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Arms Dealer Obama Will Win by Default
Barack Obama will be re-elected not as a vindication of his policies but because the Republicans are incapable of providing a reasonable challenge to his flawed performance. On the central issue of our time—reining in the greed of the multinational corporations, led by the financial sector and the defense industry—a Republican presidential victor, with the possible exception of the now-sidelined Ron Paul, would do far less to challenge the kleptocracy of corporate-dominated governance.
President Barack Obama talks with Saudi King Abdullah in 2009. (AP / Gerald Herbert)
As compared to front-runner Mitt Romney, who wants to derail even Obama’s tepid efforts at regulating Wall Street, and who seeks ever more wasteful increases in military spending, the incumbent president appears relatively enlightened, but that is cold comfort.
Not only has Obama been a savior of the banking conglomerates that so generously financed his campaign, but he also has proved to be equally as solicitous of the needs of the military-industrial complex. He entered his re-election year by signing a $662 billion defense authorization bill that strips away some of our most fundamental liberties and keeps military spending at Cold War levels, and by approving a $60 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
Those two actions represent an obvious contradiction, since the attack on American soil that kept defense spending so high in the post-9/11 decade was carried out by 15 Saudis and four other men directed by Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi primarily using funding from his native land. Now Saudi Arabia is to be protected as a holdout against the democratic impulse of the Arab Spring because it is our ally against Iran, a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11. Saudi Arabia, it should be recalled, was one of only three nations, along with the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan, to recognize the Taliban government that harbored bin Laden before 9/11.
This is the same Saudi monarchy that rushed its forces into Bahrain last March to crush a popular uprising. But that doesn’t trouble the Obama administration; for two years it has been aggressively pushing the Saudi arms deal, which includes $30 billion in fighter jets built by Boeing. Forget human rights or the other good stuff Democrats love to prattle on about. As White House spokesman Josh Earnest put it: “This agreement reinforces the strong and enduring relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia and demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a strong Saudi defense capability as a key component to regional security.”
If Iran ever does pose a regional military threat because of its nuclear program or any other reason, real or concocted, it will be NATO forces that will take out the threat, not the Saudis, who will still be polishing their latest-model F-15s as icons of a weird conception of modernism.
The real reason for this deal is that it is the only sort of jobs program that Democrats are capable of pushing through an obstructive Congress. The administration boasts that the arms package will result in 50,000 jobs in 44 states, underscoring the warning from Dwight Eisenhower, the last progressive Republican president, about the power of a military-industrial complex that has tentacles in every congressional district. As Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, an Armed Services Committee member who championed this sale, put it: “The F-15 is a world class aircraft built by hardworking folks right here in St. Louis. I am thrilled for all of the skilled men and women on the F-15 line that this important, big order that I have stood side-by-side with them in working to secure is finally happening.”
A Democrat running for re-election, McCaskill added, “These are important jobs in our community. I will continue advocating for sales of Boeing products wherever appropriate.” Being a good Democrat, she doesn’t reference Boeing’s profits, which are increasingly dependent upon arming the rest of the world.
That’s the win-win of government-generated profits and jobs on which the Democrats are counting to defeat the Republicans, both through campaign contributions from the more rational among the wealthy and the votes of ordinary people who, despite being seriously hurt in this economy, have nowhere else to turn.
70 Comments so far
Show AllSo we see that the master plan has been executed flawlessly.
Rather than funding a presidential candidate, the GOP is spending party money to fund Congressional campaigns to assure that they control both houses a year from now.
Just for kicks, the GOP will let Romney and other candidates funding their campaigns with their personal fortunes "duke it out" .
Having pushed more GOP legislation through in two years than most GOP presidents pushed through in four, Obama will win because that GOP wants another four years of regressive legislation with the Democrats taking the heat from voters.
I hate to be included in the assumption that as a registered Democrat I have "nowhere else to turn". Bullshit! I REFUSE to vote for Obama the Traitor or any of the loony Republicans competing for the Republican nomination this November. Unless a strong third candidate emerges, and the likelihood of that seems dim at this point, I will write in my dog, Barney, for president. Let the country hit bottom (and we're pretty damn close). Very often that serves as a catalyst for great change. No longer will I be asked to pick the lesser of two evils. No evil is a better choice.
I couldn't agree with you more, Elizabeth. Of course I/we have a choice! We can vote our consciences. We can vote for a Green Party candidate, or the new Justice Party candidate, Rocky Anderson. or we can abstain from voting, essentially electing to boycott the entire charade. But don't call yourself, Mr. Scheer, a progressive and tell us we have nowhere else to turn beside voting to re-elect the biggest traitor in centuries, Barack Obama.
Hear! Hear! A vote for Rocky Anderson is a vote against the vested interests.
Unfortunately, I know nothing about Rocky Anderson. Some concrete info on him would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
This is where Rocky Anderson stands on the major issues.
https://www.voterocky.org/node/253
He also believes that the best way to get his message out is through social media such as Facebook and Twitter.
Thanks for the link, Erroll. Just one other question, however? Where does Rocky Anderson stand on the right for a woman's right to choose whether or not to have an abortion, and women's issues, generally? Just curious.
http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Rocky_Anderson_Abortion.htm
justiceparty.net would be a good place to start.
Amy Goodman interviewed him!
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/12/13/ex_salt_lake_mayor_rocky_anderson
Elizabeth, Slice & Erroll -- I don't think Scheer is arguing you should vote for Obama, I think he is just saying that among the candidates who could win the election in 2012 we don't have much of a choice, and Obama may slip back in by default. Hardly a ringing endorsement.
I am with you, however, because under no circumstances will I vote for these jackals. I didn't even vote for Obama the first time around (when I had a fairly positive view of him) and there is zero chance that I would vote for him this time around based on his slavish devotion to militarism and the banking/corporate cartels.
So it will either be Jill Stein or Rocky Anderson. A meaningless protest vote perhaps. However, our national elections are now sham affairs in which the 1% give us their two choices to pick from. (Matt Taibbi has it exactly right.)
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/iowa-the-meaningless-sideshow-begins-20120103
I might consider Ron Paul as a 'monkey wrench' candidate if he were faced off against Obama, but I can't see the oligarchy letting him anywhere near the keys to the White House.
The bankers will be gleefully happy pitting Obama against Romney -- an absolute win-win election for them.
I just want to thank everyone who has mentioned Rocky Anderson and Jill Stein. Unfortunately I don't know much about either but will pursue them further thanks to all of you. And another thanks for mentioning the Green Party. I keep forgetting about that party and will most likely switch before November.
It's so damn helpful to read how many of you feel frustrated by our politics. I never thought I'd become so disillusioned and bitter; apparently I'm not alone. Maybe that's part of getting older; seeing through all the bullshit.
"Ron Paul as a 'monkey wrench' candidate"
It makes sense to vote for Paul in the primary to have his issues posed against Obama. Another benefit could be that the oligarchy, which hates Paul more than anyone, might open up debates to candidates such as Jill Stein and Rocky Anderson in the hopes that unhappy former Democrats would at least vote for one of them rather than switch to Paul.
The result's the same -- Obama wins -- but at least there's some educational and third party building benefit.
Voting only legitimizes and perpetuates the whole, murderous, evil militaristic/economic/political system here.
Hate Empire? Stop participating in it.
I have written in "MIC-KEY-MOUSE" many times in the past when confronted with the problem of..."none of the above".... I have NEVER seen recorded in Lake County, Montana voting statistics the mention of MICKEY in the talley. So much for protest votes. And the beat goes on....endlessly on...
It unfortunately looks like this country will have to collapse before anything may have a small chance of changing.
Could be as Sheer predicts -- or maybe something else will happen.
Maybe Obama will decide not to run at the last minute and hand everything over to the Repuglicans. He certainly appears to be less than enthusiastic about being president. Indeed, he seems to be scared out of his wits.
This:
"He certainly appears to be less than enthusiastic about being president. Indeed, he seems to be scared out of his wits."
is true enough, GollyGee, but Obama brought a great deal of the crap down on his own head by his constant panderings, cave-ins, and the extensions of our wars, and extending G. W. Bush's policies, both here and abroad.
Don't you think that those cave-ins might have been because he was scared out of his wits? He has been completely out of his depth all along and being pushed into positions and propped up by Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago Gang was all he was good for.
Why would the corporate interests who control the US govt want to challenge their puppet in the white house? We are in the eye of the perfect storm of fascism, a govt completely and perfectly controlled by the 1%, and Obama has served as the perfect cover to hide the horror of it all.
Democrat/Republican dichotomies are meaningless, we have no democracy, no republic, we are a fascist state. "Elections" are nothing more than theatrical side shows designed to distract the public from this foul reality.
I am afraid IowaPinko is totally on the money.
We have become a Fascist Police State under Bush III
Hate Empire? Stop participating in it.
Voting only legitimizes and perpetuates the whole murderous, evil militaristic/economic/political system here.
Not voting also helps keep the default status quo. I say vote on principle but just do not count on voting alone.
there will be a camera in the voting booth.
Cameras in the voting! Vote absentee.
Camera or none, I will still vote.
mr scheer is a wise man and to me a good man and i think he is correct in his analysis about a romney/obummer bikini wax off
the corporate raider against the man with no past - ought to be good for a laugh
but mr scheer (once again, as he always does) rechannels the 9/11 psyop as an act by the arabs - and most specifically the saudis
in doing so he is protecting and deflecting attention away from the real perpetrators of 9/11 - whoever they are. we can't know who they are at this time because there has never been an investigation into 9/11
there was the keane/hamilton psyop which was soundly and roundly discredited by keane and hamilton themselves after the submission of their report
even they thought their work sucked and that the whitehouse not only mislead them but lied to them the whole way through
so we can safely discount their contribution to the psyop
mr scheer serves as a gatekeeper for these deep government figures who were behind 9/11 and all that ensued
how can he believe that 2 planes could turn 7 steel framed buildings into dust in 8 seconds
i mean really
guess he is not really into that whole "physics" thing
the law of conservation of energy is an absolute - it was not passed by congress ya know....
If what you all say is true, that "nothing has changed", then where were you all when Bush was doing this? Screw you. The financial and defense industries have been in charge for a long time, selling weapons around the world, funding covert wars, and undermining foreign democracies, and nobody complained much until now. All of a sudden, it's all Obama's fault. Like I said: SCREW YOU!
Get your facts straight. Many of us protested against Bush too. And other presidents before him, both D and R stretching way back. In fact, I would say that, if anything, "hope" for Obama and the thrill of finally having a non-white president have blunted criticism and activism by those in liberal and left circles.
Right on to that. I was horrified prior to the 2008 election when I saw the massive marketing campaign that was selling Obama to the left based on a few isolated "nice things" he said in speeches (but never acted on), and dependent on widespread liberal ignorance/apathy about foreign policy or military history. Presenting him as a protest vote against Republican racists was a stroke of cynical genius, and now we're suffering the consequences.
Smallbear -- I don't quite get your hostile diatribe. Are you saying no one posting here on CD ever criticized Bush for his militarism? Did you just starting reading CD recently?
I don't think I ever saw a positive comment regarding Bush on CD except for maybe a troll or two visiting from Free Republic. There are a handful of people here who try to find the silver lining in Obama ... is that what you are doing?
About the only positive thing I can say about Obama versus the Bush-Cheney junta is that he put two 'centrist' women on the Supreme Court while Bush left us with two right-wing Catholics who would have been happy practicing jurisprudence under Franco ... or Hitler for that matter. Alito and Roberts are simply Amerikan fascists. They are not conservatives -- as we saw with Citizens United, which was an extremely radical break with U.S. legal tradition -- they are fascists.
I guess Obama has not murdered as many people abroad as Bush-Cheney but then most of the mass killing in Iraq was already over by the time he took office.
Hey, but Iran coming up!
When the USA slaughtered 10 Million Southeast Asians during the Vietnam Conflict, it became a no longer viable Nation. Sheer and his nowhere to turn is stupidity. Read todays article by Phil Rochstophe (SP?) reality check, Brilliant!
Actually Smallbear, not only did people "post" their dissatisfaction with Bush but they did even better and actually "protested/marched" against their government! Also, they then voted "w" out as they wanted the madness to end.
Unfortunately a majority of the "posters" on this site (not all!) did vote for the current president, and have been "absent/non-existent" at any type of demonstrations against the current regime and the crimes they are committing. And the same type of madness is still occurring but at faster than it would if there was a republican in charge!
For heavens sake! Why would the corporations/wall street want anyone but a democrat in charge when they realize they can advance their agenda across the globe and keep the sheeple quiet!
Protest our government and it's criminal policies!
I will vote for Rocky Anderson! And I will continue to participate in protests against the actions of my government, be they democrat or republican.
Not going to be much of job maker in Kansas is it?
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20120104/BIZ/701059914
2000 jobs lost in Kansas, and only 200 found in Everett. Would seem to me that adds up to a net loss of 1800. Of course the Saudis will be hiring pilots and maintenance crews. You just have to be willing to move.
Where exactly are these 50000 new jobs? Maybe security forces to guard the Boeing plants, housecleaners, nannies and pool boys for Boeing's exectutives (for their new summer homes), caters, etc. for their retreats. When they calculated the lost jobs in Kansas did they include all the supportive retailers and community jobs that will be lost?
I don't recall anyone saying these were "new jobs" -- it's very likely that the devil's work is merely going to guarantee (for the limited time of the project) the retention of 50,000 jobs.
I agree that Mr Sheer's words seem testimony to a misguided belief in the myth of 'crazed' Arabs and Muslims as the perpetrators of 9/11.
That is sad enough, but Claire McCaskill's gleeful comment..."“The F-15 is a world class aircraft built by hardworking folks right here in St. Louis. I am thrilled for all of the skilled men and women on the F-15 line that this important, big order that I have stood side-by-side with them in working to secure is finally happening.”...seems to take political/social depravity and denial of the MIC beast to even greater heights.
How can a supposed Democrat AND woman even make a statement glorifying US manufacturers of weapons of mass destruction? How could this nation's elected representatives and corporate VIPs let slip to other countries almost all of our manufacturing jobs except weapon/arms making?
Well put, fedup2. And in light of what you've astutely observed, perhaps Mr. Scheer is correct in at least one way: calling Obama an "arms dealer."
fedup2
Very well said. Your penultimate sentence is indicative of the scene in the excellent 2006 documentary Why We Fight, directed by Eugene Jarecki, which shows congressperson after congressperson speaking on the House floor to praise the many fighter planes which are being built in their particular district.
If only these politicians could eschew their militant tendencies in order to vociferously lobby for, say, universal health care, or jobs for their constituents or to make sure that libraries and infrastructure are built in their towns, etc.
FED UP: That was the quote that got me going, too. And not just a Democrat, how could ANY HUMAN BEING champion such production, when it's all but inevitable that these "products" will kill or maim very real and live human beings?
I've shared this before, but it bears mentioning... again. Just as some of the good ole boys in the South (I live around this ilk) carry on the legacy of racism, in my view, as a means of deflecting their own (along with their ancestors') guilt onto the victim, the U.S. military has never owned its shadow. By continuing in a long line of demonizing "other," instead of facing its own diabolical acts, the brutality is projected onto the target by dehumanizing them and making them "worthy" of the attack.
Men who use violence against women generally blame the woman for their unleashed responses.
This is why any form of healing requires getting rid of (i.e. facing) the poison inside the wound. Monsanto won't even help pay for the cancers that resulted from its amoral, catastrophic use of Agent Orange on the jungles of Vietnam. Where is any apology? Until the sins are faced, there is no change in behavior, no embrace of the adage, "Now go and sin no more." Ths lack of realization allows the killing to go on... unchallenged.
The way PR people gloss over weapons production as if such plants are in the league of a Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory, is further evidence of the seamlessness with which the bankrupt ethos of Mar rules has been woven into a great many venues of Amerikan culture. Shades of the polite axe murderer who lives next door.
"On the central issue of our time—reining in the greed of the multinational corporations..."
Notice how Scheer points to the symptom of greed--without mentioning the financial elite's reaction to the crisis in American capitalism and capitalism around the world that's behind today's austerity measures.
That's what bullshit artists like Scheer, Nader, Hedges and the rest of the fake-left do.
They give you a limited picture of the situation, paint you in it, and then tell you that you really have no place to go.
That is, You have a limited choice. Use it.
Classic.
Only a particularly bloated ego and/or distorted egotist would throw stones at these persons, given their accomplishments:
"That's what bullshit artists like Scheer, Nader, Hedges and the rest of the fake-left do."
So what is it that you, "Greg's Diary," have done that is so superior and authentic-Left that extends you the right to play the role of today's character assassin (always prepared to take aim at a luminary on the left) in this forum?
It is by keeping your diary, Greg? Gee. We've all heard of the things you've done to stop corporate polluters, raise public consciousness, and stand up to the trespasses of the make-war state. Step aside Nader! Scheer! Hedges! And all others...
What's classic is a dumb bell like you showing up to aim poison darts at your BETTERS.
What argument? And you might check "histrionics" in a dictionary.
Vote NADER 2012
You really do have a choice. Use it.
Did that every time...and will do so this time.
Is Nader even running this year for president? I would gladly do a write-in for him if there was no one to run against Obama and whoever the Republican candidate ends up being. Thankfully, Rocky Anderson and Jill Stein are like Nader though I wish the two of them would unite and run under either the Green Party or Justice Party ticket.
I have voted for NADER for over 30 years. We don't need a Party. It is the Party System that got us where we are.
Join the W.I N. Campaign.
Write in NADER.
We can all vote for Rocky Anderson who is running as Third Party progressive
for the Justice Party!!
http://www.justicepartyusa.net/
I cannot vote for O-Bomber!
This is just another backstabbing from Obama and Corporate Democrats....
Rocky will just say "no!" to the financial elite because he's not a backstabber. Yessiree, not Rocky.
We can all just say no to backstabbing!