Catching Up On The Current Political Situation

For reasons of school break and then a very demanding three-week course on developing skills needed for taking online classes, I had to put blogging essays on hold. Also, this is the time of year I have to attend to watering large gardens on a regular and rotating schedule. Summer session is over at the end of July. Then I will be unable to post again until the Fall semester begins the last week in August. With that said, I have to turn out some essays rather quickly.
The essay at hand follows no linear chronology, a kind of stream of consciousness.

The Republican putsch in the New York State Legislature recently, when two Democrats (with preexisting liabilities) switched parties to give Republicans majority control, exposes both the fragility of a two-party political system , and Barack Obama's naivete in structuring his administration on bipartisanship with what appears to be a rogue outfit determined to dismantle government and Obama's administration along the way!

President Obama has retained some Republicans from the Bush administration and appointed, not always successfully, other Republicans for Cabinet and other important posts. The putsch should be a wake up call for the novice politician. Republicans have made it quite clear that they envision a failed Obama presidency.

The Blue-Dog Democrats in the House of Representatives might as well be Republican moles. They can splinter the Democratic majority on important bills. In this regard, bills passed by narrow margins are easily watered down in House-Senate conference negotiations.

At last, Al Frankin has been judged winner in the Minnesota senatorial race, after eight months of Senator Coleman's maneuverings. Theoretically, Frankin now gives Democrats in the Senate a 60-count filibuster-proof majority. But, if the Senate is not conservative enough, it has its own breed of mongrel, with Joe Lieberman leading the pack. Arlin Specter was probably the inspiration behind the New York State putsch. His action makes a mockery of the one-party system with two branches.

Obama's centrist stand on most issues, except those related to the military and Israel, will preclude any hope for a real change in his administration. He has issued six signing statements in less than six months in office. At this rate he might surpass Geo. W. Bush, who currently holds the record. There will be no change with an indecisive and flipfloping (to the Right) Obama. His alliance with corporate elites on so-called health care reform, when as an Illinois legislator in 2002, he advocated the Single-Payer system, tells me all I need to know about Obama's values.

Barak Obama was an amazingly successful single-slogan presidential candidate: "Yes we can!" Sadly, the pitch is hollow and meaningless. Much of what he promised, and really only in very broad generalities, has been qualified, reversed or simply dropped. His waffling on healthcare reform is the pattern. "Don't ask, don't tell" is another example of promises left vacant. Closing Guantanimo prison keeps getting pushed back. And the exit date from Iraq is anybody's guess.

Speaking of Iraq, Obama is silent on the issue of tens of thousands of private contractors and what is actually being accomplished with the billions of US dollars provided them. With four huge US airbases and the world's largest embassy under construction or recently completed, it appears that US troops and western contractors will be in Iraq for a long time to come.


My most recent pondering deals with whether Obama is simply following Geo. W. Bush's policies or acting out the SOP of empire? It's probably the latter, because Boy George was doing the same, if more vehemently. That is, whomever sits as president, regardless of prior positions and campaign promises, there will be a seamless continuation in conservative and moderate administrations, certainly with regard to military and corporate rule--pax americana and the inviolable Free Market.

Every elected president from JFK, probably from FDR, if Eisenhower's Suez involvement is considered, has had his war! Obama keeps the occupation of Iraq, renews and intensifies the Afghanistan occupation and expands it into Pakistan. He seems to entertain an aerial war against Iran and is moving US troops into Columbia military bases in response to ALBA or the Bolivarian movement throughout Latin America.

The Honduran coup has tacit US backing; and Secretary of State Clinton and Obama have been duplicitous in their attempts to prolong the right wing take over until elections. The similarities with the Haitian coup orchestrated by the US, leave nothing to doubt. And let us not forget the failed Venezuela coup attempted by the US! The US embassy in Bolivia has intervined on behalf of the separist groups (the landed gentry who have controled regions with the greatest natural resources) that oppose the indigenous, democractic Morales administration. The ALBA challenge to the Washington Consensus, the IMF and a rogue Free Market domination will succeed!

The ascendancy of China will bring with it a new global order. Africa will come into its own, with considerable assistance from China!. All the signs of empire overextension and fatigue are there to see. The US is decaying from within. And when the US dollar ceases as reserve currency, the empire will collapse!

The Wall Street debacle is so deeply conspiratorial as to require its own essay, and that would be a daunting undertaking! Let it be said for now that President Clinton was a principal figure in paving the way for deregulation by supporting and signing The Commodity Futures Modernization Act and The Financial Services Mondernization Act. The legislation was pushed through Congress by Phil Gramm, the republican head of the Senate Finance committee, who then left the Senate to become an officer of a foreign financial institution that American taxpayers are currently bailing out! Nice work, Phil! Nevertheless, the Wall Street bailouts, to Obama's satisfaction, are bipartisan--democrates and republicans working hand-in-hand, pickpocketing the American taxpayer. To a large extent the bailout scheme is a Goldman Sachs coup. Former and revolving Federal Reserve and US Treasury top brass and Obama's White House staff have held executive positions at Goldman Sachs: Henry Paulson, Larry Summers, Michael Gaithner, Edward Bernikey etc. Obama appointed known suspects in the Wall Street scandals to oversee national financial interests! More later, if I can stomach it all?

The colonial American landed gentry wanted the abundant natural resources and territory for themselves; but, they needed commoners to fight the war against the Britich overlords. As inducement the gentry promised an egalitarian alternative to the British class system and called it "democracy"--with many and considerable loopholes or exceptions. Some exceptions were the Electral College, slavery and the disenfranchisement of women.

The so-called American Revolution was really a coup, a mutiny or more to the point, a land-grab and tax revolt. The ruling British monarchy was preoccupied with other matters and far away. The blessed French were certainly willing to lend a helping hand in challenging the British presence in North America. The indigenous population was prepared to side with the French, who held them in respect. It's my understanding that no revolution ever came to the Colonies. Also, democracy has not yet appeared or will it for the foreseeable future! The current make-up of the U.S. Supreme Court will see to that!

The Supreme Court, historically, is an embarrassment with its long procession of flawed jurists and their misguided pronouncements. It is a political institution with all its concomitant crudities! Even the Warren Court had its machinations and expediencies. Brown 1 and 2 compromised by failing to designate an integration timetable. It's clear as I write that public schools are as segregated now as before Brown!

The vast majority of the 111 Supreme Court justices were reciprocal arrangements and not necessarily based on legal expertise or even a notion of what constitutes democractic and civil rights and liberties. What did Howard Taft know about constitutional rights? The Clarence Thomas nomination and confermation is possibly the most egregious example that comes to mind; but, the Samuel Alito nomination and convermation is a close second! Scalia, Roberts and Kennedy prove my point. Sandra Day O'Connor were active in Arizona politics and rewarded accordingly. The Harvard football great, Wizard White, was a close friend of fellow alumnus, JFK. I considered his legal opinions Neanderthal-like, but he certainly could run with a football!

The point is that political nominations are often suspect when considering the common good. Alito is perhaps the most radical justice to ever sit on the Court, although Scalia is not far behind--or, is it the other way around. Scalia, who slipped through confirmation as a consequence of the Bork debacle in the Reagan era, is apart from Alito only in tenure. Scalia has had a much longer time to prove his extreme orthodoxcy.

In reading court decissions delivered over many decades, the notion that comes immediately to mind is that justices can be just as ill-tempered and misguided as any nutcake on a corner soapbox! One needs only to read Scalia's and Thomas' decissions on the Troy Anthony Davis appeal! Scalia's understanding of the Constitution and due process under the Fourteenth Amendment is detrimental to human and civil rights of every American. An argrument could be made that his dissent in the Davis case is grounds for impeachment. Similar cases could be brought against Alito, Roberts, Thomas and Kennedy on a number of their dicissions!. This Gang of Five is intent upon reversing setted law and shredding the Bill of Rights.

In a major miscalculation, which raises questions about judgement and morality, and one that will forever mark his foreign policy legacy. Obama has placed his imprimatur on the escalation of the U.S. war on Afghanistan and expanding it even further by including military operrations in Paqkistan--Obama's Af-Pak war! (Shortly later, Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize--as the Commander-in-Chief of history's greatest military empire!) Where George W. Bush abandoned Afghanistan (to the Taliban) in favor of invading and occuping Iraq, Barak Obama is lessening the war in Iraq and increasing troop levels in Afghanistan! Some commentators have begun to label the eight-year Afghanistan quagmire as "Obama's Vietnam".

England, pressured by the U.S., has now intervined in Afghanistan affairs on four occasions: 1839, 1879, 1919 and since 2001. There first three were utter disasters; and the fourth is fated for more of the same. The Soviet Union also suffered a tragid defeat in Afghanistan (thanks to U.S. support of Taliban resistance and CIA trained and equipped insurgents), which contributed to its political and economic collapse. There is every indication that the U.S. will eventually claim victory and exit the country, probably during a civil war among ethnic factions, similar to what happened in Iraq between Shia and Sunni. The other possibility is that the failed U.S. occupation will linger on for decades.

National Public Radio and mass media in general have been preparing the nation for military action against Iran, for reasons of its intent to produce weapons of mass distruction. All invasions are now justifiable under this banner of WMDs! If India and Israel can produce stockpiles of nuclear weapons with U.S. blesssings, then why the concern over Iran's desire to further its nuclear capabilities? With truth to tell, Iran, whether the U.S. likes it or not, has become a major player in the Middle East rather serendipitously as a consequence of U.S. invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, support of and assistance to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and I might add,support of India over Pakistan on the Indian occupation of Kashmir!
The Washington Consensus maintains that the military-imperial status quo in the Middle East is contingent on neutralizing Iran through UN sanctions and US/Israeli aerial warfare.

The Afghanistan occupation is escalating, 57,000 U.S. troops now, another 21, 000 about to be added. As long as the U.S. military (and also NATO troops and troops from nations pressured by the U.S.) is operating in Afghanistan, the worse the worse matters will become in Pakistan! Obama's Afghanistan war is expanding to include Pakistan--his Af-Pak war. And, it can be assumed that a regional conflict is not far behind, especially with intensifying U.S. aggression against Iran. When the situation in Palestine is added to the Middle East turmoil, with virtually carte blanche support of Israeli occupations and various other oppressions, peace in the area has been reduced to meaningless rhetoric.

The U.S. presence in Iraq will continue for decades--until Iraqi oil reserves become depleted. Obama's withdrawal of U.S. troops campaign promises have become semantic exercises in deception and the slight of hand repositioning of troops. Obama makes a distinction between occupation troops and combat troops. And what about the thousands of contractors? The military invasion of Iraq was obviously an act of war and the occupation is the continuation of that war. Therefore, the entire Iraqi state is a combat zone and there are no real distinctions among occupying forces, including those engaged in making corporate profits! The so-called insurgents, the Iraqi resistance, are the terrorists in the U.S. scheme, and this is why the conflict will not end until all foreign troops leave!

Recently, I heard Barak Obama referred to as "Bush Lite", a kinder-gentler-speaking Geo. W. Bush, but with very similar political strategies and ambitions. After hearing Obama's grand speeches and press conferrence rhetoric, I conclude he learned from Boy George's gross inadequacies in delivering speeches. His tone and volume suggest he knows of what he speaks and that he apparently believes what he says. However great in presentation, much of what he pronounces is not convincing to those who listen carefully. His deceptions and evasions are becoming recognizable by their very repetition.

Robert McNamara is dead! The man with the greased hair and rimless glasses, the very image of the perfect corporate technocrat wrote a book to assuage his guilt and reformulate his legacy. He was one of many U.S. officials overseeing the Vietnam War that got away with crimes against humanity. When he was promoting his memoir in the 1990s, I wondered why he wrote it? Who was he trying to convince? As I recall his tour statements and his speeches at the time, there seemed to be no sorrow or regret. He could have been speaking to his board of directors. I did not read his book. I had no reason to learn revisionist history.