I'll admit it: Listening to Barack Obama, I am ready to enlist in his campaign against the feed-the-rich Republicans ... until I recall that I once responded in the same way to Bill Clinton's faux populism. And then I get angry because betrayal by the "good guys" for whom I have ended up voting has become the norm.
Yes, betrayal, because if Obama meant what he said in Tuesday's State of the Union address about holding the financial industry responsible for its scams, why did he appoint the old Clinton crowd that had legalized those scams to the top economic posts in his administration? Why did he hire Timothy Geithner, who has turned the Treasury Department into a concierge service for Wall Street tycoons?
Why hasn't he pushed for a restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act, which Clinton's deregulation reversed? Does the president really believe that the Dodd-Frank slap-on-the-wrist sellout represents "new rules to hold Wall Street accountable, so a crisis like this never happens again"? Can he name one single too-big-to-fail banking monstrosity that has been reduced in size on his watch instead of encouraged to grow ever larger by Treasury and Fed bailouts and interest-free money?
When Obama declared Tuesday evening "no American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share of taxes by moving jobs and profits overseas," wasn't he aware that Jeffrey Immelt, the man he appointed to head his jobs council, is the most egregious offender? Immelt, the CEO of GE, heads a company with most of its workers employed in foreign countries, a corporation that makes 82 percent of its profit abroad and has paid no U.S. taxes in the past three years.
It was also a bit bizarre for Obama to celebrate Steve Jobs as a model entrepreneur when the manufacturing jobs that the late Apple CEO created are in the same China that elsewhere in his speech the president sought to scapegoat for America's problems. Apple, in its latest report on the subject, takes pride in attempting to limit the company's overseas suppliers to a maximum workweek of 60 hours for their horribly exploited employees. Isn't it weird to be chauvinistically China baiting when that country carries much of our debt?
I'm also getting tired of the exhortations to improve the nation's schools, certainly a worthy endeavor, but this economic crisis is the result not of high school dropouts as Obama suggested, but rather the corruption of the best and brightest graduates of our elite academies. As Obama well knows from his own trajectory in the meritocracy, which took him from one of the most privileged schools in otherwise educationally depressed Hawaii to Harvard Law, the folks who concocted the mathematical formulas and wrote the laws justifying fraudulent collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps were his overachieving professors and classmates.
If he doesn't know that, he should check out the record of Lawrence Summers, the man he picked to guide his economic program and who had been rewarded with the presidency of Harvard after having engineered Clinton's deregulatory deal with Wall Street.
That is the real legacy of the Clinton years, and it is no surprise that GOP presidential contender Newt Gingrich has been campaigning on his rightful share of it. The international trade agreements that exported good U.S. jobs, the radical financial deregulation that unleashed Wall Street greed, and the free market zealotry of then-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, who was reappointed by Clinton, were all part of a deal Clinton made with Gingrich, House speaker at that time.
As Gingrich put it in the first Republican debate in South Carolina: "As speaker ... working with President Bill Clinton, we passed a very Reagan-like program, less regulation, lower taxes." Even the 15 percent tax break that Mitt Romney exploited for his carryover private equity income was a result of the unholy Clinton-Gingrich alliance. Both principals of that alliance were pimps for the financial industry, and that includes Freddie Mac, the for-profit stock-traded housing agency that Clinton coddled while it stoked the Ponzi scheme in housing and that rewarded the former speaker with $1.6 million to $1.8 million in consulting fees.
There were, finally, some bold words in Obama's speech about helping beleaguered homeowners, but they ring hollow given this administration's efforts to broker a sweetheart deal between the leading banks and the state attorneys general that would see the banks fined only a pittance for their responsibility in the mortgage meltdown. Obama could have had success demanding mortgage relief if he had made that a condition for bailing out the banks. Now the banksters know he's firing blanks, and they are placing their bets on their more reliable Republican allies to prevent any significant demand for helping homeowners with their underwater mortgages.
Of course, Romney, Obama's most likely opponent in the general election, will never challenge the Wall Street hold on Washington, since he is the personification of the vulture capitalism that is the true cause of America's decline. Obama should shine in comparison with his Republican challenger, but there is little in his State of the Union speech to suggest he will chart a much-needed new course in his second term.
Bob Burnett: Obama's Common Sense
Although Scheer does not say it, I would say that Hillary Clinton is herself perpetuating her husband’s Wall Street deal, while “serving” in the Obama administration. She has turned the State Department into a corporate subsidiary serving the interests for defense contractors, oil companies, drug and health providers, food production profiteers, at the expense of the needy, average citizens, employees and consumers around the globe.
President Obama has been too lenient with and dependent on Clinton era warmovers and loyalists in his first term, and has given Wall Street too much influence and benefit. Will voters who are aware, and increasing their volume as in the Occupy Wall Street movement, use the 2012 campaign to pressure the President to muster more courage, stand up to the profiteers, and truly serve average and needy Americans and not the Clintons’ “one percenter” cronies in a second term?
For those who fear America's devolution into a corporate plutocracy stripped of the Constitution protections previously guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, there is no functional difference between Obama and Romney. There will be no lesser evil in 2012.
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2011/07/19/obama-wants-to-cut-medicare-and-social-security-benefits/
Social Security- FICA' 770 billion a year replaced with a 15 fee on home sales .
http://www.organicconsumers.org/usda_watch.cfm
However, looking at the cast of clowns on the other side, I, sadly, see no way around supporting the Obama/Monsanto ticket in 2012.
Next question?
The problem is, these people who 'know what they are doing' aren't doing anything to actually benefit the majority of voters. Yes, they know exactly what they are doing, and none of it is good. I'd rather have a 'new guy' who makes some mistakes than an experienced piece of filth who is working only for those who buy politicians.
J
When I look at the cabinet members, advisors and others in the administration I have to ask "Is this the best Obama can do?" Bad decisions by Geithner, Holder, now Chu in the Department of Energy and more - and we have to realize that those members, advisors and others were hand-picked by Obama.
How can there be "Hope and Change"? Sure hasn't been for he past 3 years - only more of the xame.
Obama, is as bright and articulate as Clinton, and as transparent a shill for the financial industry. Another corporatist. If it weren't for the Occupy movement, and the fact that its an election year, he wouldn't be making promises he knows he won't keep.
I won't be voting of him. Fool me once...
I'm done with voting after a life time of betrayals. The idea that my vote, or anyone's, can bring about a change in the our Corporate Oligarchy, is a myth. It keeps you engaged, and distracted as it ensures that you won't take action against them.
Chris Hedges: Thank You for Standing Up - Chris Hedges' Columns - Truthdig
"...Voting will not alter the corporate systems of power. Voting is an act of political theater. Voting in the United States is as futile and sterile as in the elections I covered as a reporter in dictatorships like Syria, Iran and Iraq. There were always opposition candidates offered up by these dictatorships. Give the people the illusion of choice. Throw up the pretense of debate. Let the power elite hold public celebrations to exalt the triumph of popular will. We can vote for Romney or Obama, but Goldman Sachs and ExxonMobil and Bank of America and the defense contractors always win. There is little difference between our electoral charade and the ones endured by the Syrians and Iranians. Do we really believe that Obama has, or ever had, any intention to change the culture in Washington?
In this year’s presidential election I will vote for a third-party candidate, either the Green Party candidate or Rocky Anderson, assuming one of them makes it onto the ballot in New Jersey, but voting is nothing more than a brief chance to register our disgust with the corporate state. It will not alter the configurations of power. The campaign is not worth our emotional, physical or intellectual energy..."
http://www.gp.org/committees/ballot/
Green Party Ballot Access Committee
The people's desire to LIKE a leader apparently outweighs their policy beliefs (if they had any to begin with). Is it not INSANE to believe that Obama is serious about reform while STILL going ahead with the 'sweetheart deal'? Are we a nation of zombies? Has something infected our water supply? Have the Body Snatchers arrived? Are there spawn amongst us? What's REALLY going on?
We thought we were 'progressives' when Bush was in office. We thought so because he didn't conform to our bourgeois sensibilities of what we thought liberal was. In realty, we wanted an ethnic person in the WH who enacted the same policies as Bush.
In order for change to manifest, people need to break out of their zombie-trance and DEMAND it. I hate to say it, but I think that the only way for people to break out of the spell is to have a self-proclaimed neocon in office as opposed to a likable, closeted one. I would obviously prefer that people wake up now but judging by the cheerleading, it doesn't look promising.
Which recent presidents delivered his job growth numbers while completely eliminating the deficit and increasing the number of people going to and graduating from college and increasing home ownership. He also increased those numbers significantly within the African American community. The AA community had the lowest unemployment under Clinton then they ever did before or since.
From surveys that have been taken and from speaking with people from different countries I can tell you that the world held a very high opinion of Clinton--and still do btw.
Clinton had to deal with a Republican controlled congress the last six of his eight years--he had to compromise and did a good job given the situation.
Go ahead Mr Scheer, name an ACTUAL U.S. president who had as good a record as Bill Clinton in the last 50 years. No wars, he helped the Muslims in the Balkans without one U.S. soldier's death--something the Republicans said was impossible. America has shot itself in the foot since then.
I'll take Bill Clinton over Reagan, Both Bush's and Nixon any day of the week. He worked his butt off, still does, and he deserves a little respect.
Another outstanding president, Lyndon Johnson, Dwight Eisenhower...
He did more then stay out of the way. He actually got on the phone on behalf of American companies to get them business. He created an economic environment where you had a balanced budget (not on the backs of the poor but on the wealthy--he reversed Reagan's regressive Fed tax and made it much more progressive).
The low interest rates we all enjoyed were "real" and "earned." Want to know what happens when you have low interest rates that weren't earned? Take a good look at what happened under Bush: a HUGE housing crisis which turned the world upside down.
If Gore had been president we would not have had the mess Bush brought us. He was a human disaster of the highest order.
You want Clinton or Obama or any Dem to pull the country to the left--something we'd be wise to do very quickly--then get in the fight in every election at every level of government and don't cry because things don't go your way. Keep fighting. There is no other subsitute for winning. The Right will not hand us anything, we will have to keep beating them over and over again.