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Why Does Barack Obama Follow the George W Bush Playbook?
Continuity of Administrations Seems on Deck in DC
Do the initials C.O.G mean anything to you? That acronym stands for Continuity of Government. We heard about it back in 2001 when Dick Cheney was taken to that undisclosed location just in case the White House went up in smoke again like it did in 1812 (Reference from the must see new Britfilm, "In The Loop"). The government's main commitment in times of disaster is preserving itself. (God forbid that people find out that the country could go on without the government in its present humongous configuration!)
But who would have thunk that C.O.G would morph into C.O.A., (Continuity of Administration) with the Obamatons building rather than destroying the agendas they inherited?
Every day brings news of the latest Presidential two-step: one step forward, one and a half steps back. Despite the loonies who denounce him as a Socialist (of the Kenyan variety, no less) the man at the top is about system maintenance more than system change. In policy after policy, he seems to feint left before moving right.
George Bush must be beside himself yukking it up as he smokes his doobies down in Texas, laughing at how the WHO were once again proven wrong. (He is now being quoted as calling his dog Barney the "son I never had.")
Yup, many of us seem to have been fooled again. You betcha.
The only people who are not disillusioned are those who had no illusions to begin with. Isn't it obvious that power may seem to reside in the White House but it is effectively constrained by the real power centers -- a cautious Bureaucracy, an overblown Military, avaricious Big Industries and the fraud factories on Wall Street?
That's where the clout is. That's where most of the political donations came from. He ignores these complexes at his peril, although, alas, he already seems to share many of their assumptions and worldviews.
Iftekhar A. Khan, a scribe in Pakistan writes about this reality:
"Many who thought Obama would
change US policies in Iraq and Afghanistan have been disappointed. Obama
and Brown don't formulate policies; reps of powerful interest groups
do. How could Robert Gates, who outlasted Bush regime, take a U-turn
on the AfPak strategy he himself devised? He has been at the center
stage of conceiving and planning the brutal military offensive Panther's
Claw in Helmand -- Southern Afghanistan. Richard Holbrooke on the AfPak
scene is another face for Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld."
When I was coming of political
age, I was influenced by the work of C. Wright Mills who wrote about
the Power Elite as a permanent government of special interests and institutions.
Building on that, a former President of SDS, Carl Oglesby, came up with
a theorybook that discussed the war within and between those elites.
Oglesby saw the conflict in regional terms with the new wealth of the Oil Aristocracy -- who he called the Cowboys based in the Southern tier, battling the old wealth of Wall Street, powercrats he called The Yankees.
Herb Calhoun describes his argument, set against the background of the assassinations of the 60's as growing out of these elite conflicts:
"What all of these events had in common was that they were links in a chain designed to replace one set of power elite (members of the old moneyed "peace promoting" Eastern Yankee Establishment) with another (the nouveau riche and newly arrived, "progress through war" Western Cowboys). Thus it is argued here that the events connecting Dallas, Memphis, Watergate and the demise of the Hughes empire, are but threads in a common fabric, growing and evolving directly out of the systematic corruption of American politics and out of contemporary political realities.
"Altogether it is thus a seductive and believable theory that says as much about American political realities as it does about the events of Dallas, LA, Memphis and NY themselves. What Oglesby tries to do, and succeeds at it brilliantly, is expose the almost organic level of corruption in the structure of the political process..."
Well that corruption has not gone away as we watch the health insurance industry buy Democrats and Republicans alike, as we watch the news machine turn into the fear machine while the bankers turn the bailout billions into bonuses to enrich their already rich coffers. A study by NY State Attorney General Cuomo found that big banks took more out in compensation than they took in. If you call this looting, you won't be wrong.
Calhoun calls it this way:
"... there is no free lunch even in a democracy. As in any other political system, in a democracy too the choice is between terror and tyranny, between Democracy and Fascism. These two poles of political existence cannot be finessed through laziness, exhaustion, or choosing to live in denial. Like all other political systems, democracy also exists on that tenuous sliver of ground that lies between these two poles; there are no angles left to be played. Those who somehow believe that benign tyranny 'by their own favorite corrupt power elite' is the answer to terror, have failed to notice Oglesbys crowning point about the JFK assassination: that terror and tyranny are but opposite sides of the same corrupt coin: that tyranny is terror, just by another name, and by other more elaborate means."
So where does this leave us?
Unfortunately, it's back to where I came in, as a young activist who went "part of the way with LBJ" to agonize as he escalated the Vietnam war, as a prisoner of the cold war anti-commie consensus.
Today, war on terror thinking is the new conventional wisdom even though we know that Iraq and Afghanistan are disasters. So why doesn't he see it? The White House is just like Wall Street in that respect: when you are inside the bubble, you don't know it's there. You believe your own hype.
Military commanders are always promising victory if only they get more troops and bigger budgets. That's the game they play again and again. And even Stephen Colbert buys into the "surge turned it all around" myth.
Politicians also have to watch out for the long knives -- from the bankers who want to scuttle financial reforms; the Arms manufacturers who don't like to see profitable weapons systems like the F22 scuttled; the Health insurers orchestrating the hysteria against all reform; the General Electrics of the world who just paid $50 million to settle an accounting fraud case.
The media remains tethered to more heat than light even as the crazed commandos of the revanchist right won't let any facts get in the way of their suicide mission. (I would like to see Beck's birth certificate; was he born or cloned?)
Like millions, I was impressed with Obama and hoped against hope and history that he was THE ONE, that he would be different. While it's too early to totally dismiss him out of hand after just six months in office, there is an all too familiar stench to what we are seeing. COA, not just COG!
The sad truth is, given what he has to deal with, and hard as it is to swallow, perhaps he can't be all that different. His only "army" seems to be on Facebook and MSNBC.
The right is of course self destructive in banging that drum of polarization, while what's left of the left refuses to recognize that what we are dealing with, and have to deal with, is a "System thing," not just a case of another tarnished pol who said one thing and is doing another.
Could he have been elected if he hadn't played the game? Could any of the other Dems won? I doubt it. Is a half a loaf, make that a quarter of loaf, better than no loaf at all? You tell me. It's not as if the progressive movement was doing so great back in the Bush daze.
Nevertheless, continuity doesn't make it for me. We need change.
Agree?
Oh yea, Happy Birthday Mr. President.
40 Comments so far
Show AllChange will come when conditions worsen, which they will. The only thing we don't know is whether it will be financial conditions that go really bad fast, or environmental global warming related conditions. The second choice if (or is that when) it hits a tipping point first will exacerbate the financial collapse. There will be no choice but to make drastic decisions, changes we will have no choice but believe in. Obama will then be forced to either show leadership or duck for cover and head for the hills.
I agree that change will come when the situation gets bad enough, and I agree it most definitely will. The question is which way this change will go. Our now far, far right political party, the GOP (Gestapo & Oligarch Party) has the politics and media in place to exploit any major downturn to their political advantage, which they no doubt will.
The people in our country are no better or no worse than the German population was between the two world wars. (Although we probably have a larger uneducated class than they did.) The german people were easily manipulated by a far right party through fear mongering and scapegoating into the disaster that WWII was.
We saw how 9/11 was exploited especially by the right. And although 9/11 was the largest terrorist attack ever on U.S. soil it pales in comparison to really large scale calamities that could happen in the near future like:
If we sink into a long term and very deep depression,
Experience sky rocketing fuel prices, (above $10/gallon), due to the world permanently passing the point where oil production can no longer meet oil demands,
Regional wide climate disasters due to global climate change,
A devastating plague.
My only selfish hope is that any truly major disaster will occur after my life on this planet ends, because every thing is in place for our country to move from the Fascist light environment that we currently find ourselves in and into a full fledge brutally Fascist society.
"Our now far, far right political party, the GOP (Gestapo & Oligarch Party) has the politics and media in place to exploit any major downturn..." Yes, thank you. I'm glad to see there's at least one other person here at CD who believes there still is at least some difference in our 2 parties. Of course we're all disgusted by how slow and little 'change' we're getting. But Goddamn it a little change for the good is better than another big step towards Hell.
"a little change for the good"
please give an example. i'm desperate.
Well, I don't find the parties equal, and I see no step for the good.
0 may not be heading as lickety-split down the road to Hell, but he's giving Cheney a good race, different party and all.
Obama will then be forced to either show leadership or duck for cover and head for the hills.
Take a guess which one he'll pick. He'll probably wind up in Preston Hollow, living next to George Wanker Bush. But leadership? He wouldn't know leadership from a hole in the ground, which in our case is the world's longest shallow grave meant to bury this entire nation.
It's beginning to look like the comment made by JIm Kuntsler is bearing out.
He observed that very likely, in some DC backroom a conversation something like this took place: "Bush, you and your team are out. Too much damage control to pull it off. Tell McCain and Caribou Barbie to wait their turn.
Obama, you get to be the face of control during the collapse. Talk up a good game, but fer Gawd's sakes, don't actually DO anything. Keep the ball rolling, and Cheney's plans in place. ACT like you are really going to bring Change(tm), but don't f**k up the game for the rest of us."
Sound plausible? I sure think so. Because I think we can all agree that free 'elections' are history in the US, and all is window dressing to appease the masses, duping them into thinking they actually make a difference.
Walk in peace.
That is incredibly plausible. It almost seems as if no other explanation of the president makes any sense.
I still hold out a sick "hope" that environmental degradation will become so acute that all other problems will have to be back burnered (and the economic collapse is a symptom of environmental degradation) and humanity will have to unite to survive, like they did in all those space invasion movies of the '50s, or self destruct fighting over scraps.
As John Dewey said a century ago: "Government is the shadow of big business on society." You can't change the substance by changing the shadow.
"Every day brings news of the latest Presidential two-step: one step forward, one and a half steps back."
One step forward?
Another article with mixed messages: Obama is a disappointment--a continuation of Bush, but forgive him because he can't buck the system--although he is nuturing the system.
And the predictable conclusion: It is the Lefts fault.
???
Ya know, Obama sold his product to win despite the power structure status quo-so why can't he pitch ANYTHING--any issue--any objective from the bully pulpit? Even Bush could do that.
Danny Schechter: "what's left of the left refuses to recognize that what we are dealing with, and have to deal with, is a "System thing," not just a case of another tarnished pol who said one thing and is doing another."
Our erstwhile "news dissector" has produced many a strange dissection, but this one belongs in a League of Its Own for falseness and irresponsibility. "What's left of the left" is decidedly not a rejection of the "System thing.'" In fact, uniquely among the poles of political ideology, this is the ONLY one that approaches political realities from a consistent stance of critique in terms of the flaws of the systems in which those realities exist. Apart from this attitude, I couldn't even define a left perspective, much less hold it for myself. What leftists REJECT both during campaigns and sitting administrations is critique in terms of "another tarnished pol who said one thing and is doing another." We leave that project for all those forlorn "Progressives for Obama" like Schechter himself, who inhabit a non-ideological space neither right, left nor center, but a spot in the center of Wonderland in which they hitch their wagons to a star called Hope for yet "another pol" and then experience disillusionment when those wagons go astray in the direction that the "leftists" told you and re-told you they would go, because your Hopeful one, like those of the Hopeful ones before, would go in precisely that direction dictated by the most powerful forces in the "system." It doesn't take a rocket social scientist, but maybe only a human mind free from the fantasies of a Walt Disney movie, to realize that there was never any doubt that the Obama administration would become exactly as it has become or, as Schechter has to say to preserve a grain of his Snow White hope for the ultimate handsome prince, there's still hope that the "tarnished pol" will yet regain his lustre as his days in office proceed. From the moment that these doubts were raised during the campaign, the mantra of his supporters has been to "give the guy a chance," and one wonders how many chances Obama will be given to resist and overcome the very forces of a corporate/military power "system" who put him in office and whose support will be necessary for him to stay there.
No, Mr. Schechter, as part of "what's left of the left," I'm not looking for some other hapless pol on which to project the wishes of my heart and then vent the anguish of my disappointment. I leave that to the Wonderland folks. Like every other leftist, I look for reform in the "system thing" whether the systemic change being sought is one which facilitates peace, economic well-being or health care for all. (Reform in the system by which we elect people to public office would be a great start; reform of the media in the direction of responsible journalism would be another.) That's why I advocate for single payer medical care system and for a "system" of Supreme Court nominations that will elevate to office Justice not "another pol" who will be serve the corporate system, but one who will serve the "system thing" called the U.S. constitution.
RichM: a nice "dissection" of your own!
Good analysis; I have a similar view of Schecter.
Like many of the moderate liberal/progressive writers published here and elsewhere, Schecter also seems compelled to impose the fake "even-handedness" practiced in corporate media news and opinion broadcasting-- very much including the PBS News Hour and talking heads shows.
These writers can't analyze any political fiasco without scolding the Left for being Part of the Problem. Although Schecter doesn't do it here, a popular variation is to postdictively and sanctimoniously blame leftish forces for not mobilizing sufficiently and coherently enough to influence the political elite.
FWIW, Schecter reminds me of Michael Moore, who has done much good work, but whose politics and judgement are also uneven.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Re RichM August 6th, 2009 1:16 pm
Since you didn't make it explicit, I'll go out on a limb and assume you haven't read Oglesby's "The Yankee and Cowboy War." It's been out of print for a long time, but is still worth hunting for.
Oglesby's thesis is that there are two main factions (Yankee and Cowboy) contending with each other for dominance when they can't find common cause. Occasionally this contention reaches the surface of public consciousness, so that high-visiblity events such as the JFK assassination (which can be seen as a Cowboy coup) and Watergate (which can be seen as a Yankee countercoup) provide a rare glimpse into the infrastructure and fault lines of actual power in the US, as opposed to meaningless cosmetic distinctions between Ds and Rs.
His chapter on the Watergate plane crash, in which B&E man E. Howard Hunt's wife Dorothy was killed (along with all the other passengers) is especially instructive in light of subsequent events.
Jethro Tullamore: I agree, it's instructive to take a look back at Oglesby's Cowboy and Yankee war thesis with a somewhat dubious but certainly possible long range battle between counter-elites behind the scenes of Watergate, JFK, etc. If anybody wants to go "Deep Politics," the work of Peter Dale Scott by that title (and much else of a man who still writes for Global Research) is one place to go. With the inherently clandestine nature of these struggles of the titans, don't assume that just because we don't SEE these relationships, they are necessarily absent (or of course assume that they are there because we don't see them---the dread disease of the "conspiracy theorist.)
jerry d,
oglesby addresses the issue of "conspiracy theory" becoming a pejorative (by 1975!) directly. it's simple and comforting, he says, to blame a nebulous "them" for everything that's wrong in the world. but it's a self-evident fallacy: if one big cabal ran everything, everything would run a lot smoother than it obviously does.
so he posits an indeterminate number of loci of power, whose individual members may sometimes collaborate, sometimes switch allegiances, and sometimes violently oppose each other---as paul simon phrased it many years later, "a loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires."
do they conspire in the classic x-filean manner? probably, sometimes, but usually it's not necessary. those who rise to those levels of power do so because they've established track records of having done, at a point of decision, what was needed of them without having to be told.
recall the scene from "training day," shortly after denzel murders scott glen for his swag. the rookie refuses to take his divvy, and is advised to reconsider: "the boys don't think you're a team player. nobody'll trust you until you got a little dirt on you."
that's the key to much of u.s. and world history.
SPAD: very helpful analysis of the "conspiracy" of our times that well may have just the sort of "loose alliance" structure of which you speak. To say, for example, that Obama or members of Congress are "controlled" by corporate forces doesn't assume that there are explicit acts in which drug industry people, for example, call them on the carpet to dress them down about their health care "plan," it's adequate if, as I believe to be the case, these forces have selected and sponsored public officials and inducted them into the "ruling class" in which the members know how to behave because it's part of their class socialization. If anything, this "class" version of corporate manipulation makes it all the harder for its operation to be curtailed, as the "pressures" of, say, specific grassroot demand operations, are unlikely to be powerful enough to overcome the much greater pressure of being rejected by their peers within the ruling class. This is even harder if, as you suggest for Denzel, your peers won't respect you until you get "a little dirt on you," in this case taking the condemnations that will be heaped on you by a disappointed public.
jerry d,
i took "get a little dirt on you" to mean explicitly, "to commit an indictable offense in front of us witnesses."
i've got something on you, you've got something on me, so now we can trust each other.
think of j. edgar hoover's files on half of washington. then think of the mob's files on hoover, who testified before congress that there was no such thing as organized crime.
Anyone who actually believes that we are living in a real democracy is as naive as my pet dog Marcel (and he doesn't even care)!
We are living in an oligarchy dominated solely by special interests and the elite.
It is only money that determines the laws which are promulgated in the U.S. (e.g., the insurance and healthcare industries are pumping more than a million dollars a day into the hands of our congressional personnel to quash, or render meaningless, any genuine health care reform).
The average voters mean absolutely nothing to any member of congress. He/she is only in congress to enhance his/her own lifestyle and will gladly cast his/her vote according to the wishes of the highest contributor to his/her coffers.
In absolutely NO RESPECT are we any longer living in a real democracy "of the people, by the people, and for the people."
The ONLY way this will ever change is for the citizens to DEMAND that "Lobbying" be declared a "criminal offense" which warrants hefty jail time (such as earned by Bernie Madoff). After all, the crime is quite similar: lying to one's constituency purely for the sake of personal gain!
"FrankS"
It is called a "Plutocratic Oligarchy" and has been the rule since 1776.
If the election of Barack Obama did anything it proved that one true fact.
Good Luck America, you really need it.
I thought C.O.G. meant Church of God. And the only God in the United States is Money. That's what the federal government is, The Grand Tabernacle of Filthy Lucre and Righteous Violence with Obama being the latest Supreme Poobah of D.C. (Death and Corruption).
George Bush is now being quoted as calling his dog Barney the "son I never had.")
That's priceless. And I thought all along it was The Wanker who was a son of a bitch.
Good one!
Obama has gone from "Change you can believe in" to "The status quo we cannot accept".
His most telling moment, amongst the plethora so far, was phase two of the bailout when he ordered an addtional $800 billion into the hands of the few instead of designating a national "back to work" program, which would have done so much more to relieve the crisis. As a result we have seen a slight loosening of credit in the country, but functionally those loans are going to people who were not at risk in the first place. A jobs program would have had the greatest impact in turning around those loans which were at or nearing the precipice of default.
Ask anyone who runs a market, what is needed for success? Initial capital, sure. But, survival depends on a customer/clientel basis which is fluid enough, with or without additional credit, to participate, engage in & complete transactions within the specific market. This is not the fraudulent trickle down economics Reagan, Clinton, Bush & Obama. It is something reality based. Trickle down economics must be abandoned if we are to emerge from this depression any time soon. We should be incorporating that message in our communications to the pathetic pawns of industry we call our elected government.
Obama has gone from "Change you can believe in" to "The status quo we cannot accept".
==================
Excellent comments , dene.
or one can also say:
from "change you can believe in" to
"Change we can't afford..it's impractical".
or
"Change is too big a task"...
"change from less freedom and liberty to even less freedom and liberty".
"change from something like a democracy to something like fascism"......
"change from smirking dictatorship to one with a smile".
"change from Bernanke and Geithner to..........Geithner and Bernanke".......
"change from americans held hostage by foreign police state governments...to americans held hostage by the american police state government"....
"change from americans under threat by foreign terrorists...to americans under threat by US state terrorism"...
"change from america as the defender against Evil...to America as the defender OF evil"....
"change from Illegal, criminal american invasions of other lands to Legal, Lawful American invasions of other lands"....
"change from American respect for requirements of international law to.....international law respect for the demands of America".....
"change from gathering support from american grassroots, netroots....to betraying american grassroots and netroots"....
"change from 'i feel your pain' to america - to 'america, you gotta bear more pain' "....
"change from protecting the US consitution to ...assaulting the US constitution".....
"change from 'america...make me do it'.......to 'america ...i'll MAKE you do it' ".
"change from 'ending the war in iraq'...to Expanding the war from Iraq to Afghanistan, Pakistan, central asia, russia, china....etc. etc. etc."..
"change from 'supporting labor'....to enslaving more labor".
"change from being a responsible debtor nation ....to printing money irresponsibly".....
"change from promise-making to promise-breaking"......
"change from being Dick Cheney's cousin...to being the cousin of Dick Cheney"......
"change from 'change you can believe in'...to 'it's unbelievable you all really believed there's gonna be change' "
etc.etc.etc.
"We need Change", eh Danny? How?
1. street protest - ignored or brutalized
2. alternative media - ignored or marginalized
3. supporting "progressive" legislators - we lose, we are ignored or the "progressives" become "realists" once in power and we go back to being ignored or arrogantly dismissed.
4. political satire and de-construction - necessary but not sufficient. as you say, even Stephen Colbert buys into the "surge" myth. Olbermann and Maddow are probably going to get marginalized by GE, owner of MSNBC.
5. civil disobedience - ignored or brutalized.
6. working to block reactionary legislation - does work sometimes, see Bush Social Security and Telecomm initiatives. necessary but insufficient.
7. Lawsuits - thank god (or somebody) for the Center for Consitutional Rights and the ACLU, but that's all a defensive action and the Courts often rule in favor of the Empire.
8. Non-payment of taxes - yeah, and spend your life fighting the IRS?
9. change through purchasing power - maybe, but I don't think we can consume our way out of this mess, even with the growing availability of organic, fair trade, sustainable choices.
10. Revolution - you're joking, right?
11. Letters to congress and editors - ignored, distorted, edited, manipulated.
12. Passive membership in "progressive" organizations - being interrupted at dinnertime with pleas for more money, paying for staff positions that are resume-builders for future DC apparatchiks. Being told that we need "access" so we can't complain about the daily sellouts.
Change, Danny? How? HOW??
jareilly: here is your answer. The fossil-fuel industry cannot control all municipalities. For 60 basis pts of tax, cities and towns can have free public transit. This will take the power from the auto and allow a gradual shift back to town centers and local farms. Join your local public transit advocacy group.
http://freepublictransit.org
How unseemly a seemless transition is.
Great article Danny. But Colbert is a satirist. When will we see you on Bill Maher or Colbert?
" It's not as if the progressive movement was doing so great back in the Bush daze. "
Really? I disagree. Bush was so brazen in his application of policy that Progressives and non-Progressives alike were becoming outraged.
Now with Obama, we have him expanding the same policies, but people like Danny Schechter are still writing,
"While it's too early to totally dismiss him out of hand after just six months in office, there is an all too familiar stench to what we are seeing. "
Yet if Bush had another term, or if McCain had been elected, Danny would not be writing that it was too early to dismiss them.
Danny is it too early to dismiss torture, indefinite, preventative detention, our wars, an expansion of nuclear power, mountaintop removal, systemic surveillance etc... Do you need more time to decide whether to dismiss those policies? And if you are ready to condemn them now, why not the people pushing them?
We get it. We have a corrupt government which self perpetuates itself for the benefit of the elite. In other words, we don't have a government. Big surprise.
Also in the "water is wet" category, this news item:
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former Credit Suisse broker testified on Thursday that he and his former business partner lied to corporate clients and sent them incorrect information in emails to cover up investments in risky debt.
In one of the first criminal prosecutions stemming from the credit crunch to go to trial, former broker Julian Tzolov told a jury that he and another broker, Eric Butler, had told clients their securities were backed by government-guaranteed student loans, when in fact they were not.
"We were doing it for two reasons: We were receiving higher commissions and couldn't get allocations on student loans," said Tzolov, seated in Brooklyn federal court in a gray suit two weeks after pleading guilty to securities fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy and bail jumping.
BROKERS LIE TO THEIR CLIENTS? NO! REALLY? You mean to tell me you know a broker that DOESN'T lie to clients?
Seriously speaking, the active slander campaigns and actual threats to life and limb directed at principled individuals who become politicians are always and without fail ridiculed as conspiracy theories. Why? Because those tools of violence are the most important method used to enforce our corruption. Therefore, the truth must be suppressed because, if it became common knowledge, the elected officials would lose all credibility. It is vital to our corrupt political process to "blame the victim", so to speak. They tell us we didn't win because we didn't organize sufficiently, etc, bla, bla. They have a God damned army of economic and physical killers that they use at the drop of a hat. That can only be fought by a rogue billionaire in their midst. However, I believe that the credibility, and hence the legitimacy, of this corporate party structure is shot. They have gone too far. People have gone from doubt to assumption that 99% of our politicians are corrupt and the rest are allowed to make noise as tokens so it can be claimed we are a democracy. Even Arriana Huffington seems to have had enough of the bullshit. I call that progress.
"Representative democracy is permitted as long as it serves the purposes of the elite"
Galeano (from his book Bleeding Veins of America).
So we are at that fascinating place where the fangs and claws come out and some PR agency calls them fur paws. Illegitimate governments morph into dictatorships with lightning speed when they are threatened with extinction. At that point we get the "El Salvador Option" inside the USA. And then everything gets really crazy. It's always messy. Fasten your seat belt. This is not going to be fun.
I just want my half a loaf...
Bring America Back !!!!
**This is a simply stated magnificent picture of exactly where the Govt is today, and why we are stuck in the past !
**Also the comments from the cd members are astute, intelligent, and add to the understanding of the article.
Tks to cd and to Schecter==great piece of work !!
I once wrote on the same subect by describing Obama as(another Bush coated with black chcolate) I am glad that some pundits agree with me. what irks more about Obama the fact(at least in my mind) that he violated some provisions of our costitution and ammendments just as W did and some more. he didn't have to do this. people like me voted for him beleiving that he will commit himself to his campaign promises. I know now what fools we were. we were looking for fresh start in our government attitude about democracy, you know for the people by the people. think again. what we got instead is another my way or the highway. good luck America.
Also, what are the "one steps forward"?! This adminstration has been Bush on steroids!
Another clueless Obamabot half-reaches the conclusions that Nader voters & Greens came to in full when it mattered.
Why do these Dem apologists continue to get column space? They are as serially wrong as the Wall St brokers getting ripped a new one in other columns today for the same thing.
Obviously the Nader & Green people are the ones who interpret things correctly, have vision and are not easily snookered. Sites like CommonDreams if they're serious will drop the Dem columnists like a hot potato and publish people who have a clue.
I fully expect instead that we'll be lectured on re-electing Dems in 2010 & to re-elect this jackass in 2012.
I don't understand why so many people couldn't see that there was NOTHING progressive about Obama. I could see who he was in his 04 DNC speech. That is all I needed to know.
And furthermore, it should be obvious at this point that much of what we despised about Bush wasn't about Bush at all, but rather represented an overwhelming consensus among the elites represented by both parties. So of course the is continuity of these vile positions.
We are facing the end-stage of the hollowing-out of democracy by corrupt structures, all that is left is a sort of veneer.
Well, this time they didn't take down the whole article, just my comment - no explanation and no notice. At this rate, I'll get banned again. I have to decide whether I want to bother with this site.
Just so you know: apparently it isn't permitted to comment on CommonDreams' editorial policies, past or present, or suggest that they've been wrong in the past.