To understand the meaning of the U.S. election results, it is worth looking back to the moment when everything changed for the Obama campaign. It was, without question, the moment when the economic crisis hit Wall Street.
Up to that point, things weren't looking all that good for Barack Obama. The Democratic National Convention barely delivered a bump, while the appointment of Sarah Palin seemed to have shifted the momentum decisively over to John McCain.
Then, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac failed, followed by insurance giant AIG, then Lehman Brothers. It was in this moment of economic vertigo that Obama found a new language. With tremendous clarity, he turned his campaign into a referendum into the deregulation and trickle down policies that have dominated mainstream economic discourse since Ronald Reagan. He said his opponent represented more of the same while he stood for a new direction, one that would rebuild the economy from the ground up, rather than the top down. Obama stayed on this message for the rest of the campaign and, as we just saw, it worked.
The question is now whether Obama will have the courage to take the ideas that won him this election and turn them into policy. Or, alternately, whether he will use the financial crisis to rationalize a move to what pundits call "the middle" (if there is one thing this election has proved, it is that the real middle is far to the left of its previously advertised address). Predictably, Obama is already coming under enormous pressure to break his election promises, particularly those relating to raising taxes on the wealthy and imposing real environmental regulations on polluters. All day on the business networks, we hear that, in light of the economic crisis, corporations need lower taxes, and fewer regulations - in other words, more of the same.
The new president's only hope of resisting this campaign being waged by the elites is if the remarkable grassroots movement that carried him to victory can somehow stay energized, networked, mobilized - and most of all, critical. Now that the election has been won, this movement's new mission should be clear: loudly holding Obama to his campaign promises, and letting the Democrats know that there will be consequences for betrayal.
The first order of business - and one that cannot wait until inauguration - must be halting the robbery-in-progress known as the "economic bailout." I have spent the past month examining the loopholes and conflicts of interest embedded in the U.S. Treasury Department's plans. The results of that research can be found in a just published feature article in Rolling Stone, The Bailout Profiteers as well as my most recent Nation column, Bush's Final Pillage.
Both these pieces argue that the $700-billion "rescue plan" should be regarded as the Bush Administration's final heist. Not only does it transfer billions of dollars of public wealth into the hands of politically connected corporations (a Bush specialty), but it passes on such an enormous debt burden to the next administration that it will make real investments in green infrastructure and universal health care close to impossible. If this final looting is not stopped (and yes, there is still time), we can forget about Obama making good on the more progressive aspects of his campaign platform, let alone the hope that he will offer the country some kind of grand Green New Deal.
Readers of The Shock Doctrine know that terrible thefts have a habit of taking place during periods of dramatic political transition. When societies are changing quickly, the media and the people are naturally focused on big "P" politics - who gets the top appointments, what was said in the most recent speech. Meanwhile, safe from public scrutiny, far reaching pro-corporate policies are locked into place, dramatically restricting future possibilities for real change.
It's not too late to halt the robbery in progress, but it cannot wait until inauguration. Several great initiatives to shift the nature of the bailout are already underway, including bailoutmainstreet.com. I added my name to the "Call to Action: Time for a 21st Century Green America" and invite you to do the same.
Stopping the bailout profiteers is about more than money. It is about democracy. Specifically, it is about whether Americans will be able to afford the change they have just voted for so conclusively.
Naomi Klein is the author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, now out in paperback. To read all her latest writing visit www.naomiklein.org
Read more Election Day Liveblogs, Reaction and Analysis from HuffPost Bloggers
If gold isn't real money why does every private central bank in the world have it? (thought food for preponderance if we dare)
Of Obama's candidates, who are the Perkinsian Economic Hit Men?
"Your reasoning is perfectly logical but totally insane," Lutzenburger told Summers. "Your thoughts [provide] a concrete example of the unbelievable alienation, reductionist thinking, social ruthlessness and the arrogant ignorance of many conventional 'economists' concerning the nature of the world we live in... If the World Bank keeps you as vice president it will lose all credibility."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/lawrence-summers-africa-i_b_141706.html
Who are these 'economists,' and their brethren wolves in academic clothing? Who's giving them their marching orders?
PS: If you can't marry me, I'll get over it ;-] If Prometheus has a sister, I'll bet she's a lot like you.
I also want to take this opportunity to thank you for your UChicago speech some time back. I've probably quoted you from that speech every single day since.
"And so, the Chicago Boys were born. And it was considered a success, and the Ford Foundation got in on the funding. And hundreds and hundreds of Latin American students, on full scholarships, came to the University of Chicago in the 1950s and '60s to study here to try to engage in what Juan Gabriel Valdes, Chile's foreign minister after the dictatorship finally ended, described as a project of deliberate ideological transfer, taking these extreme-right ideas, that were seen as marginal even in the United States, and transplanting them to Latin America. That was his phrase--that is his phrase."
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/6/naomi_klein
What a chilling project. I call it myth-jacking. It's the Bush-Apa Torture Doctrine of isolation and psycho-spiritual attacks.
It's obvious that was McCain's strategy. And Liddy Dole's infamous "godless" ad is a perfect case in point. My greatest hope for our post-election momentum is, to finally break this wicked spell.
Being an Aussie who has lived in the US during an election (Clinton's first) and moved back to OZ it was interesting to view the parallels in both of the last national campaigns. Kevin Rudd was elected on a mandate of change. Rudd came up short in the parliament for the majority that would have made legislative passage a lot easier.
Move to now, Kevin Rudd is presently dealing with his election promises and the reality of the global meltdown and how he can revise his priorities domestically to ensure he minimises the global situation on main street (to use a US term). This is a challenge for anyone; no less a individual elected by a large majority, demonstrating a clear mandate (just ask KRudd)
I cant describe the feeling when I heard Obama's victory. All I can say was I am one of those foreigners that felt a deep feeling of hope . Furthermore, I want to believe he is up too the challenge and will part of the global solution (as Kevin Rudd will hopefully be); what the present political situation in Oz has shown is that it is a lot harder than we are told.
P.S. The present Mr President, recognise why the next president has been elected by your people and show restraint until the 20th of January, 2009.
The battle to regain our Republic is far from won.
I'm a big fan of yours and am so grateful to have a resource like you who can spell out the jumbled mess that has become our country.
Thank you for all of your had work.
The bailout has made no improvement in the current condition, but it has minimized the bleeding, protected the wound and prevented the nation from going into shock. That's the nature of first aid, now it's time for some thoughtful surgery.
I suggest you use the bailoutmainstreet.com link in the article to see what healing looks like.
However she is unaware of the "command and control" structure that directs and promotes the disaster capitalism events which she investigates.
A simple search of her website does not reveal any information on the 3 interlocked U.S. organizations that meet, plan and engineer this events. The financial crisis and bailouts in the G8 countries were just the latest contrived events and more such catastrophic events are planned for Obama's term.
Those organizations are The Bilderberg Group, The Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations. The international power held in their memberships creates a powerful insider information organization that controls banking, all matters of State, stock markets, media and other key international control mechanisms.
Klein is to be congratulated for her investigations, particularly of the massive L-1 data mining program that is predicated on facial recognition software which was created within the labs of Rockefeller University.
If Klein only does a study of YouTube video's on David Rockefeller, she will suddenly see these the framework of these interlocked organizations in the deep background of the matters that she is investigating.
IMO--which is, BTW, much influenced by Naomi Klein's research--the three institutions that need immediate action are the WTO, IMF & World Bank; it is high time that their faux programs to "help" poor nations be exposed for what they really are.
And as much as I agree with her assessment of the bailout situation, I cannot see congress undoing what they have already done--I mean, when has that ever happened?
The free market fundamentalists who are at the core of this mess haven't faded away, and even now there are such cretins decrying new efforts at regulating markets and insisting that fewer market distortions and less existing regulations are the real culprit of the financial meltdown.
The folks in the 1% club have made far too much money to just roll over and let Milton Friedman's efforts be cast aside.
Once more--the short version;
You're right about those agencies. MyTake is right about his--AND they call the shots for the ones you mentioned!
All businesses collude, set prices, carve up territories and engage in Monopoly; from telcoms to grain merchants, to soap makers. It's business as usual, so why do we shy from seeing it in international banking, except to avoid the tin foil insult sure to come our way? Sure, Naomi knows enough not to muddy her message with going there, but I'll bet she sees and understands it better than anyone else.
Here's a quote--
"The boot print of the Rothschild formula is unmistakable across the graves of American soldiers on both sides (of the Civil War)."
- G. Edward Griffin
And it's been going on since we first printed our money in defiance of the British Crown and the Bank of England and found ourselves in a Revolution!
Faith McGary,
Bethlehem, PA
You're just plain sad....and you do not stand for me or my beliefs. Aggression and insigation will get you nowhere. It's time to unite, not scream like a little child who doesn't get enough attention.
Grow up!