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I Can’t Wait for Barack Obama to Become President
Watching the latest tragedy unfold in the Gulf this last month, all I can say is: I can’t wait for Barack Obama to become president.
This Bush guy is such a disaster, literally and figuratively. It just seems that the destruction of America he presides over is all but endless. As if one Gulf Coast disaster left to rot in the sun wasn’t enough for this president, now comes a second. What did those folks in New Orleans ever do to him? Heck, what did Americans ever do to him?
I just can’t wait any longer for the new administration to take office. They are absolutely guaranteed to handle things so much differently than the Cheney Bots in the White House who seem intent on wrecking the whole world, with their charity beginning at home.
Look at this oil spill disaster, for example.
To start with, Barack Obama would never pick a guy like Ken Salazar for the crucial environmental position of Secretary of the Interior. Of course Bush would, though. Salazar has been deeply tied to mining and ranching industries his entire career – just the kind of corporate hack Cheney would insist on for the position. In fact, Salazar was even a big supporter of his predecessor, the corrupt industry shill, Gale Norton. After all the work environmentalists put into getting Obama elected, there’s no way he’d choose someone like Salazar for this position, a guy so lame that mining association lobbyists welcomed the appointment when Bush made it. What does that tell you? Of course, Salazar has turned out – just as you’d expect – to be the “Heckuva Job, Kenny” of the oil spill. This will never happen once Obama gets in and puts a real environmentalist atop the Interior Department.
Nor would Obama ever adopt the “Drill, baby, drill” mentality that Bush did earlier this year, when he opened up vast expanses of the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling – much of it for the first time, ending a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along 167 million acres off the East Coast, from Delaware all the way down to Florida. This travesty by the Bush administration – which delighted oil companies and right-wing drilling advocates but angered environmentalists and appalled residents of those states – would never happen under an Obama administration. Unlike Bush, not only will Obama cease the expansion of drilling in these sensitive areas, he’ll surely cut it back. And not a moment to soon! Who knows where the next destructive spill will be.
We also wouldn’t be in this mess if federal regulators were doing their job, instead of being emasculated by regressive Bush administration deregulatory policies that turn industry loose to do whatever it wants. Regulators knew that backup systems were required to control the blowout preventers that failed in the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, and they even told rig operators that in 2009. But they never did anything about, relying instead on promises from the offshore drilling corporations that they were on top of it. Wait ‘til Obama gets into office, man! He’ll clean up that nonsense in a hurry. Regulators will actually regulate, and regulatees be whipped into shape, and forced to comply with the government-enforced public interest, just like they should be.
I’ll tell ya another thing. When Obama is president, you won’t see reckless companies like BP getting permission from the industry whores in the Minerals Management Service to drill wells without obtaining the permits that they are required by law to first receive from other government agencies. This is exactly what happened with Deepwater Horizon. And since January 2009 alone, permission to go forward for at least three huge lease sales, 103 seismic blasting projects and 346 drilling plans has been granted by MMS without getting the environmental protection permits required from other federal agencies, like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), to protect endangered species, among other things. MMS staff scientists are also regularly pressured and overruled by management whenever they raise concerns about the environmental impacts of drilling projects. No way will these sort of destructive sell-outs ever happen once Barack Obama is in the White House.
It’s bad enough that the United States government under George W. Bush has been so culpable in so many ways for the wreckage that has come from the BP spill in the Gulf, but even worse is how they are helping BP to lie about its magnitude. First the administration said that the spill was pumping 1000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf. Then they increased that number to 5000 barrels. What we have now learned is that the real figure must be several times larger than that. Worse, we know that the administration is allowing BP to use a measuring technique specifically not recommended for this sort of spill, and has actually turned away a private team of scientists who were standing by ready to deploy the proper measurement equipment. Ian MacDonald, a Florida State University oceanographer who is expert in measuring oil flows, believes the amount must “easily be four or five times” what the administration is saying. Indeed, he and others have analyzed video imagery and estimated that the breach is spilling on the order of 70,000 barrels of oil every day. He notes that, “The government has a responsibility to get good numbers. If it's beyond their technical capability, the whole world is ready to help them.”
But, of course, the Bush people absolutely don’t want help to accurately measure the disaster their corporate patrons have created. In fact, because of their ties to industry, they want to make sure it isn’t properly measured. The situation is actually worse that, however. MacDonald and others believe that BP is actively trying to “hide the body” in this crime, and that the administration is assisting them in doing that by not collecting sufficient deep water samples to map out the damage, and by torpedoing those few gathered by scientists on their own. Over a month after the spill began there are still no deep water test results released by the government and no pressure from the administration for BP to collect this data. Worse, when independent oceanographers collected one sample that confirmed their theory about deep water spills creating huge underwater plumes of oil in the ocean, NOAA immediately criticized the results of the study, even though they had previously pointed to their partial funding of the effort as an example of the government’s attempts to stay on top of measuring the impact of the spill.
Just as they did with the whole Iraq WMD scare, the congenital liars in the Bush administration can’t seem to help themselves. They love the corporate class so much – even foreign corporations – that they are willing to put big money interests ahead of the American public who is their real constituency, and help protect those corporations with official lies. Won’t it be great when Obama gets in and puts the hammer down on this sort of disgusting treason in the White House?
Another sickening aspect of this tragedy is the cover-up which is already underway. As they did with 9/11 and Iraq, the Bush administration has again appointed a Potemkin Panel to investigate this crisis. But, guess what? Its six-member Board of Inquiry is made up of half Coast Guard staffers and half MMS clowns. It obviously is going to be completely unable – by design – to tell the truth about what has happened here, especially where the key government agencies nominally in charge are concerned. This is a total white-wash. You can bet that a guy like Obama would never countenance such behavior if he were president today.
Bush is also playing deceitful games with policy on this issue, trying make the public think that he’s environmentally friendly, even while he is taking excellent care of his buddies in the oil industry. After the blow-out, the president announced a moratorium on permits for drilling new offshore wells, and promised to stop giving environmental waivers for offshore drilling projects. But guess what? While we weren’t looking this last month, the administration issued seven new permits and handed out five environmental waivers for just the sort of projects like Deepwater Horizon that were supposed to be banned now because of their potential to replicate the current destruction we’re witnessing. In fact, many of these projects involve wells nearly twice as deep in the ocean the one currently spewing oil, and are therefore even more potentially dangerous.
The president himself said, “It seems as if permits were too often issued based on little more than assurances of safety from the oil companies. That cannot and will not happen anymore.” But it has. Seven times. The president also said, “We're also closing the loophole that has allowed some oil companies to bypass some critical environmental reviews.” But he hasn’t. Five times. Bush’s Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, explicitly testified that “there is no deep-water well in the OCS [outer continental shelf] that has been spudded – that means started – after April 20”. But, in fact, Newfield Exploration Company confirmed that it was issued a permit on May 11 to drill, and has been doing so. And they’re not alone.
Meanwhile, back in the Gulf, the Bush administration seems completely intent on letting its oil industry buddies do whatever they want, no matter the damage. There are substantial concerns about the health and environmental impact of Corexit (just the name freaks me out), the oil dispersant being used in world-record amounts (over 700,000 gallons so far) to deal with the spill. According to Representative Edward Markey, Chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, “We know almost nothing about the potential harm from the long-term use of any of these chemicals on the marine environment in the Gulf of Mexico, and even less about their potential to enter the food chain and ultimately harm humans”. Great.
So the Bush administration pretended to order BP to scale back the use of Corexit, and pretended to give them a deadline by which to do so. But BP just told the government where they could stick their deadline, and kept on deploying the toxic chemicals. I doubt they’d dare to try that if a real environmentalist who put the interests of the public ahead of oil company profits – someone like Barack Obama – was in the Oval Office. You can bet the house on that.
The Bush Leaguers have also played silly games with public relations, like wimpy babies trying to act tough, just as they did when the Vietnam-evader himself put on a flight suit and landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln to declare “Mission accomplished” in Iraq, before the real war even started. Now they talk about how they’re gonna “keep the boot on the neck” of BP to clean up the spill. Tough words, man. According to the New York Times, though, “Oil industry experts said they did not take seriously the sporadic threats by the administration that the federal government might have to wrest management of the effort to plug the well from BP. The experts said that the Interior and Energy Departments do not have engineers with more experience in deepwater drilling than those who work for BP and the array of companies that have been brought into the effort to stem the leak. ‘It's worse than politics,’ said Larry Goldstein, a director of the Energy Policy Research Foundation, which is partly financed by the oil industry. ‘They have had the authority from Day 1. If they could have handled this situation better, they would have already.’”
Speaking of rank public relations maneuvers, Bush pretended to blow his top when the three companies (including Halliburton, of course) all blamed each other for the catastrophe, and called their antics a “ridiculous spectacle”, despite doing little himself to deal with the issue for more than a month now. Then he professed anger and astonishment at the “cozy relationship” between the oil industry and the government. Imagine that! Putting on his tough guy face, Bush waved his arms and said, “I will not tolerate any more finger-pointing or irresponsibility”. Oh, that’s cute. What’s he gonna do, order BP to act responsibly? Next year sometime? Over brandy and cigars in the Oval Office? I’ll tell you one, thing, if Obama were in the White House you’d never see a “ridiculous spectacle” like the one the president is putting on right now.
And, you know, you would also think that Bush learned his lesson from 9/11 and Katrina about getting up off the couch and engaging himself when there is a national crisis going on. Apparently not, however. Just like when Katrina hit, he’s running around doing political fundraisers while the country scrambles to deal with a crisis, and now he’s taking a vacation, as well, just like he did in the month before 9/11, after being warned of an imminent attack. Unbelievable.
Speaking of vacation, I just can’t take it anymore. These Bush clowns and their destructive antics are just killing me. It seems like it’s taking forever for the Obama administration to start, and for these predators to go.
I just can’t deal with it anymore. I’m gonna go take a long nap
Someone wake me up, oh, say, about a year-and-a-half into the Obama administration, wouldya?
By that time they should have really made their mark, and life will be so much better in America.
One thing’s for sure, once Barack Obama comes to power you’ll never again see an oil corporation-infested administration do nothing about a major crisis, lie about it, and protect British Petroleum instead of the American public.
That’s change you can believe in.
Baby.
203 Comments so far
Show AllMaybe next year....not
I thought Obama took care of everything in 'The First 100 Days' like FDR.
I can't wait for him to be gone.
a thousand dittos
Chessgame, no offense, but this is very uncharacteristic of you. "I can't wait for him to be gone", fly's in the face of your grasp of the "Here and now". Obama's or any presidents coming and going as solution to past and present problems IS the problem. Escape from or running towards, is a distraction from the freedom and clarity of 'here'.
This is the way I feel, sirios, either step up or step aside. How long should we give Obama to step up, while Rome is burning? It's VERY much a PRESENT moment problem, but Obama seems to be lost in the wind. Perhaps HE needs to admit he needs help and look for advice elsewhere; in other words face HIS inadequacies without escape--running toward or running away, as you put it.
BP must be pushed out of the way because it's a corporation with corporate interests that cannot (it's unable because of the nature of the entity that it is) put environmental interests before profits, image, and other obligations. Obama either does not see this or want to admit it. Either way, the result is the same. This is the counsel he badly needs to hear in my view.
Barring that, he must be able to overcome his own ego and step down if need be. Sadly, I doubt he is capable of such an act. If so, I stand by what I say: "The sooner he goes the better, if he cannot do what needs to be done." Also, from what I read he was responsible for allowing this rig to be built in the first place, by overruling certain regulations.
This is not the only reason I want to see this weak and disingenuous shill resign, but it is certainly the icing on the cake.
If it is out of character for me then so be it. I'm not suggesting he should be punished or put in jail. He will have to live with himself and that will be punishment enough; ego always is.
You are correct about clarity as well; if Obama were to to gain it, it would be an awesome thing--even if only with respect to this catastrophe.
Chessgame-You know i have the highest respect for you and i agree with your assessment, with what needs to be done, 100%. But, these pendulum swings of replacing ignorance with ignorance must cease at some point. We must do both, clean house and stop trying to create unity only through manipulation of the external. Balance, unity, compassion and gratitude towards the planet, must be lived, not taught and remembered. Our lives must be a living example of gratitude for what the planet gives us daily and freely. The days of the savior/hero/leader are over. We are our own unified and clear leader. NOT the individual personality as the leader, but what the personality/ego is manifested from. The practice of replacing a failed leader every four or eight years has never worked to bring everyone into a state of coherence. WE, must be that unity and coherence.
I have no argument with what you post, sirios. Sleeping people elect sleeping leaders. Nothing would please me more than to see Obama wake up spiritually. Even a small sign would be encouraging, a sign that he is listening to something else besides his ego.
I have a strong feeling Obama's hand will be forced--will he resist to further the corporate agenda, or do what he knows deep down is right--or is he beyond the point of knowing? Here I cannot say, and I think you read my frustration well. It's hard for me to watch the ecosphere being destroyed in such a dramatic fashion. Glad you're here posting at CD telling me what you think. Be well, my friend.
National initiatives! Every one of us would vote on certain issues, deemed important via petition.
Health care: - single payer? corporate run mandated? a mixture of both? none?
Wars: Only in clear defense? Never? Iraq? Iran?
Environment: Few regulations? state operated? sustainable? Protected wildlands?
Let the wild masses rule! I can't imagine it could be any worse than what we now live under.
Ah, yes, we can see how well public initiatives have worked out in California .....
Can't wait for Obama to be gone -- been there, done that! What comes after Obama?
Bush IV
In other democratic countries, if the leader of those countries [such as Japan] feels that he or she is doing a poor job, then that person may very well do the honorable thing by resigning because of the shame that he or she has cast upon his country. Unfortunately, it appears that Obama, like Bush, is totally bereft of emotions such as honor and shame.
Of course he has no sense of shame - he's a psychopath!
We are NEVER going to have a better country to live in til we stop tolerating psychopathic behaviors.
Of course, if we stall around long enough, Mom will take care of *all* our problems, in broadly the same way She did with the Easter Islanders and other cultures that couldn't break loose from their psychopathic masters. Only She'll do it worldwide, this time.
Is he a psychopath or a sociopath, or just a wannabee suck-up, Mairead? I cannot decide. Maybe readytotransform would know. :)
I also believe that there is what I call "social narcissism". That is when a whole class of people collectively exhibit arrogance, callousness, propensity to lie, sense of entitlement, lack of empathy, etc. The group that illustrates this best is slave owners. On a personal level with family and people they consider their peers they may be relatively normal, whereas to slaves they have no feelings. I think that is what we are seeing as Obama wishes himself to be part of the rich and savvy inner circle of banksters and other "successful" people and could care less about most of us except as objects of impression management and social control.
The concept of social narcissism frees us from over-emphasizing the importance of personal characteristics of potential leaders. Bush's stupidity, Palin's bimbitude, Obama's cold intelligence, Cheney's malevolence, the superficial charm of the two Clintons are used in different ways in the service of a social system. (I really did think that having someone of intelligence would make SOME difference in the level of rationality in choices he would make. I was so wrong about that.)
Personal characteristics of our leaders hardly hardly matter unless they are going to oppose the juggernaut of the military and corporate interests. Policy, program and the courage to do what is right are what counts most. That is what WE should put forward, and let personalities take a back seat.
Joe
Is he a psychopath or a sociopath, or just a wannabee suck-up, Mairead? I cannot decide.
--------------------------------
Psychopath for sure, Joe. (Or sociopath if you want to use an even older term, or "someone with Antisocial Personality Disorder" if you'd rather the new one).
Except he's unlikely ever to get such a diagnosis. Conventionally, psychological health is determined purely by how well someone is adjusted to their culture. And our culture says that it's normal --indeed praiseworthy!-- for the rich to plunder the poor, so behavior that disregards the rights of others is only diagnosable in the non-rich!
It's only the mavericks in the profession who annoyingly persist in pointing out this discrepancy. They have the silly idea that psychiatric diagnosis today is a tool/weapon for social control, just as it was in the USSR, and that it will never be anything else until it's applied without reference to class.
They also hold that it's positively *unhealthy* to be well-adjusted to a pathological culture. The teaching parable used by the late Eric Berne MD about the young man getting a promotion is exemplary.
But, y'know, they're mavericks and therefore fools.
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I also believe that there is what I call "social narcissism". That is when a whole class of people collectively exhibit arrogance, callousness, propensity to lie, sense of entitlement, lack of empathy, etc. The group that illustrates this best is slave owners. On a personal level with family and people they consider their peers they may be relatively normal, whereas to slaves they have no feelings.
The concept of social narcissism frees us from over-emphasizing the importance of personal characteristics of potential leaders. Bush's stupidity, Palin's bimbitude, Obama's cold intelligence, Cheney's malevolence, the superficial charm of the two Clintons are used in different ways in the service of a social system. (I really did think that having someone of intelligence would make SOME difference in the level of rationality in choices he would make. I was so wrong about that.)
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The only problem I can see to this, Joe, is that it says class is prior to person, and seems to leave room for neither those outside the class who behave psychopathically nor those inside who don't. Am I misreading?
Some years back a newspaper empire in Kentucky changed hands, and one of those who got a big payday was a woman, a granddaughter of the founder, who promptly used her millions to set up a pro-social foundation dedicated to political consciousness-raising.
Economically she was very much in the class you're talking about, but not politically. Politically she glowed in the dark, remarking that we have to tell ourselves that the rich are different to us and better, because if we accepted the truth we'd have to start another revolution immediately in order to keep our self-respect.
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Personal characteristics of our leaders hardly hardly matter unless they are going to oppose the juggernaut of the military and corporate interests.
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Can't argue with that, except that those personal characteristics are *why* they never oppose etc.
"The only problem I can see to this, Joe, is that it says class is prior to person, and seems to leave room for neither those outside the class who behave psychopathically nor those inside who don't."
Good point you raise. What I was trying to say is that in a very individualistic society we usually locate a psychological pathology within an individual rather than within a group. I believe that sometimes the individual starts out as a normal empathic person, but may end up acting out the narcissism of his or her group. If you worked on Wall Street as I did for a while (thank goodness in an out of the spotlight tech position), you could see that the culture rewarded and promoted sociopathy. So even those not terribly inclined in that direction based on temperament and family upbringing were often pushed to adapt to the "me-me-me, cover up my mistakes and stab everyone else in the back" modus operandi just to survive.
Sometimes the opposite is true. A individual nut like a patriotic fanatic, for instance, is bound to spring up from time to time. In a healthy social system, he would be tolerated like the annoying uncle you see only at Thanksgiving. But if there is a social psychology already present that has narcissistic ideas of national superiority, then the individual nut can flourish.
The group explanation also helps me to understand that by the time a person gets to where he or she can run for President in mainstream politics, even if he did not start out as a sociopath, he has probably adapted so often to the inner circle power group that it has become a part of his or her personality. It helps to avoid false hopes, to which I also have fallen prey - the idea that someone who is simply more intelligent than Bush HAD to do a better job, HAD to avoid his depths of stupidity. This turns out not to be the case, as the intelligence can be turned by the high status group towards manipulating people more than toward solving problems.
Joe
I hate to say this, but the concept of "shame" essentially disappeared from this country as a whole some time ago .....
As did the concept of democracy.
Joe
Great article. Rewind to the election when those who were advocating for Nader or Mckinney were getting trashed by the Obamabots. Barak never met a corporation he did not pay homage to. He placed drilling on the shelve a few days back (and forty days after the spill) for six months but refused to rescind or to ban drilling on the Eastern seaboard in the future. Turns out us Nader and McKinney voters had it right all along. Obama is no environmentalist but he wraps himself in the rhetoric of environmental sustainability. He purports the illusion that environmental sustainability is compatible with corporate greed. He says we can have both. Well, it takes just one event like this to remind us otherwise.
Obama does not mean any of it. It is a clever marketing schema. Pay lip service to the left, all the while moving to the right. Show up for a photo op bending on the beach and scooping oil clots like it actually means anything to the actor. Get use to living under the hegemony of a kakistocracy folks. Yes, that wonderful lie known as 'change we can believe in.' More like, the more things change the more they stay the same.
"Turns out us Nader and McKinney voters had it right all along."
Yup, we certainly did, didn't we? And the time before that, and the time before that .....
I read this last night and left the link on a couple of other articles. I had difficulty reading through the last couple of essays by Green, but this one I read completely. My guess is that he's finally figured out that Obama is not going to become the "fictional" Obama. I don't think that was the purpose of this essay at this point and the title is simply sarcasm. Maybe others will read it differently. The pattern is set.
He could have gone even further, but maybe he'll do that next time around. I read this morning that the financial reform bill is 3,000 that will not do much to really change things. By the time it's ready to be signed maybe it will be 4,000 pages -- who knows -- and Obama is sure to sign it, or course. Glass-Stegall, I've read, was a whopping 34 pages -- and it worked. The Medicare for All bill is substantially under 100 pages -- and anyone with half brain could read it and understand it. The pattern is set -- every piece of "sweeping" legislation will be thousands of pages of pure BS that won't do much to change anything for the good of the people -- except maybe a couple of crumbs, hyped up by Obama (after the great signing ceremony) on yet another speaking tour (to convince Americans this is great stuff -- although if it was great stuff Americans wouldn't have to be sold on it, they would be solidly behind it) to play the tidbits up as a real big deal.
We are in deep s@%t -- getting deeper everybody. I'm not even surprised by Obama's version of "My Pet Goat" inaction on this oil "spill" -- not one iota of surprise. That he still calls it a "spill" speaks volumes.
Once the oyster beds throughout the Gulf are totally polluted, Obama will tell us that is a good thing, because eating raw shell fish is bad for our health.
Good Grief.
"hyped up by Obama" and the corporate media as "sweeping progressive" legislation. I can just hear NPR and Cokey Roberts droning as much.
HR 676, "Medicare for All" is 18 pages long .....`
No wonder they didn't allow it on the floor .....
I agree, I can't wait for Green to be gone, at least from some so-called progressive sites. We learn now that Chief Ganagster Rahm put Clinton on Sestak, I suspect because Obummer needs all the support he can get to eviscerate social security, among other items on the financial lobby's wish list. Anyone with their eyes wide open should have expected this sleazy, degenerative behavior from the other half of the ruling class. who appear to be making sure key Bush proposed legislation is sustained and expanded.
Hey, Green has gone from a fawning lover of Obama to writing Satire about him. If Norm Soloman and a few notables join Green, we can see real progress.
Give him his due.
This is a nice contemporary outline of the parallels between the former and the current administrations, one which is not news to CD readers, but a little heavy sarcasm comes in handy sometimes. I had a feeling it wasn't about being weak and wishy-washy but is a succession of bald-faced lies.
The government at the highest levels is untrustworthy and ineffective so here we are, paying for everything and then if we want something done, we have to do it ourselves.
The BP 'industry experts' are failing miserably to deal with the Gulf Gusher so isn't it obvious we need independent outside experts who have no hidden agenda, just honest views of our options and the ability to tell the truth?
Here's a bit that goes a long way in explaining Obama and the entire American political dog and pony show. It's by Paul Street:
"NOT BUSH": THE SELLING OF THE PRESIDENT
It worked, to say the least. As mainstream journalist Ryan Lizza recently noted in an interesting New Yorker reflection on "How Obama Won," Obama's media and campaign managers took the "tactical view" that "all that was wrong with the United States could be summarized in one word: Bush." Further:
"The clear alternative, then, was not so much a Democrat or a liberal as it was anyone who could credibly define himself as ‘not Bush.' [Obama's legendary media strategist David] Axelrod had a phrase he often used to describe this approach: America was looking for ‘the remedy, not the replica.' The appeal of this strategy was that, with only minor alterations, it could work in the primaries as well as in the general election, and that, in turn, allowed Obama to finesse the perpetual problem of Presidential politics: having one message to win over the a party's most ardent supporters and another when trying to capture independents and ‘up-for-grabs' voters - the voters who decide a general election."
The key to success is deception and mushiness through mass marketing. Obama's media strategist David Axelrod and Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe performed masterfully well in blazing this path to victory.
The most genuinely accurate thing Obama said in his highly nationalist and propagandistic November 4th acceptance speech was that he owed his victory to Axelrod, Plouffe, and the rest of his top campaign staff. "You made this happen," Obama rightly told them, "and I am forever grateful."
Obama's handlers sold him as a "new" brand. They brilliantly advertised him as the "not Bush" just like Pepsi once expanded as the "not Coke" or like Burger King was once the up-and-coming "not McDonald's." They did it with the latest and best selling techniques.
"The 2008 Obama presidential run," noted Bruce Dixon in February of 2008,"may be the most slickly orchestrated marketing machine in history." According to the campaign's financial report to the Federal Election Commission. Obama had by then spent $52 million on "media, strategy consultants, image-building, marketing research and telemarketing." As Pam Martens noted in early March of 2008:
"The money has gone to firms like GMMB, whose website says its "goal is to change minds and change hearts, win in the court of public opinion and win votes" using ‘the power of branding - with principles rooted in commercial marketing,' and Elevation Ltd., which targets the Hispanic population and has ‘a combined experience well over 50 years in developing and implementing advertising and marketing solutions for Fortune 500 companies, political candidates, government agencies.' Their client list includes the Department of Homeland Security. There's also the Birmingham, Alabama- based Parker Group which promises: ‘Valid research results are assured given our extensive experience with testing, scripting, skip logic, question rotation and quota control ... In-house list management and maintenance services encompass sophisticated geo-coding, mapping and scrubbing applications.' Is it any wonder America's brains are scrambled?"
Besides contracting with sophisticated big client corporate marketing firms like GMMB and the Parker Group, the Obama operation grew its own considerable internal, sophisticated, and vertically integrated mass market research and sales capacities for identifying and seducing political consumers (voters) susceptible to "brand Obama." When ABC News anchorman Charles Gibson visited Obama's sprawling Chicago office seven days before the Ohio and Texas primaries, he observed the quiet hum of a corporate sales office. "The tone of the campaign headquarters," Gibson noted, was "strikingly serene." He observed "33,000 square feet of downtown Chicago office space and no one is sure exactly how many staff....The 20-somethings in the New Media department," Gibson said, "are responsible for everything from designing merchandise sold on the Web site to blogging to unloading videos and managing chat rooms." By Gibson's account, "the money flows through the computers, a steady infusion of cash in $10, $25, and $50 dollars. Obama's media maven Axlerod told Gibson, "It's strange that a computer terminal can make politics more intimate, but that's what happened."
In Dixon's judgment, however, the Obama campaign's massive investment in selling their candidate was "not a good thing. Marketing," Dixon noted, "is not even distantly related to democracy or civil empowerment. Marketing is about creating emotional, even irrational bonds between your product and your target audience."
It's nothing new. Astute commentators since at least the Progressive Age (1890-1914) have noted that campaigns market U.S. candidates like they sell cars, candy, and toothpaste.
But as Lizza suggests, the problem has origins prior to the corporate and mass consumerist age. "By 1840," distinguished American historian Eric Foner has noted, "the mass democratic politics of the Age of Jackson had absorbed the logic of the marketplace. Selling candidates and their images was as important as the positions for which they stood."
The two-party political system that emerged from the U.S. Republic's blueprint does not encourage the development of parties with clear ideological and policy differences or strong relationships between voter choices and citizens' actual positions on key policy issues. It leads rival candidates to blur their policy and ideological distinctions in the quest to win those all-important voters in the middle, focusing instead on personal qualities rather than hard policy and ideological differences.
This harsh reality, combined with the almost complete absence of serious left political choices and furthered by the corporate and visual-imaginary takeover of much of the U.S. electoral process in the 20th century, goes a long way towards explaining why substantive policy issues tend to be badly downplayed in U.S. campaigns. It also explains much of the desperation and myopia that leads many ostensibly progressive voters and activists to back corporate-imperial candidates guaranteed to betray populist and peaceful promises "upon the assumption of power."
...
"Brand Obama," "Brand Usa," And "The Audacity Of Marketing": Some Candid Reflections at Advertising Age
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/19692
Thanks for the article. It is a must reading to understand the Obama Brand, where it came from and, possibly, where it is going.
If I'm not mistaken, the National Advertising Assoc. awarded the Obama campaign " The Best Advertising Campaign of the Year", beating out folks like Coca Cola and others. (No joke)
Dear Professor Green,
Thank you for your utterly brilliant article on the corporate Obama Administration. Unfortunately, many progressives, many liberals and many middle-of-the-road Democrats are still floating down the River Denial about how corporate Pres. Obama really is...
Pres. Obama has escalated US imperialism with new aggression in Afghanistan and Pakistan. At home, he has corporatized the so-called "health care reform" by forcing some thirty million Americans to purchased "insurance" from virtually unregulated private insurance companies. Pres. Obama is still spying on all Americans... And so on...
peacekeepertwo : Then you have the illusion that Democrates have majorities In the House, and Senate. When you count the bluedoges, with those who admitt they are Republicans the Majority disappears. If the Democrats had a real majority Obama Could the people in Wants in his Administration.
Horsesh*t, stop making excuses for Democrats. These so-called Bluedogs are the essence and soul of the party, you make it sound they're in the minority. 90% of Democrats are owned and operated by the banks, makers of bombs, oil companies and health insurers. There's absolutely no hope for this criminal entity known as the Democratic Party.
Only 90% are owned by the corporations? Your figure is too low. There sure as hell ain't no 10% that care about us. Democraps are 100% bought and paid for--and they sell us out pretty cheap.
Actually, I understand that it was Emmanuel and others of the DLC ilk that helped blue dogs beat progressives in Dem primaries .......
Aquifer, you are exactly right!
Aquifer, you are exactly right!
Great article!
A revised version of the same old story:
The Democrats are the piss that "sets" the cloth
The Romans built dye shops with vats outside that served as free public toilets. Not only did they act as your basic "rest area" for passersby, but the urine was used to "set" cloth that had been recently dyed - the same way that vinegar is sometimes used today with natural dyes.
So too the Democratic Party. Since FDR, the move of the Democratic Party toward Social Democracy was stillborn; a casualty of McCarthyism which was as much a Democratic Party invention as it was anyone else's. The old coalition, such as it was, essentially fell apart under Kennedy and LBJ. Since Nixon, the "modern" form of the two party system has emerged.
Each Republican president dyes the political fabric a deeper shade of reactionary brown, and each succeeding Democratic president pisses on the new shade to set the color. Thus with Carter, Clinton, and now, Obama.
All of it is maintained through the ambiguity of middle-classdom and the rest, but people can be forgiven for thinking that the shirts are increasingly brown, all talk not withstanding, and that the whole scheme reeks of piss.
Of course the Romans used various scents to mask the process. Our assholes call it the smell of success and don't even bother with perfumes.
And so it goes until the HomeLanders wake from their dull torpor and scream Basta! in the streets of every town.
Brilliant metaphor!!
Obama will not change, and certainly not step down -- he knows about insurance and is just Biden his time there.
Enjoyable satire. Thanks.
BTW, impeach Bush, now.
Reality Check.
Fellow Americans. You don't have to worry about some foreign form of terrorism harming your way of life. Hell no! Your own corporations, Wall Street Bankers and ruling political elites are going to fuck you to death long before any foreign enemy could. And you know what? Your gonna sit there and take it. Left, Right and Center your gonna take it because your nothing more than whimpering cowards so ignorant that you can't tell which foot kicked you in the head. Until there is a price paid by these corporate terrorist it will be business as usual. Why? Because they can get away with it with no consequences what so ever. Why the fuck not steal everything you can? Nobody is going to do anything about it. Laws only apply to some asshole at the bottom that steals from the local food mart. If your a Wall Street Banker and you steal enough to collapse the whole world economy we don't prosecute. Hell no we bail you out with taxpayer money. A corporation can literally kill everything in the gulf, perhaps in perpetuity guess who is going to pay for it?
If we don't get these corrupt corporations along with their corrupt employees... politicians, political appointees, judicial appointees and their enforcement arm (the military) under control most certainly all life on earth will be destroyed.
The ultimate blame lies with Obama, not BP, and it’s not much use to direct rage at a corporation that is doing what all corporations do: jockeying for competitive advantage. Competitive advantage includes breaking the law, if regulators have made it clear that there will be no legal consequences.
The ultimate remedy for high crimes committed by POTUS is impeachment, but high crimes are whatever Congress says they are, and if U.S. politicians allow POTUS to murder U.S. citizens with impunity, why would they get upset when Obama murders the Gulf of Mexico?
Most U.S. voters, the real villains in this farcical vaudeville play being acted out on our political stage, will continue to watch FOX news and vote accordingly, not only because they’ve become intellectually lazy and decadent, but also because they secretly approve of this murder of the environment if it will provide cheap gasoline for their SUVs.
This Bush Clone is scarier....Anyone who has the nerve to make an "Assassination List" as if he were a Mafia Don and garner praise from the Right and Silence from the Left.
Every Drone Attack is "Murder Incorporated"! Who decides that they are targetting Taliban, Insurgents, or Militants? It looks like a group of kids trained to watch their video screen in a Nevada Air Force Base. Just knowing that makes me sick! Those kids have no sense of guilt when they murder unarmed civilians....and, Obama could care less about killing women or children.......But worse, Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski believe "Their New World Order" is close to fruition maybe just one more War with Iran as the target and "They" will have "The Solution".....
The United States does not have a President running the country....There is a group of connected organizations and leaders: The Council on Foreign Relations, Tri-Lateral Commission, and Bilderberg Club.....Bill Clinton is Bilderberg Club and Council on Foreign Relations...Henry Kissinger all three and Zbigniew all three.....If you count "Skull and Bones",then you have a totally secret organization that its members show allegiance to one another and could care less about the United States..."Evil" has been their game and some members are: John Kerry, George H Bush, George W. Bush et al....
No, Obama is the Charismatic Leader that "The Power Elite" chose to lead the People of the United States into the next "False Flag Event", "Solution", and "Their New World Order"! Newt Gingrich is not too far from the truth. He just missed naming the power behind Obama.
I think we are all so screwed and F-ed at this point as things seem to be getting worse and worse as these scum politicians keep throwing more and more oppressive ecomomic measures at the people and we have not seen the worst of the economic repression, austerity-style they have in store for this entire nation.
This nation will come apart just like what happened in Greece when they cut out pensions, social security and jobs become scarcer and scarcer.
Corporations and the wealthy run this country as is so evident now.
Yes, there is a class war going and raging on and it starts at the top and it's the people at the top who wage it against the masses of the people. The wealthy have their flacks in the media to deny that a class war is taking place but the truth of the matter is that this class war never stopped and will not ever stop, either. The media are not only the lapdogs for the likes of Bush and Obama and defenders of the corporate interest--the media is part of the corporate ladder. Yes, the media has the same interests as the oil companies and promoting class warfare at the same time denying it exists. The media are as evil as BP and the politicians and economic "experts" who want to pass along IMF-austerity measures, on the American people.
Sunday Talk Shows suck....they are a waste of time and do not do any justice for what happened with this awful oil spill at the hands of that criminal Tony Hayward. In a just society, Tony Hayward would be in jail right now after having his rights read to him.
It's okay for an illegal citizen like Tony Hayward to come to America and f--k up the country with his oil company and everyone is fine with that jerk from BP. Allow some Mexicans into America to do honest labor and the race police are out in full gear.
Why not arrest Tony Hayward of BP and put him into the dungeron he so deserves to be?
If you want to listen to a good radio show on Sunday--listen to Bob McChesney out of Chicago. He does a show you can access on the Internet at 2:00 p.m CST each Sunday and they actually talk about real issues.
I will bet Hilary Clinton is on deck.
No, i think Hillary deep sixed herself when she decided to be Obama's lap dog in State. Frankly, I was surprised she took the position, instead of staying in the Senate where she could have staked herself out as a potential challenger. I think she thought it was a foregone conclusion that Obama would be so popular inside his own party that a challenge from within in '12 would be political suicide, and by '16, she'd be getting a bit long in the tooth. Wonder if she regrets her decision, especially if someone like Palin gets the Rep. nod in '12 ....
I'm sure the next 'savior' has been choosen. Just like Clinton and Obama were choosen as teenagers, the next is in training now. She (I think the next Messiah will be a woman) is being taught public speaking and obedience to directions of her handlers. Her dressing style in being planned and her background is being prepared. Just like they got us to believe that Clinton, with his drunken absent father, would look like he might understand the working class, and Obama's skin color and upper class speach patterns convinced us that he was a person for hope and change; this woman will satisfy our longing for a change in our priorities. She will speak of the importance of family and education but her administration will continue to cut social programs to keep the rate of profits for the corporations intact as our nation crumbles into bankruptcy.
There is a very slight chance that we can avoid this continuing down turn in the civil rights and the economic downspin for the working class. Maybe the endless wars can end ---but it requires that you smarten up a bit. You have to be able to realize that we been had by the two party system, which is not a two party system at all. We have the Democrats and the Republicans acting like they are adversaries and that they really want to make things better in our nation. That's true. They do want to make things better for one group in our nation---the very, very rich people who fund both of the two major political parties. Until you can see that this is a true account of our government today, (we have the best government money can buy) we are doomed. You heed all the lying hype of the campaign season and carefully choose which party you think is the lesser evil and the evil will continue unabated, as smooth as the transition from the Bush II administration morphing into the Obama administration. Same ideas, same purpose and same result--the working people get screwed with ease.
Up to you folks. Gonna get any smarter? or shall we just prepare for the hard times ahead? I think it is not a good idea to vote for either a Democrate or a Republican. You see the result of bipartisanship, don't you? It's pretty bad. Both are bad. Both don't care one smidgen for you and your plight.
The first paragraph describing her matches Sarah Palin unless I am mistaken.