Re: [Marxism] Black Agenda Report: Sanders vs the Endless Austerity Regime

[J.B. Nicholson via Marxism]

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Andrew Stewart wrote:

It depends on how you look at things. In my view, Obama has made plenty of
statements since exiting office that he was a success and made great
achievements on behalf of his donors.
There's also the time he told Wall Street to thank him for making them so 
much money -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjVFfX4BtvI


Obama said:

I know we're an oil country, and we need American energy and, by the
way, American energy production. You wouldn't always know it but it went
up every year I was president. [light applause] And that whole suddenly
America's like the biggest oil producer and the biggest ga-- that was
me, people, I just want you to-- [laughter] So, so [Obama chuckles] It's
a little like, sometimes you go to Wall Street and folks be grumblin'
about anti-business. I said, "Have you checked where your stocks were
when I came into office and where they are now? What? What are you
talkin'-- What are you complainin' about? Just say 'Thank you' please.".
Because I wanna raise your taxes a couple percent to make sure, you
know, kids have a chance to go to school? 


He also kept all of G.W. Bush's wars going (despite calling the 2003 US-led 
Iraq invasion and occupation "A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on 
reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics." in which "weekend 
warriors [...] shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, 
irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne."[1]) which 
helped create the illusion that he was the peace candidate. Then in office 
he added more wars including sharply ramping up the drone war (Noam Chomsky 
called the Obama drone war "the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern 
times"[2]). Those choices enriched war profiteers.


[1] https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99591469
[2] 
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/01/19/noam-chomsky-obamas-drone-program-most-extreme-terrorist-campaign-modern-times


Andrew Stewart wrote:

It's a jaded and cynical look at his legacy, I cede that readily, but it
also seems pretty obvious given how miserable things were when he left
office.


These are important issues which people are right to enthusiastically 
examine. That examination helps us understand what motivates such lethal 
and impoverishing policy choices.

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Re: [Marxism] Black Agenda Report: Sanders vs the Endless Austerity Regime

[Michael Meeropol via Marxism]

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Thanks, Andrew --- I meant of course "obama's failures" from the point of
view of the promises made in his campaign (and the promises "projected"
onto him by too many of us [!!] )  I am not so sure that all the
results of his actions were planned (the increased employment in the gig
economy, etc.) but your points about the Obama presidency are very well
taken.   (In fact, if I ever get my and Jared Ragusett;s book  "How we got
Trump" book finished, I will add to what Howard Sherman, Paul Sherman and I
already did in in our text  about the Obama economic policies the
information you have attached.



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Re: [Marxism] Black Agenda Report: Sanders vs the Endless Austerity Regime

[Andrew Stewart via Marxism]

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Regarding what Glen Ford does or does not think, I would suggest emailing
him, he is very responsive and I have had very fruitful exchanges with him
in the past few years.

You do, however, have one point that I would answer to directly because
there's ample evidence that is easy to discover on the web from mainstream
forums and media outlets:

You write "Obama's failures"

It depends on how you look at things. In my view, Obama has made plenty of
statements since exiting office that he was a success and made great
achievements on behalf of his donors.

He and Arne Duncan busted the teachers union in Central Falls, RI, near
where I live. They proliferated charter schools out the wazoo. They gave
more infrastructure elements within education away to the tech oligarchy.
That's an accomplishment in the eyes of the donors.

He brought Social Security closer to privatization with his presidential
appointments to the trustees board and nearly pulled it off as part of his
Grand Bargain with Paul Ryan, something his economics guru Larry Summers
had been advocating since the Clinton era <
https://www.counterpunch.org/2004/10/30/how-monica-lewinsky-saved-social-security/
>

The Affordable Care Act's structural design incentivized employers to only
hire part-time workers in order to duck having to insure their workers,
which in turn diminished union density, something shown by the study by
economists at Harvard and Princeton that demonstrated 95% of job growth
under Obama was in the gig economy <
https://www.investing.com/news/economy-news/nearly-95-of-all-job-growth-during-obama-era-part-time,-contract-work-449057
>

It's a jaded and cynical look at his legacy, I cede that readily, but it
also seems pretty obvious given how miserable things were when he left
office.

-- 
Best regards,

Andrew Stewart

Just read the piece -- does the author really think that there is some
"committee" of the ruling class that gave Harris "permission" to savage
Biden in the debate??

Or was that just a writing rhetorical flourish that I'm too much of a
philistine to understand?

Does the writer think that there is no SIGNIFICANT difference between
another four years of Trump or a capitalist Democrat --- for real effects
on real people??

https://blackagendareport.com/sanders-vs-endless-austerity-regime--

It is hard to fight austerity --- but the ruling class is NOT completely
united in support of austerity --- (witness the period between WW II and
1970 when austerity was NOT the rule true "prosperity" was bought via
military Keynesianism and hot wars in Korea and Indochina --- but there was
also a big expansion of the US version of Social Democracy --- and an
immigration reform in 1965 and the end of Apartheid, US style --- )

Progress is possible even without a revolution --- and each step in the
right direction creates space for REAL change just as the triumps of
Bush II and Trump (and Obama's failures) moved us backwards 
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Re: [Marxism] Black Agenda Report: Sanders vs the Endless Austerity Regime

[Michael Meeropol via Marxism]

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Just read the piece -- does the author really think that there is some
"committee" of the ruling class that gave Harris "permission" to savage
Biden in the debate??

Or was that just a writing rhetorical flourish that I'm too much of a
philistine to understand?

Does the writer think that there is no SIGNIFICANT difference between
another four years of Trump or a capitalist Democrat --- for real effects
on real people??

https://blackagendareport.com/sanders-vs-endless-austerity-regime--

It is hard to fight austerity --- but the ruling class is NOT completely
united in support of austerity --- (witness the period between WW II and
1970 when austerity was NOT the rule true "prosperity" was bought via
military Keynesianism and hot wars in Korea and Indochina --- but there was
also a big expansion of the US version of Social Democracy --- and an
immigration reform in 1965 and the end of Apartheid, US style --- )

Progress is possible even without a revolution --- and each step in the
right direction creates space for REAL change just as the triumps of
Bush II and Trump (and Obama's failures) moved us backwards 
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[Marxism] Black Agenda Report: Sanders vs the Endless Austerity Regime

[Andrew Stewart via Marxism]

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https://blackagendareport.com/sanders-vs-endless-austerity-regime

-- 
Best regards,

Andrew Stewart
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