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Knock on Barack: The Realist Perspective

“A mere 12 hours after claiming the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama appeared before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee yesterday — and changed himself into an Israel hard-liner,” Dana Milbankwrote for the Washington Post on June 5. “He promised $30 billion in military assistance for Israel. He declared that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force has ‘rightly been labeled a terrorist organization.’ He used terms such as ‘false prophets of extremism’ and ‘corrupt’ while discussing Palestinians.” He even went so far as to declare Jerusalem “the capital of Israel” and stressed, never mind international law, it must “must remain undivided,” that is to say in the hands of the Israelis.”

November 5, 2008 1:31 A.M.

Barack Obama was just elected President. I voted for Barack Obama. And yet, I don’t quite feel like going to Disney World.

Is Barack going to end the War in Iraq? I think he’s more likely to start another War than end one.

Is Barack going to fix the economy? He voted for the criminal “bailout” which will has cost taxpayers $7 trillion and counting.

But who else could I vote for? John McCain, who sang about bombing Iran, said we could occupy Iraq for 100 years, pickedSarah Palin for VP, and ran maybe the dirtiest, most dishonorable campaign in history? Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader, or a write-in vote for Ron Paul destined not to count?

No, I voted for Obama because he was the only choice left.

I have some hope for what Obama can accomplish. President Obama will put saner judges on the Supreme Court than Bush did or McCain would have.

And Obama wrote in The Audacity of Hope that he will support alternative energy.

And yet, Barack stumped for the same old same old, nuclear power, oil, ethanol, and “clean” coal, the energy sources destroying our planet.

Obama voted for the second edition of the PATRIOT Act in 2005, which destroys the Bill of Rights, and for the “bailout,” which gave billions to billionaires, same as John McCain. His wife Michelle is reportedly a director of the CFR in Chicago. Actions speak louder than words, and unless President Obama unveils a vastly more progressive agenda than he has spoken about on the campaign trail (unlikely), the biggest change he represents is to the tired Republican vs. Democrat mentality.

When President Obama’s policies end up favoring big business and the corporations that funded his campaign jets, America should learn once and for all that both political parties are Corporatist, paid for and controlled by capitalism’s true masters, the plutocrat elite who own the TV networks and have controlled America from the shadows for decades. There is no democracy without free press and there is little free press in America, which is why America in 2008 is not very democratic.

Am I glad America finally has a black President? Sure, why not. But I’d be happier with a real progressive. If Barack Obama is not that person, than the Change We (Really) Need will have to wait until 2012. Here’s to a Kucinich/ McKinney or Ventura/Paul ticket challenging Obama and putting truth over the airwaves for a full election cycle.

Obama ‘08? Yeah, I voted for him.

Kucinich/ McKinney and Ventura/Paul ’12? Those are tickets I’ll take to Disney World.

 

December 2, 2008

A month has passed since Barack was elected. Actions speak louder than words. So what has our President-elect done so far?

He chose Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense. The same Robert Gates that is our Secretary of Defense, right now, under President Bush.

Some change, huh?

Here is what a few notable authors had to say about Barack:

“The Election, Economy, War, and Peace” by Noam Chomsky – “Turning to the future, what can we realistically expect of an Obama administration? We have two sources of information: actions and rhetoric.

“The most important actions to date are selection of staff. The first selection was for vice-President: Joe Biden, one of the strongest supporters of the Iraq invasion among Senate Democrats, a long-time Washington insider, who consistently votes with his fellow Democrats but not always, as when he supported a measure to make it harder for individuals to erase debt by declaring bankruptcy.

“The first post-election appointment was for the crucial position of chief of staff: Rahm Emanuel, one of the strongest supporters of the Iraq invasion among House Democrats and like Biden, a long-term Washington insider. Emanuel is also one of the biggest recipients of Wall Street campaign contributions, the Center for Responsive Politics reports. He ‘was the top House recipient in the 2008 election cycle of contributions from hedge funds, private equity firms and the larger securities/investment industry.’ Since being elected to Congress in 2002, he ‘has received more money from individuals and PACs in the securities and investment business than any other industry’; these are also among Obama’s top donors. His task is to oversee Obama’s approach to the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, for which his and Obama’s funders share ample responsibility.
“In an interview with an editor of the Wall Street Journal, Emanuel was asked what the Obama administration would do about ‘the Democratic congressional leadership, which is brimming with left-wing barons who have their own agenda,’ such as slashing defense spending (in accord with the will of the majority of the population) and ‘angling for steep energy taxes to combat global warming,’ not to speak of the outright lunatics in Congress who toy with slavery reparations and even sympathize with Europeans who want to indict Bush administration war criminals for war crimes. ‘Barack Obama can stand up to them,’ Emanuel assured the editor. The administration will be ‘pragmatic,’ fending off left extremists.
“Obama’s transition team is headed by John Podesta,Clinton’s chief of staff. The leading figures in his economic team are Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, both enthusiasts for the deregulation that was a major factor in the current financial crisis. As Treasury Secretary, Rubin worked hard to abolish the Glass-Steagall act, which had separated commercial banks from financial institutions that incur high risks. Economist Tim Canova comments that Rubin had ‘a personal interest in the demise of Glass-Steagall.’ Soon after leaving his position as Treasury Secretary, he became ‘chair of Citigroup, a financial-services conglomerate that was facing the possibility of having to sell off its insurance underwriting subsidiary… the Clinton administration never brought charges against him for his obvious violations of the Ethics in Government Act.’
“Rubin was replaced as Treasury Secretary by Summers, who presided over legislation barring federal regulation of derivatives, the ‘weapons of mass destruction’ (Warren Buffett) that helped plunge financial markets to disaster. He ranks as ‘one of the main villains in the current economic crisis,’ according to Dean Baker, one of the few economists to have warned accurately of the impending crisis. Placing financial policy in the hands of Rubin and Summers is ‘a bit like turning to Osama Bin Laden for aid in the war on terrorism,’ Baker adds.
“The business press reviewed the records of Obama’s Transition Economic Advisory Board, which met on November 7 to determine how to deal with the financial crisis. In Bloomberg News, Jonathan Weil concluded that ‘Many of them should be getting subpoenas as material witnesses right about now, not places in Obama’s inner circle.’ About half ‘have held fiduciary positions at companies that, to one degree or another, either fried their financial statements, helped send the world into an economic tailspin, or both.’ Is it really plausible that ‘they won’t mistake the nation’s needs for their own corporate interests?’ He also pointed out that chief of staff Emanuel ‘was a director at Freddie Mac in 2000 and 2001 while it was committing accounting fraud.’
“Those are the actions, at the time of writing. The rhetoric is ‘change’ and ‘hope.’”

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The Shock Doctrine author Naomi Klein and husband Avi Lewis:

“”I’ve been at rallies and seen him speak, and I feel that feeling that one feels,” Lewis says. “It is thrilling. And it’s churlish not to allow yourself to be thrilled. We crave inspiration, and it’s a bleak life to always be dissecting things. But the main feeling that Obama creates in me is fear, because I see people fooling themselves. If you actually look at his policies, what they reflect is the triumph of the right-wing political paradigm since Reagan, and I think he could set things back dramatically, because for young people who are getting engaged in politics for the first time, for them to be disillusioned is very, very damaging.” Because Klein doesn’t expect much from any politician, she doesn’t spend time wishing Obama were more progressive. “I don’t want to appear too cynical, but when I first saw the ‘Yes We Can’ rock video that Will.I.Am made, my first response was ‘Wow, finally a politician is making ads that are as good as Nike’s,’ ” she says. “The ‘Yes We Can’ slogan means whatever you want it to mean. It’s very ‘Just Do It.’ When you hear it, you catch yourself thinking, Yeah! We’re gonna end torture and shut down Guantánamo and get out of Iraq! And then you think, Wait a minute, is he really saying that? He’s not really saying that, is he? He’s saying we’re going to send more troops to Afghanistan. He’s telling regular people what they want to hear, and then in the back rooms he’s making deals and signing on to the status quo. But if people don’t like where Obama is they should move the center.” To this end, Klein has been taking every opportunity to call for the nationalization of the oil companies. “It’s the job of the left to move the center,” she says. “Get out there and say some crazy stuff! And then, suddenly, it’ll seem more reasonable for politicians to take riskier positions.””

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“Learning to Lead” by Dahr Jamail – “There is a tremendous schism between what Barack Obama is saying, and what he is doing. Already, he is gathering around him a group of people that are not only likely to maintain status quo, but worse, cause our current catastrophic situation to worsen.

“On November 17, Obama promised on CBS News 60 Minutes to shut down the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp, while his advisers are simultaneously crafting a plan to create a brand new system of ‘Preventive Detention’ and ‘National Security Courts.’ Preventive detention facilities do not give people the right to challenge their own detention, which is essentially what the Guantanamo Bay gulag has been all about – detaining people without charging them with a crime, and without trial. All we have at the moment is a suggestion of brand change, but nothing about policy change.
“Obama promises to restore the moral stature of the United States. He has John Brennan and Jami Miscik, former intelligence officials under George Tenet, leading his review of intelligence agencies and making recommendations to the new administration. Brennan supported warrantless wiretapping and kidnapping (extraordinary rendition) and Miscik was involved with the politicized intelligence alleging WMDs in Iraq. They were both part of the team that provided the phony intelligence when Tenet informed Bush during the lead up to the Iraq invasion that the intelligence to support it was a ‘slam dunk.’ The incoming administration has also revealed that there will be no attempt to bring criminal charges against government officials who authorized or engaged in torture during the Bush presidency.
“The new Defense team is being led by former Deputy Defense Secretary John P. White, who is the chair of the Kennedy School of Middle East Initiative at Harvard, and Michele Flournoy, president of the Center for a New American Security famed for the Iraq bombing and sanctions under President Bill Clinton.
“Obama’s transition team leaders are six of his top fundraisers, four of whom raised $500,000 or more for his campaign. One of them, Tom Donilan, was a lobbyist for mortgage giant Fannie Mae during 1999-2005. The President-elect himself voted in favor of the recent $750 billion bailout.
“We were also treated to an echo of hollow rhetoric from the Bush chambers when the new president said on CBS that, ‘It is a top priority for us to stamp out al Qaeda once and for all,’ and that killing or capturing the groups mastermind Osama bin Laden was ‘critical’ to US security.
“On that note, let us note that Obama has already made it clear he refuses to ‘rule out’ using mercenary companies in war zones, he has labeled Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a ‘terrorist organization,’ he plans to escalate the war in Afghanistan, and he has pledged to use unilateral force in Pakistan to defend US interests.
“Obama’s running mate, Joe Biden, despite having stated that his vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq was ‘mistaken,’ was an important facilitator of the war. He has also shamelessly championed the absurd idea of partitioning Iraq into three areas based primarily on ethnicity and religion (Balkanization).
“Nor let us forgive the apparent selection of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. She was an ardent supporter of her husband’s sanctions and bombing campaign against the people of Iraqthroughout the 1990s, and she supported the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which helped lay the groundwork for George W. Bush’s invasion in 2003. As a US Senator, Hillary Clinton said, ‘Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile-delivery capability and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaida members … I want to insure that Saddam Hussein makes no mistake about our national unity and our support for the president’s efforts to wage America’s war against terrorists and weapons of mass destruction.’
“Other so-called liberal hawks either in or advising Obama’s team include the likes of Madeleine Albright, a war criminal who, as Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State, was asked on 60 Minutes if she thought the price of 500,000 Iraqi children killed by the sanctions was worth the price to contain Saddam Hussein and said she thought that the price was ‘worth it.’
“The list is long, but I will just mention two more of note. Martin Indyk, the founder of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, spent years working for AIPAC and served as Clinton’s ambassador to Israel and Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, while also playing a major role in developing US policy toward Iraq andIran. In addition to his work for the US government, he has worked for the Israeli government, and with the neo-conservative think-tank the Project for the New American Century – which devised the USblueprint for global domination.
“The idea of Obama keeping Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense is equally disturbing. Let us remember, it is Gates who supports a new generation of nuclear weapons at a time when even George Shultz and Henry Kissinger are calling for nuclear abolition. Gates wants to apply his surge approach to Afghanistan, and while he has criticized the massive budget and influence of the Pentagon, when he had the chance to rectify both problems, he has refused to do so. For example, in his FY 2009 budget request – the last he will be officially responsible for – he added $36 billion, an increase former CENTCOM commander Anthony Zinni noted, ‘is roughly equivalent to the entire budget for International Affairs.’
“On November 16 it was reported that Obama is pursuing an ambitious peace plan in the Middle East that involves the recognition of Israel by the Arab world in exchange for its withdrawal to pre-1967 borders.
“Yet, the first appointment he made was of Rahm Israel Emanuel as his White House Chief of Staff, easily the most powerful office in the executive branch. In the 1940s Rahm’s father, Benjamin, helped smuggle weapons to the Irgun, the Zionist militia of former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. The Irgun carried out numerous terrorist attacks on Palestinian civilians, including the bombing ofJerusalem’s King David Hotel in 1946.

“Rahm’s father, commenting on how his son would influence US policies toward Israel, is reported to have told an Israeli paper, ‘Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn’t he? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to clean the floors of the White House.’”

Imperialism You Can Believe In

The true U.S. government –http://www.notmygovernment.us/home.php
Barack promises $30 billion in weapons to Israel –

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/04/AR2008060403508.html

While Leftists Celebrate “Change,” Obama Appointees Suggest Massive Expansion Of Bush War Doctrine –  

http://www.infowars.com/?p=6117

Putting it all together
More:
Obama the neocon bows down to Israel – http://www.infowars.com/?p=5900

 

CFR Members: http://www.apfn.org/apfn/cfr-members.htm

 

 

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