Obama the neo-con is no longer in the closet

for those of us who've been waiting for obama to rip off his mask and reveal his true self, andrew levine, writing in counterpunch, claims that has now happened...

[W]ith what remains of organized labor finally beginning to fight back, and with the Occupy movements of last fall getting ready to burst forth again, American politics is no longer just an electoral circus in which two semi-established parties huckster their offerings to “moderate” voters. Because Democrats and Republicans are beholden to the same interests and because there are few differences between them that are not merely stylistic or cosmetic, our electoral politics has long been mainly of sociological or even clinical interest; what called for an explanation was why two such likeminded parties became so polarized, why they couldn’t “all just get along.” Now we have more important things to concern us; real politics is back.

But Obama is still relevant, especially in an election year, when our media can be counted on to work overtime covering every facet of the horse race, while ignoring matters of graver consequence. It is therefore timely to reflect on the trajectory of Obama’s governance to this point, and on one rather startling development in the Obama story that has emerged in recent weeks – his newfound willingness to trumpet neoconservative ideas.

Obama, or at least the Obama of term one, will be remembered, above all, for disappointing the hopes of the constituencies that put him in office. He will also be remembered not just for having raised the level of ambient hypocrisy, but for the audacity with which he talks the talk, while walking a very different walk. The more Obama waxes ‘populist,’ the better the rich do, and the more corporate criminality flourishes. The more he speaks of peace, the more the drones fly, and the more his very own Murder Incorporated (Navy Seals and the rest) spread murder and mayhem.

He gets away with it, in large part, because he’s good at fooling some of the people all of the time – not all liberals, but a sizeable number of them. Once it becomes clear to all that the Republicans will nominate their least scary contender, expect those liberals to make fools of themselves big time. No longer can they make a case for Obama by playing up the absurdity of a Trump or Cain or Bachmann presidency. Soon, they won’t have Newt Gingrich to kick around any more either. Expect Rick Santorum too to go the way of what Google says he is — unless, as in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri, Romney again miscalculates and underspends.

[...]

But Obama’s readiness of late to signal approval for neoconservative ideology marks a new departure. What makes it all the more astonishing is how unnecessary it is. It is not as if anything is changing at the policy level. In deeds, not words, Obama has always been a practicing neocon; from Day One he could justifiably have declared “we are all neoconservatives now.” But he had too much sense to do anything of the sort — then.

[...]

Unless we have all been wrong about how smart Obama is, it could hardly be because he finds neocon musings intellectually engaging. And we can only hope that he isn’t testing the waters, seeing how much liberals of the Obama-is-the-best-of-all-possible-presidents school will accept. The most likely explanation is that, with an election coming, this is a calculated move on Obama’s part to close what space there is that separates him from Romney, the better to capture the rightward veering center.

Whatever the cause, there are indications of late that Obama has taken on board Kagan’s main contention – that American power is not in decline; that, quite the contrary, we are on the threshold of another glorious American century. The plain implication is that there is no hard crash in the offing, and therefore no need for the empire to change course. American world dominance isn’t over yet, and won’t be for the foreseeable future. And for this, the argument goes, the world can only be grateful.

[...]

But until now he has at least tried to be discreet about it; he was just a closet neocon. Now that is changing. Is it because he feels that the pressure to go to war against Iran is becoming irresistible, and that the wisest course for him, in an election year, is: if you can’t beat them, to join them? All that is clear for now is that the neocon con is back, and that it is happening not just in the Romney campaign – and, for what difference it makes, also in Gingrich’s and Santorum’s — but also, blatantly, at Obama’s instigation.

at least perhaps now, we can step away from the cognitive dissonance that has plagued those of us who have continued to cling to the "hope and change" mantra...

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The American Empire is reaching a terminal point

almost three hours of chris hedges... nothing we don't know but, still, a fairly decent run-down of what we're experiencing both individually and as a nation...

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Robert Jensen on Occupy: We demand that you stop demanding a list of demands

robert jensen takes the systemic view which is precisely my own bias... we have a huge systemic problem, not only in the united states but across the world... systemic problems are not amenable to incremental fixes...

The demand for demands is an attempt to shoehorn the Occupy gatherings into conventional politics, to force the energy of these gatherings into a form that people in power recognize, so that they can roll out strategies to divert, co-opt, buy off, or - if those tactics fail - squash any challenge to business as usual.

Rather than listing demands, we critics of concentrated wealth and power in the United States can dig in and deepen our analysis of the systems that produce that unjust distribution of wealth and power. This is a time for action, but there also is a need for analysis. Rallying around a common concern about economic injustice is a beginning; understanding the structures and institutions of illegitimate authority is the next step. We need to recognize that the crises we face are not the result simply of greedy corporate executives or corrupt politicians, but rather of failed systems. The problem is not the specific people who control most of the wealth of the country, or those in government who serve them, but the systems that create those roles. If we could get rid of the current gang of thieves and thugs, but leave the systems in place, we will find that the new boss is going to be the same as the old boss.

[...]

The economic system underlying empire building today has a name: capitalism. Or, more precisely, a predatory corporate capitalism that is inconsistent with basic human values. This description sounds odd in the United States, where so many assume that capitalism is not simply the best among competing economic systems, but the only sane and rational way to organize an economy in the contemporary world. Although the financial crisis that began in 2008 has scared many people, it has not always led to questioning the nature of the system.

That means the first task is to define capitalism: that economic system in which (1) property, including capital assets, is owned and controlled by private persons; (2) most people must rent their labor power for money wages to survive; and (3) the prices of most goods and services are allocated by markets.

[...]

The theory behind contemporary capitalism explains that because we are greedy, self-interested animals, a viable economic system must reward greedy, self-interested behavior.

[...]

Why is it that we must accept an economic system that undermines the most decent aspects of our nature and strengthens the cruelest? Because, we're told, that's just the way people are.

[...]

The people who run this world are eager to contain the Occupy energy not because they believe the critics of concentrated wealth and power are wrong, but because somewhere deep down in their souls (or what is left of a soul), the powerful know we are right. People in power are insulated by wealth and privilege, but they can see the systems falling apart.

[...]

The Occupy gatherings do not yet constitute a coherent movement with demands, but they are wellsprings of reasonable illusions. Rejecting the political babble around us in election campaigns and on mass media, these gatherings are an experiment in a different kind of public dialogue about our common life, one that can reject the forces of terror deployed by concentrated wealth and power.

With that understanding, the central task is to keep the experiment going, to remember the latent power in people who do not accept the legitimacy of a system.

i extracted the parts of the article that most closely resonated with me... imho, jensen is way too pessimistic and dark in his view of the near-term future... however, his systemic view is, again imho, the right view... the only way we're going to work our way out of this mess is by approaching things systemically... as jensen says...

If we could get rid of the current gang of thieves and thugs, but leave the systems in place, we will find that the new boss is going to be the same as the old boss.

yep, yep and yep...

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The U.S. to Libya: We have everything and if you try and take it away from us we will kill you

chris hedges...

Once the Libyans realize what the Iraqis and Afghans have bitterly discovered—that we have no interest in democracy, that our primary goal is appropriating their natural resources as cheaply as possible and that we will sacrifice large numbers of people to maintain our divine right to the world’s diminishing supply of fossil fuel—they will hate us the way we deserve to be hated. Libya has the ninth largest oil reserves in the world, which is why we react with moral outrage and military resolve when Gadhafi attacks his citizens, but ignore the nightmare in the Congo, where things for the average Congolese are far, far worse. It is why the puppets in the National Transitional Council have promised to oust China and Brazil from the Libyan oil fields and turn them over to Western companies. The unequivocal message we deliver daily through huge explosions and death across the occupied Middle East is: We have everything and if you try and take it away from us we will kill you.

pretty much...

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Scott Horton: The American empire must be stopped

no comments necessary... just watch...

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Due-process-free: to a collapsing Empire, security is the ONLY cognizable value

glenn...

It will never cease to amaze me how acquiescent the country is to the seizure by this President of the extremist and warped power to target American citizens, far from any battlefield, for killing, all without a shred of due process. It's not just a profound assault on due process rights but also free speech rights.

Submission to this power is, I believe, based on three factors: (1) blind faith in political leaders of the type that led Americans to accept the due-process-free punishment at Guantánamo ("my President accuses this person of being a Terrorist and therefore it's true; I don't need a trial to know it's true"); (2) acceptance of anything done to a fellow citizen as long as he has a foreign-sounding, Muslim-ish name like "Anwar al-Awlaki," who dresses in white cleric robes and is in Yemen and is thus probably guilty of something or other; and (3) the automatic and enthusiastic embrace by America's Foreign Policy Community of the use of force in response to any problem...

[...]

The government "needs to do all it can" in the name of Terrorism: even targeting its own citizens with assassination without a trial based on the mere suspicion that he's doing something criminal -- or invading other countries that haven't attacked us -- or dropping a continuous stream of missiles on people's homes who are purely innocent -- or locking people up for life without a trial. This is the sociopathic mindset of the security fetishist that dominates our political discourse -- Terrorism: the meaningless though all-justifying slogan -- and, more than anything else, this is what explains why something as radical and dangerous as the President's due-process-free assassination program aimed at American citizens triggers so little objection. "Washington needs to do all it can" -- no matter how violent and lawless -- "to reduce the risk of another attack." To a militarized, authoritarian, collapsing Empire in a posture of Endless War, security is the only cognizable value.

it's amazing to me that the house of cards is still standing...

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Understanding the war on the gold dinar as a means of stepping "out of the dark void of brutal exploitation and greed"

john perkins...

According to the IMF, Libya’s Central Bank is 100% state owned. The IMF estimates that the bank has nearly 144 tons of gold in its vaults. It is significant that in the months running up to the UN resolution that allowed the US and its allies to send troops into Libya, Muammar al-Qaddafi was openly advocating the creation of a new currency that would rival the dollar and the euro. In fact, he called upon African and Muslim nations to join an alliance that would make this new currency, the gold dinar, their primary form of money and foreign exchange. They would sell oil and other resources to the US and the rest of the world only for gold dinars.

The US, the other G-8 countries, the World Bank, IMF, BIS, and multinational corporations do not look kindly on leaders who threaten their dominance over world currency markets or who appear to be moving away from the international banking system that favors the corporatocracy. Saddam Hussein had advocated policies similar to those expressed by Qaddafi shortly before the US sent troops into Iraq.

[...]

Understanding the war against Quaddafi as a war in defense of empire is another step in the direction of helping us ask ourselves whether we want to continue along this path of empire-building. Or do we instead want to honor the democratic principles we are taught to believe are the foundations of our country?

History teaches that empires do not endure; they collapse or are overthrown. Wars ensue and another empire fills the vacuum. The past sends a compelling message. We must change. We cannot afford to watch history repeat itself.

Let us not allow this empire to collapse and be replaced by another. Instead, let us all vow to create a new consciousness. Let the grass-roots movements in the Middle East – fostered by the young who must live with the future and are fueled through social networks – inspire us to demand that our country, our financial institutions and the corporations that depend on us to buy their goods and services commit themselves to fashioning a world that is sustainable, just, peaceful, and prosperous for all.

We stand at the threshold. It is time for you and me to step across that threshold, to move out of the dark void of brutal exploitation and greed into the light of compassion and cooperation.

compassion and cooperation... what a concept...!

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Barack Obama is merely upholding tradition

john pilger speaking on the 4th of july in san francisco...

from axis of logic via antemedius...

Since 1945, by deed and by example, the US has overthrown 50 governments, including democracies, crushed some 30 liberation movements and supported tyrannies from Egypt to Guatemala (see William Blum's histories). Bombing is apple pie. Having stacked his government with warmongers, Wall Street cronies and polluters from the Bush and Clinton eras, the 45th president is merely upholding tradition. The hearts and minds farce I witnessed in Vietnam is today repeated in villages in Afghanistan and, by proxy, Pakistan, which are Obama's wars.

In his acceptance speech for the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature, Harold Pinter noted that "everyone knew that terrible crimes had been committed by the Soviet Union in the postwar period, but "US crimes in the same period have been only superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognised as crimes at all". It is as if "It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening, it wasn't happening . . . You have to hand it to America . . . masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis."

so...? what's to be done...?

again, john pilger...

I once asked a friend, the great American war correspondent and humanitarian Martha Gellhorn, to explain the term to me. "I'll tell you what 'anti-American' is," she said. "It's what governments and their vested interests call those who honour America by objecting to war and the theft of resources and believing in all of humanity. There are millions of these anti-Americans in the United States. They are ordinary people who belong to no elite and who judge their government in moral terms, though they would call it common decency. They are not vain. They are the people with a wakeful conscience, the best of America's citizens. They can be counted on. They were in the South with the civil rights movement, ending slavery. They were in the streets, demanding an end to the wars in Asia. Sure, they disappear from view now and then, but they are like seeds beneath the snow. I would say they are truly exceptional."

here's a 32-minute video clip of pilger that tells most of the story...

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The tragic history of the American Empire

in keeping with our "school of the americas" trip down memory lane (see here), let's take yet another look at the horrors perpetrated by my very own country around the world for years...

youtube via information clearing house...

"The Secret History of the American Empire" with John Perkins, author of "Confessions of An Economic Hit Man."

Perkins zeroes in on hot spots around the world such as Venezuela, Tibet, Iraq, Israel, Vietnam and others and exposes the network of events in each of these countries that have contributed to the creation of the American Empire and international corruption in "The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth About Global Corruption" - Cody's Books

John Perkins spent three decades as an Economic Hit Man, business executive, author, and lecturer. He lived and worked in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and North America. Then he made a decision: he would use these experiences to make the planet a better place for his daughter's generation. Today he teaches about the importance of rising to higher levels of consciousness, to waking up - in both spiritual and physical realms - and is a champion for environmental and social causes. He has lectured at universities on four continents, including Harvard, Wharton, and Princeton.

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