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There’s Just No Pleasing Some Robber Barons

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Posted on Jul 13, 2010
AP / Carolyn Kaster

Q & A - Live Chat with Robert Scheer


A live Q & A session related to this column took place on July 15, 2010 at 11:00 am PT.

Click here to view the transcript.


By Robert Scheer

The flight from reason that now marks American public discourse came home for me last Friday when I found myself on public radio debating whether Barack Obama is anti-business. The “news hook” for KCRW’s “Left, Right & Center” show, which I have co-hosted for 15 years, was an absurd spate of charges from Obama’s former big-business allies that he had become their enemy. If only it were so.

One of those who has been complaining is billionaire publisher Mort Zuckerman, who now finds in a White House he once supported “hostility” to the business culture he credits with the country’s greatness. I assume he is not talking about the belated efforts to hold BP accountable for the cost of the oil spill that our pro-drilling president once thought not possible. 

And then there was Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric and once friendly to Obama but now alarmed by new regulations. He was one of the many CEOs cited by Fareed Zakaria in The Washington Post as evidence of “Obama’s CEO problem.” General Electric is a company that got into deep trouble when it stopped worrying about making better light bulbs and came to devote much of its business through GE capital to fancy financial products. With GE having been saved by the taxpayers, one wonders what the conglomerate has to complain about. Or Wall Street donors now stiffing the Democrats and claiming Obama is hostile to them.

All this comes at the very time that Wall Street lobbyists stand poised to win a sweeping victory preventing a reversal of the radical deregulation that made the banking debacle possible. The “Volcker rule,” restoration of the New Deal-era barrier between investment and consumer banking that Obama had pledged to support, is gutted. As a disappointed Paul Volcker told Louis Uchitelle in an interview for The New York Times, he would rate the reforms just a B and not even a B-plus. Leading Wall Street economist Henry Kaufman told the Times: “The legislation is a Rube Goldberg contraption, and there are long timelines before the Volcker rule is fully implemented.”

Game over, Wall Street won big-time, and the Bush-Obama policy has made the financiers whole while largely ignoring the deep plight of the true victims of the economic collapse, the unemployed and the foreclosed.  The argument that Obama is anti-business is nothing more than the old propaganda trick that the best defense is a good offense, so blame the victims for your crimes. The high-tone intellectual argument for that position was supplied by Harvard professor Niall Ferguson, a transplanted Thatcherite, at the same Aspen, Colo., gathering where Zuckerman spoke.

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At a conference on ideas paid for and attended by the rich and well-positioned, Ferguson argued that the high rate of unemployment is not due to the Wall Street high rollers whose funny-money games wiped out 8 million jobs but rather the extension of the government’s unemployment insurance program:

“The curse of long-term unemployment is that if you pay people to do nothing, they’ll find themselves doing nothing for very long periods of time. Long-term unemployment is at an all-time high in the United States, and it is a direct consequence of a misconceived public policy.” 

Yes, except that the public policy that was so terribly misconceived was that of radical deregulation, launched by the Reagan Revolution and implemented by President Bill Clinton, not the pathetic palliative of unemployment checks. 

Notice that the attacks on Obama are not about his having followed George W. Bush’s example of throwing money at Wall Street, the cause of the meltdown and the run-up of the national debt, but rather the much smaller amount spent on ameliorating the pain that the titans of finance caused for ordinary citizens. And of course there is never a word of self-criticism on the part of folks like Ferguson, Immelt and Zuckerman for their own roles in having cheered on the radical deregulation that made this mess not only possible but inevitable.

Not so Volcker, once the darling of fiscal conservatives when he tamed inflation during the Carter and Reagan years, and when as Fed chair and later as an influential observer he failed to stand publicly against the move to radical deregulation. As was reported in the Times interview, “In retrospect, Mr. Volcker regrets not challenging the widely held assumptions that underpinned much of this. `You had an intellectual conviction that you did not need much regulation—that the market could take care of itself,’ he says. `I’m happy that illusion has been shattered.’ ”

Unfortunately, that illusion has not been shattered for many of the elite in this country, as evidenced by their rage against Obama’s too modest steps in the right direction.


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By archivesDave, July 22, 2010 at 4:07 pm Link to this comment

Christian96:
I couldn’t click on it; Ask a friend to show you how to “copy and paste” a link.

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By christian96, July 22, 2010 at 3:57 pm Link to this comment

ArchivesDave—-I read your suggestion about the
Rothschilds on YouTube.  I don’t know much about
banking and money but I do know something about
Jesus.  A couple of the commenters following the
Rothschilds video made reference to Jesus.  You
might want to check-out my google video titled,
“Osama Bin Laden A Christian Response/expanded
edition” to see what I said about Jesus.  I don’t
know how to place it here so you could “click”
on it.  I need to take some computer classes. I
also need to learn more about money and banking.
Thanks.

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By archivesDave, July 21, 2010 at 12:39 am Link to this comment

JohnCP:
Makes sense to me but delve a little further to see
who is in deed controlling the corporations.
This may help:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLzZjaMEGJA&NR=1

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By johncp, July 20, 2010 at 10:56 pm Link to this comment

And again, and again, and again, Clinton is blamed for something everyone does.  In this article, Scheer tells us that Clinton did what the rich folk wanted him to do!  Incredible!  Who would have thought such a thing?  Everyone before, and everyone after Clinton did what the rich wanted them to do, most notably the current Clown in Chief.  But, somehow, it’s necessary to make a point of it, when it comes to Clinton.  Say what you will, in my view, with all the same faults that all the other presidents have had, Clinton is the best president we’ve had since FDR.  And, no, Clinton did not sign NAFTA into law.  And, yes, Hillary was and remains a vastly better choice than Obama for the presidency.  People that post to these lists, continue to forget, or can’t bear the memory, that it wasn’t the vote against McCain that tells the story, it’s the vote during the Hillary/Obama race for the dem nomination that tells the story.  In that fateful race, Obama didn’t win with the “popular” vote, he won with the hugely greater amount of money given to him by corporate America, than was received by any other candidate, including Hillary, though even with this support, Hillary appears to have won by a hair, in the popular vote.  Obama won with the corporations, a.k.a. with the delegates, because they, for reasons that have become painfully obvious, saw Obama as a much better bet, to serve corporate interests.

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By archivesDave, July 17, 2010 at 6:21 pm Link to this comment

It is quite apparent that the Emperor never did have any clothes and the ‘Puppetmasters’ have full
control, though their MO is confusion and obfuscation.
‘ordo ab chao’

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By call me roy, July 17, 2010 at 12:03 pm Link to this comment

Look people, the “Anointed One” makes his chess move’s and us babbling humans need to realize that the unbelieving conspiracy “heathen” understate the issues when they say that Obama is a radical. Alas, they know not the secrets we are all going to witness. The “Anointed One” is amazing, he takes the people at the highly efficient Post Office and sends them right over to the Student Loan Program. The “Anointed One” knows all. Twitter messages were machine-gunned to cell phones at mach speed. Facebook and MySpace groups spread across the Internet like digital fire. YouTube videos featuring celebrities ricocheted across the globe and into college students’ in-boxes with devastating regularity. All the while, the Obama mega-money-raising engine whirred on at high speed, until the result became inevitable: an unthinking mass of young voters marched forward to elect the “Anointed One.”

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By mindful, July 17, 2010 at 9:23 am Link to this comment

The most often struted and completely without documentation, Obama a socialist or soft with the military?

1. Obama heathcare written for a by big private heathcare. No cost controls.

2. The amount of public money doled out to AIG et-al exceeds even the amounts spent on war. Main street, the elderly and others come up ZERO with Obama.

3. The so called financial reforms are far too weak to have any real effect upon the Moni Carlo group.

4. The Obama plan for Afghanistan is a lie. It denies the reality, Iraq will never have a stable government and it is futile to hope to change the Islamic world to the so called American standards of morality.

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By Hollywood Russ, July 16, 2010 at 9:37 am Link to this comment

DEMOCRATIC PARTY! NOT DEMOCRAT PARTY! A MEMBER OF THE DEMOCRATIC
PARTY IS CALLED A DEMOCRAT! I’m just going to keep shouting that until it
becomes clear. This subtle taking away of the two letters in the party’s name
removes it in the mind of sheeple from what this party stands for, Democracy, for
Democratic principles!

And anybody who was unfortunate enough to see Zuckerman on the McLaughlin
Group, then you know what I’m talking about. That vacant stare and mumbled
responses as he reads the 3x5 card that John McG gave him before taping.
Granted he was a slum lord, sold real estate and made millions upon millions,
bought out U.S. News in time to see the era of news magazines steep and steady
decline; the man is as dim as a bulb can get.

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By wildflower, July 16, 2010 at 7:15 am Link to this comment

Re Scheer: “The flight from reason that now marks American public discourse came home for me last Friday when I found myself on public radio debating whether Barack Obama is anti-business.”

It is a “flight from reason” for any of us to think any robber baron will ever be pleased with any kind of law that would hold them accountable.

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By archivesDave, July 16, 2010 at 1:59 am Link to this comment

For a sage take on yesterday’s passing of the
finance bill, here is Webster Tarpley’s take:

http://tarpley.net/2010/07/15/obama-dodd-frank-finreg-monstrosity-delays-derivatives-curbs-until-2022/

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By Hollywood Russ, July 15, 2010 at 2:09 pm Link to this comment

Mort Zuckerman is living proof that you don’t have to be intelligent to make
money. The man is dumber than a stone and I wouldn’t take one word he said
about national policy seriously. That is all.

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By Peetawonkus, July 15, 2010 at 12:17 pm Link to this comment

Since the Reich-wing whines and bitches about every tiny improvement in the lot of the human race being “socialism”, fine, let’s make it real socialism. Let’s nationalize the banks and oil industry for starters and create a single payer health care system. Raise the tax rate on the rich to 90%. How about we cut the military budget in half, too? Might as well go down for being a lion as opposed to a kitty cat.

And kudos to Richard_Ralph_Roehl. Brilliant post. Laughed my ass off.

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By ibh, July 15, 2010 at 11:11 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Nailed!

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By felicity, July 15, 2010 at 8:25 am Link to this comment

What is the conservative message other than there are enemies of conservativism in office, in the media, next-door to you…They must be disgraced first, eliminated second.

Of course, as written but seldom practiced, conservatism preaches the merits of an invisible federal government with very little power.  But when holding an office in that federal government, because it defies human nature, it’s unlikely that any of them would or could ever abide by this precept.

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By RdV, July 15, 2010 at 8:16 am Link to this comment

The Elite aren’t “shattered” because Obama spared them at our expense. After they were bailed out by us, they blame us. Those who serve them act as an echo chamber or are compromised, like Obama by their true loyalty to the Elites while having to serve up populist boilerplate to their constituents.

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By Leefeller, July 15, 2010 at 6:57 am Link to this comment

Vote the Republicans in, vote the tea baggers in, vote Palin in and then there it will be said we will see some real change, but as now with the Democrats in , I wont see any change in me pocket.

My only hope is, I was not so wrong about Obama the appeaser, though I was right about McCain.

Good cop bad cop is the only difference between the two parties, dancing through the tulips neither party knows their ass from a hole in the Gulf.  Gorge Carlin said it, “they do what they want anyway, so why vote”

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By kulu, July 15, 2010 at 3:36 am Link to this comment

Norman Harman

I agree. The only way is to vote for whatever candidate does not get corporate sponsorship. In the recent congressional primaries there were a couple such contestants - one in Utah, and another, I think,
in Southern California - that I know of. Both did okay but not enough to win. Still, as long as “national security” tolerates the vote that’s the way to go.

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By jerrygates7, July 15, 2010 at 2:38 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Robert Scheer misses the perifery of the reasons
for failed reform bills and cites Obama as the author
of such failure for following in the footsteps of
Bush and Clinton as the gatkeeper of empire.

  I understand Scheers pinning the democrats with
degegulation under Clinton, understand his assertions
that Obama is the kingpin of this now democrat run
empire but do not understand why Scheer never talks
about zionism, Israel or Rothschild as reasons for
American hubris, police state mentality and Myopic
Jew centric rule by zionist lobbies through their
various agency and infiltrations, Is Scheer blinded
by his ethnicity or does he chose to oversimplify
things by picking Obama out as a friend to buisness
as buisness cites otherwise? It’s the zionist
capitalism with agression, Jewcentric eliteism and
militarim ala Israel that is ruining the USA, Zionist
free market capitalism is draining the lifes blood
from the United States by taking from the middle and
lower class what little they have and giving it to
the rich fools who support Israel because it puts
money in the pockets. Sheer is a gatekeeper for
Zionist atheists, libertarian in democrats clothes, a
fake reformer in his own right by shifting his
emphasis to a man and away from the instituitons of
zion, which drain coffers planet wide by fostering a
climate where war dominates the discourses of
humanity and gatkeeping writers hide the truth as to
whom is running this nation into the groung and why.

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By GRAPPA, July 14, 2010 at 11:44 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Could anybody tell this old fart, how many people live on this earth? Further, are there enough resorces to go around? if yes, How many more till we reach the tipping point? If we have already reached that point. maybe we need to turn on each other to ensure our security!

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By pvolkov, July 14, 2010 at 8:31 pm Link to this comment

Mr.Scheer I rarely disagree with you but when you try to give some credit to President Obama for trying to do the right thing but just gets cut down I don’t see it.
He has from day one with his choices of advisors and cabinet members spelled out his aims and the handling of the so called reform health care bill plus his decisions of ramping up the war in Afghanistan indicate a man beholden to the business, corporate, military interests of our country. His rhetoric has become meaningless as it is followed by failure to execute anything of consequence since he has taken office.
I hope no liberal or progressive votes for any Congresspeople who have allowed this state of affairs to fester and certainly not for a second term of his presidency. Let the Republicans take over, let the populace see how they operate and start taking the blame for failure instead of throwing it at the Democrats who do deserve criticism.
We will need time to allow some truly meaningful leaders to develop for the future once we sink into a real depression coming at us rapidly. When catastrophe stares us in the face, including the creators of it, there will hopefully be a chance for changing the direction of our country. I hope I live long enough to see this unfold. At least may my grandchildren be around to be part of it.

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By Richard_Ralph_Roehl, July 14, 2010 at 5:57 pm Link to this comment

One cannot expect reason from $ociopathic gambler addicts in the Wall $treet casino, corp-rat media whores, warmongering Pentagon boners… and KKKristian Zionist wackos that have turned capitalist/fascist Amerika into “Israel’s bitch.”

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By Fat Freddy, July 14, 2010 at 5:02 pm Link to this comment

“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”

- F.A. Hayek
The Fatal Conceit

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/3/1/8929/21462

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By call me roy, July 14, 2010 at 4:30 pm Link to this comment

Where’s that gavel? OK, (knock, knock, knock)
House Leader speaks: Ladies and Gentlemen, may I have your attention. We Democrats are having this closed door meeting today after hearing comments from White House Press Secretary Gibbs about Republicans taking control of the House in the fall. I am sure everyone here today realizes what “dire straits” we find ourselves in for the November elections . Who like to start this meeting?
(Representative Maxine Waters speaks: Play the race card
House Leader speaks: Sounds good to me, that works every time. I will contact the NAACP this evening. Meeting adjourned.

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By jean gerard, July 14, 2010 at 4:28 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Redhorse, you should know it’s not so simple as “drugged, drunk and betrayed”
and all one has to do is “get clean.”

Much though the average person resists, we humans are so constructed that
frequently if not always we change when we understand either what causes our
problem or that a different reaction to the same problem might improve our
situation. 

One big reason we got where we are is that we counted on somebody else (in
this case Obama) to do more than he could do (that is, resist the blandishments
of money-power).  Why couldn’t he resist?  Were we wrong to expect him to
resist? Were there things we might have done to counteract his weaknesses
once they began to appear?

There were warning signals from the get-go:  refusal to charge Bush and
Cheney; continuation of wars; refusal to fully face global warming; lack of
passing immediate measures to create jobs and stop foreclosures etc. etc.
All of these policies were based on refusal to directly challenge Republican
reactionary tendencies and start something new, in other words efforts to
reach “bipartisanship” which Obama talked about in optimistic terms even in
the obvious face of malicious separatist factors already at work as hang-overs
from the previous administration.

I raise this issue because I think it has not been explored much, and because
the political power of that ideal “bipartisanship” needs to be understood for
what it currently is:  That is, it is utterly impossible because, although
Democrats and Republicans may act in similar fashion (“middle of the roadism”)
what that really means is, Democrats have become more conservative,  more
like Republicans in many ways, though they still think they are different.
This has happened to such an extent that Republicans know Democrats will
“cave” when the pressure is put on them—usually money pressure, which is
not at all interested in “bipartisanship.”

Republicans have been on the political warpath toward empire-building and
against public welfare, control of money, human rights and good free public
education and other social goals for decades. As Europe has been moving
ahead the US has been doggedly in retreat back to some imaginary “free
enterprise” heaven, no holds barred.

Our problem now is to escape from the illusion that such selfishness might
eventually work as an adequate policy for a great nation.

I still hope we have time to mend our ways, but the powers of fear, modern
weapons and surveillance techniques make it a tough call.

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By Shoto, July 14, 2010 at 4:04 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Mr. Scheer has been nailing it for decades and (as per usual), he does it again in this latest piece.  For the life of me, I cannot begin to grasp how anyone could see Obama as anything but an enabler of the oligarchy and/or outright kleptocracy that runs this country.  When he was elected, I had hope that things would begin to improve, that he would seize the historical opportunity that had been presented to him.  However, it was not to be…and the nation is all the poorer for it.

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By norman Harman, July 14, 2010 at 3:25 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Niall Ferguson: “The curse of long-term unemployment is that if you pay
people to do nothing, they’ll find themselves doing nothing for very long
periods of time.”

Ferguson is another rich ignoramus who doesn’t know his ass from a hole in
the ground. Yeh, I just love living on my $268/week unemployment check - in
fact I’m so thrilled I don’t think I’ll ever go back to work again!

What a f***ing moron! See, this is what happens when these rich shitheads live
in splendid isolation - inside their mirrored rooms in which they only see, hear
and speaks to themselves - and never, never, never, touch reality.

The whole world in being run by these jackasses and supported and
encouraged by a global media system that’s made up of equally ignorant, rich
dimwits who also live in mirrored worlds.

Until ordinary people get wise to these idiots nothing will ever change. Here in
the US we still have the vote - but not for much longer - so we better pick our
asses up, get on down to the polls and vote for the candidates who have no
corporate money. If they’re dependent on corporate money for their campaigns
then they’ll be dependent on corporate money for their re-elections. So who do
you think they’ll work for?

We also better learn quickly that any political a-hole who waves that American
flag in our faces is doing so only to get us to stop thinking. Contrary to that
famous quote, patriotism is not “the last refuge of the scoundrel,” it’s the first!
We’d better learn that patriotism is the mechanism by which the rich and
powerful get us to work against our own best interests. It is the mechanism by
which they turn us into ignorant slaves. Wise up!

First step? Stop supporting those corporate slugs by no longer buying anything
that’s not an absolute necessity!

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By G.Anderson, July 14, 2010 at 1:39 pm Link to this comment

Yes, Mr. Scheer, I agree.

But then some people have to learn twice the hard way, in the case of our country, it looks like it’s going to be three times.

The world is not enough for the greedy, but unfortunately, as this country continues it’s fall into oblivion, the rich will be unable to understand.

They’d like us all destitute in the street begging for alms, penniless, and hopeless. While they in their far castles, daily count the riches they enjoy. 

This is their vision of America, their vision of freedom…Freedom for the rich, slavery for the poor.
For isn’t it true they own our government and by fiat the freedoms that our government used to guarantee?

Yet all the tireless dirty work, unrewarding and brutal, do us all carry on our backs, to support their greed.

And without out a doubt they own president Obama, and he is one of them.

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By Hulk2008, July 14, 2010 at 1:20 pm Link to this comment

To the commenters who doubt that socialism has ever worked

(e.g. “Every socialist experiment of any significance in the twentieth
century-without exception-has either been crushed, overthrown,
or invaded, or corrupted, perverted, subverted, or destabilized,
or otherwise had life made impossible for it, by the United States”):

Ever hear of mainland China ?  They have been eating our lunch recently -  and we owe them our milk money too. 

Of course, one could argue that they are “communists” not “socialists”; but that is ever such a tempest in a teapot - they really have yet to practice true communism.  And they have mixed their brand of “-isms” with their own version of dog-eat-dog capitalism too ...... to our chagrine.

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By REDHORSE, July 14, 2010 at 1:08 pm Link to this comment

Great comments. Thank you ALL!! Needed it! Enjoyed it! Well said. You nailed the spectrum.

      Still, there is a yet undefined, “—slow train coming—”, comprised of our refusal to act in our own best interest, to rectify, our moral,cultural and political failure as a people, and the consequence of natural ecological disaster, that will redefine definitions of horror, humanity and country.

      I continue to believe our nation is possessed by a mass psychosis that springs from the machinations of the criminally insane. That to discuss them in any other light is proof of said psychoses and only conscious actions of healing, unity, new cultural relationship, direct political action and personal familial healing will avert apocalypse.

      That so many scoff, and are afraid, of the personal power these actions instill, reflects the depth of our woundedness, and the power of the great manufactured anxiety that holds us in thrall.

      So many here, applauded Mr. Hedges report on his mountain retreat this summer, because, his journey recognized our own connection to this land. This is OUR Holy Land. It is alive within’ us. When it perishes, so shall we.

      You are drugged, drunk and betrayed. Stop being afraid. It’s time to get clean!!

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By TrishaJ, July 14, 2010 at 12:50 pm Link to this comment

Why are we even having this discussion!!!! Do any of these businesses or rich and well-positioned individuals have any credibility about the state of the ecomomy or what Obama is or isn’t doing about it?

After what has happened to the economy, and the undeniable FACTS about what caused it (deregulation and the risky financial games it cleared the way for)these people are the last people we should listen to. The US Chamber of Commerce can’t even tell the truth about its membership, why should they be believed about anything.

Media does the people of this country a disservice by continuing to give space and air time to such obvious misdirection. Unfortunately, there are far too many people who hear this nonsense and allow it to influence their “thinking” (I use that term loosely).

Think about it! Just how effective would this kind of manipulation of public opinion be if media did their job instead of aiding and abetting it?

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By balkas, July 14, 2010 at 12:27 pm Link to this comment

Jean gerard, i do respect ur right to express ur knowledge. Let’s call ur knowledge, knowledge 1; mine, knowledge 2?
And of course, i always respect ur personhood 1.

Knowledge 2 includes the causes of all failures. Of course we can’t always match a cause to its effect, but we can always, as per necessity or necessary truth, at least postulate a cause for an event.

Obamas failures-successes, perceived only or actual, ARE CAUSED and connected TO THE FIRST CAUSE, which to me is divIding people into people and nonpeople or to a postulated FIRST CAUSE.

And u do own postulating; alone or with help from others.
Human failings, cancer, obesity, floods are caused.
So, we find causes, we get cure. However, in asocialistic societies; sharlpy divided in too many ways, but specificly in earnings, this is frobidden fruit to even look at let alone to study it.
This means symptoms and lamenting them wld go on for an eternity.
In infinity of time, such thinking—now ten k yrs old—appears ephemeral. It cannot go on forever w.o. the ergodic N-war that wld forever destroy much of the biota.
Ergodic= zero chance of not occuring; even if we wdld become sane let alone being so unsane as now. tnx

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By drbhelthi, July 14, 2010 at 11:47 am Link to this comment

Confusion, confusion. In various areas.

Born of a Caucasoid mother and a Negroid father does not equal Negroid. It equals to whatever the mixture turns out to be, in the case of Mr. Hussein Obama. A genuine Negroid person, a genuine American qualified for the U.S. Presidency, would be more like Mr. Alan Keyes. I have read nothing to suggest that a Caucasoid parent is somewhere in his background. Nor have I read that he was a secret operative of the CIA for twenty years, nor did he assist with the Osama bin Laden fairy tale.

A “word to the wise”: Avoid new, online news agencies with catchy names, that advertise Osama bin Laden to be hiding anywhere, which also offer a U.S. soldier desert cap for free. The remains of Osama bin Laden were buried over five years ago. Renal failure, after two unsuccessful kidney transplants, one in a floating U.S. hospital and one in occupied Palestine. NAZI-CIA types are excellent at beating a dead horse.

Mr. Alan Keyes is not a suck-up to the double-dozen satanists that rule the western world, nor was he involved in a multiple, cult-murder in Brownsville, TX in 1984, and would scarcely get the support required to compete for the U.S. presidency. I spell the word “presidency” in small letters, due to the 41st presidential imposter, his “junior” two times, and the current born in Africa Kenyan. Who, like A. Hitler, promised everything the “poor and disgruntled masses” wanted to hear, and once installed, reversed his tactic.

Only naïve` Americans would continue to believe anything Mr. Obama says instead of evaluating him on what he has not done, in contrast to his campaign promises “ to the people of America.” The current presidential imposter has tripled the political debauchery of “Jr. Bush,” bailed-out the world-wide Israeli banking business, and bought the on-paper-insolvency of various huge businesses (whose owners cashed-in the fluidity) with on-paper, U.S. Taxpayer monies. And someone mumbles that he is unfriendly with “big business” ? Talk about confusion - - - .

This is nothing, compared to the confusion that will occur if Mr. Obama permits the Israeli dictators to manipulate the U.S. Military into supporting their attack on Iran, to be staged out of the U.S./israeli floating armada, while pointing a finger at former Russian provinces. No doubt, Russian intelligence knows what is going on, and also has plans. . .

Forget the highly-advertised, battery-operated radios that FEMA says everyone needs. This is simply a distraction from the truth. With all TV and radio transmitters in the USA destroyed, there will be no broadcasts to hear. All the radioactivity would suppress reception anyway. The folk still able to “tune in” will be occupied with more valuable activity . . .

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By getitgotitgood, July 14, 2010 at 11:46 am Link to this comment

Did any of those bigtime business titans in Aspen who were complaining about the adverse effect of unemployment benefit extensions unfurl a list of available new jobs in their company that have gone unfilled because people were more interested in accepting unemployment benefit extensions instead?

My guess is none of them did.

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By prole, July 14, 2010 at 11:37 am Link to this comment

“The flight from reason that now marks American public discourse came home”…to national public radio, which has been thoroughly sold off to corporate patrons, a long time ago.  “Obama’s former big-business allies” are still Obama’s allies – and vice versa - and so is NPR and so, as always, is Scheer. The absurdly mis-titled “Left, Right & Center” show, would be more aptly called the Right, Righter & Rightest show. Leave it to Scheer and NPR to cover for the robber barons and corporate Uncle Tom Obama. “An absurd spate of charges from Obama’s former big-business allies that he had become their enemy”…is the perfect pretext for giving them every thing they always wanted, while making it appear their puppet prez is mistreating them. It’s a lot easier to sell the inevitable corporate giveaways that way to a gullible public than to stand there hugging each other on the White House lawn. It’s the same old political charade that the venal two-party System has been playing for decades.  “Game over, Wall Street won big-time, and the Bush-Obama policy has made the financiers whole while largely ignoring the deep plight of the true victims of the economic collapse, the unemployed and the foreclosed”...well, not quite – the “game” will go on for a long time to come, at least as long as the two-party System. “And of course there is never a word of self-criticism on the part of folks like”…Scheer who urged everyone to vote for and contribute to, his idol Obama. “Not so Volcker”…no, Volker, “As was reported in the Times interview, ‘In retrospect, Mr. Volcker regrets not challenging the widely held assumptions that underpinned much of this.’” Great! So, what?!! What good does that do anyone, now?!! The damage is done! So Volcker like Scheer and NPR is an idiot - and he wants credit for admitting his toxic errors? What it all goes to prove once again, as if any further proof be needed, is that so-called ‘experts’ aren’t! That’s the most important illusion that needs to be shattered!

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By jean gerard, July 14, 2010 at 10:28 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Being our first black president, Obama must have known that there would be a
large percentage of people (mostly white) who would oppose whatever he tried
to do, not of the merits of each proposal but simply in order to defeat him.

He must have known that, in such biased circumstances, it would be difficult if
not impossible to try to run a bipartisan government.  Yet from the beginning,
and consistently ever since, he has insisted upon the merits of bipartisanship
which ultimately led to his being forced to make deal after deal to win anything
at all.  (The “health care” bill is just one clear example.)

How could he have missed the fact that, because of the nature and history of
this country, the only thing that would possibly have worked out for him would
be a bold courage to seize the initiative on all important public issues where he
either had huge numbers of ordinary people behind him, (as evidenced by the
mere fact of his election),  or where he could hope to achieve their cooperation
in their own self-interest.

In other words, his error was to put more trust in an ideal working mode of
theoretical democracies than in the force of the majority at a time when more
and more of them were beginning to recognize their losses and their needs
(such as job and health security, stopping the Middle East wars and getting
more balanced distribution of national wealth).  Corporate interests also were
beginning to see, and feel threatened by, public awareness of some of the
imbalances in unregulated capitalism, saw how “bipartisanship” could be used
to frustrate democratic action, and egged him on with support, contributions,
advice and other blandishments.

Lesson for voters:  It’s not enough to simply elect a guy who has ideals (though
a guy without ideals is also a bad deal).  The guy has to realize—and himself
call upon for support == the power of ordinary people and answer their needs
even at the cost of a fierce manifestation of single-minded courage to take
leadership. 

It would appear clear now that it was this “bi-partisanship” meme that
corporate forces and military-minded rightists recognized as, in his case, a
weakness they could encourage him to use to destroy himself.

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By balkas, July 14, 2010 at 8:52 am Link to this comment

Any city run by asocialists [fascists:kings, patricians, money changers, ceos] appears as a concentration camp or a prison.

In such prisons one can move, but is totally dependent on people who run banks, industry, army, spy agencies, country, cultists.

Of course i am a cultist, too: i pray for an egalitarian society and abolishion of prisons!

And if a prison pop is also divided into classes of prisoners, a handful of people can utterly control it.

The ‘information’ that enters such a prison comes from outside the prison. It is carefully crafted; basic purpose being to further confound and confuse the prisoners.

Education also comes from prison keepers. Drugs are allowed to come in as this further divides and renders prisoners helpless.

Inside such prisons, a higher class of prisoners, guard the inmates. But not very well; as per aim. The more unstable and fearful the city pop is, the more they look solely for a cosa mia.

And these cosa mias always lose against the cosa nostra gang.

Thre are even special places for some of the prisoners: some will wind up in afgh’n; others in jail.

The cosa nostra gangsters live in mansions on steep, craggy hills or mountains, islets; guarded by armed people, security fences, dogs, surveillance.

What a life? Is this happening on moon or what? Really? Can u believe what i just said?
tnx

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By mrfreeze, July 14, 2010 at 8:31 am Link to this comment

I had to burst out laughing this morning. I read this post and then listened to the Dianne Rehm show on the way to work. It was all about why the President’s poll numbers are low, why he hasn’t been able to articulate the good things he’s done in 18 months, etc…..then a caller (from FL…go figure) calls in and claims that P. Obama is anti-business!!!

OK everyone, which is it? Anti-business uber-socialist or robber-baron reach-around specialist?

Frankly, I think the President’s worst enemies are the liberals (especially some of you who write on this blog). I wouldn’t want any of you watching my back in a good bar fight.

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By public takeover, July 14, 2010 at 8:30 am Link to this comment

Promote public access tv.

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By ocjim, July 14, 2010 at 8:15 am Link to this comment

No one can understand a minority of Republicans acting to dismantle real reform in the Senate. Little sympathy is reserved for the Democrats in majority, though buffeted by conservatives in their ranks, big money influence and the flack thrown up by a moneyed plutocratic presence.

In reality, Obama and the Democrats were besieged by a steadfast wall against real reform, put up by the corporate media, the business elite and the Republicans. The “country first” chant of Republican frontrunner, McCain, is a bitter mockery of what politicians have wrought, especially the obstructionist Republicans.

Perhaps we can’t blame voters alone for what many expect as the return of a failed—and deadly—Bush plutocracy in upcoming months with the next election.

Our culture prizes entertainment, showmanship, rancor, vitriol, and seems to feast on deceit and deception, disguised as truth. Real issues are boring but not yet seen as necessary, especially in a cynical climate which the political apartheid of conservatism has brought.

Someday perhaps we will grow up and realize that we all must be activists or change the lyrics of “America the Beautiful.”

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By Old Man Turtle, July 14, 2010 at 7:54 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Maybe Mr. Scheer really believes “it’s the economy” and not the Ecology in which he actually lives and breathes everyday, even if making that basic mistake would be “stupid” with a capital S-T-U-P-I-D.  He sure has plenty of company in such manufactured misery.

Maybe he and others really believe some temporary occupant of the “Oval Office” has the “power” to CHANGE! slightly the direction of the machinery of “governance” away from its abject servitude to those vested interests consolidated in corporations, and lessen somewhat its degenerative effects on the common run of “individual” consumers.  HOPE!, after-all, is often the single-parent of all manner of briefly comforting illusions.

The mirage here seems to be that those among the chattering classes with a blog of their own still remain, if only by the skin of their teeth, a bit above the massed ranks of “The Expendables.”  That summer blockbuster, though, is coming soon to a neighborhood theater-of-operations near even the likes of Mr. Scheer and his select set of contributors.  Count on it!

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By Hulk2008, July 14, 2010 at 7:54 am Link to this comment

Why is it that commenters so often find some overarching conspiracy behind what goes on in the world ? 

Suggestions that invisible corporate all-powerful entities are simultaneously manipulating all political parties and actively orchestrating the results of elections is highly questionable.  I agree that lobbyists try to tilt things; but tuning results from all sides is ludicrous.  Imagine a company so inept technically that it cannot punch a hole in the ocean floor without spewing petroleum all over the place - now imagine that same company tricking the deck so that Obama-Biden get elected instead of McCain-Palin. 
  I do agree that corporations have brain-washed the electorate to the point that they believe the robber barons are more trustworthy than their own elected officials. 
  I am disappointed in the Pres.  I am pretty certain that McCain would have been far worse and would not have even remotely considered a pull-out or reduction in either Iraq or Afghanistan.  The costs of two wars are constantly shifted aside and it amazes me that the electorate ignores the trillions being wasted in those efforts. 
  Per Krugman, the stimulus was too little too late and too much oriented in satisfying Republican demands for tax cuts instead of tru stimulus.  As with the health care bill and the financial reforms and energy reform, every attempt to snare a couple of Republican votes has failed and only gotten diluted results.  It was a mistake to have even tried (20-20 hindsight). 
  Republicans will come roaring back in November.  Any improvements that have occurred will be obviated or watered down.  The deficits will continue, of course, since the “conservatives” really have no interest in anything but power-mongering.  And the US will slide further behind the 8-ball. 

Mr. Scheer has the accurate view as usual.  Too bad so few people agree.

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By Fat Freddy, July 14, 2010 at 7:45 am Link to this comment

Obama is pro-business. No, Obama is anti-business.

Black/white, no gray areas, huh?

The first distinction that needs to be made is the one between business and finance. It is very possible to be pro-business, while being anti-finance (in its current form). Free people should be allowed to freely exchange goods and services, except in cases of fraud, robbery, abuse and misrepresentation. This is not the case with current banking practices. Most small and medium size business owners are honest, hard working people. Their businesses rely heavily on word-of-mouth. If it gets out that a business is ripping people off, others will stop patronizing that business, and go to the competition. The same with workers. Problems begin to arise when there is a lack of adequate competition. Over the last 30 years and mostly the past 10, we’ve had a massive amount of consolidation of industry. This is not a natural function of the free market. Some consolidation will always be present, but nothing like we’ve seen lately.

Banks are different. Fraud has been built into the system for the past 100 years, and is being compounded, like interest. The latest of which, and the most blatant, is the change in accounting rules. The government creates institutions and rules that protect banks from insolvency. Every bank in the US is insolvent by any real test. If a regular business conducted business the way a bank does, they would not be in business very long, and the owners and managers would all be in jail. No shit. These fraudulent practices have given banks access to huge amounts of capital.

So, what does this have to do with the consolidation of businesses and corporations? Simple. Where did the money come from that facilitated it? The banks and financial institutions, where else? (There’s also the issue of intentionally devaluing the dollar to entice foreign investors).

Remember, it took Volcker 3 years to fix the problems of the 70s (which were caused by policies of the 60s). We are in a much worse position today.

Over the past 30 years or so, mostly Republicans, have only hand-picked a few free market principles and haphazardly implemented them, often times, causing more harm than good. Of course, Democrats haven’t helped matters, either. Most of their regulatory policies create unfair advantages on smaller businesses. If we would just take our medicine, and force banks to operate with a real fear of bankruptcy, with real regulations and real enforcement, we could begin to climb our way out of this Decession. But the false fear of an economic meltdown, will prevent the necessary action from being taken. So, we will “Extend and Pretend”, until we have a real meltdown.

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By FRTothus, July 14, 2010 at 7:22 am Link to this comment

“The boys of capital, they ... chortle in their martinis about the death of socialism. The word has been banned from polite conversation. And they hope that no one will notice that every socialist experiment of any significance in the twentieth century-without exception-has either been crushed, overthrown, or invaded, or corrupted, perverted, subverted, or destabilized, or otherwise had life made impossible for it, by the United States. Not one socialist government or movement-from the Russian Revolution to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, from Communist China to the EMLN in [El] Salvador-not one was permitted to rise or fall solely on its own merits; not one was left secure enough to drop its guard against the all-powerful enemy abroad and freely and fully relax control at home.”
(William Blum)

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By balkas, July 14, 2010 at 7:01 am Link to this comment

That people argue ab [ab[use of money is not news. Even in families there are disputes ab money.
This piece like all the others by collumists treat the illness and not the ill person.

The verrry ill uncle sam shld be treated and not just his [ab]use of money. tnx

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By mindful, July 14, 2010 at 6:29 am Link to this comment

I am disappointed with Obama.

1. A healthcare bill written by robber barons in healthcare

2. An ineffective financial bill still allowing the playboys of Wall Street everything they want

3. No real effective changes in the Bush policies in Afghanistan and Iraq

4. Rehires a Fed chief who sent his friends at AIG billions from the public treasury. Even today, we still don’t know where the billions went.

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By Hank from Nebraska, July 14, 2010 at 6:26 am Link to this comment

It becomes more and more obvious that Obama is playing precisely the role that his corporate masters hired him to play: co-opt the noisy left, shift the blame for the damage that the inept Bush administration did to the corporate agenda, and ultimately leave the corporate state even more entrenched.  He was never hired to become a permanent force on the left. 
Does it not seem obvious that the idiotic McCain-Palin ticket was put on the ballot only to make the hollow Obama look good enough to win the election and become the fall guy for the economic and military disasters the Republicans created? 
Obama has played his role extremely well.  Now with the left completely demoralized, the briefly-active youth vote totally discouraged, and the political discussion moved completely to the right again, he has prepared the way for the triumphant return of the Republican Party to save our country from Obama’s war, Obama’s unemployment, and Obama’s budget deficits. 
Of course, after losing the next election, Obama will make a lot of money giving speeches that do little more than muddle any serious debate about our corporate state.  The self-righteous and completely delusional “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party will long back to the Obama administration, as they longed back to the Clinton administration during the Bush years, when the next right-wing Republican consolidates the dominance of the corporate state.  That “longing” for the past will give Obama just enough legitimacy for him to deny that he is one of the slimiest and destructive leaders this country has ever had, and for delusional Democrats to, well, be delusional.
If true liberals don’t become more active, we face a horrible future.  Please, push back by taking Obama’s pro-plutocracy government to task over everything.  Admit Palin was absolutely correct: This hopey-changey thing is not working out!

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By bogi666, July 14, 2010 at 6:23 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

It is a no brainer that business interests would turn on President O’BushBombya. Mussolini, the architect of modern Fascism, Socialized Captialists, stated that he wouldn’t trust the business interests that brought and kept him in power.

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By bogi666, July 14, 2010 at 6:16 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Christian96,you got it right about the Beast, which the globalized business system and the Beast is the system not a person. Excellent analysis, thanks.

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By R. Merrill, July 14, 2010 at 6:03 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

The hard right wing always follows the same strategy for making moderate democrats like Obama do their bidding. The pretend anger at him. They act offended by him. They imply that they once supported him but now he’s betrayed them. Moderates fall for this scam every time. They feel guilty and cave in to the corporate CEOs. Too bad no democrat has the insight to either simply ignore the american criminal CEO or really begin to prosecute them for their criminal actions. No on can bargain with these guys. They only take and steal.

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By christian96, July 14, 2010 at 5:17 am Link to this comment

Get ready boys and girls.  It’s time for the Mark
of the Beast.  Rev. 13 says, “You won’t be able to
buy or sell without the mark of the beast.”  Buying
and selling?  Sounds like “BUSINESS” to me. Get on
line and check out the business firm “Digital Angel.”
It’s chip planting time.  You can’t say I haven’t
been trying to tell you.  DON’T TAKE THE CHIP!

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godistwaddle's avatar

By godistwaddle, July 14, 2010 at 3:47 am Link to this comment

If CEO’s hate Obama, there must be something good about him, but I can’t think of anything.  Might as well be screwed by a thug as a sweet-talking do-nothing. Vote Republithug.

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By haryybell, July 14, 2010 at 3:25 am Link to this comment

Really a educative and informative post, the post is good in all regards,I am glad to read this post.

Madal Bal Natural Tree Syrup

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