Fuck Obama

[nathan28]

According to Politico, Public Option healthcare is DOA courtesy of the White House.

[ninakat]

The 16th Term: Obama's New Betrayals are Old, Old Hat
Written by Chris Floyd
Wednesday, 02 September 2009 23:32

In a new piece at TomDispatch, David Swanson and Tom Englehardt do a good job of encapsulating the continuity that has become the hallmark of our so-called Age of Change. The title says it all: "Bush's Third Term? You're Living It." It is a very thorough and detailed demolition job; but the roots of the corruption go much deeper than the current administration – or the last one.

But first, a few excerpts (though do go and read the whole piece, especially for the copious links):

(...)

There is much more in this vein, as the authors skillfully morph Barack into the spitting image of Bush.

But of course, in many ways, we are not really living through Bush's third term, but the 16th term of the National Security Statethat was founded by secret presidential directives during Harry Truman's second term. Beginning with the ur-document, NSC-68, these directives mandated a thoroughgoing militarization of the American state, complete with vast secret forces specifically designed to carry out criminal actions – subversion, coups, "black ops," break-ins, kidnappings, torture, assassination programs, gruesome medical experiments: "the dark side, if you will." Not that things were all peaches and cream before then, of course; just ask the Filipinos (or the Cherokee, or the slaves, etc.) But in 1951, the new National Security State raised the war machine budget by 400 percent in a single year. And it has never looked back, not even after the collapse of the Soviet Union – the ostensible reason for devouring the lifeblood and seed-corn of the nation and giving it to war profiteers.

(...)

In any case, there is nothing new or unusual in Obama's "continuity." It has been the very air we've breathed for generations –a fetid, poisonous, cancerous vapor. Still, it is always salutary to have reality delineated as clearly as possible as often as possible. After all, someone must tell the children – and the millions of adult "progressives" who evidently have to re-learn these harsh lessons after every electoral victory for "hope" and "change."

[chlamor]

Big banks grow more powerful under Obama
5 September 2009

The Washington Post carried an article last week outlining the immense consolidation that has taken place in the US banking system as a result of the policies of the Bush and Obama administrations in response to the financial crisis.

The article, entitled “Banks ‘Too Big to Fail’ Have Grown Even Bigger,” reports how the largest banks have consolidated control over a greater share of financial markets and are using their monopolistic position to increase their profits by raising fees and interest on consumers and small businesses.

“The oligopoly has tightened,” said Mark Zandi of Moody’s Economy.com, who is quoted in the Post article. “There’s been a significant consolidation among the big banks, and it’s kind of hollowing out the banking system,” he added.

The newspaper reports that JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America now each hold more than 10 percent of all deposits in the country. These banks, plus Citigroup, issue half of all mortgages and two-thirds of all credit card loans. In the past year alone, the ten largest banks have increased their share of bank deposits from 40.6 percent in 2007 to 48.2 percent today.

The large banks are taking advantage of their increased control over the market to drive up fees. The Post noted that in the last quarter these banks raised their deposit fees by an average of 8 percent, while the smaller banks lowered their fees by 12 percent.

In promoting and subsidizing the takeover of failing banks by the biggest banks and investment houses, the Post notes, the government violated federal antitrust regulations, which prohibit any single bank from controlling more than 10 percent of deposits nationwide. They also violate Justice Department antitrust advisories on the degree of control over regional financial markets by individual banks.

Major milestones in the consolidation of the banking system over the past 18 months include:

• March 14, 2008: JPMorgan Chase acquired the investment bank Bear Stearns. The Federal Reserve Board provided a $29 billion subsidy to JPMorgan for the purchase.

• June 5, 2008: The Federal Reserve approved Bank of America’s takeover of Countrywide Financial, the nation’s largest mortgage company.

• September 15, 2008: Bank of America purchased Merrill Lynch on the basis of a promise by the Fed and the Treasury to give Bank of America $30 billion in guarantees on Merrill Lynch assets.

• September 15, 2008: The Federal Reserve and the Treasury allowed the investment bank Lehman Brothers to collapse.

• September 21, 2008: The Fed and the Bush administration allowed the investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to become bank holding companies, so that they would be legally entitled to cheap Fed loans and other subsidies.

• September 25, 2008: JPMorgan Chase acquired Washington Mutual, the largest savings and loan bank in the US. The transaction was subsidized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

• October 12, 2008: Wells Fargo acquired Wachovia, in another deal subsidized by the FDIC.

In addition to these major acquisitions, more than 80 smaller banks have been seized by the FDIC this year and many have been incorporated into larger banks, with the aid of government subsidies.

As a result of this process, three major competitors of the largest Wall Street firms—Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch—have disappeared, and major commercial banks such as Wachovia and Washington Mutual have vanished, leaving such giants as JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs in a position to dictate market conditions.

The growth of the remaining big banks has been staggering. Bank of America grew by more than 138 percent after acquiring Merrill Lynch and Countrywide Financial, according to the Washington Post report. JPMorgan Chase grew by 50 percent after appropriating Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual, and Wells Fargo expanded by 43 percent after snapping up Wachovia.

Prior to the crisis, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America controlled 4.4, 7.0 and 9.6 percent of bank deposits, respectively. Now, they control 11 percent, 10 percent, and 12.9 percent.

This consolidation, together with the Obama administration’s pledge to spend whatever public funds are required to prevent the failure of the remaining mega-banks, has enabled these banks to borrow funds at significantly lower rates than their smaller rivals, creating the conditions for a further concentration of financial power in the hands of a few super-banks. Banks with $100 billion or more in assets are borrowing money at interest rates on average 0.34 percentage points lower than their smaller rivals, according to the Washington Post. That advantage was only 0.08 percent in 2007.

The process of government-mediated consolidation continues. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the FDIC has been subsidizing the purchase of distressed banks by larger institutions by guaranteeing virtually all of the potential losses of the bigger banks.

The article reports that the FDIC has assumed up to 95 percent of the risk on $80 billion in assets of failed banks bought by other banks. The FDIC’s total potential losses are close to $80 billion, compared to the $10.4 billion it currently holds to guarantee the deposits of millions of consumers.

The FDIC’s deposit insurance fund has fallen from more than $50 billion a year ago and is being further depleted by new bank failures. Officials say they expect over 300 more bank failures in the coming months. The agency expects to cover $14 billion in losses on the takeover subsidies it has already extended. It is widely expected that the FDIC will tap billions of dollars in public Treasury funds to shore up its deposit insurance system.

As the Wall Street Journal notes, the FDIC’s policy of engineering bank takeovers at public expense “amounts to a subsidy for dozens of hand-picked banks.”

The vast concentration of financial power is the result of a deliberate policy of both the Bush and Obama administrations. It is one component of a program to utilize the financial crisis precipitated by the speculation and profiteering of the major banks to carry out a massive restructuring of the US economy in the interests of the most powerful sections of the financial elite.

It goes hand in hand with an unprecedented attack on the jobs and wages of the working class, Obama’s proposals to slash health care for millions of workers, and preparations for an historic assault on core entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The aim is to place the full burden for the capitalist crisis on the working class and permanently lower working class living standards.

Obama’s forced bankruptcy of General Motors and Chrysler was a milestone in this process. Just as with his health care proposals, it was dictated by Wall Street veterans in the Obama administration and corporate lobbyists. The destruction of health benefits for hundreds of thousands of retired auto workers and their families is a preview of the health care cost-cutting plans that are currently being debated in Congress.

Under these conditions, the bank regulatory overhaul being touted by the Obama administration can be nothing other than a travesty. The Obama administration is an instrument of the most powerful Wall Street interests, and neither can nor will impose any real limits on either the speculative and profit-gouging practices of the banks or the colossal compensation packages which the bankers award themselves.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/sep20 ... -s05.shtml

[StarmanSkye]

Chlamor posted:
--quote--

As the Wall Street Journal notes, the FDIC’s policy of engineering bank takeovers at public expense “amounts to a subsidy for dozens of hand-picked banks.”

The vast concentration of financial power is the result of a deliberate policy of both the Bush and Obama administrations. It is one component of a program to utilize the financial crisis precipitated by the speculation and profiteering of the major banks to carry out a massive restructuring of the US economy in the interests of the most powerful sections of the financial elite.

It goes hand in hand with an unprecedented attack on the jobs and wages of the working class, Obama’s proposals to slash health care for millions of workers, and preparations for an historic assault on core entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The aim is to place the full burden for the capitalist crisis on the working class and permanently lower working class living standards.

Obama’s forced bankruptcy of General Motors and Chrysler was a milestone in this process. Just as with his health care proposals, it was dictated by Wall Street veterans in the Obama administration and corporate lobbyists. The destruction of health benefits for hundreds of thousands of retired auto workers and their families is a preview of the health care cost-cutting plans that are currently being debated in Congress.

Under these conditions, the bank regulatory overhaul being touted by the Obama administration can be nothing other than a travesty. The Obama administration is an instrument of the most powerful Wall Street interests, and neither can nor will impose any real limits on either the speculative and profit-gouging practices of the banks or the colossal compensation packages which the bankers award themselves.

--unquote--

The rug will be, is being, has been pulled out from under us;
All that's left is for us to All Fall Down.

How much longer until concensus realization sinks in we're all subjects serving the corpocracy? Technically, its a klepto-corpocracy, or rather a techno-kleptocorpocracy, or even a technofeudal-kleptocorpocracy. Several years ago I coined the term autorepublocratic-demotechnocracy
-- but they're basically all the same damn thing, tyranny by another name with invisible chains.

The most recent manifestation of the National Security State with half-realized imperialist pretensions.

Obama-flavored Kool Aid is just another brand of the same ol' poison.

[chlamor]

The Audacity of Hope? Audacity? Call It Mendacity.

Americans would have a government-run health-care program to compete against the private insurance companies. Yes, we can, but no he won't.

The rule of law and the penalty of the law would apply to the rich as it does to the poor. Yes, we can, we were promised. But no, he won't.

The end of lobbying and K Street influence over the American government would come to a grinding halt. Yes, we can, we were promised. But no, he won't.

The end of corrupt, career politicians cherry-picked to sit at the President's side as Cabinet and Department Heads was a thing of the past. Yes, we can, we were promised. But no, he won't.

Honorable GLBT Americans who give their passion and heart, their limbs and their lives would be never be discharged from our Armed Services. Yes, we can, we were promised. But no, he won't.

The illegal kidnapping and holding individuals in foreign countries to avert U.S. law would cease. Yes, we can, we were promised. But no, he won't.

America's disgraceful torture prison on the Cuban island would be closed. Yes, we can, we were promised. But no, he won't.

There would be no more government give-aways to failed, corrupt corporations and bankers. And there would be accounting. Yes, we can, we were promised. But no, he won't.

There would be hundreds of billions of federal dollars targeted for job creation including rapid rail, wind and solar and clean energy. Yes, we can, we were promised. But no, he won't.

The "stimulus" would be directed at those at the bottom of the society, not the top. Yes, we can, we were promised. But no, he won't.

The audacity of hope?

That wasn't audacity. It was mendacity.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/di ... 89x6475551

[chiggerbit]

chlamor, i know I'm being snoopy for asking, but are you a follower of LaRouche?

[Nordic]

The 16th Term: Obama's New Betrayals are Old, Old Hat
Written by Chris Floyd
Wednesday, 02 September 2009 23:32

In a new piece at TomDispatch, David Swanson and Tom Englehardt do a good job of encapsulating the continuity that has become the hallmark of our so-called Age of Change. The title says it all: "Bush's Third Term? You're Living It." It is a very thorough and detailed demolition job; but the roots of the corruption go much deeper than the current administration – or the last one.

But first, a few excerpts (though do go and read the whole piece, especially for the copious links):

(...)

There is much more in this vein, as the authors skillfully morph Barack into the spitting image of Bush.

But of course, in many ways, we are not really living through Bush's third term, but the 16th term of the National Security Statethat was founded by secret presidential directives during Harry Truman's second term. Beginning with the ur-document, NSC-68, these directives mandated a thoroughgoing militarization of the American state, complete with vast secret forces specifically designed to carry out criminal actions – subversion, coups, "black ops," break-ins, kidnappings, torture, assassination programs, gruesome medical experiments: "the dark side, if you will." Not that things were all peaches and cream before then, of course; just ask the Filipinos (or the Cherokee, or the slaves, etc.) But in 1951, the new National Security State raised the war machine budget by 400 percent in a single year. And it has never looked back, not even after the collapse of the Soviet Union – the ostensible reason for devouring the lifeblood and seed-corn of the nation and giving it to war profiteers.

(...)

In any case, there is nothing new or unusual in Obama's "continuity." It has been the very air we've breathed for generations –a fetid, poisonous, cancerous vapor. Still, it is always salutary to have reality delineated as clearly as possible as often as possible. After all, someone must tell the children – and the millions of adult "progressives" who evidently have to re-learn these harsh lessons after every electoral victory for "hope" and "change."

Wow, thanks for that. I hadn't caught that. Chris Floyd is awesome.

I am reminded of "The Bill Hicks Moment":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MRykTpw1RQ

[marshwren]

chlamor, i know I'm being snoopy for asking, but are you a follower of LaRouche?

LaRouche? I always thought he was into Seriously Dead Russians; and the guillotine fetish was the real problem...

[chlamor]

chlamor, i know I'm being snoopy for asking, but are you a follower of LaRouche?

No. If that's your mistaken understanding you are not paying attention. Perhaps it's just a slur you need to avoid the topic at hand. I just do the research and avoid cult behavior of any sort which is why I was not Zombified by the Obama delusion. In any case snoop again.

Are you a follower of Stupid? If so that would explain your ignorance on the obvious.

[§ê¢rꆧ]

I suppose I would under the right circumstances, he is kind of cute, and charismatic as all get out. I bet he is even smarter than his speech writers, and intelligence is the ultimate turn-on.

He's probably one of the most fuckable prez's we've ever had.

I don't see what it has much to do with anything, though.

[chiggerbit]

chlamor said:

No. If that's your mistaken understanding you are not paying attention. Perhaps it's just a slur you need to avoid the topic at hand. I just do the research and avoid cult behavior of any sort which is why I was not Zombified by the Obama delusion. In any case snoop again.

Are you a follower of Stupid? If so that would explain your ignorance on the obvious.

Well, someone (can't remember who) commented something to the effect that we know what you stand against, what do you stand for, or maybe it was what your proposal for change is. Anyway, it made me curious, so I threw LaRouche at you to see if it would jiggle loose an answer. What is your goal and what are your objectives to get there?

[seemslikeadream]

chiggerbit wrote:
chlamor said:

Quote:
No. If that's your mistaken understanding you are not paying attention. Perhaps it's just a slur you need to avoid the topic at hand. I just do the research and avoid cult behavior of any sort which is why I was not Zombified by the Obama delusion. In any case snoop again.

Are you a follower of Stupid? If so that would explain your ignorance on the obvious.


Well, someone (can't remember who) commented something to the effect that we know what you stand against, what do you stand for, or maybe it was what your proposal for change is. Anyway, it made me curious, so I threw LaRouche at you to see if it would jiggle loose an answer. What is your goal and what are your objectives to get there?



chlamor is a member of a small group that likes to post under the false pretences, so anything he has to say is suspect. He hates progressives, he hates liberals and leftests but sees no problem making is home under a stolen banner that makes his crowd look like something they are not, the deception I would guess is to bring people into a discussion group and then turn them into raving lunitics like those that took over the Progressive Independent.


Dragonfli still wants his art work back in case you've forgotten.




What's wrong with honesty chlamor? Are you afraid because of your track record you would not be able to recuite anyone if you were up front about who you really are? Like the two failed other attempts - Socialist Independent and Populist Independent. And the joke going around? Tell the gang bringing up old posters that have not posted at PI for years and using their idenity to make it look like PI is a happenin' place is so lame. It didn't work at SI or PopI. Don't you see epic fail when it is staring you from the computer screen?

Straight up clamy try it sometime. I suggest you all starting using megan's avatar PIMP, so much closer to what PI has turned into. You won't be reeling in the rif raf that way.

PI MP now there's truth in advertizing

[justdrew]

Here's a nice sum up...

After Obama
by David Michael Green
from commondreams.org

Eight months into it, it now seems pretty clear that the Obama administration is finished.

There were some of us -- indeed, many of us, myself included -- who thought there was a possibility that Barack Obama might seize this moment of American crisis, twinned with the complete failure for all to see of the regressive agenda, to become the second coming of Franklin Roosevelt.

Many think that was a naïve position from the get-go. I disagree. Not only do I believe that it was a legitimate possibility, I would argue that it was the logical choice even just from the narrow perspective of Obama's personal fortunes. The president is every day committing political suicide by a thousand cuts because he chose not to take that track.

That's certainly his prerogative, and at this point I wish him all the worst of luck in whatever comes next. Since I never assumed he would be a progressive once elected, any bitterness that I feel is not rooted in his failure to become the new FDR. However, I am irate that, in domain after domain, President Obama has become the personification of the very Bush administration policies that Candidate Obama so roundly criticized. And I feel deep hostility toward him about the betrayal of legions of voters -- especially the young -- who believed his message of hope and thought they were getting a president on their side, not Wall Street's.

More on that in another column. Right now, the question is what comes next? The Obama presidency is probably already toast, though of course anything can happen in three or seven years. But he is on a crash course for a major clock cleaning and, what's worse, he doesn't seem to have it remotely within him to seize history by the horns and steer that bull in his preferred direction. Indeed, near as I can tell, he doesn't even have a preferred direction.

Obama was complete fool if he ever believed for a moment that his campfire kumbaya act was going to bring the right along behind him. Even s'mores wouldn't have helped. These foaming-at-the-mouth lunatics have completely lost all sense and proportion, and were bound to viscerally hate any president left of Cheney, let alone some black guy in their white house. Meanwhile, centrist voters in this country seem pretty much only to care about taxes and spending, and so he's lost them, too, without the slightest rhetorical fight in his own defense. And he's blown off a solid progressive base by spitting in their eyes at every imaginable opportunity, beginning with the formation of his cabinet, ranging through every policy decision from civil rights to civil liberties to foreign policy to healthcare, and culminating with his choice not to even mobilize his email database in support of his policies.

So if he's lost the left, right and center, just who does he think is going to be clamoring to give him a second term three years from now, especially if the economy remains lousy for most people in the country, as it's likely to do regardless of GDP or Dow Jones growth?

There is the possibility that Obama could change course significantly, just as Bill Clinton did in 1995, following the mid-term election in which his most astute political stewardship managed to turn both houses of Congress over to the Republican Party. But Clinton turned to the right and became just a less snarly version of the Republicans, while Obama is already there. I don't really think he could conceivably turn further rightward at this point, and I don't think he has anywhere near the guts to turn to the left and do what he should have done in the first place.

What all this suggests to me is that Obama and his party will manage by 2012 to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and return the GOP -- and probably an even nastier version of it than the Bush-Cheney junta, at that -- to power. It suggests that the Democrats, who were riding high six months ago over an all but destroyed Republican Party, will be switching places with them within three years time, if not sooner -- and all because of their own cowardice, corruption and ineptitude. This outcome is hardly inevitable, but it is fast approaching. Looking out over the horizon, I see five key factors most likely to effect the health and longevity of the Obama administration, and not one of them looks positive.

The eight-hundred pound gorilla rummaging around in the kitchen right now is the economy. Indeed, this factor alone could readily swamp the combined effect of all the others, particularly if it swings dramatically in one direction or another. My guess, as a non-economist (which, of course, only means that I have a better shot at an accurate prediction than the economists do), is that the economy will exhibit some substantial signs of growth over the next three years. But I suspect the recovery will be tepid, even according to establishment measures such as GDP growth or the state of the Dow. More importantly, I strongly suspect that this will be another jobless recovery, like the last ones we've had, and that the new mean standard of living for the middle class will be pretty mean indeed, significantly diminished compared to what people were already struggling to hold on to when the Great Recession began. Personally, I think if American history teaches us anything at all about presidential elections, it is that for an incumbent president this is more or less the worst possible scenario imaginable upon which to go asking the public to punch his ticket again. Americans vote their pocketbook, and that alone is likely to be the kiss of death for Obama's second term aspirations.

Meanwhile, of course, he's also chosen to put healthcare reform on the table as the signature legislative initiative probably of his entire presidency. That's fine, but watching him in action I sometimes wonder if this clown really and actually wants a second term. I mean, if you had asked me in January, "How could Obama bungle this program most thoroughly?", I would have written a prescription that varies little from what we've observed over the last eight months: Don't frame the issue, but instead let the radical right backed by greedy industry monsters do it, on the worst possible terms for you. And to you. Don't fight back when they say the most outrageous things about your plan. In fact, don't even have a plan. Let Congress do it. Better yet, let the by-far-and-away-minority party have an equal voice in the proceedings, even if they ultimately won't vote for the bill under any circumstances, and even while they're running around trashing it and you in the most egregious terms. Have these savages negotiate with a small group of right-wing Democrats, all of them major recipients of industry campaign donations. Blow off your base completely. Cut secret sweetheart deals with the Big Pharma and Big Insurance corporate vampires. Build a communications strategy around a series of hapless press conferences and town hall meetings, waiting until it's too late to give a major speech on the issue. Set a timetable for action and then let it slip. Indicate what you want in the bill but then be completely unclear about whether you necessarily require those things. Travel all over the world doing foreign policy meet-and-greets. Go on vacation in the heat of the battle. Rinse and repeat.

Altogether, it's an astonishingly perfect recipe for getting rolled, so much so that I'm not the first person to have wondered out loud if that was actually the president's intention all along. Look at this freaking fool. Now look at the guy who ran a letter-perfect, disciplined, textbook, insurgent, victorious campaign for the White House. Can they possibly be the same person? And, since they obviously are, is there possibly another explanation for this disaster besides an intentional boot? I dunno. But what I do know is this. Obama's very best-case scenario for healthcare legislation right now represents a ton of lost votes in 2010 and 2012. And the worse that scenario gets, the worse he and his party do. But even a ‘success' in the months ahead will produce a tepid bill, a mistrustful public, an inflamed and unanswered radical right, and a mealy-mouthed new government program that doesn't even begin to go online until 2013. A real vote-getter that, eh?

Which brings us to a third major electoral liability for Obama. Human beings, by and large, like to be led. They like their leaders to inspire their confidence -- even when doing so takes the form of the most fantastically shallow dress-up kind of blowhard buffonery, à la George W. Bush -- so that they don't have to think too much about how little personal confidence they themselves actually possess. Obama is the complete antithesis of this model of the presidency. He is Harry Reid's incontinent grandmother as president. He is Neville Chamberlain's squirrely little nephew knocking shit over in the Oval Office while he plays "Mr. President", in-between episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants. He is a bowl of Jell-O. That someone forgot to put in the fridge. He exhibits no competence as a chief executive. He inspires no confidence as a national leader. And, increasingly, his credibility is coming into question. Who wants to vote for that?

A related problem is that he loves to flash that big toothy grin of his right before his venomous adversaries knock his choppers back into his head. I'm trying to imagine what a wimpier president would look like, and having a very hard time coming up with an answer. I'm trying to imagine how the regressive right could possibly bathe their country's president in a more acidic pool of vitriol, and I'm having a difficult time topping their assertions that he's out to kill the elderly while simultaneously indoctrinating grade-schoolers into the ranks of the Revolutionary Spartacist League. I'm trying to conceive of how vacant a White House could possibly be of any whiff of push-back against these assaults, and I can't quite envision it. Maybe if they went out and did some real scandals and filmed it all as a gift for the GOP? Perhaps they could dig up Vince Foster's body and murder him all over again, this time on video? Or they could hire Ken Starr to just run amok in the White House for a few years, looking for anything remotely juicy? But could Obama's Keystone Kops even do a scandal properly? I'm not sure, but I'm pretty confident the public is losing trust in this guy as their Big Daddy Protector. Who in America would vote for this eunuch to be in charge of keeping their little suburban Happy Meal-stuffed brats safe from tawny evil-doers with bad intentions?

As if all that weren't enough, Obama is probably also sitting on several national security powder kegs - including Guantánamo, which he is unlikely to close; Iraq, which he is unlikely to leave; and Afghanistan, which he is unlikely to win. The latter in particular has now become his war, and lately it is smelling a lot like Vietnam, circa 1964. An decades-long struggle against a popular nationalist adversary. Endless calls from the Pentagon for more troops. Incredibly inhospitable terrain for fighting a war. An American-made puppet government hated for its corruption and for its gross incompetence at every task other than raw predation. Mmmm-mmm. What a yummy stew. Haven't dined on that fine cuisine since 1975. And what another great vote-getter to add to this sorry list, eh?

Put it all together and it's pretty hard to see how Obama gets a second term. Which can mean only one thing: We're looking at a Romney or a Palin or some sort of similar monster as the next president, despite the fact that their party was absolutely loathed only a year ago, and actually still is today. It won't matter. People will be voting against the incumbent, not for any candidate, and that will leave only one viable choice, especially for centrist and right-wing voters. Whoever wins the Republican nomination will be the next president, crushing Obama in the general election (assuming he survives the Democratic primaries). And that's a particularly scary notion, since the party's voting base who will make that choice in the Republican primaries is the same crowd you've seen featured all this summer at town hall meetings. Olympia Snowe is not going to be the Republican nominee in 2012. Know what I mean?

So the question then becomes, what next? What happens after Obama?

I see two possible general paths going forth from that point -- one bad, and one worse. The bad path would involve a frustrated but essentially beaten-into-submission public oscillating between incompetent Republican and Democratic administrations, turning one after the other out of office -- not on ideological grounds, but instead seeking any change that has the possibility of stanching the empire's hemorrhaging wounds. This would look a fair bit like Japan or Britain does today. The former just replaced its government and the latter will likely do so next spring. But I don't think either of these major party shifts are really ideological in nature, and I don't think either new government is likely to be hugely different from the one it succeeded.

But Americans seem to me especially piggish critters these days, and the benign model that is sufficient to placate disgruntled citizens of long-lost empires may not suffice to soothe the savage soul of Yanquis still deep in the process of watching theirs crumble around their feet. That moves us from the bad path to the worse. Given what the American public is capable of happily countenancing during relatively flush times (can you say "Reagan"? "Bush"?), imagine what could happen when spoiled Baby Boomers go to the polls under conditions approaching the 1930s.

Such a crisis could conceivably entail a sharp turn to the left, and in every rational country certainly would. But this is America. We pretty much don't go anywhere near socialism, at least not overtly, and in any given decade -- especially the recent ones -- we're lucky to get away with anything less than creeping fascism. Moreover, elections are almost always reactions to the status quo. Since Obama is ridiculously -- but nevertheless widely -- perceived as a liberal, the reaction is all the more likely to involve a sharp turn to the right in response.

Under this scenario, anything portside of Torquemada would be buried alive if not annihilated, and the next regime would likely be one that could make Dick Cheney shudder. And that's the happy side of the equation. If history is any guide, a nifty (not so) little war could only be right around the corner, for the helpful purpose of jump-starting the economy, crushing the domestic opposition, and distracting the public from that pesky nuisance once affectionately referred to as ‘reality'.

I don't want to lay odds on which of these outcomes is the more likely, but I feel pretty confident, I'm sad to say, that any happier scenario is considerably less likely than either of these. For a lot of reasons, America's near-term future looks bleak to me, and this country -- which already has a remarkable tendency to make dangerously foolish and sickeningly selfish political choices -- is altogether too likely to do something that would make the Bush years look like a scene from a Norman Rockwell canvas by comparison.

This tragedy, if it comes, will have many sires who share responsibility for driving America from Republican red to fascist black. But on that list must certainly be included the powder blue of the effete Obama administration that came in between.

Rahm Emanuel once famously averred that "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."

I don't really believe that corporate-controlled fascism is what he had in mind when he said that.

But, who knows? Maybe that's exactly what he was thinking.
Or -- perhaps most likely of all -- maybe nobody at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is doing much thinking whatsoever these days.

David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York.

[chlamor]

chlamor said:

No. If that's your mistaken understanding you are not paying attention. Perhaps it's just a slur you need to avoid the topic at hand. I just do the research and avoid cult behavior of any sort which is why I was not Zombified by the Obama delusion. In any case snoop again.

Are you a follower of Stupid? If so that would explain your ignorance on the obvious.

Well, someone (can't remember who) commented something to the effect that we know what you stand against, what do you stand for, or maybe it was what your proposal for change is. Anyway, it made me curious, so I threw LaRouche at you to see if it would jiggle loose an answer. What is your goal and what are your objectives to get there?

chlamor is a member of a small group that likes to post under the false pretences, so anything he has to say is suspect. He hates progressives, he hates liberals and leftests but sees no problem making is home under a stolen banner that makes his crowd look like something they are not, the deception I would guess is to bring people into a discussion group and then turn them into raving lunitics like those that took over the Progressive Independent.


Dragonfli still wants his art work back in case you've forgotten.




What's wrong with honesty chlamor? Are you afraid because of your track record you would not be able to recuite anyone if you were up front about who you really are? Like the two failed other attempts - Socialist Independent and Populist Independent. And the joke going around? Tell the gang bringing up old posters that have not posted at PI for years and using their idenity to make it look like PI is a happenin' place is so lame. It didn't work at SI or PopI. Don't you see epic fail when it is staring you from the computer screen?

Straight up clamy try it sometime. I suggest you all starting using megan's avatar PIMP, so much closer to what PI has turned into. You won't be reeling in the rif raf that way.

PI MP now there's truth in advertizing

Nah Kate you're just a hysterical wanker who feels so stumped that people got tired of your histrionics. Gee Kate who I really am? You must be getting weary and bored these days. No Kate I don't hate any of the groups or individuals in those groups. I don't even hate you Kate even as you've descended into caricature and resort to little more than slurs and ignorant lies. But it is sad to see your extreme bitterness on display. It's embarrassing.

As for D-fli' art if it were up to me it would be "given" back in a second (it was never stolen yet another of your lies) and it would've never been used in the first place as it gives off the stink of New-Age goo. Not my style but it wasn't my decision.

So yes Kate as you descend further into your sorrowful abyss say all you need to feel better about yourself in your constant hijacking of threads.

And if you had any sense at all you would know there is no success from a computer screen it has happened on the streets. I'd say see you there but it has been proven time and again that you are if nothing else a coward who only sits behind her screen. Take care.

[nathan28]

Apparently TurboReaganSuperJesusBlackJF2K's administration just canned Van Jones for, ostensibly, having made a comment indicative of heterodox views w/r/t 9/11.