Walmart is just another example of how local financing has been usurped by wall street. Instead of locally owned businesses funded locally, our nation is now dotted by chain stores and restaurants who could only exist with the backing of wall street capitalization. The same with mortgages - all of the hedging and bundling...done on wall street not on main street. There was a time when the local bank made the mortgages and all credit was local. As long as capital is generated soley by wall street you will continue to see Walmart and other chains overtake locally owned businesses. Progressives really need to focus on how to increase dealing with local stores and producers not the big boxes.

Thank-you, Nancy Pace, for reprinting Mr. Furman's piece.

This Furman is the distillation of everything I despise about the Ayn-Rand indoctrinated, big business adoring libertarians who have taken their sick, pathological, Taliban-like "free market" fundamentalism - and call it being "progressive". This tells me everything I need to know about Obama's "progressive" agenda!

Where does one even start with this piece. Wal Mart's brutal unionbusting tactics are dismissed with the preposterous statement that "Americans don't like unions. Sure! It was a democratic clamor that packed the NLRB with corporate sycophants who let the corporations get away with illegal union busting with complete impunity.

The anti-organized labor attitudes fairly drip from this piece.

And then the stuff about protest being pase' and futile. That the "new activists" instead are business people.

This guy and his boss Obama can go fuck themselves.

"iammyself says "But it's so much easier to bitch from the purist's perch. So much easier than seeing the compromise and hard work that's required in this life - especially politics." I agree except that I would substitute the word "creativity" for "compromise"."

That's a good point. Seems like both are needed, and certainly, creativity has been missing from the process. However, as in any situation where there are opposing forces, some kind of compromise is necessary in order to get anywhere. While there may be cases where it seems as if compromise can't be made, that's where creativity would come in to find solutions that help both sides. I'm all for creative thinkers and will support them.

We really need to start thinking differently. Left and right (and every other point on the continuum) are so polarized now that it's become almost impossible to move anywhere - witness the Middle East situation, and increasingly, the U.S. situation. We need to start solving problems both creatively and with some compromise. The key words here are BOTH/AND. Either/or has not worked. It has led to virulent polarization. We need to start using the both/and paradigm as much as possible.

I am not an Obamabot, as some like to simplistically call others. I am not a Democrat, as some like to simplistically call me. What I am is fed up with the polarizing aspect of our society and the useless and wasteful results from same. Obama, in my opinion, is the best we have. I'd much rather have Kucinich or someone from that mold, but that's not what I'm faced with. So, I will BOTH vote for Obama AND also fight like hell to make sure he heels as close to my values as possible. My vote is small in comparison to my actions, but BOTH are needed - BOTH/AND are needed. Those who demand perfection while sitting on the sidelines are the real enemy of progress.

Foxes guarding hen houses. There's the "change" and "hope" you've been hearing so much about.

Our only hope is to abandon the Democratic-Republican Party and try to build up another party, like the Greens. That way we would have a two-party system.

Unlike our present one party system, in a two-party system one party functions as the opposition. Now that would be a hopeful and refreshing change.

Jerome Irwin,

The following is an excerpt from a previous post you contributed in this thread. IT DESERVES REPEATING. ... Your words, and thank you:

"I just read the Counterpunch piece, "Count Me Out", The Obama Craze by Matt Gonzalez (San Francisco Board of Supervisor member and VP running mate of Ralph Nadar)and I'm convinced that Obama's voting record is a major train wreck as far as the progressive community is concerned: (i.e. his avowed position on war in Iraq; on class-action reform; on credit card interest rates; on limiting economic damages in court cases; on the Mining Law of 1872; on regulating the nuclear industry;on energy policies; on single payer health care; AIPAC; Gay Rights; on Death Penalty; on the Secure Fence Act of 2006 pertaining to the Mexican border; opposition to impeacement proceedings against President Bush; on the censure of President Bush for violations of 1978 Foreign Intelligence Survellance by illegally wiretapping American citizens; on NAFTA; on class-action reform on the death penalty."

Quoting from the above article:

"Just days after clinching the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Obama is naming as his economic policy director (Jason Furman) an economist who has clashed with critics of Wal-Mart by defending the company as a boon to poor Americans."

Want to know how Walmart's helps the poor? ...

An independenlty-owned business has its doors open for years, perhaps even for generations. Walmart's comes into town and puts them out of business. The family then becomes poor and they "SHOP AT WALMART'S FOR LOW, LOW PRICES!"

A while ago, "60 minutes" did a segment on Walmart's and they interviewed just such a family business. The wife started crying because as she admitted to the interviewer, after Walmart's put her and her husband's store out of business, she had to shop at Walmart's because suddenly they went from middle class to out of work.

Walmart's visits especially cruel hardships on small towns and cities. That is to say, Walmart's comes in, the independently-owned businesses go under, there is less pedestrian traffic, thus more crime and, as noted, lots of boarded-up small businesses.

Now, how can that possibly be bad for the economy, and the overall social fabric?

Also, as someone mentioned previously in this thread, Walmart's also get the local government to build access roads for them, sales tax rebates, property tax exemptions, etc.

As much pain and misery as capitalism has brought, worldwide, and for hundreds of years, one can't even call how Walmart's does business as an example of the cruelty of capitalism. This isn't capitalism, its corporatism -- "capitalism gone wild."

Benito Mussolini (you remember him, he would be the lesser-of-the-two-evils candidate were he running against Adolph Hitler) -- Mussolini once said that fascism should not be called fascism but, rather, should rightly be called "corporatism."

So much for "Obama the Savior." Watch how he moves more and more to the right, as Election Day draws near.

In short -- same soup, warmed over.

Vote Nader or Vote McKinney or Vote Socialist.
Don't be fooled yet again!

"iammyself writes: "But it's so much easier to bitch from the purist's perch. So much easier than seeing the compromise and hard work that's required in this life - especially politics.""

"I can only presume you are partisan, "iammyself", a Democrat, aligned to a particular group, because no one in their right minds believes Obama is a caring guy or that politics is about compromise (it's actually about one group trying to dominate the other group or groups). Americans have a choice between the lesser of two evils, that's all."

Yeah, see, that's the trap most purists fall into. If one doesn't toe the thin ethereal line, one is called a partisan, or some other moniker.

No, I'm not partisan, nor am I a Democrat (haven't been one since changing to Green in 96), nor am I a Green (anymore), nor am I a Republican nor Libertarian nor... I know that's hard to grasp, but some people just aren't attached to a political party.

I know it's a lesser of two evils. I've said that MANY times. I know what the deal is. I don't like the deal. But that's what we have and that's what I've decided to work with. I realized that sitting on the sidelines and throwing bombs does no one any good, especially myself. Just check my previous posts and you'll see that I was once a back-bench bomb thrower. It's easy, and it takes no effort, but it's useless. It got me bupkis.

I back the lesser of two evils AND work my ass off to do what I can to change things. I know, sounds oh so yesterday, but hard, personal work is what it takes. Try it, you might actually change something.

Why are people shocked? Does the fact that corporate control determines who gets where in politics surprise anyone?

Let's raise a ruckus! Obama acted quickly when criticisms of Jim Johnson's "closet skeletons" were made public. Maybe he'll realize a spokesman for the Wal Mart model is less than ideal.

The usual...same shit, different flies.

EFSAWYER . . .WRITES:

Except for those who actually believe, the real question here is if indeed Obama's plight qualifies as tragedy because tragedy implies loss of dearly held value(s), principle(s), belief(s) etcetera, but, if he were never sincerely motivated by enlightened values or aspirations other than as rhetorical devices then indeed there is nothing tragic about what is about befall him at all, is there?

"Just another lawyer dancing to the beat of the same drum, really."

The challenge is how to fundamentally alter the process before we are all consumed.

Thank you for your thoughtful words Mr.Sayer and they provoke me to write once again to my friends here on CD where I have heard once again the cry of betrayal, the pain of loss, heard by so many here at the choices of the black man that seeks to lead the USA and covets power Barak Obama. Those here who display anger at a man who has made a fundamental change in the American landscape: He is the first African American that will represent America, a country that has entered its fall. He will be respected internationally and so the USA will regain some small measure of the respect that it has lost.

As I have said above, he will make mistakes, after all as Mr. Sayer says, he is a "Lawyer", he is a Democratic Party Lawyer and he his dedicating his life for a job that drains the very life out of people unless they are completely ruthless as the Mad Hatter, who now occupies the Oval Office and represents the power of the absurd!

For those who extol the virtues of Wallmart for the poor and disfranchised, I offer my condolences for having been swept away by the corporate mega-everything of the American way of life that produces a world out of sync with human values, the environment and life itself. The American values of mega-economy, mega consumerism, mega-toxicity, mega-pollution, and of course that which is killing everything, mega environmental damage leading to mega-climate change, already in motion, helped by the courtesy of mr. Furman's Wall Street. Look at the Midwest and the melting Poles leading to the final death knell of the human race. " Ask not for whom the bell tolls" But we know for whom it does.

Mr. Sayer at the end writes: " The challenge is how to fundamentally alter the process before we are all consumed."

Truly this is the question confronting all of us here -because like it or not - there is not another choice but Obama and the Democratic Party for this so-called Deomocracy and democratic process in the USA. We all know that the USA is not a democracy, those of us who can think, understand and are involved in the attempt to change it, understand this situation quite well and do not waste time cursing or wondering at why this system is so completely out of touch with human values, currupt, power-mad and out of touch with people who have hopes for a life of simple dreams that encompasses values where people can just live peacefully enjoying their few days of existence and their family. . .not too much, or is it?

I hear how many hope that someone will come along that has the depth to change the American system to reflect the above possibility and make real change that has at its base human values and love of nature and the natural world, that beats in every human being, notwithstanding that Wall Street and the military has tried to eliminate it.

Does anyone here think that a candidate can emerge and be elected to office that is not a functioning member of the two party system in the USA at this time in the development of America? Is anyone so naive as to believe that anyone working outside of the system of the United States of America can achieve power? Now for reality . . . if anyone tried it they would be eliminated by the secret police who are involved in the elimination of entire governments, never mind individuals, in the world and have done so in South and Central America since the fifties as well as the rest of the world and is still involved with this failed attempt in Iraq.

Understanding reality is the first step to understanding change. Everyone here (unless they are part of the secret police and there are those) who has taken the time to write here knows that fundamental change in this system in the USA is necessary because for the first time we all know, (including the military and the secret police) that climate change will kill the human race. It is underway now and gaining in speed much faster than anyone thought it could occur. The Pentagon, filled with low level thinkers, have come to the conclusion that climate change is a major threat even before "The Mad Hatter George" understood the concept. They now have come to the conclusion that even American military uniforms get wet!

The way to change is to make Obama grow beyond the Democratic Party that will see to his election. The Democratic Party as well as we who helped, have chosen Obama for one reason: we understood that their must be someone who, unlike the "Queen of Hearts" and the "Court Jester", former USA business president, to offer hope in an environmental disaster unprecidented and a world situation that is almost out of control.

Obama has come to believe himself but like young people with a job to big to understand he will make many mistakes. He has made the first one in a choice of economist. We must remember people who are a combination of the inexperienced and over-experienced, in all the wrong ways, very much like the Democratic Party who advises him, are those he must depend to be elected. Obama must pay his media bills, also out of control, to make the dream come true and the power become his. We also must remember all of us have brought the world to this situation, likethosewho surround him Like Donna Brazil.

What can be done? Make enough noise write enough thoughtful letters that may be picked up and heard by Obama, his wife and advisers, so this last and only chance at change may move the world away from the brink of catastrophe. We have ten years and it will take the CD group here, some of whom are the thoughtful folks that curse less and do not rely on impossible realities to understand what is left to us and the world for change!

The only hope that we have in answer to Mr. Sayer is to help Obama rise to the level that he now thinks he occupies. We all hoped the office would help him achieve a level of understanding he requires. Power does a strange thing to people's minds but a forceful out- cry from erudite people here as to his direction and choices of staff, early on before he assumes the Oval Office is necessary. I have stopped my work to write this open letter to my friends here hoping you will join and write wherever and to whomever we can so that he understands he is being watched by an erudite thinking Western World, not only the USA.

If Obama keeps this up he is gonna lose my vote....

This is great for McCain... and Nader too.

Obama had better come up with something better than nickel and dime change.

Clinton's secretary of Labor would have been a winner.... Very disappointing.

Obama knows that the conservative corporate media is ready to jump on his middle name if he tries to negotiate peace with Islam.

Nancy Pace: The town of Roseville has two SuperWalfarts already and now because one of them is getting old, they are planning on building yet another MegaSuperSore on land that is currently virgin that is filled with ancient oak trees and is next to a still clean creek. Nobody in their currently high valued houses that are adjacent to this open beautiful space, wants this new monstrosity,..but, Roseville is a Republican voting town, so they WILL get ther new WM. You can defend your stance, but it does not change the facts on the ground. The Earth tells its own story if you care to listen.

As I've said here again and again, Obama's campaign rhetoric is contradicted by his actual record. Obama's record is to the right of Bill Clinton's record, and Bill's record is to the right of Hillary's record. On the issue of corporate profits versus public interest, Obama is the new Reagan.

On Wal-Mart specifically, read the following. (It can no longer be found on the Internet.)

OBAMA'S FORGOTTEN WAL-MART ENDORSEMENT: PUTTING WORKERS SECOND AND GOING ALONG TO GET ELECTED
by Paul Street; August 28, 2007

"I WON'T SHOP THERE"

Late in 2006, before he made his candidacy for the presidency official, the self-described "progressive" Barack Obama joined John Edwards in a national conference call supporting a union-backed public relations campaign targeting Wal-Mart for its negative treatment of workers. "You gotta pay your workers enough that they can actually not only shop at Wal-Mart, but ultimately send their kids to college and save for retirement," said Obama.

"Wal-Mart is making a large profit and they don't have foreign competition," Obama added. "What they are doing though is driving wages down significantly for not only workers at Wal-Mart, they're also driving down wages for competitors."

Wal-Mart subsequently issued a statement expressing "disappointment" that Obama and Edwards "chose to participate in this politically motivated event that is clearly attacking the wrong company" (WLTX-CBS 2006).

The response was naturally different from WakeUpWalMart.com spokesman Chris Kofnis. "Many companies do business with Wal-Mart," Kofnis said, "but what truly matters is whether our leaders stay silent on Wal-Mart's negative effect on working families. Senator Obama has not stayed silent and should be applauded for that."

Encouraged by such tribute and observing that Hillary Clinton was catching flak for her many years on Wal-Mart's board of directors while Edwards was scoring points by regularly criticizing the company, Obama continued to pepper his speeches to labor audiences with shots at the company. At a campaign event in New Jersey, he responded to an audience member's question about Wal-Mart by saying, "I won't shop there."

But how far did his supposed populist and pro-labor sentiment go beyond words? Kofnis' desire to praise Obama's language was understandable but the activist made a critical error when he elevated oratory above action. Kofnis would have done well to remember David Frum's observation on the essence of the centrist "triangulation" Obama has so maddeningly mastered (see Street 2007a and 2007b) at which Obama is so maddeningly adept: "Bill Clinton makes speeches, Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan make policy; the Left gets words, the Right gets deeds" (Hitchens 1999, p. 23).

What "truly matters" is action, not talk.

On that note, it would be interesting to know what Kofnis thinks of Obama's decision to support the support Wal-Mart candidate Dorothy Tillman overlabor candidate Pat Dowell in Chicago's Third Ward last April. [APRIL 2007]

THE MAD HATTER OF THE THIRD WARD

There's no way that Barack Obama had any respect or concern for Chicago's Third Ward alderman Dorothy Tillman during or before the spring of 2007. Appointed to the Chicago City Council by Chicago's then Mayor Harold Washington in the early 1980s, Tillman quickly became known for her outlandish collection of giant hats. She had been a leading advocate of reparations for slavery – something Obama opposes (largely because the white U.S. majority finds the issue highly unpleasant) – since the beginning of her political career. During one boisterous City Council session, she shocked the floor by pulling a pistol from her purse and waving it about.

In 2000, the black and intensely race-conscious Tillman received a strong rebuke from Chicago's all-powerful mayor Richard M. Daley after she demanded that two Caucasian waiters be replaced with black servers at a banquet she hosted in Chicago's downtown Palmer House. During an appearance on the local public television show "Chicago Tonight," host Phil Ponce had to repeatedly demand that she stop making highly personal attacks against another guest. And I once saw her attack Obama in a very personal way for sending his children to the private University of Chicago Laboratory School (1).

To make matter worse, Tillman was tinged by corruption. An award wining report by the local paper Lakefront Outlook in 2006 discovered numerous accounting irregularities and conflicts of interest involving Tillman and her family at the "Harold Washington Center" – a scandal-ridden enterprise with which she had been intimately involved since its inception.

Meanwhile she did little to address critical ward problems like economic under-development, joblessness, and a critical shortage of affordable housing. She did, however, cater to the interests of powerful citywide real estate developers who were beginning to take over big chunks of the northern part of her ward after the destruction of the South Side's once giant stretch of public housing.

It was for these and other reasons that the independent and hard-hitting aldermanic candidate Pat Dowell was able to force a Third Ward "run off" election and almost defeated Tillman in the citywide aldermanic races of 2003.

Four years later, the city got an especially rich dose of the Dorothy Tillman experience after the now heavily labor-backed Dowell forced another run-off. Tillman failed to appear at a long-scheduled Third Ward candidates' forum at the headquarters of the Chicago Urban League. She shocked forum attendees and organizers by sending a "surrogate" on her behalf, who tried to quiet an outraged crowd by claiming that "Dorothy is busy taking care of the business of the Third Ward." As the "surrogate" conceded to reporters, Tillman was actually getting ready to address the Gap Community Organization at the Illinois College of Optometry about a mile away (Dumke 2007).

This time the notorious "black hack" - as she was described by local black columnist Laura Washington last April (Washington 2007) – Tillman went down to defeat.

WAL-MART, CORPORATE MEDIA, AND DALEY v. THE WORKING PEOPLE OF CHICAGO

Surely, the supposedly "progressive" and social-justice-oriented, labor-cultivating Obama (whose former Illinois Senate district include portions of the nearly all-black Third Ward) endorsed Pat Dowell over the distasteful, corrupt and (Obama surely felt) inappropriate Tillman in the Third Ward aldermanic "run off" election of April 2007, right?

Wrong. To the dismay of long time Chicago and Illinois politics observer Rich Miller and numerous other observers, Obama backed Tillman.

By Miller's account in the Chicago Sun Times, many observers were "wondering how Obama's decision to back such a die-hard proponent of slavery reparations will play in Iowa and New Hampshire. They may," Miller opined, "have a point" (Miller 2007). But it is extremely doubtful that voters in Iowa or New Hampshire know or care about the weird world of aldermanic politics on the South Side of Chicago. Dorothy Tillman was backed by Obama in spite and not because of her reparations advocacy. And there was little surprising about Obama's endorsement given his deeper, interrelated and self-interested allegiances to the politically powerful corporate-neoliberal City Hall regime of Chicago's King Daley the Second (whose quadrennial re-coronation Obama had endorsed in January), with whom he shares the same big money campaign super-consultant (David Axlerod) and numerous big money sponsors. The Mayor had sided with the laughable Tillman against the serious and progressive Dowell for reasons that had nothing to do with reparations for chattel slavery.

It had everything, however, to do with labor, capital, and wage-slavery at Wal-Mart.

For the first time in his seventeen years as Mayor, Daley had found it necessary the previous September to veto an ordinance by his normally obedient City Council. The measure he stamped out was widely supported by rank and file citizens, community-based organizations, and labor unions in his city's black, Latino, and working-class wards. Originally passed by the council under pressure from a remarkable grassroots campaign, the measure would have required giant retail corporations like Wal-Mart, Target, Lowes, and Home Depot to pay workers in the city a modest minimum wage of ten dollars an hour by 2010. The ordinance led leading retailers Wal-Mart and Target to announce that they were putting a number of "big box" retail developments on hold in Chicago. They launched a preemptive capitalist public relations strike, threatening to disinvest in the city unless and until the ordinance was shelved and a "favorable business climate" was restored. In killing the minimally decent "big box" bill, Daley made a special point of wrapping his action in the flag of racial justice. He claimed that his veto was required to permit the flowering of economic development in the city's abandoned ghetto neighborhoods.

This earned him justifiably sarcastic praise from Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass, who noted that "Mayor Daley is a brilliant politician. Who else but Daley," asks Kass, "could play both the race card and the free market card and get away with it? He was Mayor Soul Man and Mayor Big Business on the same day" (Kass 2006) [2].

Daley's playing of the race card – quite disingenuous (see five paragraphs below) – was straight out of Wal-Mart's three-year campaign to crack the Chicago market. Wal-Mart, a notoriously labor-exploiting, and race-and gender-discriminating template of low-road capitalism, had been trying to "crack" the Chicago market through what it perceived as the city's weakest link – the black inner city. The company had been posing as a concerned corporate citizen motivated by a benevolent passion to solve the problems of the ghetto.

Wal-Mart and its allies in the Illinois Retail Merchants Association had gone on black radio to advance this line. They pursued and cultivated statements of support and yelps of fear (over "lost jobs") from captive black corporate and City Hall toadies like then Chicago Urban League CEO James Compton and Leon Finney (of The Woodlawn Organization). They recruited the president of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce (CCC) to trumpet Wal-Mart et al.'s purported zeal for "future economic development in the city's most underserved neighborhoods."

But what sort of "economic development?" According to a rigorous and reasonable study by the Economic Policy Institute, the cost of a "basic family budget" (BFB)– the real no-frills cost of a minimally decent living (taking into account housing, food, child care, transportation, health care, and other necessities and taxes) – for a small family of one parent and two children in Chicago in 1999 was $35,307.

Daley and his corporate sponsors were saying something remarkable about the capacity of the dominant U.S. system of socioeconomic management (corporation-state capitalism) to deliver the goods to working people. The minimum wage that would have been set by the vetoed big box ordinance would have required the world's largest retailer to pay its lowest-priced workers no less than $20,000 per year by 2010, when the BFB for a mom and two kids in the city would certainly (particularly when you factor in the ever-rising disappearance of affordable housing in Daley's ever more gentrified, developer-friendly metropolis) reach more than $40,000 a year. The measure that Daley killed would have set the floor of full-time Wal-Mart wages at just half the cost of minimally adequate living for a single mother with two children in Chicago.

The Mayor's racial rhetoric was rich with Orwellian irony. Who after all had been running the city during the last two decades of ghetto abandonment and racially unbalanced development Daley now claimed to abhor? A close friend and supporter of big white-run business, Daley's corporate-neoliberal reign of "pinstripe patronage" had more than accidentally coincided with persistent and deepening black misery in and around the city. Dominant local media's mainly laudatory appraisal of the Mayor over the years (recently tempered by a series of classic Chicago hiring and corruption scandals) had consistently ignored the steep racial inequity experienced by hundreds of thousands of black Chicagoans living in the shadows of Daley's expensive downtown business, commercial, and residential district and its growing ring of glittering condominium and entertainment complexes. Ending endemic poverty across the city's vast stretch of highly segregated black neighborhoods had never struck Chicago's economic elite or the Mayor as a major priority.

Respectable local and national commentary on "the city that works" routinely ignored the curious fact that social and economic inequality had deepened between Chicago's black and white neighborhoods since Daley II's ascendancy in 1989. That rising disparity had been fed by the mayor's corporate, downtown-centered "growth machine," which pushed many of the city's large number of lower- and working-class blacks further and further to the margins of the global metropolis while funneling the lion's share of economic development funding to richer and whiter parts of town (Street 2007f, pp. 43-46, 255-261).

In Tribune and Sun Times editorials applauding the mayor's gallant action to "save jobs" by vetoing the big box ordinance there was no mention of the University of Illinois at Chicago's Center for Urban Economic Development's determination that Wal-Mart would displace more merchandising jobs than it created in the city. There was no mention of the money that would be sucked out of the metropolis by large corporate chains that would not invest or save primarily in Chicago. There was no mention of Wal-Mart's long record of violating civil rights and labor laws or of the large number of Wal-Mart "team members" (workers) compelled to supplement inadequate wages and benefits with public welfare. There was nothing about the terrible impact of Wal-Mart's global purchasing practices on U.S. manufacturing employment or about the millions of public dollars Wal-Mart and other large retailers extort each year from local and state government in the form of subsidies and tax breaks.

There was nothing about the company's record of refusing to hire ex-offenders – a major concern in a city where at least 40 percent of black male adults carry the crippling mark of a criminal record (Street 2002). There was nothing about the humble and (for employers) eminently affordable level of the wage and benefit levels the big box ordinance would have mandated for large retailers' lowest-paid employees.

Such was and is the reigning ethos of metropolitan neoliberal racism (Street 2007f, pp. 35-38), under whose doctrine the regressive workings of the supposed "free market" – really the machinations of the market and state's creature and master The Corporation – are falsely sold as the solution of capitalism's most truly disadvantaged victims.

Like Finney, Compton and the CCC, the papers' editors simply repeated as self-evident truth the big retailers' insistence that they couldn't afford to pay entry-level workers wages equal to half the cost of a small family's basic budget. They ignored the NYU Brennan Center for Justice's judgment that Wal-Mart's pressing need to enter new urban markets would have compelled it to work with the wage standards that would have been set by the big box law. They insisted on describing the ordinance's proponents as "anti-development," ignoring the fact that the wage measure's supporters were proponents of a positively alternative "high-road" pattern of metropolitan development that sought to move wages closer to the real cost of living for ordinary working people (Street 2007).
"GOING ALONG TO GET ELECTED": OBAMA PICKS THE NUTTY DALEY (AND WAL-MART) HACK OVER THE PRINCIPLED AND SERIOUS LABOR CANDIDATE

One of those proponents was Pat Dowell. The recipient of significant ($121,000) financial support from the Service Employees' International Union (SEIU), Dowell was running in the name of working families and economic justice. She strongly criticized Tillman for siding with Daley and Wal-Mart in advancing the fraudulent notion that the low-wage retailer offered some sort of solution for the problems of the black inner city.

For her part, Tillman received the support of a Mayor willing to overlook her status as the council's most incompetent and demented alderman because she was on the right (big business) side of the Big Box issue.

Since he wanted to be president and determined that he needed the support of the powerful campaign finance magnet Daley to achieve that goal, Obama lined up for the wacky Wal-Mart tool and "black hack" Tillman over the principled, serious and labor-backed Dowell. Never mind that this meant endorsing big, worker-exploiting capital against labor and working families. It was an interesting choice the basic meaning of which is nicely captured in the following passage from a recent speech by the strongly pro-union presidential candidate John Edwards:

"The choice we must make is as important as it is clear. It is a choice between corporate power and the power of democracy. Between a corrupt and corroded system and a government that works for us again. It is caution versus courage. Calculation versus principle. It is the establishment elites versus the American people..."

"Will corporate greed be all we value as we move further into the global economy, or will be put workers and families first, so that all jobs pay fair wages, every American has health care and corporate profits work for democracy and not the other way around?..."

"Politicians who care more about their careers than their constituents go along to get elected...It's a game that never ends, but every American knows – it's time to end the game." If Obama was anything like the social justice "progressive" and union-supporter his often myopic, so-called left-liberal supporters and campaign narrative claim, his endorsement would have gone easily and quickly to Dowell. It would have been a no-brainer. The choice was very clear, and he sided with capitalist power against labor. Fortunately for Obama, perhaps, Dowell won the run-off.

For what it's worth, Obama's wife Michelle received $51,200 in 2006 for attending a few board meetings of TreeHouse Foods, a giant firm that relied heavily on its close business relationship with Wal-Mart (Sweet 2007a). (The granting of high-pay/do-little board posts to the spouses of politicians is a longstanding tool of the "old," corporate-dominated politics that Senator Obama claims to reject [see Lewis 1996]). Mrs. Obama resigned from this position in the summer of 2007, citing "increased demands on her time" in connection with her husband's campaign. The deeper reality was that she needed to cut her politically damaging ties to a notoriously anti-labor company that her husband attacked in speeches to please popular audiences concerned about the growing chasm between the rich and poor in the U.S.

Obama's Tillman endorsement is a small story, perhaps, but its part of a much larger record (3) suggesting rather strongly that Obama is just another in a long line of corporate-Democratic politicians who make "populist and peace-stressing promises and gestures" they are certain to "betray instantly on the assumption of power" (Herman 2007).

Paul Street is the author of many books, articles, speeches and so on. His latest book (just out) is Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis: a Living Black History (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007). Paul can be reached at paulstreet99@yahoo.com.

Footnotes and sources for Paul Street's article (above):

NOTES

1. This is not to say that Obama did not partly deserve the assault, which occurred on a late summer weekday morning when Obama joined the young white Chicago Public Schools (CPS) chief Arne Duncan and Chicago Urban League (CUL) CEO James Compton at the CUL's headquarters for a "Take Your Kid to School" press conference in the late summer. The purpose of the gathering was to shame out poor other black South Side parents for being insufficiently engaged with the academic careers of their school-age children. Obama gave assembled black citizens a pious lecture on their personal responsibility to make a success out of their children's experience in black Chicago's generally inadequate, under-funded, and hyper-segregated (see Street 2007f, pp. 177-181, 245-254) public schools. It was a standard "Urban League" homily from the black bourgeoisie (with the approving white authority figures looking on sternly in the background) to the black lower-class.

To her credit, Tillman was having none of Obama's sermon. Obama, she said, had no business lecturing people about the public schools when he had attended private ones as a child and young adult (from junior high through Harvard Law). To maker matters worse, she noted that Obama was sending his children to the prestigious and expensive University of Chicago Laboratory School (Lab School) and not to the city's public schools. Observing that all of her children had graduated from the CPS, Tillman was making it clear that she considered Obama to be an effete and aristocratic interloper in the black community – an impression furthered by the barely concealed contempt with which Obama glared back at the alderman.

My main point is that Tillman's outburst certainly served to turn the notoriously prickly Obama off to the Mad Hatter of the Third Ward. Full disclosure: I am a K-6 Lab School graduate who was consigned to public schools from seventh grade through Ph.D.

2. Kass's sense of irony was not shared by the Tribune's reactionary editorial board and news chiefs. The paper predictably applauded the veto as a statement that "Chicago is still open for business, that it is hungry for development and job for its citizens." Like the city's other corporate newspaper the Sun Times, the Tribune had been arguing that the big box ordinance was a "bad idea" that would create huge job losses for the city.

3. See Silverstein (2006); Sirota (2006); Street (2007a-2007e); Sweet (2007a-2007c); Morain (2007); Helman (2007).

SOURCES

Mike Dumke (2007). "Aldermania: the Final Round," Chicago Reader, April 13, 2007

Scott Helman (2007) "PACs and Lobbyists Aided Obama's Rise: Data Contrast With His Theme," Boston Globe, 9 August 2007.

Edward S. Herman (2007). "Democratic Betrayal," Z Magazine, January 2007.

Christopher Hitchens (1999). No One Left to Lie To: The Values of the Worst Family (New York: Verso, 1999).

John Kass (2006). "Daley Shows He Still Holds All the Cards," Chicago Tribune, 14 September, 2006.

Charles Lewis (1996). The Buying of the President (New York, NY: Avon, 1996).

Rich Miller (2007). "Will 3rd Ward Politics Affect Obama's Presidential Race?" Chicago Sun Times, 23 March 2007.

Dan Morain 2007. "Obama Walks a Thin Green Line," Los Angeles Times, 2 August 2007.

Ken Silverstein (2006). "Barack Obama Inc.: The Birth of a Washington Machine," Harpers's Magazine (November 2006):31-40.

David Sirota (2006). "Mr. Obama Goes to Washington," The Nation, June 26.

Paul Street (2002). The Vicious Circle: Race, Prison, Jobs and Community in Chicago, Illinois and the Nation (Chicago: Chicago Urban League, October 2002)

Paul Street 2007. "The People of Chicago v. Wal-Mart: Urban Neoliberal Racism, and Civil Rights Sellout," Black Agenda Report (October 25, 2006)

Paul Street (2007a). "The Obama Illusion," Z Magazine (February 2007): 29-33.

Paul Street (2007b). "Obama's Audacious Deference to Power: A Critical Review of Barack Obama's Audacity of Hope;" Black Agenda Report (January 31, 2007)

Paul Street (2007c). "Obama's Path to Hell," ZNet Sustainers' Commentary (June 18, 2006)

Paul Street (2007d). "The Pale Reflection: Barack Obama, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Meaning of the Black Revolution," ZNet Magazine (March 16 2007)

Paul Street (2007e). "Obama's Wonderful Wealth Primary," ZNet Magazine (April 11, 2007)

Paul Street 2007f. Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis: A Living Black History (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007)

Lynn Sweet (2007a) "Barack and Michelle Obama Earned $991,296 in 2006," Chicago Sun Times, 16 April 2007

Lynn Sweet (2007b)."Obama Touts Small Donor Networks But Also Relies on High End 'Bundlers' for Millions," Chicago Sun Times, 16 April, 2007

Lynn Sweet (2007c). "Obama's Donor Courtship," Chicago Sun Times, 18 April 2007.

WLTX-CBS (2006). "Sen. Obama: 'You Gotta Pay Your Workers Enough," November 16, 2006, Columbia, South Carolina

staying_sane_in_an_insane_world

Comparing Blair and Obama is worthwhile. There are big similarities considering recent relevations about his views on the war, private corporations but also how he is being promoted as an "intelligent and eloquent speaker" with a nice smile. I look forward to him joining the catholic faith after its all over and hearing him say he has been saved and only wants peace.

In the last week, Obama has clearly shown himself to be a pragmatic politician rather than an idealistic savior - surprise surprise. He could not be where he is if he had not learned how to play the game.

We do not agree on the strategies to change the direction of the country: Vote Green, defeat McCain, etc. None of these strategies is complete or powerful. They all have some merit and can work in concert. Unity should be a goal that progressives keep in their minds as we disagree. Ultimately little will be accomplished unless we become strong contenders for power.

iammyself says "But it's so much easier to bitch from the purist's perch. So much easier than seeing the compromise and hard work that's required in this life - especially politics." I agree except that I would substitute the word "creativity" for "compromise".

One key thing is to continue to educate the population on the issues and failures of the press. And to organize in hundreds of big and little ways. For instance, shouldn't SEIU go to Obama and say "what the hell?". The problem right now is that Obama knows darn well that he is the only viable game in town.

It is necessary to criticise Obama based on real issues rather than superficialiites. And don't forget about McCain too. This election can be seen as a moment to increase the sophistication of the populace. Nothing can be done without that.

iammyself writes: "But it's so much easier to bitch from the purist's perch. So much easier than seeing the compromise and hard work that's required in this life - especially politics."

I can only presume you are partisan, "iammyself", a Democrat, aligned to a particular group, because no one in their right minds believes Obama is a caring guy or that politics is about compromise (it's actually about one group trying to dominate the other group or groups). Americans have a choice between the lesser of two evils, that's all.

In a way, America is where Britain was in 1997.

I know Americans hate to hear about the rest of the world and generally deny its existence, but in 1997 - after 18 long years of a right-wing government - people saw Tony Blair as the man who could bring change.

I had a bitter argument with my father at the time. I said Tony Blair doesn't give a damn, and if we elect "New Labour", we'll have no choice in the future, just corporate friendly parties, and we'll all suffer in the long run. "I only care about myself," my father replied. He gave the benefit of the doubt to Blair.

His tune now: none of them give a damn!

The Labour Party recently doubled the income tax of the poorest earners in the UK while reducing corporation tax and income tax for wealthier people. Labour now doesn't listen to anyone. Labour and the Conservatives are effectively working together - like good cop/bad cop - to destroy public morale and give everything to corporations.

Blair even said at the last general election: you might not like me, but the Conservatives are even worse!

Americans will just have to live and learn (although, Americans voted Bush in twice, so learning is not one of America's fortes).

Anyway, good luck!

This is all very predictable. We are being "tag teamed" by the Republicrats. Obama is much closer politically to Joe Lieberman than Dennis Kucinich, or even Russ Feingold. The economy may improve but as with the Clinton era the cutthroat empire builders will still be in the driver's seat and the war profiteers will continue to laugh all the way to the bank.

No matter who you vote for in November, Cynthia McKinney deserves your support NOW. She and Ralph Nader are campaigning on similar platforms, but Cynthia will be the Green Party nominee and is proposing a national "Power to the People Coalition" while Ralph is doing his own thing as an independent. Even if you plan to hold your nose and vote for Obama in November, you can help apply some pressure by giving a REAL people's candidate a voice in this election. See www.runcynthiarun.org

"It seems like instead of just mindlessly bitching..."

But it's so much easier to bitch from the purist's perch. So much easier than seeing the compromise and hard work that's required in this life - especially politics.

Thinking about wet dreams...

Jesus,(Pardon me lawd...)it didn't take him long.

Notwithstanding the above, I am a Socialist, subscribe to the wsw.org and agree with wsws.org website June 10th, 2008 9:35 pm

Let us take the bull by the horns and come to terms with our demons rather than acquiesce to them.

(One translation of Jihad)

Obama like the Clintons will no doubt be obliged to refresh his appreciation of Faust as the process consumes him and his loved ones.

Except for those who actually believe,the real question here is if indeed Obama's plight qualifies as tragedy because tragedy implies loss of dearly held value(s), principle(s), belief(s) etcetera, but, if he were never sincerely motivated by enlightened values or aspirations other than as rhetorical devices then indeed there is nothing tragic about what is about befall him at all, is there?

Just another lawyer dancing to the beat of the same drummer, really.

The challenge is how to fundamentally alter the process before we are all consumed.

WHY do Americans allow corporations to CONTROL their media, national as well as local debate and their elections?

Neither Mc Cain, Clinton or Obama have been vetted through an open process of local, regional and/or national debates wholly disconnected from corporate interests and/or control;therefore we should not be surprised when they serve the interests of the corporations which control the media and more or less the local, regional and national narrative regarding what is of interest to their shareholders, period.

Although by no stretch of imagination perfect,proportionate representation and multi party systems are a hell of a lot more representative of common good than the so called two party system in the U S of A.

It seems like instead of just mindlessly bitching, we should direct our frustration into a flurry of phone calls into the Obama campaign, and letters to the editor, and calls to other Dems telling them they need to wise up if they expect our votes come November.

It's time to put the new super-power described in Blessed Unrest to the test. No one may care what we think, but we can still create one hell of a ruckus -- maybe one too loud to be ignored.

We have to stay on top of this people...

Nancy Pace: "Their desperate situation isn't the fault of Walmart. If we must assign blame, it's every American's fault."

If you want to dig deeper into the details, then go right ahead and indicate human weakness as a key factor in the retail question. It's exactly why we target the Walmart model. We're not going to let organized crime exploit human weakness. Disassemble the monster.

Wal-mart's cost savings for the low to mid income earners get eaten up elsewhere, in healthcare, education, transport, and military rackets to name just a few. The coordinator class constantly invents new rackets (e.g. carbon trading) to steal any surplus that belongs to the public.

Wal-mart's superstore model just happens to maximize the environmental and social costs of retail wares. Transport miles are maximized from end to end. Culture, creativity, skills, pride and independence for local craftsmen and merchants are strangled. Does anyone doubt the human spirit is extinguished by this model?

Are people going to plug into the global corporate matrix or are people going to plug into their local communities? O'Bama will make your choice for you.

Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, had an autobiography titled, "Made in America."

A joke, just like claiming Obama is is antiwar, anticorporate, pro universal health. Listen to his words, look at his votes.

Oh yeah, after Obama becomes president he will change, this is part of a secret plan.

I don't think Vonnegut would have been taken in by Obama. He probably would have said that Obama was a very nice man and not responsible for his actions because he is a machine that is only able to do one thing, and that is continue the status quo. Afterall, that is the only type of machine that the voters and media like. So it is not Obama's fault that we get another democratic candidate who will do no more to protect the public trust than a cream pie.

so it goes...

What else can we expect? Obama's biggest campaign contributor is investment firm Goldman Sachs (which was also Bill Clinton's biggest campaign contributor, coincidentally).

War is really ugly, but economic savagery may be worse. People think it's their own fault as they experience downward mobility. (Read Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" for more details on how the whole game works.)

Where are the usual pro-Obama, anti-Nader posters in this thread? The level of denial about the nature of Obama as a corporate shil is truly sickening. When will Democrats wake up? Stop voting for those who will give you more of the same policies that enrich the rich and diminish the middle class. Forget the poor, who can't even survive on paltry Wallmart wages, and Wallmart is one of the wealthiest of corporations.

""You all can write, you all can read but what about think? Can anyone think?

YOU ARE NOT IN CONTROL OF ANYTHING…"

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/04/mind_decision"

Interesting article. But, maybe everyone in science should carry a yin and yang symbol to remind themselves... where there's one, there's always at least two (brains: one in the head and one in the stomach):

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_105441.html

I have a theory about inducing physical inoperability, retardation and/or impairment of the stomach brain (accomplished through improper diets such as feeding human herbivores animal flesh) and how this renders humans incapable of orienting themselves ecologically and empathically.

Nancy Pace, re your comments, are you kidding?

WalMart is a steamroller that has corrupted everything. Its supply chains are thousands of miles long to get to places that have the cheapest labor on the planet, and no stinkin' environmental or labor laws. It relies on Federal and State government services like food stamps to keep its own workforce alive, as it pays a shit wage and tells their employees fuck you, take it or be destitute. It demands that neighborhoods take their big box crimes against nature even when the neighbors don't want it. It buys politicians off to do so. It sucks up debt/credit from the banks and the markets that make it impossible to compete with.

WalMart is THE ARCHTYPE OF ALL THAT IS WRONG IN AMERICA TODAY. MASSIVE EXPLOSIVE GROWTH is no longer a desired trait in the world going forward. Certainly, even old Adam Smith would say that WalMart is an overgrown immoral corporate construction.

WalMart destroys neighborhoods and local competition in an era that needs local vibrancy. But of course, it is the natural tendency of humans to overlook what is done behind the curtains to save a few pennies. We are now finding out what is done behind the curtains is destroying the world, the American democracy, the American people, and the natural systems that sustain life iteslf. All for a few pieces of eight

You mention a Canadian Walmart lately in the news. "First, all the locals screamed because Walmart's arrival in their town pushed everybody out of their jobs. Now they're all screaming again because Walmart's departure (the store CLOSED TO STOP UNIONIZATION) pushed everybody out of their jobs... the only jobs WalMart's appearance in the first place left them!" So WalMart came in, grabbed power, pushed out esisting jobs, destroyed their community, wound up with the only jobs in town, and finally wound up thus CONTROLLING EVERYONE'S DESTINIES DOWN TO THE RIGHT TO ORGANIZE! And all you can say is, "people hate change." I bet you are a neo-liberal 'free market' capitalist, like those sell-outs the Clintons.

And you say it is 'just because people hate change' that the complaints have been lodged against WalMart. No, people hate change THAT MAKES THINGS WORSE, that makes life more intolerable and unpleasant. If you were mugged, that would make a change in your life, would you hate this event simply because it was 'change'? Would you live with a new gang that perpetrated muggings in your neighborhood because it was 'a change', or would you try to resist this type of change? When people lose their respect as persons and their livlihoods, do you, like billionaire Tom Friedman, say well that's just the way the cookie crumbles, don't grumble, it's just 'change'?

No, Obama has made a very disappointing choice in Jason Furman. But he may have been forced to, as it is politics after all, and compromise is necessary to a degree. Let's hope for better choices in future. Because we don't want Mad Bomber McCain, the guy who scored a Perfect Zero in votes FOR the environment, and who has that Likud Zionist LIEberman whispering in his ear. But we don't want another Clintonista sell-out to corporate fascists, either.

Oh well, just throw in the towel. Wealth wins, poor loses. As a long time advocate against the walmart marketing model I am really disappointed in this report. Any adviser that would argue for walmart is not going to help the millions that have supported and counted on Obama. Just one more indicator of a fascist nation doing what it does.

Obama has only just won the nomination and already he has made two very scary declarations (i.e. AIPAC and his choice for economic advisor).

Backing AIPAc and supporting a neo-liberal, pro-industdry economist who once defended an anti-union corporate monstor like Wal-Mart, who was once called "A Corporate Model For America" by President Bush suggestds the opposite of "Change We Can Believe In".

I just read the COunterpunch piece, "Count Me Out", The Obama Craze by Matt Gonzalez (San Francisco Board of Supervisor member and VP running mate of Ralph Nadar)and I'm convinced that Obama's voting record is a major train wreck as far as the progressive community is concerned: (i.e. his avowed position on war in Iraq; on class-action reform; on credit card interest rates; on limiting economic damages in court cases; on the Mining Law of 1872; on regulating the nuclear industry;on energy policies; on single payer health care; AIPAC; Gay Rights; on Death Penalty; on the Secure Fence Act of 2006 pertaining to the Mexican border; opposition to impeacement proceedings against President Bush; on the censure of President Bush for violations of 1978 Foreign Intelligence Survellance by illegall.y wiretapping American citizens; on NAFTA; on class-action reform on the death penalty. Thanks wsws.org for a heads up on this thorough piece by Matt Gonazalez.

It's clear to me now that the real change that we can believe in is obviously more about Obama needing to do an about face and change his own voting record.

In the meantime, a vote for Ralph Nadar for President and his VP Matt Gonazalez seems more progressive to me. THese guys are real straight shooters.

Just as long as you don't mind the bots laughing at you in return. Some of them are quite well paid for their efforts. Just ask Scott McLellan.

ROFLMAO @ The Bots.

It's a shame really what Wal-Mart et. al. have done to our local economies. We are keeping the poor man down by enslaving them to the almighty corporation instead of reaping the benefits of success within their own businesses. Not only does small local business build positive, trustworthy relationships in a community, but also ensures that the consumer is getting quality goods for a fair price and in turn providing the local business owner with a sense of self worth and the ability to control their own incomes.

Unfortunately the so called Chicago school of economics is based in Chicago and a lot of these nuts and their spawn seem to be associated with Obama.

Surprise, surprise.

Thinking about wet dreams...

Jesus,(Pardon me lawd...)it didn't take him long.

Notwithstanding the above, I subscribe to the wsw.org and agree with wsws.org website June 10th, 2008 9:35 pm

Let us take the bull by the horns and come to terms with our demons rather than acquiesce to them.

(Echoes of actual meaning of Jihad)

Obama like the Clintons will no doubt be obliged to refresh his appreciation of Faust as the process consumes him and his loved ones.

Except for those who actually believe,the real question here is if indeed Obama's plight qualifies as tragedy because tragedy implies loss of dearly held value(s), principle(s), belief(s) etcetera, but, if he were never sincerely motivated by enlightened values or aspirations other than as rhetorical devices then indeed there is nothing tragic about what is about befall him at all, is there?

Just another lawyer dancing to the beat of the same drum, really.

The challenge is how to fundamentally alter the process before we are all consumed.

Start practicing, learn how to say President McCain. ________President McCain, President McCain, President McCain.

Unless, Hillary is the VP choice.

"Curses, foiled again!"
I wonder what the SEIU is saying today? They backed this guy! Wise up folks, the mainstream media had a hands off policy for Obama. They crucified Hillary relentlessly and early on marginalized the others until they dropped off. It was apparent from the beginning Obama was the chosen one and walked on water. The question now is, Who do suppose chose him? If you answer Corporate America--Bingo! You win!

"You all can write, you all can read but what about think? Can anyone think?

YOU ARE NOT IN CONTROL OF ANYTHING…"

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/04/mind_decision

Before some of you jump off a cliff from the panic button, take a deep breath and consider the following. If Obama wants to reform Wal-Mart, would it be advantageous for him to use an insider? Obama offers a chance for change. With McCain you have zero chance.

A Wal-Mart blue-light special economist - oh sweet Jesus.

Well, it looks like we have our work cut out for us. It's going to be Obama or McCain. I wish it were Kucinich or Paul, but we have what we have.

"As I said the other day, the whole notion of voting based on the absurd expectation that your candidate will, in effect, doublecross his or her paid sponsors makes about as much sense as searching for sanity in an asylum. Probably less."

Of course, the saying that voting would be illegal if it really changed things may be true. Yet, it's also a little cynical. See, what I have come to learn is that voting is only what gets OUR toes in the water. The decision to jump in completely, to commit to democracy, is ours and only ours. Voting is the first letter in the first word in the first chapter of the novel. The rest we have to write ourselves.

"No matter how closely he follows the corporate line, I do think Obama's court choices would be preferable to McCain's." --xntrk

What's that, Never Convicted Incestuous Pedophile Judges? aka seeming left leaning, schooled in Machiavelli's "the Prince" Judges...

During the primaries, Obama had more corporate money in his campaign war chest than any of the other candidates; including Hillary and McCain. Needless to say, Corporate America didn't just *give* that money to Obama (out of the goodness of their warm, humanity-loving hearts) and expect nothing in return.

Obama is a speech and an empty suit. He's a quisling, a loyal member of the status quo. In short: he's Corporate America's Uncle Tom.

But, make no mistake about it, THE RULING CLASS IN THE UNITED STATES IS WORRIED. They know that the social tensions that exist in the United States -- tensions that have resulted from the criminality of the Iraq War, the widening gap between the rich and the poor and the rich and the middle class, the breakdown of civil society and civil liberties -- are a real and present danger to their oligarchic power. So don't be cynical, Common Dream posters, you have more power than you think.

Why do you think the mainstream media (a member-in-good-standing of the ruling class, if ever there was one) is making such a fuss about the "historic" runs for president this year of a woman and a black man -- when, in fact, neither one of them represents the true interests of 90% of the American public, black or white, male or female? ... Because they hope these fairy tales will work now as they have in the past; that is to say, as tried and true ways to continue to fool and otherwise pacify/stupify the general population.

But there are some very real signs that their old bullshit isn't working quite the way it used to. And that worries them.

So, above all: DON'T BE CYNICAL! DON'T BE PESSIMISTIC! Those in power *count* on that kind of reaction.

When you're cynical and pessimistic, you're not only doing the ruling class' biding, you're acting like nothing more than an ineffective reactionary, however well-informed and good-intentioned you may be.

As Ralph Nader puts it: "Pessimism is a function of inactivity." And *inactive* is exactly how the ruling elite wants you to be.

Don't give them the satisfaction.

So, don't just vote for change, don't just vote for Ralph or Cynthia or someone of their caliber -- *WORK* for them -- work on the issues they represent. Those issues and the groups that form around those issues will be there long after Election Day has passed.

True, the ruling class has the money, but we have the numbers and, in a fight, being righteously outnumbered always scares the bullies.

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

Or maybe its just that I'm shocked that there's gambling going on in Sam's place.

How on earth can anyone be surprised by this? We've known from reporting on campaign contributions that Obama's been getting big bucks from Wall St and corporate America. And we've seen the same pattern for at least the last 20 years where the Democratic candidates always lie to their base in the primaries and then turn hard to the right for the general election.

Maybe this might wake up an Obamabot somewhere. I can only hope. But surely for the rest of is this falls in the 'I told you so' category.

Note: The Democratic Party just gave you a stirring choice between a former board member of Wal-mart and someone who picks a Wal-mart ally as their economic advisor. Isn't that at least a clue that its time to abandon that failed party and build a movement that will represent us?

We told you so!!!!

Now I feel b...er, worse.

More of the same.

The corporate elite oligarchy has spoken and Obama- their bought and paid for lackey - stepped right up to obey his masters.

Dmia, did you notice the articles here about Chavez & Bolivia? When's the last time you heard something about Chavez on Fox that was anything other than attack dog? Don't be so straight and narrow.

Read the abstract that the person above provided by Obama's new advisor. Here's an interesting quotation from his abstract, "The absence of markets to address societal risks can exacerbate these problems as well. For example, terrorist attacks, hurricanes, and other catastrophic events create major financial risks for individuals, businesses, local governments, and the economy as a whole".

After New Orleans Blackwater and private companies were involved, just as Obama's new guru advised, FEMA and the government wasn't. In the areas that Blackwater and private firms were involved it was mainly to protect the property and businesses of the rich, not to help the poor. How'd that work out for New Orleans? This isn't about this one economist. Look at Obama's economics team and tell me who amongst them represents regular working people. They all are for the status quo in economics, which have destroyed this country. People in this country want a more fundamental change than what either major candidates are offering. Some had hope that Obama would listen to the public, he's instead of going towards the "center", like every other gutless, elite Democratic come election time. The public is to the left of him now and he goes towards the center. Now THAT'S change I can count on.

I've defended Obama against some of the dishonest attacks by Clinton and the media, while stating that I saw little to show that he was going to bring about change. McCain is obviously worse but this just brings it home with Obama. Economics can make things like universal healthcare and a well funded educational system impossible. The economists around Obama want more of the same, so pay attention to the rhetoric and compare it to policy and reality. Come back after a few years and tell the people here criticizing Obama that they're wrong then.

I myself won't be an accomplice with either one. It's Nader, McKinney or nothing for me. I've pretty much lost faith in liberal democracy anyway. Even if Nader was elected, because of institutional barriers, I doubt he'd be that much better. By the way, Barr will more than make up for the left going away from Obama, so don't worry.

I wonder if the pack of sheep following Obama including talking heads like Flanders, Hartmann, and Hayden, still think Obama is going to bring Change We Can believe In?

What a crock of dung.

Carry on sheeple while Obama and his cronies offer MORE OF THE SAME!

Build him up, and then when he becomes the nominee, bring him down.
It's very interesting. Of course, Obama never was about change for the better. We all know that whomever becomes the nominee, Democrat or Republican, they have been allowed to win because they have promised their allegiance to our real rulers (BTW, Bush is meeting with the Queen, most likely to discuss arrangements for his future knighthood).

We essentially have a 1 party system. In Iran the people can vote for the President, but candidates are approved by the Ayatollahs. Same same in Amerika.

It's dawning on some of Obamas most ardent supporters that Obama might not be the great hope they thought, I have some sympathy. Hillary would likely not be much different. McCain is exactly what he appears to be. The Dems are no different, they just are better actors and pretend to be different. Both are selling this country out and serve the defacto Global Government running us in the shadows.

Someone once said that of the American people could effect change by voting, our rulers would make voting illegal. Stalin once said it's not who votes that count, but who counts the votes [and/or who finances and controls the electoral process and polls]. The act of voting does not constitute a Democracy. In a Democracy, those elected fear and listen to the people. When the people fear government, or government ignores the people, then the government can not be called Democratic.

This process will not self correct. Government will just get bigger and badder. The more they can get away with today, the more they will do tommorow. Change would not be cheap or painless. No change will be expensive and painful. Unfortunately, most people seem content to deny reality and pretend all is well. If Obama disappoints, there is 2012, and then we can have real change.

Walmart, Blackwater and more death and destruction. A new Tony Blair. Just great! After the damage is done he'll go on a book and public speaking tour telling us that he has found God and wants peace and he was really telling a lot of lies to us.

Let's give him a chance to grow into the job. We are lucky to have an outsider. It's our last best chance.

Just sent-off an email to all of my democratic friends about Obama's choice of Furman as economic policy director. I told them I was seriously considering voting for a third-party candidate in November because "I just cannot tolerate the bullsh!t anymore"!

Obama is either playing the same "business as usual" game, or he is totally naive. My gut feeling is that he is not naive!

As far as I'm concerned, this is the straw that broke the camel's back!

Has he contacted people like Joseph Stiglitz or Paul Craig Roberts who know what the hell they're talking about?

If true, this is a major screw-up! Is he not aware of the damage Wal Mart does to the economies of small towns and cities? Of the property tax exceptions and sales tax rebates demanded by Wal Mart? Of the ever-lower prices Wal-Mart demands from suppliers, including China, promoting child and slave labor. Of the fact that a majority of Wal-Mart workers have no health care benefits, have to take advantage of food shelves and emergency rooms for health care-like other uninsured, poor workers.
Seven of the ten richest billionaires in the U.S. are are named Walton and live in Benton, ARK.
This company is the ideal example of predatory capitalism: minimum cost of labor and product (screw the social consequences), bust unions, destroy local merchandisers, fire workers old enough to qualify for a raise or benefit, drain the local economies and send their money to the overloaded bank accounts of the Waltons in Benton, ARK., Send more U.S. money to China so they can continue building up their military, shoot down satellites, develop silent submarines to attack U.S. Navy ships protecting Taiwan, manipulate their currency against the dollar, send us subsidized, dumped, toxic, defective products made with child and slave labor--increasing our huge negative trade imbalance, which lowers even further the dollar value and increases U.S. inflation (including gasoline prices). This miserable story has more chapters.
This appointment will be a cancer on the Obama campaign, and it may be lethal. I can't wait for his policy on trade deals--the one with China (and giving it favored natuion status) has been a horrible mistake. Has has made appointments associating himself with Wal Mart and Countrywide Mortgage. Disappointing.

I told you so.

Nancy Pace June 10th, 2008 6:27 pm -- '... getting the biggest bang for our shopping buck–you know, the good old American way'

Yup. There's no one on the planet who hasn't heard about 'the good old American way', not excluding those who would be happier not to.

The fly in your ointment is that those shopping bucks are both fewer and worth less every day as that 'good old American way' squanders them on imperial adventures while, at the same time, exporting jobs to its major creditors and suppliers of manufactured goods. Not exactly the best recipe for long term success, I wouldn't think. And, if the poor believe it's working in their interests, one might inquire how many of them are unemployed and poor as a result of that process.

His low wage, low benefit business model is not the problem. It's high wage CEO pay and extreme wealth/power concentration that can't be adressed with higher minimum wage, but only with a wealth cap.

CD needs to quit attacking Obama. From the picture to the title of this article, it's clear that CD has an agenda.

Obviously there is more to this Furman guy than the idea that he is a WalMart defender, assuming that much is true, which I doubt.

CD is getting as bad as Fox. Shame on you.

As many Common Dreams posters I'm sure know, there are towns and cities in America that have local grassroots organizations whose sole purpose is to KEEP WALMART'S OUT! STAY OUT OF OUR COMMUNITY!

Walmart's and how they do business is a corporatiast's wet dream. They love the way Walmart's underpays their employees, busts unions and provides their employees with less than minimal employee benefits.

Walmart's is as un-American as you can get --anti-labor, anti-consumer and anti-environmental.

Walmart's actually "coaches" their employees on how to apply for welfare benefits, in lieu of Walmart's paying thier employees suitable fringe benefits.

I read a while ago, maybe a year or two ago, that the average salary for *full-time* Walmart's employees is $13,000 per year.

Quoting from the above article:

"During the primary campaign, Mr. Obama was sharply critical of the company. He has said he will not shop there and that Wal-Mart should pay 'a living wage.'"

As I mentioned in a previous post in this thread, this is, typically, how a Democrat will run for president. During the primaries he moves to the left, re. Obama saying during the primaries that he will not shop at Walmart's, and that Walmart's should pay a living wage. Then once the nomination is in had, he moves ot the center-right -- re. Obama now hires a Walmart's-defender!

Plus a change, plus c'est la meme chose. The more things change, baby, the more they stay the same.

VOTE FOR NADER or VOTE FOR MCKINNEY!

Don't be fooled *again*!

Barack Obama just nominated economist Jason Furman, 37, a visiting scholar at New York University and former Walmart defender, as his economic policy director.

Mr. Furman is the author of a thoughtful 2005 paper titled, "Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story." Mr. Furman argued in his paper that the considerable cost savings Walmart extends to its low-income customers by far outweighs the negative impacts of the chain.

During a debate in Slate.com in 2006, Mr. Furman argued: "If I heard that Wal-Mart was coming to my neighborhood (in New York).... I wouldn't kid myself into thinking that (opposing Walmart's arrival would have) anything to do with helping the poor. If anything, I would feel guilty that I was preventing moderate-income New Yorkers from enjoying the huge benefits that much of the rest of the country already knows so well."

As I wrote in this blog in 2005, I fear I'm the last lone liberal who is still shopping at Walmart. Here's my very carefully-considered rationale for shopping there:

"My liberal friends hate it that I shop Walmart. They consider Walmart a perfect symbol of the damage caused by globalization. But because Walmart offers millions of working-class shoppers real value for their last dollars, I doubt that even a successful liberal boycott could bring Walmart down. And even then, an outraged public would demand, and quickly receive, a replacement lookalike.

Globalization in its present form is a passing phase anyway, albeit a very destructive one. People hate change. Which is what globalization is, a temporary economic change. Does anyone remember AT&T? Microsoft ? (Perhaps I'm premature....) In today's world, it's only a few years before someone comes up with a better idea. Isn't that the way free trade is supposed to work? Change happens. People hate change. And while they're hating it, they whine about Walmart.

Consider the Canadian Walmart lately in the news. First, all the locals screamed because Walmart's arrival in their town pushed everybody out of their jobs. Now they're all screaming again because Walmart's departure (the store closed to stop unionization) pushed everybody out of their jobs. People hate change.

The question is not how to get rid of Walmart (though its size and profitability make it a convenient scapegoat for liberal anger.) Rather, it's how to make human life more equitable, more socially just, more humane, more environmentally sustainable. And how to empower everyday people, instead of consolidating wealth and power in the hands of CEOs and stockholders.

A walk through a Walmart isn't a walk in a parklike J. Crew or Pottery Barn. Walmart employees and shoppers are the hundred million Americans who work fulltime jobs at hourly wages in order to bring home incomes of less than $20,000 a year. You'll see the disabled, poor, uneducated, homeless, and jobless--everyday Americans--daily facing economic slavery, enduring far more struggles in a month than I meet in a year.

Let's do away with their favorite store! I don't think so.

Their desperate situation isn't the fault of Walmart. If we must assign blame, it's every American's fault. It's just too easy and too convenient to pick on Walmart. And besides, it lets the real culprits--all of us--off the hook. Walmart pays as well or better than its community competitors--why else would people work there? Walmart offers comparable health insurance and promotes from within, which not everyone does. Walmart even lets its employees unionize when that's the law (as in Germany.) It isn't Walmart's fault that America doesn't support unions. But it is our fault. It's also our fault that we haven't demanded universal health care, public transportation, less global adventurism, a responsive government....

Big corporations have many advantages, but they also have disadvantages. Walmart and McDonald's, along with every other big namebrand corporation, are magnets for litigation, protest, innuendo, rumor, and boycott. Walmart has even attracted an anti-Walmart report to Congress; what mom-and-pop store can boast that distinction? Big corporations are the ultimate prize of unions, too, which, though good for their workers, make competing with non-unionized labor at home and abroad challenging. Consider the success of China.

Walmart has a lot of very angry enemies, because its rocket growth shifted a big hunk of profits away from established local businessmen. Of course these displaced people were furious; their very livelihoods, the welfare of their families, were disastrously affected by change--which happened to arrive in the form of the Walmart steamroller. Note I said they were affected by change--not by Walmart. It should come as no surprise, nevertheless, that the injured parties were thrilled to welcome the anti-globalization liberal crowd into their let's-hate-Walmart-club.

But Walmart won't last forever, and not because of any boycott, either. Walmart saw an opening, an economic niche, an opportunity, and jumped into it with all four feet. Their phenomenal success is the rest of the story. Of course they're hated for shoving the old out with the new. People hate change.

Protest has had a great day, but that day has passed (remember change?); resistance is becoming not only futile, but outre. Being against something doesn't work that well anymore, besides making everyone tired and sad. What does work especially well in these times is being for stuff, creating new solutions, working hard collaboratively to make things happen in a hurry.

Someday soon, someone will start up a new global Walmart lookalike that is franchisable only by locals. Or someone will lift and transform Walmart from within. Or someone will think of something else that's even better and more profitable.

Someday, someone will teach us all that we live together on a very small, fragile, interconnected planet. Someone will use the internet to shift our allegiances and money away from nation-states, perhaps toward NGOs serving every interest at every level, from local to regional to international. Someone somewhere already knows what the next great political and economic organizations will be, ones that will respect and serve both people and the earth.

And when these changes come about, much weeping and rending and gnashing of teeth will again be heard in the land. People hate change.

Boycotting Walmart won't bring back the bucolic utopias of yesteryear (which never existed anyway.) It really won't. On the other hand, the first time someone offers me a shopping experience that gives me a comparable value, and even more equity, justice, and sustainability, I will absolutely jump at the chance to disloyally move my money. I just haven't been offered that opportunity yet. So come on America, get with the program.

Until then, you will find me shopping the friendly aisles of Walmart and Sam's Club, in solidarity with a motley bunch that looks a lot like America, getting the biggest bang for our shopping buck--you know, the good old American way."

Addendum in June 2008: I understand Walmart has madea considerable effort to become more green, and more responsive to and supportive of their workforce. I haven't followed the issue closely. My point is: they still offer me the best values, and still employ my town's least employable workers at locally very competitive wages and benefits. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. And let's not reject Mr. Furman out-of-hand for thinking profoundly and independently, which is exactly what we need right now.

Mr. Furman was previously with the Brookings Institution as director of its Hamilton Project, an economic policy project whose advisory council includes many distinguished executives from the business world.

(Nancy Pace blogs on breaking news at the intersection of politics, peace, war, culture, and spirituality at www.epharmony.com.)

This article and the postings are too depressing to face on a beautiful morning in Hawaii - So I went out and repotted some orchids and planted pineapples and Rosemary while I meditated on the choices facing us, and what if anything to do about them.

I am not a Democrat and haven't been in a long time. I am a Socialist living in a Capitalistic Fascist society. Our 'Democracy' is a facade, and even if it actually involved free elections it would still be fraudulent, as it leads only to a tyranny of the majority - which in our case is a bunch of ignorant TV addicts, who wouldn't recognize their own self-interest if it bit them on the ass as they reached for another beer and the remote...

I may vote for Obama. Not because he is my choice, but because of the Supreme Courts decision yesterday whittling away at worker's rights yet again. No matter how closely he follows the corporate line, I do think Obama's court choices would be preferable to McCain's.

OTOH. I live in Hawaii and our votes don't matter anyway...

I am reading Tad Szulc's biography of Fidel written in 1986 - A Critical Portrait of Fidel. It is critical, but also very well researched and informative, as well as engrossing.

One point that is repeated over and over in discussing the Revolution and Fidel's rise to power is that you cannot have a revolution unless the conditions for one have been created in the country, by events as well as propaganda. Assuming that is true, [and watching world events for the past 50 years, I think it probably is] we are no where near staging a successful revolt in this country - much less a Revolution which involves totally rebuilding the society and the structures within it. Of course, events are pushing us against the current of complacency within our system.

Another thing I am realizing as I study this book is that we are simply too large and too diverse to have a successful revolution. But, as events wear away the power of the Empire and the Central Government it is possible to envision successful revolts in various geographical areas. Perhaps that is what we should be working towards. Hawaii and Puerto Rico come to mind first, they both have active separatists groups working to free them from US domination.

Then there is 'Columbia' which has been a vision of many on the extreme-left-coast. Or California which is already larger then many nations. The water shortages and cultural divide between North and South could create some major changes there.

Perhaps The US Empire and Wall Mart are not "Too Big to Fail" but rather so big that they will inevitably self-destruct.

I could go on... The Mountain West has little in common with the Mid-West now that the railroads no longer link the population centers. Or the original Southern Colonies vs New England and the Middle Atlantic States.

As the climactic changes and energy crisis forces us to contract our trading centers, the reason for the gigantic federal system become secondary. Providing for our own community will become far more important then shipping off our natural resources to a bunch of strangers across the seas.

Think about it...

Obama screw-up #1.
Is he no aware of the devastation to the local economies of small tonws and cities by Wal-Marts low wages and lack of benefits? Of the majority of Wal-mart employees who have to go to food shelves and have no health care benefits? Of the property tax-exemptions and sales tax rebates demanded of Small towns and cities by Wal Mart? Of the demands for ever-lower prices by suppliers, including China, which produces ever-lower product quality and sleve-and child-labor in China and other supplier countries. The Miserable story continues and it will be a cancer on Obama's campaign. Progressive and Green democrats will abstain.

This is typical of how a Democrat runs for president.

During the primaries, the candidate moves to the left. Then, with the nomination in hand, the nominee moves to the center-right.

Recall at the beginning of the primaries when Obama tried to pawn himself off as an "antiwar" candidate. Now he's retreated to the position of -- I'll defer to the generals in the field -- a position virtually the same as that of Bush and McCain.

Some antiwar candidate!

Also, do you recall several weeks ago when the Senate, Republicans and Democrats -- Obama included -- indicated that Bush could invade Iran at his discretion. The message to Bush: If you want to invade Iran, go ahead, we in the Senate won't stop you.

Now that great progressive -- the guy who is going to "change things" -- has a Wal-Mart's lover heading his economic team.

Come on, Barack Obama is the figleaf Corporate America desperately needs so as to continue "business as usual," domestically and internationally.

For a look at the *real* Barack Obama and how he'll govern if elected, see the following article -- http://www.counterpunch.org/gonzalez02292008.html

and

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/31/9327/

and ANYTHING written about Obama at
www.wsws.org

And, please, leave your wishful thinking and liberal delusions at the door.

itsaNaziWorldOrder, nice summation of the facts :)

Change wont happen from the top-down. There's too much emphasis the this one position- an executive position- one that is suppose to just administer. This isn't a monarchy, though it seems that way at the moment. The real change will come if we stop voting for the same jerk-offs in congress. Seriously- start locally and work your way up.

"Not surprised. Obama didn't get where he is by maintaining his integrity, he's a politician…bought and paid for."

Why is this so hard for people to realize?

Are people really serious? They actually think that with such an extensive military, corporate, banking and police state structure that straddles the globe... today's power moguls are going to let Joe and Jane TV Brain decide how 'their' assets are overseen?

Folks, even the Santa Claus myth does not compare to the one you bought! Nader? Give me a break! This is NOT grammar school, this is a system run by psychopaths that tortures and kills children... for fun and profit!

And you think they aren't deciding what choices you have… and basing those upon who will best protect their interests?

You all can write, you all can read but what about think? Can anyone think?

YOU ARE NOT IN CONTROL OF ANYTHING… And, no one cares what you think or how you vote… because all possibilities have already been defined to serve your undoing… and that of most others in favor of more concentration of power and privilege for elite managers.

"THE TRUTH IS SOME PEOPLE JUST WOULD RATHER LIE TO THEMSELVES (BY DENILE) THAN DEFECT FROM A GROUP THAT HAS BETRAYED THEM. REALLY !!!"

Does that really surprise you?

Any idiot who thinks there's a difference between Republicans and Democrats needs his/her head examined.

With a "screw the working middle class and pooy guy" like this as his economic policy director, I'm thinking Obama no longer needs any more of my money...though he will still get my vote in November.

I guess Obama needed a plunder expert to keep his candidacy corporately viable.

I hate to say it, but with this revelation my heart just sunk down to my feet.

I think I'll vote for a black woman for president.

Let's just hope this is among Obama's crappier appointments.

Just keep it up Obama, you are driving me towards voting for a third party candidate you damn sell out!

Seeing the writing on the wall, is it too late to do anything about it? Can the Obama supporters be converted to Nader supporters in time for November? I'm dreaming aren't I.

Very disappointing.

"Barak Obama should have chosen either Joseph Steiglitz or Jeffrey Sachs, both humanists and great thinkers."
Good point IkeKay.

This is, or at least should be, as expected. On the central concerns to the economic elite: economic and foreign policy, any new administration or any new party nominee invariably will appoint people who have the credentials of legitimacy within these circles. One can only hope (and insist) that Obama continues to hear from his progressive & mass constituencies.

Not surprised. Obama didn't get where he is by maintaining his integrity, he's a politician...bought and paid for.

Obama is a corporate appointee.

Democracy in the US is a sham (and it always was).

Obama has been chosen to disguise the fact that there are NO choices. Master war-maker and geopolitical chess-player Brezinski councils Obama on geopolitics... the same Brezinski who helped get Osama and the Taliban funded, supplied and established in Afghanistan.

Wake up and smell the fascism!

This is a totalitarian state and the elections are a total farce... your 'opinions' are manufactured and then sold to you by (tested and proven) trustworthy actors.

NOTHING can change until each and everyone has the courage to admit... they alone are responsible for what will be done in their own name.

As long as you are willing to be duped and controlled, those who believe themselves your superiors, will be more than willing to use and abuse you.

The ONLY way to begin is to boycott the Empire program, demand an end to violence and the infrastructures that maintain it (including surveillance policing, government by secrecy, and a commerce of inequity and exploitation)… and do something to help establish sustainable societies based upon what freedoms and limitations are dictated by natural law.

Humans have NO rights afforded them in nature

a) to kill
b) to enslave
c) to destroy habitats necessary to any or all life

Nature did not design for man a violent totalitarian state based upon total deception. Nature designed for man a cooperative state! Where is that state?

Right where you natural understanding is designed to be: http://allinharmony.org

Hahahaha--" same as the old Boss!" he didn't even have to be elected yet before he's shown he's just another corporate tool and it will be bidnizz as always, whether it's AIPAC or Eye-rac.

I never would have voted for him or Billary anyway, but I think we third party voters, whether Green or Independent or Nader will have the last laugh IF--and I stress IF, The Bomber gets the nod this Fall. Sadly, I think he's gonna steal defeat from the jaws of victory and we'll get McBush by showing his true colors so early.

Did any of you that drank the 'Bama Kool Aid really think all that shit about 'change' and a new direction was more than call and response pulpit speak? No wonder we're stuck with the same 'two party'(not) crooks and liars over and over. You people just never learn.

Well, it will be very interesting to see how Obama and McCain cooperate with one another in the coming summer of gritty and hard-hitting debates to make sure that no issues of substance are opened, and that if a genuine issue is in fact breached, then how they will conspire between the barbed lines to avoid any and all substantive discussion. This guy is a phony! and that's why he's the candidate. Maybe the two will don wrestling trunks and we'll see them in the ring on Saturday morning tv.

It will be interesting too to see his vp choice. Hillary would make a losing ticket, and Obama, phony though he is, is too smart to make that mistake. More likely, he'll pick Evander Holyfield to capture the Christian vote and tone that debacle about his Pastor Wright.

IS ANYONE READING THIS SURPRISED??? HOW MANY TIMES DOES ONE (DEMOCRAT) HAVE TO FALL OFF THE TURNIP TRUCK TO GET A CLUE?????

H E L L 0....... DEMOCRATS = CORPORATE PARTY

WE ALREADY KNOW THE REPUBS ARE CORPORATE...

THE TRUTH IS SOME PEOPLE JUST WOULD RATHER LIE TO THEMSELVES (BY DENILE) THAN DEFECT FROM A GROUP THAT HAS BETRAYED THEM. REALLY !!!

"If I heard that Wal-Mart was coming to my neighborhood, New York's West Village, I might rush for my mouse. But I wouldn't kid myself into thinking that my opposition had anything to do with helping the poor. If anything, I would feel guilty that I was preventing moderate-income New Yorkers from enjoying the huge benefits that much of the rest of the country already knows so well," he wrote.

Yup, Furman is another rich, free market worshiping, union hating yuppie liberal just like Obama himself. The patronizing attitude in this statement is disgusting.

Some more of the same old Hog Hockey!

There isn't one cent's worth of difference between the demonrats and the rethuglicans, because both are controlled by the corporations. "Gotta keep the corps. alive, though!" What will it take to change the system? A revolution? A rebellion? An insurrection?

Neither Obama nor any other person in America can bring about real change right now. The System is not yet ready to fall like the old buildings you see about to be demolished. The building (system) is armed with explosives ready to be detonated, but there's no one out there yet who can push the button and then effectively clean up the mess of the collapsed building and replace it with something better.

I'm still looking for a candidate out there who satisfies my ideals and dreams. It won't be Nadar or any other person I know of out there right now. But that person is out there and s/he is no doubt reading Common Dreams and is thinking about what can be accomplished.

Happily, we progressives are willing to stand up and fight back with more than just words on websites like Common Dreams. Thank you, all!

Sunny Days and Milky Way Nights!

http://www.darkskyinitiative.org

...I don't want to sound like a spoil sport but like the old Who song goes..."meet the new boss same as the old boss". The way our election system and perma-fucked government runs, in this country nobody who is an agent for real progressive change will ever get anywhere near the Oval Office. There was hardly any difference between Clinton and Obama anyways. That was one of the problems they had in the primaries, e.g. distinguishing themselves from each other.

Just more of the same coming your way folks....(yawn)....

If you want change you have to do it for yourself. Waiting, or hoping for progressive change from Washington? Might as well wait for Santa or the tooth fairy...what a pathetic sham it all is.

It's what some of us have been saying all along... ALL of the mainstream candidates are in bed with the corporations and will put the interests of those corporations before the people EVERY time... it's not a shocker that Obama would pick a neo-liberal asshole as his economic adviser. The ONLY thing that makes me like Obama better than McCain, is that he's not a deranged old-man hot-head like McCain. Clinton on the other hand, at least was upfront about her neo-liberal agenda... Obama on the other hand, will be much more devious about it all. Until you Americans do away with both the Republican and Democratic parties, you'll still get one corporatist after another in power. Sad but true.

TheLorax June 10th, 2008 2:17 pm -- 'This is a set-up. Powers that be are playing America like a violin.'

Of course. Surely that comes as no surprise to you. They have pysch advivers and others who understand America far better than America understands itself.

As I said the other day, the whole notion of voting based on the absurd expectation that your candidate will, in effect, doublecross his or her paid sponsors makes about as much sense as searching for sanity in an asylum. Probably less.

So, please explain here...

I'm supposed to vote for Obama because he is really lying and putting on a big act and once elected and will NOT do wahat he says he will do. In other words, we should vote for the politician who is deceitful.

Then, when he get elected, and does exactly what he said he was going to do, are we supposed to gar angry and ask Obama why he deceived us by not deceiving us?

Vonnegut (g.r.h.s.) couldn't have come up with this....

Here's a summary of Furman's most recent work at the Brooking Institution's Hamilton Project. He's clearly a promoter of markets above all else and now he is Obama's chief economic advisor. Nuff said:

http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2008/06_missing_markets_furman.aspx?p=1

Unless Obama does a 180 when he is in the White House, he clearly has proven to be a corporate schill and AIPAC ass kisser.

I have been a staunch supporter of Barak Obama. We begin to see in this choice the lack of experience coming to our attention. This man is a pro industry economist and there are so many that are far better who have the depth and the experience to show a new direction in economics.

But we must understand that this choice is made with the host of people that surround him, many of whom I dislike and would hope that he did not have there. This is the Democratic Party after all and while we will see change it will not be of the great depth that many of us would hope.

Barak Obama should have chosen either Joseph Steiglitz or Jeffrey Sachs, both humanists and great thinkers. I will write this to Mr. Obama with the hope that he will think again before this becomes the facts. I too am disappointed but I didn't think this would be a cakewalk or a shoo-in of an administration.

Yes, Mr. Obama shows lacks depth in his thinking, lets let us hope the voices of help and criticism make him think again and move to a more enlightened path of future advisers. But the USA is a business first country, lets hope he is not too swept away by the economics of the continuation of boardroom power!

One man cannot do it all and it is going to take the Democratic Party to wrest power from the criminals in office and put the USA on a different footing. Yes, as we all know it is not going to be perfect. Yes, as we know there will be many mistakes. But the events that will be controlled by the environmental agenda will make the choices that must be made whether or not Barak Obama, or his advisers want it that way or not!

We all think a different kind of leadership is necessary, certainly Mr. McCain is far from the answer that can be the possibility for the next eight years. Those here will moan at some of the choices that Barak Obama makes, we cannot lose faith. He will have to feel the power of office and the changes necessary will take shape has he is changed by the office and the necessity to have the best minds not the most political minds.

At this time there are favors that must be returned! Who would have given Barak Obama the help he needed sixteen months ago when he declared for the presidency? I doubt whether Jeffrey Sachs or Joe Steiglitz would have come forward they were too important to throw their dice with this young political possibility.

No my fellow bloggers, we must all help him to the level that will be required for this new young president to make the decisions that must be made. Perhaps the few old guard thinkers like Kennedy will be around long enough in this period of crisis?

I still am voting for Ralph Nader. It is just like Jay Leno said "the concept of change McCain and Obama have is in the form of nickels, dimes, and quarters." Even though it was intended to be a joke, it is true.

Very well said, ike.

jj

How could Jared Bernstein of the labor-backed EPI apologize for this guy? Wal-Mart, the last time I looked, is the largest private employer in the U.S. and a huge economic force around the globe. It is by no means, "small potatoes."

This appears to be the begining of Obama's pay-off to Hillary to keep her off his back. The price will increase by the minute and before long, the Obama administration, will be absolutley Clintonian, even without Billary.