USA - a new chapter

[runcible]

I wanted to say to our American friends how pleased I am at the results of the election yesterday. The idea of more Republican rule was scary for many of us over this side of the water and there is huge confidence in Obama and his ability to tackle the shit the USA is going through right now. If he's as good as his word the positives will affect everyone.

Thank goodness common sense came through this time!

[spzretent]

add two bloodshot eyes and a huge thumbs up!

[bunnyben]

i got to sleep at about 6am! so happy, i didn't think it would happen but it did! now let's see what happens!

[simonkeeping]

Waking up this morning reminded me of Christmas a child. Im very excited by the result, a fresh chapter in world politics. Good news.

[They Transmit]

Here Here!!
Lets see how long it takes him to undo all of Bushes cack handed efforts!
Best of luck to him and all who sail in the good ship of common sense!

[spzretent]

like I said in an earlier email to one of my overseas friends.
It is a glorious day here in the good ol' US of A.
I was asked how could 44% of the country vote for the Republicans in this election after the last 8 years of hell we have just endured. Much of the 44% are such xenophobes, most likely have no passport and have never ventured outside of the lower 48 states. That and they are scared someone is gonna take away their guns. They really could care less about foreign policy. It makes no difference to them(except maybe where gas prices are concerned). And unfortunately that makes up a large portion of this country. I would love to know how they are feeling today.
Once again, I am SO HAPPY that people could vote with their head and heart. It was a truly remarkable scene in Chicago last night. And that scene played out in every major city on a smaller scale. Almost like every city's sports team won a championship. It was that big!

[dselevan2]

It does feel like Christmas or Day After Spiritualized Concert.

[BzaInSpace]

My compliments to the voting citizens of the US!

A great feeling this morning.

[redcloud]

A great result for our wounded nation. Last night was the first step to rebuilding what Bush and Cheney did to America. The heart and soul is still there. What happened last night is proof that we are not as stupid as many may believe. Lets also be honest, this historic election could only have happened in America. Maybe with it other Western countries will follow our lead and see past race.

I'm proud. Very proud.

[bunnyben]

. Lets also be honest, this historic election could only have happened in America. Maybe with it other Western countries will follow our lead and see past race.

I'm proud. Very proud.

amen! 'democarcy is coming to the usa'

[purespace]

I was driving across the state yesterday morning to conduct a training. On the way, I listened to NPR (national public radio) and the stories on the election. I found myself becoming overwhelmed with emotion. It welled up inside me and I found myself weeping as I drove. I felt the burden of cynicism that I've carried for so long lift and leave me. True democracy finally in action, no longer something sold to the highest bidder. This is the beginning of something bigger. The first step. A new age. Our planetary graduation could finally be at hand.

[MODLAB]

it is a new chapter. i still fear in what far right says though.
pretty amazing the brits with a female prime minister in 1979.
now a black us president in 2008.

M

[Greeny]

It is of course a brilliant result, but if I could interject a slight cloud of good old fashioned British cynicism here, many of the feelings expressed in this thread were exactly how I felt being in London in May 1997...and look how that turned out!!

OK there wasn't the race angle, but all the rest - throwing out the corrupt old guard, empowering the young, building a fairer society, backing a smart young leader with bags of charisma, etc etc. It was all there.

Please let my fears be unjustified and Obama turns out to be way more than another Tony Blair.

[runcible]

I'm afraid I rather thought of that too greeny but didn't want to admit it! But then we've been let down badly by New Labour - the lack of trust in what Blair said and now the endless banana skins Brown drops in front of himself is very depressing when it all looked so rosy back then.

I too hope that Obama delivers the promise he has so much of. His achievement on every level is inspirational and that should kick start a lot of positives in the American people.

[supershonn]

one thing you might be overlooking is that the DEMS are in total control (house/senate). the only possibility of derailing change is the chance of a filibuster. and you better believe the Republicans will be using it.

also i think it's wise that Obama is selecting his cabinet and making the transition fluid. where as our last DEM president (Clinton) waited till the final days causing chaos among the party.

it's one of these things that you honestly can't understand unless you are here to witness history. it's amazing, the amount of pride beaming from the faces of both blacks and whites hasn't been seen in America. it's simply unprecedented.

a new chapter begins....

[porkchop]

The feeling of a heavy weight being lifted, was something I'm glad we are all finally able to experience. For the dread that could've come on, would've been too much. It won't happen overnight, but we're pointed in the right direction now. whew!

[MODLAB]

but this what still scares me.

DENVER — Sales of handguns, rifles and ammunition have surged in the last week, according to gun store owners around the nation who describe a wave of buyers concerned that an Obama administration will curtail their right to bear arms.

“He’s a gun-snatcher,” said Jim Pruett, owner of Jim Pruett’s Guns and Ammo in northwest Houston, which was packed with shoppers on Thursday.

“He wants to take our guns from us and create a socialist society policed by his own police force,” added Mr. Pruett, a former radio personality, of President-elect Barack Obama.

Mr. Pruett said that sales last Saturday, just before Election Day, ran about seven times higher than a typical good Saturday.

A spot check by reporters in four other states easily found Mr. Pruett’s comments echoed from both sides of the counter.

David Nelson, a co-owner of Montana Ordnance & Supply in Missoula, Mont., said his buyers were “awake and aware and see a dangerous trend.”

Mr. Nelson said sales at his store had risen about 30 percent since Mr. Obama declared his candidacy. “People are concerned about overreaching legislation from Washington,” he said. “They are educating themselves on the Internet.”

In Colorado, would-be gun buyers set a one-day record last Saturday with the highest number of background check requests in a 24-hour period, according to figures from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

“We’re not really sure who is promoting the concept that a change in federal administrations might affect firearms possession rights,” said an agency spokesman, Lance Clem, “but we do know that it’s increased business considerably.”

Federal law-enforcement officials cautioned that gun sales were extremely volatile. Nationally, rifle and handgun sales surged 17 percent, for example, in May, compared with May 2007, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation figures. That was before Mr. Obama had clinched the Democratic nomination. Sales then fell and were essentially flat by September compared with the year before, even as the campaign heated up, before rising 14 percent in October. November figures were not yet available.



guns...

[Hedspace]

November 06, 2008 -- - Tuesday’s celebration hangovers have finally started to wear off, and the pieces are beginning to fall into place. Change will be coming to Washington in January, but it is difficult to decipher what form it will take. Early clues, however, suggest that Barack Obama’s administration will prove unlikely to alter the fundamental political machinery that has led us into war and economic turmoil. Below is a brief summary of Obama’s potential choices for a few key roles in his administration.

Chief of Staff

Obama’s key White House position will go to Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois. While Emanuel knows his way around the corridors of Washington, qualifying him in the traditional sense, this alone doesn’t mean he’s the guy you want drawing up Obama’s policy papers day after day.

For starters, Emanuel is a shameless neoliberal with close ties to the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), even co-authoring a strategy book with DLC president Bruce Reed. Without Emanuel, Bill Clinton would not have been able to thrust NAFTA down the throats of environmentalists and labor in the mid-1990s. Over the course of his career, Emanuel’s made it a point to cozy up to big business, making him one of the most effective corporate fundraisers in the Democratic Party. He’s also a staunch advocate of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.

Emanuel’s shinning moment came in 2006 as he helped funnel money and poured ground support into the offices of dozens of conservative Democrats, expanding his party’s control of the House of Representatives. Emanuel, who supports the War on Terror, and expanding our presence in Afghanistan, worked hard to ensure that a Democratic House majority would not alter the course of US military objectives in the Middle East.

In short, Rahm Emanuel is not only a poor choice for Obama’s Chief of Staff; he’s one of the least progressive picks he could have made. While he may have decent views on abortion, tax policy, and social security, Emanuel’s broader vision is more of the same: war and corporate dominance.

Treasury Secretary

For arguably the most important position Obama will be appointing, the President-Elect may pick well-regarded economist Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Volker is one of Obama’s closest economic advisors and is thought to be the top-choice for the position of Treasury Secretary.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Volker, in an attempt to cut inflation, dramatically raised interest rates, which helped the elite maintain value in their assets but strangled the working class as credit dried up.

In his book, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, David Harvey writes that Volker personified one of the key facets of the neoliberal era.

“[Volker] engineered a draconian shift in U.S. monetary policy. The long-standing commitment in the U.S. liberal democratic state to the principles of the New Deal, which meant broadly Keynesian fiscal and monetary policies with full employment as a key objective, was abandoned in favour of a policy designed to quell inflation no matter what the consequences might be for employment. The real rate of interest, which had often been negative during the double-digit inflationary surge of the 1970s, was rendered positive by fiat of the Federal Reserve. The nominal rate of interest was raised overnight … Thus began ‘a long deep recession that would empty factories and break unions in the U.S. and drive detour countries to the brink of insolvency, beginning a long-era of structural insolvency’. The Volker shock, as it has since come to be known, has to be interpreted as a necessary but not sufficient condition of neoliberalism.”

In supporting Henry Paulson’s bailout package, Volker would not re-regulate the banks nor provide more power to shareholders, he’s simply carry on one facet of neoliberalism: tightening federal budgets which inevitably will put great budgetary pressure on federal agencies.

Another potential pick for the post is Robert Rubin, who served under Clinton in the same position and is currently Director and Senior Counselor of Citigroup. Rubin played a key role in abetting another neoliberal objective: deregulation. Where Volker was hung up on economic austerity, Rubin pushed for more deregulatory policies that ended up shifting jobs, and entire industries, overseas.

Rubin even pushed for Clinton’s dismantling of Glass-Steagall, testifying that deregulating the banking industry would be good for capital gains, as well as Main Street. “[The] banking industry is fundamentally different from what it was two decades ago, let alone in 1933,” Rubin testified before the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services in May of 1995.

“[Glass-Steagall could] conceivably impede safety and soundness by limiting revenue diversification,” Rubin argued.

While the industry saw much deregulation over the years preceding these events, the Gramm-Leach-Biley Act of 1999, which eliminated Glass-Steagall, extended and ratified changes that had been enacted with previous legislation. Ultimately, the repeal of the New Deal era protection allowed commercial lenders like Rubin’s Citigroup to underwrite and trade instruments like mortgage backed securities along with collateralized debt and established structured investment vehicles (SIVs), which purchased these securities. In short, as the lines were blurred among investment banks, commercial banks and insurance companies, when one industry fell, others could too.

Robert Rubin is in part responsible for supporting the policies that pushed us to the brink of a great recession. When the subprime mortgage crisis hit, instability and collapse spread across numerous industries.

Another name that is in the hunt for the top spot is Lawrence Summers, who served during the last 18 months of the Clinton administration. Summers is greatly responsible for expanding Rubinomics and is credited by many for the collapse in the derivatives market, which later imploded the housing market.

Defense Secretary

While Obama’s choice for this important role is speculative, quite a few fingers are pointing to Richard Holbrooke.

After Gerald Ford’s loss and Jimmy Carter’s ascendance into the White House in 1976, Indonesia, which invaded East Timor and slaughtered 200,000 indigenous Timorese years earlier, requested additional arms to continue its brutal occupation, even though there was a supposed ban on arms trades to Suharto’s government. It was Carter’s appointee to the Department of State’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Richard Holbrooke, who authorized additional arms shipments to Indonesia during this supposed blockade. Many scholars have noted that this was the period when the Indonesian suppression of the Timorese reached genocidal levels.

During his testimony before Congress in February 1978, Benedict Anderson of Cornell University cited a report that proved there never was a United States arms ban, and that during the period of the alleged ban; the US initiated new offers of military weaponry to the Indonesians at Holbrooke’s request.

Over the years Holbrooke, who is philosophically aligned with Paul Wolfowitz and other neoconservatives, has worked vigorously to keep his bloody campaign silent. Holbrooke described the motivations behind his support of Indonesia’s genocidal actions:

“The situation in East Timor is one of the number of very important concerns of the United States in Indonesia. Indonesia, with a population of 150 million people, is the fifth largest nation in the world, is a moderate member of the Non-Aligned Movement, is an important oil producer — which plays a moderate role within OPEC — and occupies a strategic position astride the sea lanes between the Pacific and Indian Oceans … We highly value our cooperative relationship with Indonesia.”

Other foreign policy advisors may also include the likes of Madeline Albright, the great supporter of Iraq sanctions, which killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Madeline Albright, when asked by Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes about the deaths caused by U.N. sanctions, infamously condoned the deaths. “I think this is a very hard choice,” she said. “But the price–we think the price is worth it.”

Samantha Power, that great cheerleader for humanitarian intervention, also has Obama’s ear and may even entice him to put U.S. forces in Darfur.

“With very few exceptions, the Save Darfur campaign has drawn a single lesson from Rwanda: the problem was the US failure to intervene to stop the genocide. Rwanda is the guilt that America must expiate, and to do so it must be ready to intervene, for good and against evil, even globally. That lesson is inscribed at the heart of Samantha of Power’s book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. But it is the wrong lesson,” writes author Mahmood Mamdani in the London Review of Books.

As Mamdani continues: “What the humanitarian intervention lobby fails to see is that the US did intervene in Rwanda, through a proxy … Instead of using its resources and influence to bring about a political solution to the civil war, and then strengthen it, the US signalled to one of the parties that it could pursue victory with impunity. This unilateralism was part of what led to the disaster, and that is the real lesson of Rwanda … Applied to Darfur and Sudan, it is sobering. It means recognising that Darfur is not yet another Rwanda. Nurturing hopes of an external military intervention among those in the insurgency who aspire to victory and reinforcing the fears of those in the counter-insurgency who see it as a prelude to defeat are precisely the ways to ensure that it becomes a Rwanda.”

Other names in the running include John Kerry, who as many know, ran an antiwar campaign for president in 2004. A full supporter of the War on Terror, with a hard-line on Iran, will certainly not alter the U.S. relationship in the Middle East.

Regarding the Department of Defense, it looks as if Robert Gates will still control the top spot, with no alterations made to the DoD or its inflated budget.

The Next Step

While the election of Barack Obama is a blow to George W. Bush-Republicanism and a gain for racial equality in this country, it is in many ways only a symbolic victory. The future of the U.S.’s foreign and economic agenda will continue to be saturated with ideologies and individuals that are directly responsible for our current predicament, both in the Middle East and domestically.

Celebrating the end of the ugly Bush era is one thing. Celebrating the continuation of their policies with a different administration in the White House is quite another. With these prospective appointments, Obama seems to be moving backwards to Clintontime. This may be sufficient change for some, but it far from a progressive push toward social, economic, and environmental justice.

For significant change to happen, the kind that is needed in order to mend the wounds of the Bush years, we have to put down our Obama signs and force Congress and the new administration to end the wars in the Middle East, and push for regulating the financial industry while providing true universal health-care and economic safety-nets for all Americans.

Given the make up of his potential advisors, we’re in for a long uphill battle. So let’s drop our illusions and start organizing, beginning with a discussion of what “organizing” even means in today’s political climate.

Joshua Frank

[dselevan2]

I think Mr. Obama has proved that he picks really smart people who can get things done - just look at his amazing campaign. I'm not going to let the neo-conservatives and cynics make me second guess Obama who hasn't even started. Every time I though he made a dumb move (like his VP pick) it turned out to be the right choice for America. The conservatives are always going to say these guys are too liberal - let's give them a shot!

[spzretent]

President Elect Obama has a large panel helping him decide these very important choices for his cabinet including Warren Buffett among others.
I have no doubt he will be well thought out yet quick and decisive.
Outside of the right wing lunatic fringe, gun fanatics and uber wealthy folks the US clearly made the right choice(that could well be the understatement of my life).

[redcloud]

I agree with spzretent.

It amazes me how quick the vultures are ready to swarm and start picking the President-elect to pieces. People, please do not be so cynical. Keep an open mind, give him a chance. He has not even been sworn in and he is already being analyzed, evaluated and judged by his own party and or people who voted for him. News of people running out and stock piling guns are the people who did not vote for him in the first place. Those narrow-minded people exist everywhere not just here in America. The good thing is though, they are the minority.

I remain optimistic about our road forward.

[Hedspace]

The Joshua Frank post I made wasnt in cynicism against Obama (just in case it was thought as that)
Just some information I came across which I thought as interesting.
Time will tell.

Im all for Obamas victory and felt the world breathed a huge sigh of relief when the results came through.
Already theres a great feeling that the fear Bush and the controlled media instilled in our time is dissipating.

Congratulations America


Peace in the middle east


http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/bre ... king17.htm

[spzretent]

i'll tell you one thing, if the last 8 years have brought us anything here in the USA its the skyrocketing popularity of MSNBC. The news channel is the liberal's version of the right wing's Fox News.
The only difference is MSNBC is far slicker, sarcastic and just plain cleverer(?). And they have been beating that idiot Bill O'Reilly in the ratings the past month or so which really infuriates the far right.
Not really sure how this translates outside of the US but MSNBC would be the opposite of any Bush controlled media. Its more a far or religious right sort of control ie: Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter. Hell take your pick of any of these blowhards.

[Hedspace]

http://www.blackcommentator.com/282/282 ... obama.html

[MODLAB]

http://www.blackcommentator.com/282/282 ... obama.html

one word. 'HA!'



M

[scratch]

I may be wrong but I suspect that Obama is more right wing than many think..
at least to the right of the Clintons?

anyway Congrats Usa!
certainly an improvement - hope you get universal health care!

[spzretent]

Hedspace:
Just out of curiousity why are you posting all this? First Joshua Frank and then the blackcommentator.com link.
Christ, its been 3 days and the conspiracy theorists are having a field day. Cant we at least bask in the glow many of us have been waiting for for 8 longs years?
Doesn't anyone care that Bush will be gone in 74 days? Or are we now going to get deluged with pro Bush analysis?

[redcloud]

http://www.blackcommentator.com/282/282 ... obama.html

Yawn.....

[redcloud]

It is of course a brilliant result, but if I could interject a slight cloud of good old fashioned British cynicism here, many of the feelings expressed in this thread were exactly how I felt being in London in May 1997...and look how that turned out!!

OK there wasn't the race angle, but all the rest - throwing out the corrupt old guard, empowering the young, building a fairer society, backing a smart young leader with bags of charisma, etc etc. It was all there.

Please let my fears be unjustified and Obama turns out to be way more than another Tony Blair.

Somewhat unfair comparison as you are now looking back at Blair's years and we are only just beginning Obama's tenureship (as of Jan. 20). Also, you have had Blair's successor for nearly two years and to be brutally honest, Brown has been a lame duck PM. The party has outstayed its welcome and it's time to hand it over to somebody with fresh ideas. It will most likely be the Tories but realistically, would the Lib- Dems ever win? I quite liked your man, Paddy Ashdown. Then his successor was the sweating lush...what was his name again, Charles Kennedy? Not sure who their leader is now. I think I saw a picture once and he looked like an aging chemistry teacher, complete with cordorouy jacket with patches on its elbows. Maybe he has been replaced.

Had Blair not followed Bush and Cheney, Blair would be remembered fondly for presiding over the strongest British economy since before WW1 and for being an instrument of peace in NI. The history books will no doubt be kind to Blair, but he still has blood on his hands and a tarnished record for invading Iraq.

[Hedspace]

to Spzretent:
As I mentioned Im all for Barack Obama's victory and as far as I'm concerned Bush and his father (the whole administration) should have walked the proverbial plank a long time ago

Yes theres plenty of conspiracy theorists out there and the Black commentator article was written by a veteran from group that are known to be volatile and what was said is hugely scathing.
IMO It was interesting to see what someone from that party/group thought especially when Obama being the first black person elected into presidency is what I would have originally thought as something they would be proud of.



I

[redcloud]

what I would have originally thought as something they would be proud of.

"They"?

I think that is a huge misconception. Why would you think just because Obama has the same skin color that every African-American will immediately identify with him and vote for him? There are plenty of African-Americans who did not like Obama for one reason or another.

Just because somebody is white or American does not make me like them them or identify with them.

[Hedspace]

When I wrote "they", I was referring to the Black Panther group as the guy that wrote the article is a veteran of that party.


People are far too quick these days to jump on the race bandwagon. If we cant see beyond skin color what can we see?

[scratch]

Obama is distantly related to Dick Cheney and Bush.
His american roots are all white english/irish/german/french descendants..
..so he has no african-american heritage at all but is possibly related to slave owners..

not exactly black panther material if you look at it that way

looking "beyond skin colour":
the swedish prime minister has a stronger african-american ancestry.. (bald guy on the left 1/16th african-american)

[redcloud]

Obama is distantly related to Dick Cheney and Bush.
His american roots are all white english/irish/german/french descendants..
..so he has no african-american heritage at all but is possibly related to slave owners..

not exactly black panther material if you look at it that way

looking "beyond skin colour":
the swedish prime minister has a stronger african-american ancestry..

Hmmm....does his Kenyan father not count for anything?

Not sure about the accuracy of distant relations to Cheney and Bush. Seems to me the media felt it was a good news story to run at the time. They probably didn't have much else to report on that day.

[toomilk]

Last Tuesday was very bittersweet. On one hand, it was amazing that our country would finally elect someone that properly represents America (mixed race, single mother, poor, etc). However, on the other hand, we have Californians--the ones who voted for Obama--pass a horrifically discriminatory proposition (#8) to amend the California Constitution, making same-sex marriage illegal. It was a terrible buzzkill for the night. Now the yes-on-8 campaign is using their leftover funds to file lawsuits on gay couples who already have married.

As much as I support Obama, I fear that all the people that voted for him view him as a deus ex machina, when America clearly still has a long way to go. Obama is great, but we still need to be critical, still need to question things. Obama is the inspiration, not the solution.

Regardless, what a huge step in the right direction.

[redcloud]

However, on the other hand, we have Californians--the ones who voted for Obama--pass a horrifically discriminatory proposition (#8) to amend the California Constitution, making same-sex marriage illegal. It was a terrible buzzkill for the night. Now the yes-on-8 campaign is using their leftover funds to file lawsuits on gay couples who already have married.

I never know what to think of California. They tend to be reliably blue, yet, they vote in Arnie...twice. Also, lets not forget Reagan.

For a "progressive" state it is actually transparently purple and more cautiously conservative than we are led to believe.

[MODLAB]

the reason prop 8 lost is because of the liberal religious + conservative religious.
millions and millions were pumped in by the churches to stop this.

my personal view is the church has no right in government but that is not the
case in the us.

M

[Hedspace]

By Paul Craig Roberts



November 09, 2008 -- If the change President-elect Obama has promised includes a halt to America’s wars of aggression and an end to the rip-off of taxpayers by powerful financial interests, what explains Obama’s choice of foreign and economic policy advisors? Indeed, Obama’s selection of Rahm Israel Emanuel as White House chief of staff is a signal that change ended with Obama’s election. The only thing different about the new administration will be the faces.

Rahm Israel Emanuel is a supporter of Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Emanuel rose to prominence in the Democratic Party as a result of his fundraising connections to AIPAC. A strong supporter of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, he comes from a terrorist family. His father was a member of Irgun, a Jewish terrorist organization that used violence to drive the British and Palestinians out of Palestine in order to create the Jewish state. During the 1991 Gulf War, Rahm Israel Emanuel volunteered to serve in the Israel Defense Forces. He was a member of the Freddie Mac board of directors and received $231,655 in directors fees in 2001. According to Wikipedia, “during the time Emanuel spent on the board, Freddie Mac was plagued with scandals involving campaign contributions and accounting irregularities.”

In “Hail to the Chief of Staff,” Alexander Cockburn describes Emanuel as “a super-Likudnik hawk,” who as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006 “made great efforts to knock out antiwar Democratic candidates.”

My despondent friends in the Israeli peace movement ask, “What is this man doing in Obama’s administration?”

Obama’s election was necessary as the only means Americans had to hold the Republicans accountable for their crimes against the Constitution and human rights, for their violations of US and international laws, for their lies and deceptions, and for their financial chicanery. As an editorial in Pravda put it, “Only Satan would have been worse than the Bush regime. Therefore it could be argued that the new administration in the USA could never be worse than the one which divorced the hearts and minds of Americans from their brothers in the international community, which appalled the rest of the world with shock and awe tactics that included concentration camps, torture, mass murder and utter disrespect for international law.”

But Obama’s advisers are drawn from the same gang of Washington thugs and Wall Street banksters as Bush’s. Richard Holbrooke, son of Russian and German Jews, was an assistant secretary of state and ambassador in the Clinton administration. He implemented the policy to enlarge NATO and to place the military alliance on Russia’s border in contravention of Reagan’s promise to Gorbachev. Holbrooke is also associated with the Clinton administration’s illegal bombing of Serbia, a war crime that killed civilians and Chinese diplomats. If not a neocon himself, Holbrooke is closely allied with them.

According to Wikipedia, Madeline Albright was born Marie Jana Korbelova in Prague to Jewish parents who had converted to Catholicism in order to escape persecution. She is the Clinton era secretary of state who told Leslie Stahl (60 Minutes) that the US policy of Iraq sanctions, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, had goals important enough to justify the children’s deaths. Albright’s infamous words: “we think the price is worth it.” Wikipedia reports that this immoralist served on the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange at the time of Dick Grasso’s $187.5 million compensation scandal.

Dennis Ross has long associations with the Israeli-Palestinian “peace negotiations.” A member of his Clinton era team, Aaron David Miller, wrote that during 1999-2000 the US negotiating team led by Ross acted as Israel’s lawyer: “we had to run everything by Israel first.” This “stripped our policy of the independence and flexibility required for serious peacemaking. If we couldn't put proposals on the table without checking with the Israelis first, and refused to push back when they said no, how effective could our mediation be?” According to Wikipedia, Ross is “chairman of a new Jerusalem-based think tank, the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, funded and founded by the Jewish Agency.”

Clearly, this is not a group of advisors that is going to halt America’s wars against Israel’s enemies or force the Israeli government to accept the necessary conditions for a real peace in the Middle East.

Ralph Nader predicted as much. In his “Open Letter to Barack Obama (November 3, 2008), Nader pointed out to Obama that his “transformation from an articulate defender of Palestinian rights . . . to a dittoman for the hard-line AIPAC lobby” puts Obama at odds with “a majority of Jewish-Americans” and “64% of Israelis.” Nader quotes the Israeli writer and peace advocate Uri Avnery’s description of Obama’s appearance before AIPAC as an appearance that “broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning.” Nader damns Obama for his “utter lack of political courage [for] surrendering to demands of the hard-liners to prohibit former president Jimmy Carter from speaking at the Democratic National Convention.” Carter, who achieved the only meaningful peace agreement between Israel and the Arabs, has been demonized by the powerful AIPAC lobby for criticizing Israel’s policy of apartheid toward the Palestinians whose territory Israel forcibly occupies.

Obama’s economic team is just as bad. Its star is Robert Rubin, the bankster who was secretary of the treasury in the Clinton administration. Rubin has responsibility for the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and, thereby, responsibility for the current financial crisis. In his letter to Obama, Nader points out that Obama received unprecedented campaign contributions from corporate and Wall Street interests. “Never before has a Democratic nominee for President achieved this supremacy over his Republican counterpart.”

Obama’s victory speech was magnificent. The TV cameras scanning faces in the audience showed the hope and belief that propelled Obama into the presidency. But Obama cannot bring change to Washington. There is no one in the Washington crowd that he can appoint who is capable of bringing change. If Obama were to reach outside the usual crowd, anyone suspected of being a bringer of change could not get confirmed by the Senate. Powerful interest groups--AIPAC, the military-security complex, Wall Street--use their political influence to block unacceptable appointments.

As Alexander Cockburn put it in his column, “Obama, the first-rate Republican,” “never has the dead hand of the past had a ‘reform’ candidate so firmly by the windpipe.” Obama confirmed Cockburn’s verdict in his first press conference as president-elect. Disregarding the unanimous US National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that Iran stopped working on nuclear weapons five years ago, and ignoring the continued certification by the International Atomic Energy Agency that none of the nuclear material for Iran’s civilian nuclear reactor has been diverted to weapons use, Obama sallied forth with the Israel Lobby’s propaganda and accused Iran of “development of a nuclear weapon” and vowing “to prevent that from happening.” http://news.antiwar.com/2008/11/07/obam ... n-tactics/

The change that is coming to America has nothing to do with Obama. Change is coming from the financial crisis brought on by Wall Street greed and irresponsibility, from the eroding role of the US dollar as reserve currency, from countless mortgage foreclosures, from the offshoring of millions of America’s best jobs, from a deepening recession, from pillars of American manufacturing--Ford and GM--begging the government for taxpayers’ money to stay alive, and from budget and trade deficits that are too large to be closed by normal means.

Traditionally, the government relies on monetary and fiscal policy to lift the economy out of recession. But easy money is not working. Interest rates are already low and monetary growth is already high, yet unemployment is rising. The budget deficit is already huge--a world record--and the red ink is not stimulating the economy. Can even lower interest rates and even higher budget deficits help an economy that has moved offshore, leaving behind jobless consumers overburdened with debt?

How much more can the government borrow? America’s foreign creditors are asking this question. An official organ of the Chinese ruling party recently called for Asian and European countries to “banish the US dollar from their direct trade relations, relying only on their own currencies.”

“Why,” asks another Chinese publication, “should China help the US to issue debt without end in the belief that the national credit of the US can expand without limit?”

The world has tired of American hegemony and had its fill of American arrogance. America’s reputation is in tatters: the financial debacle, endless red ink, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, rendition, torture, illegal wars based on lies and deception, disrespect for the sovereignty of other countries, war crimes, disregard for international law and the Geneva Conventions, the assault on habeas corpus and the separation of powers, a domestic police state, constant interference in the internal affairs of other countries, boundless hypocrisy.

The change that is coming is the end of American empire. The hegemon has run out of money and influence. Obama as “America’s First Black President” will lift hopes and, thus, allow the act to be carried on a little longer. But the New American Century is already over.

[supershonn]

jesus HEDSPACE, try having an opinion of your own not regurgitating somoeone elses!

[dselevan2]

It still makes me happy to think of the streets filling up with happy people after Obama won. Fuck the evil losers who took over the country.

I am seriously confused about how prop 8 won. 86% of California voted in the election (or something like that), and most of us voted for Mr. Obama. To think those same people voted for Prop 8 makes no sense to me. I work with folks who voted yes on 8, they all voted for Mr. McCain.

I agree with Schwarzenegger on this one, the law is unconstitutional. It simply does not make sense to allow people to vote away the civil rights of a minority and change the constitution. If people could do this then all those folks in the middle of the country in red states would be voting away the rights of Blacks and Jews whenever they wanted to. Maybe not all those states, but there are certainly states where a majority of the people would be happy to vote away the rights of a minority. They shouldn't have even allowed that thing to be placed on the ballot.

[spzretent]

jesus HEDSPACE, try having an opinion of your own not regurgitating somoeone elses!

Or maybe just posting the link.

[supershonn]

jesus HEDSPACE, try having an opinion of your own not regurgitating somoeone elses!

Or maybe just posting the link.

either way we all win!

i'd would much rather hear what HEDSPACE has to say about it all. he/she(?) is obviously very interested and one would assume quite knowledgable on the subject. i've thoroughly enjoyed reading everyone's views and opinions on this thread.

only time will tell how much change Obama is capable of. let's just rally our support for change.

[toomilk]

By Paul Craig Roberts

Barf.

[Hedspace]

Im no journo and couldnt articulate well enough what the last post I made and agree with, had to say, so I took the liberty of posting the whole lot. Why, because I think, from what I know, that the post summed it all up quite nicely (for me anyway).

I sincerely hope that Im wrong and he does stand for better change and its not as the saying goes "just a rearranging of the deck chairs on the titanic".
Spzretent...
If I post again, I will make sure and post links only

[spzretent]

thanks.
what do you mean if you post again?
I understand you are showing differing opinions, albeit coming from fringe groups, and thats fine. But you have to understand that those of us living here have a renewed sense of optimism after what we have been through the last 4 years.
So to say its off putting would be putting it mildly.
Hell I live in a city that is in danger of shutting down completely unless the US government steps in and bail out the Big 3 Auto companies.
Barack Obama absolutely can not screw this up. And by all accounts he is wasting no time yet being very thorough in his decisions.
Fingers crossed.

[redcloud]

But you have to understand that those of us living here have a renewed sense of optimism after what we have been through the last 4 years.

You mean.....8 long years. This Admin have been horrific from day one. I'm not sure how he was voted in the first time around. Oh, wait a minute...he wasn't. He stole Florida (with his brothers help).

Good bye and good riddence to them all. It's been a nightmare that is thankfully, nearly over. I would not put it past them though to do something horribly obnoxious before they leave.