( – promoted by buhdydharma )
On the eve of a new and historic Presidency, one I have yearned for and supported, I find myself increasingly unable to savor our victory. We are still at war, still killing innocent people for bogus reasons, and there is every reason to believe that we are not about to stop our militaristic bullying of our neighbors on this planet. Otherwise we would not be escalating that idiotic and immoral war in Afghanistan – or opening a billion dollar embassy bigger then the Vatican in Baghdad, along with fourteen ‘enduring’ bases across the country. There are too many indications that not nearly enough has changed. We are still firmly entrenched in the idiotic war business, people are still being tortured, there is too much money still being stolen and too many lies are still being told.
George W. Bush a good guy? What universe is our new Prez living in? I won’t even go into all the reasons that GWB is NOT a good guy, but as we all know, they are legion. LEGION! Contrary to the bullshit the Bush apologists have been busily spreading, when future historians lay the blame for the downfall of America, the bulk of it will fall on GWB and the evil forces he represents. We need Barack Obama to oppose these bastards and speak out against them. How disappointing is it that he won’t?
I always thought Bush was a good guy. This ranks right up there with “I think you reserve impeachment for grave breaches.” Come on Barack. We had such hopes for you.
TARP Funds’ Second Half Set for Release as Senate Signs Off on Request
The Senate cleared the way for President-elect Barack Obama to access the second half of the $700 billion financial rescue fund, alleviating some concern on Wall Street by setting the stage for another infusion into the weakening financial sector.
Thank you so much for alleviating concern on Wall Street. We wouldn’t want to see all those thieving bastards in jail or anything. We’re much happier seeing their concerns alleviated. The same Wall Street Journal piece of tripe goes on to say:
To overcome political objections, the incoming Obama administration pledged to spend $50 billion to $100 billion on a “sweeping” foreclosure-prevention effort. It also said it would impose tougher restrictions on banks that receive government aid, including requirements on banks to lend money, increased restrictions on executive compensation and curtailed dividend payments for some firms.
So they apparently figure that by kicking back a minor portion of the funds to real people who actually need it, they can buy us off and gain our acquiescence, overcome our ‘political objections’. Now that GWB has shown them just how easy it is to steal from the American public, they just can’t help themselves. Dallasdoc asked the pertinent question in Jeff Merkley’s pathetic diary on the subject yesterday.
Isn’t $100 billion a drop in the bucket when it comes to addressing the foreclosure crisis?
Dallasdoc in Jeff Merkley’s Why I Voted For TARP
Doc, they expect us to take our crumbs and go away. If they even remotely had our best interests at heart, they would surely have found out where the first $350 billion went before giving away the rest. This time there are going to be strings attached they say. This time they will implement real oversight, not that fake oversight they promised last time. Honest. Just trust us. This time. Jeff Merkley, big netroots candidate. Sigh.
We’ve been robbed…again.
As a life-long democrat I have never been more ashamed of my own party. None of the horrendous abuses of the past eight years could have happened without the collusion of the democrats in congress. They let Bush get away with murder – then refused to impeach him. I guess because he’s such a good guy.
I quote my friend TocqueDeville in DrSteveB’s earlier diary, Sanjay Gupta for Surgeon General – worse than I thought:
I see it as a continuation of the same battle (20+ / 0-)
I’ve been having for the last 20 plus years.
If this pans out then it will be just another failed Obama appointment, along with a couple of good ones – maybe.
All of his appointments combined demonstrate what the late professor Carroll Quigley, of Harvard Princeton and Georgetown described about how the American political system is rigged so that we can have a great big election and real power never really changes hands. [emphasis my own ~ OPOL]
The real power never really changes hands. I am afraid that is the situation we have here. I fear the Obama presidency will amount to little more than a face-lift. It’ll look better, smell better and play better on the Tee Vee. But make no mistake – The warmongers and the thieves are still in charge. And they are not going to do ANYTHING for us but placate us just enough to keep us from rising in rebellion. They better pray that they are better at calculating where that line is than they have been at anything else.
Yeah, I know. He’s not even president yet.
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but we’ve been robbed…again.
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What is it? The timing? Something else?
always get screwed. Maybe we each need to incorporate.
The ones that I think would actually do things right never make it through the primary. I’ll keep voting for Kucinich as long as he’ll run. Maybe some year he’ll catch on with the rest of the people.
this is just another attempt to reconstitute capitalism:
I think you point out the realities here!
Just one thing, though, I don’t think Obama is yet in a very good bargaining position since he’s not yet president, as you have noted. We want him to stay “alive” long enough to be seated as president — even then, I don’t think he’ll be flexing his muscles too much until he gets his footing.
But, as to the forces that got us into this mess, yes, I agree — they’re still there and are not going away. Impeachment would have gone a long way toward getting rid of most of them, and even those who would not be impeached. I have always said I think Obama will try, but he is really up against it — he will be fought too and nail no matter what he tries to do. The GOP will relentlessly attack him for whatever he does to make him look bad and a failure, so they can instill the “mind-set” for a Republican win in 2012 — their hope!
(P.S. Nice to see you — I hope you’re doing alright! 🙂 )
harshed with FISA. The complete two legs better coming out of the mouths of the new administration and the joke of a media regarding Bush is just plain bizarre. I mean you listen to the leaving coup and you hear complete lies and delusion, total arrogance along with their psycho souls bared for all to see. Then Obama says “we don’t want to criminalize policy differences”. Hard to reconcile this bs with change. Changing the guard, but still guarding the same entities that brought us here. As for Merekley, my new senator, what happened to the progressive I worked to elect? I guess it’s supposed to be relative, as the leaving maniacs went to far. What I don’t understand is why try to redress the naked Emperor, who just public disrobed. Seems awfully hard to believe in this as change.
…between those who wanted more and better democrats, and those who wanted more and better revolutionaries.
Above all I think that those of us in the latter camp should (a) keep yelling and (b) yell more coherently. I wish — but will not be satisified in this wish — that the left, in all it’s fractured glory — would make it clear that Obama is not “our guy”, and if he does something really right wing, it is not with our blessing and co-option.
Liz Holtzman has a super article in The Nation (it’s also at Alternet.org):
That is what all politicians do to manipulate friends and foes alike.
Right now, though, I think that Obama’s focus is to manipulate and thereby neuter the wingnut Right to leave a clearer path to reverse course. Hence the cozying up to Rick Warren and the dinner with George Will & Co.
It’s up to the progressive blogosphere to scream bloody murder when we realize that we are being manipulated as well. We will know soon enough.
Real world test cases:
(1) Speed of withdrawal from Iraq and decisions on maintaining permanent bases on Iraqi soil.
(2) Realization that doubling the number of troops in Afghanistan will be tossing soldiers and money down a rat hole and just making the situation worse by breeding more local resentment of our presence.
(3) Bringing prosecutions for war crimes, at least against the policy-level promoters and chief architects of torture (Rumsfeld, Yoo, Feith, Ashcroft, Gonzales, Addington, Cheney, Hayden).
(4) Move criminal prosecutions beyond Bernie Madoff to numerous other Wall Streeters who, in effect, were running Ponzi scams on the investing public. Let’s see a few hedge fund managers and finance bankers on that list.
(5) Move beyond a tinkering, incremental effort to provide a terminal economy with life support bailouts and toward profound structural changes that will provide a more sustainable and equitable distribution of goods and services, including health care.
We should know within six months whether Obama is a serious and effective agent of needed change, or whether he is merely a talented politician with exceptional stagecraft and self-promoting PR skills.
I remain hopeful, but somewhat agnostic. Appointees like Geithner for Treasury (BTW, there is much more to Geithner’s tax dodging while at IMF than has been made public thus far) and Schapiro for SEC seem unlikely to improve the quality of scrutiny of the markets. They have been key players in creating (or ignoring) the problem and seem to be quite clueless about halting and reversing the ongoing collapse. But an incremental, mainly business-as-usual approach will fail to prevent an outright depression. And then what?
And he is an Indonesian citizen. His primary controllers all have CFR ties so you the lowly peasant peon prole is going to have that gigantic shaft of globalization shoved once again up your ass. This time it’s without the globalization grease.
The real power never changes hands, which is why a moderate is the best we can do and why everyone (myself included) has been sitting around while children in Gaza are being shot at close range.
Politics won’t change, and power won’t. It is up to us to stop the feeding frenzy that is plundering our tax dollars. We have to demand transparency in how this money is spent now, or it will vaporize. The money will go to “business leaders” and perhaps companies that “show promise”, but there must be specific goals and accountability. Letters and more letters, now, to the ones that listen.
The bailout scenarios eerily echo the beginning of prerestroika in Russia when government bonds were handed out to all citizens to stimulate the economy, but much was invested in private businesses which disappeared virtually overnight. The next day, the era of the “new Russian” billionaires began.
We don’t have to be starry eyed to be hopeful. Realism might feel unnatural to people who grew up on movies with happy ending where everyone was rich. If we Americans seem like children to the rest of the world it is because of magical thinking.
Realism isn’t the road to despair, it is the road to survival.
Best wishes
a buzz thats a dream?
Yeah, by waking up.
“Meet the new boss…. ”
It is a bummer, but I expected no less.
I sentcha an email, btw, ok?