what do you guys think?

Why the little flurry of posts I shall call “more reasons why obama sux rocks” series? Because I recently noticed that some blogs linked here and i got the impression that the linkers linked to an article i’d reposted because they approved of it. this disturbed me, to think that obama supporters linked here for an article to support their view. after all, i do not support obama (or hillary or any other candidate because i decided long ago to vote for my left tit for president or some commie nobody like i usually do.).

so, i thought i’d post lots about obama’s dash to the rightwing in case anyone bothers to poke around based on those two links. just say no to obama is the guiding principle here. and, like doug, i’m having too much fun watching the predictableness of it all unfold. to be fair, i would have had a laff riot as clinton moved to the right had she won the nomination. petty schadenfreude: entertainment at no extree charge.

Is there anyone who’s kept a checklist of the policy revelations Obama has given in the past couple of weeks that put him further to the right than he initially *appeared* to be? [Krugman has always said his domestic agenda was to the right of Hillary’s.]

It seems like so far it’s been:–

1. Keep and expand Bush’s faith-based initiatives; welfare for religious organizations, particularly unsavory in light of…

2. … announced support for “welfare reform,” a la Clinton’s elimination of AFDC

3. Support for telco amnesty when it comes to prosecution for wiretaps (FISA)

4. Disapproval of 60s anti-Vietnam War protesters who expressed themselves “by burning flags, by blaming America for all that was wrong with the world, and perhaps most tragically, by failing to honor those veterans coming home from Vietnam, something that remains a national shame to this day.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/30/AR2008063002412_pf.html

Also, lest there come the usual “ARE YOU REALLY SURPRISED!? GOOD GOD MAN JUST HOW NAIVE ARE YOU!?”-type responses, which there are always on this list whenever someone points out a Dem’s rightward shift and is pissed about it, please note this post is not made because I am now tragically disillusioned whereas before I was some believer in Obama, which I wasn’t and have never been. Anyone who sees my post history on the guy should know that. So please hold the “ARE YOU TELLING ME YOU ARE REALLY SURPRISED BY THIS!? YOU ARE CERTAINLY A NAIVE ONE! GET AS SAVVY & WORLDWEARY AS ME, MY FRIEND!” type crap.

Anyway, I know I missed a few above. Probably some foreign policy stuff.

-B.

The Movement for Democratic Change: The Continuity of its Theoretical and Practical Weaknesses By Sehlare Makgetlaneng* June 10, 2008

“The fight against Zimbabwe is a fight against us all. Today it is Zimbabwe, tomorrow it will be South Africa, it will be Mozambique, it will be Angola, it will be any other African country. Any government that is perceived to be strong, and to be resistant to imperialists, would be made a target and be undermined. So let us not allow any point of weakness in the solidarity of the SADC, because that weakness will also be transferred to the rest of Africa.” -Thabo Mbekii(1)

The Movement for Democratic Change is characterised by unique and frightening theoretical and practical weaknesses. It is as if it is not an opposition political party in the former settler colonial society in the region which was the victim of settler colonial rule. It has no position on imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, globalisation and north-south relations. Despite acute problems confronted by the masses of the Zimbabwean people on a daily basis, its strategy and tactics have been failing to meet their demands and needs. The consequence has been that they do not recognise them as expressions of their own experience. Its remaining alternative to defeat the Zimbabwean African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) to be in power in Zimbabwe is the ballot box. The purpose of this work is to demonstrate that the MDC’s profound theoretical and practical weaknesses have continued increasing. In its achievement in the March 2008 presidential and parliamentary elections, the MDC have exposed the continuity of its theoretical and practical weaknesses. It is as if it does not have serious organic intellectuals capable of articulating appropriate strategy and tactics, nationally, regionally, continentally and internationally. Who are its leading intellectuals and strategists?

more at link http://www.raceandhistory.com/historicalviews/2008/1006.html

following up on comment in previous post, financial times is another paper you should read if you want to know what the ruling class is doing and thinking. see they have to tell each other what’s going on; they have to communicate; they need to know what’s going on to make decisions, right?

The WSJ and FT, among others, are how they do it — talk to each other. They don’t have to meet in smoke-filled rooms. They can just put it right out there fore everyone to read. They have faith that few people pick up on what’s being said and, those who, like noam chomsky, will be so off the radar in terms of the general public knowing that they exist that it won’t matter pissing in the wind. it doesn’t matter how many fringe lefties, anarchists, and libertarians read the noam chomsky or anyone analyzing elite opinion and reporting on how empire does its dirty work. few people will hear the message through the cacophony.

at any rate, an enlightening article on obama’s “realist” campaign and the fact that his campaign has never been an anti-war or “protest” (the war) campaign. some days, i’d like to tell some of these radical lefties and ass sucking denicrat boosters like max to get their heads out of their asses.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d46f3b02-47d0-11dd-93ca-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

Obama camp signals intent to tackle ‘crisis’

By Daniel Dombey and Edward Luce

Published: July 2 2008 03:00 | Last updated: July 2 2008 03:00

The prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran is the biggest threat facing the world, according to one of Barack Obama’s senior foreign policy advisers.

He also signalled that the US Democratic presidential candidate would push Europe to agree tougher sanctions against Tehran.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Anthony Lake, a former US national security adviser who has worked with Mr Obama since the start of his campaign, also urged the US to learn lessons for Iraq from its traumatic withdrawal from Vietnam.

“I genuinely believe that the most dangerous crisis we are going to face potentially in the next three to 10 years is if the Iranians get on the edge of developing a nuclear weapon,” Mr Lake said.

“If I were the Europeans I would much rather put on the table more sanctions, together with bigger carrots, and have that negotiation than I would face that crisis down the road.”

In recent weeks the issue of Tehran’s nuclear programme has gained prominence as speculation has mounted about a possible Israeli strike on Iran.

But European countries have been reluctant to endorse the idea, mooted by Mr Obama’s supporters, of new sanctions banning fresh investment in Iran’s energy sector. Some European states are preoccupied by dependence on Russian gas and are loath to preclude Iran as an alternative.

European Union diplomats also reject suggestions that the world’s big powers should water down their -conditions for starting negotiations on Iran’s nuclear -dispute. According to current international policy, endorsed by United Nations Security Council resolutions, formal negotiations can begin only if Tehran first suspends uranium enrichment, which can produce both civil nuclear fuel and weapons-grade material.

Mr Obama and his advisers, such as Mr Lake, stress the Democratic candidate’s readiness to sit down with Iranian leaders without -conditions.

“Unless you assume that [Iranian negotiators] have IQs less than those of eggplants, they are not likely to make major concessions for the privilege of speaking with us. So the question is: what is your strategy for the talks?” Mr Lake said.

“Do you believe that simply sanctioning them can drive them into concessions before you talk, or do you believe that you need to have the sanctions there as a stick at the heart of negotiations?”

Mr Lake depicted the -Democratic candidate as a tough-minded realist rather than an anti-war politician. “When I joined the campaign, I remember asking someone at the very beginning: ‘Is this a protest campaign or a presidential campaign?’” he said, before insisting that the answer was clearly the latter.

He stressed that Mr Obama, even after withdrawing troops from Iraq over 16 months, as he has promised, would maintain “a residual presence for clearly defined missions”. These would include military training and “preparedness to go back in if there are specific acts of genocidal violence”.

“That is not ‘cut and run and let’s just see what happens’,” Mr Lake said. “It seems to me a very responsible strategy.”

Highlighting a parallel with his first posting as assistant to Henry Cabot Lodge, a US ambassador to 1960s Saigon, he said: “It is common sense that we could not leave Vietnam successfully unless we left behind a government in Saigon that could govern successfully.

“It seems obvious in retrospect; it was not obvious enough to too many politicians at the time. In Iraq it’s the same problem.”

The target of his criticism is John McCain, Mr Obama’s rival, whom Mr Lake accused of “saying we will win by 2013 without defining what winning is” - a reference to a speech in which the Republican candidate predicted that by that date the US would welcome home most of its soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr Lake was also markedly less enthusiastic than Mr McCain about the US’s stricken civil nuclear deal with India, which has been hobbled by internal Indian opposition. “I don’t know how you resuscitate something that is dead there [in New Delhi], if it is in fact dead there,” he said.

On Pakistan, he said Mr Obama’s statement last year about using force against -al-Qaeda leaders - even without Pakistan’s permission - “is still relevant”.

Mr Lake was sympathetic to aspects of Mr McCain’s idea of a League of Democracies, one of the centrepieces of the Republican’s foreign policy plans.

Stressing that he had not spoken to Mr Obama about it, he backed the general idea of a grouping that was “not an anti-Russian device but an effort to find ways for the democracies to act together on issues of defence of our common values . . . specifically on issues when the UN can’t act”.

Even that notion might be difficult to digest for European countries wary of offending Moscow or seeming to sidestep the United Nations. But, as Mr Lake’s words indicate, Mr Obama could yet be a demanding partner for the rest of the world.

but the issues that mattered to women of color, brownfemipower seemed to argue, were issues that recognized the inadequacies of *both* candidates. (she wrote this in comments here, http://elleabd.blogspot.com/2008/05/trying-to-understand-division.html#comment-6878230785463181948)

On my view, of course, they are humpty and dumpty, tweedledee and tweedledum. they both run to the right, they both triangulate, they both are paltry advances over the alternatives from the republican party. there was very little, substantively, that made these two candidates different. which is why, it seemed to me and what i told charles brown at lbo, there should be utterly no shame in voting for a candidate because of his race or her gender. if they are both essentially the same, how can you possible decide on substance? it has to be on an issue besides substance.

it kind of killed me to watch the tube and listen to the radio, where this was widely acknowledged. the candidates acknowledged that they were largely the same, policy-wise. but the last few months have been a ridiculous pretense, on behalf of supporters, that they are not, that there’s something different worth voting *for* obama or something different worth voting *for* clinton.

the mantra of the last few elections cycles, Anybody But a Republican, followed by a sigh of resignation was common among radical leftists. even among the pwogs. but this year? when the candidates for the dem nomination were more alike than ever before –christ, we had sharpton one year! — hardly anyone who was entrapped by the bullshit of electoral politics uttered the phrase that, at one time, seemed to be the only reason anyone voted for a dem: less evil, anybody but a republican.

finally, finally, i heard it: someone who supported obama honestly. ta-nehisi coates said it well the other day, at the brecht forum debates on obama. (link for an mp3 of the discussion here, http://www.wallstreetthebook.com/BrechtObamaPanel.mp3) from a radical left (not progressive, but radical left) perspective, obama had a lot of faults, and coates reeled them off. he knows all that, he told us. but, in the end, he couldn’t help get excited. he couldn’t help getting swept up in the emotions at a picnic for black men he attended earlier in the day, where people who stoked about seeing a black man on t.v. who wasn’t the face in a mug shot. his discussion was admirable because he didn’t ignore the reality: there is a lot, from a radical left perspective, that is reprehensible about obama. there is nothing, he said, substantive in his positions that is worthy of voting *for*. nothing, that is, that truly distinguishes obama from clinton or anyone else that had been a contender. there may be one slightly more progressive thing here, such as not sounding like pat buchanan on militarization of the border, but then there was another issue where clinton might be slightly more ‘left’ (to use the term loosely) and obama slightly more right. it was a wash.

i admire coates for his honesty. i can respect that reasoning. it makes sense to me. he did not try to argue that electing a black man as cheif operating officer of the imperial state would actually change race relations or improve his life or the life of other people of color. he simply said, basically (and to paraphrase): can you dig it? it makes me feel good to see a good looking, smart black man representing. it improves my well-being and there’s a little bit of bounce ot our collective steps these days because of it.

he’s not blowing smoke up my ass trying to convince me that there was ever a substantive difference between them or that, somehow, obama is only saying what he has to say to get elected or that, in fact, his positions are really progressive, maybe even radical!

i could be almost convinced to vote for obama if i thought that the radical leftists supporting him could get behind coates’ program. but they’re not. instead, either overtly or inadvertantly, they insist or let leak out their true feelings: their shared delusion that obama is and remains different, an improvement over clinton, someone who will not triangulate, someone who will not pander to the right to win, someone who is really a progressive, someone who is more honest than your typical politician. the list is endless as to the bullshit i’ve read at lbo.

the wall st. journal today decided that obama is the new bush. bush’s third term. ayup. of course, putting on my cynical, love-to-analyze-the-horse-race-and-psych-out-republican- strategy hat, my guess is that the wall st. journal is laying the ground work for a values attack on obama as a liar, waffler, etc. this becomes really obvious at the end. nonetheless, the rest of what they have to say is worth considering.

i think especially so because noam chomsky and doug henwoud have both frequently pointed out that you can always tell what the rulling class is thinking simply by reading the wall st. journal and other organs of the ruling class. noam chomsky doesn’t have to consult obscure sources to document the atrocities of u.s. imperialism, he finds his sources in the wall st. journal, the new york times, etc. etc.

and you can read what the ruling class is thinking on the op-ed pages of the wsj. at least one sector of the ruling class — the one that closely articulates the business sector’s interests (’coz the ruling class is never a monolith of same opinion and thankd og for that) — happns to be apalled by some aspects of obamas running dog conservativism. (Yes, I know, the real etymology behind ‘running dog’. work with me heeyah. :)

who knows what will happen with obama. at this point, i honestly don’t think he will win, and it won’t be because some white women voted for mccain because they were pissed about clinton. it’ll be because obama hardly distinguishes himself from mccain.

Wall Street Jounral - July 2, 2008

Bush’s Third Term

We’re beginning to understand why Barack Obama keeps protesting so vigorously against the prospect of “George Bush’s third term.” Maybe he’s worried that someone will notice that he’s the candidate who’s running for it. Most Presidential candidates adapt their message after they win their party nomination, but Mr. Obama isn’t merely “running to the center.” He’s fleeing from many of his primary positions so markedly and so rapidly that he’s embracing a sizable chunk of President Bush’s policy. Who would have thought that a Democrat would rehabilitate the much-maligned Bush agenda?

Take the surveillance of foreign terrorists. Last October, while running with the Democratic pack, the Illinois Senator vowed to “support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies” that assisted in such eavesdropping after 9/11. As recently as February, still running as the liberal favorite against Hillary Clinton, he was one of 29 Democrats who voted against allowing a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee reform of surveillance rules even to come to the floor.

Two weeks ago, however, the House passed a bill that is essentially the same as that Senate version, and Mr. Obama now says he supports it. Apparently legal immunity for the telcos is vital for U.S. national security, just as Mr. Bush has claimed. Apparently, too, the legislation isn’t an attempt by Dick Cheney to gut the Constitution. Perhaps it is dawning on Mr. Obama that, if he does become President, he’ll be responsible for preventing any new terrorist attack. So now he’s happy to throw the New York Times under the bus.

Next up for Mr. Obama’s political blessing will be Mr. Bush’s Iraq policy. Only weeks ago, the Democrat was calling for an immediate and rapid U.S. withdrawal. When General David Petraeus first testified about the surge in September 2007, Mr. Obama was dismissive and skeptical. But with the surge having worked wonders in Iraq, this week Mr. Obama went out of his way to defend General Petraeus against MoveOn.org’s attacks in 2007 that he was “General Betray Us.” Perhaps he had a late epiphany.

Look for Mr. Obama to use his forthcoming visit to Iraq as an excuse to drop those withdrawal plans faster than he can say Jeremiah Wright “was not the person that I met 20 years ago.” The Senator will learn ­ as John McCain has been saying ­ that withdrawal would squander the gains from the surge, set back Iraqi political progress, and weaken America’s strategic position against Iran. Our guess is that he’ll spin this switcheroo as some kind of conditional commitment, saying he’ll stay in Iraq as long as Iraqis are making progress on political reconciliation, and so on. As things improve in Iraq, this would be Mr. Bush’s policy too.

Mr. Obama has also made ostentatious leaps toward Mr. Bush on domestic issues. While he once bid for labor support by pledging a unilateral rewrite of Nafta, the Democrat now says he favors free trade as long as it works for “everybody.” His economic aide, Austan Goolsbee, has been liberated from the five-month purdah he endured for telling Canadians that Mr. Obama’s protectionism was merely campaign rhetoric. Now that Mr. Obama is in a general election, he can’t scare the business community too much.

Back in the day, the first-term Senator also voted against the Supreme Court nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito. But last week he agreed with their majority opinion in the Heller gun rights case, and with their dissent against the liberal majority’s ruling to ban the death penalty for rape. Mr. Obama seems to appreciate that getting pegged as a cultural lefty is deadly for national Democrats ­ at least until November.

This week the great Democratic hope even endorsed spending more money on faith-based charities. Apparently, this core plank of Mr. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” is not the assault on church-state separation that the ACLU and liberals have long claimed. And yesterday, Mr. Obama’s campaign unveiled an ad asserting his support for welfare reform that “slashed the rolls by 80 percent.” Never mind that Mr. Obama has declared multiple times that he opposed the landmark 1996 welfare reform.

* * *

All of which prompts a couple of thoughts. The first is that Mr. Obama doesn’t seem to think American political sentiment has moved as far left as most of the media claim. Another is that the next President, whether Democrat or Republican, is going to embrace much of Mr. Bush’s foreign and antiterror policy whether he admits it or not. Think Eisenhower endorsing Truman’s Cold War architecture.

Most important is the matter of Mr. Obama’s political character ­ and how honest he is being about what he truly believes. His voting record in the Senate and in Illinois, as well as his primary positions, would make him the most liberal Presidential candidate since George McGovern in 1972. But he clearly doesn’t want voters to believe that in November. He’s still the Obama Americans don’t know.

There they saw police harassing an African couple. They exercised their legal right to photograph and observe the police activity. The police became agitated at being exposed and proceeded to brutalize, handcuff and arrest (”obstructing justice” and “resisting arrest”):

Dr. Aisha B. Fields, Director of the All African People’s Development and Empowerment Project (AAPDEP)
Kobina Bantushango, International Membership Coordinator of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM)
Dr. Michelle Strongfields, AAPDEP Health Care Team Coordinator. Dr. Strongfields was hospitalized today for injuries inflicted by the police.

The police threatened to seize the 3 children that were in the car - ages 4, 1, and 7 months - who were eventually secured in the hands of relatives.

Dr. Fields is a physicist who recently coordinated the installation of community-owned rainwater harvesting systems in Sierra Leone. She was joined there by her mother, Dr. Strongfields, a Cuban trained Doctor of Medicine, who conducted training in the prevention and treatment of water-borne illnesses, which are a major cause of death in West Africa. Kobina Bantushango leads campaigns in defense of the rights of African people, building the Uhuru (freedom) Movement.

Every year, the City of Huntsville imposes heavy-handed policing in the area of the Black Arts Festival, which draws over 35,000 participants. The International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement calls for an end to the policy of police containment and military occupation of the African community.

Do your part to defend the democratic rights of African people!

Call the government officials responsible and demand they immediately drop the charges against Dr. Aisha Fields, Thomas Buchanan and Dr. Michelle Strongfields:
Councilman Richard Showers (256)427-5011
Mayor Loretta Spencers (256) 427-5000
District Attorney Tim Morgan (256) 532-3460
Send contributions to the legal defense. Make checks to “Uhuru” and mail to:
“Legal Defense” c/o Uhuru House
1245 18th Avenue South
St. Petersburg, FL 33705

For more information, in the U.S., contact (727) 821-6620

Touch One; Touch All!

Mr. Nader, who drew headlines recently by suggesting that Obama was trying to “talk white,” quoted with seeming approval a comment from a black political scientist, Adolph Reed Jr., that Senator Obama seemed to be a “vacuous opportunist.” Mr. Nader portrayed Mr. Obama as changeable and too close to “corporate America.”

“He’s backed off on so many things,” Mr. Nader said on ABC’s “This Week.” He accused Mr. Obama of pandering to Israel, and said the senator’s promise of withdrawal from Iraq would still leave thousands of troops there.

But, asked George Stephanopoulos, the show’s host, would Mr. Obama not be a better president for someone of Mr. Nader’s pro-consumer background and liberal beliefs? “Anybody would be better than the Republicans,” he replied.

Watch the new video on YouTube
(Tune in Sunday at 10:00 and 11:00 U.S. Eastern Time to
Uhuru Radio for updates and analysis on the case)

ST. PETERSBURG, FL ­ On Monday, June 9, Keon Dawson turned 14 years old. While many 14-year-olds might spend their birthdays celebrating, Keon spent his in a demonstration in front of the police department because just two nights before, St. Petersburg police murdered his brother, Javon Dawson.

Javon Dawson was at a graduation party at the Shining Light Masonic Lodge on Saturday night when police shot him in the back. According to witnesses, the 17-year-old had his hands up when he was shot twice in the back.

Witnesses say that when one teen tried to stop the bleeding, the police responded by pepper spraying him. Another teen’s attempt to save Javon’s young life brought on threats by police that he too would be shot.

Not surprisingly though, the State has already begun a campaign of slander and cover-up. They could not pull up any rap sheet ­ a common tactic used to justify when police murder an African ­ because he had never had any previous contact with police. In fact, everyone who knew him, including his high school principal, knew him as “a good kid.”

Instead, the police painted a picture that implied that this young African who had never had a run in with police became an instant outlaw that night. They claim that this young African who had never been in any trouble decided tonight that as his first criminal act he would commit suicide by aiming and firing a gun at police so they could kill him.

However, the police story contradicts the accounts of all of the witnesses who say that young Javon didn’t even have a gun. But killer cop Terrance Nemeth did. In fact, the bullets he fired into Javon’s back weren’t his first.

Killer cop Terrance Nemeth is a seasoned killer. This battle-worn, former Marine had just recently returned from Iraq where he received awards for occupying Iraq the same way police occupy the African community in St. Petersburg and throughout the U.S. (read the full story on UhuruNews.com)

June 3, 2008 interivew with David Sirota:

AMY GOODMAN: David Sirota, you talk about conflicts of interest within the antiwar movement: the antiwar movement, which enjoys widespread support, and the politicians who ally themselves with pro-war consultants.

DAVID SIROTA: Right. What happened, in the chapter that I reported on the antiwar movement, is back in 2007, what we found is that you just had an election where the Democrats were elected promising to end the war, and what ended up happening was that the same Democratic Congress refused to really do what it takes to actually end the war. And part of that was, I think, a strategic decision on behalf of the antiwar organizations in Washington about how they said we could end the war. You had consultants who were simultaneously being paid by the Democratic Party and Democratic Party politicians.

AMY GOODMAN: Like?

DAVID SIROTA: You had Hildebrand Tewes. You had consulting firms. They were the lead consulting firm. And I don’t mean to pick on them. It’s just that they were the consulting firm that was heading up the major coalition in Washington of antiwar groups. And so, the strategy that came out of those antiwar groups was we have to simply bash the Republicans to end the war, when in fact, of course, Congress was controlled entirely by Democrats. Last I checked, Democrats have forty-one senators in the US Senate, if they wanted to filibuster a bill to continue funding the war. They haven’t done that. Yet the strategy kept saying, well, we have to only focus the ads, the media buys and the pressure on Republicans. It was sort of a dishonest strategy, and I think it had something to do with the fact that you have organizations in Washington that put partisan affinity over movement goals.

[….]