Naomi is a Goddess.

But finding progressive financial advisors in a sea of conservative plutocrats is going to be next to impossible. Robert Reich and Paul Krugman are the only ones I know of, but they don't have the Big Money and Power connections that people like Summers do.

On second thought, that could be a big plus.

Day One on my odyssey to keep Obama from turning into a dud:

Job #1 for Obama:

Hire Dean Baker ( Or James Galbraith or Naomi Klein) as your economy person! Baker, one of the few economists who saw the Crisis coming, has a well conceived stimulus plan to revive the economy through health care reform !

Remember, Mr. Pres. --Wall Street is not necessarily the people's (aka Main Street) best friend!

Also, say no to the Clinton free-market fundamentalists/Wall Streeters who were at least half responsible for the Crisis. Say no to Rubin, Summers... Also say no to the University of Chicago Milton Friedmanites...Ayn Rand, John Galt too, Forbes, Greenspan, etc

Might as well say no to the neo-cons who still yearn for American hegemony in the Middle East--Dennis Ross, et. al.

Dr Wu, the last of the big-time thinkers

When we were a country the people had some input. But now that we are an empire only corporate interests will be considered. Changing kings won’t change the kingdom.
Hoa binh

Obama and the democrats passed this bailout. It was their baby. When it didn't pass the first round, Nancy Pelosi declared "this will not stand", and soon the first failed vote was followed by the even larger $800+ billion successful bill.

If I'm not mistaken, the website bailoutmainstreet.com has already been discredited. It had dubious connections and little to no information as to who was behind it.

Great start, people.

"The question is now whether Obama will have the courage to take the ideas that won him this election and turn them into policy."

There's no question about this.... more than any one individual, obama played *the* pivotal role in providing the corporatists their ransom. In essence, he gave his himself an $850 billion campaign contribution... strapped onto the backs of American taxpayers.

THAT is what won him the election... he knows it works... that he can do it again with even more impunity... denying representation and continually fleecing the taxpayer to support his corporate masters' greed and his insatiable thirst for power.

He is as corrupt as any other corporatist politician. He is NOT the solution. He is the problem.

Want a reality check? Take just a quick peek at the talking points that are flooding the communication channels... It is all about "position adjustment" - for American taxpayers, you had better get intimately familiar with lowered (zero) expectations.

Translation: I got mine... you're on your own... and oh, yeah... I'm going to need another trillion or so for my "banking" buddies.

The honeymoon is over.

- the loyal opposition

"Hire Dean Baker ( Or James Galbraith or Naomi Klein) as your economy person! Baker, one of the few economists who saw the Crisis coming, has a well conceived stimulus plan to revive the economy through health care reform ! "

Naoni Klein is a Canadian so that would present some problems. James Galbraith would be interesting. (His father John Kenneth, was also born in Canada)

whoah. Looks like you might have to come up with something else. Clearly there aren't many in the old school who want to help you.

And it doesn't bode Well. Rahm Emannuel? ---

Oh no. Looks like it's not morning in America after all. Looks like happy hour might be over soon, too.

Naomi Klein, whose SHOCK DOCTRINE is my bible for the understanding of these times, is right as usual about the fact that Obama will have no chance of delivering on his campaign promises unless he can somehow tame the same Wall Street beast on whose back he rode into the presidency. What neither she nor any commenters on this post have so far mentioned, there likewise there will have to be "lowered expectations" for domestic social needs until he lowers the monstrously high expectations for expenditures for wars that shouldn't be fought and for weapons systems that shouldn't be developed and maintained. But in a sense Obama rode that beast as well into the presidency is he put himself at the beck and call of an Israeli lobby that is the tail wagging the dog of U.S. foreign policy; our "staunch ally," Israel, is an extremely expensive mistress to maintain if we want to have any decent sort of "home" life.

Let's see, Obama not only voted for the Wall Street bailout but actively encouraged others to do the same, all the while ignoring letters, e-mails, and phone calls that were 100 to 1 against it. And now a 180 degree turn around is being called for after you have already given him your vote and elected him. Remember that he needed your vote to get elected when he ignored you before, and now you expect him to listen you?

Lobo Gris

There are a number of 'first 100 days' email campaigns to Obama.

Transportation
http://t4america.org/

Just Foreign Policy
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/askBarack.html

National Security Archive alerts: Court rebukes CIA on Freedom of Information
http://www.nsarchive.org

Absolutely Naomi.
Obama owes his victory to his grassroots organization and they should morph into an activist group for executive accountability. They need to remind him why he got elected early and often.
Obama's choices to recycle the Clintonites that took the first steps that resulted in the current economic failure and an uber-Zionist as Chief of Staff do not bode well for his administration.
If voters had wanted another Clinton White House, they would have selected Hillary. They overwhelmingly did not.
Obama's Afghanistan plan is a non starter. Invading and occupying Afghanistan is no more legitimate than our invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Though Obama's campaign did start to bog down when he abandoned the progressives policies that won the primary and the economic tsunami worked in his favor, I do not think the selection of Palin did McCain any favors. For once the press did its job in revealing how unprepared Palin was for the national stage.
she proved to be drag on the McCain candidacy.
I only wish the press had done a better job of reporting on McCain's anger management problems and other personality defects that would make a dangerous occupant of the Oval office.
Obama could have done a Kerry during the last weeks of the campaign and retreat back to the progressive positions that won him the primary. The danger was that, like Kerry, it would be too little too late to inspire the kind of support he was able to garner because the nation blamed the economic mess on Bush.

Calling these banksters Bailout Profiteers doesn't do justice to the scope and longevity of their efforts. The bailout contract is the final step of the Federal Banking Profiteers' privatization of the federal Treasury Department, which was institutionalized with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act and the concomitant creation of the Federal Reserve Banking system. End the Fed and you end the profiteering.

Exactly, stop the heist! May I also suggest arresting the Bush gang for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity? That would be dramatic positive change.

Rahm Emmanuel? Oh, no. As Bay Buchanan said this morning, "Rahm Emmanuel makes Newt Gingrich look like the Dali Lama."

Why can't we get new names and faces in government for a change? These retreads aren't going to instill confidence in anyone.

Galbraith would have been a more intelligent pick.

Barack Obama will have to take a big chance and put his 2012 reelection at risk in order to do the right things for this country. I'm betting that he is exactly the kind of guy who will do that. It is too early to judge him as just another politician, especially to do so solely on his choice of Emmanuel as CoS.

The author is right. The corporate bailout is robbery, and it was perpetrated by the very party that always cries "keep govt out of our lives" and always chastises citizens to "take personal responsibility." I am sure the hypocrisy is what turned many against the republicans at the end of the campaign. BOTH parties have a lot of repair work to do, to gain people's respect and support again. Obama's hereby put on notice that "more of the same" will not be acceptable. It's a lot on the shoulders of of one man at best, but if he succumbs to industry lobbying, he will be done like dinner.

It was the doublecross by the Clintons with Nafta and Daddy Bush with his
"New World Order". Why did Bill Clinton recieve $10,000,000 from the Saudies?
Why another ten million during the primaries?
We voted for Obama, not Hillary and her gang.
Will Opra and Obama wake up in time? Will Obama take a look at that Bail-out money?
Who is getting what? What about Main St?
We are in a major depression. Unless Obama acts now, we are doomed..

Who can save capitalism from itself?

Henry Paulson while an executive at Goldman-Sachs, made over 500 million dollars in pay, bonuses, and stock options. Maybe he could put this next bailout on his Visa card?

The bailout will inevitably fail. The creation and then payment of the bailout debt (by the US taxpayer) will ultimately leave the taxpayer with less to spend, causing their economy to drop even further, resulting in more job losses, less investment and, once again, a further downsizing of the economy. This economic animal is eating its own tail.

http://blogoffanddie.wordpress.com
http://theimpolitecanadian.wordpress.com/
I would never hit someone with a hockey stick, unless of course, we were playing hockey. Then I swing at anything that moves.

Much can and will be predicted about Obama's win. Whether Americans have once again been duped by the two party campaign season remains to be seen. Obama's choice for Chief of Staff is one indication that what we are seeing is over five billion dollars and two years spent to make sure that there is the ideal appearance of change rather than change itself.

There is something of the smell of public relations and advertising industry slight-of-hand here: change the colors and logos on the package and put NEW AND IMPROVED! on the same product and one is bound to generate interest and even enthusiasm... or at least buy time until everyone awakens to the fact that no real change has taken place.

One is tempted to hope otherwise. One also hesitates to interrupt the real emotion that has arisen due to the breaking down of boundaries made of hate and bigotry, especially among those who have been most direly affected by that hate and bigotry. But celebrations pass. Then what?

The Dominate O

O is rather overwhelming
the constance of a dominant sound

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
like the scream of money
honing in on moony cheeks
squatting at the trough of desire

Oh Prophet O
Oh Prophet O
Oh Prophet O

All aboard the O
for a steep circular climb
to...
obliterate Osama?
with a collateral Oh Oh o bomb a?

Moony cheeked money
ushers in a new black don
as the empire fades in the dusk.

Spare some change please...?
Chump change trillions
for a chance at toxic sleaze?
just...
leave it in the can
Or for .....
change we can believe in

Yes the can.

Mr. Obama, put Elliot Spitzer as the SEC head and Nader as the the Attorney General. Then we will get change we can believe in.

Otherwise, it will be the SOS.

The Electoral College votes have not been counted yet. This is a time of war. The Founding Fathers foresaw this situation: a reality into which the likes of John McCain ought to step. In the meantime Obama may be impeached before 20th January because he forged his birth certificate. Far too early to be talking of "transition".

People here seem to be missing the central point Naomi Klein is making in this article. She states quite clearly and quite concretely, amidst a flurry of absurd and presumably tongue in cheek hypotheticals, in paragraph seven: "We can forget about Obama making good on the more progressive aspects of his campaign platform." Her words. Her article. Her main point, missed over and over again by posters here.