Posted on 02/06/2009 6:17:59 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Only weeks ago, the political world was buzzing about a "team of rivals." America was told that finally, after years of yes men running the government, we were getting a president who would follow Abraham Lincoln’s lead, fill his administration with varying viewpoints, and glean empirically sound policy from the clash of ideas. Little did we know that "team of rivals" was what George Orwell calls "newspeak": an empty slogan "claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts."
Obama's national security team, for instance, includes not a single Iraq war opponent. The president has not only retained George W. Bush's defense secretary, Robert Gates, but also 150 other Bush Pentagon appointees. The only "rivalry" is between those who back increasing the already bloated defense budget by an absurd amount and those who aim to boost it by a ludicrous amount.
Of course, that lockstep uniformity pales in comparison to the White House's economic team -- a squad of corporate lackeys disguised as public servants.
At the top is Lawrence Summers, the director of Obama's National Economic Council. As Bill Clinton's treasury secretary in the late 1990s, Summers worked with his deputy, Tim Geithner (now Obama's treasury secretary), and Clinton aide Rahm Emanuel (now Obama's chief of staff) to champion job-killing trade deals and deregulation that Obama Commerce Secretary Judd Gregg helped shepherd through Congress as a Republican senator. Now, this pinstriped band of brothers is proposing a "cash for trash" scheme that would force the public to guarantee the financial industry's bad loans. It's another ploy "to hand taxpayer dollars to the banks through a variety of complex mechanisms," says economist Dean Baker -- and noticeably absent is anything even resembling a "rival" voice inside the White House.
That's not an oversight. From former federal officials like Robert Reich and Brooksley Born, to Nobel Prize-winning economists like Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, to business leaders like Leo Hindery, there's no shortage of qualified experts who have challenged market fundamentalism. But they have been barred from an administration focused on ideological purity.
In Hindery's case, the blacklisting was explicit. Despite this venture capitalist establishing a well-respected think tank and serving as a top economic advisor to Obama's campaign, the Politico reports that "Obama's aides appear never to have taken his bid (for an administration post) seriously." Why? Because he "set himself up in opposition" to Wall Street's agenda.
The anecdote highlights how, regardless of election hoopla, Washington is the same one-party town it always has been -- controlled not by Democrats or Republicans, but by Kleptocrats (i.e., thieves). Their ties to money make them the undead zombies in the slash-and-burn horror flick that is American politics: No matter how many times their discredited theologies are stabbed, torched and shot down by verifiable failure, their careers cannot be killed. Somehow, these political immortals are allowed to mindlessly lunge forward, never answering to rivals -- even if that rival is the president himself.
Remember, while Obama said he wants to slash "billions of dollars in wasteful spending" at the Pentagon, his national security team is demanding a $40 billion increase in defense spending (evidently, the "ludicrous" faction got its way). Obama also said he wants to crack down on the financial industry, strengthen laws encouraging the government to purchase American goods, and transform trade policy. Yet, his economic team is not just promising to support more bank bailouts, but also to weaken "Buy America" statutes and make sure new legislation "doesn't signal a change in our overall stance on trade," according to the president’s spokesman.
Indeed, if an authentic “rivalry” was going to erupt, it would have been between Obama's promises and his team of zombies. Unfortunately, the latter seems to have won before the competition even started.
The Soviet flag is practically flying at 1600 Pennsylvania and the looney left isn’t satisfied.
Enjoy your four years, creep.
The Right told the Left that Obama was worthless, so they can stuff their morning after crying.
A few months ago I posted a Sirota article from The Nation where he recognized that FDR's New Deal and its successors had destroyed the vibrant civil society that had made this country different. (Read Alexis de Toqueville's 1836 classic, Democracy in America, to see what I'm talking about.)
Sirota now seems to be moving into the territory I'd describe as Honest Liberal. I have a feeling that in a year or so, he's going to wake up and realize, with horror, that he's becoming a conservative.
evening vet
Well what caught me in that article was the Lincoln connection.
Well Lincoln presided over a war between the state will phony do the same because right now he is royally screwing many Americans, it is not north v south but left v right.
Unless those liberals and left wing loons all move to their stronghold of the north east and all conservatives move to our stronghold of the south, Midwest and AK
Infact I wouldn’t lose sleep over it as let the liberal commies have their utopia and I’ll watch down here laughing at how they are screwing their new utopia up.
Just so long we have a fence built between us and them and all left wing loons get the hell out with the homo’s and illegals and of course not forgetting their lets talk to child molesters
A true liberal will see Obama as providing the solution. |
Some good news out of the Obama Administration?
We have been worried that they are communists, but instead they are just run of the mill kleptos.
Actually, as I read what I wrote I suppose it’s bad news all around.
I see this as a fait accompli.
The values that made this a great country are officially repudiated in the quest for power by the democrats and those beholden to their largess.
Whoa! The fellow travelers may not be useful idiots...
You all have heard it from me first.
By the summer of 2010, we will be in a revolution of some sort, or there will be a complete breakdown of civil society.
Dude...
Where’s my shovel?
“By the summer of 2010, we will be in a revolution of some sort, or there will be a complete breakdown of civil society.”
Nah, today’s American can’t be bothered—ignorance is bliss and bliss is IN, baby! Hope and change! That FEELS GOOD!
“Get off your ass and fight!” Well, that does not FEEL
good.
Game over.
Kiss what the founders created GOODBYE.
Who’s going to fight? Modern Americans are a bunch of whining pansies compared to the scrappy founders.
Nah, we’ll continue to rot and eventually be absorbed by some EU-like entity.
America’s best days are truly behind her.
The rest is socialism, stagnation, infighting—like a nagging cramp, but no fight will break out—not a chance.
Sad to say, I think you are right.
It’s over. The American dream is over.
if it does happen then I would have no problem .
This phony is ruining this great country and my kids will live in a country which will be a 3rd rate country
No job except deadening government jobs for the loyal and protected classes.
Inadequate heat in the winter.
Inadequate cooling in summer.
Inadequate power at high prices everywhere, all the time.
Inadequate food stamp money to feed your family, let alone feed them organics.
Inadequate income for trips to Cuba.
Inadequate donations to their causes and NGOs. Favoritism between factions for government grants.
The younger generation is very interconnected, thanks to technology. They know people everywhere, know the economic conditions, the outrages, the betrayals. Only a few can hope to benefit in a totalitarian regime. The rest are going to begin to seethe.
I predict that the upper income liberals who figured zerO and the donks couldn't upset their comfy apple cart will be the first defectors. Middle income folks of all ideologies and colors are going to get very nervous about terrorists being set free, tried for other crimes or incarcerated in their nearby prisons, which see escapes on a regular basis. The lower income classes are going to get nothing but crumbs, as usual, and they will resent it. The perpetually angry will either be bought off or become the target of envy and jealousy from the not-so-fortunate, but just as angry, cadres.
There's going to be plenty of fighting. Only 1/3 fought against tyranny, back in the founders' day.
As for us, a poster last night or today recommended what amounts to *monkey-wrenching* the regime. Increase your taxable deductions. Slow spending for all but necessities. Barter for whatever you can. Take whatever you are eligible for that is being passed out and still don't vote for them. Go on virtual or actual strike, depending on your circumstances. If you are in a position to cost the regime time and money without becoming a target, do so. Everyone can think of several ways to resist.
If the regime is forced to continually badger and pressure folks from every demographic and every ideology, they are going to be run ragged just doing CYA and PR while herding cats. Nothing ever works in a communist society, anyway.
Everyone is too smart to think they could stage a physical battle and become anything but tank tread material ala Tiananmen Square.
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I don't believe that the author is an actual liberal. He may think he is; he may tell all his friends that he is; he may spew liberal rhetoric. But he appears incapable of professing two contradictory ideas at the same time... it alarms him that Obama is "buying American" while supporting free trade.