M
"... On the contrary, Obama and each and everyone of his foreign policy
appointments to the Pentagon, State and Justice Departments, Intelligence and
Security agencies are calling for vast increases in military spending, troop
commitments and domestic militarization to recover the lost fortunes of a
declining empire. Obama and his appointees plan to vigorously pursue
Clinton-Bush's global war against national resistance movements in the
Middle East. ... ... ... Obama's appointments of Clinton, General Jim Jones,
dual Israeli citizen Rahm Emanuel and super-Zionist Dennis Ross, among others,
fit perfectly with his imperial-militarist agenda of escalating military
aggression. ... Robert Gates, continuing as Obama's Secretary of Defense, is
a staunch supporter of unilateral, unlimited and universal imperial warfare.. As
the number of US-allied countries with troops in Iraq declines from 35 to only 5
by January 1, 2009 and even the Iraqi puppet regime calls for a withdrawal of
all US troops by 2012, Gates, the intransigent, insists on a permanent military
presence. ..."
A Historic Moment: The Election of the Greatest Con-Man in Recent History
James Petras, December 2008
I have a vision of Americans in their 80s being wheeled to their offices and
factories having lost their legs in imperial wars and their pensions to Wall
Street speculators and with bitter memories of voting for a President who
promised change, prosperity and peace and then appointed financial swindlers and
war mongers. - An itinerant Minister 2008
Introduction
The entire political spectrum ranging from the 'libertarian' left,
through the progressive editors of the Nation to the entire far right
neo-con/Zionist war party and free market Berkeley/Chicago/Harvard academics,
with a single voice, hailed the election of Barack Obama as a 'historic
moment', a 'turning point' in American history and other such
histrionics. For reasons completely foreign to the emotional ejaculations of his
boosters, it is a historic moment: witness the abysmal gap between his
'populist' campaign demagoguery and his long-standing and deepening
carnal relations with the most retrograde political figures, power brokers and
billionaire real estate and financial backers.
What was evident from even a cursory analysis of his key campaign advisers and
public commitments to Wall Street speculators, civilian militarists, zealous
Zionists and corporate lawyers was hidden from the electorate, by Obama's
people friendly imagery and smooth, eloquent deliverance of a message of
'hope'. He effectively gained the confidence, dollars and votes of tens
of millions of voters by promising 'change' (implying higher taxes for
the rich, ending the Iraq war and national health care reform) when in fact his
campaign advisers (and subsequent strategic appointments) pointed to a
continuation of the economic and military policies of the Bush Administration.
Within 3 weeks of his election he appointed all the political dregs who brought
on the unending wars of the past two decades, the economic policy makers
responsible for the financial crash and the deepening recession castigating tens
of millions of Americans today and for the foreseeable future. We can affirm
that the election of Obama does indeed mark a historic moment in American
history: The victory of the greatest con man and his accomplices and backers in
recent history.
He spoke to the workers and worked for their financial overlords.
He flashed his color to minorities while obliterating any mention of their
socio-economic grievances.
He promised peace in the Middle East to the majority of young Americans and
slavishly swears undying allegiance to the War Party of American Zionists
serving a foreign colonial power (Israel).
Obama, on a bigger stage, is the perfect incarnation of Melville's
Confidence Man. He catches your eye while he picks your pocket. He gives thanks
as he packs you off to fight wars in the Middle East on behalf of a foreign
country. He solemnly mouths vacuous pieties while he empties your Social
Security funds to bail out the arch financiers who swindled your pension
investments. He appoints and praises the architects of collapsed pyramid schemes
to high office while promising you that better days are ahead.
Yes, indeed, 'our greatest intellectual critics', our
'libertarian' leftists and academic anarchists, used their 5-figure
speaking engagements as platforms to promote the con man's candidacy: They
described the con man's political pitch as 'meeting the deeply felt
needs of our people'. They praised the con man when he spoke of
'change' and 'turning the country around' 180 degrees. Indeed,
Obama went one step further: he turned 360 degrees, bringing us back to the
policies and policy makers who were the architects of our current
political-economic disaster.
The Con Man's Self-Opiated Progressive Camp Followers
The contrast between Obama's campaign rhetoric and his political activities
was clear, public and evident to any but the mesmerized masses and the
self-opiated 'progressives' who concocted arguments in his favor. Indeed
even after Obama's election and after he appointed every Clintonite-Wall
Street shill into all the top economic policy positions, and Clinton's and
Bush's architects of prolonged imperial wars (Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates), the 'progressive true
believers' found reasons to dog along with the charade. Many progressives
argued that Obama's appointments of war mongers and swindlers was a
'ploy' to gain time now in order to move 'left' later.
Never ones to publicly admit their 'historic' errors, the same
progressives turned to writing 'open letters to the President' pleading
the 'cause of the people'. Their epistles, of course, may succeed in
passing through the shredder in the Office of the White House Chief of Staff,
Rahm Emanuel.
The conjurer who spoke of 'change' now speaks of 'experience'
in appointing to every key and minor position the same political hacks who
rotate seamlessly between Wall Street and Washington, the Fed and Academia.
Instead of 'change' there is the utmost continuity of policy makers,
policies and above all ever deepening ties between militarists, Wall Street and
the Obama appointments. True believer-progressives, facing their total debacle,
grab for any straw. Forced to admit that all of Obama's appointments
represent the dregs of the bloody and corrupt past, they hope and pray that
'current dire circumstances' may force these unrepentant warmongers and
life long supporters of finance capital to become supporters and advocates of a
revived Keynesian welfare state.
On the contrary, Obama and each and everyone of his foreign policy appointments
to the Pentagon, State and Justice Departments, Intelligence and Security
agencies are calling for vast increases in military spending, troop commitments
and domestic militarization to recover the lost fortunes of a declining empire.
Obama and his appointees plan to vigorously pursue Clinton-Bush's global war
against national resistance movements in the Middle East. His most intimate and
trusted 'Israel-First' advisers have targeted Iran, Syria, Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Palestine and Iraq.
Obama's Economic Con Game
Then there is the contrast between the trillions Obama will shower on the
financial swindlers (and any other 'too big to fail' private capitalist
enterprise) and his zero compensation for the 100 million heads of families
swindled of $5 trillion dollars in savings and pensions by his cohort appointees
and bailout beneficiaries. Not a cent is allocated for the long term unemployed.
Not a single household threatened with eviction will be bailed out.
Obama is the trademark name of a network of confidence people. They are a
well-organized gang of prominent political operative, money raisers, mass media
hustlers, real estate moguls and academic pimps. They are joined and abetted by
the elected officials and hacks of the Democratic Party. Like the virtuoso
performer, Obama projected the image and followed the script. But the funding
and the entire 'populist' show was constructed by the hard-nosed,
hard-line free marketeers, Jewish and Gentile 'Israel Firsters',
Washington war mongers and a host of multi-millionaire 'trade union'
bureaucrats.
The electoral scam served several purposes above and beyond merely propelling a
dozen strategic con artists into high office and the White House. First and
foremost, the Obama con-gang deflected the rage and anger of tens of millions of
economically skewered and war drained Americans from turning their hostility
against a discredited presidency, congress and the grotesque one-party two
factions political system and into direct action or at least toward a new
political movement.
Secondly the Obama image provided a temporary cover for the return and
continuity of all that was so detested by the American people - the arrogant
untouchable swindlers, growing unemployment and economic uncertainty, the loss
of life savings and homes and the endless, ever-expanding imperial wars.
Featuring Paul Volker, 'Larry' Summers, Robert Gates, the Clintons,
Geithner, Holder and General ('You drink your kool-aid while I sit on
Boeings' Board of Directors') Jim Jones USMC, Obama treats us to a
re-run of military surges and war crimes, Wall Street banditry, Abu Ghraib,
AIPAC hustlers and all the sundry old crap. Our Harvard-minted Gunga Din
purports to speak for all the colonial subjects but acts in the interest of the
empire, its financial vampires, its war criminals and its Middle East leaches
from the Land of the Chosen.
The Two Faces of Obama
Like the Janus face found on the coins of the early Roman Republic, Obama and
his intimate cronies cynically joked about 'which is the real face of
Barack', conscious of the con-job they were perpetrating during the
campaign. In reality, there is only one face - a very committed, very
consequential and very up front Obama, who demonstrated in every single one of
his appointments the face of an empire builder.
Obama is an open militarist, intent by every means possible to re-construct a
tattered US empire. The President-Elect is an unabashed Wall Street Firster -
one who has placed the recuperation of the biggest banks and investment houses
as his highest priority. Obama's nominees for all the top economic positions
(Treasury, Chief White House economic advisers) are eminently qualified, (with
long-term service to the financial oligarchy), to pursue Obama's pro-Wall
Street agenda. There is not a single member of his economic team, down to the
lowest level of appointees, who represents or has defended the interests of the
wage or salaried classes (or for that matter the large and small manufacturers
from the devastated 'productive' industrial economy).
The Obama propagandists claim his appointments reflect his preference for
'experience' which is true: his team members have plenty of
'experience' through their long and lucrative careers maximizing
profits, buyouts and speculation favoring the financial sector. Obama does not
want to have any young, untested appointees who have no long established records
of serving Big Finance, whose interests are too central to Obama's deepest
and most strongly held core beliefs. He wanted reliable economic functionaries
who recognize that re-financing billionaire financiers is the central task of
his regime. The appointments of the Summers, Rubins, Geithners and Volkers fit
perfectly with his ideology: They are the best choices to pursue his economic
goals.
Critics of these nominations write of the 'failures' of these
economists and their role in 'bringing about the collapse of the financial
system'. These critics fail to recognize that it is not their
'failures', which are the relevant criteria, but their unwavering
commitment to the interests of Wall Street and their willingness to demand
trillions of dollars more from US taxpayers to bolster their colleagues on Wall
Street.
Under Clinton and Bush, in the run up to the financial collapse, they
facilitated ('deregulated') the practice of swindling one hundred
million Americans of trillions in private savings and pension funds. In the
current crisis period with Obama they are just the right people to swindle the
US Treasury of trillions of dollars in bailout funds to refinance their fellow
oligarchs. The White President (Bush) leaves steaming financial turds all over
the White House rugs and Wall Street summons the 'historic' Negro
President Obama to organize the cleanup crew to scoop them out of public view.
Obama, the Militarist, Outdoes His Predecessor
What makes Obama a much more audacious militarist and Wall Streeter than Bush
is that he intends to pursue military policies, which have already greatly
harmed the US people with appointed officials who have already been discredited
in the context of failed imperial wars and with a domestic economy in collapse.
While Bush launched his wars after the US public had their accustomed peace
shattered by an orchestrated fear-mongering after 9/11, Obama intends to launch
his escalation of military spending in the context of a generalized public
disenchantment with the ongoing wars, with monumental fiscal deficits, bloated
military budgets and after 100,000 US soldiers have been killed, wounded or
psychologically destroyed.
Obama's appointments of Clinton, General Jim Jones, dual Israeli citizen
Rahm Emanuel and super-Zionist Dennis Ross, among others, fit perfectly with his
imperial-militarist agenda of escalating military aggression. His short list of
intelligence candidates, likewise, fits perfectly with his all-out effort to
'regain US world leadership' (reconstruct US imperial networks). All the
media blather about Obama's efforts at 'bipartisanship',
'experience' and 'competence' obscures the most fundamental
questions: The specific nominees chosen from both parties are totally committed
to military-driven empire-building. All are in favor of 'a new effort to
renew America's standing in the world' (read America's imperial
dominance in the world), as Obama's Secretary of State-to-be, Hillary
Clinton, declared. General James Jones, Obama's choice for National Security
Advisor, presided over US military operations during the entire Abu
Ghraib/Guantanemo period. He was a fervent supporter of the 'troop
surge' in Iraq and is a powerful advocate for a huge increase in military
spending, the expansion of the military by over 100,000 troops and the expanded
militarization of American domestic society (not to mention his personal
financial ties to the military industrial complex). Robert Gates, continuing as
Obama's Secretary of Defense, is a staunch supporter of unilateral,
unlimited and universal imperial warfare. As the number of US-allied countries
with troops in Iraq declines from 35 to only 5 by January 1, 2009 and even the
Iraqi puppet regime calls for a withdrawal of all US troops by 2012, Gates, the
intransigent, insists on a permanent military presence.
The issue of 'experience' revolves around two questions: (a) experience
related to what past political practices? (b) experience relevant to pursue what
future policies? All the nominees' past experiences are related to imperial
wars, colonial conquests and the construction of client states. Hiliary
Clinton's 'experience' was through her support for the bombing of
Yugoslavia and the Nato invasion of Kosova, her promotion of the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA), an internationally recognized terrorist-criminal
organization as well as the unrelenting bombings of Iraq in the 1990s,
Bush's criminal invasion of Iraq in 2003, Israel's murderous bombing of
civilian centers in Lebanon, and now full-throated calls for the 'total
obliteration of Iran'. Clinton, Gates and Jones have never in their mature
political careers proposed the peaceful settlement of disputes with any
adversary of the US or Israel. In other words, their vaunted
'experience' is based solely on their one-dimensional militarist
approach to foreign relations.
'Competence', as an attribute again depends on the issue of competence
to do what? In general terms, 'The Three' (Clinton, Gates and Jones),
have demonstrated the greatest incompetence in extricating the US from
prolonged, costly and lost colonial wars. They lack the minimum capacity to
recognize that military-driven empire-building in the context of independent
states is no longer feasible, that its costs can ruin an imperial economy and
that prolonged wars erode their legitimacy in the eyes of their citizens.
Even within the framework of imperial geo-political strategic thinking, their
positions exhibit the most dense incompetence: They blindly back a small, highly
militarized and ideologically fanatical colonial state (Israel) against 1.5
billion Muslims living in oil and mineral resource-rich nations with lucrative
markets and investment potential and situated in the strategic center of the
world. They promote total wars against whole populations, as is occurring in
Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia and, which, by all historical experience, cannot
be won. They are truly 'Masters of Defeat'.
The point of the matter is that Obama appointed the 'Big Three' for
their experience, competence and bipartisan support in the pursuit of imperial
wars. He overlooked their glaring failures, their gross violations of the basic
norms of civilization (of the human rights of tens of millions civilians in
sovereign nations) because of their willingness to pursue the illusions of a
US-dominated new world order.
Conclusion
Nothing speaks to Obama's deep and abiding commitment to become the savior
of the US empire as clearly as his willingness to appoint to the highest
position of policy making the most mediocre failed politicians and generals
merely because of their demonstrated willingness to pursue the course of
military-driven empire building even in the midst of a collapsing domestic
economy and ever more impoverished and drained citizenry.
Just as Obama's electoral campaign and subsequent victory will go into the
annals as the political con-job of the new millennium, his economic and
political appointments will mark another 'historic' moment: The
nomination of corrupt and failed speculators and warmongers. Let us join the
inaugural celebration of our 'First Afro-American' Imperial President,
who wins by con and rules by guns!
Unlimited freedom, unlimited storage. Get it now, on
http://help.yahoo.com/l/in/yahoo/mail/yahoomail/tools/tools-08.html/
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Green Youth Movement" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
