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Obama, Incorporated
Barack Obama's 2011 State of the Union address was an organized sprawl of good intentions-a mostly fact-free summons to a new era of striving and achievement, and a solemn cheer to raise our spirits as we try to get there. And it did not fail to celebrate the American Dream.
In short, it resembled most State of the Union addresses since Ronald Reagan's first in 1982. Perhaps its most notable feature was an omission. With applause lines given to shunning the very idea of government spending, and a gratuitous promise to extend a freeze on domestic spending from three years to five, there was only the briefest mention of the American war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The situation in each country was summarized and dismissed in three sentences, and the sentences took misleading care to name only enemies with familiar names: the Taliban, al-Qaeda. But these wars, too, cost money, and as surely as the lost jobs in de-industrialized cities they carry a cost in human suffering.
The president also omitted to mention gun control: a reform that has been in the minds of most Americans since the Tucson killings. He had elected not to mention gun control in his speech in Tucson, either. Two traits we may now judge to be conspicuous in this president, in fair weather and foul, no matter what the pressure of the occasion. He rarely explains complex matters with a complexity equal to the subject matter; and he hates to be a bearer of bad news. The appreciative words he lavished on the big corporations in November, December, and January, and his appointment of William Daley of Morgan Chase as chief of staff and Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric as chairman of his White House jobs council, also indicate a larger personal tendency. When things are not going his way, Barack Obama tacks the other way farther and faster than most people would. In the process, he speaks words which sound like statements of newfound principles, for which he will not be answerable when the winds shift again.
At a surprising number of his public appearances, Obama has presented himself as something other than the chief executive of a republic. In Tucson, he spoke to a packed auditorium as a grief counselor, with the heart, purpose, and uplift familiar to the role. He began his State of the Union speech by recalling that occasion and the apparent return of national fellow-feeling it aroused. "Each of us is a part of something greater-something more consequential than party or political preference. We are part of the American family." This metaphor, the nation-as-family, was deployed by Mario Cuomo in his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention of 1984: the greatest speech by a Democrat of the past 30 years.
But the idea of a political entity as a family has limits enforced by suitability. It is something more properly said by a politician affirming the value of the welfare state, as Cuomo did in 1984, than by a national leader pledged to be open-minded about cuts in entitlements.
The 2011 State of the Union was Obama's first rhetorical step to seal his new reputation as an anti-government Democrat. It has been said that, facing a determined and hostile Congress, Obama had no choice but to placate and again extol the virtues of bipartisanship. Certainly this was not a moment when he could pretend to speak for liberal reforms. What is surprising is the warmth with which he has embraced the premises of his opponents: in matters affecting public life and the economy, government is now said to be the problem, and private enterprise the solution; and far from deregulation having been a major cause of the financial collapse, the way to a healthy economy now lies through further deregulation. This rhetorical concession, adopted as a tactic, will turn against Obama as a strategy. The enormous budget cuts, for example, which he volunteered to make yet steeper will work against the ventures in job-creation which he has asked for without giving particulars.
Every advance that he makes on these lines as a gain to himself is a loss to his party. For without the idea that government is the heart of constitutional democracy and not a useless appendage, there is nothing much for Democrats to be; just as, without the idea that big business is the preserver of the American Dream and taxation is the enemy, there is nothing for Republicans to be. By offering himself as the rational corporate alternative to the Tea Party, Obama is taking a tremendous gamble, but with his party's fortunes more than his own. If the 2012 election were held tomorrow, both houses of Congress would pass into Republican hands and Obama would stay on as president. Not a word of his State of the Union address was calculated to alter that asymmetry.
Obama now speaks in strings of sentences like these: "The stock market has come roaring back. Corporate profits are up. The economy is growing again." The stock market, it would seem, plus corporate profits equals the economy: an odd equation to hear from a Democrat. Bill Clinton in 1995 is Obama's only precursor on this terrain, but even Clinton would quickly have added that corporate profits are not the measure of all good. By contrast, Obama is now convinced that there is no advantage in putting in qualifications except as a formality. He did acknowledge that "we have never measured progress by these yardsticks alone" and that the "success of our people" depends on "the jobs they can find and the quality of life these jobs offer." But he declined to offer a government commitment to helping the jobless, or underemployed, apart from tax cuts for working Americans.
Again, he did ask that the Bush tax cuts for the rich be allowed to expire in 2012. But it was President Obama who pushed his party to surrender their expiration at the end of 2010; in 2012, with the demands of an election close, how many Democrats will take the risk Obama himself feared to take in 2010? On immigration, another issue of the mid-term election in which Obama's liberal position was unpopular, he has gently instructed Congress to conduct a polite debate and try to be decent to honest and hard-working immigrants. He did say children of immigrants, including illegals, hard-working or not, should have equal access to education without "the threat of deportation." And he suggested that foreigners who came here to get advanced degrees should be allowed to stay. But he made no mention of the Dream Act, or any specific policy that would achieve such goals.
What is hard to take in at a glance is the extent of the change in the political description Obama has dedicated himself to earning over the next two years. All his general pledges now bear the stamp of the corporate ideology. This ideology assumes that the energy, initiative, and technical knowhow that contribute to our society the objects and experiences most valued by Americans originate in the private sector and are generally stunted, impaired, adulterated, or degraded by public supervision. The favor shown to charter schools by the president and his secretary of education Arne Duncan, in their endorsement of the testing regime of Race to the Top, draws on that ideology without much skepticism; and as Diane Ravitch has shown, it has encouraged a broad disdain for the supposed lack of "results" in public education that is not supported by facts.
Obama's model for sentiment, far more than Clinton, has now become Ronald Reagan. His manner in his first two years was burdensome, grave and oratorical; but in town halls and talk shows, he was experimenting with a different style; this was given a formal trial in Tucson and it became official in the State of the Union. Obama has copied the manners, the speech inflections, the kinetic rise and fall of the voice of TV talk show hosts, with as much application as Reagan brought to the study of 1930s radio announcers and the faces of the talkie stars who came before him. But there is a dimension beyond style in the choice of Reagan as a model for tone and surface. As Reagan, to clinch the Republican hold on the South, made common cause with racists--a step his predecessors had refused to take-so Obama, to move Wall Street reliably into the Democratic column, will be tempted to weaken or destroy unions, to dissociate himself from peace activists and defenders of civil liberties, and to lose what he can afford to lose of the base that brought him to power. (There were hints of this as early as August, in Robert Gibbs's comment that Obama's left-wing critics "ought to be drug tested.")
Like Reagan, Obama now cultivates a style of deliberate platitude. "Sustaining the American Dream has never been about standing pat. It has required each generation to sacrifice, and struggle, and meet the demands of a new age." There are times when the strenuous blandness passes finally into a vacuity of non-meaning: "We can't win the future with a government of the past." What is a government of the past? And what could it mean to win the future?
Obama wants to win, but he would also like nobody to lose, and he has coined some words to express his difference from the more agonistic proponents of American supremacy. We can, he said in his State of the Union, "out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world." How will we do that? By "free enterprise" in the private sector and by cuts-"taking responsibility for our deficit"-in government. "My administration will develop a proposal to merge, consolidate, and reorganize the federal government in a way that best serves the goal of a more competitive America." Such a vow to move things around goes easily with promises that supply in grandeur what they lack in proximity: "By 2035, 80 percent of America's electricity will come from clean energy sources." All the producers and all the consumers can be happy together: "Some folks want wind and solar. Others want nuclear, clean coal, and natural gas. To meet this goal, we will need them all." All those folks, and all their energies. But at what time, in what place, was the central problem of nuclear energy solved: where to dump the radioactive waste that is lethal for thousands of years?
A main inference from the State of the Union is that in 2011 and 2012, the president will not initiate. He will broker. Every policy recommendation will be supported and, so far as possible, clinched by the testimony of a panel of experts. There were signs of this pattern in the group of former secretaries of state, including Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell, whom the president brought in to endorse the START nuclear pact; in the generals who were called on to solidify support for the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell; and in Bill Clinton holding a presidential press briefing on the economy. Obama, on such occasions, serves as host and introducer; he leaves the podium to the experts. The idea is to overwhelm us with expertise. In this way, a president may lighten the burden of decision and control by easing the job of persuasion into other hands. Obama seems to believe that the result of being seen in that attitude will do nothing but good for his stature.
What sort of occasions, then, will keep him in public view? Town hall meetings. Talk shows. One-on-one interviews with unthreatening reporters such as John Harwood and Katie Couric. Though Obama is said to resent journalists, he has been able to rely on the mainstream media as a partner throughout his career. The corporate sponsors will stand behind the presenters now more plainly than before. He is hoping, with this kind of backing, to offer an educational answer to the superstitions and anxieties of the Tea Party: above all, their apprehension that they are losing "the America we grew up in." It remains a disturbing evasion in his presidency that Obama has hardly recognized the Tea Party's existence, and has never attempted to answer its members--not even where they are most deeply and harmfully mistaken, as in the belief they have taken up that global warming is a "hoax." He prefers to keep the political contest a face-off between his own abstract legitimacy and a nameless and inscrutable heterodoxy.
There was one moment in this speech that should have startled every listener; except that, coming from Barack Obama, the aberration may have appeared normal. In 2010, he persuaded a Democratic congress to pass a health care law that is now accounted by many to be his largest single achievement. Obama has praised himself in no uncertain terms for the exertions he made to get the legislation passed. That the law is still in peril is largely owing to his wrong supposition that, once the measure was passed, the argument was over. Obama left the law to speak for itself. He underestimated the complexity of the process of legitimation and the work of patient explanation that would be required of him. The astounding detail of his State of the Union speech was therefore Obama's announcement that the health care law is again negotiable. While he cannot imagine allowing insurance companies to deny coverage because of a pre-existing condition, he would, he said, accept any changes that seem good to him. He was choosing to treat a law that is now on the books as a mere statement of preference.
Where all is so pliable before, during, and after the passage of a law, what need have we of laws themselves? But here it was: in the same way that he offered a five-year domestic spending freeze without any immediate pressure to do so, Obama welcomed an indefinite revision of health care before being shown a single amendment. "Let me be the first to say that anything can be improved. If you have ideas about how to improve this law by making care better or more affordable, I am eager to work with you."
All laws are subject to modification, of course, but this is the first time in memory that a president has put his own law on the auction block and said he was ready to bargain it down. The obvious conclusion is forced on us. Barack Obama, starting in 2002-the year he declared at a Chicago rally his opposition to the coming war against Iraq-had a keen eye on his political rise, but he had slender experience and a narrow focus disguised by inspirational special effects. In earlier years, he was protected by the Chicago Democratic machine; after 2004, he was shepherded by leaders of the Democratic party who disliked the Clintons or feared that Hillary Clinton could never win a presidential election. His apparent convictions--on the environment, on the Middle East, on nuclear proliferation: matters of more concern to him than health care-were resonant and sincere but they had never been brought to a test. It turned out that few of his convictions were as strong as Obama thought they were.
"We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America," said Barack Obama shortly before the 2008 election. "I am absolutely certain," he had said in St. Paul when he clinched the Democratic nomination, "that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth."
In retrospect, that messianic fervor is shocking. Today no one can easily say who Barack Obama is or what he stands for; and the coming year is unlikely to offer many clues, since all the thoughts of Obama in 2011 appear to concern Obama in 2012. The best one can do is to point out that the words of his State of the Union address seem uttered by a different person and spoken in another language: "We're the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook. In America, innovation doesn't just change our lives. It is how we make our living. (Applause.)"
90 Comments so far
Show AllSorry Professor, little or no time needed for research. The article is a plain debunking of Obama from start to finish. The snide and snippish presentation is merely the author's irony. Obama's con is as transparent as shrink wrap. An arrogant affront misconceived by only the dumbfounded.
oh no, visiting professor is the high priest of the fake left on CD, LOL.
Aye, CabrilloBob, this commentary is confusing only to those who thrill to avoiding the obvious, academics who find that clarity is too pat and might interfere with efforts at self-important blather and tenure.
The only thing missing from this article is Obama's speech at the 2004 convention, a masterpiece of vacuous rhetoric and a preview of the scam that millions of American rubes jumped at.
So, this is how the American experiment ends? Not with a dramatic bang but a hushed whimper, fading into disgusted silence? Tunisia and Egypt put us to shame, and they've suffered under the same 30-year timeline of outrageous corruption.
Perhaps now that many Americans are exhausting their unemployment insurance benefits, fewer and fewer US college graduates are getting jobs, and more and more Americans are losing their homes, Americans will take the que (from their brothers and sisters in Tunisia, Egypt and other oppressed nations) and demand US regime change.
The people in Tunisia and Egypt are us. We are them. They will die for us.
Mubaerek, Obama and Jake Newton are not us. They oppose us. They would as soon kill us.
The empire gains compliance and submission with two methods - bribing and bombing, either paying people off to do their bidding, or threatening and intimiadating them.
It should not surprise us that here in the heart of the empire, people are more bribed and more intimidated than people elsewhere are.
Most of us are to one degree or another bribed or intimidated. None of us are completely free of that.
Two Americas
Very well said.
VP: I don't know about the rest of the East Coast, but in Philadelphia and its suburbs, this winter's spate of snowstorms has caused a tempest in a snow shovel: whether or not residents are entitled to "save", i.e. reserve, the street parking spots they laboriously clear in front of their residences.
In these parts, it's commonplace, especially on small streets of homes without individual driveways or garages, for residents to mark their spots by placing lawn chairs, trash cans, traffic cones, and other bric-a-brac beside the curb to signal that the spot is "theirs". It's an "honor system" that is typically, though not always, commonly respected.
Local governments and police, exasperated at having to sort out cases where this practice causes hard feelings, discourage this custom and have stepped up efforts to eliminate it. Though I don't drive, and have no vehicle in this fight, I'm sympathetic to the plight of someone who puts intense time and effort into clearing a spot, then comes home from work or a necessary errand the next day to find it indefinitely occupied by some opportunist.
Anyway, Visiting Professor, it seems that at last commenters have gratuitously pre-empted your "saved" spot for no compelling reason. I hope this won't discourage you from completing and publishing your usual thoughtful and trenchant analysis and "parking" it further down the comments threads.
Bromwich is often himself thoughtful and insightful, and worthy of your meticulous rebuttals. I'm certain that I'm not the only one who's interested in what you have to say in response.
Please don't cut off your nose to spite our faces!
O.S.
Here in the other Pennsylvania, so far west you can't even find Utz potato chips except in the gourmet grocery store, the "old chair-in-the-dug-out-parking spot" is a time-honored Pittsburgh winter tradition, and anyone who dares violate it is quite ostracized. I've never heard of police having to intervene. The local free weekly even had a "oddest parking space chair" photo feature once.
But, when I moved to the suburbs, where parking space can still be a premium due to the multiple-SUV households (a divorced guy across the street, living by himself, has 3 cars) I learned that you don't dare do the chair thing - it is associated with liberals, homosexuals, blacks and other assorted scum in the city.
why, Bromwich is too "intellectual" for you?
"" Today no one can easily say who Barack Obama is or what he stands for; and the coming year is unlikely to offer many clues, since all the thoughts of Obama in 2011 appear to concern Obama in 2012.""
************
Today anyone should be able to determine who o is. I do from 2 simple acts he used in his 2008 campaign. One, he guaranteed his fealty and the total support of the u.s.(as in taxpayers) to corporate america even though most corporations are listed offshore to avoid paying taxes in the u.s which is a place those corporations hate with a passion but love the money. Two, he pledged his fealty and the full support of the u.s. to the american izraeli public affairs committee, whom we're a puppet of in the real world.
Now an extra, Third, is that since his inauguration, more of o's actions have gone to those first 2 acts he promises to 'bow down' to for what ever reasons or demands are made. There is more than enough for me to KNOW that I'll not vote for this traitor to the people of the u.s. who elected him. And by his action of that treason to those who voted for him, well that doesn't appear to be breaking any constitutional law(s). Sorta more like 'caveat entrepreneur' where after you bought and paid for the product you find there is not motor inside. You should have looked closer at the product.
This is all well and good. I don't recall during the Obama campaign that he ever guaranteed fealty to corporate America. Obama was a new persona for me, he was not the first, second, or even third on my pick list of those running, and I was horribly in fear that Clinton would get the Democratic nomination. Once he went into one on one contention with her I started paying careful attention to him. I don't remember him ever making the guarantee of corporate fealty. I may have missed it.
On the second point, I can't think of any well known US politician from any party who has not pleged unswerving support for Israel. Do you know of any who has not made a commitment to honor the so called "special relationship" to Israel? Carter is the only one I can remember that came anywhere close to that, and Carter was an anomoly in many respects.
It was there. Check DavidGreen comment near the top of these comments.
DavidGreen January 30th, 2011 12:06 pm
Obama Incorporated is a very worrying development...this seems to be yet more of Obama's 'pragmatism' where all convictions and principles are up for negotiation, compromise, and disposal...Obama's politically expedient decision to ignore the Bush Administration's commission of torture, which are war crimes, was the early expression of his pragmatism and signal this president was comfortable satisfying and placating powerful interests...rather than challenging and reforming Washington, 'pragmatic' Obama does seems unwilling or unable to bring 'change we can believe in' and very far from bringing the 'fundamental' change he promised.
Obummer Obetrayor Obusha Obullshitta Obomba Oboofa ad infinitum
We were scammed and now we keep talking like he is still supposed to be what he originally said he was...nope, he's a shill and a sham...and should be very ashamed. Bill got a blow job from one woman, O has f)*&^% the whole nation, just like Bush and Co.
Time to let the world know we don't like our elected guy either anymore.
Obama is our first post-modern president. He morphs from his MLK imitation to his folksy Ronald Reagan one with a few dozen states in between. He is an animated advertisement---the Oprah candidate, a GQ cover, the CEO of a tech company, the smash-mouth NBA player, and a family man. He could be played by Will Smith and it would make no difference. A vacuuous populace gets led by an attractive mouthpiece. Some one wise once said, "You get the leaders you deserve." God, I hope not.
Pretty much sums it up.
Yup. That's about all you need to know. Hell, soon they'll dispense with real politicians and replace them with holograms.
So, what should have been the core of any meaningful State of the Union Address? I know that we can all quibble on some of the details, but I would think that these few topics would be the core of any meaningful address.
* Our two ongoing wars and occupations, what our goals are, whether they can be actually met through military force, and how and when we are going to end them and bring the military home. This alone could take up an entire speech if dealt with honestly and openly.
* The real economy. The economy that the average working family has to live in. The highest unemployment rates since the Great Depression of the 1930's, the stagnation of real wages since the 1970's for blue collar workers which are now actually falling - in many cases quite significantly. The lowering of wages for blue collar workers while corporate profits and executive pay are at record levels.
* Home foreclosures which show no signs of abating and the outright fraud that has been rampant in the housing and financial industries that have contributed to this problem.
* Wall Street. Speculative trading, the unregulated dirivatives market which is now even bigger than when these firms imploded the economy in 2009-2010, the obscene pay and bonuses that those who work on Wall Street are making, and the rampant fraud that has gone univestigated and prosecuted.
* Military spending, that in real dollars has doubled in the past decade and why this spending directly contributes to the decimation of federal dollars available to solve this country's many problems.
* The State budget deficits and the resulting devastation of state and local programs and services including police, fire, and shools
* Income inequality and the reasons for this including the nations tax policies that have benefited the top 5% at the expense of the bottom 95%
* The role of unrestrained free trade on the devestation of the nation's manufacturing and the resulting loss of tens of millions of jobs.
Of course we will never see such a speech, especially out of this President.
Part 2,
While I found virtually the entire speech deplorable, for me, three things stand out in this presidents speech. One of which I find utterly crass and two that point to the further erosion of the welfare of the nation's working people and our civil liberties.
The part I thought utterly crass was,
"We are part of the American family. We believe that in a country where every race and faith and point of view can be found, we are still bound together as one people; that we share common hopes and a common creed; that the dreams of a little girl in Tucson are not so different than those of our own children, and that they all deserve the chance to be fulfilled."
To talk about the dreams of a little girl in Tucson in anything other than how and why they were snuffed out in a hail of bullets to me is the height of insensitivity and immorality.
The two that I find most troubling are,
"So tonight, I’m asking Democrats and Republicans to simplify the system. Get rid of the loopholes. Level the playing field. And use the savings to lower the corporate tax rate for the first time in 25 years –- without adding to our deficit. It can be done."
"But we need to think bigger. In the coming months, my administration will develop a proposal to merge, consolidate, and reorganize the federal government in a way that best serves the goal of a more competitive America. I will submit that proposal to Congress for a vote –- and we will push to get it passed. "
The first is nothing short of a call to increase corporate profits by shifting the costs of government onto the backs of the working people of this nation.
The second as I see it is designed to concentrate power even further into the hands of a few. Every time we consolidate and merge multiple federal departments and agencies, we end up consolidating power into the hands of a smaller group of people. The second part of the statement is just as troubling and that is the supposed goal is to make America more competitive. The reason we are supposed to have these federal departments and agencies are to ensure that we have fairness and justice in this country - not to ensure that we are more competitive. The purpose of the FDA is supposed to be one of ensuring safety not ensuring the drug manufactures are competitive.
Mr. Bromwich also writes,
"Today no one can easily say who Barack Obama is or what he stands for; and the coming year is unlikely to offer many clues, since all the thoughts of Obama in 2011 appear to concern Obama in 2012."
Just whom is he kidding? Everything this president has done points to what he stands for - the sustained concentration of wealth and upholding corporate profits at the expense of the vast majority of the American people. He, and his hand picked staff and cabinet have not only marginalized and belittled those on the left, but have gone out of their way to do so.
Lastly, going as far back as I can remember which is Richard Nixon, I can't think of any president who has pleaded with his party to pass not only legislation, but bad legislation, by saying that his presidency was at stake as much as this guy has. That the Democrats have done so is one of the biggest reasons they lost the mid terms and are facing not only the loss of the Senate in 2012, but the Presidency itself.
"To announce that there is to be no criticism of the president or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but morally treasonable to the American people."
- Teddy Roosevelt
"A cat will do what it wants when it wants, and there's not a thing you can do about it."
- Frank Perkins
Thanks for paying such close attention to the speech -- you make some very good observations, particularly on Obama's obliquely stated intent to package the entire apparatus of the U.S. government as free software to the corporate megalopoly to make themselves more competitive in the global market -- to heck with the rest of America and the taxes we scrape by to pay that are meant to be used for the general welfare.
I've always thought Obama was the most dangerous of flim-flam men. They're all dangerous because they steal hopes and dreams and vanish out of town in a trail of dust, but he of course was the most dangerous because of his ability to become president. I appreciated Bromich's article very much. He managed to say a great deal and by his careful use of words, get it into the NYT where it can be read by those who don't read Common Dreams. His portrayal of Obama rang very true for me. He presented a man whose entire career, undoubtedly back to law school, has been about doing just enough to garner approval and success. When that's endangered, he'll shift positions, always staying within the circle of the spotlight on the stage. The words don't matter; they're just lines in the script of the day.
In short, Bromwich was able to stun me again into the realization of how different it would be to have a person of true passion, moral integrity, and courage in the White House, and how far we are from that.
It's not in the NYT, it's the New York Review of Books-- an even more highbrow audience. Your other points are very well stated.
Excellent comments.
The author linked to Mario Cuomo's keynote speech at the DNC 1984. I encourage everyone to read it, especially younger people who have never known any other Democratic Party except the utterly compromised and sold-out Clinton and later one.
Then compare it to Obama's awful, yet media-fawned, keynote speech in 2004.
I have always been puzzled by Mario Cuomo's sudden departure from the national stage. I would appreciate an answer/link to explain this enduring mystery for me.
Perfect comments, Krazy Kat.
Joe
I agree with the others: this is the most penetrating response to Bromwich.
Obama: joined Bush to bail the banks that they may continue their depredations upon the rest of us; expanded Afghanistan--immolating American thugs and Afghan patriots to be re-elected and show himself all manned-up for the Repubs; continues Iraq; continues Gitmo; fails to prosecute the war criminals of the previous administration, making his own even more complicit in their crimes; dithers about foreclosures; expands Bagram, where Afghans and others may be tortured to death by the CIA without any oversight; expands drone attacks whereby American “heroes” annihilate the wedding parties of innocent ("terrorist") Afghans by flipping a switch at Nelson AFB; makes sure meaningful health care reform will NOT occur; bails the companies who then coolly outsource more jobs; takes direction from BP; makes certain real banking reform will not get Citibank’s panties in a twist; and assures the rich that they need not pay their fair share for the privileges they’ve derived from american society and law.. In short, Obama joins the powerful in making sure this crisis reduces plain Americans to the peonage the powerful want. No more unions, no more living wages--just the workers in their place, happy to be wage slaves.
Meet the new Bush, same as the old Bush.
So he failed to mention "gun control" -- big deal! Obama has, if he has a lick of sense, an understanding of the political realities in Mordor-on-the-Potomac; he knows that as long as the Repubs are in charge in the House, no gun-control law will pass. And if he so much as mentions those words, he'll make Americans rally around the Repubs regardless of that corrupt party's past history -- but his position now is a lot weaker than Clinton's was in 1995-96. And if he's anything like past presidents, he wants to be re-elected in November 2012 worse than just about anything.
If the gun-control freaks had any courage, they wouldn't be trying to maintain the 2nd Amendment in the Constitution while "re-interpreting" it to their heart's content; no, they'd be trying to repeal it. As long as it's there, gun owners (like myself) will insist they have a right that pre-dates the country and is guaranteed by the highest law in the land.
BTW, I'm not an NRA member, nor am I a war-mongering Repub, so please don't call me what I'm not.
May I ask, if you are not one who feels that "happiness is a warm gun", why do you use the expression "gun-control freaks"? The term indicates one fraught with emotion on the subject.
Just so you know, the "warm gun" referred to in the Beatles song from which your quote is derived refers not to firearms, but a heroin syringe: "When I hold you in my arm/And I feel my finger on your trigger/I know no one can do me no harm/Because happiness is a warm gun."
There are other interpretations, natch, but none involving actual guns, AFAIK.
Cheers.
Triple entendre, a figure of speech used by Lennon. Was using the literal meaning, not the figurative or hidden meanings. You got one, discounted the second, and may have missed the third.
Was using a phrase and not ostensibly attributing it to Lennon.
richsmith2
Excellent observation and question.
I used to loathe and fear pro-gun people. And to some extent, everyone should, considering the overlap with criminals who want to protect their armories. But something finally happened to this liberal during the past decade: he's come to fear his government far, far more than he fears the gun nuts. When the gun nuts stand between me and a fascist system clearly out of its eff-ing mind, I'm going to be so glad they're around.
"Today no one can easily say who Barack Obama is or what he stands for."
I read it perhaps too quickly, but isn't the title of this thing Obama, Inc.? Aren't several points made about the shift in rhetoric from "Hope and Change" to "I Suck Corporate Cock and So Will You"--?
Somehow (it seems to me) the author is confused by Obama's words finally aligning with his actions, from at least the moment he bailed on no telecom immunity for spying.
Obama was never meant to be a populist. He is a corporate/fascist Trojan horse sent to kill any hope of government for the people. If re-elected, we will get more war and torture and bank bailouts and worse. If defeated by a Rep or a tea partier, we will get the same.
Pull your head out of this paradigm. It ain't applicable no mo'.
Focus, instead, on the issue that screams--almost literally--to be addressed--
Now what?
I quote: "Today no one can easily say who Barack Obama is or what he stands for."
That statement calls into question whether the writer was asleep during the 2008 primaries and presidential campaign. Except for promising an expansion of the war in Afghanistan/Pakistan all that candidate Obama offered was hot air as I wrote at the time. I called Mr. Obama an "Imperialist Light" on the grounds of his interviews with the Chicago Tribune and his speeches at AIPAC. At least with regards to war and peace ("I am against stupid wars") and to a lesser extent foreign policy ("direct talks with Ahmedinejad") it was fairly clear who Barack Obama was and what he stands for namely neo-imperialism and that is still true.
We have to realize that anyone that gets elected as POTUS must be con man to a greater or lesser degree, and a consummate egotist as well.
Correct, chessgames56.
I've been reading the NYRB for many years now because of their comprehensive articles on books I might want to read.
But it's long been clear that they are politically naive...staunch "liberals," blind supporters of Israel and the entire US empire project.
I stopped reading pieces like this years ago. It's a waste of time. I could name a dozen posters on this forum who are better informed than these people.
"I could name a dozen posters on this forum who are better informed than these people."
This is true - undeniably true.
The mass media trots a steady parade of "somebodies" in front of us - movers and shakers and winners and celebrities and connected and powerful people - and would have us believe that we are all "nobodies."
It is not possible to be a "somebody" in this culture and also tell the truth and stand with the people of the world. The two are mutually exclusive.
We can see the power of the "nobodies" right now in Egypt.
Agreed,Two Americas. My husband and I call it "truth telling disease" because being willing to stand for principles usually puts one in the "leper" category in our society. So be it. Occasionally when stating "I seem to have truth-telling disease..." the biggest laughs we get are the others that self-recognize. Others miss it or looked piqued or puzzled but don't ask. I've been told when pressing for accountability, "oh grow up" or "don't be naive". It's systemic, which is why the whole thing will eventually fall apart. Unaddressed lies in society are like foundations built in sand.
Laurie Andersons "Only An Expert"
Now only an expert can deal with the problem
Because half the problem is seeing the problem
And only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
So if there�s no expert dealing with the problem
It�s really actually twice the problem
Cause only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
Now in America we like solutions
We like solutions to problems
And there�s so many companies that offer solutions
Companies with names like Pet Solution
The Hair Solution. The Debt Solution. The World Solution. The Sushi Solution.
Companies with experts ready to solve the problems.
Cause only an expert can see there�s a problem
And only an expert can deal with the problem
Only and expert can deal with the problem
Now let�s say you�re invited to be on Oprah
And you don�t have a problem
But you want to go on the show, so you need a problem
So you invent a problem
But if you�re not an expert in problems
You�re probably not going to invent a very plausible problem
And so you�re probably going to get nailed
You�re going to get exposed
You�re going to have to bow down and apologize
And beg for the public�s forgiveness.
Cause only an expert can see there�s a problem
And only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
Now on these shows, the shows that try to solve your problems
The big question is always �How can I get control?
How can I take control?�
But don�t forget this is a question for the regular viewer
The person who�s barely getting by.
The person who�s watching shows about people with problems
The person who�s part of the 60% of the U.S. population
1.3 weeks away, 1.3 pay checks away from homelessness.
In other words, a person with problems.
So when experts say, �Let�s get to the root of the problem
Let�s take control of the problem
So if you take control of the problem you can solve the problem.�
Now often this doesn�t work at all because the situation is completely out of control.
Cause only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
So who are these experts?
Experts are usually self-appointed people or elected officials
Or people skilled in sales techniques, trained or self-taught
To focus on things that might be identified as problems.
Now sometimes these things are not actually problems.
But the expert is someone who studies the problem
And tries to solve the problem.
The expert is someone who carries malpractice insurance.
Because often the solution becomes the problem.
Cause only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
Now sometimes experts look for weapons.
And sometimes they look everywhere for weapons.
And sometimes when they don�t find any weapons
Sometimes other experts say, �If you haven�t found any weapons
It doesn�t mean there are no weapons.�
And other experts looking for weapons find things like cleaning fluids.
And refrigerator rods. And small magnets. And they say,
�These things may look like common objects to you
But in our opinion, they could be weapons.
Or they could be used to make weapons.
Or they could be used to ship weapons.
Or to store weapons.�
Cause only an expert can see they might be weapons
And only an expert can see they might be problems.
Cause only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
And sometimes, if it�s really really really hot.
And it�s July in January.
And there�s no more snow and huge waves are wiping out cities.
And hurricanes are everywhere.
And everyone knows it�s a problem.
But if some of the experts say it�s no problem
And other experts claim it�s no problem
Or explain why it�s no problem
Then it�s simply not a problem.
But when an expert says it�s a problem
And makes a movie and wins an Oscar about the problem
Then all the other experts have to agree that it is most likely a problem.
Cause only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
And even though a county can invade another country.
And flatten it. And ruin it. And create havoc and civil war in that other country
If the experts say that it�s not a problem
And everyone agrees that they�re experts good at seeing problems
Then invading that country is simply not a problem.
And if a country tortures people
And holds citizens without cause or trial and sets up military tribunals
This is also not a problem.
Unless there�s an expert who says it�s the beginning of a problem.
Cause only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can see there�s a problem
And see the problem is half the problem
And only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
Bromwich accurately notes, "Obama has presented himself as something other than the chief executive of a republic" and then goes on to suggest that it is impossible to say what he is.
However I think it is now clear what this opaque political pawn is.
He's not America's CEO, but rather its CFO (Chief Facade Officer).
Yes, Obama is the Chief Facade Officer of the US, and the US itself is the "chief facade" of the ruling-elite's global corporate/financial/militarist EMPIRE ---- which is the proximate cancerous CAUSE of the oppression that has been going on for thirty years against 'other people' in the Egyptian territory of that global Empire, just as that global Empire (disguised but centered in the US) is the CAUSE of all imperialist wars in other Empire territories (like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and soon others), and just as that ruling-elite global corporate/financial/militarist Empire is the CAUSE of all the 'symptom' problems of; economic oppression, domestic tyranny, police-state torture, environmental destruction, and all other 'symptom' issues which the global EMPIRE CAUSES.
Thus, only people in the US heart of Empire (the "Heart of Darkness") can excise and cut out the heart of the Empire. "Other people" in various territories of the global Empire are protesting, rebelling, revolting first, because they are even more directly tortured by the spear of Empire in directly being thrust in their faces, as are the Egyptian people with US weapons and policies killing them, BUT only people in the US, in the heart of the EMPIRE can excise this metastasizing cancer of Empire from our globe.
It is OUR responsibility to 'bell the cat' of Empire ---- to drown the killer cat of Empire.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
"Democracy over Empire" party headquarters
This is a bit off topic but, the name Bernie Made-off kept popping into my head while reading the article. It's like he has become (at least in my view) the poster child for what America aspires to. Financial cannibalism is the game, and we are "all in" whether we like it or not. It's like that show that used to be on TV called Greed. How do you come up with a show like that in a healthy society? I mean, sure, it's circus for the unwashed masses, but who decides what to put on TV?
Some really sick puppies are in charge, and they are going to get a lot sicker before they get better. "DO YOU FEEL THE NEED FOR GREED?"
Good call, huntz. Check out this post-SOTU ditty from Sam Smith: http://tinyurl.com/4oxnl62
"...but who decides what to put on TV?..."
Let me reiterate.
Television production courses use textbooks. In those textbooks that instruct young heads of mush in "proper video techniques" they also dig down into treatments, screenplays, etc. in addition to technical information and things like set design, color use, etc.
One of the things stressed to students is the concept of "process message".
You see... "good" video productions are not supposed to entertain, educate, or inform. "Good" video productions "...transmit the desired process message...".
To quote:
Zettl’s Effect-to-Cause Production Model
Four General Steps
• create the basic idea & move from that to the defined process message
• determine necessary medium requirements to generate the process message
• take the actual process message through the production phases
• evaluate the actual affect on viewers and how close the actual message came to the defined "process message"
... So what is a "process message? Let me quote again.
The "process message" is a precise definition of your desired communication effect.
The "process message"
• describes the desired communication effect
• work from general toward specific responses – envision small steps rather than large ones
• defined process message = a single, concise, declarative sentence that:
– defines your audience
– and what you want your viewers to feel, believe, or do.
How do I know about all of this??? I taught video prodution and electronics for over 3 years and a video production college. I have worked for several commercial broadcast TV stations and two of the major media ownership corps in the US. I then worked for a company that produced television automation systems used worldwide and have installed the systems and trained personnel from little po-dunk TV stations in the middle of nowhere USA to 50 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhatten... you know... right across the street from "30 Rock". Been in there, too. I also have the cell phone numbers of the corporate engineering VP's of some little outfits like FOX, Tribune Media, etc.
Those are my "bona fides"... I'm "semi retired" now... I had to quit the media "business". Just couldn't slave in the "Entertainment Mines" for the Media Overlords any longer.
Think this is all bunk??? Here's a quote from the webpage of a professional videographer...
"...I have a keen eye for story telling and delivering a defined process message through digital media..."
I've said it here and many places many time... why do you think they call it "programming"?
Remember in the "Matrix"... "...97% accept the programming..."
What do people call the TV...??? The "idiot box".
As for this and how it applies to this article.
If it's on TV... it's not real. Not even "reality TV". It's all staged and managed to produce the desired response in the viewer... to transmit the "process message".
"... Be calm ... Go shop ... Nothing to see here ... Everything's fine ... Go back to sleep ... Consume ... Reproduce ..."
Ever seen the movie "They Live"?
'Ever seen the movie "They Live"?'
No, but I just added it to my NETFLIX DVD Queue. Thanks.
"Let me be the first to say that anything can be improved. If you have ideas about how to improve this law by making care better or more affordable, I am eager to work with you."
Yeah, deja vu, which means I'm open to anything as long as it doesn't hurt the profits of my corporate sponsors in the Medical Industrial Complex.
Feel good speeches don't put food on the table or provide heat for those sitting in their trailer, sitting in the middle of the field in the middle of Maine in the middle of winter. Bertold Brecht wrote in one of the songs to his Three Penny Opera:
"Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral" or
"First comes chowing down, then comes morality"
All of Obama's high flying platitudes aren't going to impress the desperate in this sad state of a union. I know many, many people who didn't even tune in to the speech, so disgusted are they.
Yes, I'm one of the disgusted; but his platitudes, rather than being "high flying", are more in the nature of "swamped". Obama is like a slow-witted kid giving the thumbs up while in the cockpit of a wingless, propellerless wreck slowly sinking into a swamp. It's embarrassing.
Let's take this political analysis at face value and explore its implications. If Obama will not have coat tails then why should Democrats in statewide or local races support him? In fact could it happen that Democrats will have more to gain by running away from him, could it be that even if his corporatist message is embraced as a successful way to run for president nationally it will fail locally. Progressives in this scenario will be alienated from Obama and he will win without them. Well, that's the election cycle. However by concentrating their efforts on Senate, House and local races, by unseating corporatist Bluedogs like Senator Casey and Representative Altmire, (in PA for example) progressives would have some record of accomplishment to carry them beyond 2012.
Our Pragmatist Of The United States is very much in the Reagan/clinton mode. Of course many would rather have the alternative of the dour Paul Ryan, the wacky Michelle Bachmann, Newt, sarah... With the SCOTUS' Citizens United all politicians must genuflect to Capital. Do tell us the sun is shining and the forecast is fair. This is the United States that we have created. Enjoy what we have. Don't let them pull all of our lifelines.