Category: Barack Obama

Much commentary today on the increasingly “nasty” turn of McShame’s candidacy.

Several bloggers have suggested that Obama must strike back hard against this negative campaign, citing Dukakis’ and Kerry’s failure to do so in prior campaigns.  I disagree.

This candidacy is distinguishable from the others.  Here, the electorate is already energized based on the economy and the war (which, leaving aside morality issues, are ultimately the same issue–the economy is bad because of the war).  McShame is turning to a nasty campaign very early.  Why?  Because he doesn’t have much to run on:  any time he is asked to detail his plans he falls apart in a shambles because his plans are unreal and unrealistic.  Continued spending with no source, no workable plan on the economy.

The problem with an early nasty campaign is that, after awhile, it is ineffective and makes the party doing it appear to be just nasty.  At some point, someone’s going to ask:  “well and good, Sir, but what is your plan?”  Even more scary:  “how will work?”

McShame’s campaign is egregiously bad and laughable.  As it is a joke, Obama is correct to laugh it off, at least until some substantive attack is made.

Speaking as a veteran, I cannot see how or why Candidate McCain considers himself commander-in-chief material purely because he is a veteran

… or because Hanoi on his resume somehow instilled in him commander-in-chief ability.

Reproduced from The Greanville Journal @ Cyrano’s Journal Online

One more warning on Obama and the Dems. Don’t say we didn’t tell you.

July 20th, 2008

Let’s Get Real /  Guest editor: Morris Berman

Dear Friends,    

I thought this article by John Pilger, the British journalist, on Barack Obama was too important to pass up, especially in view of the fact that most Americans have not read “Dark Ages America” and would hate it if they did. (I encourage you to cut, paste, and circulate this essay.) For those of you who did read it, you may remember I said that it was virtually impossible to get elected president if you did not support corporate America’s agenda and the national security state. The following essay strikes me as being an important antidote to the naive belief that Mr. Obama somehow represents a radical alternative to the status quo, or that the November election represents some sort of watershed in American history. -MB.

Published on Saturday, May 31, 2008 by The New Statesman (UK)

After Bobby Kennedy (There Was Barack Obama)

by John Pilger

In this season of 1968 nostalgia, one anniversary illuminates today. It is the rise and fall of Robert Kennedy, who would have been elected president of the United States had he not been assassinated in June 1968. Having travelled with Kennedy up to the moment of his shooting at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on 5 June, I heard The Speech many times. He would “return government to the people” and bestow “dignity and justice” on the oppressed. “As Bernard Shaw once said,” he would say, “‘Most men look at things as they are and wonder why. I dream of things that never were and ask: Why not?'” That was the signal to run back to the bus. It was fun until a hail of bullets passed over our shoulders.

Kennedy’s campaign is a model for Barack Obama. Like Obama, he was a senator with no achievements to his name. Like Obama, he raised the expectations of young people and minorities. Like Obama, he promised to end an unpopular war, not because he opposed the war’s conquest of other people’s land and resources, but because it was “unwinnable”.

Should Obama beat John McCain to the White House in November, it will be liberalism’s last fling. In the United States and Britain, liberalism as a war-making, divisive ideology is once again being used to destroy liberalism as a reality. A great many people understand this, as the hatred of Blair and new Labour attest, but many are disoriented and eager for “leadership” and basic social democracy. In the US, where unrelenting propaganda about American democratic uniqueness disguises a corporate system based on extremes of wealth and privilege, liberalism as expressed through the Democratic Party has played a crucial, compliant role.

Not since the first utterance of Mission Accomplished has a politician proved himself to be so breathtakingly out of touch with reality.

This is John McCain on “This Week” with George Stephanopolous:

Steph: But there was a fundamental difference regarding the original reason to go to war [in Iraq]. He [Obama] said it would inflame the Muslim world and become a recruitment tool for Al Quaeda. You said and you wrote that it would lessen antipathy in the Muslim world and that we would be greeted as liberators. Wasn’t Senator Obama right about that?

McCain: I don’t believe so. We were greeted as liberators.

Link to the vid here: http://abcnews.go.com/video/pl…

Barack Obama has clinched the Democratic Party’s nomination to run for president, and because this is a crucial election year it is only natural for Democrats to try to win over progressives — especially the disaffected variety turned off by your candidate’s hard right turns.  If you plan to do this, choosing to ignore Obama’s strategy of pandering to right-wing and bigot voters who’ll never cast ballots for him, good for you.  But there are a few tips you’ll want to keep in mind as you venture forth.

1.) Whatever you do, don’t threaten people with a McCain victory if they don’t vote for Obama.  For one thing, people don’t like to be threatened; for another, if a voter isn’t convinced that your candidate will govern any better than McCain, it’s a fairly useless thing to do anyway.  It’s best if you avoid doing this altogether.

2.) Whatever you do, do NOT bash Ralph Nader or any third party candidate.  Criticize if you will, but do NOT attack.  The reason for this is that true progressives, while partisan in a broader ideological sense, are not so in terms of supporting specific political parties.  More often than not, we vote for individual candidates who have the records to back up their rhetoric than we are to vote along party lines.  If you must criticize Ralph Nader, focus on this argument: “it takes an organized political party to win power, starting from the ground and working up, and though I respect Ralph I don’t think he’s going about this the right way.”  Don’t mention ego or stealing Democratic votes (ballots belong to no political party), even if that’s what you think, because neither argument is true and it has a tendency to turn people off who might otherwise consider your candidate.

3.) Listen to what people’s concerns.  Remember, Obama is running as the pseudo-change candidate.  Even if true progressives feel compelled to vote for him out of misguided notions of pragmatism, they still care about the issues that matter.  Don’t brush them off or try to convince them that once Obama is elected they needn’t worry, because they have every reason to worry.  Don’t be condescending; listen to people.

4.) Finally, talk about the issues, know them by heart, and have solid responses to questions — especially those coming from Nader or McKinney supporters.  Obama MUST be able to address their concerns.  If he can’t, and if you can’t, you’re better off not bothering.

That’s pretty much it.  If you follow these steps, you might succeed in swaying a few progressives.  If not, don’t complain when you receive the proverbial cold shoulder.

In 1967, John McCain was shot out of the North Vietnamese sky, crash landed in a lake, taken prisoner, and held in captivity for … 41 years, so far.

No one can dismiss the unimaginable agony of enduring six years in an enemy prisoner of war camp. It is surely a brutal experience both physically and mentally. It is the sort of experience that never leaves you and, indeed, it seems never to have left John McCain. His entire post-POW frame of reference is shaped by what he went through, and also by what he missed as a consequence of his incarceration.

I have a nicely aged six foot cedar fence that runs across the back of my house. The backyard extends around 25 feet from the back of the house to the fence; the fence’s length along the back of the lot is close to 100 feet. The back fence, it keeps things out and keeps my dogs in. The north side connector fence is a cyclone fence, see-through and lacking in privacy.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That wants it down.

4 min 30 sec: For the Pentagon, it’s all about long term bases

Senator Barack Obama’s Middle East/Central Asia leg of his whirlwind world tour was as smooth as the three-pointer he shot in front of US troops. Military historian Gareth Porter explains what’s left unsaid behind the triumphal profusion of meetings and photo opportunities.

Gareth Porter is a historian and investigative journalist on US foreign and military policy analyst. He writes regularly for Inter Press Service on US policy towards Iraq and Iran. Author of four books, the latest of which is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam.

June 11, 2008 – Will The Real Obama Please Stand Up?

Aijaz Ahmad: Obama’s economic speech – Will Obama shift the economy away from big oil and arms?

With the democratic nomination under his belt, Senator Obama is riding high on invigorated public support. The task of effectively distinguishing himself from Senator McCain now lies ahead of him. Senior News Analyst Aijaz Ahmad explained to the Real News Network’s Senior Editor Paul Jay that while Obama’s candidacy itself is historic, Obama will still have to show the US public whether he will concentrate on bolstering the economy, or will, like McCain, prioritize oil/ military spending.

A press conference will be held today at 2:30 outside of the offices of Fox News in New York. The purpose of the gathering is to deliver a petition with over 600,000 names to network executives calling for an end to the racist attacks against black Americans including Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle. The petition is the work of Color of Change and MoveOn and asks Fox News CEO Roger Ailes to respond to the allegation that…

“Fox has developed a pattern of airing racially offensive attacks, then apologizing only after controversy erupts. Forced, half-hearted apologies do not demonstrate good faith when the larger pattern of offensive rhetoric continues.”

By Anthony Arnove via socialistworker.org: Decoding Obama on Iraq

Transcript here.

McGovern: “The game is over with Iraq and so the question is how does this strategic change affect the real players in the area. The Israeli right wants a confrontation with Iran to keep US forces in the region. The US military leadership is against a “third front” but has to contend with Cheney.

Raymond McGovern is a retired CIA officer. McGovern was a Federal employee under seven US presidents for over 27 years, presenting the morning intelligence briefings at the White House for many of them. McGovern was born and raised in Bronx, graduated summa cum laude from Fordham University, received an M.A. in Russian Studies from Fordham, a certificate in Theological Studies from Georgetown University, and graduated from Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.