The American empire has not altered under Barack Obama. It kills as brutally and indiscriminately in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as it did under George W. Bush. It steals from the U.S. treasury to enrich the corporate elite as rapaciously. It will not give us universal health care, abolish the Bush secrecy laws, end torture or “extraordinary rendition,” restore habeas corpus or halt the warrantless wiretapping and monitoring of citizens.
The recent events in Honduras are not isolated, but rather part of a conservative counterattack taking shape in Latin America. For some time, the right has been rebuilding in Latin America; hosting conferences, sharing experiences, refining their message, working with the media, and building ties with allies in the United States. This is not the lunatic rightwing fringe, but rather the mainstream right with powerful allies in the middle class that used to consider themselves center, but have been frightened by recent left electoral victories and the rise of social movements.
While the Obama administration was careful to distance itself from the recent coup in Honduras — condemning the expulsion of President Manuel Zelaya to Costa Rica,
revoking Honduran officials' visas, and shutting off aid — that doesn't mean influential Americans aren't involved, and that both sides of the aisle don't have some explaining to do.
The story most U.S.
That George Bush, man – what a monster, eh? I mean, could you even have imagined a
president so destructive?
It's actually worse
than you thought, though. Lately, there's been a spate of fresh
revelations about some of the incredibly disastrous policies that were
executed by the Bush administration.
Did you know, for instance,
that they...
Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, ousted
in the middle of the night just over a month ago, enjoys global support
for his return, with the exception of the Obama White House. Though
Barack Obama first called the Honduran military's removal of Zelaya a
coup, his administration has backpedaled. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton called Zelaya's attempt to cross the Nicaraguan border into
Honduras "reckless." Could well-placed lobbyists in Washington be
forging U.S. foreign policy?
During last year's presidential campaign,
Barack Obama said he was willing to sit down with Cuban leaders without
preconditions. Hopes were high for the change that Obama had promised
during his campaign for the White House. Obama, however, has been slow
to implement any significant policy shift towards Cuba since taking
office, raising concerns among those eager to see a new relationship
with the island nation. This week two groups of Americans, over 250
people in all, are traveling to Cuba to challenge the travel restrictions
and protest the slow pace of change.
For those still clinging to quaint
notions of the American ideal, these have been a faith-shaking 10
years. Just as evolutionary science once got in the way of
creationists’ catechism, so has politics now undermined patriots’ naive
belief that the United States is a functioning democracy.
A House leadership deal with Blue Dogs and an aggressive marketing push by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) shifted the healthcare debate sharply toward centrist positions Wednesday, sparking threats of rebellion from the left.
The day's events left the Senate Finance Committee's emergent bill as the most viable vehicle on Capitol Hill, but also made clear that House Democrats are still riven by bitter disagreements. Democrats postponed a floor vote until after the August recess, meeting a top demand of centrist Blue Dogs.
At a critical moment in the tense health care debate -- when the U.S.
House and Senate are scrambling to forge compromise reform plans that
might be passed before the Congress embarks upon its traditional August
recess -- President Obama is retooling his health-care reform message.
Instead of the bold rhetoric of last year's campaign, or even of
last month's press conferences, the president is now pitching reform as
more of a consumer-protection gambit.
In
recent posts and in
my last column,
I noted that there's an unspoken deal between D.C. reporters and "Blue
Dog" Democrats to explain Blue Dog opposition to health insurance
regulation, unionization, Wall Street reform and pollution controls as
a direct outgrowth of them representing culturally conservative
heartland districts.
