|
|
May 21, 2013
|
|
War, Debt and the PresidentPosted on Aug 2, 2011
By Amy Goodman President Barack Obama touted his debt ceiling deal Tuesday, saying, “We can’t balance the budget on the backs of the very people who have borne the biggest brunt of this recession.” Yet that is what he and his coterie of Wall Street advisers have done. In the affairs of nations, Alexander Hamilton wrote in January 1790, “loans in times of public danger, especially from foreign war, are found an indispensable resource.” It was his first report as secretary of the treasury to the new Congress of the United States. The country had borrowed to fight the Revolutionary War, and Hamilton proposed a system of public debt to pay those loans. The history of the U.S. national debt is inexorably tied to its many wars. The resolution this week of the so-called debt ceiling crisis is no different. Not only did a compliant Congress agree to fund President George W. Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with emergency appropriations; it did so with borrowed money, raising the debt ceiling 10 times since 2001 without quibbling. So how did the Pentagon fare in the current budget battle? It looks like it did fine. Not to be confused with the soldiers and veterans who have fought these wars. “This year is the 50th anniversary of [Dwight] Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex speech,” William Hartung of the Center for International Policy told me while the Senate assembled to vote on the debt ceiling bill. Speaking of the late general turned Republican U.S. president, Hartung said: “He talked about the need for a balanced economy, for a healthy population. Essentially, he’s to the left of Barack Obama on these issues.” Advertisement “It was put in in 1917 during World War I, and the idea was to prevent President Wilson from committing even more American troops and money to war. In every country of Europe—England, France—the parliamentary control over the budget was introduced to stop ambitious kings or rulers from waging wars. So the whole purpose was to limit a government’s ability to run into debt for war, because that was the only reason that governments ran into debt.” The Budget Control Act of 2011 assures drastic cuts to the U.S. social safety net. Congress will appoint a committee of 12, dubbed the “Super Congress,” evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, to identify $1.2 trillion in cuts by Thanksgiving. If the committee fails to meet that goal, sweeping, mandatory, across-the-board cuts are mandated. Social services would get cut, but so would the Pentagon. Or would it? The Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus opposed the bill. Congressional Black Caucus Chair Emanuel Cleaver called it “a sugarcoated Satan sandwich.” For fiscal years 2012 and 2013, the discretionary funding approved is split between “security” and “nonsecurity” categories. “Nonsecurity” categories like food programs, housing, Medicare and Medicaid (the basis of any genuine national security) will most likely be cut. But the “security” budget will get hit equally hard, which Democrats suggest would be an incentive for Republicans to cooperate with the process. The security category includes “Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Nuclear Security Administration, the intelligence community [and] international affairs.” This sets up a dynamic where hawks will be trying to cut as much as possible from the State Department’s diplomatic corps, and foreign aid, in order to favor their patrons at the Pentagon and in the weapons industry. Hartung explained that the contractors, in addition to having the support of Speaker of the House John Boehner, “had Buck McKeon, the head of the House Armed Services Committee, whose biggest contributor is Lockheed Martin, who’s got big military facilities in his district, [and] Randy Forbes, whose district is near the Newport News Shipbuilding complex, which builds attack submarines and aircraft carriers. They used their influence to get people on the inside, their allies in the House, to push their agenda.” President Obama’s debt ceiling deal is widely considered a historic defeat for progressives, a successful attack on the New Deal and Great Society achievements of the past century. Congresswoman Donna Edwards, D-Md., summed up the disappointment, in which half the Democrats in the House voted against their president, tweeting: “Nada from million/billionaires; corp tax loopholes aplenty; only sacrifice from the poor/middle class? Shared sacrifice, balance? Really?” The Project on Government Oversight says of the “Super Congress” that “the creation of the committee doesn’t come with many requirements for transparency.” Who will be the watchdog? With the 2012 election coming up, promising to be the most expensive ever, expect the committee’s deficit-reduction proposal, due by Thanksgiving and subject to an up-or-down vote, to have very little to give thanks for. Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North America. She is the author of “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller. © 2011 Amy Goodman Distributed by King Features Syndicate New and Improved CommentsIf you have trouble leaving a comment, review this help page. Still having problems? Let us know. If you find yourself moderated, take a moment to review our comment policy. |
By drbhelthi, August 8, 2011 at 6:40 am Link to this comment
“drbhelthi, Thanks for replying. I thought you might address the matter mentioned; that it took
only several minutes to check the various University websites to find detailed confirmation of
the President’s accomplishments at each,- - ” old guys
“You seem like an independent sort, so this all might be relevant to you.” old guys
Obama also published a long-form, birth certificate a couple months ago. It was lauded from all
sides as a falsified accomplishment. Also, the alteration of his record of birth in Kenya was a
falsified accomplishment. There are many other “accomplishments.” Such as the intimidation of
birth record custodians and hospital employees in Hawaii. Two years ago, the chief custodian of
birth records in Hawaii stated that there was no record of birth for a Barack Hussein Obama. I
wonder if his airplane has blown up in the sky, or if he stabbed himself 22 times with a letter-
opener and died in a hotel room, or if he died from one of those “unusual” auto accidents that
are never solved?
As far as being tracked online, the arrests, around the world of alleged members of
“anonymous,” is proof that anonymity on the internet does not exist. In 2003, a former insider
provided me with a bit of information about the NSA and me. Which is not verifiable - - .
Aliases are neat. I guess. But the spy types, legal or illegal, have the real names and
addresses, social histories, and current bank information on anyone they want. Whether the
persons use the internet or not.
Thank you for a civil response.
Report thisBy drbhelthi, August 8, 2011 at 5:40 am Link to this comment
“Homework” was published by Mrs. Mae Brussel, a marvellously accurate
historian, honest American Patriot of the Jewish faith, during the 1980s.
Sherman Skolnick, the Illinois crooked-judge-buster of the 1970s, also
picked up on it. Skolnick revealed that “Barack Obama” was a Kenyan who
had associations with the Chicago crime syndicate.
The following statement in the commentary is false, doctored to cover-up
U.S. leadership stupidity.
“German General Gehlen was a criminal, but only a minor player in the real
story. The idea that he somehow “controlled” the CIA is total bullshit. He
did exactly what Allen Dulles wanted him to do and would have been dead
the second he stopped playing.” (Reads good, but the opposite was also
possible; he could have had Dulles killed. However, Dulles was one goose
that laid a few golden eggs - for the NAZIs, at the expense of the
American Taxpayer. Already in the 1940s.)
SS NAZI Gen. Gehlin formed the C.I.A. at the end of WWII, subsequently
providing U.S. leaders with fairy tale information about the plans of the
Soviets. In essence, he created the “cold war” via the info he invented.
Once his falsifications were discerned, years later, he absconded back to
Germany, where he formed the German Secret Service, the BND, with German
WWII NAZI staff formerly on the U.S. payroll. Of course, neither German
nor U.S. “leaders” care to reveal this element of their continuous
stupidity.
There is much more information available. Some of it has been
Report thisremoved from >immediate access< on the internet. The NAZI element of the
C.I.A. continues in the USA. The C.I.A. has a saying: “once C.I.A., always
C.I.A.” Obama does as his handlers tell him to do. Destroy, destroy !
http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/government-corruption/almost-true-
story-about-the-nazius-connection.html
By Gabriel, August 8, 2011 at 2:30 am Link to this comment
that’s a great find drbhelthi
Report thisanother one to add to the collection. you must really be doing your homework. similar has been found before but not to this extent.
now to check actual docs
By drbhelthi, August 7, 2011 at 5:08 am Link to this comment
The political system is broken, in that it drives representatives in the arms of the rich, destroying their independence to vote. But it does not need a grand conspiracy to be this broken. Marian Griffith
Agreed. Perhaps not needed, the grand conspiracy has significantly added to the complexity of the fraud and dishonesty. That the leadership of both the Democrat and Republican parties sucked into bribed prostitute status was a sad day in U.S. history.
The grand conspiracy, first clearly evidenced by the secretive “Operation Paper Clip,” has consistently amplified the fraud. The furtive take-over of the U.S. Gov. by WWII Hitler-types,(NAZI element of the C.I.A.) and their Israeli cousin- Zionist-types, (owners of the Federal Reserve) put the U.S. where it was at, prior to the election of the U.S.President, 2008. The Kenyan imposter and entourage have accelerated, and perhaps doubled, the destruction brought about by the GHWBushSr entourage.
Report thishttp://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=8252175042329977626#
By old guys, August 5, 2011 at 7:26 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
drbhelthi, Thanks for replying. I thought you might address the matter mentioned; that it took only several minutes to check the various University websites to find detailed confirmation of the President’s accomplishments at each, facts they have highlighted. My point holds true. Without honesty, we are nothing. Without precision of thought, we are less than we were meant to be.
If it is any use to you, I find the Obama Presidency to be a tragic disappointment for the world. As for no longer being a registered user here, in the past, I used my real name for controversial political posts. Aside from nutty emails rec’d, I began reading the Privacy Policy pages of the various opinion blogs and found almost all log your name, your computer’s IP address and track your posting and surfing through their pages. Most also, if your browser settings allow, install several data “cookies” on your machine. You seem like an independent sort, so this all might be relevant to you. Take care.
Report thisBy RayLan, August 5, 2011 at 3:08 pm Link to this comment
Some master surgeon needs to re-connect Obama’s mouth with the rest of his body (especially his signature hand) cause they just don’t synch up.
Report thisBy Anarcissie, August 4, 2011 at 9:48 pm Link to this comment
I think of Ike as being rather crafty, actually. It is said his favorite author was Machiavelli.
As for what Ike could have done—not much, actually. He was basically a conservative (a real conservative, not a ‘conservative’ in modern parlance) so it was contrary to his nature to rock the boat anyway; the people were tired of the excitements of war and Harry Truman; the ruling class had plans for certain kinds of progress, such as de-Balkanizing the racial situation, but they were long-term. Any serious change had to come from below (as it did soon after Ike departed office).
In retrospect, however, he stands out because he seems to have been the last competent, the last mensch, in the presidency. The Kennedys were playboys; Johnson and Nixon meant to be menschen, but they were lacking some needed element. After that it was all downhill. The ruling class seems to have fallen apart, and the people it puts forward to govern us are sad cases, reminiscent of the varied poltroons and numbskulls of our 19th century.
Report thisBy D.R. Zing, August 4, 2011 at 8:46 pm Link to this comment
Hi Anarcissie,
I don’t disagree with what you wrote in reply to my post. All true.
I just notice that progressives tend to look at Ike’s exit speech and conclude he was some type of benign grandpa peacemaker as president. He wasn’t.
He made many truculent and terrible foreign policy decisions—as did Truman, JFK, Lyndon Baines Johnson—that prolonged The Cold War into the 1970s and the 1980s.
If he had made the military industrial complex speech at the inauguration of his second term, he could have changed the course of history for the better.
Instead, he brooded and waited and delivered the speech as the final public act of a guilt-ridden man seeking penance.
His words meant nothing.
His actions and inactions as president prolonged the Cold War for decades and paralyzed progressive free speech to this very day.
He was, first foremost and always, a general, not a peacemaker.
—
I enjoy your posts quite a lot, Anarcissie. Keep up the good work.
Report thisBy Marian Griffith, August 4, 2011 at 2:18 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
@Conden(and many others)
There is no grand conspiracy, no secret cabal of bankers.
There is only representatives who need multi billion budgets for the permament election campaigns. And they must turn to the rich and the corporations (and more and more those two are the same) since the rest of the country combined can not compare to the amount of wealth those have amassed.
Let us not forget that last summer Obama was trying to get his health care reforms pushed through house and senate (where the democrats were only one vote short of being able to completely ignore the republicans). At the first sign of insurance companies organising protests (that is where we got the tea party) and probably a few phonecalls to warn them of ‘consequences for their campaign budgets, and the democrat representatives nervously milled about. When they lost the late Kennedy’s seat (which they considered secure) the nervous retreat became a panicked stampede.
Even being only two votes short of absolute majority the democrats -acted- as if the republicans had the majority.
Part of it was Obama trying to get the republicans on board of his reforms (hoping for a deal that would not be undone as soon as a republican came into power), but most of it was the democrat party acting as the ‘party of windvanes’: turning away from the least sign of resistance.
And now we have a house where the republicans have a small majority and they act as if they have the majority that the democrats did have, and did not make use of.
The political system is broken, in that it drives representatives in the arms of the rich, destroying their independence to vote. But it does not need a grand conspiracy to be this broken.
Report thisBy racetoinfinity, August 4, 2011 at 2:27 am Link to this comment
“....expect the committee’s deficit-reduction proposal, due by Thanksgiving and subject to an up-or-down vote….”
An up-or-down vote?! We (the people) are screwed! Obama is not a wimp, contrary to conventional wisdom; he’s a corporatist who campaigned in semi-progressive clothing (and still makes liberal speeches that he does 180 degree actions on). He WANTS to cut entitlements; he’s said so (see Glenn Greenwald’s recent column).
Protest is needed!
Report thisBy drbhelthi, August 3, 2011 at 10:05 pm Link to this comment
You know, pal, when we get older, it’s probably a good idea to gather a bit of honor through honesty. old guys(Unregistered commenter)
Sounds good.
You might try it out yourself.
Begin by not calling me your pal.
Since when is age related with honor?
Or honesty?
Obviously you did not goto the Kenyan newspaper article of 2004, announcing “Obama” as a Kenyan prepared to enter a U.S. Senate position.
When the Chicago crime scene slid Obama into the U.S.Senate position, did it also switch his birthplace from Kenya to Hawaii?
Report thisOr did the CIA make the switch ?
And a nonregistered blogger, whose blog smacks of CIA, lectures me on honor and honesty ?
By Conden, August 3, 2011 at 6:13 pm Link to this comment
We could have seen, two years ago when the democrats had all the power in the world, them forcing the republicans to agree to 2.1 trillion in additional spending on federal programs to house, feed, educate and rebuild this country in a green way. Instead, “compromise” always involves right wing democrats hiding behind the republicans to do what they wanted to do all along. These irresponsible, lying right wing scumbags called the democrats need to be thrown out. We need a giant recall election to destroy every one of them and remake our electoral system.
Report thisBy PatrickHenry, August 3, 2011 at 4:33 pm Link to this comment
We are entering our 4th general election cycle with paperless voting machines which defy a recount and accurate proven poll tallies.
We get the same old politicians until they die.
Why is that?
Report thisBy old guys, August 3, 2011 at 3:09 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
drbhelthi, Your attacks on our ineffectual President are undignified, coming from a man of your years. I took 5 or 6 minutes last year and verified at websites of Obama’s US universities that they provide obvious, accessible and definitive confirmation of his high achievements. You know, pal, when we get older, it’s probably a good idea to gather a bit of honor through honesty.
Report thisBy Cajun edge, August 3, 2011 at 3:00 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
“Son of Palestine,” cool comments, probly true, bro. If you are for real, you might drop using the israeli caricature of your people in your writing. I think, maybe, you are no more a Palestinian than the war-baiting CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. Folks as Blitzer, with thousands of years of practice under their belts, will set aside [even] monetary gain, when the joy of inducing human misery becomes likely. Cite CNN’s months-long campaign to start a war with the people of Syria.
Report thisBy drbhelthi, August 3, 2011 at 12:57 pm Link to this comment
“O-blah-ma keeps wagging about compromise and buying into the Wall Street lie about taxes and government spending being the cause of our economic woes. What a weenie!” RayLan
I classify the man who uses the name, “Barack Hussein Obama,” not as a weenie, but rather as a twenty-seven-year experienced CIA operative,
born in Kenya,
whom the owners- of the owners- of Wall St., illegally placed into the U.S.Presidency AS THEIR LOBBYIST !!!
Who provided the two million $U.S. he spent altering his Kenyan birth record, and his U.S. university transcripts? He did attend a university, so it is said, but without creditable evidence.
http://web.archive.org/web/20040627142700/eastandard.net/headlines/
Report thisnews26060403.htm
By SeveredVayne, August 3, 2011 at 11:42 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Thanks for pointing this all out Goodman, now just what would you like us to do about it?
Report thisBy Les libéraux détestent la diversité, August 3, 2011 at 11:40 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Are China and US Destined to Clash?
August 1 is Army Day in China. Recent improvements in Sino-US military ties are welcome, but conflicting interests mean tensions might still be inevitable.
http://the-diplomat.com/2011/08/01/are-china-and-us-destined-to-clash/
Report thisBy jr., August 3, 2011 at 11:33 am Link to this comment
America’s answer to debt, SPEND more.
http://www.rt.com/usa/news/us-drone-hawk-billions
Report thisBy SoTexGuy, August 3, 2011 at 11:15 am Link to this comment
To Morri Creech.. THANK YOU!
I had to look up Peter Stuyvesant.. the names and times and places that resulted
would make a Sabatini novel..
I am in your debt.
Report thisBy Son of Palestine, August 3, 2011 at 10:41 am Link to this comment
Finally, at last, one honest thinking journalist, namely Amy Goodman, managed to establish a connection between the financial and economic woes of these sad United States of America and the war industry, as represented by the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex.
So the fixing of this crisis should be:
Down with the Pentagon!
Report thisDown with the Military-Industrial Complex!
Down with Fear-Mongers!
Down with War-Mongers!
Down with Merchants of Death!
By lasmog, August 3, 2011 at 10:40 am Link to this comment
And while all this is going on, climate change is coming at us like a runaway train. We’re headed to a very dangerous place.
Report thisBy Morri Creech, August 3, 2011 at 8:51 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
One of our great American poets, Robert Lowell, wrote this of Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953:
INAUGURATION DAY: JANUARY 1953
The snow had buried Stuyvesant.
The subways drummed the vaults. I heard
the El’s green girders charge on Third,
Manhattan’s truss of adamant,
that groaned in ermine, slummed on want . . .
Cyclonic zero of the word,
God of our armies, who interred
Cold Harbor’s blue immortals, Grant!
Horseman, your sword is in the groove!
Ice, ice. Our wheels no longer move.
Look, the fixed stars, all just alike
as lack-land atoms, split apart,
and the Republic summons Ike,
the mausoleum in her heart.”
The final stanza, or sestet, of this lovely and harrowing sonnet (despite its arguable overuse of the exlamation point, that is) seems all the more poignant, and prophetic, today. It is frightening to look over our shoulders and see Eisenhower now as a compassionate liberal compared to even Democratic leadership today. Nearly sixty years later, the mausoleum is still lodged firmly in our collective heart. We see the same things now that Lowell saw then: the royal-purples and ermine of rapacious Wall Street (which still “groans” forward, that verb at once suggestive of cynical complaint, sluggishness, laziness, decrepitude, inertia); the persistent specter of the split atom and all that implies; the continued militarism behind our economic success, sans the nobility of epic, nation-defining stuggles of the past (now we follow “small war on the heels of small war” to pay for our “monotonous sublime,” as Lowell characterized it in “Near the Ocean”); and the sense of forward progress frozen or grinding to a halt. American exceptionalism, along with the country’s beleaguered political system itself, has become the whited sepulcher Lowell saw that January sixty years ago. Where are poets like Lowell now, by the way, the ones with sufficient vision to tackle the character of our nation, its choices and its values, while remaining real artists and not ideologues or “translators of ready-made meaning” (to use Osip Mandelstam’s condemning phrase for poets who have a mere political “message” instead of a clear worldview?) Enjoying our sinecures in the university, and congratulating ourselves on our AWP professionalism, I suppose. Poets have become notoriously reasonable and soft-spoken in our times. How sad for us. To derange a passage from W. B. Yeats, it seems that in our age “The best lack all conviction while the worst / Have M.B.A.‘s or work in government.”
Report thisBy LocalHero, August 3, 2011 at 8:44 am Link to this comment
The Pentagon will get everything they want and more until the childish, brainwashed, arrested-adolescent automatons (shown saluting like robots in the pic above) STOP “serving their (corrupt, evil) country” and their idiot parents stop sending them to fight for oil and banking interests. Stop feeding The Beast.
Report thisBy SarcastiCanuck, August 3, 2011 at 8:37 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Welcome to the cost of empire and the 21st century fight for diminishing resources.All to be borne on the backs of the shrinking middle class.
Report thisBy RayLan, August 3, 2011 at 6:49 am Link to this comment
O-blah-ma keeps wagging about compromise and buying into the Wall Street lie about taxes and government spending being the cause of our economic woes. What a weenie!
Report thisBy Bbethany7, August 3, 2011 at 5:56 am Link to this comment
Historically great empires decline and topple in
Report thisslow motion over centuries, or at least many
decades. The U.S. is in the midst of this process,
which is accelerating at alarming speed. We’re
having a national nervous breakdown, and it’s
fascinating, though sad, to behold.
By tedmurphy41, August 3, 2011 at 5:33 am Link to this comment
Debt ceiling?
Report thisI didn’t know that America needed one as it’s current debt is already astronomical and rising.
When such a thing as overspending happens, within any Country in the World, it is normal to look at what is causing it and then to act decisively to rectify it.
What has just taken place within Congress is neither, apart from more of the same but with even direr consequences for the working and unemployed (poor) American.
Greece is also being hammered in the press by some unelected and unaccountable group calling itself Standard and Poor, along with other “expert” market analysists (the same crowd of financial wizards who could not forcast the sub-prime catastrophe) but if anyone bothered to look a little closer, America is in a far worse state than Greece, and I would suggest that it has no logical way of paying back this debt.
It’s a good job that the American dollar is currently the main unit of currency within trading Nations around the World.
However, were this to change…....???
By prosefights, August 3, 2011 at 5:30 am Link to this comment
War in September/October?
Having sampled a little “follow the money” logic, we now move on to considering how the PTB will spin the collapse of the US /Global economy into something which can be blamed on a “New Demon” which we’ve been watching develop as Iran is being set-up to take the fall.
One of the relatively “easy” tells (as in poke face giveaways) is that the US now has seven carriers at sea including the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) - 5th Fleet which means in the Persian gulf area.
We’ll be watching today ships underway (presently 53%) and the locations of the Amphibious Warfare Ships (LHD’s) for further hints. But, if you see two or three LHD’s head toward the Gulf, it’ll be time to check the potassium iodate supplies again.
The events of 9/11 and the subsequent war-frenzy whipped on Iraq (which didn’t have anything to do with the events of 9/11 as is now commonly acknowledged) was a fine prototype: The PTB can bring the world to the brink of Depression 2 recognition and spin it away with a deft fall]-guy event.
Wouldn’t want to be planning tourism in the Middle East this fall, thanks.
Urban Survival, Monday August 1, 2011
http://www.prosefights.org/deaton/deaton.htm
Report thisBy Anarcissie, August 3, 2011 at 5:16 am Link to this comment
D. R. Zing—It seems to me Eisenhower simply followed the program for world domination already laid down by Truman, Marshall and Acheson during and right after World War 2. Notice that, although a conservative, he did not attempt to reverse the racial integration of the armed forces ordered by Truman (no doubt a decided policy of the ruling class of the time). This came in handy a few years later when it became necessary to remind enthusiasts of the Southern Way of Life who had won the Civil War.
Report thisBy SoTexGuy, August 3, 2011 at 4:17 am Link to this comment
I gotta get this off my chest and here’s as good a place as any..
Whoever thought up the stunt of bringing that poor damaged woman down the aisle of the Congress at the height of the drama to ‘vote her conscience’ is an evil incarnate.
It was all theatre. A distraction for us all and an excuse for the Democrats to vote for this deal. There’s a Democratic ‘Carl Rove’ somewhere and he or she is in play.
That’s what I think, anyway.
Report thisBy Makaainana, August 3, 2011 at 1:55 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
The more things change the more they stay the same.
Obama is a talking democrat vs a walking democrat.
And as we all know talk is cheap. It also has no credibility.
You’ve heard the saying, “Your actions are so loud I can’t hear your words”? Now you’ve seen them in action.
If Obama had not of hoped to make the repubs look bad for the next election he could easily have stopped all this nonsense. All he had to do was tell the repubs that he would use the 14th Amendment or he would use 31 USC 3101 and 3102. And they could continure to yammer on if they wanted. But what the people wanted and what the dems were going to work on was JOBS.
So why didn’t he? Because he is playing election “make you look bad games”. He hoped the repubs would be villians and he would be a hero.
In the 2012 election find as many progressive candidates as you can. People that can stand and tell Obama not to mess with the big three. He is you know.
He appointed Alan Sipson to the debt reduction commission. That alone tells the whole story.
He wimped on appointing Elizabeth Warren, the lady to the consumer protection bureau and now the Repubs have said “We are not going to let you appoint anyone”
Lets see if he tells Congress if you want to stay in session all summer I have plenty of work for you or you can take a cut in pay if you want to be “in session” but at home.
If you put up with it you deserve it.
Report thisBy Richard_Ralph_Roehl, August 3, 2011 at 1:26 am Link to this comment
The United $tates of Perpetual War Profiteering is more than fiscally bankrupt. It is morally and ethically bankrupt. Amerika has devolved into a violent, war mongering beast that preys upon all the peoples of the world.
Mr. Obama? According to one wag I know, he’s nothing more than a “house ni@@er” for ruling class bankster gambler addicts in the Wall $treet casino… and their cousins, the Pentagon boners in the military industrial complex.
The United $tates, as we presently know it, will NOT exist by 2050. And most of humankind (a.k.a.: ewe-man-unkind) will be dead by 2100. Humans are creative and colorful and imaginative… but they lack prescience and common sense. They cannot escape outdated religious dogmesses and tribe-all-eeego identities. Thus… the ‘espeicies’ trundles down the road toward extinction.
Report thisBy Diana Brooks, August 3, 2011 at 12:01 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Every dog has its day. Its time. Let the truth be known of our socalled great nation. Free your minds amerikans.
Report thisBy litlpeep, August 2, 2011 at 10:11 pm Link to this comment
Of course Obama is to the right of Ike! He is to the right of the Tea Party, in every way except rhetorically.
The next round of cuts will be on combat veterans, the State Department, Medicare, Medicaid, housing, food programs, anything for the dispossessed, the downtrodden, the poor (all those listed on the Statue of Liberty), of course.
This assures that Obama can still sing the left wing songs while he plays poker with the Tea Party. And why shouldn’t he? His followers are all dizzy with intoxication on how wonderful he is.
Report thisBy bobi6, August 2, 2011 at 9:38 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I am so sick of the right wing’s claim that government should be run like
any family, small business, big business. Such utter nonsense.
Government is to serve the protect the people. Families borrow money.
Hardly anyone would have a car or a house if they did not borrow money
and go into debt. It’s a good thing and our economy depends on this.
Businesses constantly borrow money to stay afloat for expansion, for
payrolls, for new equipment. It’s an investment. It is just a lie to say
families and business don’t spend money they don’t have like
government does.
These people are either stupid or are sure we are. Obama must be brain
dead to have fallen over and over into their traps. How can anyone make
the same mistakes so many times and never learn. Now he says it will be
better next time. Is he crazy? Does he really think the Republicans will
give him a break because it is now the Democrats turn. Not going to
happen and Obama is too weak to stand by his comments and pledges.
Get him out of office. He won’t be any different in his second plan. The
Report thisRepublicans tramp all over him and he wants to be liked so much he says
“thank you’ and hit me again. A Republican president is scary but face it
folks, we elected a REpublican president in 2008. We were tricked. Don’t
be like Obama. Fool me once it’s your fault, fool me twice it’s my fault.
By D.R. Zing, August 2, 2011 at 8:37 pm Link to this comment
Hi Amy,
I have a great deal of respect for you. I respect what you do with your program Democracy Now!
I have no qualms with the overall points in this article.
But there’s a sentence or two that leaves a lingering foul taste in my mouth like a bad peanut.
Namely, it’s your mention of Eisenhower’s military industrial complex quote. I would strongly suggest that you read or re-read David Ambrose’s doting biography Eisenhower: Soldier and President (The Renowned One-Volume Life).
And consider this fact: Eisenhower named the military industrial complex during the last speech of his presidency. Ike may have had a good heart (figuratively speaking of course), he was no doubt a phenomenal general, and he also had liberal personal leanings, but consider what he actually did while president.
* He overthrew a democratically elected government in Iran at the behest of a British petroleum company.
* He authorized the U2 spy mission that ultimately undermined peace talks that could have ended The Cold War in 1960.
* He sent American personnel to Vietnam.
* He established what eventually became the Bay of Pigs invasion force.
* He kept his political chestnuts nice and warm by the home hearth while McCarthy forever changed American politics by roasting American intellectuals and artists.
* He did nothing for civil rights even though he knew in his heart that standing up for civil rights was the right thing to do.
Do I personally like Ike? Yes. Would I have liked to meet him? Damn right. Do I think he was a good person, perhaps the most moral and likeable person we’ve had in the presidency? Absolutely. I like Ike. But I cannot let the personae and mystique of the man veil his true presidential legacy.
He made terrible executive decisions that still haunt us today (think BP in Iran giving us the Shah, and the Shah rendering a torn Iran for the Ayatollah; BP in the Gulf of Mexico giving us the oil hemorrhage; the malignant, never ending Cold War that metastasized into the war on terror; progressive free speech that is nonexistent at a network news level for fear of the next McCarthy witch hunt).
Please don’t judge or canonize Ike by what he said as the White House door was smacking him in the ass on his way out. Judge by what he did and what he didn’t do during his eight year presidency. He was a very bad president in many ways, an aggressive president who made bone-headed foreign policy decisions, a passive president who refused to stand up to McCarthy or for civil rights.
Wow.
It seems kind of weird to say “all the best” after all that. But I believe we’re on the same side on many issues. I’m just a bit weary of hearing people refer to Ike as if he were a saint when what I see are the bunglings of an old man who was in very poor health and made very bad decisions, decisions that he regretted dearly and attempted to amend with a final speech full of wisdom and piety signifying nothing.
All the best
Zing.
Report thisBy NoStripeshere, August 2, 2011 at 7:56 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
A super congress? Are you kidding me? And without transparency.
I see nuclear wars in the future.
I see a committee that has gone done the rabbit hole with a large dose of
xenophobia and a grenade in it’s paws.
F**K - its time to get out of America.
Report thisBy Gulam, August 2, 2011 at 7:52 pm Link to this comment
America is going down, and while this disturbs many Americans,
Report thiswhat is the down-side for the rest of the world? If the USA
crashes, half the world’s munitions stop being made, and an
endless string of poor nations cease to be invaded and raped
for the most ludicrous and trumpted-up of reasons. Nuclear
weapons and power plants that the Americans and their camp
followers spread everywhere will forever be monument to their stupidity and
arrogance, but at least this will stop spreading, for the rest of this mad
industrial economy will go down with the Yankees. The very last thing that this
planet and her people need are these international systems built by the
Americans part of their domination, like the World Bank and The UN. The more
we become one integrated system the more likely that some one arrogant
political group or one new virus can spread and kill everyone. The poor of the
world, the downtrodden and dispossessed should be dancing in the streets, for
these Americans are surely their worst enemy.
By gerard, August 2, 2011 at 7:43 pm Link to this comment
Viewed from abroad, it’s hard not to despise Americans these days. Twenty/thirty years ago there was already a lot of free-floating envy (which implies dislike at least), but not active hatred and disgust.
But our incessant greed, childish defensiveness and continuous warring have reduced dislike to scorn, fear, and downright revulsion. That scorn pushes us into further defensiveness, which arouses further revulsion, until it has reached the point where there’s very little “diplomats” can do, even if they may try to be “diplomatic.” The national policies themselves are alienating.
Not doing anything to self-correct is proof that we are not even willing to face conceit as a problem that engenders phoney relationships and pretenses on all sides,
The insensitivities of the Cold War, followed by the stupidity we evidenced decades ago in VietNam has now been intensified throughout the Middle East. Sad to say, Europe is only slightly behind us in feelings of superiority. The disgusting “white man’s burden” in all its cruel inanity is taking a terrible toll.
This is not to say that other nations don’t feel superior in one way or another. They do. But it’s our unsubtlty that’s so galling—the flaunting, the
Report thistastelessness, the naivete, the lack of awareness which reinforces our conceits.
By MeHere, August 2, 2011 at 6:35 pm Link to this comment
Are US voters aware that we are now in our second bailout in less than 4 years?
Report thisThe debt crisis has resulted in a bailout of the financial/corporate/military
complex. Yes, we are paying for their “entitlements” once again. The debt became
a threat to big interests who sent their armies of warriors to DC to urge the
legislature to fix it. The settlement has nothing to do with democracy at work.
By berniem, August 2, 2011 at 5:11 pm Link to this comment
A contrived jobless “recovery” + a large number of poorly educated youth + a rapacious and immoral military, government, industrial complex = endless deficits + a declining society.
Report this