Fuck Obama

[Sweejak]

Gee, maybe we need Sheehan again to kick start some anti-war action.

[chlamor]

Sweejak, thanks for that Sheehan piece. She really gets it, and is to be saluted for her seemingly tireless efforts, especially now with the "anti-war" left completely Obliterated by Obama.

Could we say anti-war liberals? It matters as what is called the left by the media in this country is in fact the dead wood that needs clearing as it is in no way representative of anything even remotely leftist as in fact it supports the status quo ardently.

(Liberals, et al) control so much of what passes in this country as "leftist" thought. We have to find a way to rectify that...

[Sweejak]

Why not, we say anti-war right, and yes it would be a good way to break the mind lock, that is if the term were ever used in circles outside of alt media.

[justdrew]

http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1818-the-gadarene-gambit-surging-over-the-cliff-in-afghanistan.html

The major offensive didn’t work out. The guerilla insurgents did what guerillas are supposed to do – run away rather than stand and fight a superior force, choosing instead to strike unexpectedly at lightly defended outposts. McChrystal, who is supposed to be an "expert" at fighting insurgent guerilla forces, was "surprised" that the guerilla insurgent forces he was fighting fought the way insurgent guerilla forces typically fight. McChrystal was originally against trying to bargain with Taliban leaders. Now he says he wants to bargain with them.

http://original.antiwar.com/huber/2009/08/17/look-whos-not-talking/

It's looking like everyone can just cross-out bush and write in obama on anything from the last 8 years...

[chlamor]

i'm not a poster there, but i'd like to add my two cents. i've wondered about this angle myself, on the basis of these items, none of which are telling in isolation but cumulatively at least raise questions:

1. obama's white great-grands (dunham/payne) worked for oil corps in el dorado/augustus ks, site of one of largest underground oil reserves in US & had other relatives involved in oil industry as well. grandma madelyn payne's dad worked for oil corps his entire career & ended as an oil lease manager for standard oil.

in my research on the backgrounds of ruling class & their factotums, i've found oil (especially standard oil) & banking associations are near-universal in their backgrounds, unsurprisingly.

2. grandpa dunham's ww2 career: don't have much info on this so won't go into details but there are some bits on public record suggesting he wasn't just an ordinary grunt (which is what might be expected of a boy supposedly "from the wrong side of the tracks" as he's styled in some accounts.)

3. grandpa dunham's post-ww2 career as "furniture salesman" for some reason kept the family moving every couple of years - an employment trajectory that usually bespeaks poor earnings & tenuous hold on the middle class - & madelyn was supposedly "housewife" or "clerk" until they moved to hawaii (or seattle/bellevue/mercer island wa, in some accounts), suddenly got an entry-level job in a bank & began meteoric (for woman in those times) rise to VP by 1970.

4. mother stanley ann was associated with u. of hawaii east/west center (rumored to be a site for intelligence activities) & married a kenyan at the end of the mau mau conflicts (1952-1960). a kenyan whose father & grandfather had their own histories of cooptation/conflict with colonial powers (e.g. granpa in "king's african rifles" fighting for brits, then involvement with independence politics)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_African_Rifles

5. mom's next husband = indonesian with oil ties, ancestors also involved in independence politics, mom moves to indonesia at time of anti-sukarno coup,

6. mom's future (or then-current, exact chronology unclear) employers in indonesia included ford foundation & usaid, both who had involvement in coup. future boss at ford = tim geithner's dad.

7. mom's university fieldwork & future work in indonesia for ford fdn = pilot programs on microlending, small to poor/indigenous people supposedly to help them bootstrap their way out of poverty, which emerged in the 90s as one of the hot "poverty solutions" out of the liberal think tank wing of the US political establishment.

[Brentos]

Thanks for Pilger vid, very good. Tempted to throw that hot potato onto some friend's laps
Hate to talk politics, but I'm proud to say I voted for http://img.wonkette.com/wp-content/uplo ... -green.jpg

Just couldnt vote for the Big-2. The hip-hop dancing vice president would of been cool.

Yeah, I haven't dropped that hot potato onto several of my friends' laps either.... but I probably will. It won't be the first time, and certainly not the last. I never get a response from them (too much egg on face I suppose, since they never attempt a rebuttal).

I voted for McKinney too! We're exceptional Americans, Brentos.

lol, yes indeed. I don't think her dancing VP helped to be honest for the turn-out either, unfortunately. I've stopped proselytizing to friends/family for quite a while, but that Pilger video was too good to pass up.

[chlamor]

Manufacturing Consent For The Continued Occupation Of Afghanistan


US President Barack Obama talked to the veterans of war on Monday.

Obama: Afghan war secures America
Tue, 18 Aug 2009 06:53:28 GMT


Talking in a meeting of veterans in Arizona on Monday, Obama tried to step up the campaign in Afghanistan. “The insurgency in Afghanistan didn't just happen overnight and we won't defeat it overnight," he said.

US administration is sending 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, therefore the success or failure of the mission of US forces in the war-torn country is crucial for its future plans in the region.

"This will not be quick, nor easy. But we must never forget this is not a war of choice, this is a war of necessity," he said. "If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans," he said.

The remarks came a day after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown trying to ease the growing opposition to the Afghan war said the war in Afghanistan is a "sacrifice" made to make "Britain and the rest of the world" a safer place.

The two leaders however failed to elaborate the dire situation the war-ravaged nation has been facing ever since the US-led coalition forces invaded their country more than eight years ago.

According to UN figures, Afghan civilians remain the main victims of the notorious war which was launched to allegedly destroy the militancy and arrest militant leaders including Osama bin Laden.

This week's Afghan presidential and provincial elections will be considered as a test of the new US strategy of providing security on the ground.

This is while, Taliban vowing to interrupt the election, have already fired rockets at the Afghan capital twice this month.

A rocket hit Tuesday the presidential palace in the center of Afghan capital, Kabul and a second struck the city's police headquarters.

Also on Saturday, a suicide car bomb exploded outside the NATO military headquarters in the Afghan capital Kabul near the US embassy, killing seven people and injuring scores.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=10 ... =351020403

[MacCruiskeen]

Fuck Obama.

Barack Obama: Lockerbie bomber should die in Scottish jail

Aug 19 2009 By Gordon McIlwraith

BARACK OBAMA last night insisted the Lockerbie bomber should not be freed to die with his family back in Libya.

The White House believe Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi shouls stay in jail in Scotland - despite a court being told yesterday he has only days to live.

Robert Gibbs, a spokesman for the US President, said: "It's the policy of this administration that this individual should serve out his term where he's serving it right now."

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already called Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill to urge that Megrahi serve out his term in Scotland.

And seven US senators, including Edward Kennedy and John Kerry, have written to MacAskill urging him to keep Megrahi, 57, behind bars.

The White House statement came hours after a court heard Megrahi may be close to death and wants to spend his last few hours with his family in Libya.

He is suffering from prostate cancer and his condition is "grave".

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scott ... -21607941/

What a wholly disgusting human being Barack 'Smiler' Obama is. (To say nothing of Kennedy, Kerry and Clinton.) What an utter shit. What a vicious slimey reactionary murderous lying CIA-defending, complete and utter fucking arsehole.

And fuck you, you so-called "progressives" and ethically-investing fucking "liberals". Fuck anybody who voted for Obama, fuck anybody who fell (cretinously) for any of any that 'hope' bullshit, and above all: Fuck any fool (or, more likely, coward) who still defends him.

Fuck Obama, up the arse, with a pineapple, sideways, for a long time. Its nothing compared to what he's doing to the world.

[Sweejak]

MATT TAIBBI

I’ll say this for George Bush: you’d never have caught him frantically negotiating against himself to take the meat out of a signature legislative initiative just because his approval ratings had a bad summer. Can you imagine Bush and Karl Rove allowing themselves to be paraded through Washington on a leash by some dimwit Republican Senator of a state with six people in it the way the Obama White House this summer is allowing Max Baucus (favorite son of the mighty state of Montana) to frog-march them to a one-term presidency?

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/08 ... npost-com/

[smiths]

its strange isnt it,

for all bush's faults and crimes, he never pretended to be something he wasnt,

i detest them both, but i have an extra level of disgust for obama

[whipstitch]

for all bush's faults and crimes, he never pretended to be something he wasnt,

How about compassionate and conservative?

[barracuda]

The republicans always said the democrats would surrender to the terrorists, and they were right.

[Nordic]

The republicans always said the democrats would surrender to the terrorists, and they were right.

Ouch!!!

[chlamor]

Including for transcript:

Video of the following (5:28 min.) at: http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=C62KAmMzu0E]

The Last Empire: What is Left?
War correspondent, journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger

--------
"The real tragedy is that Obama, the brand, appears to have crippled or absorbed much of the anti-war movement, the peace movement. Out of 256 Democrats in Congress, just 30 are willing stand up against Obama's and Nancy Pelosi's war party," adding, "On June 16th, they voted for $106 billion for more war. The 'out-of-Iraq caucus' is out of action."
--------

"The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."
- Milan Kundera.

Legendary Australian-born investigative journalist John Pilger spoke at the 2009 Socialism Conference held at the Women's Building on July 4th. Kind of ironic that the organizers chose to host a left-wing event on the national independence day of the one country in the world most afraid of Socialism.

His subject was "Empire and Obama: Power, Illusion and America's Last Taboo," a wordy title whose length Pilger duly apologized for.

Born in Sydney in 1939, Pilger is one of only two individuals to be twice awarded Britain's Journalist of the Year. His documentaries have won academy awards in both the UK and the US, and he has been gifted honorary doctorates and human rights awards. He has been an oft vociferous critic of Western foreign policy, especially that of the United States since his early years as a war correspondent in Vietnam.

Pilger writes for the New Statesman and has written for many other publications including The New York Times and The Guardian (UK). His documentary work stretches from Vietnam - The Quiet Mutiny (1971), through The New Rulers of the World (2001-2), to The War on Democracy (2007). His books include Heroes, Hidden Agendas, and Freedom Next Time. More recently he has turned his sights on the incumbent US president, attacking Barack Obama's continuation and expansion of the wars in the Middle East.

America is an empire. There we go, I've said it. Shoot me, but it's true. It has followed in the footsteps of ancient European nations proclaiming the right to bring "liberty" to other nations in exchange for their natural resources.

"The difference", says Pilger, "is that America is trained to deny its imperialism."

"Americanism is an ideology that is unique because its main feature is its denial that it is an ideology," he said. "It's both conservative and its liberal, and it's right and it's left - and Barack Obama is its embodiment."

Pilger spoke of his time as war correspondent in Vietnam, and of America's policy of WHAM (Winning Hearts And Minds), which involved handing out packets of Uncle Ben's rice, Hershey Bars and thousands of toothbrushes in a local village, holding back the portable toilets for the arrival of the Colonel who duly proclaimed: "These gifts represent America."

American textbooks shamelessly refer to the period that US troops were conquering Mexico and sending Marines to Nicaragua as the "Age of Innocence." In fact, states Pilger, "Since 1945, by deed and by example, to use Obama's words, America has overthrown fifty governments including democracies, crushed some thirty liberation movements, and bombed countless men, women and children to death." Some food for thought when America regularly claims it wants to bring peace and liberty to other peoples.

Even before Edward Bernays' early 20th Century influence on propaganda manipulation, extensive revisionism and omission has enabled the United States to conveniently sweep these atrocities under the carpet. The American Military Machine perpetuates its own raison d'etre, says Pilger, who once asked an American general why he was sending so many B-52s to destroy such a small target. "Because we have them," came the reply.

Rest easy, folks: America's not going to run out of killing machines anytime soon. Nor is it going to run out of people to use them on. Though many believe that the war(s) in the Middle and Far East are being scaled down, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton speaks ominously of "high value targets."

"Here is the 45th President of United States, having stacked his government with war mongers, corporate fraudsters, and polluters from the Bush and Clinton eras, promising not only more of the same, but a whole new war in Pakistan," said Pilger, arguing that America's wars have been "justified by the enduring myth of 'exceptional America,' a myth the late Harold Pinter described as 'a brilliant, witty, highly successful, act of hypnosis.'"

"The man who stayed silent on Gaza is the man who now condemns Iran," Pilger said. "Obama is the myth that is America's last taboo."

In fact the rise of Obama has coincided with a silencing of the Left. This silence is largely a result of new hope that things will change. The fascinating thing about this new hope that Obama has instilled in us is totally baseless. This supposed swing to the Left, this Socialist revival, is nothing but a smokescreen. Even those who stood to ask questions challenged Pilger's assertion that we should not cling to hope. No, for this is false hope perpetuated by the current regime.

"Activism doesn't give up. Activism doesn't fall silent. Activism doesn't rely on the opiate of hope," Pilger stated. "Real activism has little time for identity politics which, like exceptionalism, can be fake."

This hope for something different is engendered, and indeed fostered by the fact that Obama looks different and speaks differently than previous presidents.

"Race, gender and class can be very seductive," says Pilger, observing that Bush's team was one of the most "politically- correct" in history, harboring both Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice. "It is the class one serves that matters."

President Barack Obama is, says Pilger, "a marketing dream. He makes people feel good. He's a post-modern man with no political baggage, and all that's fake."

"Obama's very presence in the White House appears to reaffirm 'the moral nation.'"

Like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Obama is a great actor; a perfect front-man to pacify the people, to quell their anger with rousing speeches which look and sound impressive but ultimately deliver very little of any substance. He is a modern day Houdini, creating distractions at home in order to hide the real issues that are being glossed over.

"Whilst President Obama is doing one thing, Brand Obama gets you to believe something else," Pilger said.

Of course, Obama is as much a product of the skewed and faulty political system as any other leader and, thus, the blame for his political hypocrisy cannot be laid solely at the feet of the individual. This does not, however, excuse some of his more obvious failings.

"The real tragedy is that Obama, the brand, appears to have crippled or absorbed much of the anti-war movement, the peace movement. Out of 256 Democrats in Congress, just 30 are willing stand up against Obama's and Nancy Pelosi's war party," adding, "On June 16th, they voted for $106 billion for more war. The 'out-of-Iraq caucus' is out of action."

Whilst Americans are losing their jobs and homes, Obama has increased the military budget, contradicting his election promise that the "troops are coming home."

"He's not hateable," said Pilger of Obama, mentioning the 700 Pakistani civilians killed this year by American military drones, "but he's on the way."

In his many years struggling to uncover the truth in the face of 'mainstream' journalism and all it serves, Pilger has come up against many a stone wall. He once said, "The censorship is such on television in the US that films like mine don't stand a chance." Hence his works wouldn't be found on the usual channels.

The political elite are contemptuous towards the public which "explains why the Progressive attitudes of the public are seldom reported in the media, because they're not ignorant, they're subversive; they're informed; they're even 'anti-American.'"

Quoting Martha Gellhorn, Pilger elaborated, "I'll tell you what anti-american is. It's what governments and their vested interests call those who wander America by objecting to war and the theft of resources and believing in all of humanity. There are millions of these Americans in the United States. They are ordinary people who belong to no elite and who judge their government in moral terms, though they would call it 'common decency.' They are not vain. They are the people with a weightful conscience, the best of America's citizens. Sure, they disappear from view now and then, but they are like seeds beneath the snow. I would say they are truly exceptional."

Pilger urges us instead to, "Give up on hope, and instead listen to the voices from below. The opportunity within our grasp is to recognize that something is stirring in America, but it's unfamiliar, perhaps, to many of us on the left but is related to a great popular movement that's growing all over the world. Polls have shown that more than two-thirds of Americans say the government should care for those who cannot care for themselves. 64% would pay higher taxes to guarantee healthcare for everyone. 60% are favorable towards unions. 70% want nuclear disarmament. 72% want the US completely out of Iraq and Afghanistan."

These are figures which reflect the word on the street, but would never be publicly aired on mainstream media.

"My own guess is that a populism is growing once again in America, evoking a powerful force beneath which has a proud history," Pilger said. "What Obama and the bankers and the generals and the IMF and the CIA and CNN and BBC fear, is ordinary people coming together and acting together. It's a fear as old as democracy."

The system isn't working, and the people aren't happy about it, and their swelling ranks are refusing to be silenced.

Quoting George Orwell, Pilger said, "At a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

More Info

JohnPilger.com

Pilger's documentary films on Google, YouTube

[Jeff]

Wednesday Aug. 19, 2009 11:20 EDT
Why the health care debate is so important regardless of one's view of the "public option"

Glenn Greenwald

The New York Times today has a discussion from several contributors, including me, of the politics of the health care debate. My contribution, which focuses on the role the White House has played and the ample evidence that they have been quite active in shaping the course of events, can be read here. I want to elaborate on a couple of points I referenced in passing.

Over the past decade, the Democratic Party has specialized in offering up one excuse after the next for its collective failures. During the early Bush years, the excuse was that they endorsed Bush policies because his popularity and post-9/11 hysteria made it politically unwise to oppose him. In later Bush years when his popularity plummeted, the excuse was that Democrats were in the minority and could do nothing. After 2006 when they won a Congressional majority, the excuse was that Bush still controlled the White House and had veto power. After 2008 when a Democrat won the White House, the excuse was that Republicans could filibuster.

Now that they have a filibuster-proof majority, a huge margin in the House and the White House, the excuses continue unabated, as Democrats are now on the verge of jettisoning one of the most significant attractions for progressives to the Obama campaign -- active government involvement in the health insurance market. The excuses for "compromising" are cascading more rapidly than ever: We need Republican support to ensure it's bipartisan. The Blue Dogs won't go along with what we want. Centrist Senators will filibuster. There are similar excuses being made to defend Obama from accusations that he deserves some of the blame for the failure of the "public option." Matt Yglesias makes the typical case for shielding Obama from any responsibility:


I think there’s something perverse in the very strong desire I see among liberals to make problems in congress be about anything other than congress. It’s just not in the power of Barack Obama to make the senate anything other than what it is.

I'm really surprised that there's anyone, especially Matt, who actually believes this -- that the Obama White House is merely an impotent, passive observer of what the Democrats in Congress do and can't be expected to do anything to secure votes for approval of the health care bill it favors. As the leader of his party, the President commands a vast infrastructure on which incumbent members of Congress rely for re-election. His popularity among Democrats vests him numerous options to punish non-compliant Democrats. And Rahm Emanuel built his career on controlling the machinations within Congress. The very idea that Obama, Emanuel and company are just sitting back, helplessly watching as Max Baucus, Kent Conrad and the Blue Dogs (Rahm's creation) destroy their health care legislation, is absurd on its face.

When it comes to defiant progressive members of Congress -- as opposed to supposedly defiant Blue Dogs and "centrists" -- the Obama White House has proven itself extremely adept at compelling compliance with the President's agenda. Consider what happened when progressive House members dared to oppose the war supplemental bill which Obama wanted passed:

The White House is playing hardball with Democrats who intend to vote against the supplemental war spending bill, threatening freshmen who oppose it that they won't get help with reelection and will be cut off from the White House, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) said Friday.

"We're not going to help you. You'll never hear from us again," Woolsey said the White House is telling freshmen

When progressives refuse to toe the White House line, they get threatened. Contrast that with what the White House does with Blue Dogs and "centrists" who are allegedly uncooperative on health care -- they protect them:

...

much more