pairs of faces appeared on a screen in succession. All were of men between 18 and 35 years of age. The first face had either an angry or a neutral expression; the second had a neutral expression. Participants were asked to rate each in terms of how threatening the person came across, on a scale of one to nine.

When an angry white male face was paired with a white male face wearing a neutral expression, the second, neutral face was judged as less-threatening. However, this entirely logical result did not hold when the two faces in question were black.
And there is empirical evidence that "baby-faced" black men are less threatening to whites, and as a result are more successful than many their less aesthetically-endowed brethren.

Black Fortune 500 CEOs with a "babyface" appearance are more likely to lead companies with higher revenues and prestige than black CEOs who look more mature, an upcoming study says.

In contrast with research showing that white executives are hindered by babyface characteristics, a disarming appearance can help black CEOs by counteracting the stigma that black men are threatening, according to the study from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

The article goes on to add:
That leads to the idea that black executives face a double standard, he said.

"If you're a white male, you can exhibit anger, pound your fist, make ultimatums ... African-Americans have to adopt a kinder, gentler style of leadership," Livingston said. "The same sorts of behaviors that are effective for white males can't be utilized effectively by black males."

After all, in our society, anger is a privilege not granted minorities, especially model minorities like the Non-Threatening Black Man (NTBM).

I’ve notice something. No one seems to seems to question whether the angry white men that swept Newt Gingrich and the Republican majority into power in 1994 were justified in their anger. It’s assumed that whatever they’re angry about they have a right to be angry about.

But not so for the so called “angry black women.” Their anger is somehow less “real” and less justified. Perhaps that that’s because being angry is a privilege in this culture. Anger, if you are a minority, is dangerous. If you are a woman, or a person of color, gay, etc., your movements must be calm, your voice must be modulated, and your anger must ever show.

Joy is permitted. You may sing, dance, and celebrate in your joy. It is a performance, sometimes a command performance, demanded of you even in the midst of despair. Suffering is permitted. It, too, is familiar and non-threatening. It can even be reaffirming to those looking upon it; reaffirming of their power and privilege. Sadness is permitted. You are allowed to mourn, and to moan, keen, and cry in your mourning. Fear is permitted. Your fear — wide-eyed screaming or stunned silence — is familiar, and recognizable.

You are allowed all of the above, especially in response to another’s more “real” anger, but not your own anger. Anger implies entitlement — to material goods, to power and privilege, or a certain kind of treatment. Anger implies a right to expect something, and is a justifiable response to not receiving one’s due. And you aren’t due that which you’d have a right to be angry about having been denied.

The double standard is plainly seen in the anger openly displayed by conservatives during and after the campaign.
And despite McCain campaign's the outright lies and apparently blindness to the racism displayed by their supporters, anger was a privilege not afforded the African American Democratic nominee, who couldn't get angry during the campaign, a condition our African American chief executive seems to have carried over from the campaign to the oval office.
As much as we want Obama to go off on McCain, angry black men don't become president.

... But if Obama wants to get elected president of the United States, getting mad is the last thing he can afford to do. He may be the Democrats' standard bearer, but he is still—as the McCain camp consistently points out with their unsubtle "not like you" messaging—a black man.

This is a struggle that black men—especially those of us who work in professional settings and want to remain there—grapple with daily: Showing our anger, no matter how justified, is a death sentence. We feel outrage. We want to say and demonstrate our daily frustrations, but we don't dare because we know that the release of our pent-up emotions can't ever be explained after the fact.

And so it goes for Obama in his quest for the highest prize in all of America. We won't know whether the nation is ready to cast aside enough historic prejudices to elect a qualified, smart, articulate and family-oriented black president until after all the votes are cast. For the first time in U.S. history, the possibility exists.

But, let me assure you, there's no need to hold the vote if Obama blows his stack before then. It might satisfy some Obama supporters to see him put McCain-Palin in their places, call them out John Wayne-style and pummel them into submission. For a quick, exhilarating minute, it would feel like the 21st century equivalent of Joe Louis' 1936 knockout of Nazi Germany's Max Schmeling.

But it would be political suicide.

The problem is that what Obama had to project as a candidate does not serve him well if he is to govern effectively. In fact it may be political suicide for Obama to maintain the NTBM persona that helped him get elected.

In 1992, one of Bill Clinton's greatest assets was that voters believed he "felt their pain," in the throes of a recession his seemed not even to recognize. We are in the middle of a financial crisis that has caused a great deal of economic pain to every day, working Americans — a pain that is reflected in the gloomy statistics on joblessness and foreclosures, and the increasing number of Americans facing poverty and hunger.

But that economic pain is mingled with anger that grows with each day of increasing economic carnage and body counts on Main Street that's accompanied by a perverse kind of "inverted socialism," in which their tax dollars are marshaled to save the very individuals and institutions responsible for the crisis that continues to squeeze middle and working class Americans.

From each according to his need, to each according to his greed. It pains me to say it, because I voted for him, manned phone banks for him, and gave to his campaign, but Obama (in truly flabbergasting cahoots with Goldman Sachs, the Citibank alumni club, and the jet-setting Ivy-League long-range-thinking all stars who love to convene at Aspen, Davos, Sun Valley and other ritzy spas and ski resorts to discuss, over cocktails, the global common good) has managed to perfect, in just one year, an ingenious socioeconomic system that might be called "inverted socialism" and which makes the free-market conservatism it succeeded seem, by comparison, principled and simple.

As though he believes that the best way to redress a ruinous, massive private-sector theft is to rehabilitate the thieves by putting them to work as Cabinet members and high-ranking public policy officials, Obama has licensed the bungling robber barons who managed to gamble away the loot amassed in their attempt to fleece the world to recoup their squandered booty by "borrowing" from the taxpayers and homeowners (lots of them former homeowners by now) the money that they failed to grab the first time -- and then lending, with interest, the borrowings back to them.

But that’s just abomination No. 1 from this year-long experiment in reverse-progressivism that no new belated "tax" on Wall Street fortunes can hope to render more acceptable.

The Brown victory ought to make it clear to the Obama administration and Democratic leadership that the increasing anger "outside of the beltway" is because people hear reports of trillions of dollars being doled out in hopes of heading off economic disaster, but they see no tangible improvements in their communities.

The bailout may or may not have save us from an even worse economic nightmare that may or may not have ensued otherwise. But when people a being ground down on a daily basis by the economic downturn, while being told of a recovery that remains just out of their reach, it is all but impossible to win their support by telling them how much worse things could have been otherwise.

In fact, you can't win them over at all if there is no evidence that you even hear let alone understand or share their concerns. If Obama is to recover from the Massachusetts debacle, Americans must understand that he and his party hear, understand and share their concerns -- and their anger.

The suggested tax on Wall Street bonuses, the $90 billion financial crisis responsibility fee, and the latest proposal to limit the size of big banks, are encouraging. But in the weeks and months to come, Obama must finally display a willingness to fight for the principles he campaigned on.

So, is all that is left of those moments a year ago on the Capitol steps – when nothing less than the rebirth of American governance seemed in the offing – just the presidential grandiloquence, to which the word “empty” is now being habitually attached? Have the Democrats displayed, yet again, their unmatched talent for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?

You heard it here first. The correct answer, counter to the new conventional wisdom, is no. The 44th president is on the mat, but anyone counting him out has not taken his measure. It is just that he may actually need to respond to the unrelenting pressure from zombie conservatism, ravenously flesh-eating and never quite dead, not by turning on more consensual charm, but by taking the gloves off. With his bank levy– “We want our money back,” he said – Mr Obama has belatedly begun to fight.

Whether he can trade enough punches with the right before the November mid-term elections remains to be seen, but my hunch is that President Composure is up for a brawl.

In any event, reports of the death of the Obama presidency may turn out to be premature. If the Democrats are starting to panic they need to get over it fast. A Republican opposition committed to nothing more than congressional paralysis during a time of national crisis risks being stigmatised by polemically skilful presidents as the party of obstruction. Ronald Reagan used that tactic against a Democratic Congress to powerful effect. If Mr Obama has what it takes politically – which remains the great question hanging over his White House – he can make Republican crowing its own worst enemy, type-casting the opposition as selfishly unpatriotic. It has happened before. Following a Republican triumph in the mid-terms of 1994, the party over-reached in its campaign against Bill Clinton’s presidency, shutting down the federal government. The result was a decisive re-election for Mr Clinton just a year later. But whichever way the election in Massachusetts goes there can be no doubt that a battle for allegiance will have to be joined if Mr Obama is to recover his freedom of action.

If President Obama is to "recover his freedom action," and revive the hope fueled support for his candidacy, he must finally banish the "non-threatening black man" who ran for office, and embrace his role not merely as the country's first African American president, but his place as the man won the nation's highest office and in whom so many have invested their hopes for a better, more just future for their country, their communities, and their families.

Covering anger with non-confrontational charm and conciliation has long been a survival mechanism for African American men, and one occasionally reinforced by vivid reminders of the price for behaving otherwise. But it is a strategy that often preserved life in the short term at the expense of justice in the long run.

It is not a place of strength in a time when anger is justified, and threats (as well as the will to carry them out if need be) are necessary to achieve and preserve justice.

In that sense, perhaps Obama doesn't need to embrace his inner angry black man, so much as he need to embrace is role as the president who hears, understands, and shared American's concerns and anger at the status quo, and delivers real results to address both.

In other words, Obama must stop behaving like the historic African American candidate, or the first African American president must be non-threatening in order to be popular and well liked. Instead he must become simply the president, and the one that people elected him to be, who sometimes has to get angry and be willing to fight if he is to be effective.

The Two-Ness Of Being Barack Obama, Pt. 1

2010-01-22T14:41:00.000-08:00

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010010321/two-ness-being-barack-obama-pt-1

By Terrance Heath
January 21, 2010 - 12:55pm ET

...It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.-- W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folks

The quote above, from W.E.B. DuBois' The Souls of Black Folks, came to mind in the wake of the by now over-reported remarks Senate majority leader Harry Reid made about then Senator Obama.

The authors quote Reid as saying privately that Obama, as a black candidate, could be successful thanks, in part, to his "light-skinned" appearance and speaking patterns "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

"He [Reid] was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama -- a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,' " Halperin and Heilemann say.

"Reid was convinced, in fact, that Obama's race would help him more than hurt him in a bid for the Democratic nomination," they write.

In a statement to CNN, Reid said, "I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words."

"I sincerely apologize for offending any and all Americans, especially African Americans for my improper comments.

What DuBois articulated, what Reid recognized (and somewhat inarticulately pointed out) in Obama, was and what I, Obama and just about ever other middle class African American of a certain generation learned was a pre-requisite schizophrenia required to succeed in America — that is, the America that existed beyond our homes, schools, churches, neighborhoods and communities: the ability to exist in two worlds and move gracefully between them.

We do it sometimes without being conscious of it or intending to do it, but it's something I'm sure we were almost all taught: if you want to succeed, you have to speak and behave and carry yourself in a certain fashion. This was probably doubly true for young black males. It is a significant and repeated topic in what I and others call "Black Man 101." We were implicitly and explicitly taught that we could succeed and we were expected to succeed, the racism of the larger society notwithstanding.

And success, for us, meant carrying ourselves in a certain manner: in a way that is not threatening to the majority — the white majority, that is.

Every day, African-American men consciously work to offset stereotypes about them _ that they are dangerous, aggressive, angry. Some smile a lot, dress conservatively and speak with deference: "Yes, sir," or "No, ma'am." They are mindful of their bodies, careful not to dart into closing elevators or stand too close in grocery stores.

It's all about surviving, and trying to thrive, in a nation where biased views of black men stubbornly hang on decades after segregation and where statistics show a yawning gap between the lives of white men and black men. Black men's median wages are barely three-fourths those of whites; nearly 1 in 3 black men will spend time behind bars during his life; and, on average, black men die six years earlier than whites.

Sure, everyone has ways of coping with other people's perceptions: Who acts the same at work as they do with their kids, or their high school friends?

But for black men, there's more at stake. If they don't carefully calculate how to handle everyday situations — in ways that usually go unnoticed — they can end up out of a job, in jail or dead.

This is what probably gave rise to type known as the "non-threatening black man." The NTBM, as I call him, is as recognizable as he is difficult to define. The difficulty arises not from an inability to define the NTBM — or any other African-American stereotype — but rather an unwillingness to do so either because it offends the sensibilities of other, or because it leads to obvious questions our culture that we'd rather not have to answer. (Not that we're a nation of cowards when it comes to race, or anything...)

Those who don't particularly care whom they offend or who are inexperienced at navigating this particular minefield will inevitably set off explosions when they venture into that unmapped and avoided region of the American psyche. Bob Garfield, however, came as close as anyone else to defining it in early 2008.

Yes, the market. And, yes, acceptably black. We used that term the other day on "Hardball with Chris Matthews" to talk about Sen. Barack Obama and watched the interviewer visibly flinch. "I'm gonna take some of the edge off of what you just said," he said.

What edge? Acceptably black means being nonthreatening to white people inclined to feeling threatened by black people. It means standard English, clean-cut appearance (or, as Joe Biden fumbled, "clean") and the most Caucasian features possible.

These obviously are not objective measures of character or worth; just as obviously, they are measures of what sells to the vast, white audience. Halle Berry and Denzel Washington are acceptably black. Your local news anchors are acceptably black. Tupac was not.

You can't describe him, but you know who he's not. You know he's not the "black boogeyman," the "bad negro," the "black brute," or the "angry black man." He doesn't do the things that "they" do. He doesn't look like them, dress like them, walk like them, or talk like them.

In other words, he's more like you, and thus you're more likely to like him.

I wonder what it is, for instance, that makes a black person that I meet, and then like, seem "likable" to me. Since I was trained as a child to be wary of black people, and since that training was so ingrained in me at that impressionable stage that some of it still remains, then does something happen during my interactions with “likable” black people that overcomes that early training? Do I "like" that person because I've overcome the training that told me, and still tells me, that that person is fundamentally different from me--as in, scary, or intimidating? Or even dangerous? Or do I like that person because he or she seems especially non-threatening somehow? As if that person, instead of me, is the one who's somehow overcoming my deep-seated worries and fears, perhaps by seeming to be especially nice, or friendly, or "open"?

At least, so long as he continues to be non-threatening.

And so long no one points out to you what it means and what it perhaps says about you that. Thus requiring you to "look at yourself through the eyes of others," as DuBois put it, and cause you to experience your own "twoness of being."

Why Obama is Now (finally) Getting Tough on Wall Street

2010-01-22T14:36:00.000-08:00

http://robertreich.org/post/346072544/why-obama-is-now-finally-getting-tough-on-wall-street

Why Obama is Now (finally) Getting Tough on Wall Street
THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, 2010

President Obama is now, finally, getting tough on Wall Street. Today he’s giving his support to two measures critically important for making sure the Street doesn’t relapse into another financial crisis: (1) separating the functions of investment banking from commercial banking (basically, resurrecting the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act) so investment banks can’t gamble with insured commerial deposits, and (2) giving regulatory authorities power to limit the size of big banks so they don’t become “too big to fail,” as antitrust laws do with every other capitalist entity. A few days ago the White House demanded that the biggest banks repay the $120 billion or so still owed the government from the bailout.

All good, all correct, all important. The President deserves at least two cheers. Why not three? It took him over a year to finally get here. The House has already completed its work on financial reform and may be reluctant to start over. The Senate is in disarray since Chris Dodd, chair of the Banking Committee, announced recently he wouldn’t seek reelection, and is poised to compromise with Wall Street on a number of big issues. Neither chamber has shown any interest whatsoever in resurrecting Glass-Steagall or limiting the size and risk of big banks. In other words, much of the game is over.

It’s possible, of course, that Congress could go along with Obama’s new proposals. A populist backlash against the big banks is growing among Americans who can’t understand why Wall Street is back to its old ways even though most Americans are worried about losing their jobs and homes as a result of Wall Street’s massive implosion in 2008. And they’ve never been able to understand why taxpayers bailed out Wall Street while Main Street still languishes.

A cynic might conclude that Obama’s born-again populism is for the cameras. Scott Brown’s upset victory in Massachusetts revealed the strength of I’m-mad-as-hell populism in the electorate right now. Add in the $150 billion of bonuses the Street is about to bestow on itself and the outrage meter could blow. With sky-high unemployment and surly voters, Democrats have to show they’re on the side of the people, not the powerful, as Al Gore put it in the last days of the 2000 election (too late to help himself).

For almost a year now, Democratic pollsters have been pointing out how much the public hates the bank bailout and despises Wall Street. But there was no reason for Democratic leaders in Congress or the White House to pay much attention. After all, it was a Republican president and a Republican Congress that came up with the bank bailout plan to begin with. Some stalwart Republicans had grumbled about it, of course, but Republicans have always been on the side of Wall Street and big business and weren’t likely to call for strong measures to prevent the Street from getting into trouble again.

Larry Summers and Tim Geithner scuttled Paul Volcker’s plan to separate the banks’ commercial and investment functions, and didn’t want to limit the size of banks or the risks they could take on. Summers and Geithner have wanted to get the banks back to profitability as soon as possible. And Dems in Congress have had no stomach to take on Wall Street, a major source of campaign funding.

But suddenly the winds are blowing in a different direction over the Potomac. The 2010 midterms are getting closer, and the Dems are scared. Their polls are plummeting. The upsurge in mad-as-hell populism requires that Democrats become indignant on behalf of Americans, and indignation is meaningless without a target. They can’t target big government because Republicans do that one better, especially when they’re out of power. So what’s the alternative? Wall Street.

Perhaps I’m being too cynical. Maybe the Obama and congressional Democrats are now ready to give up Wall Street trickle-down economics and focus on Main Street trickle-up. “There are two ideas of government,” said William Jennings Bryan at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1896. “There are those who believe that you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it.” He couldn’t have said it better.

Obama Trying to Turn Around His Presidency

2010-01-22T14:28:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/us/politics/21obama.html?th&emc=th

January 21, 2010
By PETER BAKER

WASHINGTON — Chastened and bruised, President Obama on Wednesday began the daunting process of trying to turn around his presidency in a drastically altered political environment that will test his leadership, his instincts and his political dexterity as never before.

With the loss of his party’s unilateral control of the Senate, Mr. Obama pivoted to acknowledge the deep public anger on display in Tuesday’s special election in Massachusetts, offering limited regrets for losing touch and signaling that he may scale back some of the sweeping ambitions he brought into office just one year ago to the day.

But he and his advisers were still reeling from the Republican victory in Massachusetts that cost them the filibuster-proof majority they had used to advance his priorities. Inside the White House, a debate ensued about what lessons to draw: Did the president try to enact too much change or not enough? Was he too liberal or too close to financial institutions? Should he tack to the center or more aggressively push a progressive agenda?

In an interview with ABC News, Mr. Obama indicated he would not give up his signature health care initiative but suggested paring it down to its “core elements.” He maintained that he heard the message of an election that handed the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s seat to a Republican but cast it as an echo of the public discontent that vaulted him to the White House.

“Here’s my assessment of not just the vote in Massachusetts but the mood around the country — the same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office,” Mr. Obama said. “People are angry and they are frustrated. Not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years.”

That, of course, was a way of putting at least some of the blame on former President George W. Bush. For himself, Mr. Obama sided with those who saw a failure of communications rather than a flawed policy agenda.

“If there’s one thing that I regret this year, is that we were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us, that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values,” he said. “And that I do think is a mistake of mine.”

The president alluded to his own reputation for emotional distance from voters suffering from a troubled economy. “What they’ve ended up seeing is this feeling of remoteness and detachment where, you know, there’s these technocrats up here, these folks who are making decisions,” he said.

That Mr. Obama made these observations to the ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos may have been fitting, given that Mr. Stephanopoulos was a White House adviser to President Bill Clinton when Democrats lost the Congress in 1994. The loss of a single Senate seat in Massachusetts does not quite match the political tectonic shift 15 years ago, but Clinton veterans in the Obama White House experienced an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu.

That defeat was followed by weeks of debate between some like Mr. Stephanopoulos who advocated more liberal populism and others like Rahm Emanuel (now Mr. Obama’s White House chief of staff) who favored tacking to the political center. Ultimately, Mr. Clinton moved to the middle on issues like welfare and the deficit and declared “the era of big government is over.”

“Clinton took the ’94 results as an affirmation to govern the way he campaigned, to not being the president Congress wanted him to be but to be the president America had elected him to be,” said Bruce Reed, a Clinton adviser in the centrist camp. Mr. Obama, he said, can use this as an opportunity to focus on “results, not ideology,” and “make government better, not bigger.”

Indeed, administration officials, who did not want to be identified discussing internal strategy, said Mr. Obama would put more emphasis on issues like deficit reduction and job creation. He already was assembling a bipartisan budget commission and officials acknowledged that some proposals would probably take a back seat now, like a market-based cap on greenhouse gas emissions and liberalized immigration rules. (The White House, for the record, insisted it would keep pushing for the climate and immigration ideas. “We continue to work closely with members of both parties on these important issues to fashion proposals that can garner broad support,” said Nick Shapiro, a White House spokesman.)Still, Mr. Obama is loath to follow Mr. Clinton’s example too much. His senior adviser, David Axelrod, made clear in media appearances Wednesday that the president would eschew the incremental, small-bore initiatives Mr. Clinton favored in the 1990s. And Mr. Axelrod’s public rhetoric in recent days has favored populist language about standing up to banks and insurers.

But that too has its tradeoffs. Mr. Obama has proposed a tax on banks to recover taxpayer money from the bailout, but even some officials who support the policy worry that the rhetoric fuels the image of an antibusiness administration at a time when creating jobs is the top priority.

Mr. Obama has often confronted moments of challenge with a major speech, as he did during a race controversy in the 2008 primaries and again when health care seemed in trouble last fall. With the State of the Union now scheduled for Wednesday, he has another such opportunity. Aides said he will use it to reframe his record and aspirations.

“When these things hit, it’s like a football team that’s losing — you’ve got to get back to fundamentals — blocking and tackling and running the ball,” said Dan Bartlett, a top adviser to Mr. Bush, who lost control of the Senate when a Republican bolted from the party in the middle of 2001. “They have to hone in, be more disciplined, focus on one or two issues and be relentless in driving them home.”

Katrina Vanden Heuvel On Obama's First Year

2010-01-21T14:59:00.001-08:00

'Barack Obama made a lot of promises but they meant nothing'

2010-01-21T13:43:00.000-08:00

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6994502.ece

James Bone
Times Online
Wed, 20 Jan 2010

Voters in Massachusetts cast their votes yesterday amid freezing temperatures and falling snow. They provided a window to America's sour mood, even in this traditional Democratic stronghold.

"I think the country is a mess," Kathelyn Neas, a stay-at-home mother, said at a polling station at South Boston Library.

Seamus Kelley, a state employee, voted for the Democratic candidate but said: "I think there are a lot of people who, because of this economy, are not happy with any incumbents. In the last two elections it was Iraq and Afghanistan and people took their ire out on President Bush. Now it's the Democrats."

Voters spoke of disappointment that President Obama had not made good on his soaring rhetoric. Pat Tobin, a saleswoman who voted Republican yesterday, said: "When people say 'change' there should be something behind it. Obama made a lot of promises of 'change' but I don't think it meant anything."

Craig Provost, an industrial designer who voted Democrat, said: "I think there is a backlash against Obama because he has not fulfilled all his campaign promises. But I think he is doing a good job."

Voters in traditionally Irish-American South Boston, known as "Southie", backed Mr Obama by 59-40 per cent over John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. But the area is more conservative than Boston as a whole. It is these "Reagan Democrats" - white working-class voters who defected to the Republican Ronald Reagan in the 1980s - who are now having second thoughts about Mr Obama and the Democrats.

During the campaign, Scott Brown, the Republican candidate, a lawyer, state legislator, US Army National Guard officer and former model, aired an advert showing himself strolling around "Southie" shaking hands.

Martha Coakley, his opponent, alienated many white working-class men by failing to know her baseball facts and mocking her opponent for campaigning in the cold outside Fenway Park baseball stadium.

Jean Holland, an accountant who voted for Mr Brown yesterday, said she felt let down by Mr Obama.

"I really thought when Obama got in he would be more for the working class people," she said. "He's not doing much right now. He's dragging his feet. He has got a lot going on with the wars."

Matthew Gagliano, a mechanical engineer, also who voted for Mr Brown. Many voters voiced deep misgivings about the Democrats' healthcare reform proposal, saying neither the country nor they could afford it.

"Obama is doing a good job but I don't like the healthcare situation," he said. "It's too much government control. I do not want taxes to go up."

Christine Creed, a bank worker who voted for Ms Coakley, said: "A lot of people are afraid of healthcare reform. People are nervous. But there is hope. In 2010 the economy should pick up."

How Obama Lost His Way

2010-01-21T12:22:00.000-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/How-Obama-Lost-His-Way-by-Robert-Parry-100120-95.html

January 20, 2010
By Robert Parry
From Consortium News

President Barack Obama spent his first year in office trying to reassure the Washington/New York establishments that he was not going to upset their apple carts too much, that they shouldn't panic, that he would despite all the speeches be more about continuity than change.

And he succeeded. The big banks were pulled back from the brink; the auto industry survived; the stock markets rebounded; a new Great Depression was averted; the national security elites praised Obama's more nuanced rhetoric as he continued many of George W. Bush's war policies; even the Washington Post's neoconservative editorial page editor Fred Hiatt gave Obama mostly high marks for his first year.

"I'd like to interrupt the anniversary-bash-Obama-fest with a simple proposition: Obama has done a good job so far," Hiatt wrote in a Jan. 19 column entitled "Obama's first-year success."

Yet the first major political judgment on Obama's "responsible" behavior came later that same day in Massachusetts when a little-known right-wing Republican state senator, Scott Brown, defeated Attorney General Martha Coakley by five percentage points to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat.

It turned out that what Obama had accomplished politically in his first year was to associate himself and the Democratic Party with the widely despised national establishments.

For instance, Obama staffed his economic team with Wall Street friendlies, like Timothy Geithner who got promoted from head of the New York Federal Reserve to Treasury Secretary despite failing to have stopped the reckless bank gambles that caused the 2008 financial collapse. Geithner's appointment calendar showed that his time as the chief regulator of Wall Street banks had included cozy lunches with bank CEOs at New York's swanky Four Seasons.

And, whether the huge bank bailouts were necessary or not, Geithner annoyed the public because he seemed to view the crisis through the eyes of the bankers. He opposed any harsh medicine, like temporarily nationalizing some of the banks or at least demanding that they accept tough new rules on their behavior before they were nursed back to health with trillions of dollars in public monies.

So, by selecting Geithner along with a number of ex-Wall Streeters who had gotten rich giving advice to banks and hedge funds, Obama positioned himself as the protector-in-chief of a corrupt financial elite albeit with a few finger-wagging lectures tossed in. And, despite Obama's explanation about Wall Street being saved so it could help out Main Street, the struggling American people saw little in the bank bailouts for themselves.

Simply put, Obama failed to persuade the American people that he would deploy a reenergized federal government to fight their battles against well-entrenched financial interests. Instead, he was viewed as helping the elites shore up their comfortable trenches.
Similarly, on foreign policy, Obama moved quickly to quiet the fears of the national security establishment. He pleased neocon and mainstream opinion leaders by keeping on one of their favorites, Republican Robert Gates, as Defense Secretary. The move was hailed as a wise gesture of bipartisanship.

Obama did make some cosmetic changes, such as dumping the phrase "war on terror" and vowing not to waterboard prisoners, but he embraced Bush's gradual withdrawal from Iraq and escalated the war in Afghanistan.

Obama also rebuffed demands that he hold the Bush administration accountable for its approval of torture and other war crimes. That won him plaudits from Washington pundits but it antagonized his own "base."

Tactical Errors

Obama made a number of tactical errors, too, particularly around his top domestic priority: health-care reform. He needed to move the legislation quickly through Congress, as he initially understood when he set an August 2009 deadline for the two houses to pass legislation.

Even though he knew that the Republicans were determined to defeat any significant reform early on Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina had explained that stopping the health-care bill would be the political "Waterloo" that would "break" Obama the President still allowed the process to bog down.

Pursuing the phantom of bipartisanship, Obama let Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus enter into desultory negotiations with three Republicans including Maine's Olympia Snowe and Iowa's Chuck Grassley who slow-walked the bill past the August deadline and into the fall.

Ultimately, the Baucus negotiations and the many one-on-one conversations between Obama and Snowe earned the support of not a single Senate Republican, but the delay bought the GOP precious time to organize opposition and focus attention on the messy legislative process.

"As I look back, it was a waste of time dealing with" Snowe, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told the New York Times, "because she had no intention of ever working anything out."

Although many of her demands were met such as dropping the "public option" from the initial "insurance exchange" Snowe ultimately justified her support for the Republican filibuster against health-care reform by saying she wanted to continue talking.

The unified GOP opposition to the bill put Democrats at the mercy of their most conservative members as well as Connecticut's Independent Joe Lieberman, a neocon who opposed Obama's election and seemed to delight in bedeviling the Senate leadership.

As Reid labored to craft a compromise bill which was tailored to please Lieberman by replacing the "public option" with an earlier Lieberman-backed plan to expand Medicare coverage to people 55 to 64 Lieberman then went on the Sunday talk shows to announce that he would join a Republican filibuster if his own Medicare expansion plan weren't dropped, too.

After watching Lieberman on TV, Reid reportedly told aides "he double-crossed me." However, desperate for a Senate bill, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel informed Reid that he had no choice but to abandon his compromise and accede to Lieberman's new position.

As the health-care reform was reshaped in ways increasingly favorable to the insurance industry, Obama got the worst of both worlds. His supporters were demoralized and angry, while his opponents got to portray the legislation as an overly complicated "government takeover" of health care.

The Populist Banner

Citing the Wall Street bailouts and the convoluted health-reform bill, Republicans and their Tea Party allies swooped in to claim the banner of populism, with the help of right-wing demagogues like Fox News' Glenn Beck and radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

Meanwhile, the American Left remained the marginal force that it has been for decades, heaping blame on Obama but doing little to build a media/think tank infrastructure that could make a sustained case to the American people or come close to competing with the well-oiled right-wing machine.

So, what can Obama do now to salvage his presidency? Here are some of the hard facts and his hard choices ahead:

Losing the Massachusetts Senate seat means that Obama's notion of some "responsible" governing coalition is dead. Obama's dream of ushering in a post-partisan era that could reach across party lines to address the pressing needs of the United States was always naïve at best.

The GOP knows that its political fortunes rest on the destruction of Obama and his presidency. As was obvious a year ago, the Republicans simply dusted off the strategy they used against Bill Clinton in 1993-94, obstructing what they could and relying on the powerful right-wing media to demonize the new President and rally their "base."

In 1994, the GOP's scorched-earth strategy led to a Republican takeover of Congress. And the GOP victory in Massachusetts confirms the efficacy of this approach, again.

Whether he likes it or not, Barack Obama is in a political war and he is losing.

Though the time is late, the President must toughen his rhetoric if he hopes to recover. He will have to convince average Americans that he is on their side and that the Republicans are the ones on the side of the rich and powerful, that they are the real defenders of the elites.

Obama also will have to demand discipline within his own party, instilling a sense of urgency that clearly wasn't there in the early stages of the health-care debate. He will have to make clear that endless Republican obstructionism in the Senate will be met with more aggressive tactics that employ majority-rule "reconciliation," which Bush used to pass his tax cuts.

Most importantly, if Obama is to turn the current mess around, he must shift from the cerebral college professor who can appreciate all points of view to a fierce advocate for the American people. He also must challenge the legacy of Ronald Reagan, who espoused the idea that "government is the problem."

The core fallacy of the Tea Party populists is that they embrace the Reagan fiction that the American people can take back control of their lives by hamstringing the federal government, by getting government out of the way, when all that would do is give big corporations and the rich unchallenged control of U.S. society.

If Reaganism in its ultimate form ever prevails, average Americans would be left alone to face job losses, down-sized pay, no health care, a degraded environment, bad schools, and endless fees and penalties on everything from credit cards to mortgages to cable TV service.

Tea Party populism does nothing to address these assaults on the middle class and working people because the Tea Partiers want to hobble the only force powerful enough to counter corporate abuses, an energized and democratized federal government.

A Turnaround?

What Obama must do, if he wishes to change the dynamic, is to convince Americans that Reagan was wrong, that government when it is the expression of the public will is not the problem, but a key part of any solution.

Obama must make the case that higher taxes on the wealthy are a must, that he was right during the campaign when he told "Joe the Plumber" that the economy works best when money is not concentrated at the top but rather when the benefits of technology and productivity are spread around in a more equitable way.

In the wake of the health-care disaster, Obama also needs to take stock of who his friends are and who they're not. When Joe Lieberman sinks a health-care compromise and damages the administration, Obama should make clear that such political betrayals have consequences.

The Republicans understand this principle. When three Republican senators Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins broke ranks to support Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan, the GOP essentially drummed Specter out of the party. That harsh response was enough to scare Snowe and Collins back into line on health care and set the stage for the Massachusetts victory.

Yet, beyond what Obama must do, there is what American progressives must do. They must disabuse themselves of their long-standing role as bystanders. Already, some left-wing critics are churning out opinion pieces that argue that Obama's big mistake was not taking a purely leftist approach to all problems, as if most Americans are closet Marxists waiting for a call to the barricades.

If the Left wants politicians to act with more courage on behalf of popular reforms, then progressives must get serious about building media and other institutions to make the case to the American people. It's not enough to demand that Obama do all this heavy lifting.

In many ways, Obama's current predicament was predictable and indeed it was predicted. But the problem is not just Obama and his accommodationist strategies. It is that he and others must present a strong argument to the American people for real change and then must fight for it, hard.

ear President Obama: Time to Stop Letting Corporations Write the Health Care Bill

2010-01-21T12:02:00.000-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Dear-President-Obama-Time-by-Jane-Hamsher-100120-751.html

January 20, 2010
Dear President Obama: Time to Stop Letting Corporations Write the Health Care Bill
By Jane Hamsher
(originally published at HuffPost)

When Max Baucus unveiled an early version of the Senate bill in September, an ex-WellPoint VP named Liz Fowler was listed as the author. Only a few weeks earlier, the Huffington Post exposed the sweetheart deal negotiated between the White House and PhRMA in exchange for $150 million in political advertising. And Harry Reid kept Byron Dorgan's popular drug reimportation amendment off the floor of the Senate until PhRMA could whip enough votes to defeat it because it violated that deal.

Dorgan accused the White House of tanking the amendment and retired shortly thereafter. And last night, Martha Coakley paid the price for those deals too. The only real question this morning is, how more Democrats will lose their seats before they decide to stand up to the corporations?

Reports on the Death of Health Care Are Premature

In the wake of Martha Coakley's defeat, both Representative Barney Frank and Senator Jim Webb have said that jamming a health care bill through before Scott Brown can be seated is not the right thing to do. And they're right. Any attempt to do so will look like an effort to bypass the will of the public to facilitate a giant corporate giveaway.

But many on the Hill are also saying that the Massachusetts defeat means that health care reform is dead, fearful that what happened to Martha Coakley will happen to them, too, in 2010.

That's about as feasible as Wile E. Coyote trying to turn around and run back across the bridge that is crumbling behind him. There's only one way to go.

As Jerome Armstrong says, "The Democrats have less than 10 months to start governing as a people-powered party, or they will lose both the House and the Senate." The damage is done. Unless the Democrats move aggressively to right the perception that they are the party of backroom deals and massive corporate bailouts, 2010 will be more of the same.

Step One: Stop Letting Joe Lieberman Run the Party

There will certainly be no shortage of those ready to extract the wrong lessons from the Coakley loss. Joe Lieberman, Mr. 31%, says it's a sign that people "don't like all the partisanship and deal-making here in Washington" and that "they're really skeptical about this health care bill." He doesn't mention that it's his health care bill they don't like, or that making the bill was made unpopular as the price of his vote.

Step Two: Independent Approval in Swing Districts Soars With Addition of a Public Option

A new FDL/SurveyUSA poll of NY-01 shows how Lieberman's bill is affecting the race in that district, one of many that the Democrats are at risk of losing in the next election. Incumbent Tim Bishop would have a narrow lead over GOP challenger Randy Altschuler if the race were held today in a contest that was rated "lean Democratic" by Cook's Political Report.

People were pretty evenly split when asked if they supported a bill with a mandate to buy private insurance, with 50% saying it's a good idea and 44% saying it's a bad idea. Support fell dramatically when they were told that they would be fined up to 2% of their income for failure to comply, with 40% saying it's a good idea and 57% saying it's a bad idea. But when the option to buy into a government-run Medicare program was added, 63% of likely voters (66% of independents) supported it and 33% opposed even with the fine. Even support among Republicans shot up 23%.

Polling done for HCAN last September found similar results nationally, indicating that likely 2010 voters "oppose a mandate to purchase private insurance by 64% to 34% but support a mandate with a choice of private or public insurance by 60% to 37%."

Joe Lieberman was personally responsible for killing the public option/Medicare expansion in the Senate bill.

Step Three: Be Bold, Take On the Corporations With "Sidecar Reconciliation"

The good news? Nobody needs Lieberman's vote to pass either one any more. The non-budgetary "fixes" like banning the exclusion of those with pre-existing conditions have already passed the Senate. A public option -- or an expansion of Medicare -- can be added through reconciliation, which takes 51 votes. The Republicans certainly had no fear of using reconciliation when George Bush was in office. And the Democrats are going to need to do so in order to make good on their promise to fix the excise tax to benefit of the middle class, which will cost roughly $60 billion. But their options for doing that are limited by the process itself: they can pay for it by the savings from a government program like a public option or an expansion of Medicare. Or, they can piss everyone off and raise taxes.

That looks to be where Gerald Nadler and Anthony Weiner are headed. They indicate that "the only way they could sign on to the Senate bill is if it was accompanied immediately, or even preceded by, a separate bill, making a number of major preemptive changes to what they regard as an inferior package," per Brian Beutler.

It's called sidecar reconciliation. And the 65 members of the House who have pledged to vote against any bill that does not have a public option should be looking into it seriously tonight.

Ezra Klein says that "a Democratic Party that would abandon their central initiative this quickly isn't a Democratic Party that deserves to hold power." I would add that if they don't stick to the principles they profess to hold and stand up to the lobbyists they've kowtowed to from the start, "holding power" won't be anything they have to worry about.

Author's Website: firedoglake.com

The World Bids Farewell to Obama

2010-01-21T12:00:00.001-08:00

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,673192,00.html

01/21/2010 01:30 PM
The World from Berlin

US President Barack Obama suffered a painful defeat in Massachusetts on Tuesday. With mid-term elections looming, it means that Obama will have to fundamentally re-think his political course. German commentators say it is the end of hope.

US President Barack Obama has had a number of difficult weeks during his first year in the White House. Right after he took office, he had to wade through a week full of partisan bickering over his economic stimulus package combined with a tax scandal surrounding Tom Daschle, the man Obama had hoped would lead his health care reform team.

Then there was the last week of 2009, when a failed terror attack on a flight inbound for Detroit exposed major flaws in US efforts to identify and stop potential terrorists.

This week, though -- a week when Obama should have been celebrating the first anniversary of his inauguration -- may have been the president's worst yet. Scott Brown, an almost unknown Republican member of the Massachusetts Senate, defeated the Democratic candidate Martha Coakley for the US Senate seat vacated by the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy. The defeat in a heavily Democratic state not only highlights Obama's massive loss of popular support during his first year in office, but it also could spell doom for his signature effort to reform the US health care system.

There were immediate calls for a suspension of health care votes in the Senate until Brown is sworn in. The loss of the Massachusetts seat means that the Democrats no longer control the 60 Senate seats necessary to avoid a filibuster. Obama's reform package, which aims to provide health insurance to most of the over 40 million Americans currently lacking coverage, may ultimately fail as a result.

More than that, though, the vote shows just how quickly the political pendulum has swung back to the right following Obama's election. The seat Brown won had been in Democratic hands for all but six years since 1926. Now, its new occupant is a man who not only opposes the health care bill, but also favors waterboarding as a method of interrogation for terrorism suspects and rejects carbon cap-and-trade as a means of limiting carbon emissions.

The omen could be a dark one for the Obama administration heading into a mid-term election year. German commentators take a closer look.

Center-left daily Süddeutsche Zeitung writes on Thursday:

"Obama made a serious misjudgement. Right at the beginning of his first year in office, he saved the banks, rescued the automobile industry from collapse and passed a huge economic stimulus package. He had hoped that these enormous deeds would give him the space to address those issues which are dearest to him: health care reform, climate change and investment in education."

"Those issues, however, are clearly not priorities for people in the US at the moment. Scott Brown campaigned on two promises, both of which apparently struck a nerve with the electorate. He wants to block health care reform and he wants to find ways to reduce the enormous budget deficit. It is here where the roots of dissatisfaction with Obama are to be found. His reform agenda, in its current form, is highly suspect to Americans. And they have the impression that, if he continues piling up debt, he will be gambling away the country's future."

The Financial Times Deutschland writes:

"For Obama, the election in Massachusetts means that he will have to re-evaluate his political style. He could now focus his concentration on his political base and push through his policy agenda. After all, he still has a majority in Congress -- he could back away from his strategy of bipartisanship ... which would mean giving up much of what he spent his first year in office creating."

"More likely, however, is that Obama will interpret the Massachusetts loss as a signal that he should move further toward the middle and make more concessions to the conservatives -- even if this alienates his base even further, a base which had high expectations from the 'yes we can' candidate."

"For everyone else in the world, this means that they will have to bid farewell to a candidate for whom the hopes were so high. They will have to say goodbye to the charisma they fell in love with. Obama will be staying home after all."

The left-leaning daily Die Tageszeitung writes:

"In addition to health care reform, Obama's reputation has primarily been harmed by the high unemployment rate and the increasingly unpopular war in Afghanistan. It will become even more difficult in the future for the president to push projects through successfully. Not just because Republicans now have a means of preventing it, but also because the Democratic camp is deeply divided. Some would like to see the party shift toward the center -- wherever that may be -- whereas others want the party to position itself to the left. Such a battle is hardly a good sign for the mid-term elections in November. Massachusetts could prove to be an omen."

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"Of course the president rejects the interpretation that the Massachusetts election was a referendum on his first year in the White House. But he cannot ignore the fact that his health care reform package is not popular, the situation of the country's finances is seen as threatening and many voters blame the high unemployment rate on the party in power -- on the Democrats, led by Obama. The result is a second year in office full of very different challenges than the first. To save what there is to be saved, Obama will have to be prepared to fashion a bipartisan compromise on health care -- a compromise with a Republican Party which has tasted blood and can now dream once again about a return to power."

-- Charles Hawley

Mr. Change Needs a Reboot

2010-01-21T11:25:00.000-08:00

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,673062,00.html#ref=nlint

01/20/2010 06:18 PM
Obama's Year of Crises
An Editorial by Gregor Peter Schmitz in Washington

Barack Obama has spent his first year in office fighting one crisis after another. Now he faces a political crisis of his own -- the defeat in Massachusetts threatens his health care reform, his most important domestic project. Is it a case of the best US president at the worst time?

It was only a small staffing change in the White House, but a symbolic one. Jon Favreau is no longer US President Barack Obama's first choice of speechwriter. Mr. Change is now turning increasingly to other ghost writers to come up with his material.

During the election campaign in 2008, Favreau's words, coming from Obama's mouth, reduced people to tears. Obama promised transformation, a change that one could believe in. Things certainly changed for Favreau, a young man with closely cropped hair. He started to date actresses; all of Washington was at his feet.

But while he still holds the title of chief speechwriter, he no longer pens the president's most important speeches, for example on how to deal with Iran or the new Afghanistan strategy.

Obama's words no longer focus on hope, but on the details of politics. "Where has Obama's inspiring oratory gone?" asked Michael Gerson of the Washington Post in a recent column. On the anniversary of Obama's inauguration, it seems that US citizens too have grown tired of the soaring rhetoric.

Uncomfortable Reality

Jon Favreau is a symbol for the current political change in the US. The time for hope-filled flights of fancy are over. Obama now has to deal with everyday reality -- a reality that is currently extremely uncomfortable for the president.

The crushing defeat of the Democratic candidate Martha Coakley in the election to fill the Senate seat left vacant by the death of Ted Kennedy could kill off Obama's most important domestic policy, the provision of health care insurance to more Americans. Now the Republicans will have enough votes to block the reform.

For Obama's critics, this is just one more piece of evidence for his demise. They point to the low approval ratings for the president -- only 46 percent -- and to the disappearance of Obama T-shirts from the streets. That is all true. However, they overlook the fact that America never really descended into a collective intoxication with Obama. Any sober analysis of the 2008 election result reveals a convincing but not overwhelming victory -- and one that was fired by the unpopularity of then-President George W. Bush, the terrible economic situation and a weak Republican opponent.

The thing that really fascinated Americans during the election was Barack Obama the person -- the unusual story of his success, the historic nature of his candidacy. As the US's first African-American president, Obama didn't just talk about change, like so many politicians before him -- he incorporated it. Seldom have the message and the messenger suited each other so well.

No Time for Change

However, there was probably never a less auspicious time for true change or for the nation to consciously address its weaknesses. In times of crisis, insecurity and defensiveness trump any openness to change. And since his inauguration Obama has had to deal almost exclusively with crisis management. The financial crisis, the automotive crisis, the jobs crisis, the climate crisis, the global crisis. There have never been quite so many crises.

The opposition decided early on that they would build their comeback on the notion that hard times call for hard policies. Solidarity for the 47 million US citizens without health insurance? No thanks, said the Republicans. Make sacrifices for the climate? Why us? And when the calls for aid for Haiti came last week, talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, an icon of the right, insinuated that Obama wanted to support his black brothers.

The Republicans could sooner or later end up being dominated by the Tea Party movement, a loose group of right-wing activists whose members define themselves by what they oppose.

This defensive stance is catching on. More than 40 percent of US citizens now think that Tea Party activism is a good thing. And in the Massachusetts election, the Republicans were able to score points with attacks on "big government" and the impending national bankruptcy. The American left is once again being acccused of being "socialist."

The terror threat is also being used to attack the Democrats. Former Vice President Dick Cheney has been allowed to insinuate that Obama is a danger to the nation. And after the failed Christmas Day attack on Flight 253, even the New York Times was counting the days until the president swore that he would finally wage war on terrorism. Meanwhile commentators on both the left and right kept adding fuel to the fire.

Grand Visions Not Enough

The White House wants to keep a lid on the madness -- by joining in. Obama rushes from interview to interview. Yet his message is no longer as clear as it was during the election campaign. When it comes to health care reform, sometimes the president speaks about cutting costs, sometimes about moral duty. When it comes to Afghanistan, sometimes he talks about withdrawal, sometimes about victory.

Obama is getting bogged down. His grand visions, it seems, are not enough to govern the country.

However, it is far too soon to be talking about failure. Obama's team reacted well to the financial crisis, and America's image in the world has been redeemed. The Republicans, for their part, don't yet have a convincing candidate for the 2012 election. And 12 months after moving into the White House, no one can really claim that the president seems out of his depths or unpresidential. Nor has he embarrassed himself in the way that Bill Clinton did when he discussed his underwear with reporters after his inauguration.

The lack of a presidential aura had been one of the main arguments against Obama during the election campaign. Clinton is quoted as saying in a new book that someone like Obama would have been getting him coffee a few years ago.

From the very first day, Obama acted like he had always been president. But that also cost him support. Many of his younger supporters who had worked tirelessly during the campaign grumbled that Obama had become just like any other politician.

Picking Up

Perhaps his supporters will start flocking back to him, at the latest in 2012 -- given the lack of alternatives. In any case, his poll numbers will rise again when the economy starts to pick up.

But it's also possible that many of the disappointed will just stay home in future elections, including at the midterm elections in November. This would leave the playing field to angry voters. Then Obama would run the risk of being, despite his outstanding talent, a one-term president, brought down by circumstances. Members of his team are worried that Obama's political career could end with a superlative: the best US president, but at the wrong time.

The messiah must now become an everyday politician: more hands-on than head in the clouds, more short term than long, more Lyndon B. Johnson than John F. Kennedy. Obama needs to show stronger leadership and to be tougher, especially in dealing with the cacophonous chorus of his party colleagues in Congress.

That would be bad news for Jon Favreau and his fine turns of phrase. But it might be good news for Obama's track record.

Coakley's Loss: Pie in the President's Face

2010-01-21T09:28:00.000-08:00

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100201/greider

by WILLIAM GREIDER
January 20, 2010

Barack Obama went to Boston to rally voters and got a pie in the face. He lost his innocence as the valiant young president and also lost his sixty-vote majority in the Senate. Now we will find out what the man is made of--either a true political leader or just another show horse. Dozens of explanations are being offered for why the Dems were humiliated in Massachusetts. Democrats incline to grab easy answers. The president, if he is tough enough, will instead face the hard message of this political fiasco.

The special election displayed monumental miscalculations by which Obama has governed, both in priorities and political-legislative strategies. It may seem perverse and unfair, but the president's various actions for reform generated a vaguely poisonous identity. Amid the general suffering, Obama is widely seen as collaborating with two popular villains--the me-first bankers and over-educated policy technocrats of the permanent governing elite. Obama made nice with the bankers and loaded up his administration with Harvard policy wonks who really don't know the country. These malignant associations gain traction because people see there are grains of truth in observable reality.
On Sunday, I listened on the radio to Obama's soaring speech at Northeastern University and remembered again why his oratory first took the nation to the mountaintop. His attack lines lashing bankers and insurance companies were fluid and tough, shouted repetitively over the rising cheers. His diction was loosely colloquial. He dropped the hard g's to get down with the folks. Too little, too late, I figured. He is still masterful, but this is performance, not substance. People grasp the difference between the two. This gulf will imprison Obama as a stereotype for weakness, a joke on late-night TV, if he doesn't change.

The humiliation, I decided, could become a good thing for this presidency if it forces Obama to rethink his political strategy and rearrange his governing order. For all his brains and talent, for all the brainy people around him, the Obama White House seems tone-deaf and blind on many aspects of the popular reality. Too full of itself to listen closely. Too condescending to recognize the rage and fear are about more than right-wing frothers.

On healthcare, Obama played coy while his White House aides cut private deals with the drug industry and other sectors. The legislative process was drawn out month after month in an addled bargaining marathon with hostile Republicans (who stiffed him in return) and industry-leaning Democrats (who got whatever they demanded). The liberal base was conned, ignored and bullied, as its vital issues were one by one discarded. Labor unions were stroked and intimidated by the White House, then double-crossed as Obama's reform extracted greater costs from union members than it demanded from the drug makers. People at large were confused, then frightened. They could not understand what reform would do for them, and some of their doubts were well-founded. The longer it went on, the more people wondered why Democrats weren't talking about their problem--jobs and incomes.

Obama's mild-mannered faith in bipartisan deal-making seemed strangely out of touch. Didn't he realize Republicans were going to maul him at every turn?

The bankers, meanwhile, did their own tap dance on the new president, putting a paw on his shoulder while gobbling up public resources. Obama kept holding meetings with them, urging them to do the "right thing." They practically laughed in his face.

People were meanwhile agitated by the swelling budget deficits and easy prey for right-wing propaganda. Instead of explaining the economic necessity of deficit spending in a straightforward way, Obama adopted these worries as his own. He has promised to reduce spending, but he cannot deliver on this if he truly expects recovery.

Obama's style became an inadvertent formula for sapping the life out of the political majority that elected him, deflating the reach of reform and turning off the electoral base that came together in 2008. Democrats are being told (and telling themselves) that they over-reached, but what became clear as the months dragged on is the Democratic party under-achieved, and so did its president.

Obama's most disturbing quality is that he evidently intended this from the start. Soaring rhetoric notwithstanding, he managed the presidency as a pragmatist in search of the possible. The real goals for change were minimalist, not visionary. This has to change and soon, if he is to revive his presidency.

Obama, in other words, has to change himself. That may sound too wishful and maybe it is. But we know he is a brilliant politician, astute in his political vision. The great politicians, when faced with new circumstances, revise themselves. We will see if Obama can.

First, he has to clear out the cobwebs of his hopeful aspirations and take on the fight. To do so, he also has to clear away a lot of the people around him. If Rahm Emmauel was the chief strategist, the guy who made the private deals and told the senators what they could accept, he failed big-time and should be replaced. Find a new manager whose thinking was not shaped by cynical triangulation in the Clinton era.

The president chose Larry Summer and Timothy Geithner to speak for the administration on the economy. Can you imagine finding anyone less convincing? Both are active advocates of the Wall Street status quo, neither has any feel for what's happening in the country. The bean counters led the president into the trap he now faces. Permissive bailouts created flush financial giants that sit on their profits and ignore the public need for lending. Dump the bean counters now.

Obama's turn-around speech would declare--honestly--that he misjudged the situation. The damage is far worse than he originally realized. Some deeper structural changes are required. The political opposition is more than ever blindly resistant than he had hoped. But now Obama can promise to govern nose-to-nose against the political forces blocking everything he attempts. He may not prevail, he concedes. But he is going to throw himself at them and he asks the people to join him in the fight.

If comprehensive healthcare reform is out of the question, Obama Democrats can break it down into smaller pieces and try to pass worthy measures one by one. A bill to prohibit insurance companies from banning people with pre-existing ailments? Pass it the House and try to pass it in the Senate. If Republicans want to filibuster, make them filibuster. A measure to allow cheaper drug imports from Canada? Let Republicans vote against that. Repealing the antitrust exemption for insurance companies--Democrats support it. Democrats need to start a fight on taxes too. Do Republicans want to tax Wall Street banks or not? Obama has proposed it, let's have a roll call. The attack strategy will focus on all the reforms people want and need and create a new political dynamic.

At the same time, Obama has to change the subject by refocusing reform actions on jobs and the structure of the faltering economy. Do something concrete and visible. If it doesn't work, try something else. If it's real, people will respond. If it doesn't succeed, people will understand. A governing agenda that creates a sense of action and shared commitment does not require cerebral policy wonks. Go anywhere in America and you will hear fresh thinking about how to get the country out of the ditch.

Obama needs to locate some seasoned politicians and bring them into the White House--people with a less cynical view of the Democratic party and deep experience in how to mobilize substantive political support. That includes the active citizens who do not mess with elections because they consider them a waste of energy. People who want big change are all over this country, nurturing new ideas and waiting to be asked.

Barack Obama is a cool character, not given to impulsiveness. But he needs to accept that the political assumptions with which he began his presidency are malfunctioning. I can't be sure he will be brave enough to change things. I do say he cannot wait for his second term.

Does He Feel Your Pain?

2010-01-21T09:27:00.000-08:00

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/he-doesnt-feel-your-pain

Forget Massachusetts. Obama's problem is nationwide.
John B. Judis January 20, 2010

Bill Clinton didn’t know he was in big trouble until the very eve of the November 1994 election. Barack Obama knows now, barely a year into his presidency. While the party loyalists can blame Martha Coakley’s defeat on her ignorance of Red Sox baseball, it was clearly a message to the president and his party. Yes, a less inept candidate might have beaten Scott Brown, but if Obama and his program had been more popular in Massachusetts, even Coakley could have won--and by ten points or more.

There were no network exits polls, only a limited sample by Rasmussen [1], but some of the polls taken beforehand bear out Obama’s role in Coakley’s defeat. In the final January 17 poll [2] by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-leaning North Carolina outfit that picked up Brown’s surge early in the month, 20 percent of the respondents who voted for Obama in 2008 said they’d vote for Brown. Among those voters, only 22 percent approved of Obama’s presidency, and only 13 percent backed his health care plan. (Click here to read Thomas B. Edsall: "Why Health Care is the Graveyard of Democratic Dreams.") [3]

In fact, the percent of 2008 Obama voters who were backing Brown almost perfectly matched the percentage who were dissatisfied with Obama’s health care plan, which Brown himself singled out for criticism in his campaign. According to the Rasmussen exit sample, 52 percent of Brown voters rated health care as their top issue--a clear indication that they were viewing the election in national and not merely state terms.

The most important question raised by Coakley’s loss is not what she could have done better--the answer to that can fill pages of unhappy anecdotes about campaign mishaps--but why Obama’s popularity is so low that a Democrat could lose Massachusetts. A conservative Republican Senate candidate winning Massachusetts, which Obama carried by 62 percent to 36 percent in 2008, is comparable to a liberal Democrat carrying Utah.

If you believe some of the blogs, the Democrats lost Massachusetts, and Obama’s approval is plummeting nationwide, because he alienated his left-wing base. Perhaps that does account for an absence of turnout among young voters in the Virginia gubernatorial or Massachusetts Senate races, but the polls have not shown growing dissatisfaction among young, minority, or liberal voters--the three voting blocs that accounted for Obama’s strongest support in 2008. Where he has lost ground--and where the Democrats have lost ground--is primarily among white working and middle-class voters and senior citizens.

The Suffolk University poll [4] in Massachusetts, which like the PPP poll, was pretty much on target in the final result [5], singled out two white working-class towns, Gardner and Fitchburg, as bellwethers [6]. Obama won Gardner, where Democrats hold a three-to-one registrations edge, by 59 percent to 31 percent in 2008. Brown won it by 56 percent to 42 percent. Obama won Fitchburg, with a similar Democratic edge, by 60 percent to 38 percent in 2008. Brown won it by 59 percent to 40 percent. That suggests a fairly dramatic shift among white working class voters.

There is no similar city or county gauge for how seniors voted in the final result, but there were prior polls. The Suffolk poll taken January 14 [7] has some clues. The age group that most strongly favored Brown was sixty-five to seventy-four-year-olds by 58 to 38 percent. The same group opposed national health insurance by 48 percent to 28 percent and thought the federal government couldn’t afford such a plan by 66 percent to 33 percent. This age group also included the highest percentage of voters--41 percent--who said they “strongly opposed” Obama’s plan. And they were the one group (albeit narrowly) who disapproved of the job Obama was doing as president--by 45 percent to 44 percent. (Click here to read Jonathan Cohn's open letter to nervous and frustrated House Democrats.) [8]

If you look at national polls, Obama has suffered the greatest loss of approval among exactly the same groups. In the Pew polls [9], Obama suffered a drastic drop in support in the $30,000-$75,000 income group, from 63 percent to 17 percent approval in February 2009, to 53 percent to 35 percent disapproval in the January 14 poll. Among respondents over sixty-five years old, he went from 60 percent to 17 percent approval to 54 percent to 31 percent disapproval. In its January 2010 poll, Pew has a breakdown by race that is even more disturbing. Whites with some or no college--a rough designation for working-class whites--disapprove of Obama’s presidency by 54 percent to 36 percent.

Why do these groups matter? Since the 1960s, when the Democratic Party split over race, and later over cultural issues as well, the white working class has been a key vote in elections. Their departure from the Democrats in the South helped account for the transformation of the Deep South from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican. And in the Northern states, and particularly in Midwestern states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, they have been the swing vote in state and presidential elections. It’s a fair measure to say that if a Democrat can get about 45 percent of the white working-class vote, he or she can carry Ohio--Obama got about 44 percent in 2008. But if he gets only 40 percent or less in these states, he will lose those states and lose national elections. The white working-class vote may not be as important in five or ten years, as the demography of America shifts, but it remains so now—an enduring legacy of the politics of the late '60s.

The senior citizen vote overlaps to some extent with the white working-class vote, but it has a special importance because these voters come out disproportionately in midterm elections. If the Democrats continue to lose the senior vote, as Coakley appears to have done in Massachusetts yesterday, they will get clobbered in November 2010. We’re not talking two or three senate seats, but as many as eight, and not 20 or 25 House seats, but maybe between 30 and 40. To avoid a calamity on that level, Democrats will have to answer a difficult question: Why have these two groups distanced themselves in the last year, and particularly in the last few months, from Obama and the party?

These two groups of voters have not viewed Obama’s presidency in a fundamentally different way from many other voters, but they, and particularly working-class whites, have been the prime source of a populist anger against the Obama administration. They have perceived Obama as robbing Peter to pay Paul--or more concretely, taking benefits from and imposing higher taxes on them in order to provide greater income and benefits to others. And we are talking here about perceptions. I don’t intend to get into an argument about what is actually in the various health plans, some of which do benefit senior citizens and the white working and middle class.

Working-class populism in America has always taken two forms: The first--let’s call it left-wing populism--has typically been directed at speculators who make money from people who work in factories and offices and who don’t seem to contribute to the actual wealth of society. The second form--let’s call it right-wing populism--has targeted immigrants, black sharecroppers, the unemployed, and other out groups who are seen as trying to deprive those who work of their rightful earnings. These two strains often appear together, as they did in the original American populist movement. And these sentiments are most concentrated among the embattled classes--those that see themselves threatened from above and below.

Obama has provoked both left-wing and right-wing populism. He provoked left-wing populism by using tax dollars to sustain the banks and auto companies and to reward their managers who had already shown themselves to be incompetent--and then by acquiescing when the bankers paid themselves additional bonuses. In a poll [10] taken in early January by Allstate/National Journal, 1,200 respondents revealed whom they thought had “benefited most” from the government’s response to the financial crisis. Banks, investment companies, major corporations, and the wealthy were way out in front.

Obama’s health care plan has provoked a combination of right-wing and left-wing populism. The middle class and senior citizens see it as a program that taxes and takes benefits away from them in order to help those without insurance--the out groups--and to enrich the insurance companies themselves. They didn’t invent this perception out of thin air: It derived in part from the plan to tax “Cadillac” health care plans (which are sometimes held by unionized middle class workers), penalize workers who don’t buy insurance, and cut future Medicare spending, while providing new subscribers and profits for the insurance companies. Undoubtedly, the prior perception of Obama’s financial policies reinforced these suspicions about his health care plan, which is now as unpopular as the bank bailout. In Obama’s speech in Massachusetts last Sunday for Coakley, he relegated his health care policies to two passing references to insurance companies.

Is this political failure Obama’s fault? I have made the argument [11] that Obama’s declining approval can be attributed to the rising rate of unemployment and that the only way he could have prevented, or eased, the fall in his popularity would have been to get Congress to adopt a much larger stimulus program last winter. I still think there is truth to that argument--and also to the riposte that with the current congress of Republican nihilists [12] and Democratic deficit hawks it would have been impossible to get a much larger stimulus. But I think that there is more to Obama’s problems that than original sin of the insufficiently large stimulus program.

I updated the graph that I did last fall to illustrate the close correlation between unemployment rate and presidential approval or disapproval. What I found in Obama’s case is that at the beginning of last fall, when Washington began debating his health care plan in earnest, his level of disapproval began to exceed the rise in the unemployment rate. (See chart below)

Of course, there is nothing particularly scientific about this finding, but it at least suggests that Obama’s political problems can’t be entirely laid at the foot of the Great Recession. Beyond that, one has to look at how the administration has conducted itself politically.

Obama’s political problem boils down to the difficulty he has speaking to and for middle America. This problem became evident during the middle of the primary battle with Hillary Clinton. And it could have seriously damaged his candidacy against John McCain. But the onset of the financial crisis that fall, and McCain’s feeble response to it, along with his choice of Sarah Palin as vice president, highlighted Obama’s strongest asset in the eyes of voters--his intelligence--and reduced the importance of his lack of a common touch.

As president, however, Obama’s lack of engagement with middle America has come to the surface and has contributed to his decline in popularity. This shortcoming has been evident in his style and choice of venues--he gave his endorsement of Coakley on Sunday at Northeastern University, in Boston, rather than at a union hall or public auditorium in Worcester or Springfield. It is also evident in his choice of advisors and spokespeople and in the way he has framed his programs.

He chose the former head of the New York Fed, Timothy Geithner, to be his chief economic spokesman during a financial crisis that was widely seen as the product of Wall Street. And in developing and presenting his policies on the banks, he didn’t put the kind of conditions on taxpayer assistance that would have assured middle America that they weren’t giving handouts to the wealthy.

In the case of his health care plan, he did not really have a spokesman, but ceded the public face of the policy to the congressional leadership. Perhaps, he should have settled this year--when the recession heightened populist fears and resentments--for partial reforms that were more closely geared to the recession. Large reforms have usually occurred when the economy is on an upswing (1935, 1964-5) and voters feel a fundamental security. But leave that aside.

Where Obama invited a voter backlash was by letting the burden of reducing health care costs appear to fall on senior citizens and those middle-class workers who had acquired good health insurance through decades of union battles with management, and not on the insurance and drug companies. Obama ceded too much to the policy wonks who were devising intricate schemes to show they could cut the deficit. He took his eye of off the political imperative of keeping middle America in his corner.

Obama now clearly faces not just a recession and two wars, but a political crisis. He needs to adopt policies that will boost employment, but he may not have the political clout to do so. He needs to restore the public’s faith in his own leadership, but it’s not clear to me how he can accomplish that.

The last two Democratic presidents faced similar crises. After the Democrats got drubbed in the 1978 midterms, Jimmy Carter took exactly the wrong course. He replaced mediocre people with even more mediocre people. He allowed intramural squabbles to surface. He lost his focus and ended up blaming the American people for his political problems. Clinton, who had governed his first year as a Rhodes Scholar and Yale Law graduate, rediscovered after November 1994 that he had been a successful governor of Arkansas. He governed for the remainder of his six years as the president of middle America, even resisting a furious attempt by Republicans to impeach him.

I am not sure how Obama can surmount this crisis. Obama does not seem, like Ronald Reagan or Clinton, to be a man of many faces. Even back in Chicago [13] in the 1990s, it was clear that the man who had given up community organizing to become a lawyer and politician was more comfortable in Hyde Park than in Southeast or Northwest Chicago. Obama can try to make himself into a friend of Joe Sixpack and the enemy of Wall Street--he’s certainly trying to do so with his proposal to tax the big banks to pay for their bailout--but it’s not going to come naturally. Still, Obama has surprised his critics before, and perhaps (one hopes!) he will do so again.

John B. Judis is a senior editor of The New Republic and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Obama gets voters' message: It's jobs, jobs, jobs.

2010-01-21T09:00:00.000-08:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100121/ap_on_bi_ge/us_obama_economy/print;_ylt=At2tHGCvKVOFqfHrOO0YXLxv24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTBvajZzaTFyBHBvcwMxNQRzZWMDdG9wBHNsawNwcmludA--

Obama gets voters' message: It's jobs, jobs, jobs.
By JENNIFER LOVEN, AP White House Correspondent
January 21, 2010

WASHINGTON – Jobs, jobs, jobs.

If there's any path out of the mess President Barack Obama found himself in on the first day of his second year in office, more aggressive promotion of the administration's economy-boosting efforts — coupled with criticism of the Republican approach — is the one he has settled on.

The White House in the new year already had begun focusing greater attention on the nation's angst and anger over a range of economic issues, including unemployment persisting near 10 percent, government expansion, Wall Street excesses and federal deficits.

Officials said that shift will intensify now, an acknowledgment that Tuesday's stunning Senate election of Republican Scott Brown in the Democratic stronghold of Massachusetts requires at least some course correction in Obama's still-young presidency.

Brown's election to the seat that had been held by Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy meant the end of a filibuster-proof majority for Obama's party in the Senate and suddenly imperiled passage of the president's marquee domestic agenda item — a sweeping health care overhaul. It also leaves the fate of other key Obama priorities unclear and prompted a series of questions about the president's political judgment, clout and popularity.

Obama and his top aides huddled with each other and Capitol Hill allies throughout Wednesday to plot how to rescue the health care legislation and to start mapping a way forward leading into this fall's midterm congressional elections.

Their conclusion was that the economy — jobs specifically and the broader topics of the nation's fiscal and financial health — must be priority No. 1.

Among the ideas Obama has already proposed to generate jobs and will promote:
_New spending for highway and bridge construction.
_Tax cuts for small businesses that increase their payrolls.
_Money to retrofit millions of homes to be more energy-efficient and create "green" jobs.
_Funds to help state and local governments avert layoffs of public-sector employees.

Using most but not all of Obama's approach, House Democrats adopted a $174 billion bill. But it passed only barely — and the deficit-financed measure faces a tougher road in the Senate.

In the coming weeks, Obama also will talk regularly about other plans, some old, some new: on deficit reduction, increasing access to capital for small businesses, boosting exports and help for working families, said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to more freely describe private planning.

Obama was expected to try out his retooled message first on Thursday, at a White House event on the financial regulatory overhaul that is his next big legislative push. On Friday, he travels to recession-battered Ohio for a town hall meeting on the economy.

The economy and jobs also will be a major theme of Obama's State of the Union address next Wednesday night, as well as during the travel officials say he will embark upon afterward to pitch his proposals, and in the budget proposal he submits to Congress in February.

But while Obama will directly address the Massachusetts election results and what they mean in his State of the Union speech, Gibbs said, the second-year blueprint Obama plans to outline will look much like it was planned to before Tuesday. In other words, the White House believes its main problem is its sales job, not its product.

In his daily closed-door meeting with senior advisers Wednesday, Obama had moved on from anger over the Massachusetts election debacle to a get-it-done demeanor, a senior administration official said.

Obama was furious with Democrat Martha Coakley for what many in Washington saw as inept handling of a once-sure victory for the seat long held by Kennedy, the official said. The president undoubtedly was also mad at himself.

He said as much in a first-year anniversary interview with ABC News, acknowledging that he had made a mistake in not making his aims clear to the American public — a failure he already had planned to correct but which now had become more imperative.

"We were so busy getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us, that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people," Obama said. "I think the assumption was, if I just focus on policy ... that people will get it. And I think that, you know, what they've ended up seeing is this feeling of remoteness and detachment."

Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs conceded that the White House allowed confusion over the health care proposals to persist and to drown out the administration's economic efforts — all playing a role in stoking the kind of voter anger that was a factor in Coakley's defeat.

Said Gibbs: "That anger is now pointed at us because we're in charge. And rightly so."

Throughout his new efforts, Obama also will more pointedly draw contrasts with Republicans.

Republicans were ready to strike back. "Stop the arrogance and start listening to us," Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Republican whip, said on CNN, assessing the voter message from Massachusetts. "I think this is the theme that we will see continuing to play out unless this administration and the majority in Congress begin to respond to the people."

Big Mass Loss: Voters see Obama siding with banks

2010-01-20T14:45:00.001-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Big-Mass-Loss-Voters-see-by-Michael-Collins-100119-997.html

January 19, 2010
Big Mass Loss: Voters see Obama siding with banks
By Michael Collins

The article excerpted below is the first and may end up being the best analysis of the Massachusetts disaster, the loss of the late Senator Edward Kennedy's seat in the United States Senate. The "all knowing" pundits have already tagged this as some sort of revolt against President Obama's health care legislation or a sea change in United States politics. But there are a few facts that point to the likely cause of the defeat. Financial commentator Numerian laid it out out very clearly at the start of his analysis:

"An interesting observation was made today by the pollster for Martha Coakley, the hapless Democratic candidate for the Massachusetts senate seat held almost forever by Ted Kennedy. It appears polls are showing that the voters, especially independents who would normally vote Democratic in a liberal blue state like Massachusetts, have instead run to support the Republican candidate as the agent of change. Wasn't that supposed to be Barack Obama's signature tune?

"Massachusetts voters have given up on President Obama as an agent for anything but the status quo, and this is most evident in his willingness to dole out trillions of dollars in direct and indirect support to the banks. The Massachusetts polls show this issue to be foremost on the minds of the voters." Numerian

That's pretty clear isn't it. Massachusetts voters are not concerned about health care reform. They already have a program equal to or more comprehensive than the current legislation. There is no Teabagger movement emerging there. However, the information from polling and the general concern across the country about give aways to bankers while the rest of us get nothing stands out as the cause of voter disaffection and abandonment of the Democratic candidate.

(President Obama's) ... "actions this past year have been completely at variance with his rhetoric. He is, in fact, almost as completely addled as the bank executive cronies he appears to court and coddle. This past week also saw testimony from some of the top executives in the banking industry, including Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase, and John Mack of Morgan Stanley. They were all very skilled at accepting regret for what happened without accepting responsibility." Numerian

This is the enduring problem with the White House, a tin ear to the fears of people enduring a real world recession/depression with fully allocated unemployment now at 17% (Bureau of Labor Statistics, U-6 results). The Democrats, Obama, Coakley, almost all of them fail to recognize these fundamental truths:

When you lose your job, you know it.

When face the loss of your home, you know it.

When your health insurance disappears, you know it.

When you get nothing while the banks get trillions of dollars, you clearly know it.

Who is to blame for the failed economy?

That's not a difficult question and there is an answer:

"These are men making millions of dollars a year, and they couldn't see the housing bubble of the century in front of their eyes? If Jamie Dimon had a soupçon of personal honor he would have already resigned over this failure, and fired all his top management to boot. We are left to conclude that bankers are as much bereft of personal honor as they are lacking in a sense of personal responsibility for their failures." Numerian

These are the FOB (friends of Obama) on public display, the people he's aligned with to serve whom? Not the 300 million citizens of the Unite3d States living in financial limbo and fear.

"Maybe the electoral situation will force President Obama to see the light, but if so, he is going to have to take dramatically different action to do anything serious about reforming the banking industry. Many of the ideas afoot, like a tax on banking profits or a consumer regulatory watchdog, are helpful but don't constitute real reform. Here, then, is an insider's view of what really is necessary." Numerian

Numerian has a clearly outlined eight step program to educate Obama, the Democrats, or anyone seriously interested in a real recovery for all citizens. That's essential but even before that, it is vital that we understand the clear message of the Massachusetts election -- it's not time to move to the center, it's time to move to sanity and an equitable, efficient economy for all of us.

What Didn’t Happen

2010-01-19T16:51:00.001-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/opinion/18krugman.html?ref=opinion

January 18, 2010
OP-ED COLUMNIST
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Lately many people have been second-guessing the Obama administration’s political strategy. The conventional wisdom seems to be that President Obama tried to do too much — in particular, that he should have put health care on one side and focused on the economy.

I disagree. The Obama administration’s troubles are the result not of excessive ambition, but of policy and political misjudgments. The stimulus was too small; policy toward the banks wasn’t tough enough; and Mr. Obama didn’t do what Ronald Reagan, who also faced a poor economy early in his administration, did — namely, shelter himself from criticism with a narrative that placed the blame on previous administrations.

About the stimulus: it has surely helped. Without it, unemployment would be much higher than it is. But the administration’s program clearly wasn’t big enough to produce job gains in 2009.

Why was the stimulus underpowered? A number of economists (myself included) called for a stimulus substantially bigger than the one the administration ended up proposing. According to The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza, however, in December 2008 Mr. Obama’s top economic and political advisers concluded that a bigger stimulus was neither economically necessary nor politically feasible.

Their political judgment may or may not have been correct; their economic judgment obviously wasn’t. Whatever led to this misjudgment, however, it wasn’t failure to focus on the issue: in late 2008 and early 2009 the Obama team was focused on little else. The administration wasn’t distracted; it was just wrong.

The same can be said about policy toward the banks. Some economists defend the administration’s decision not to take a harder line on banks, arguing that the banks are earning their way back to financial health. But the light-touch approach to the financial industry further entrenched the power of the very institutions that caused the crisis, even as it failed to revive lending: bailed-out banks have been reducing, not increasing, their loan balances. And it has had disastrous political consequences: the administration has placed itself on the wrong side of popular rage over bailouts and bonuses.

Finally, about that narrative: It’s instructive to compare Mr. Obama’s rhetorical stance on the economy with that of Ronald Reagan. It’s often forgotten now, but unemployment actually soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cut. Reagan, however, had a ready answer for critics: everything going wrong was the result of the failed policies of the past. In effect, Reagan spent his first few years in office continuing to run against Jimmy Carter.

Mr. Obama could have done the same — with, I’d argue, considerably more justice. He could have pointed out, repeatedly, that the continuing troubles of America’s economy are the result of a financial crisis that developed under the Bush administration, and was at least in part the result of the Bush administration’s refusal to regulate the banks.

But he didn’t. Maybe he still dreams of bridging the partisan divide; maybe he fears the ire of pundits who consider blaming your predecessor for current problems uncouth — if you’re a Democrat. (It’s O.K. if you’re a Republican.) Whatever the reason, Mr. Obama has allowed the public to forget, with remarkable speed, that the economy’s troubles didn’t start on his watch.

So where do complaints of an excessively broad agenda fit into all this? Could the administration have made a midcourse correction on economic policy if it hadn’t been fighting battles on health care? Probably not. One key argument of those pushing for a bigger stimulus plan was that there would be no second chance: if unemployment remained high, they warned, people would conclude that stimulus doesn’t work rather than that we needed a bigger dose. And so it has proved.

It’s important to remember, also, how important health care reform is to the Democratic base. Some activists have been left disillusioned by the compromises made to get legislation through the Senate — but they would have been even more disillusioned if Democrats had simply punted on the issue.

And politics should be about more than winning elections. Even if health care reform loses Democrats’ votes (which is questionable), it’s the right thing to do.

So what comes next?

At this point Mr. Obama probably can’t do much about job creation. He can, however, push hard on financial reform, and seek to put himself back on the right side of public anger by portraying Republicans as the enemies of reform — which they are.

And meanwhile, Democrats have to do whatever it takes to enact a health care bill. Passing such a bill won’t be their political salvation — but not passing a bill would surely be their political doom.

A Wake Up Call

2010-01-19T13:49:00.001-08:00

I was for the health bill until it BECAME OBVIOUS that it was welfare for insurance companies. Big wal-street banks own most of the insurance companies and this would have been another bailout for those monsters!

Health Care is a BASIC HUMAN RIGHT but letting wal-street and the insurance companies write the legislation made it all corrupt! A pox on those filthy, psychopathic bastards of capitalism!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/a-wake-up-call_b_426467.html

Robert KuttnerCo-Founder and Co-Editor of The American Prospect
Posted: January 17, 2010 11:09 PM

How could the health care issue have turned from a reform that was going to make Barack Obama ten feet tall into a poison pill for Democratic senators? Whether or not Martha Coakley squeaks through in Massachusetts on Tuesday, the health bill has already done incalculable political damage and will likely do more. Polls show that the public now opposes it by margins averaging ten to fifteen points, and widening. It is hard to know which will be the worse political defeat -- losing the bill and looking weak, or passing it and leaving it as a piñata for Republicans to attack between now and November.

The measure is so unpopular that Republican State Senator Scott Brown has built his entire surge against Coakley around his promise to be the 41st senator to block the bill -- this in Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts. He must be pretty confident that the bill has become politically radioactive, and he's right.

It has already brought down Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, a fighter for health care and other reforms far more progressive than President Obama's. Dorgan championed Americans' right to re-import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, a popular provision that the White House blocked. Dorgan, who is one of the Senate's great populists, began the year more than twenty points ahead in the polls of his most likely challenger, North Dakota Governor John Hoeven. By the time he decided to call it a day, Dorgan was running more than twenty points behind. The difference was the health bill, which North Dakotans oppose by nearly two to one. The fact that Dorgan's own views were much better than the Administration's cut little ice. He was fatally associated with an unpopular bill.

So, how did Democrats get saddled with this bill? Begin with Rahm Emanuel. The White House chief of staff, who was once Bill Clinton's political director, drew three lessons from the defeat of Clinton-care. All three were wrong. First, get it done early (Clinton's task force had dithered.) Second, leave the details to Congress (Clinton had presented Congress with a fully-baked cake.) Third, don't get on the wrong side of the insurance and drug industries (The insurers' fictitious couple, Harry and Louise, had cleaned Clinton's clock.)

But as I wrote in Obama's Challenge, in August 2008, it would be a huge mistake to try to get health care done right out of the box. Obama first needed to get his sea-legs, and focus like a laser on economic recovery. If he got the economy back on track, he would then have earned the chops to undertake more difficult structural reforms like health care.

Deferring to the House and Senate was fine up to a point, but this was an issue where the president needed to lead as only presidents can -- in order to frame the debate and define the stakes.

Cutting a deal with the insurers and drug companies, who are not exactly candidates to win popularity contests, associated Obama with profoundly resented interest groups. This was exactly the wrong framing. This battle should have been the president and the people versus the interests. Instead more and more voters concluded that it was the president and the interests versus the people.

As policy, the interest-group strategy made it impossible to put on the table more fundamental and popular reforms, such as using Federal bargaining power to negotiate cheaper drug prices, or having a true public option like Medicare-for-all. Instead, a bill that served the drug and insurance industries was almost guaranteed to have unpopular core elements.

The politics got horribly muddled. By embracing a deal that required the government to come up with a trillion dollars of subsidy for the insurance industry, Obama was forced to pursue policies that were justifiably unpopular -- such as taxing premiums of people with decent insurance; or compelling people to buy policies that they often couldn't afford, or diverting money from Medicare. He managed to scare silly the single most satisfied clientele of our one island of efficient single-payer health insurance -- senior citizens -- and to alienate one of his most loyal constituencies, trade unionists.

The bill helped about two-thirds of America's uninsured, but did almost nothing for the 85 percent of Americans with insurance that is becoming more costly and unreliable by the day -- except frighten them into believing that what little they have is at increased risk of being taken away.

All of this made things easier for the right, and left people to take seriously even preposterous allegations such as the nonsense about death panels. It got so ass-backwards that the other day Ben Nelson, who successfully held out for anti-abortion language and a sweetheart deal for Nebraska's Medicaid as the price of his vote, found himself facing a wholesale voter backlash.

Nelson began running TV spots assuring Nebraska voters that the Obama health plan is "not run by the government." That's one hell of a slogan for a party that relies on democratically elected government to offset the insecurity, inequality and insanity generated by private commercial forces. If not-run-by-government is the Democrats' credo, why bother?

So we went from a politics in which government is necessary to provide secure health insurance -- because the private insurance industry skims off outrageous middlemen fees and discriminates against sick people -- to a politics in which Democrats, as a matter of survival, feel they have to apologize for government. Thank you, Rahm Emanuel.

The budget-obsessives around Obama also insisted that most of the bill not take effect until 2013, so that all of the scary stuff gets three years to fester before most people see any benefit. Call it political malpractice.

Finally, the health insurance battle sucked out all the oxygen. When Obama made time to work the phones personally, it wasn't to enact serious financial reform (this was left to the tender mercies of Tim Geithner) or to fight for a real jobs program (deficit hawks Peter Orszag and Larry Summers got to blunt that one). No -- Obama got on the phone and met with legislators to round up the last vote or two for a sketchy health reform that crowded out far more urgent issues.

As a resident of Massachusetts, in the last two days I've gotten robo calls from Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, Martha Coakley, and Angela Menino, the wife of Boston's mayor -- everyone but the sainted Ted Kennedy. In Obama's call, he advised me that he needed Martha Coakley in the Senate, "because I'm fighting to curb the abuses of a health insurance industry that routinely denies care." Let's see, would that be the same insurance industry that Rahm was cutting inside deals with all spring and summer? The same insurance industry that spent tens of millions on TV spots backing Obama's bill as sensible reform?

If voters are wondering which side this guy is on, he has given them good reason.

Looking forward, one can imagine several possibilities. Suppose Coakley loses. Obama and the House leadership may then decide that their one shot to salvage health reform after all this effort is for the House to just pass the Senate-approved bill and send it to the president's desk. They can fix its deficiencies later. This is an easy parliamentary move. But the bill passed the House by only five votes; many House members are dead set against some of the more objectionable provisions of the Senate bill; a Coakley loss would make the bill that much more politically toxic; there will be Republican catcalls that Congress is using dubious means to pass a bill that has just been politically repudiated; and the House votes just may not be there this time.

Alternatively, let's say Coakley narrowly wins, the Democrats have a near death experience, and the House and Senate stop squabbling and pass the damned bill.

Either way, the Massachusetts surprise should be a wake-up call of the most fundamental kind. Obama needs to stop playing inside games with bankers and insurance lobbyists, and start being a fighter for regular Americans. Otherwise, he can kiss it all goodbye.

Politics Gets in the Way of Obama’s Perceptiveness

2010-01-19T13:44:00.001-08:00

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2709

January 13, 2010
Ivan Eland

President Barack Obama recently expressed a reluctance to send U.S. forces to Yemen and Somalia, two “failed states” where al-Qaeda is active. Obama seemed to realize that such a U.S. military presence might make the terrorism problem worse. If he understands this effect in these two nations, why doesn’t the same principle apply to the war in Afghanistan?

In resisting pressure to send U.S. troops to Yemen in the wake of the underwear bomber’s connections there, Obama commented on sending American forces to places such as Yemen and Somalia. He said that he had “no intention of sending U.S. boots on the ground in those regions” while the local governments remain effective partners. Obama also concluded that Washington must ponder “how we project ourselves to the world, the message we send to Muslim communities . . . the overwhelming majority of which reject al-Qaeda but where a handful of individuals may be moved by a jihadist ideology.” Obama advocates “a larger process of winning over the hearts and minds of ordinary people and isolating these violent extremists.” He had expressed similar sentiments during his famous speech in Cairo.

These are mostly valid sentiments but contrast sharply with his acceleration of the war in Afghanistan. The governments of Yemen and Somalia are no stronger, less corrupt, more competent, or in control of more of their own territory than the Afghan government. Yet more U.S. troops are seen as beneficial in Afghanistan but as counterproductive in Yemen and Somalia. Obama would likely say that added American forces are needed in Afghanistan because the central leadership of al-Qaeda operates in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. Yet if Obama realizes that more U.S. troops in Yemen or Somalia would counterproductively create more jihadists ready to throw out the “infidels,” then the same effect should be and is occurring in Afghanistan—regardless of whether or not the al-Qaeda leadership is nearby.

Therefore, applying his logic for Yemen and Somalia to Afghanistan, Obama has inadvertently admitted that his troop surge to that country will merely fuel the Taliban insurgency there and a rising Islamic militancy in Pakistan—the country where Osama bin Laden and the other leaders of al-Qaeda may be hiding. Instead of making these problems worse, the U.S. should be trying to co-opt or buy off the Taliban instead of driving it closer to al-Qaeda. Studying the few successful counterinsurgency campaigns in history indicates that the most likely way to win is to split the opposition. In the short-term, this is what Gen. David Petraeus did in Iraq, turning the Sunni Awakening against al-Qaeda (but which will likely fail in the long-term because Iraq is so fractured among Kurds and Sunni and Shi’ite Arabs).

Yet Obama does the opposite in Afghanistan. Why? Because he has fallen victim to the perpetual worry among Democrats that they will be labeled as weaklings on national security, especially at a time when he has pledged to withdraw U.S. forces from the quagmire in Iraq. To appear strong and show that he is doing something about terrorism, he has halfheartedly escalated the unpopular war in Afghanistan, while at the same time making noises about eventual withdrawal, and has taken former Vice President Dick Cheney’s bait by reiterating that the U.S. is in a “war on terror.”

Instead, Obama should simply have announced that the Bush administration-initiated “war on terror” had failed and cited the statistics to back it up. Compared to Sept. 11, 2001, and before, worldwide monthly fatalities from terrorism have jumped more than 150 percent. Much of the failure of the “war on terror” can be attributed to post-9/11 non-Muslim occupation of and interference in Muslim lands—the very reason that Osama bin Laden has said he attacks the United States. Thus, Obama should follow the physician’s motto—do no harm—and reconsider his escalation of the war in Afghanistan, which increases the ranks of Islamist militants and terrorists worldwide and which even he has admitted cannot eradicate the Taliban.