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Yes, Obama Is 'Engaged' – in a Colossal Crime
In a rational polity, the great abomination to Earth and Man in the Gulf would spell the end of the Obama presidency. We are witnessing cataclysm on a geological scale, an event with the potential to alter planetary destiny, precipitated not by the three hundred million year arc of wayward comets or the incremental slide of continent-molding tectonic plates, but by the routine exercise of corporate power in the United States.
The man in charge of the government that both permitted and abetted the heinous corporate crime ("Drill, baby, drill!") should, by all rights, be in terminal disgrace. Instead, much of Obama's "base" behaves as if the First Black President is an innocent party -- a victim of circumstances -- rather than a facilitator of the corporate enterprise that has spawned the Mother of all Pollutions. But then, Teflon is a petrochemical product.
Any meaningful discussion of the oceanic version of Chernobyl would challenge a political system in which huge corporations are empowered to seek profits with absolutely no regard for the consequences to Earth or Man. Viewed from that angle -- the only sane perspective -- questions of whether Obama is fully or only partially "engaged" are ludicrously ill-framed. Engaged in what, in subduing and caging the corporate animals that are defecating in humanity's only nest? Clearly not: BP is the operative government in the Gulf, with the Coast Guard as its muscle. BP is also the surgeon in charge of mending the Earth's wound and preventing the spread of septicemia in its life-sustaining fluids - the equivalent of Jack The Ripper tending to his own victims. Under such circumstances, the more Obama assures us he is "engaged," the greater his confessed complicity in the crime.
For purposes of assigning culpability, Obama was fully engaged in setting the stage for the atrocity from the moment of his campaign reversal on off-shore drilling in August, 2008 -- after he had the nomination locked up. "My interest is in making sure we've got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices," said candidate Obama. "If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well-thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage -- I don't want to be so rigid that we can't get something done." So Obama bent over like a contortionist to pleasure the oil barons.
The full scope of Obama's "compromise" was announced almost two years later, on March 31. The White House gave Big Oil virtually everything it wanted that was politically possible, with no protections for the public or Mother Earth in the form of a "well-thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage."
"The federal government is fully engaged and I am fully engaged," said Obama, last week. OK, we'll accept that he has been engaged in furthering the oil industry's plans to drill at depths at which current technology makes mistakes irreparable -- as the damage from the current ecological holocaust is already irreparable.
Obama has been engaged in killing the planet, in concert with his corporate co-conspirators. He did nothing more than cosmetic changes at the federal Minerals Management Service, which Obama finally admitted, at last week's press conference, "had been plagued by corruption for years" and had a "scandalously close relationship" with Big Oil.
The unbroken chain of "corruption" at the agency in both Bush and Obama administrations is one small expression of the continuity of actual rule of the country by sometimes feuding cousins in Big Oil and Wall Street and the Military Industrial Complex -- the permanent government. Obama is "engaged" as their servant, like his predecessors in the Oval Office.
The corporate cousins have raised the stakes of the game. It's either them or Earth itself. When history passes its verdict on the current era, she will not assign much import to the advent of the First Black President of the United States. Rather, history will mark 2010 as the year a servile political operative in the White House exposed the seabed to deep defilement by the oil colossus, from which the world never fully recovered.
87 Comments so far
Show AllFrom what I understand, the US has about 2% of the world's known oil reserves. The US consumes about 25% of the world's oil... So, no matter how many holes get punched into the rocks, there isn't enough readily available crude oil anyway. The US will always depend on the accursed foreign oil producers. Efforts over the last 40 years, to conserve, to re-engineer the auto industry, to provide other means of producing energy, have all been turned back by the auto and energy industries. With government help. Which version of the future would you prefer? Mad Max? Soylent Green? Logan's Run? Blade Runner? Cherry 2000? Star Trek ain't likely to happen.
Yeah, well even Star Trek is set in the distant future. The Star Trek story line for our more immediate future is every bit as dystopian as those other movies.
I pray that this will be a catalyst for the sort of awakening of consciousness that will get us started in a direction of a more reality-based view of the world and how we, as a species, are going to live in it. I am not talking about naive "clean energy" utopians who think we can simply replace our existing grid with "solar and wind" and keep on trecking like nothing ever happened. Anybody with basic scientific education understands that our current energy consumption is unsustainable in any future.
It won't take technology to save humanity--there is no hope for that. It will take a more engaged, compassion-based intelligence, using whatever technology is practical, for the greater good of all. I can understand why cynics scoff at this possibility. I refuse to scoff at it myself. I have to believe it can happen, though I can't say I know how it will happen or think it will be painless or easy.
Briggs Seekins
briggsseekins.wordpress.com
As long as Obamabots continue to be as faith-based (and not demanding of accountabilty) as the Dubyabots were (and are), Obama will keep institutionalizing the crimes that Dubya and his predecessors pioneered.
While the author mentions Obama announcing his goal to lower gas prices in August 2008, the bigger story at that time was that the $4.50 per gallon gas prices had little to do with petroleum supply and everything to do with Ben Bernanke's September 2007 interest rate cuts that gave the banksters free money to drive the price of commodities (primarily food and energy) way up. Bernanke's actions triggered the 2008 financial industry meltdown yet Obama and most Senate Democrats zealously supported Bernanke's reconfirmation in January 2010, thereby assuring that Bernanke will provide corporations more opportunities to further game the system at our expense.
As long as the Democratic Party's mission continues to be limited to getting more corporate money than the Republicans get, nothing will change.
Sioux Rose
Pithy post. I vote for "Soylent Green" crossed with "The Postman." There's always the Kevin Costner "Water World," too. And don't forget Terry Gilliam's "Brazil."
Lol.. Cherry 2000?
"Keep the sun out of your eyes, and be yourselves."
In Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek story, we had a global nuclear war in the 21st century. THEN the United Federation of Planets evolved. Let's skip that global nuclear war step towards Roddenberry's vision of a world beyond capitalism with no poverty.
Obama IS the anti-Christ! At least so the writer would have us believe. Realistically, he does not have the power to change the behavior of international corporate behavior. The Gulf spill occurred with a matrix of past and present decisions made collectively by the American people through elections they have participated in and individually by a host of persons: Clinton, Bush II, CEO's from energy companies, legislators, and, of course, the POTUS. Obama did not place us in this position by himself and he cannot with a snap of his fingers change things. Of course, he could take measures that would begin to alleviate the problem; he could ban drilling and mean it; he could take energy companies to court; he could require them to research ways to avoid catastrophes and make them deploy equipment and personnel whenever circumstances demand that deployment; he could appoint those with values favoring the environment to key governmental positions. He has done none of these things. But insisting he has the power to change the tragic trajectory this country has launched itself on is unfair. It is a pervasive attitude of disregard for the environment we must fight--that with its political ramifications--and not a weak-kneed president who wishes to please everyone.
I would agree with you if Obama was really taking "baby steps forward" toward solving the problems he inherited.
Unfortunately, Obama has taken big steps backward with EVERY issue, for example:
1) economic stimulus (tax cuts over infrastructure)
2) health care (further empowering the drug and insurance corporations that caused the problems)
3) banksters (bailing out the people who caused the problems)
4) energy (subsidizing fossil fuel and nuclear while shutting down the only nuclear waste disposal venue)
He is in a better position than anybody else on the planet to change the tragectory of this nation. And he is doing nothing to accomplish that. So he deserves every ounce of scorn that is heaped upon him. Any qualifications, such as these, constitute mealy-mouthed liberalism.
Briggs Seekins
briggsseekins.wordpress.com
Sioux Rose
DROSERA: The very examples you raise defeat your opening thesis. He indeed DID have the power to invoke ANY one of the corrective actions you identified. The mere insisting on sensible regulations--and this applies not only to the oil (in the Gulf) crisis, could have made a HUGE difference. Deregulation mania is to free trade the image and likeness of addict set loose in a hospital pharmacy.
How much authority does Obama have to re-regulate corporations? Certainly the Executive Branch can make changes in the ways EPA and other agencies do their jobs, but much deregulation occurred as a result of bills passed by Congress (and signed by Clinton, Bush I and II, and Reagan). Obama can't undo all that by executive fiat. I've read many people here scapegoating the president, and while I hate his waffling, his two-facedness, his under-the-table support for corporate-friendly legislation, he is hardly the creator of the nauseous mess we are in. He is not Adolf Hitler, but just a somewhat ordinary guy who used his ready smile, his easy-going manner, his minority status, and his propensity to travel with the Big Guys to get the top job in the nation. What he lacks is vision and a passion to communicate that vision--and those things could get him far, even if he can't undo the effects of thirty years of misgovernance. I will stand with you to condemn him for those deficiencies, but I cannot condemn him for committing "colossal crimes," as the author does.
Sioux Rose
DROSERA: I realize the prez is not "Superman" and therefore that he is not an entirely one man show; however, look at his choice of associates, assistants and enablers? Every one is an insider, a consummate Yes-person to the establishment. Whether it was the matter of regulating deep sea oil rig operations, or reforming the banks (hello, Glass-Steagall), making health CARE an available item for citizens (as opposed to mandatory insurance purchased at equivalent legal gun point) or reducing military expenditures. This guy has been a willing WHORE for every special interest, and the level of my evident disrespect emerges because this was hardly the time for a president to conduct corrupt "business as usual." The nation was reeling from a war based on false pretexts, a collapsing REAL economy (added to its bogus Wall St twin), a ridiculously retrograde set of energy policies, and the retroactive immunity granted to authorites who had overstepped their bounds in things like spying on citizens, not to mention nonsensical court rulings that blocked the fundamental rights any prisoner (or citizen) had earned centuries ago. This was not the time to play TO the corrupt interests, while offering the naked semblance of a tap dance that implied that our CEO of Brand America really wanted other, what might be beneficial to citizens (as opposed to his corporate sponsors).
As a scientist, I'd fully expect you to note the abundant evidence and decide accordingly. Clearly NO slack is deserved as a scathing judgment of this individual at this time in America's wounded history is more than valid.
What do you do if you are an ordinary guy facing huge problems? You play it safe--you hire the guys with influence and money and you keep your fingers crossed. I agree that the most egregious atrocity the president committed was not taking risks when risks needed to be taken. It all makes me think that leadership is a rare quality, even more rare in our form of government, a system that rewards tradition and cowardice if not downright incompetence. You look at all the presidents from Washington to the present and you have a very average group of men--and, of course, they were all men. Just average. Obama fits in very well with the group--and that makes him neither scoundrel nor whore to every special interest.
"What do you do if you are an ordinary guy facing huge problems? You play it safe--you hire the guys with influence and money and you keep your fingers crossed."
This is the self-defeatist thinking that makes this nation the butt of all jokes. First, notice how you take an individualist approach with exception of looking after people with money. In other nations, ordinary people do not allow money to hold them back. They get together and take to the streets. In return, the governments do some listening because they know that in addition to protests that voters are very sensitive about corruption and bribery. Yes, it goes on in every nation but because people there still believe that pols have a responsibility to represent their people, the least they will do is try. They will give some and then some representation but it sure beats pols lying and cheating. Perhaps reasonable compromising used to be the norm but after 1980, there were noticeable declines and after 2000, it was obvious that "compromise" was defined as conceding.
"You look at all the presidents from Washington to the present and you have a very average group of men--and, of course, they were all men. Just average."
I strongly disagree that all of them were "just average". Beginning in 1960, it was obvious that each president came to power in terms of charm such as JFK, Clinton, or Barry or in terms of macho and roughness such as Nixon, Ronnie, and Dubya. Carter was an accident though better than most of today's Democrats.
"Obama fits in very well with the group--and that makes him neither scoundrel nor whore to every special interest."
Oh, so now you are implying that average man would say "yes" to bailing out Wall $treet, yes to upping the military spending to help their crony military corporations and leaving the troops to take the blame, and that all average men and women play kissyface to the elites? Most voters may get duped into voting for weasels in both parties but principally they would never do what most pols in Washington shamelessly do against the working class. I have living proof that not all men are the same. For example, my dad may be a conservative but he would never pull a Dubya or Barry shamelessly and dishonestly so.
My point about presidents as "average men" has to do with the nature of our "democratic" system: candidates for office must convince special interests that they will help them whenever possible--or at least not harm them. That makes for weak policy and weak appointments to federal offices. In recent years the control of the media by corporate interests has made it worse.
Our presidents being on the whole average: I did not mean average in terms of personal characteristics like charm or aggressiveness, but average in terms of possessing vision and communicating that vision to the people. Also, of course, presidents must have that characteristic that underlies all ethical behavior: honesty, a characteristic sore in need by average people. Save FDR, I can't think of presidents that had a vision for society and a passion for bringing it about. Certainly most were dishonest to one degree or another. The early presidents--up to Madison--were in a separate class by themselves since they represented aristocratic views of the Founders and were not truly "of the people."
This president does not wish to rock the boat. Change does that. It is easier for him to effect "pretend-change"--change which seems on the surface to represent a break with the past but in fact is just a continuation of what we have been doing. His healthcare plan is exactly that. Voters are not happy with what pols are doing because they can see through this "pretend" game--I agree with you about that.
Drosera, thank you for clarifying and I apologize for misunderstanding what you wrote earlier. No hard feelings. :)
Well, you might throw Lincoln in there with FDR.
But the point is that Obama did not run as an average Joe, he ran as a cut above. He knew the enormous expectations people had of him, deserved or not, and while he occasionally disavowed them, he continued to allow, and to feed, his image as one of transcendence. He was "above the partisan fray", "against the influence of the special interests" and promised "change" when he knew he had no intention of changing anything, other than the color of the guy in the White House. There were (are) no lack of experts in many fields he could have appointed who had (have) much better, more progressive ideas, proposals and plans for straightening things out and he deliberately stuck with the schmucks who were the architects of the mess he "inherited", the ones chosen by his major benefactors who had donated only after they had vetted him quite thoroughly. He has perpetuated the same type of thinking that has proven so costly and against which he ostensibly ran. I think he is quite upset that the predictions about the historically compliant American people his advisors plied him with, under which he could conduct business as usual with little fuss, haven't quite worked out that way. His ego, or his naivete, fed by these guys, led him to believe he could easily smooth things out with a wave of his magic charismatic wand and a few "eloquent" speeches.
Your description of him as "average" is, unfortunately, true, but also an indictment against him. This country needs more than "average", and that is what he indicated he was. But the "vision" he communicated was always empty of substance, and easily photoshopped to suit the occasion. It is entirely fair, nay, necessary, to judge him against the image he so carefully portrayed.
To accept that "candidates for office must convince special interests that they will help them whenever possible--or at least not harm them", while telling us they won't, is to perpetuate the cynicism that is the biggest enemy of "change" ....
drosera,
yes, thank you for clarifying. But questions remain. FDR (last name almost synonymous with wealth and power for a century) was also a member of the ruling class, and was not exceptionally honest.
What do I do? Or what do centrist-right corporatists do? I would tell the truth, appoint people who would pursue the alternatives and change I talked about truthfully, people who knew what they were doing and had contacts and concepts not part of the establishment who caused and cause the problem. Revolutionaries. Independent, intelligent, clear thinkers of integrity. Exactly the opposite of the ongoing Bush's-third-term appointees.
I'm not sure what you mean by average. Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, FDR were not average. Bush the Lesser was not average. Only on average are they average and that pretty much follows by definition.
Maybe you mean mediocre, and I can agree with you on Polk, Harrison, Millard Fillmore, Bush the Incomprehensible, and many others. Bush TL was egregious, he couldn't be called anything close to mediocre. Below average in most ways except wealth and contacts.
Maybe you mean faceless. Fillmore, Bushes and others were selected as the average-SEEMING type to front for corporate power whether that was railroads or oil, insurance and military corps.
Maybe you mean forgettable. But we can't afford to forget any of them; they hide too much we have to pay attention to now if we want civilization to survive the 21st century.
Excellent observations ....
And, my dear Sioux Rose, who would you have us believe could have and would have done any better than Obama has done? I am disappointed in this man, but to have McCain and Palin dancing their way through these messes would have been the final disaster to this nation.
Perhaps you would agree with me that the media put these people into power by refusing to give time in the debates to the people who WERE QUALIFIED to lead us. We, the people got royally screwed by not receiving the benefit of the ones who were really qualified.
What is done is done. But the public should beware of the liniment salesmen and the over-greedy media. We have been a bunch of suckers, and as they say, screw me once shame on you. Screw me twice, shame on me.
As if McCain and Palin were the only other choices ...
"refusing to give time in the debates to the people who WERE QUALIFIED to lead us." And none of the other candidates insisted on those qualified folks' right to be included, now did they?
The people royally screwed themselves when they failed to check out those other folks and allowed the media to decide for them. Those folks were around long enough and were accessible enough that people could have "received the benefit" outside of the MSM debates.
Yes, we have been a bunch of suckers, haven't we, will we be so again?
Hear, hear, Aquifer!
Dennis Kucinich was frog-marched out of presidential debates and media coverage in 2008, and denied a fair chance by the corporate owners, but that was done within full sight of everyone who was paying the slightest bit of attention and only a vanishingly small % of people cared enough to do ANYTHING. I canvassed for him in New Hampshire for the primary, and the most common response I got was some version of this: "I really like your guy, but he can't win. So I'm voting for _______"(fill in the blank). If my districts were any indication of the state, and if all the people who said that had voted for the person they actually wanted, he would have won, or at least been neck and neck with the corporate shill candidates, and could then maybe have gotten enough coverage to allow people to hear his intelligent solutions. If people demand certain news from the media they will get it, whether that's celebrity breakups, fires and murders, or intelligent, complete reporting on actual events important to our lives.
After Kucinich dropped out I supported the Green Party candidate, Cynthia McKinney, and was not surprised to find her getting only a tiny % of KUCINICH'S coverage. If the public wants change, they have to stop doing the same things over and over, and supporting the same parties and policies over and over.
Neither hope nor hopelessness nor certainty serve us in any way. I think. We have to become people of integrity--that is, people whose thoughts and feelings are in accord with each other, and then act in accord with our integrity without being attached to the results. Each of us has to become a better Buddhist (at the same time we become a better agnostic, Christian, Jew, Moslem, Pagan, Hindu, Seek [sic] and Taoist.)
A "matrix of past and present decisions" is certainly an apt description. If you want to look at the climate of deregulation that Obama walked into go back 30 years, at least, to Reagan. But you also can't ignore the most important component of that matrix which is the American people themselves and their insatiable appetite for fossil fuels. It's not constructive to simply blame our leadership and not take personal responsibility. That's as cheap as the gas we put in our tanks. Like it or not, they give us what WE ask for. If you want someone to blame it's best to ask 'What do we drive?' and look first in your own driveway. Yes, we need good leadership to make it happen, but what we really need is for gasoline to reflect its true cost. And how politically tenable do you think $8 or $10 per gallon really is?
I want Peace, A healthy Environment, and Prosperity for All
This Government is Waging and Funding endlesss War
Circumventing the Environmental Safeguards
And Channeling wealth to the Uberich
This is being done with purposeful intent in an accelerating manner.
Time for Regime change.
"...a weak-kneed president who wishes to please everyone."
Interesting. I don't feel pleased. Palestinians don't feel pleased. The plants, animals, people who live in and along the gulf coast don't feel pleased, those of us against nuclear energy don't feel pleased, the people of Afghanistan are not pleased, Palestinians are far from pleased ..... So, who are the fortunate pleased ones? Banksters, polluters, corporate CEOs, AIPAC, Israel, weapons manufacturers. Do you get my drift?
The Powers that Be have serious psychologists and ad teams designing US propaganda projects. The presidential ad campaign - Barack Obama! Yes We Can! - was brilliant, with Obama giving a stellar performance. I was in awe at the time, although I was well aware of what was going on. It deflated the anti-war movement and rendered it impotent.
"What have they done to our song, ma?
What have they done to our song, ma?
Well, they wrapped it up in a plastic bag
And turned it upside down, ma.
That's what they've done to our song."
(Melanie)
I thought he had been engaged in a colossal crime the second he started talking about looking forward rather than back on the issue of torture, and the idea that war crimes should be prosecuted. The rest of the 'defend the principals, and the interests, of the corporate elite against any and all opposition' has just been more bad sh*t piled up on the old bad sh*t...
I thought when BHO was elected that the usa had changed as much as possible from the sort of 'leader' that bush the lesser was. Like many others I was very wrong, he's the same sort, but dressed in a better suit.
.......and speak in complete sentences.
I'm with you, Saturnalia.
The previous commenter must be living in some alternative universe to really believe as he does.
I love how Glen Ford cuts through the Liberal BS. The BAR, nails it again!
First let's agree to discount Obama as a part of the solution, he is not.
Second, we are in the midst of a paradigm shift, a great change of such complexity and speed that it is not easily identified or described. Mother Earth appears to be seeking balance to offset the harm that has been done to her. We see that reflected in climate change, storms, earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, animal extinctions, and other yet unknown changes.
Third, man refuses to change his bad habits regarding the abuse of our ecosystem such as the oil spill in the Gulf, etc.
It appears that ever greater disasters will continue to occur until the majority of peoples minds are amended to conform with the natural requirements of our ecosystem. The real question is how much disaster, collapse, war and pain must people endure before our minds are changed and unified in our attempt to survive and live in both balance and harmony? That is the big picture. One gets a serious sense of dis-ease when contemplating it.
Mother Earth followed up on the Guatemala volcano with a great Guatemala sink hole. Mother Earth ALWAYS wins. Hurricane season has begun.
Sioux Rose
STONE: Profound insight(s) in a right-on post. Thank you.
I have no doubt that Mother Earth could shed us like a bad case of lice. The planet will be fine in the long run. It's the survival of our species we need to worry about.
I'm just glad to hear the increasing criticism of Obama from the left. It's richly deserved. I was castigated by friends when I got angry at Obama for his appointment of Geithner and Summers and interpreted those appointments as a sign that we weren't going to get the candidate we'd voted for in Obama. I was accused of being too quick to criticize the President. I needed to give him a chance to prove himself.
Well, after what happened to the healthcare bill and Obama's tepid and passive support for the public option, the Wall Street bailout and continuing non-regulation of the banks, the anemic action on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the issuance of new offshore drilling permits and the weak response to the BP oil rupture, and the continuation of some of the worst Bush II unconstitutional policies regarding rendition and indefinite arrest and detention without representation, you'd think more progressives would have had enough.
We voted for a fighter. Our present predicament requires a fight for what's right, not compromise with what's wrong. Obama created a powerful movement, but abandoned it to wither on the vine. Through his own actions Pres. Obama is in danger of becoming road kill. He's like the guy in the space invasion movie who ventures forth to offer peace to the aliens and is burned to a cinder for his efforts.
Pres. Obama's obsequiousness toward the bullies of the political right is simply insulting. The proper way to deal with bullies is to fight them with the support of those who voted for him. If there's any possibility of dealing constructively with the right, it will only come after having faced them down.
Obama has committed more than one Colossal Crime.
msyphax - your sentence "Our present predicament requires a fight for what's right, not compromise with what's wrong" is striking.
It evokes the late American politician Max Lerner: “When you choose the lesser of two evils, always remember that it is still an evil.”
. . . . much of Obama's "base" behaves as if the First Black President is an innocent party -- a victim of circumstances
This is absolutely true. But then much of Obama's "base" are like Obama himself: sheep going to the corporate slaughter. Obama, like his predecessor, Clinton, has converted the Democratic party into a pack of shameless, grubbing corporate shills and roundheels. For a while I believed that many Obama supporters might be persuaded without too much difficulty to abandon the Democrats. I've given up on that fantasy.
I would say the Democrats were "converted ... into a pack of shameless, grubbing corporate shills and roundheels" long before Clinton and Obama, with the transition beginning with Truman, or even Wilson. Of course, this doesn't excuse their behavior. Indeed, I could agrue the Money Power's been in control since the criminal ratification of the 1787 constitution; that Charles Austin Beard was 100% correct with his 1913 "Economic Interpretation."
Crime is what the government is all about.
Obama is a professional.
He is a bullshit artist. I confess to being one who suspended disbelief and supported and voted for him over Clinton and McCain. The one thing Hillary was correct about is "Obama makes a good speech." Once it became obvious that Emanuel, Summers, and Geitner were clearly staying on as his chief advisors and that he was retaining Bushies in many key positions such as Secretary of Defense and ambassadorships and appointing other worst of the Clintonites to key positions, my disbelief was no longer suspended.
As he continues to show that he will really fight for nothing that progressives hold dear, and continues to support incumbent Democrats over more progressive challengers (including sleaze Emanuel/Clinton tactics of bribing the challengers out of the race) my disbelief grows stronger by the day.
I will not vote for O in '12. I'm looking for a 3rd party candidate to emerge. As for 2010, I will support progressive Democrats who challenge incumbents or 3rd party candidates. Though I realize we do not live in a true democracy, I don't believe we have right not to try through electoral politics. But, movement politics might be the most fruitful path to pursue. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Not me, I looked at his voting record and listened to his speech in Berlin. Go back and look. He voted for all the worst acts and bills, everything that took rights away from individuals.
Palast made it pretty clear that elections are manipulated, but I'll vote anyway.
Never for a d or r.
I second that! Glen kicks ass
Me too. I love the guy. Glen Ford and Matt Gonzalez did the best job of trying to warn us what a fiend obomber truly is. They knew the only
"hope" people like me might have would be that obomber might leave some chump "change" in our pockets. Now he doesn't even want to do that.
I third that!
Et tu, Brutus? Waving the white flag aw'reddy?
Glen speaketh truth once again.
I have to give Obama a lot of credit though, he is the best Chief Corporate Public Relations Manager we have had since Bubba, I think he is slicker than Bubba.
The most rigorous test of his BS-ing skills will lie in his excuses for supporting Israeli crimes and letting BP do whatever crimes they want. So far he has not done a very good job on those. The limits of his skills may be showing.
The Gulf Incident is but one of many where Obama thought half a moldy loaf was better than nothing. But we are not prisoners-of-war quite yet. The 25-30% of the Dems that are left are pragmatic but they are very left in their solutions to today's problems. Across the economic, social, and environmental spectrum the hard left is vital to move this country and they demand something Establishment Dems cannot deliver: a true level playing field. Yes, that old phrase. It is not a field designed by and for Washington D.C. comfort and historical narrative. It takes the New Deal and remodels and expands it and governs from that prospective. The change Obama talked of has been left in the dust and soon, too, I think will be his now muted historical election.
So much misinformation and disinformation, so many mind games and distractions. Through all this the oligarchs continue to busily construct the dikes that will keep the information and ideas flowing within predetermined boundaries toward the desired destination -- to achieve the resignation by the little people that they (and sure as hell not the oligarchs) must make the sacrifices, give up their lifestyles and hopes and dreams, for the good of the whole, all of life, the planet itself, whatever. Enslavement can come inch by inch or all in one fell swoop.
There is only one way to pull ourselves out of our country's downward spiral and even then, there will be congress to deal with: Ralph Nader.
Ralph Nader needs to challenge Obama directly, then if necessary, as an independent in the general election.
Ralph, we are at critical mass on every front. Please come forward and try one last time! If not, these morons will take us down to the very bottom-if we're not already there.
We all know that the Powers that Be can control American thought. They know our minds better than we do. If you don't believe me, time travel back to US presidential elections, 2008. Tears of joy, Yes! We can! "I touched his shirt sleeve!" remember? All I could do was retreat and watch in horror as my friends became pods, infecting everyone.
Obama was chosen by corporate America, given more money than any other candidate in US history, performed an essentially fraudulent presidential campaign and stole the hearts and minds of the progressive left, many of whom have not gotten them back. Therefore, when Nader challenges Obama, many on the left will begin their tired bleating: "Do you want Sarah Palin!?" "Obama is better than a rabid Republican!" and so on. Or they'll concoct something else equally as powerful.
Obama was elected to dismantle the progressive left, including black power. duh. Has his presidency done anything positive for black Americans besides give them jobs in the military?
What happened to black power is exactly what happened to the progressive left. Brand Obama took its place!
"Therefore, when Nader challenges Obama, many on the left will begin their tired bleating: "Do you want Sarah Palin!?" "Obama is better than a rabid Republican!" and so on. Or they'll concoct something else equally as powerful"
Of course they will! (And don't forget the SC argument) They've been doing it forever, and our own "progressive" media will aid and abet this effort (e.g. guys like Hartman).
Look, there will always be genetic Dems and Reps, who, "short of child rape" will support their party's candidate. But those arguments you mention were and are not aimed at them, they were aimed at those who really wanted something better, and hopefully it will be a bit harder this time to make those arguments with any real semblance of credibility. Obama has been so awful that it will be harder for them to back up their claims that he WAS better than Bush (or even than Palin!) Those arguments won't have the same "powerful" effect this time on those for whom the contrast between the expectation and the reality has seldom, if ever, been starker .....
This time, we can say, and they would have to reluctantly nod in agreement, "That's what you said last time, and look what we got ...."