Many months ago I made a bet with certain of my political friends. It was my contention that the bipartisan oligarchy that rules our country had manufactured a crisis of electability for Barack Obama with the Reverend Wright imbroglio. They would limit our expectations by handing the nomination to Hillary. I also contended that Obama was himself a willing pawn in that game. It turns out I was right... I was just a hair early on when the switcheroo would go down.New York Times columnist Gail Collins caught wind of it in September when she wrote that "Barack Obama had turned into Hillary Clinton...fooling the voters with oblique promises of change." Now the new cabinet choices (selected by Obama personally? More likely by our shadowy cabal) remove all doubt about the actual outcome of the election. It's the second Clinton administration!
Of course, since the country is governed by a shadowy cabal, a bipartisan oligarchy, a ruling class interested in maintaining the power and wealth of the few, it doesn't really matter who the president is; that is largely a cosmetic choice having to do with manipulating the electorate. It is the men behind the president that matter, and in the case of the administration-elect they haven't even bothered to mask their ugly intent with a fresh-smelling retinue of evildoers. No they're doing it to us in plain sight, with the same old evil-smelling suspects! In fact, the wholesale importation of the first Clinton administration into the Obama White House is being hailed by many of the wind-up policy won
ks as signs of a healthy political realism! After all, we are a center-right country, as the last election so clearly proves!Not only is the vile and freakish Larry Summers being seriously considered for his old post as Treasury Secretary, (the man who once suggested as chief World Bank Economist that sections of Africa that were underpopulated and "underpolluted" would make great toxic waste dumps), but Rham Emmanuel has been selected as Chief of Staff, often considered the second most powerful post in Washington. (Who it's second to, I suppose, depends on who is president. The presidency may have power if the president was also once CIA director.)
Just who is Rham Emmanuel? Only the mafia goon who, as Senior Policy Advisor to Clinton I, rhammed NAFTA down the country's throat. Remember the North American Free Trade Agreement? It's the series of supra-national trade deals that made it impossible not to close factories all over the country and ship the machines to Mexico, thus destroying the middle class! Because you see, that's what they do under the cosmetics line labeled "Democrat;" they viciously attack the 100 million poor people in the country!
They dissolve the middle class! They conduct more interventions, but they call them "humanitarian!" For the environment, they introduce the SUV by way of the CAFTA laws! Stuff they wouldn't get away with quite as easily under brand "Republican.""But maybe Rham has changed," you say! Maybe the Obama campaign has infused him with the bonhomie of Hope and Change! Well as of September 2008, as the columnist David Sirota quoted from the pages from Inside US Trade, it hasn't a bit. The expansion of NAFTA (to South Korea, Panama, and Columbia, this last the number-one place where unionists are assassinated) is being led by none other than... Rhamalama Ding-Dong Emmanuel!
"...Democratic Caucus Chair Rham Emanuel (D-IL) is actively advocating that Democrats would be better off having the votes on pending [free trade agreements] this year for a number of reasons, sources said. They said that one of the reasons Emanuel cites is that there are likely more Republican members in this Congress than there will be in the next, which would mean that fewer Democrats would have to take a potentially divisive trade vote now."
I added the emphasis, for as Sirota rightly points out, this means that the Democratic leader, Emmauel, is "effectively acting as the House Republican whip. He's saying that he wants these bills up for a vote because there are enough Republican votes right now in the House to pass it over current Democratic objections - and there won't be enough GOP votes in the next Congress." (My emphasis).
So that's Mr. Hope for a Change you can Believe In's choice for enforcer and congressional liason. A man very interested in continuing the impoverishment of Americans and the enslavement of the Third World. He will (baring divine intervention) champion the continuation of policies that have caused incalculable suffering to millions of Americans, especially poor and middle-class black Americans. Great.
Maybe this is all part of the plan to limit our expectations. That plan proceeds nicely. As Christine Amanpour seems paid to do, she said for the millionth time last week that Obama has the "in-box from Hell." What with two hot wars and a trillion dollar defecit, everyone is talking about what part of his plan (health-care, green-energy, education) he will have to scrap first...And now the latest attack in the anti-expectations crusade: a stimulus package! A spending package to "get the economy moving again," (more pay-offs to big business?) even though as Paul Krugman himself is compelled to admit in today's Times, that grand-daddy of them all stimulus package, the New Deal, didn't work very well until the public-works project known as World War II got things going again. Hey! Maybe that's why Obama has been promising us a wider war in Afghanistan!
How will they excuse their excuses? "It was all the last administration's fault, you see. No, no, the Republicrats and Demublicans aren't in it together! Noooo. Nancy Pelosi took impeachment "off the table" because she really is among the leaders of an-honest-to-goodness-
a fine looking bridge for you, only 100 or so years old, for sale here in Brooklyn...Meanwhile, good-bye Hope! Farewell, Change! Will we fool ourselves into believing you might come again in 2012? Or will that be a year of malaise and reaction? Another retrenchment after yet another suspiciously easy terrorist attack?
Some CNN lovely opined after last Tuesday's election that the Russian leadership weren't gracious to Barack because they were mad that we had a "real" democracy, where their's was only nominal. They had all cynically assumed, as I did, that our presidential history would go "Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton." Well, turns out me and the Ruskies won the bet after all. Yippee. But to the half dozen or so I bet a bottle of whiskey with, not to worry. I will share it with you as the realization that we live under a sophisticated techno-fascist regime slowly begins to dawn on you....
In the meantime, what do I have to do to convince people that our democracy is now completely phony? Make a movie about it? Oh wait, I did, imperfect as it is: The American Ruling Class.
11 comments:
Oh Johnny boy, our well-intentioned third party miscreant. The timing of our current economic crisis is the most significant thing about it! The Ruling Class has little more than three months to squeeze the last little bit it can out of the free-falling Bush/Clinton power center with the added objective to leave the poor black guy with a steaming pile of shit.
It was triggered by an incredible and inexplicable speculative bubble in the Wall Street-jiggered oil futures market and quickly spread to the expansive highways of Middle America - exploding in the over the superhighway known as Los Angeles. The first victim - LA-based IndyMac.
My point is not that Obama represents some massive shift in policy, just that he isn't working for the Clinton/Bush cabal...and they know it. Policies do not inform governance anyway, they build electable coalitions. Handouts from the president require demonstrable loyalty, and I'm not gonna swallow the red pill and pretend that Obama and Clinton are "partners" in anything, (putting the shady, EX-Rep. Rahm aside...and come on, Podesta's moved very far away from Clinton since the mid-90s).
Obama caused half the party kingpins to hold out their "endorsements" while they waited to see what the freak could do. What they witnessed was a savvy dude and his savvy advisers partner with arguably righteous defenders of the poor and downtrodden (Kennedy, the renewable energy industry) all the while building the widest donor base that has ever existed, and building the capital required to put the democratic leadership (minus the Dean team) on the sidelines.
Now the Clinton/Bush cabal is scared. Since when does the middle and lower-middle class exert influence. As the Clinton apparatus builds up its shadow State Dept. known as the Clinton Global Initiative, their out-going government leaders cashed their last chip - the $1 trillion handout - hoping to regain just a bit their 40% losses over the last month and chalk it up as a loss. Now they need to reorganize the opposition (watch the Republican transformation in the next few months - the best thing that will come from this is the death of the freakish religious right...or possibly rapture).
Obama isn't some godsend, but he hasn't fucked up royally yet. He seeks to refine the American "center", and he will work for the renewable energy industry (Podesta). He took one of the scarier guys out of Congress (Emanuel) and is picking all kinds of up and coming lefties (20% of them from Massachusetts) to reorganize the presidency and work on his priorities.
He is also the proud new owner of a shit sandwich - assuming he'll just eat it is an act of willful cynicism. Caesar didn't save Rome by recklessly banishing the Senate. He did it by making his most dangerous political foes his closest confidants and advisers and then quietly undermining and outflanking them. Yeah, so they killed him for it - but not until he saved Rome from the accelerating tyranny of its own elected leaders.
Let's wait and see what happens. And you owe me a bottle of Bourbon. And third parties are more than a waste of time, they recklessly shrink the margins of our political center.
Besides, how do end a war on terror? That seems like a perfectly rational enterprise at first glance.
Oh, Danny! Thank God we have an honest to goodness Minutiae Wonk in our midst! It's a prowerful insight into how the bi-partisan elite manages to fool the smartest people in the county into choosing "the lesser of two evils" approach every four years (and every year in between).
Of course, all your excuses for the unfolding "shit sandwich" are willed fantasy, ascribing to Obama a ficticious morality, based on well-delivered speeches (it can't be based on his legislative record; see below).
More than that, they ascribe agency to the first-term senator from Illinois, the one plucked by the DNC to make the keynote speech at 2004 convention. Step a tiny step out of the trees for a moment, and take in the whole forest. In what chamber of his mind does Obama dream up the in's and out's of his multi-phase nuclear disarmament plan? How about his stance on the latest bit of trade legislation? Are they the culmination of ideas he's harbored since law school? Perhaps on the rare occasion. But not usually. He is being fed ideas by his "advisers." When he calls for more troops to Afghanistan, is that a deeply held conviction he took with him from the Illinois statehouse? Or do you excuse him his national security dogmas because you share them yourself? Are you, too, excited to embark on War A, in Afghanistan? The one "we should have been paying attention to all along?"
Dear lord man, try to appreciate the implications of Edward Bernays and 100 years of the public relations business... you need to supplement your prodigious education in conventional politics as taught in the better civics courses with some public record imperial conquest history... thence read some Walter Karp on the domestic uses thereof.
Arrrgh! Where to begin, where to begin? If the debt bomb and two hot wars "explode over Obama's head" from out of his "in-box from hell", what will convince you that he is not an innocent victim in all this, (the man who voted for the bail-out) but a willing patsy? Just as George W. Bush was?
Ask yourself: Why were all the self-stlyed liberal and conservative intelligensia so sure that Bush was (is) stupid? that HE was really in charge? That he (rather the oligarchs) really couldn't have kept our torture sessions out of the news (that they wouldn't wouldn't have been endlessly broadcast) as they had so managed for decades in the past? Why were they made a national cause celebre in the kept press? Or do you believe the press is free in America?
Danny, you are so smart; so much of why the machine operates as it does is to divert young fools like you. And when I say 'fools', I say it in the best sense of the word, that which refers to true idealists, people with serious political energy who are willing to expend it for the cause.
It's the same trick they use to channel (well-founded) Arab/Islamic aggression into mercenary armies (the mujahedeen, Al Qaeda) that can then be used to maintain the permanent war culture in our country and abroad.
They manipulate you by means of your plausible concerns, by offering a plausible alternative. It's the surest way to an idealist's heart, as I understand too well.
The look of the thing will vary from region to region and era to era.
Whether you endorse violence or not depends on your relative position. If you are a moderately well off American citizen, you vote Obama to get change, (despite his obvious allegiance to the money power), because it all seems so possible, and his rhetoric keeps it so real.
If you are poor Muslim in Peshawar, joining a radical gang of CIA controlled murderous heroin smugglers seems to offer the best chance of wielding political power
So you sign up, and the Ruling Class channels your political energy, in either scenario.
Here's a sampling of what Obama did in congress, again from columnist David Sirota, (2006):
"...he recently headlined the kickoff event for the so-called Hamilton Project - the Wall Street backed front group whose goal is to undercut Democratic efforts to seriously reform America's trade policy. He additionally voted for the industry-written class action bill that limits citizens ability to seek legal redress against corporate abusers, he voted for the oil industry-written Energy Bill, he voted against legislation to crack down on exorbitant credit card interests rates, and he voted for the Oman Free Trade Agreement."
His cabinet is the same old scene, dude. Will you concede if Hillary is made Secretary of State? What some people refer to as a more powerful position than the presidency? No, no, this is a Doris Kearn Goodwin "Team of Rivals" response... THIS IS NOT THE 1860's! Oligach systems have evoloved (even as they have stayed the same.. the premise remains.. collusion...)
You know why they spend two years on the elections these days? To exhaust everyone from looking at what happens next.
I will buy the whiskey, cause you'll need it.
Forgive me my hope. At least Biden voted against the Oman treaty.
"...it seems that the incoming Obama administration is now shaping up to become the third Clinton term. "
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10947
hope is a thing with change that feathers
Don't run out on Emily
with policy wonks rewriting the future
just 'cause they vent history
what else have we to be proud of but she?
for foul deeds surprise the harbor
as each body floats to the shore
and i'll try to bear able witness
no matter how many more
the future has in store, me boys
no matter how many more
I want more from the other side, John. You are very quick at criticizing most anything. You often make a good case. But the world quickly breaks down to nothing as far as I can tell. If enough people ever did vote for Nader we could easily say the Ruling Class channeled your political energy. We probably could anyway.
The President has a rough job. The whole system is set up so that nothing gets done, and the president takes the blame no matter what. Would you not agree it would be near impossible to get 60 Senators and how ever many more reps you need to get a bill through to word legislation exactly how you wanted it and then pass the bastard?
Anyway, we're hitting tangents...From all the talks we had on those late nights in the lobby, is the only answer to hide out on the local level, doing what you can to stay sane until your day comes, hoping and praying that the one man, Ralph Nader, who can save us all will one day become president (and what? dissolve Congress?). Or are there others? Is there no hope?
Nick, fair enough. I don't know what to say, really. I mean there was a coup in this country in 1963, and there hasn't been a counter-coup, so who's really in charge?
Yes, under the best of circumstances, it would still be tough, but imagine an electorate composed of profoundly educated and therefore free people involved in politics at all levels; vigilant people who's values weren't solely directed at acquisition, power, and privilege? I think such people can be made, if the circumstances are right. The first step, however, is to not submit to demagogues, no matter how attractively packaged they are.
We simply must not be fooled again... but of course we have been. No, a magic wand installing Nader as president would not do the trick.. we need a nation of Nader's for that. And of course that's just what the ruling class has done everything in their power to prevent emerging.
So everything we do to educate ourselves about the nature of power in the country, the real nature of power, is a positive step towards self-government.
And don't be fooled by gridlock arising from a difference of opinion. It is a collusive arrangement. When they want something (war in Iraq; at a local level, credit card/advertising screens in NYC cabs) they get it right on through. The political class is simply unresponsive to anything that would upset the arrangement for them and their wealthy friends... demublicans and republicrats both.
Umm...Isn't Nader a bit of a socialist? I think Ron Paul would have been a far better choice! But of course we would need an army of Ron Paul's to really change anything; and we know "they" would never allow that to happen.
There's no doubt about it, we are being ruled by a shadowy cabal. See: Who's who in the New World Order, http://goodnewsaboutgod.com/#who, to learn who the players are. But even they are merely puppets for Satan. It's basically a case of good versus evil. Luckily, for us good will win! Just make sure you are ready for the showdown (coming soon). http://goodnewsaboutgod.com/topics.htm and http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs014/1102192932591/archive/1102214243731.html will help prepare you. Don't say you weren't warned.
I missed the first part of America's Ruling Class last night on Sundance, but I really enjoyed it! I thought it was really nicely done.
We get a piece of pie while they own the whole Grocery Store. Let's hope that they don't decide to get crueler with us or everyone besides the ruling class will be starving.
John.
I couldn' agree with you more. In fact, I wrote my first novel, Chasing the Giants, about this exact issue. IAnd I am damn near finished with book number two, which I feel even better about as far as a comprehensive evaluation of how damaging the ruling class is. You can find me on Face Book, my blog chasingthegiants@blogspot.com or my website chasingthegiants.com.....My next novel is called, Killing the Giants: The Road to Nihilism. I don't mean to sound narcissistic, but if you want to put this idea in documentary form, I can not help you. However, if you would like to translate your opinions into fictional drama, than please look me up. I will actually be ready for editing my first draft of Killing the Giants after I finish the last few chapters this weekend. You can email me at j_bennington@hotmail.com if you would like a copy after it is in print. Kudos for your journalistic truth telling! Sincerely, Jeff Bennington
7/24/10
Quote: Or are there others? Is there no hope?
Unquote
There is no hope. It's the end.
Post a Comment