Dear Mr. President:

According to press reports, you intend to decide between November 7 and November 11 whether or not to send tens of thousands of American soldiers to Afghanistan. We are writing in advance of that decision to add our voice to those of Sen. Feingold, many House Democrats, and of a clear majority of Americans in urging you not to escalate this war, but rather to announce an immediate cease-fire followed by a withdrawal of all US troops in the fastest way consistent with the safety of our forces. We urge you to end the policy of using Predator drones to assassinate Pakistani civilians on the territory of their own country, in defiance of all concepts of international law. We also call upon you to cease all covert CIA and Pentagon operations in Afghanistan,
Pakistan, and Iran.

No vital American interest is at stake in Afghanistan. Former Marine and State Department official Matthew Hoh is right: the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan have come to be viewed as invaders and occupiers, and the resistance they encounter has nothing to do with international terrorism. This war is futile, and now doomed to failure. There is no military solution to the problems that beset Afghanistan. Afghanistan and the rest of this tragically war-torn region need a Marshall Plan of peaceful economic development, through which some of the 15 million unemployed workers in our own country could find productive jobs. We have no confidence in the advice being given to you by military leaders like Gen. McChrystal, who has been implicated in torture in Iraq.

We supported your candidacy because we viewed you as the best chance for ending the wars of the Bush era. We applauded your rejection of the rhetoric of fear and division that was the stock in trade of Bush and Cheney. We are alarmed by the way that rhetoric has crept into your public pronouncements since your August address in Phoenix. Your decision on Afghanistan will represent the decisive turning point of your presidency. If you turn away from war, you will provide a profile in courage that will solidify your support and open up a new perspective for progressive reforms in our country. You will honor the spirit of John F. Kennedy, who was searching for an exit strategy from the Vietnam war. If you opt for a wider war, the resulting heavy casualties will destroy confidence in your leadership among your own most devoted advocates. Hundreds of billions of dollars will be poured down a rat hole, and will no longer be available for any reform and renovation of American society, which will increasingly fall behind the economic strength of other countries. Your domestic agenda will be halted, in the same way your predecessor Lyndon B. Johnson was crippled by the Vietnam war. Escalation of the Afghan war, in short, would be an act of political suicide for you, and of national suicide for our country.

We are keenly aware of the difficulties and animosities you face, and we have long done everything possible to give your administration the benefit of the doubt, even in the face of repeated disappointments. But we now approach the moment of truth: will you be a great progressive president, or will you prove too weak to turn away from the bankrupt policies institutionalized and entrenched under Bush and Cheney. Therefore, we want you to know our attitude before you decide on the proposed Afghan escalation. If you choose to escalate, we will oppose this policy with all the energy we possess. We will act to mobilize the largest possible anti-war demonstration in Washington DC and other cities before the end of 2009, and continuously thereafter. We will support anti-war candidates of any party in the 2010 elections. If you are still waging the Afghan war in 2011, we will be forced to seriously consider backing an explicitly anti-war primary candidate to challenge you during the Democratic primaries.

We therefore respectfully urge you to act in the spirit of your 2008 campaign – the spirit of hope and change, neither of which can survive the continuation or expansion of the hopeless Afghan war.

Cynthia McKinney, DIGNITY

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The Anti-empire Report – 2009-11-04

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” — Voltaire

Question: How many countries do you have to be at war with to be disqualified from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize?

Answer: Five. Barack Obama has waged war against only Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. He’s holding off on Iran until he actually gets the prize.

Somalian civil society and court system are so devastated from decades of war that one wouldn’t expect its citizens to have the means to raise serious legal challenges to Washington’s apparent belief that it can drop bombs on that sad land whenever it appears to serve the empire’s needs. But a group of Pakistanis, calling themselves “Lawyers Front for Defense of the Constitution”, and remembering just enough of their country’s more civilized past, has filed suit before the nation’s High Court to make the federal government stop American drone attacks on countless innocent civilians. The group declared that a Pakistan Army spokesman claimed to have the capability to shoot down the drones, but the government had made a policy decision not to. [1]

The Obama administration, like the Bush administration, behaves like the world is one big lawless Somalia and the United States is the chief warlord. On October 20 the president again displayed his deep love of peace by honoring some 80 veterans of Vietnam at the White House, after earlier awarding their regiment a Presidential Unit Citation for its “extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry”. [2] War correspondent Michael Herr has honored Vietnam soldiers in his own way: “We took space back quickly, expensively, with total panic and close to maximum brutality. Our machine was devastating. And versatile. It could do everything but stop.” [3]

What would it take for the Obamaniacs to lose any of the stars in their eyes for their dear Nobel Laureate? Perhaps if the president announced that he was donating his prize money to build a monument to the First — “Oh What a Lovely” — World War? The memorial could bear the inscription: “Let us remember that Rudyard Kipling coaxed his young son John into enlisting in this war. John died his first day in combat. Kipling later penned these words:

“If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.”

“The Constitution supposes what the history of all governments demonstrates, that the executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the legislature.” — James Madison, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, April 2, 1798.

A wise measure, indeed, but one American president after another has dragged the nation into bloody war without the approval of Congress, the American people, international law, or world opinion. Millions marched against the war in Iraq before it began. Millions more voted for Barack Obama in the belief that he shared their repugnance for America’s Wars Without End. They had no good reason to believe this — Obama’s campaign was filled with repeated warlike threats against Iran and Afghanistan — but they wanted to believe it.

If machismo explains war, if men love war and fighting so much, why do we have to compel them with conscription on pain of imprisonment? Why do the powers-that-be have to wage advertising campaigns to seduce young people to enlist in the military? Why do young men go to extreme lengths to be declared exempt for physical or medical reasons? Why do they flee into exile to avoid the draft? Why do they desert the military in large numbers in the midst of war? Why don’t Sweden or Switzerland or Costa Rica have wars? Surely there are many macho men in those countries.

“Join the Army, visit far away places, meet interesting people, and kill them.”

War licenses men to take part in what would otherwise be described as psychopathic behavior.

“Sometimes I think it should be a rule of war that you have to see somebody up close and get to know him before you can shoot him.” — Colonel Potter, M*A*S*H

“In the struggle of Good against Evil, it’s always the people who get killed.” — Eduardo Galeano

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a Taliban leader declared that “God is on our side, and if the world’s people try to set fire to Afghanistan, God will protect us and help us.” [4]

“I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job.” — George W. Bush, 2004, during the war in Iraq. [5]

“I believe that Christ died for my sins and I am redeemed through him. That is a source of strength and sustenance on a daily basis.” — Barack Obama. [6]

Why don’t church leaders forbid Catholics from joining the military with the same fervor they tell Catholics to stay away from abortion clinics?

God, war, the World Bank, the IMF, free trade agreements, NATO, the war on terrorism, the war on drugs, “anti-war” candidates, and Nobel Peace Prizes can be seen as simply different instruments for the advancement of US imperialism.

Tom Lehrer, the marvelous political songwriter of the 1950s and 60s, once observed: “Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.” Perhaps each generation has to learn anew what a farce that prize has become, or always was. Its recipients include quite a few individuals who had as much commitment to a peaceful world as the Bush administration had to truth. One example currently in the news: Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of Medecins Sans Frontieres which won the prize in 1998. Kouchner, now France’s foreign secretary, has long been urging military action against Iran. Last week he called upon Iran to make a nuclear deal acceptable to the Western powers or else there’s no telling what horror Israel might inflict upon the Iranians. Israel “will not tolerate an Iranian bomb,” he said. “We know that, all of us.” [7] There is a word for such a veiled threat — “extortion”, something normally associated with the likes of a Chicago mobster of the 1930s … “Do like I say and no one gets hurt.” Or as Al Capone once said: “Kind words and a machine gun will get you more than kind words alone.”

The continuing desperate quest to find something good to say about US foreign policy

Not the crazy, hateful right wing, not racist or disrupting public meetings, not demanding birth certificates … but the respectable right, holding high positions in academia and in every administration, Republican or Democrat, members of the highly esteemed Council on Foreign Relations. Here’s Joshua Kurlantzick, a “Fellow for Southeast Asia” at CFR, writing in the equally esteemed and respectable Washington Post about how — despite all the scare talk — it wouldn’t be so bad if Afghanistan actually turned into another Vietnam because “Vietnam and the United States have become close partners in Southeast Asia, exchanging official visits, building an important trading and strategic relationship and fostering goodwill between governments, businesses and people on both sides. … America did not win the war there, but over time it has won the peace. … American war veterans publicly made peace with their old adversaries … A program [to exchange graduate students and professors] could ensure that the next generation of Afghan leaders sees an image of the United States beyond that of the war.” [8] And so on.

On second thought, this is not so much right-wing jingoism as it is … uh … y’know … What’s the word? … Ah yes, “pointless”. Just what is the point? Germany and Israel are on excellent terms … therefore, what point can we make about the Holocaust?

As to America not winning the war in Vietnam, that’s worse than pointless. It’s wrong. Most people believe that the United States lost the war. But by destroying Vietnam to its core, by poisoning the earth, the water, the air, and the gene pool for generations, the US in fact achieved its primary purpose: it left Vietnam a basket case, preventing the rise of what might have been a good development option for Asia, an alternative to the capitalist model; for the same reason the United States has been at war with Cuba for 50 years, making sure that the Cuban alternative model doesn’t look as good as it would if left in peace.

And in all the years since the Vietnam War ended, the millions of Vietnamese suffering from diseases and deformities caused by US sprayings of the deadly chemical “Agent Orange” have received from the United States no medical care, no environmental remediation, no compensation, and no official apology. That’s exactly what the Afghans — their land and/or their bodies permeated with depleted uranium, unexploded cluster bombs, and a witch’s brew of other charming chemicals — have to look forward to in Kurlantzick’s Brave New World. “If the U.S. relationship with Afghanistan eventually resembles the one we now have with Vietnam, we should be overjoyed,” he writes. God Bless America.

One further thought about Afghanistan: The suggestion that the United States could, and should, solve its (self-created) dilemma by simply getting out of that god-forsaken place is dismissed out of hand by the American government and media; even some leftist critics of US policy are reluctant to embrace so bold a step — Who knows what horror may result? But when the Soviet Union was in the process of quitting Afghanistan (during the period of May 1988-February 1989) who in the West insisted that they remain? For any reason. No matter what the consequences of their withdrawal. The reason the Russians could easier leave than the Americans can now is that the Russians were not there for imperialist reasons, such as oil and gas pipelines. Similar to why the US can’t leave Iraq.

Washington’s eternal “Cuba problem” — the one they can’t admit to

“Here we go again. I suppose old habits die hard,” said US Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, on October 28 before the General Assembly voted on the annual resolution to end the US embargo against Cuba. “The hostile language we have just heard from the Foreign Minister of Cuba,” she continued, “seems straight out of the Cold War era and is not conducive to constructive progress.” Her 949-word statement contained not a word about the embargo; not very conducive to a constructive solution to the unstated “Cuba problem”, the one about Cuba inspiring the Third World, the fear that the socialist virus would spread.

Since the early days of the Cuban Revolution assorted anti-communists and capitalist true-believers around the world have been relentless in publicizing the failures, real and alleged, of life in Cuba; each perceived shortcoming is attributed to the perceived shortcomings of socialism — It’s simply a system that can’t work, we are told, given the nature of human beings, particularly in this modern, competitive, globalized, consumer-oriented world.

In response to such criticisms, defenders of Cuban society have regularly pointed out how the numerous draconian sanctions imposed by the United States since 1960 have produced many and varied scarcities and sufferings and are largely responsible for most of the problems pointed out by the critics. The critics, in turn, say that this is just an excuse, one given by Cuban apologists for every failure of their socialist system. However, it would be very difficult for the critics to prove their point. The United States would have to drop all sanctions and then we’d have to wait long enough for Cuban society to make up for lost time and recover what it was deprived of, and demonstrate what its system can do when not under constant assault by the most powerful force on earth.

In 1999, Cuba filed a suit against the United States for $181.1 billion in compensation for economic losses and loss of life during the first 39 years of this aggression. The suit held Washington responsible for the death of 3,478 Cubans and the wounding and disabling of 2,099 others. In the ten years since, these figures have of course all increased. The sanctions, in numerous ways large and small, make acquiring many kinds of products and services from around the world much more difficult and expensive, often impossible; frequently, they are things indispensable to Cuban medicine, transportation or industry; simply transferring money internationally has become a major problem for the Cubans, with banks being heavily punished by the United States for dealing with Havana; or the sanctions mean that Americans and Cubans can’t attend professional conferences in each other’s country.

These examples are but a small sample of the excruciating pain inflicted by Washington upon the body, soul and economy of the Cuban people.

For years American political leaders and media were fond of labeling Cuba an “international pariah”. We don’t hear much of that any more. Perhaps one reason is the annual vote in the General Assembly on the resolution, which reads: “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”. This is how the vote has gone:

How it began, from State Department documents: Within a few months of the Cuban revolution of January 1959, the Eisenhower administration decided “to adjust all our actions in such a way as to accelerate the development of an opposition in Cuba which would bring about a change in the Cuban Government, resulting in a new government favorable to U.S. interests.” [9]

On April 6, 1960, Lester D. Mallory, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, wrote in an internal memorandum: “The majority of Cubans support Castro … The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. … every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba.” Mallory proposed “a line of action which … makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.” [10] Later that year, the Eisenhower administration instituted the suffocating embargo.

Notes

1. The Nation (Pakistan English-language daily newspaper), October 10, 2009 ↩
2. Washington Post, October 20, 2009 ↩
3. Michael Herr, “Dispatches” (1991), p.71 ↩
4. New York Daily News, September 19, 2001 ↩
5. Washington Post, July 20, 2004, p.15, citing the New Era (Lancaster, PA), from a private meeting of Bush with Amish families on July 9. The White House denied that Bush had said it. (Those Amish folks do lie a lot you know.) ↩
6. Washington Post, August 17, 2008 ↩
7. Daily Telegraph (UK), October 26, 2009 ↩
8. Washington Post, October 25, 2009 ↩
9. Department of State, “Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Volume VI, Cuba” (1991), p.742 ↩
10 Ibid., p.885 ↩
–

William Blum is the author of Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2, Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower, West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir, Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire, Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at www.killinghope.org Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.

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Kevin Jennings SAFE SCHOOL CZARS As a teacher when a 15 year year said he was having sex with an older man, instead of turning in the man “the law for a teacher, he asked how it was going and suggested they use condoms.Held a conference with the MAXIMUM age of 18 to teach homosexual issues like fisting.?Wrote the intro to the book, “Queering Elementary Education.”? Has repeatedly praised and claims to be inspired by Harry Hay, early supporter of NAMBLA, (Noth American Man Boy Love Association).

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… which, like other ‘national emergencies’, lets vague directives kick in and be used in broad & sweeping ways – checkpoints, curfews & possible forced vaccinations …
from ap: President Barack Obama declared the swine flu outbreak a national emergency and empowered his health secretary to suspend federal requirements and speed treatment for thousands of infected people.

“As a nation, we have prepared at all levels of government, and as individuals and communities, taking unprecedented steps to counter the emerging pandemic,” Obama wrote in the declaration, which the White House announced Saturday.

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By Shamus Cooke

A lot is happening in the tumultuous realm of global economics.  The “Great Recession” has caused tectonic shifts internationally, with outcomes that will dramatically change the lives of millions of people in the U.S. and beyond.   And while Obama is acknowledging this fact with repeated references to “a new world order,” he isn’t explaining how this adversely affects working-class Americans.  The truth would be far too “controversial.”

The first unmentionable fact is the inevitable, long-term decline of the dollar, a phenomenon that can now be considered government policy.  The business magazine Forbes comments:

“The Treasury Department would never admit this, but for the time being it’s in the country’s interest to keep its currency low because it stimulates exports for the economy’s manufacturing base and lowers the value of the debt that the Treasury is piling up.” (October 5, 2009)

These policies are essentially economic attacks on foreign corporations and governments, and U.S. workers.

A cheaper dollar means an off-shoring of America’s debt onto countries like China and Japan — and foreign corporations, who are large buyers of U.S. currency and/or debt.  These foreign entities have already issued public warnings about this dynamic, and will not sit forever as their investments turn to mush. Economic retaliation should be expected.

A cheaper dollar also antagonizes foreign corporations in another way. U.S. corporations benefit from dollar deflation because it lowers the price of their goods/exports on the global marketplace.  But foreign competitors can play this game too, and the result would be economic warfare.

Most importantly, a cheaper dollar lowers the living standards of U.S. workers, since the price of foreign goods will become inflated.   With a catastrophic U.S. debt, inflation will continue for years to come.  Obama’s silence on the issue equals a premeditated plan to pursue the above objectives.  Workers will thus be forced into demanding wage increases that match this new inflation.

Another big secret Obama is keeping from workers is also U.S. debt related (keep in mind much of U.S debt is the result of fighting foreign wars and bailing out banks).  Under Obama these policies will continue; “sacrifices” are going to be made in other areas.  Obama has already talked at length in favor of “reforming entitlement programs,” without mentioning loudly that these include Social Security, Medicare, and other much needed social programs.  The Democrats’ priorities are perverse; money for war and banks, but not for those who really need it.

Obama’s secrets were partially revealed at the recent G-20 summit.  There, Obama pushed a plan that aimed “to reform the global architecture to meet the needs of the 21st century.”  Part of the plan said that “G-20 members with sustained, significant external deficits [the U.S.] pledge to undertake policies to support private savings and undertake fiscal consolidation while maintaining open markets and strengthening export sectors.”

In plain English this means that the U.S. will reduce its debt by slashing domestic consumption and increasing exports.  Reducing “domestic consumption” is another often-used codeword for lowering the standard of living of U.S. workers through lower wages and the elimination of “entitlement programs.”  Once workers’ wages have been reduced low enough, U.S. corporations will be able to export more on the global marketplace, the other key to Obama’s G-20 plan.

These plans are not mere schemes for conspiracy theorists; they’re already being implemented.  Massive unemployment has a direct, negative impact on workers’ wages.  The Democrats know this and are using it as a tool to enforce the pro-corporate G -20 policy. What else explains the deafening quiet from Obama around unemployment — already a social catastrophe ruining the lives of millions of people?

Another way the G-20 plan is already being enforced is by the restriction of credit for workers and small businesses.  A recent Wall Street Journal article was titled, “The ‘Democratization of Credit’ Is Over — Now It’s Payback Time.” (October 10, 2009)  The “democratization of credit” simply means that workers and low-income people had access to credit if they needed it.  No more.  Credit that was once used to cover end-of-the-month expenses and emergencies will once again be a privilege of the highly paid and wealthy.

Workers must understand that the current effects of the Great Recession are to become the new rules of the “reformed” U.S. economy.  The living standards of the past are to stay in the past.  Before, U.S. workers took out enormous amounts of debt to maintain their standard of living, since wages and benefits were steadily shrinking.  The hope was that the economy would improve, and better times would return.  The reality is far different.

The U.S. economy is losing its place of total dominance in world affairs.  And instead of the U.S. government reacting to this by adding social programs, they are taking them away.  Government money will continue to bail out banks when needed while funding trillion-dollar wars.

Once the reality of the above situation can no longer be denied, and U.S. workers recognize these policies as a corporate and government attack on their collective standard of living, they can begin to act. Workers without unions will fight to organize them. Those organized workers will push their unions to fight back by building united coalitions — representing the majority of working people — to organize massive demonstrations, protests, and strikes to demand a recovery plan to benefit the working-class and unemployed.  The conditions that led to the large U.S. workers’ struggles of the 1930s and 40s are reappearing, and workers will act accordingly.

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By Shamus Cooke

After the recent unemployment numbers were announced, smug politicians promising economic recovery stuttered a bit. This wasn’t supposed to happen.  Mainstream economists were predicting a smooth upswing in employment, but in September 263,000 more jobs were lost, 62,000 more than August.

Obama reacted predictably to the surprise.  He first pointed out that “employment is the last thing to recover from a recession,” and concluded that “…we are going to need to grind out this recovery, step by step.”  Brilliant.

Not one word on measures to help out the staggering number of unemployed workers, 1.4 million of which will have their benefits dropped by the end of the year.  Behind them are millions more workers who’ve been unemployed for over six months — 5.4 million and counting.

All Obama is offering is “hope” that the economy will get better, an illusion shared by most of the mainstream media.  Sometimes, however, the truth sneaks into Big Media.  This from the New York Times:

“…the underlying weakness of the economy will probably reassert itself, say experts. After years of borrowing against homes and cashing in stock to spend in excess of their incomes, many Americans are tapped out. Austerity and saving have replaced spending and investment in many households, constraining the economy.” (October 2, 2009)

When an economy is dependent on 70 percent consumer spending and the nation’s consumers are effectively bankrupt, recovery comes from…the government.  Indeed, the economic “green shoots” that the Democrats still obsess over were real, and based on government programs such as the highly touted Cash for Clunkers, and tax credits for first time homeowners, while the financial recovery was simply banks using bailout money to gamble on Wall Street.

It is estimated that these government subsidies resulted in 700,000 car sales and potentially 400,000 home sales, having a positive ripple effect on other parts of the economy that contribute to the making and distributing of cars and houses.

Cash for Clunkers has since ended and car sales are plummeting:  Ford is down 5 percent, Toyota 13 percent, Honda down 20 percent, Chrysler down 42 percent, and GM down 45 percent (Bloomberg, October 2, 2009).

The homeowner subsidy ends soon, and with it the second economic pillar will have been removed, leaving Wall Street gambling to uphold the barely-functioning economy.

Many workers are starting to realize they’ve been lied to about the recession ending; patience is wearing thin.  If Obama thinks he can keep the country’s workers quiet forever by telling us to “tighten belts” and remain “patient,” he has another think coming.

The reality of the situation is forcing itself upon the minds of millions of people, who will stay patient only as long as their budgets allow.  The seemingly quiet American working-class has profound resentment and bitterness brewing right below the surface, to be released at any given moment.

When the majority of workers become suddenly engaged in politics, they’ll likely begin demanding that unemployment benefits be extended, and that the government provide living wage jobs with a worker-directed stimulus package.

There is much work to be done on America’s crumbling infrastructure, and many workers are available to do the job. Unfortunately, Democrats seem more intent on maintaining foreign wars and bailing out banks, policies that have created an enormous American debt.  It is this debt, say Democrats and Republicans, that prevents the government from spending any money on worker-oriented programs.

Therefore, unions and community organizations must also demand that a plan be worked out to address the debt issue; wars and bank bailouts must stop, and taxes for the super-wealthy must be raised to pre-Reagan levels.  American society has plenty of resources to address the needs of the working-class, but not while corporations have complete control over the direction of the country.

To switch directions we need a mass working-class movement, but such a thing will not fall out of the sky. A mass movement will emerge when unions and community groups organize together and begin collectively demanding specific changes in government policy.  Likely, such a pro-worker coalition will be ignored by the corporate-owned Democrats, and find it necessary to break with the two-party system forever.

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October 17th, 2009

And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter…

The dictatorship, and the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting. It provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway.

—Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free

The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can ‘throw the rascals out’ at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.

—Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in our Time

Obama Senior

Via: Los Angeles Times:

Reporting from College Station, Texas – In a glowing tribute to a Republican predecessor, President Obama on Friday praised President George H.W. Bush as an example of someone who eschewed “a life of comfort and privilege” and instead devoted himself to public service — inside government and out.

During an evening speech to honor the public service institute that Bush founded two decades ago, Obama called for cooperation between Republicans and Democrats. The former president, he said, proved that “the R or D next to your name is irrelevant” in challenging times.

“You might not always know it from watching the cable news shows or listening to folks on the radio,” Obama said, but “I think we’re standing in one of those moments.”

For his part, Bush reflected on Obama — the man who succeeded his son, President George W. Bush — as someone who at their initial meeting showed greater concern for Hurricane Katrina evacuees than for the television cameras.

“He came without fanfare,” Bush said of Obama’s 2005 visit to the region. “He was someone I could quickly see was genuinely concerned about helping others.”

They were joined onstage Friday in the Texas A&M University auditorium by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who also served in the previous administration and was CIA director under the elder Bush.

The event presented a slightly odd situation, given that Obama’s administration has at times broadcast a rejection of policies and ideas under George W. Bush.

On Thursday, Obama had fielded tough questions in New Orleans about the federal response in the four years since Katrina. And he was not subtle in pointing to the failings of the younger Bush’s administration.

Friends of George H.W. Bush said that he has a genuine regard for Obama and that he came up with the idea six months ago of inviting the president to come to this college town to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Points of Light Institute.

The former president is said to be unhappy with the Bush-bashing in Washington, but one former advisor said George H.W. Bush doesn’t hold it against Obama.

“Politics is politics,” said Ron Kaufman, a former White House political director. “But some things are bigger than that. He, like other Americans, would like to see the president be successful.”

Nevertheless, in the heart of Republican country, Obama inspired some protests and criticism.

Outside the auditorium Friday, a crowd of more than 100 chanted and waved signs, including one about the Obama administration’s spending and one about the national debt.

Inside, Bush had put together a polite and enthusiastic crowd.

The former president, who celebrated his 85th birthday in June with a parachute jump, walked gingerly with a cane. But he spoke in an unwavering voice of his admiration for Obama.

The evening was devoted to lauding the work of the Points of Light Institute, the name of which comes from a speech Bush gave envisioning the combined effect of individuals in public service.

Obama called on the audience of mostly college students to find time in their lives for service, even when it isn’t convenient or easy.

If the senior Bush could serve in combat missions overseas, Obama said, then “you can keep going when your service project gets tough.”

“He didn’t call for one blinding light shining from Washington,” Obama said. “He didn’t just call for a few bright lights from the biggest nonprofits. . . . He called for a vast galaxy of people and institutions working to solve problems in their own backyard.”

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Can President Obama be serious when he says he accepts the Nobel Peace Prize as “an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people of all nations”?

Among “all nations” does he include the people of Iraq? Polls show folks there overwhelmingly want the U.S. to get out. Apparently, they didn’t care for their dose of “American leadership.” Does Obama’s “all nations” include Okinawa, which the U.S. has occupied for 64 years and refuses to leave?

Does “all nations” include Diego Garcia, whose inhabitants the U.S. forced from their island homes in the Indian Ocean, (as Time magazine has reported,) and whose dogs we gassed for good measure? (President Bush later used that base to attack Afghanistan, the better to dominate the oil-rich Middle East.)

Since he’s been in office only a short time, when Obama speaks of “an affirmation of American leadership” is he referring to the eight years of warmongering by his predecessor George W. Bush, who tore up every international treaty he could lay his hands on? In fact, global public opinion polls identified Bush as one of the most feared public figures on the planet. What kind of “leadership” is it when one UN member invades another based on lies and kills a million of its people, steals it blind, and shatters its economy? Calling that “leadership” is a bit wide of the mark.

Perhaps Obama is referring to the “leadership” of his friend Bill Clinton, who let half a million Iraqi children starve to death during his White House watch and who inaugurated the rendition kidnappings of men off the streets of foreign countries—men who were subsequently tortured and denied legal rights and representation?

“Leaders,” of course, are supposed to have followers. But a CNN poll September 15th found that 58 percent of Americans oppose the war in Afghanistan. That war is as illegal as the war in Iraq, yet President Obama is deliberating about whether to escalate it, not whether to end it.

Obama’s statement accepting the Nobel is as misleading as his remarks to the CIA last April 16th when he praised the Agency and hailed the U.S. as “a nation of laws” when today  it is, in fact, the world’s principal law-breaker. The fact is, the charismatic new president appears to see the world through the dark glasses of the CIA and has aligned himself with the Agency’s imperialist agenda. Given Obama’s past employment, this is not that odd.

According to Wikipedia, upon graduating from Columbia University, Obama for a year “held a position as a research associate” in Business International Corp., a CIA front organization. The company is alleged to have kindly paid off Obama’s college loans for him. Obama worked in BIC’s financial services division, where he edited “Financing Foreign Operations,” a global reference service, and wrote for “Business International Money Report,” a weekly financial newsletter.  According to an article in the October issue of Rock Creek Free Press, of Washington, D.C., reporter Wayne Madsen writes, “Through its contacts with leading liberals around the world, BIC sought to recruit those on the left as CIA agents and assets.” At any rate, the New York Times reported in 1977 that a BIC company official admitted providing “cover” for CIA employees.

The CIA, of course, has long been tied in with advancing the interests of the oil industry. Its Middle East station chief Kermit Roosevelt in 1953 stage-managed the overthrow of the democratic government of Iran after it nationalized its oil industry, as it had every right to do, especially when they were being cheated like mad.

As the CIA works largely under cover, many of its activities such as the torture in Iraq and Afghanistan prisons are concealed from public view. So Obama, as a former CIA asset, protects the Agency by not calling their alleged torturers to account, by withholding photographs of their nauseating handiwork, and by praising the bandits in public. One way to tell who really runs a country is to look to see which, if any, of its citizens are above the law. In America, those people are headquartered in Langley, Virginia.            #

(Sherwood Ross formerly reported for the Chicago Daily News, wire services, and national magazines. Reach him at sherwoodross10@gmail.com)

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Washington’s Blog
Saturday, Oct 10th, 2009

Lobbyists from the financial industry have paid hundreds of millions to Congress and the Obama administration. They have bought virtually all of the key congress members and senators on committees overseeing finances and banking.

This is easy to confirm in black-and-white. See for yourself: here, here, here, here, here and here.

Manhattan Institute senior fellow Nicole Gelinas says:

The too-big-to-fail financial industry has been good to elected officials and former elected officials of both parties over its 25-year life span

And economic historian Niall Ferguson says:

Guess which institutions are among the biggest lobbyists and campaign-finance contributors? Surprise! None other than the TBTFs [too big to fails].

No wonder two powerful congressmen said that banks run Congress.

No wonder two leading IMF officials, the former Vice President of the Dallas Federal Reserve, and the the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City have all said that the United States is controlled by an oligarchy.

With the exception of a handful couple of Congress members who have the American people’s interest in mind, Congress is bought and paid for.

Note: A friend on the Hill made an important point to me by email.

The story isn’t just that a lot of members are bought and paid for, it’s that some aren’t.

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Agence France-Presse

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October 8, 2009 by smokingmirrors

Listen up Howdy Doody; you’re a waste of carbon, oxygen and water, not to mention space. You’re a low-down, snake-eyed liar and a paid political whore for the nastiest psychopaths on the planet. I understand you wouldn’t be president otherwise but that doesn’t justify it. I remember little things that clued me early on. I remember Warren Buffet being in your corner and then I remembered Warren Buffet and Jacob Rothschild meeting with Schwarzenegger. I remember little things and vague associations across time. I also remember the things people say because I actually listen to them.

As soon as I saw you, my first thought was, “there goes a cool cucumber of a long tall drink of water from the Lincoln Reflecting Pool, minus the Lincoln”. You reminded me of one of those Chicago Pimps without the leopard skin coat. Politics is a world of strange contradictions. That’s how you can be both a pimp and a whore at the same time and have it make perfect sense.

I know there are those who will say it’s a big job being president of, the soon to no longer be, the most powerful nation on Earth. Maybe that’s why people can imagine that a lot of what gets done there isn’t your decision. However, I know the impact the president can have on policy and I also know that even with powerful opposition, the president can stand for the right thing.

You were elected on the platform of ‘hope and change’. Hope’s a hard thing to kill because it will remain as long as fools can dream. The only change I’ve seen is that you’ve expanded the theater of the conflicts you swore to end. I’m especially intrigued about your hypocrisy over the Guantanamo detainees. Any one who wants to, knows that most of those people were kidnapped and sold by opportunistic warlords and, since 9/11 was done by the former administration, in tandem with Israel, there are no other 9/11 terrorists.

Hi-ranking members of the CIA have gone on record that there is no Al Qaeda. That’s what makes hiring Blackwater to kill Al Qaeda operatives so damned ironic. If there’s no

Al Qaeda, and there is no Al Qaeda, then it must mean that someone other than Al Qaeda is being killed all along. Since Bin Laden’s been dead for years, the constant mention of his name every time you need to scare the public is also pretty low down. I realize that it is the Israeli controlled press that is responsible for this, just as I am certain that Israel controls everything you say and do. It’s got to be a hard thing for the black people to have come so far from slavery only to have one of their own become president and then sell his ass to the descendents of those who operated many of the slave ships AND the slum housing AND the pawn shops AND the liquor stores AND the film industry that portrayed them as Stepin Fetchits and google-eyed retards for such a long time. That’s pretty cold, Mr. President. That’s pretty cold.

Let’s be perfectly clear here, all the evidence points to 9/11 being an inside job that was accomplished by elements in the American and Israeli governments. The beneficiaries of the attack have been fascist elements of the American government and Israel. All the conflicts that followed were orchestrated by dual national Zio-cons in key positions in government and the corporate and media realms. The looming assault on Iran is being drummed up by the same elements. Israel, who does possess nuclear weapons, is in violation of all the things they are demanding from Iran. Iran is not in violation of all the things that Israel and the Israeli-occupied American governments are demanding from them.

So, consider this Mr. President, if your Zionist occupied government in tandem with Israel, carried out the 9/11 attacks; then for what reason have millions been murdered and displaced in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Pakistan? For what reason are all these people dying? If they have no association with 9/11 and the only acts they are committing are in defense of their nation against a pernicious invader then they are not terrorists, they are freedom fighters.

If the Taliban successfully stopped the opium production in Afghanistan why is it now more abundant than at any time in history? Why is this now being blamed on the Taliban who stopped it in the first place?

Now your government is pulling out all the stops to sink the Goldstone Report. Who owns your ass Mr. President?

You’re pounding the pavement for a comprehensive American health plan. Behind the scenes you are cutting deals with the pharmaceutical industry and the rest of the vultures that have keep affordable health care out of America all these years while most every other country has one. I realize the title of this post is misleading by omission. You’re not just a liar as we can see.

Your country’s economy is crashing around your ears. Madness is already surfacing on your streets. As the winter of American discontent comes lurching through the mist of global cooling, accelerating heating costs and the impact on every other area of the American economy is going to ignite the public rage and… perhaps that will keep them warm, Mr. President?

You gave all their money to the bankers who caused the problems in the first place. One of the things that amaze me is the resilience of the hope so many of your people have placed in you. It appears they are a nation of confused children and I suppose that makes you Gary Glitter.

During the rule of your predecessor, FEMA concentration camps were built across the nation and constitutional rights were dismantled and done away with. Gratuitous wars based on transparent lies were initiated in foreign lands and then you were elected to put things right …and you have allowed all of these things to continue …and then some. So why are you here really? You’re here to take it to the next step. You’re here to set the forces in motion that make the next step necessary. You and your policies and sycophants, at the behest of the psychopaths who own you, are here to instigate the conditions which make that next step unavoidable.

It’s not going to fly Mr. President. All across the course of history, one demagogue and madman after another has attempted to rule the world and they never pulled it off. You won’t either. What we are witnessing is not the final stages of a long sought after fait accompli. What we are witnessing is a cosmic, moral play with you and your associates as the object lessons.

What is it that causes such large numbers of people to follow so many bad leaders into the desert in search of water? What power closes their eyes to the obvious lies and crimes visited upon them? What has made them so dependent and apathetic that they indulge every injury directed at them? Is it materialism and convenience that weakened their spine?  Are there hidden technical or magical forces being directed at them? Is it some combination of many things, or is it just human nature? I don’t know. I see what I see and one of the things I see is you. I see right through you because you aren’t even there. You are composed of colorful smoke that dances before the terrible image of the beast that squats behind you.

Listen up; you would be prison warders of the planet entire. Your house of cards is set to tumble. The dominoes tremble as the Earth moves beneath them. I won’t ask you to see the light and change your ways. This is not something you are inclined or prepared to do. I will say only this to you, watch and see the fearsome destiny that awaits the perennial scoundrels who prey upon their fellows. Watch and see.

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From Backyard Conservative

There I was, sitting in Reagan National Monday morning, sipping a Starbucks by the United counter before going through security. I had a little time, so I was browsing through the news. Some military guys had borrowed a chair from my table. I looked up from time to time to enjoy the sun streaming through. That’s when I saw Bill Ayers, an instant blight. Scruffy, thinning beard, dippy earring, and the wirerims, heading to order. I gathered my things, got my camera ready, and snapped a shot right when he got his coffee.

I asked–what are you doing in D.C. Mr. Ayers?

For a moment I thought he might be on my flight back to Chicago. Charming. Initially I guess he thought I was laying claim to his coffee or something. He gave me an uneasy cheesy smile when he realized I was taking his picture. I asked him if he was speaking at GW? (Only I said GFW, guess I had the VFW on my mind) He said oh you mean GW, he said no…was trying to decide if I was a fan, then said he was giving a lecture in Arlington to a Renaissance group on education–that’s what I do, education–you shouldn’t believe everything you hear about me, you know nothing about me. I said, I know plenty–I’m from Chicago, a conservative blogger, and I’ll post this. (Oh, yeah, Bill Ayers, quite the Renaissance man, nail-bomber extraordinaire. Gee, I see another friend of Barack, U.S. Sec. of Education Arne Duncan was there too. “The conference theme is “A Time for Reflection, Celebration and Rebirth.” How touching. At best, useless, at worst, so wrong.)

Then, unprompted he said–I wrote Dreams From My Father. I said, oh, so you admit it. He said–Michelle asked me to. I looked at him. He seemed eager. He’s about my height, short. He went on to say–and if you can prove it, we can split the royalties. So I said, stop pulling my leg. Horrible thought. But he came again–I really wrote it, the wording was similar. I said I believe you probably heavily edited it. He said–I wrote it. I said–why would I believe you, you’re a liar.

He had no answer to that. Just looked at me. Then he turned and walked off, and said again his bit about my proving it and splitting the proceeds.

But the question remains–is Barack Obama a fraud? Is his myth-making creation and only major accomplishment a product of Bill Ayers’ imagination? (or his own) Is our President Barack Obama’s biography written by an unrepentant domestic terrorist?

Perhaps I’ll become Bill Ayers’ favorite conservative blogger and he can prove his authorship himself–turn over your notes Bill. And how about turning yourself in for your crimes.

I remember that era, Mr. Ayers. People died because of your actions, including your girlfriend. More would have if you had been more successful. And yet you have the gall to teach the teachers of our young. I won’t forget your murderous intent, your shameful acts, your contemptible lies and evasions. And when history is written, I hope you’ll be reviled–or forgotten.

As for our President, the verdict is still out. But Barack Obama called Bill Ayers friend and colleague for years. That in itself makes a damning statement.

Read more from Anne Leary at Backyard Conservative

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Dick Armey: Obamacare Will be ‘Ruthless’ to Patients, Elderly

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 6:22 PM By: Jim Meyers

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In a wide-ranging exclusive Newsmax interview, the Texas Republican also said Sarah Palin will prove to be a far better proponent of small-government conservatism than John McCain was in 2008.

And Armey agrees with House Minority Leader John Boehner’s recent assertion to Newsmax that President Obama’s appointment of many so-called “czars” constitutes a “circumvention” of the Constitution.

See Video: Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey discusses the dangers of Obamacare – Click Here Now

Armey, who entered the House in 1984, was a leading architect of the “Republican Revolution” in the 1990s and the Contract with America. He was a national sponsor of the March on Washington in September, and is chairman of the conservative non-profit organization FreedomWorks.

Armey was instrumental in a lawsuit that successfully challenged a requirement that seniors had to enroll in Medicare or lose their Social Security benefits.

“This is a big victory for me and I think for America, for my partners in the lawsuit,” he said in his interview with Newsmax.TV’s Ashley Martella and Kathleen Walter.

“Imagine this: They have been enforcing a policy memorandum since 1993 — not a law, not a regulation, just a memorandum — that says, for example, if you’re a Christian Scientist and you decide not to enroll in Medicare, you lose your Social Security. What audacity is this?

“It’s an issue that needed to be set right, and we’ve done that, and I’m proud of the courts for seeing our case.

“But it’s also a reflection people should look at: If they’re that ruthless with our senior citizens, they’ll be that ruthless with you and me if they get their hands on all of America’s healthcare. They’ll be these kinds of secret, hidden bureaucratic implementations that aren’t understood or appreciated.”

Noting the massive negative response to Obama’s healthcare reform plans, Armey agreed that we are seeing a “populist uprising.”

He said: “I think it goes back to last April when we had the initial tea party uprisings across the country. It fascinated me to watch the Democrats’ response. They said, they’ll go away. Then they came back in August. Then they had the march on Washington. [The Democrats are] finally coming to terms with the fact that these are very real concerns expressed by hundreds of thousands of American citizens all over the country.

“It boils down to the simple observation by Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama: We can’t get our votes in the legislative body because members of Congress are being responsive to the concerns raised by their constituents.”

Martella cited a Health and Human Services Department “gag order” on insurance companies, stopping them from mailing out information to their clients about the proposed $500 billion cut in the Medicare Advantage program.

“Armey’s axiom: If you’re going to peddle a bum steer, you better keep it under wraps,” he responded. “The first thing they want is, no one should know what’s in this bill.

“This is their strategic mistake: When Speaker Pelosi allowed the committees to report that bill before the August recess, they gave America a chance to read the bill. This is why it blew up in their faces.

“The fact of the matter is, it’s heavy-handed. It is coercive. If you read the bill, it is frightening…

“The country’s really concerned. They consider this a big, unnecessary government takeover, an aggressive government takeover.”

Regarding the so-called “public option” health insurance plan being pushed by Democrats, Armey said that most Democrats in the House “want government-run healthcare. They think having a public insurance option is a compromise from their most desired position, which is just have the government run it all. ”

Walter asked Armey if he is concerned about President Obama’s appointment of several dozen “czars” — special advisors or envoys who have relatively few restrictions on their authority and do not have to win Senate confirmation as Cabinet secretaries do.

“It’s a circumvention of the system,” Armey stated.

“I’d be the first to tell you we have too many Cabinet positions, but every Cabinet position exists in compliance with Constitutionally defined processes.

“With the czars they say, never mind that, we’re going to put extra-curricular people in by my whim and fancy, empower them and circumvent the Senate’s right to advise and consent.

“We don’t know for sure how much power these guys have. Are these ceremonial sops he’s given to his buddies, his cronies, or do they have real authority?

“But it is an administrative structure that is extra-Constitutional, extra-legal, and therefore I think it’s a danger to your liberty and mine.”

Armey said he believes Republicans are poised to do well in next year’s elections because of “public disappointment” in the Obama presidency, but added that “what the Republican don’t have now is that great idea that has a massive appeal to the American people.

“I think they can conceivably win the majority, but until they come up with that idea they’re not prepared to take over the majority.”

Walter noted that a John McCain strategist recently said a Sarah Palin presidential candidacy in 2012 would be disastrous for Republicans.

“You have to understand, McCain strategists feared Sarah Palin the moment she was chosen” because of concerns she might upstage the candidate at the top of the ticket, Armey said.

“Sarah Palin is I think now on her own terms and giving expression to her own voice.

“She’s going to demonstrate herself to be a far more shining example of what small government conservatism is and how well it can be understood and expressed than the McCain campaign was able to do.”

Turning to the economy, Armey observed that only about a quarter of the money allotted in the stimulus package has been spent, and “it has had virtually no impact. I saw Senator [Evan] Bayh say he thought we were better off than we would have been had there been no stimulus package. I think we’re worse off.”

Armey declared that the Democrats’ intention of allowing tax cuts to expire next year will “create more economic damage. When you have a recession you cut taxes, you don’t raise taxes.

“The biggest single problem that beleaguers the American economy is that the government is too big a burden. It’s already so big that the economy can’t carry it.

“Now if you add more government to that, it’s like you’ve got some poor hiker trying to make it up a hill and you keep putting rocks in his knapsack. You’re going to eventually buckle his knees.”

See Video: Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey discusses the dangers of Obamacare – Click Here Now

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If you thought the video of school children praising Obama was creepy, wait until you see this.

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Many people assume that Obama doesn’t understand that his economic team – Summers, Geithner, Bernanke, Gensler and the boys – are preserving the status quo, and failing to make the fundamental reforms needed to stabilize the economy.

They assume that the economy is a mysterious subject for experts, and that Obama innocently thinks his team is doing good for the American people.

But professor of economics and former chief IMF economist Simon Johnson isn’t buying it.

As Johnson and James Kwak write today in the Washington Post:

During the reign of Louis XIV, when the common people complained of some oppressive government policy, they would say, “If only the king knew . . . .” Occasionally people will make similar statements about Barack Obama, blaming the policies they don’t like on his lieutenants.

But Barack Obama, like Louis XIV before him, knows exactly what is going on.

If Obama doesn’t institute fundamental reforms now, Simon will blame him – and not just his advisors or the the lobbyists.

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