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Obama’s “Big Deal”: Wallowing with Pigs in Search of a Grand Center-Right Coalition
Barack Obama is salivating at the prospect of concluding his Big Deal with the Republicans, the one that will move the center robustly – even transformatively – to the Right, where this president really lives. The debt-limit deadline is Obama’s big chance to panic a significant part of the Democratic Party into joining in the rape of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. “When the debt-limit showdown arrives, pray for gridlock, which would at least mean there is still resistance to Republican extortion."
President Obama says he’s determined to make the “big deal” with the Republicans – not like the little, piddling deals he has been cutting all along to benefit the corporate classes, but the BIG deal, the grand consensus he believes he was born to forge with the GOP. Although it’s true that it will take a whopper of a deal to outclass the bipartisan joint venture that transferred $14 trillion to Wall Street, the vast bulk of it on Obama’s watch, the First Black President is nothing if not ambitious. Obama’s Big Deal is actually the coup de grace for Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society – relics, like Black activism, standing in the way of a post-everything world.
Obama has been savoring the big moment since last November, when the Republicans seized control of the House and sidelined the president’s main opposition: the left wing of his own party. Delusional Obamites, especially Blacks, are fond of saying their guy really wants Democrats and activists to force him to take a more progressive path – to “make him do it.” It’s actually the other way around. Obama depends strategically on Republicans to “make him do it” – to push him inexorably rightward with their brinksmanship and constant threats of gridlock. It is an intricate and intimate dance, with Obama and the GOP moving and grooving to the same music. Obama often gets so caught up, he mouths the Republicans’ lyrics.
“The reason to do Social Security” – by “do,” Obama means “cut” – “is to strengthen Social Security to make sure that those benefits are there for seniors in the out-years,” says Obama, an exact echo of the apocalypse-soon Social Security scare propaganda perfected over the years by the GOP. Obama has been promising to “do” Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid since just before he was sworn into office in January, 2009, when he announced that these entitlements would be “on the table” in his administration. His deficit reduction commission last year did indeed put the programs on the operating table, with Obama’s corporate surgeons tracing dotted lines around the organs to be excised under the irresistible imperatives of austerity – the Republicans’ copyrighted anthem.
“Obama depends strategically on Republicans to push him inexorably rightward with their brinksmanship and constant threats of gridlock.”
Last November 3, I wrote: “The best outcome that could result from Tuesday’s Democratic debacle is that the Republicans overreach and, in their white nationalist triumphalism, make it impossible for President Obama and congressional Democrats to reach an accommodation with rampaging reaction and racism.” In other words, when the debt-limit showdown arrives, pray for gridlock, which would at least mean there is still resistance to Republican extortion.
The showdown is nigh, although Obama is squeezing every Democratic arm and groin in reach to ensure that he and the Republicans are able to walk down the dusty street arm-in-arm at high noon, so that the outcome can be billed as a grand consensus, a Big Deal for Obama. This requires that he gather Democratic accomplices in the gang rape of entitlements. “So we might as well do it now,” says Obama, while people are panicked by the prospect of a technical U.S. “default.” “Pull off the Band-Aid, eat our peas,” he commands, as if the death blow to the last vestiges of the New Deal and the Great Society is just a short, sharp pain, after which the boo-boo will heal just fine.
The real Obama is a cold, cynical bastard. He is not a wimp, but rather, has plenty of spine to face down and brow-beat the remaining defenders of the social safety net in his own Democratic Party, who have always been the most immediate dangers to his grand center-right coalition. But it must be done quickly, quickly, quickly, to capture the debt-limit panic opportunity.
Half or more of the Congressional Black Caucus will do whatever the White House asks of it, will sacrifice anything and everything dear to African American interests in order to preserve this particular Black family in the executive mansion for as long as possible. But many of Obama’s white groupies are facing the fact that they backed a corporate Trojan Horse. Paul Krugman, the columnist for the New York Times, should not have needed a Nobel Prize in economics to realize that Obama “basically shares the GOP’s diagnosis of what ails our economy and what should be done to fix it,” or that the president’s eagerness to gut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid “is something Mr. Obama and those he listens to apparently want for its own sake.”
In other words, this guy works for the other side because that’s where his soul is – if he has one. He advocates policies that serve corporate pigs because he’s one of them. He harms poor people because he is contemptuous of them, just like his Wall Street friends and patrons. His administration is negligent or hostile to Black aspirations for the same reasons as his white business buddies, with whom he shares a worldview. He is every bit as much a war criminal as Bush, and as morally debased.
The last thing we need is to allow this guy to conclude his long-sought Big Deal with the GOP under cover of a debt-limit crisis.
69 Comments so far
Show AllSo why even talk about race when you know it's a capitalism issue.
While not true everywhere (particularly here in the rust belt), in many regions of the US, the working class is largely black or latino - and to the extent that it exists at all, most class-consciousness resides among the dark-complected minorities. In such regions, the white people are either coordinator-managerial class or capitalist class, or identify with such classes. Just go to Washigton DC, Atlanta, or other fast-growing sunbelt-cities to see what I mean. Whenever I visit the DC area, I find the race-based caste system in this area to be stark. In the US, race is inextricably intertwined in the system.
How can you separate them? Capitalism's MO is to divide and conquer, and race is one of the ways it pits groups against one another to drive down wages and keep profits up. We can look at historical situations all over the world--capitalism divides and conquers.
Excellent comment, Donna.
Another crisp, astringent breath of fresh air from Glen Ford.
He sounds like a lunatic to me. And with a big racial chip on his shoulder. The angry black man - how cliche.
Hey, buddy, blacks have a right to be angry. Look at their incarceration rates and poverty rates. And seeing how Obama has betrayed white men and women, whites have a right to be angry, too.
Obama is a classist: he hates poor people equally. If Obama was walking down the street and both a hungry black man and a hungry white man begged him for a quarter for an apple, he'd tell them both he could better help them if he used the quarter to pay down the national debt (translation: so he'd have more money to wage more war). What a twisted whore that man has become. His thinking is ALL messed up.
Yes, he hates poor people. Is this really an intelligent argument? I don't really think it worth responding to people who pretend to know the soul of someone they've never met.
Let's just stick to policy discussions and not veer off into silly psycho-analysis.
Don't want to interfere in your argument, but I'll vouch for Left town. I met Obama during the campaign and shook his meaty hand. His eyes were vacuous and he looked like an enigma. From his performance in office, I'll say now he's morally bankrupt. There!
You are a racist. Go away.
Who is a racist? Me? By calling someone on their obsession about race? Wow - that's news to me.
If you're really serious about the lunatic quip, then you haven't been reading the web/press/wall graffiti lately. In fact, compared to certain "angry white guys," Glen is downright civil. Get over your feelings of inferiority and learn to appreciate justified anger.
Obama the 'Trojan Horse'. Well said. We would have been better off with Mc Cain. If Mc Cain had stayed the Bush course, like Obama has, the revolution would have already begun. Can you imagine Mc Cain suggesting cuts to SS?
People who gave $25 to Obama just cannot let go. SS is the last straw - the proverbial line in the sand. When 87% of the public wants hands off SS, how can you call the US a democracy? We are living the birth of empire. What is best for this country is now determined by a decider, dictator, emperor, für, duce, god, etc...... Elections and votes mean nothing. The pie has been cut up. If you don't have a piece, plan on going hungry in perpetuity. We are living Plato's Republic and have been for 2,500 years.
It is time for a new 'Age of Enlightenment'. Read Thomas Paine.
(http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search.html/?default_prefix=author_id&sort_order=downloads&query=91)(http://tpnha.keybrick.net/)
I agrre with you. Yet many who gave him money and votes are going to do so again.
The US is not the only Empire in the game. It is just the front puppett. Look at what the elites are doing to all countries. First the banks decided to bankrupt the world, now they are forcing privitization on all countries. One world order is just around the corner. People really need to wake up but I think it is too late. This has been in the works for a long time.
I liked the story. Would the title "Current President seeks right and further right alliance" not be more to the point? What center is anyone referring to-- what liberals? Progressives have long since left the fold as the Who would put it. Hey, when Alexander Cockburn speaks, progressives listen. Sometimes we say no, but mostly we like what he puts out there.
Now the AP and the rest of the mainstream US media is trashing Ron Paul. Don't "we wonder why?' Gee! Could it maybe be that he would cut the Pentagon budget big time, stop endless war as a foreign policy, put a lid on the power of the Fed, restore civil liberties, and a "few" other things our mainsteam media doesn't like. Gee. If that's it why shouldn't we vote for Paul? With enemies like these that generallly says that this a good person for the job. The same media never liked Franklin D Roosevelt, nor Jimmy Carter even. But they kissed Gipper's booty big time.
Right on, Mr. Ford. Obama is an evil bastard. The enormity of it makes it difficult for people to grasp.
Emma,
....and to think he's the lesser of the two evils? The Democrats are truly F__K Retard!
The great fallacy of the "lesser of two evils" approach to politics is that a republican president never could do the damage our "heroic" first black president has done. He is a young version of Clarence Thomas, who really believes in the right wing view of the world, including Calvinist belief in the chosen, such as them.
First of all Mr. Ford, tax increases and social security cuts are political losers. I don't care what anyone says. Obummer may be calculating but he is as weak as they come . Obummer seems think if he just uses the Bill Clinton 95-96 playbook that the 2012 election will be his. NOT. Here's the thing: the premise from the White House is to raise taxes or cut social security and medicare. Not even mentioning State Department contracts like Blackwater, KBR, Haliburton, CORPORATE WELFARE, the pentagon budget, and eliminating some departments. Now if Obama thinks he can win with this strategy as Ronald Reagan use to say "go ahead ,make my day". Because as we saw in 1992 with Old George Bush once your base is lost it never comes back.
It doesn't matter that ~80% of people, across parties and ideologies, do not want SS touched and want to raise taxes on the wealthy; if the dems are not falling all over themselves to get it done, it must mean they don't WANT to do it. Meanwhile, the republicans are doing their part for the oligarchy by playing bat-shit crazy and giving the librul media fodder to fill every minute of every program with stories of their antics.
Obama will be reelected because, as people like Thom Hartmann and Rachel Maddow keep reminding us, the republicans are worse. (Obama uses fear just as brilliantly, and wantonly, as cheney ever did.) And if there's too much hue and cry after Obama smashes the social safety net, Michelle Bachmann will be the republican nominee, ensuring Obama and the oligarchs a win.
Unfortunately I believe you are correct. No matter what he does or what he says the faithful will continually bring up the "lesser of two evils" argument to justify his reelection. I have no idea what he has to do to convince them he is just Bush in a new suit.
Glen Ford,
I don't mean to be disrespectful.
"He is every bit as much a war criminal as Bush, and as morally debased."
What you and your brothers going to do about it? I bet you they will vote for Obama again. Did you see their cried and hope during the 2008 election?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P36x8rTb3jI
Not only is President Obama trying to become the black Herbert Hoover with his economic plan to cut jobs and slash Social Security to "stimulate" the economy, but also to become the black J. Edgar Hoover with Obama's incessant attacks on our civil liberties.
Thank you for the double-Hoover references: Herbert and J. Edgar. Spot on. I have for some time now realized that the initials BHO stand for Benedict Hoover Obama, and will henceforth call him that whenever I simply cannot avoid the sight or sound of him. I detest him for continuing and escalating Deputy Dubya Bush's insane imperial wars-of-choice. I despise him for his Dick Cheney assaults on our civil liberties, most especially his draconian persecution of alleged whistle-blowers like Private Bradley Manning and Julian Assange, et al. I cannot abide his craven embrace of Ronald Reagan's Voodoo Economics -- i.e., the traditional and discredited Republican "trickle down" theory of impoverishing the working class for the sole benefit of America's super wealthy. And I loathe his enthusiastic desire to complete the reactionary dismemberment of FDR's New Deal programs like Social Security and Medicare that have their own funding resources, efficient management, and which contribute nothing to the nation's deficit problems in comparison with the corrupt sewer of a money-laundering black hole euphemistically called the "Defense" establishment. I could go on naming my deep and abiding aversions to this man and his many betrayals of my vote for him, but those big ones ought to suffice for starters. I have no interest or stake in his Presidency because he does not represent me or the issues I care about. The Democratic Party needs to nominate a Democrat for President in 2012 or I'll vote for a third-party Peace-and-Prosperity candidate. I refuse to vote for what I don't want for myself or my country.
What a perfect head line. Wallowing with the pigs would certainly make him a pig of enormous size. Maybe hogs would be a better metaphor.
Animal Farm is the operational manual Obama is using.
Dear Glen Ford...With all due respect(s)...you aren't using strong enough language...get mean...get ugly...get crazy with your words...then maybe your message with be heard above the din...your message is spot-on but everyone else is crazier and they are plastered all over the media...get mean...get ugly...get crazy like them, I say this because I want you and your message to be heard loud and clear...Thank you for Being, oneDman
oneDman,
If a White criticize a Black, the White is a racist! But if a Black criticize another Black, the message will sink in and get more traction.
I'm sorry but I'm color-blind. Others have read a race card in this piece, there may be one but I didn't or refused to see it?, take your pick. To paraphrase Frank Zappa; I ain't black but there's a lot of times I wish I weren't white. All in all, you are probably right, which is a shame.
Thanks for the well-taken rebuttal.
Racism, properly defined, is not to be confused with simple racial prejuduces. Racism is defined as the use or racial characteristics to accrue and maintain a syatem of power. Since, collectively, black USAns have no power in our society, their sullen complaints about "whitey" can hardly be considered "racism", becasue their use does not accrue or maintain any power, becasue they don't have any!
Indeed, Obama's utter obsequience to capitalist power itself is likley a manifestation of the racist dynamics of USAn capitalist society.
Amen ...
GLEN: If I had a platform, I'd present you with a new trophy in the category of "Balls, Inc." (which, incidentally, female journalists like the late Molly Ivins would also qualify for).
Thank you for stating in clear, uncertain terms the full extent of the sell-out underway in this awful presidency. I really don't care what the color of a politician's skin is, or gender for that matter... what matters are the principles they stand by, and the policies they're willing to fight to enact. In this case, Trojan Horse is the apt metahor. And just when the times call for ANYTHING but this level of abject betrayal.
One could understand a politician needing to make concessions, to lend some regard to the business community and seek to balance that with a genuine concern for the American public. What we have here, is a naked give away in EVERY arena that counts, often dressed up in words intended to beguile, bedazzle, and bamboozle the public. Of course when the paycheck no longer covers food, gas, rent & heating bills... even the dullest knife in the drawer smells a rat.
It's all just beyond disgusting.
yes, I agree completely. Race is NOT the issue here. Taking courageous steps to create jobs, cut military spending and NOT touch social security would be a step in the right direction: however, I think it my be too late. Pres. Roosevelt would turn over in his grave right now if he knew what was happening under the Democratic???? president.
Siouxrose, yes, "it's all just beyond disgusting," and will go further beyond disgusting very quickly. The polls consistently show that Americans oppose this right wing agenda the oligarchs are shoving down our throats. How can we come together with other Americans - black, white, green, Republican, Democrat, Communist, etc., to stop this tiny minority from drowning our democracy, such as it is, in the bathtub? It has to be possible to stop them. There are far more of us than there are of them. Polls bear this out.
They will proceed with this agenda despite what the Polls say simply because the Oligarchs feel they have won and no longer have to worry about the electorate, They control all areas of Government.
Glenn Ford picking up the mantle of Chris Hedges. Another truth teller of the highest integrity!
There's just a tiny handful of people regularly reproduced on CD who consistently "nail it": Hedges, Linh Dinh, Jeremy Scahill, and Glen Ford; maybe one or two others.
Ted Rall.
Agreed. A shame CD reproduces his stuff so rarely.
Glen Ford isn't picking up anybody's mantle. Glen Ford has been right about Obama for longer than anyone else I know...for longer than I have known about Obama...which is since the NPR Democratic primary debate. Black Agenda has had Obama under its microscope since he was an Illinois politician. And they have been right about him from the beginning. Which, in the US, guarantees opprobrium or obscurity.
Love this article by Glen Ford. This is what's needed from more writers. An honest assessment and accounting of Obama's action.
As an aside, I do agree with some of the other posters that the injecting of race in the last paragraph was unnecessary. Like so much of what we've witnessed these past dozen years or so, this is about CLASS and serving the interests of the top 5-10%.
Race and class are linked in the US. Ford's consideration of the basis for the loyalty of Blacks and its possible effects is entirely appropriate and relevant. The question was: why do they support Obama despite his policies inimical to Blacks? His last 3 paragraphs are right on the money - Rhetorical q: why be afraid to consider how race affects support in this case?
Actually, the injection of race in parts of Ford's essay (e.g., the penultimate paragraph) doesn't bother me. I'm assuming that Ford's primary audience is that of the Black Agenda Report, and certainly there are African Americans who feel a certain degree of race-relevant betrayal from Obama (just as feminists decry women for serving the patriarchy; LGBTs decry LGBTs who serve hererosexist interests, etc. etc.) -- even though I agree that class is the greater and overarching issue here.
PROPOSED LEGISLATION THAT WOULD PRESERVE SOCIAL SECURITY INTO PERPETUITY
By John Bachar
See the analysis of Social Security (SS), not to be found anywhere else, for the 16 year period, 1993 through 2008. The central result is that easy structural changes can be made to the SS taxation system by an act of Congress that will easily provide for sufficient annual contributions and Trust Fund assets growth to take care of the retirement needs of the increasingly aging population into perpetuity, as well as the replacement of the existing 73-year old regressive SS taxation system (only salaries/wages are taxed below a certain amount called the “cap”) by a progressive one (i.e., the taxation of all income, not merely salaries/wages, at a rate that increases with increasing income), and without reducing retirement benefits nor increasing the retirement age. Please click on:
1. Complete analytical version (November 2010) http://www.absentlinks.com/uploads/6/6/4/2/6642350/four_analytical_papers_on_preserving_and_strengthening_social_security_by_john_bachar.pdf
2. Comprehensive updated version (July 2010)
http://www.absentlinks.com/uploads/6/6/4/2/6642350/july_2011_comprehensive_version_social_security_exposing_the_destructive_fixes_and_showing_how_to_preserve_it_into_perpetuity.pdf
3. Brief version
http://www.absentlinks.com/uploads/6/6/4/2/6642350/social_security_taxation_system_revision_from_regressive_to_progress_on_all_income_november_2010.pdf
John M. Bachar, Jr.
Emeritus Professor of Mathematics
California State University Long Beach (CSULB)
Bio
I am a Mathematician with a 50+ year record of research and university teaching (to summarize; Ph.D. UCLA, 1969; M.S. Northwestern University, 1955; 36 years teaching at CSULB; dozens of research conferences; director of research conferences; research papers). In addition to the world of pure mathematics in academia, I have analyzed and written about dozens of issues that are in the Public Interest, with particular emphasis on the inherent mathematical content of such issues.
OilyBomber
I was astonished to here Thom Hartmann talking about Boehner playing 'good cop bad cop' with Cantor, and engaging in some kind of weird mental gymnastics wherein Obama remains a Noble Progressive (in his mind). What the liberals like Hartmann fail to see is that Obama and the Repugs are playing 'good cop, bad cop' on ALL of us. Obama is not interested in drawing a line in the sand on protecting Social Security, as he SAID he would when campaigning. One has to be in serious self deception to view his recent positions on this issue as reflecting a 'progressive' agenda.
Thom Hartmann lost touch with reality sometime around 1790.
Thom Hartmann does a lot of intellectual gymnastics to deflect blame and criticism away from Obama and Blue party. After Oblahblah "does" social security and medicare Hartmann will claim the republicans made him do it, even though it is well established and documented that Barry is the one who is pushing for the cuts. He has said so himself!
.
Thom will probably tell us that Barry was forced to make the cuts, and that he means to improve on them in the near future
Who is this jackass and how is this presented as serious journalism? There are not specifics on the table about Obama's proposals. The Republicans keep walking out of the room when the discussions even begin.
I'm consistently amazed at the inability of some on the left to acknowledge the deep financial mess the U.S. is in, and that Obama actually is President of the U.S., not just Vermont and San Francisco. Furthermore, his party does not control the House of Reps and certainly never had anything resembling a majority progressive coalition before the mid-terms, despite what some deliberately misleading columns might have you believe.
Any piece critical of Obama's administration that doesn't first acknowledge these realities is dishonest. He's not a Dictator folks. He has to get Congressional approval on legislation.
And please, how could he possibly get re-elected if he destroys those social programs. Common Dreams is sometimes no better than the New York Post for publishing such garbage.