Tag: Obama

For those who don’t know what a Friedman Unit is, here’s the Wikipedia definition:

The Friedman, or Friedman Unit (F.U.), is a tongue-in-cheek neologism coined by blogger Atrios (Duncan Black) on May 21, 2006.[1]

A Friedman is a unit of time equal to six months in the future.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] The Huffington Post cited it as the “Best New Phrase” of 2006.[9]

The term is in reference to a May 16, 2006 article by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) detailing journalist Thomas Friedman’s repeated use[10] of “the next six months” as the period in which, according to Friedman, “we’re going to find out…whether a decent outcome is possible” in the Iraq War. As documented by FAIR, Friedman had been making such six-month predictions for a period of two and a half years, on at least fourteen different occasions, starting with a column in the November 30, 2003 edition of The New York Times, in which he stated: “The next six months in Iraq-which will determine the prospects for democracy-building there-are the most important six months in U.S. foreign policy in a long, long time.”[11]

The term has been used in general to describe any pronouncement of a critical period for the U.S. occupation of Iraq.[12][7] Such pronouncements have been made by numerous politicians and military officials involved in the war.[13][14][15]

Now let’s hear from Obama, the candidate who promised to end the war in Iraq:

Obama-next 18 months critical for Iraq

07 Apr 2009 15:33:51 GMT

Source: Reuters

BAGHDAD, April 7 (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama, visiting U.S. troops in Iraq, told them on Tuesday that the next 18 months would be critical for their mission in the country.

“This is going to be a critical period, these next 18 months,” Obama said, referring to the Aug 2010 deadline for the withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraq.

“You will be critical in terms of us being able to make sure Iraq is stable, that it is not a safe haven for terrorists, and we can start bringing our folks home,” Obama told troops at Camp Victory, the sprawling U.S. military base on the outskirts of Baghdad.

18 months = 3 Friedman Units

Sometimes an astonishing symmetry manifests itself across wildly differing categories of mass marketing phenomena. Consider the resemblances between President Obama and the Microsoft Vista operating system:

1. Backed by a powerful organization (Democratic Party/Microsoft, with a hugely successful earlier product (President Clinton/Windows XP)

2. Delivers a slick, impressive interface (great on photos and videos, with lots of charisma, especially with the Michelle skin/beautiful GUI, with translucent windows)

3. Consumes more resources than its predecessor (more defense spending, more corporate subsidies, more entitlement spending/faster CPU, more powerful graphics card)

4. Doesn’t meet advertised claims (no prosecutions of torturers, no sanctions on crooked businesses, no transparency of government/poor support of existing peripherals, sluggish performance, trouble with legacy applications)

5. Dislike of product increases with growing familiarity (declining poll numbers/shrinking sales)

6. All problems will be fixed in the next release (Obama 2012/Windows 7)

The Obama presidency is remarkably similar to the Vista rollout: a triumph of marketing hype and superficial attractiveness that masks a fundamental deficit of meaningful improvements. Consider that for the last week the world press has been celebrating the fact that the Obamas are BETTER LOOKING than the leaders of Europe. Marketing mission accomplished.

Sidestepping kind of reminds me of, of, of, ummmmm, lemme think here, uhhhhh…

Signing statements!

In eleven fuckin’ dimensions, no less!

ek reports today in his Weekend News Digest that the:

Administration Seeks an Out On Bailout Rules for Firms

^{Officials Worry Constraints Set by Congress Deter Participation}

By Amit R. Paley and David Cho

Washington Post Staff Writers

Saturday, April 4, 2009; Page A01

The Obama administration is engineering its new bailout initiatives in a way that it believes will allow firms benefiting from the programs to avoid restrictions imposed by Congress, including limits on lavish executive pay, according to government officials. Administration officials have concluded that this approach is vital for persuading firms to participate in programs funded by the $700 billion financial rescue package. The administration believes it can sidestep the rules because, in many cases, it has decided not to provide federal aid directly to financial companies, the sources said. Instead, the government has set up special entities that act as middlemen, channeling the bailout funds to the firms and, via this two-step process, stripping away the requirement that the restrictions be imposed, according to officials.

I take it that:

The Obama administration is engineering its new bailout initiatives in a way that it believes will allow [enormous multmillion dollar payouts to their criminal friends on Wall Street to] avoid restrictions imposed by Congress, including limits on lavish executive pay, according to government officials.

Administration officials have concluded that [enormous multmillion dollar payouts to their criminal friends on Wall Street are] vital for persuading firms to participate in programs funded by the $700 billion financial rescue package.

There has been a lot of talk about the G20, solving the world financial melt down and regaining our stature on the world stage. Hearing Nicolas Sarkozy say Obama is the man who can change the world, pretty heady stuff. In fact Obama did change the world today in a far more important way than solving the world financial crisis or bringing an end to terrorism, nope. Follow me below the fold for the single statement that changed everything forever and you may have missed it.

PNAC attempts to resurrect themselves?

Neo-Con Ideologues Launch New Foreign Policy Group

By Daniel Luban and Jim Lobe

IPS Inter Press Service, 2009

WASHINGTON, Mar 25 (IPS) – A newly-formed and still obscure neo-conservative foreign policy organisation is giving some observers flashbacks to the 1990s, when its predecessor staked out the aggressively unilateralist foreign policy that came to fruition under the George W. Bush administration.

The blandly-named Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) – the brainchild of Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, neo-conservative foreign policy guru Robert Kagan, and former Bush administration official Dan Senor – has thus far kept a low profile; its only activity to this point has been to sponsor a conference pushing for a U.S. “surge” in Afghanistan.

Read the rest here…

It appears Mr. Obama is happy to accomodate them, with fearmongering rhetoric indistinguishable from Bush’s.

Obama sets Qaeda defeat as top goal in Afghanistan

Reuters, Fri Mar 27, 2009

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama unveiled a new war strategy for Afghanistan on Friday with a key goal — to crush al Qaeda militants there and in Pakistan who he said were plotting new attacks on the United States.

“The situation is increasingly perilous,” Obama said in a somber speech in which he sought to explain to Americans why he was boosting U.S. involvement in the seven-year-old war and expanding its focus to include Pakistan.

The new strategy comes with violence in Afghanistan at its highest level since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001 for sheltering al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11 attacks on the United States. The militia has escalated its attacks, often operating from safe havens in border regions of Pakistan.

“The world cannot afford the price that will come due if Afghanistan slides back into chaos or al Qaeda operates unchecked,” Obama said, stressing that stabilizing Afghanistan required an international effort, not just an American one.

The Afghan Plan, “Mr. Obama’s War”

by Kimberly Dozier, CBS News, March 30, 2009

As I write this, it’s been about 72 hours since President Obama official announced his new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy.

The only thing everyone seems to agree on is that this is now “Mr. Obama’s war.”

He says it’s “America’s war,” but we in the media have anointed it otherwise. He owns it.

Everyone who ever watched the X-Files is familiar with the sinister figure of the “cancer man,” the chain-smoking head of the conspiracy to manipulate humanity for its own good (and that of its secret government).

The image of the cancer man is much in my mind these days as I ponder the question of how Geithner and Summers were appointed to determine Obama’s economic policies. After doing a bit of fruitless Google searching to answer this question, I realized that I already knew the answer. These men were put in place by people who wish to remain unknown, because their actions as the true controllers of the Executive Branch of the government of the United States are contrary to the beliefs of the American people and the founding principles of our nation.

When the cancer men selected Geithner and Summers they guaranteed that the interests of wealthy individuals and powerful financial corporations would be placed above the interests of ordinary taxpayers. Since the arithmetic of Democracy opposes such an outcome, they must operate in secret, and that is why there is no available anwer to the question of who proposed Geithner and Summers. What is even more interesting is that this question is not even raised in the press.

How do the cancer men conceal their role? They use the age-old devices of indirect action and influence that have corrupted politics for millenia. A key corruption mechanism is the “marker” system of exchanging favors. Ambitious and well-connected people keep a mental ledger book of favors done and received for and from powerful acquaintances. Dealing reliably with markers qualifies a player in this system for advancement to a powerful position. Geithner and Summers were appointed in exchange for loyal past service in protecting the interests of very wealthy and powerful people. They understand that people who accumulate these markers will be able to cash them in at the end of their public service for very comfortable living arrangements.

Similarly, the people who put Geithner and Summers on the (very) short list for Obama cabinet appointments were accumulating markers for future redemption. The beauty of the marker system is that there is no immediate quid-pro-quo to compromise the players. Temporal separation of corrupt action and subsequent reward sterilizes the transaction and frustrates investigation. Even if we could find every last phone log, email, and meeting transcript pertinent to the Geithner and Summers nominations, we would never find a direct inducement of bribery. All we would see is powerful people “suggesting,” through intermediaries, that these men would be “good choices” for Obama.

So I ask you all to ponder why nobody in the press knows who recommended Geithner and Summers for their jobs, and, more importantly, why nobody even cares about this question: Who are the people who control the Obama administration?

Who are the cancer men?

It has taken a few days, but a new great wall of Obama apologetics has been laboriously constructed at the great orange fortress of wishful thinking called DKos. Let us bask in the freedom of Democratic incorrectness that Docudharma provides to summarize the official apologetics. Here they are in Q&A form:

Q: Why did Obama appoint Summers and Geithner, men deeply implicated in the undermining of the financial system for years, to “clean up” this huge mess?

A: No progressive economist (e.g., Stiglitz or Krugman) could possibly have passed the guard dogs of the plutocracy in the US Senate. Dangerous Socialists like Nobel-prize-winning Princeton economist Krugman could never have been confirmed.

Q: Why is Obama allowing Geithner to shovel trillions in taxpayer money into the bottomless pit of Wall Street?

A: Geithner believes that an overpaid and rapacious elite can manage the US economy far better than colorless bureaucrats who are merely public servants. Thus, Geithner needs to give Wall Street’s predators another chance to gamble away the future financial resources of the republic. Obama hopes that Geithner may get lucky, but he can replace him with another plutocratic guardian if he “fails.”

Q: Why is the government not aggressively investigating the quality of the dubious “toxic” assets so as to have a sound basis for estimating the magnitude of the damage and properly guiding the recovery policy?

A: Obama believes that it is his highest duty to manage public perceptions for the greater good of America, and if that management task requires concealing the magnitude of underlying cause of the current financial disaster, then it is a patriotic act to conceal the truth. The less the public knows about the magnitude of the toxic bubble, the better.

Q: Why won’t Obama simply nationalize failed banks, fire the bad management, and rebuild the banking system in a manner that serves the public interest.

A: Presidents who attempt to discipline the plutocracy don’t finish their term in office. Obama’s job is to give the people hope by slightly reducing the scale of looting of public funds.

Q: How can the people maintain their confidence in Obama?

A: Every time Obama betrays the public trust and fails to honor his campaign pledges, the people will be reminded of how much worse a McCain administration would have been.

So there we have it. Obama, our national savior, is protecting the rich from the poor and the powerful from the weak, and all the while he is making us all feel better about having change we can believe in: the pocket change that is all most of us will own when this is over.

A sad thing is happening to Barak Obama. As it has during past periods of crisis, the American electorate sought the “necessary man,” a highly qualified leader to assume the powers of the Presidency. Obama has the personal qualities of intellect and character to address the great difficulties facing the nation. But as daily events are beginning to reveal, Obama’s presidency has been betrayed from within. All of the bold measures he promised during his campaign and in recent speeches are being steadily undermined by his own advisers and deputies. How can this be?

Over the last thirty years, the moneyed interests in the United States developed a sophisticated system of recruiting and co-opting large numbers of politically prominent or promising individuals. By means of selective promotions, institutional subsidies, book contracts, and many other forms of professional favoritism, the owner’s of our nation’s wealth, corporations and private fortunes, have effectively bought off the entire set of candidates for national leadership. As Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall said “I don’t care who does the electing as long as I do the nominating.”

The American plutocracy controls the mass media. It controls talk radio. It controls popular entertainment. But, most importantly, it controls the pool of individuals from whom Barak Obama chooses the officers of his administration. The otherwise inexplicable actions of Geithner and Summers are no mystery once one understands that they were recruited to be agents of wealth decades ago. The persistence of the Military Industrial Complex and the likelihood of fresh attempts to raid Social Security are not puzzling once one understands that anyone “qualified” to lead these agencies and survive confirmation hearings is an agent of the plutocracy.

The consequences of this situation are unfortunate for our new President. Having promised vigorous action, his growing impotence in the face of concerted resistance to his policies BY HIS OWN APPOINTEES will result in his public humiliation. The only way out of this trap is to replace the plutocratic hand-puppets in his administration with outsiders who would immediately be labelled as “dangerous,” “radical,” or “fringe” figures, the standard code words used to denounce leaders whose first loyalty is to our republic and not to America’s wealthiest.

Every time one of Obama’s promises to the American people is betrayed by a member of his own administration, our President is humiliated. His popularity will not survive such humiliation, and unless he makes abrupt changes in his inner circle, the hope he promised our nation will prove false.

Crossposted from Antemedius

Real News – March 03, 2009 – 12 min 36 sec

Gareth Porter asks: Why is Obama leaving 50,000 troops in Iraq?

Why, indeed?

They aren’t staying to guard day care centers while Iraqi troops leave their children behind to fight to preserve US dominance over Iraqi oil reserves, I’m fairly sure.

I suppose once you’re elected and you have an overwhelming approval rating no matter what you do and don’t do, regardless of what you said you would do, there is no motivation left to live up to campaign statements.