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Get Ready for the Obama/GOP Alliance
With Obama pushing a huge troop escalation in Afghanistan, history may well repeat itself with a vengeance. And it's not just the apt comparison to LBJ, who destroyed his presidency on the battlefields of Vietnam with an escalation that delivered power to Nixon and the GOP.
There's another frightening parallel: Obama seems to be following in the footsteps of Bill Clinton, who accomplished perhaps his single biggest legislative "triumph" - NAFTA - thanks to an alliance with Republicans that overcame strong Democratic and grassroots opposition.
It was 16 years ago this month when Clinton assembled his coalition with the GOP to bulldoze public skepticism about the trade treaty and overpower a stop-NAFTA movement led by unions, environmentalists and consumer rights groups. How did Clinton win his majority in Congress? With the votes of almost 80 percent of GOP senators and nearly 70 percent of House Republicans. Democrats in the House voted against NAFTA by more than 3 to 2, with fierce opponents including the Democratic majority leader and majority whip.
To get a majority today in Congress on Afghanistan, the Obama White House is apparently bent on a strategy replicating the tragic farce that Clinton pulled off: Ignore the informed doubts of your own party while making common cause with extremist Republicans who never accepted your presidency in the first place.
"Deather" conspiracists are not new to the Grand Old Party. Clinton engendered a similar loathing on the right despite his centrist, corporate-friendly policies. When conservative Republican leaders like Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey delivered to Clinton (and corporate elites) the NAFTA victory, it didn't slow down rightwing operatives who circulated wacky videos accusing Clinton death squads of murdering reporters and others.
For those who elected Obama, it's important to remember the downward spiral that was accelerated by Clinton's GOP alliance to pass NAFTA. It should set off alarm bells for us today on Afghanistan.
NAFTA was quickly followed by the debacle of Clinton healthcare "reform" largely drafted by giant insurance companies, which was followed by a stunning election defeat for Congressional Democrats in November 1994, as progressive and labor activists were lethargic while rightwing activists in overdrive put Gingrich into the Speaker's chair.
A year later, advised by his chief political strategist Dick Morris (yes, the Obama-basher now at Fox), Clinton declared: "The era of big government is over." In the coming years, Clinton proved that the era of big business was far from over - working with Republican leaders to grant corporate welfare to media conglomerates (1996 Telecom Act) and investment banks (1999 abolition of the Glass-Steagall Act).
Today, it's crucial to ask where Obama is heading. From the stimulus to healthcare, he's shown a Clinton-like willingness to roll over progressives in Congress on his way to corrupt legislation and frantic efforts to compromise for the votes of corporate Democrats or "moderate" Republicans. Meanwhile, the incredible shrinking "public option" has become a sick joke.
As he glides from retreats on civil liberties to health reform that appeases corporate interests to his Bush-like pledge this week to "finish the job" in Afghanistan, an Obama reliance on Congressional Republicans to fund his troop escalation could be the final straw in disorienting and demobilizing the progressive activists who elected him a year ago.
Throughout the centuries, no foreign power has been able to "finish the job" in Afghanistan, but President Obama thinks he's a tough enough Commander-in-Chief to do it. Too bad he hasn't demonstrated such toughness in the face of obstructionist Republicans and corporate lobbyists. For them, it's been more like "compromiser-in-chief."
When you start in the center (on, say, healthcare or Afghanistan) and readily move rightward several steps to appease rightwing politicians or lobbyists or Generals, by definition you are governing as a conservative.
It's been a gradual descent from the elation and hope for real change many Americans felt on election night, November 2008. For some of us who'd scrutinized the Clinton White House in the early 1990s, the buzz was killed days after Obama's election when he chose his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, a top Clinton strategist and architect of the alliance that pushed NAFTA through Congress.
If Obama stands tough on more troops to Afghanistan (as Clinton fought ferociously for NAFTA), only an unprecedented mobilization of progressives - including many who worked tirelessly to elect Obama - will be able to stop him. Trust me: The Republicans who yell and scream about Obama budget deficits when they're obstructing public healthcare will become deficit doves in spending the estimated $1 million per year per new soldier (not to mention private contractors) headed off to Asia.
The only good news I can see: Maybe it will take a White House/GOP alliance over Afghanistan to wake up the base of liberal groups (like MoveOn) to take a closer and more critical look at President Obama's policies.
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157 Comments so far
Show AllMy joke has long been that the only dissappointment left would be if Obama changed parties. Let's make him do that. Let's make it clear that he will not get the 2012 nomination and that if his center right policies persist he should change parties. Let's form a defined voting block in 2010 that votes against corporate Democrats--i.e. two thirds of them and makes it clear that if they want us back in 2012 they have to meet our terms.
Please, Obama belongs right where he is. Asking one member out of several hundreds to leave a corrupt enterprise won't make the enterprise less criminal. The party is so fundamentally corrupt that it's beyond redemption. Democrats must be destroyed and a new progressive party be created. The Right has absolutely no opposition right now.
Both parties drink from the same poisoned Corp. well and so all we get are variations of the same policies. Why is anyone surprised?
Why create a new progressive party when we already have the Green Party?
Answer: Because the Green Party is unknown in most of the USA. If there are members or chapters where I live, I've never heard of them. They don't put forward candidates in either local, state or federal elections and God knows where their members or followers are.
Where do you live and I'll check. If not, think about organizing a chapter yourself.
In my city, we have a Green Candidate for US Rep. almost every election. And Pennsylvania makes it criminally (literally) difficult for "third parties" to get on the ballot.
There is a grave yard full of progressive third parties that were started with high hopes in the 1990's. Anyone remember the New Party? The Labor Party? The Working Family Party? The Greens are the only one that is at least surviving.
At least LBJ threw a little butter in with the guns.
Obama is looking more like Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover...rubber stamping whatever the corporations demand while ignoring the electorate (except for the right wingnuts that would never vote for him in a million years).
Obama- Real Change...
If I am a corporate lobbyist- I see real change. Whatever I do seems to work. Even as Obama berates me- I win where it counts- in the pocket book.
If I am a major corporation- automobile, banking, military, health care...whatever- I see real change. I have in fact never seen a government as supportive of my bottom-line.
If I am part of the military revolving door- alternating between working for defense contractors and the Pentagon- I see real change. Never before have I had an administration which gives me more of what I wanted with such little to work with.
If I am China or Saudi Arabia, I see real change- the ability to control the United States like a puppet with my ever increasing debt leverage.
If I am an average American small business owner or worker (union or non-union)- I see real change- increased health care costs, bankruptcy, unemployment and the loss of my home.
If I am a child- I see real change- hunger and homelessness.
If I am the environment, I see real change- runaway global warming, increased extraction of coal and much more.
If I am a human rights activist- I see real change- my pleas are ignored and I am left to stand on my own.
If I am a teacher- I see real change- more accountability to government "standards" and loss of income.
If I am in the military fighting- I see real change- even longer extended commitments and injury and death in conflicts where we don't belong.
Real people- real needs- real change- Obama.
Bush wasn't/isn't a neo-con, rather a neo-liberal: radical change.
Obama is a conservative: stay the course.
The "alliance" was formed long ago.
In a way, the republican politicians are more honest.
They're dicks and proud of it.
The democrats are the pretenders.
The whole shabang needs changing,
not the smiling front men,
not a new party.
CAPITALISM is at the root of this problem,
the change needed.
The question is:
How to get from point C to point S.
LJG100, A poetic summary... Thanks
When you start in the center ... and readily move rightward several steps to appease rightwing politicians or lobbyists or Generals, by definition you are governing as a conservative.
-------------------
Obama didn't start in the center, he started FAR RIGHT.
Mr. Obama's Senate votes to destroy the 4th amendment via the Patriot Act and FISA along with his almost perfect record of funding the Iraq occupation is neo-con territory.
He is, and WAS, a neo-con, no matter how many times the talking heads on television call him a liberal or centrist.
Yup. Even Nixon was more liberal than Obama. (Or should we call him O-bomb-a now that he has taken "ownership" of the Afghan war?)
"wake up ...to take a closer and more critical look at President Obama's policies." Wow, really? And what then, have a hissy fit? One wonders what it takes to anger an American "liberal", infinitely pliable in world view and posessed of a ten-minute memory. Third party, anyone? Of course not, let's wait until our bowing and scraping cypher matures in office.
Tony Vodvarka
Nicely stated: yeah, the memory hole of the lip service liberals. If a con escalates war, they throw the expected "hissy fit" but when it is there own blood thirsty guy, they stick their head in the memory hole.
Obama can't be seriously eyeing another run, considering how Clinton was hobbled by her own Corporate health INSURANCE reform. She wore it, and her warmongering vote to invade Iraq, like a ball and chain.
Either Obama's ambition ended when he won and he could care less or his intent was to win by projecting an image and upon arrival, attempt to pay lip service to the image while ramming through as much of the Military-Industrial game plan as possible while the opportunity presents itself.
Not a formula for ongoing political survival, but useful for the time allowed to accomplish certain objectives.
Why does the media continue to write as though we have two parties in this country? Are they really this naive or stupid? Or are they dupes or shills for the man?
Sure, both parties can put on a nice circus and have big blustering debates over all kinds of issues that might affect main street Americans. However, the ultra-wealthy, Wall Street and the Military-Industrial complex ALWAYS win with both parties and the rest of us pay for it.
They'll keep the women nervous over the abortion issue, conservative men nervous over gun rights, while health care and other social issues pick up the stress levels in others. Then, while you're watching the circus and stressing about losing your rights, they pick your pocket clean! You've lost your economic power and freedom...something serfs and slaves don't have.
Quit giving this phony "2-party" system any more power. Start exposing it for what it really is (a servant of the ultra-wealthy, Wall Street and the Military-Industrial complex) and start voting in 3rd party candidates. The system is broken. Maintain the disdain for both parties!
Headed down the same wrong halfascist road as Bush and the rest of DEM in the 2 intervening years. (And some of US knew about Obama's bent [over, that is] from the day in his campaign that he first started sporting a Bushist-style flag in his lapel)!
Are you talking about that $.39 flag with "made in china" stamped on the back?
Made in China by an off-shored US company?
as worn by good lapel-pinheads everywhere.
Obama is a fool if he thinks he will finish the job in afghanistan. The American Empire will suffer another loss like in Vietnam. This president is worse than a bad joke and all his appointments show how right wing he really is at a time when radical change is urgently required.
its simple. he is there for the money. and power. we mean nothing!
Obama and Pelosi's little group has already handed the country back to the GOP.
2010 is going to be a slaughter if they continue down this road. Its really quite simple, lose trust and lose elections. They have lost the trust of the majority.
As is the rule with Jeff Cohen, he's right on the mark.
AD
Obama doesn't have the luxury that Clinton had - no internet groups. Although I questioned a lot of what Clinton did, there wasn't anywhere to gather with like-minded people.
The Republicans kept the heat on Clinton to keep the Dem's on defense. Dem's naturally went to his defense in the more egregious charges and didn't realize they were being had by Clinton and the Republicans.
Communication among voters is at an all-time high, and many of us are seeing the pattern unfold. Obama won't get a second term if things continue down this path. The torch will be passed back to the Republicans between now and 2012 and we will be in the grip of an ever more theocratic Republican Party. It is not a pretty picture.
I imagine Obama already has his golden parachute lined up for taking this dive, not only for the Democrats, but for the various minorities who turned out in force hoping for a better day.
Here is something for the liberals to chew on. The capitalist ruling class (primarily the financial sector of the capitalist class) rule as a dictatorship. That is to say, the content of the ruling class in the United States is finance capital. The form in which the ruling class secure there hold on state power is a limited "democracy". It is the preferred shell in which to cover the fact that we actually live under a capitalist dictatorship. But do not be deceived, it is a dictatorship, and the ruling class has no problem changing the form, should it become necessary.
There will never be a working class, or even a pro-working class US President, because the ideology of the candidates (those who have a chance to win) are greatly scrutinized by the ruling class long before one is considered for election. Dem or GOP, liberal, moderate, or conservative: what ever your cup of tea at polls, the content will always be capitalist.
Look at the health care debate as an example. The solution is as simple as single payer, Medicare for all. Yet, capitalist ruling class will never allow this solution to be considered. Why? Profits…..Insurance company profits, a primary part of the financial sector of the U.S. ruling class.
So I watch with interest, and some amusement, as you liberals tie yourself up in knots when your (liberal, moderate, conservative????) president and democratic congress kick your teeth in when the push comes to shove on one issue after another.
A liberal is one who did not vote for Bush or Obama,
and one who is not fooled by your illusion that we
liberals should feel guilty for being deceived by
your capitalist government.
In short, paid actor you are not fooling anyone.
eldean019
"There will never be a working class, or even a pro-working class US President, because the ideology of the candidates (those who have a chance to win) are greatly scrutinized by the ruling class long before one is considered for election."
eldean:
The politically correct term would be "groomed" (for election).
That the US is a democracy is one of the most powerful illusions that Americans must overcome.
"The American political system was not born a democracy, but born with a bias against democracy. It was constructed by those who were either skeptical about democracy or hostile to it. Democratic advance proved to be slow, uphill, forever incomplete. The republic existed for three-quarters of a century before formal slavery was ended; another hundred years before black Americans were assured of their voting rights. Only, in the 20th century were women guaranteed the vote and trade unions the right to bargain collectively. In none of these instances has victory been complete: women still lack full equality, racism persists, and the destruction of the remnants of trade unions remains a goal of corporate strategies. Far from being innate, democracy in America has gone against the grain, against the very forms by which the political and economic power of the country has been and continues to be ordered."
from “Democracy Incorporated” (2008) by Sheldon Wolin (p.228)
I watch with interest and some horror. It's nice to be above it all, but can we really afford it? We are living on the planet, not in some UFO.
*** Three points need to be stated.***
1. The increased disdain from the republicans is inevitable because, as was the case with Clinton, the republicans are so greedy for every bit of power in this world that the idea of their policies of domination being implemented by someone who will not admit that he is one of them (a liar) is a constant, intolerable (the key word!), reminder of being out-manuevered. In a sense, they have been out-corrupted.
2. Mr. Cohen and the vast majority of democrats are STILL resisting the obvious. Not only was Obama blatantly working as a tool of corrupt corporations BEFORE the elections of 2008 - voting to give immunity to the telecoms which illegally (and unConstitutionally) participated in spying on us and eagerly pushing, at Bush's side, to pour HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of dollars (which, in reality, we are borrowing from China) into the pockets of criminals from Wall Street, there is now a huge post-election record of pandering and worse (Obama's cabinet and their firm support of the worst policies from Bush and Clinton).
So, here we have Mr. Cohen, who I have no reason to think is duplicitous, using words like "Obama seems" when we need to be saying "Obama IS" and saying "it is crucial to ask where Obama is headed" when it is well past time to "ask" anything about this "pragmatist" liar.
3. The republicans are a black hole. There is only a small number of members of the democratic party who are people of integrity. You can no longer point at third party candidates and blame them because YOU are being fooled by either of the two dominating monsters of corporate greed.
No, YOU is not fooled by anyone, for YOU is you of the upper 60% of society with excessive wealth, you who want a capitalist government to protect your filthy wealth and self-absorbed bodies.
I hate to seem like a broken record, but this must be emphaticly stated by many more than just myself: Obama is Public Enemy #1. As you say in point 2, Obama was grooming himself to become the new Public Enemy #1 well before the election, which is why those of us who noticed didn't vote for him. As Cohen shows, he's likely to become a worse regressive than Clinton.
Obama represents the new--Changed--Democrat Party: Now anti-people, pro-war and pro-corporate. Change co-authored with Bill Clinton and Nancy Pelosi.
There's a very good reason the Populists of the late 1800s named their poitical association the People's Party. That moniker ought to be resurrected and attached to a new bottom-up (as opposed to top-down) formed political association that puts people and the planet first, corporations last, and Imperialist Wars never.
It looks like O'Bamba played the electorate like a piano. All those strings inside, 70 million of them who voted for O'Bamba, were played during that election campaign song and dance ehh? Those felt hammers didn't hurt those strings. The strikes and the vibes of talent, charisma and hope, they felt great! The piano strings were proud to be part of the production. They can't wait for the next show.
Karlof1
Very well said and in particular your last paragraph. It would seem that no one in the country today comes close in carrying on the legacy of that former great populist and socialist Eugene V. Debs. Dennis Kucinich comes close but unfortunately he is under the delusion that his suggestions and ideas will be welcome by his fellow Democrats. Kucinich is apparently too blind to recognize that they are corporatists and war mongers to the core. If Kucinich had a lick of sense he would bolt from the Democrats and join a third party but he refuses to become a true populist.
The author is a little behind the curve here and a bit naive.
The larger picture is clear; the ruling D/R Duopoly are part of the same group of interests and provides a convenient facade of democratic choice. A "good cop, bad cop" routine.
Obama has already allied himself with right-wing Democrats and Republicans.
He re-appointed a long-time Bush family crony as Secretary of the Empire: Robert "uncle Bobby" Gates. That should have sent a clear message. The D Congress approved a record high budget for the Penatagon and imperial aggression and occupation.
On that criteria alone we can say that the Obama regime is even more imperialistic than Bush, just follow the money.
Oh, and the Obama admin is escalating the war of occupation in Afghanistan,
The Obama administration announced that the US again REFUSES T) SIGN THE CONVENTION TO BAN LAND MINES! (as did Clinton and Bush Jr.) We will be one of the only countries, (Somalia? Israel?) not to do so. How lovely.
Can someone tell me how the D Congress and Obama regime is better than Bush? (and we don't even have to talk about the health care fiasco, or Geithner/Summers/Rubin.
I agree with your "larger picture". I had hoped it wasn't the case, and that Obama would not be just another cog. Unfortunately that's not the case. BUT...how do you explain people like Kucinich, Feingold, and other true progressives? I would think that if there were really "bosses" who direct the actions of the D/R duopoly someone would have the guts to speak out about it, especially Kucinich, McKinney, Feingold, etc.
McKinney has been a Green Party member for some time now. Kucinich is almost alone.
Feingold etc.? I do not consider him progressive, but rather moderate to conservative.
Would you trust any market to just two corporations? I don't.
I don't trust a collusionary two-party public relations corporation in producing democratic choice.
RE: Can someone tell me how the D Congress and Obama regime is better than Bush?
Yes. They have better diction.
Bingo! Diction won the prize.
is your hope half-full or half-less?
Also: the Obama admin. announced that it will recognize the upcoming sham elections held in Honduras held by the illegal military coup regime. The US never called for the legal Presdient (Zelaya) to be returned to office. The US supports dictatorship
Once again, we see democracy thwarted by the USA, which has indirectly supported a military coup. All the while the Orwellian language used to justify this BS.
We see expanding imperial military presence in Colombia as well.
Again, it seems the D administration is even more war-mongering and imperialistic than Bush Jr.
There's one important distinction.
Clinton forged his alliance at the height of the Republican Revolution. Goofy neocon ideas like free trade had swpt through the Democratic Party like a nasty flu.
They were all doing it. Remember how Al Gore embarrassed the hapless Ross Perot in their Vice-Presidential debate? How funny it was that this upstart third-party candidate should dare to question the gospel of free trade!
This was Al Gore--not Bill Clinton. Jimmy Carter was also doing it. Virtually the whole damn party was doing it. The Republican Revolution was approaching its zenith. Milton Friedman was a genius and life was an Ayn Rand novel.
I'm not saying this justifies Democrats acting like neocons. But it's useful to remember how utterly BURIED in neocon memes we were back then--and with no internet to help us. Most people honest-to-God believed the United States had turned into a nation of guys in pick-up trucks. Bill Clinton was a Democratic fish swimming in an ocean of conservative memes. It made a certain amount of sense that he might have to adapt to the circumstances.
But Obama has no such excuse. Everything is different now. The Republican Revolution has crashed and burned beyond all belief. The Republican Party was on its knees, broken and bleeding and utterly disgraced, when Obama came along.
And yet the Bammer has gone on to do things that make Bill Clinton seem like Dennis Kucinich. Handing trillions to the banksters, for example. Or continuing war crimes and fascist policies. Or refusing to sign the treaty against landmines, which I just heard about this morning. It's just one big gross-out after another--from a man who posed as a progressive, no less.
Republican alliances should be especially easy for Obama, because Obama is basically a neocon.
As Senator, he voted for the Cheney energy bill, which no Democrat would do.
In fact, no Democrat in history has done such far-right things as Barack Obama--and all this AFTER the Republican Revolution had been disgraced. In everyone's eyes but the President's, it would seem. Obama says great things; but he's a flaming neocon.
As for Obama hiring Clinton holdovers: isn't it odd that Clinton had such success with the same peope who are ruining things now? How did Clinton turn the biggest deficit in history into the biggest surplus and preside over the longest sustained period of economic growth in U.S. history, with higher income at all levels, etc., with these nincompoops working for him?
It'sd clear Obama will accomplish none of the things Clinton did. Did the Clinton advisers lose their mojo, or is Obama just a bad leader? Don't ask me; I voted for Cynthia McKinney.
History will show that in the Rise and Fall of Empire USA
that our high water mark in grandure were the glory years
of 1950 until 2008.
And so, as our record military budget of $1.4 trillion is
pumped into the world's largest killing machine, as it
expands to protect all the wealth and oil we have plundered,
as the purpose of this world is to prove the harm in it,
are we not doing the will of God?
God? I did not realize God was a foreign policy maker. I though God was that old white dude on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
Very recently, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein proclaimed that he was doing "God's work."
Sioux Rose
Exhibit A, ladies and gentlemen of the cosmic jury...
Here we find a sampling of another "Mr. Smith," one programmed to countenance the premise of the Deity in combination with a rationale for war, holy war (of all oxymorons) at that!
And which of the 12 semblances of Source most resonates with this martial proposition? Why MARS, god of war, of course.
It may seem like myth, a distant abstraction to say that in America Mars rules, but there are an awful lot of Mr. Smiths cum Alabama-johns hatching from The Matrix.
Capitalism is a government that protects the excessive wealth of the upper half of society as they compete against those less intelligent, enrich themselves upon the misery of the lower class, and cause starving children by hoarding wealth.
“Babylon, land of deepest shadow and deep darkness,
where even light is like darkness.”
"Upper half of society"? Excuse me??? That would a be vast improvement. That would mean a strong middle-class. The reality is more like 1% or even a fraction of one percent. "Less intelligent"??? If you're born rich you don't need intelligence. Look at the GOP, no better example of a group of rich stupid people.
"Most of the world is capitalist, and most of the world is poor." - Michael Parenti
really?
I am no where near wealthy. Yet, the system seems to work offer opportunities and to better oneself and essentailly move up in society. It is working for me and many others.Perhaps many of the "lower class" in reality don't have the ambition to move up the class ladder.And these so called upper half actually create many jobs and opportunities for lower and middle and lower class by creating jobs from the result of starting business and investing.
if the upper class just started to spread the wealth around there would not be any real new wealth change nor any real new effect of more wealth in society
Wealth can be created and destroyed. It doesn't follow the laws of thermodynamics! lol