Misc

Tuesday, April 14, 2009 17:52 - 0 Comments

Tracking President Barack Obama: The First 85 Days

Hope & Change or Hopelessly the Same

Special Report, Featured Article and Headlines

INDEX: After clicking on the desired topic–click on any image to return to index

Introductory Report: Beauty, the Beast and Barack Obama

Featured Article: Fact checking Barack Obama’s Speeches

Reviewing President Barack Obama’s policies on…..

Beauty, the Beasts and Barack Obama

by Rohaan Solare

85 days have passed since Barack Obama was Inaugurated as 44th President of the United States. His administration inherited 2 wars, the worst financial crisis since the great depression and looming ecological catastrophes of every sort.

We cannot expect a “soon enough” recovery from what most experts outside the political and corporate establishment say is a broken and battered economic system in need of urgent and comprehensive reform (change). But the Obama administration is not trying to reform our economic system.

We are not to expect the Obama administration to resolve age old problems in 85 days, but we can begin to assess what Obama meant by change and it certainly does not seem to include the kind change many people were hoping to see.

I provide a synopsis in the following paragraphs of the most pressing concerns of the moment and how the promise of change is being applied to each area. Following my report are reports by others on the specifics regarding the actions, inactions and manifest attitudes of the Obama administration.

The Economy

FRANKENBABY, our economic and monetary system,[8] the beloved creature with a face only the Establishment could love is being resurrected with the best life support system an unwitting 330,000,000 Americans were obliged to buy.

Basically, the “toxic” private debt of the financial industry was dumped on the American public. The financial establishments criminal mismanagement was made our burden and they were in turn rewarded (bailed out) with billions of dollars to top it off. Still think capitalism is cool?

The Wars

WARRIN, the War Industry monster, consumes more than 50 percent of the US federal budget.

Numbers vary slightly, but approximately 480 billion dollars went up in flames and into the pockets of war profiteers in 2008.

The 2010 Obama approved defense budget got taxpayers to cough up another $57 billion dollars for a total budget of $537 billion.[12]

The above figures do not include War funding. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost another $200 plus billion per year. The Iraq war is at a simmer and Afghanistan is boiling over into Pakistan.

The Obama administration is wanting to change the name of the Long War or the Global War on Terror to the “Overseas Contingency Operation”. Now that’s change I can believe in.

It’s no longer a war, but a “Contingency Operation” and a good thing it’s happening overseas in somebody else’s back yard. I feel safe now.

Education

Meanwhile, California is laying off over 26,000  teachers and related school personnel. In 2008, public education cost the nation just under $60 billion.

Our government invests a total exceeding $700 billion per year on WARRIN and it won’t loan California a measly $12 billion or less than 2 percent of the US military budget to keep our much needed teachers in the classroom!!!!

Hundred of billions of dollars to the War industry and hundreds of billions dollars to the financial industry and nothing to keep California’s already overcrowded classrooms from over overflowing onto the streets!!! Does anybody else’s head feel like it could explode?

Employment.

We have to wait and see the effects of Obama’s  job creation program. But if you don’t mind risking you life, killing innocent people directly or indirectly the weapons industry is booming and our defense (offensive) forces are accepting applications.

The Environment

Scientific reports on earth’s rapidly deteriorating condition keep pouring in on a weekly basis. Global warming is ramping up and various eco-systems are on the verge of collapse.

Our scientist’s keep using words like tipping point and irreversible damage when speaking about the state of our environment.

And what has Obama done to address the US’s ecological bootprint? The “change” currently offered by Obama is token at best. [9]

How were so many made to believe that “CHANGE” was in the air.

Obama’s campaign platform rested on the twin pillars of the vague, but inspiring platitudes of hope and change. Bolstered by an unfamiliar eloquence, good looks and charismatic persona, Barack Obama captured not only the hearts and minds of the American people, but of people the world over.

But why should people equate attractiveness, charisma and eloquence with a positive change in the way establishment politics works?

Those three characteristics do help politicians get elected, but they have nothing to do with integrity or social responsibility.

History has shown us right on up to the present moment that politics is the sport of liars, connivers, brutes and thieves.

Integrity is the last characteristic most people would attribute to politicians unless they happen to be attractive.[1]

Duped Again and Duped by our Dopamine

Attractiveness or beauty feels good in our brains.  The unsophisticated brain user equates the feel good effects of dopamine  with the “positiveness” of the object in sight.

Dopamine is a significant part of our brain chemistry.  It is released from our brain cells when sensory impulses combine to configure and trigger pleasurable sensations(dopamine) in our brains.

Dopamine is also involved in many other brain functions, but I am focusing on the pleasure principle inherent in dopamine chemistry for this report.

Looks good and sounds good equals feels good which in turn gets translated into “must be all around good” in the minds of novice brain users. Research continues to reveal our hidden bias for beauty and it seems our political preferences are shaped by no greater sophistication.[2]

The implications are demoralizing. When the political establishment does get it’s tentacles around an attractive official it can then get its tentacles around the unsophisticated brain user who is apt to cast a vote and give credibility to a political candidate based primarily on physical appearance.[2]

In order to avoid getting wrapped up one must learn how to override the conscious minds misappropriation of the brains involuntary and subconscious processing.[3]

Knowing your brain[4] and understanding your political system[5] are the only two ways I know of to avoid bio-cultural determinism (robotics) and serfdom(prevailing socio-economic model).  You will be happy to know that you can find both kinds of knowledge on the emergent-culture website.

Right up America’s Alley: Looks like movie star and sounds like a movie star.

President Obama posses traits which register high on the dopamine scale, but where does he rate on the integrity scale—where it really matters?

I must admit, I too had “hoped” that Mr. Obama might at least represent the progressive movement’s foot in the door, but every passing day seems to slam the door shut on any hopes of meaningful change. Assuredly we cannot expect President Obama to deliver the kinds of change we need in order to look enthusiastically into the future.

Please wake Up: It’s Up to Us after all

Several weeks before Mr. Obama took office I wrote an article entitled The Beast, the Sleeping Giant and Barack Obama.[6] In a nut shell, the beast represents the colluding political, military and corporate establishment.

The sleeping giant is the yet unrealized collective will of those ready to embrace dramatic change and those who would once they realize the magnitude of the problems posed by the continuation of business as usual.

Barack Obama is the would be progressive foot in the door who would require unprecedented public support in order to take on and tame “The Beast”.

Three months since my article and I sense President Obama’ use of the word “change” means, change towards a more sophisticated use of politicized language and tactics to keep an increasingly knowledgable populace in it’s place.

As Bill Fletcher Jr. put it in an article of the same nature—”it’s up to us.”[6]

The NWO according to the Bush’s

If Bush-Cheney lead the demolition crew of the New World Order[7] then President Obama leads the Interior decorating crew of the New World Order.

Oh and by the way the term New World Order did not start as a conspiracy theory, but was a term used by Bush Sr. after the first gulf war when the US asserted its unopposed use of military aggression in order to achieve it’s geo-political goals in the ultra-sensitive and ultra-strategic mideast.

The collapse of the Soviet Union meant a unipolar world with a single superpower capable of doing whatever it damn well pleases. The US calls the shots and therefore sets the order. Whomever leads the US leads the New World Order.

The New World Order is to be interpreted in terms of ultra-conservative agendas, values and motives.[11] Once one understands who and what Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. stand for—then there is no need to entertain conspiracy theories.

They say one can tell a tree by the fruit it produces. We know the history of Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. and we know what they produced. That is–the kinds of policies they supported and the ones they didn’t. Let’s see what kind of tree President Obama is turning out to be.

Note: you may click on any image to return to the index

Citation Sources and References:

1.We judge our leaders on how they look, not on how they perform

2. Beauty and the Brain

3. Why We Believe what We Do and Why We should be Concerned

4. Make your mind you Own

5. Introducing Prevailing Culture

6. The Beast, the Sleeping Giant and Barack Obama

7. Bush Sr’s use of the term New World Order in a speech before Congress.

8. The Decline and Regeneration of Western Civilization

9. The Work: The Good News and the Bad News

President Barack Obama’s Words

Fact-Checking Obama’s first Speech to a Joint Session of Congress

President Obama’s first speech to a joint session of Congress was stuffed with signals about the new direction his budget will take and meant-to-be reassuring words about the economy. But it was also peppered with exaggerations and factual misstatements.

• He said “we import more oil today than ever before.” That’s untrue. Imports peaked in 2005 and are substantially lower today.
• He claimed his mortgage aid plan would help “responsible” buyers but not those who borrowed beyond their means. But even prominent defenders of the program including Fed Chairman Bernanke and FDIC chief Bair concede foolish borrowers will be aided, too.
• He said the high cost of health care “causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds.” That’s at least double the true figure.
• He flubbed two facts about American history. The U.S. did not invent the automobile, and the transcontinental railroad was not completed until years after the Civil War, not during it.
• He claimed that his stimulus plan “prevented the layoffs” of 57 police officers in Minneapolis. In fact, it’s far more complicated than that, and other factors are also helping to save police jobs.
  

The president also repeated some strained claims we’ve critiqued before.   For the Complete analysis go >>[9]

or is it about Make Up, Lights, Camera

Fact checking Obama’s Prime Time Pitch

via FactCheck.org
Some exaggerations and misstatements from his evening news conference.

President Obama sometimes strayed from the facts or made dubious claims during his hour-long evening news conference March 24.

• He said his budget projections are based on economic assumptions that “are perfectly consistent with what Blue Chip forecasters out there are saying.” Not true. The average projection by leading private economists is now for substantially less economic growth than the administration’s forecast assumes.
• He said he is reducing “nondefense discretionary spending” to less than it was under the past four presidents. Not true. His own forecast for the final budget of his four-year term puts this figure higher than in many years under Reagan, Clinton or either Bush.
• He said he was “angry” about “inexcusable” bonuses paid to AIG executives. But he glossed over the fact that his own aides insisted on watering down a Senate-passed amendment that might have prevented payment of such bonuses.
• He repeated that his budget is projected to cut the federal deficit in half by the end of his term. That’s true, but deficits also are projected to shoot up again later unless big policy changes are made.

One of the most dramatic claims came not from Obama but from a reporter who asked about children “who are sleeping under bridges and in tents across the country” and who said 1 child in 50 is “homeless.” The truth is far less dramatic. The study he cited doesn’t just count children with no roof over their heads. It also includes those whose families are staying with friends or family members, in hotels and motels, in trailer parks or in housing deemed to be “substandard.” For the Complete analysis go >>[10]

Note: you may click on any image to return to the index

President Barack Obama Actions on…

Brutal & Careless Government

OBAMA CONSIDERING MAKING VETS PAY WITH PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE
CNN – Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed that the Obama administration is considering a controversial plan to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries with private insurance. . . But the proposal would be “dead on arrival” if it’s sent to Congress, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, said. . .

The Colluding Government and Corporate Capitalist Menace

AIG BONUSES RAISE MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT OBAMA’S TEAM

On Capitol Hill, Democratic Members were raking the company’s CEO, Edward Liddy, over the coals for bonuses they had voted to protect just weeks before. At exactly the same time and a few blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue, President Barack Obama, flanked by his economic team, was lavishing praise on Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner despite the fact that it was his staff who forced language into the stimulus bill preserving the bonuses.

Only moments before, Obama, trying to get ahead of the growing crisis, had bemoaned to reporters about how we “got to this point” and expressed his outrage over the bonuses as if he, his administration and Hill Democrats had nothing to do with it.

But in all the furor over the bonuses, one question was curiously absent in the president’s hastily called South Lawn news conference, held before he left on a trip to California: “If the bonuses were so outrageous, why, sir, did you sign the bill?”[...]

Why Is Obama Backing Bank of America in Court?
MotherJones.com
Now that the Obama administration is a shareholder in Bank of America, will it protect the interests of the bailed-out bank or those of customers targeted by its predatory practices? It’s a difficult calculation, and one the administration soon has to make as a class action suit against BoA lands in a state supreme court.

When President Obama assumed the reins of the federal government on January 20, one of the many unpleasant tasks he inherited was defending the Bush administration’s position in court in pending litigation. It’s one of the usual problems that come with every presidential transition. But this time around, thanks to extraordinary circumstances—such as the federal bailout of the nation’s financial system—the legal conflicts for Obama are more dicey than usual. A prime example is the pending BoA case.

Monsanto’s Michael Taylor is BAAAAACC…KKK … this time to control “Food Safety” from the White House
Michael Taylor, perhaps stowed away in Hillary Clinton’s trunk as a nostalgic reminder of the good ole days when Bill put him in charge of the FDA and he approved rBGH, has reentered government along with her and is hoping to slip into an office … in the White House, and Rosa Delauro, whose husband works for the Clintons and Monsanto, has betrayed every man, woman and child in country for Monsanto’s sake.[....]

Corrupt & Covert Government

Obama administration backs immunity for author of Bush torture memos

In legal arguments before a federal court in San Francisco Friday, the Obama administration stepped in to defend one of most notorious figures in the Bush administration, John Yoo, author of legal memoranda used to justify torture and indefinite detention without trial as part of the “war on terror.”

The intervention makes clear that the Obama administration opposes any serious effort to shed light on the attacks against democratic rights carried out by its predecessor or to hold any officials of the previous administration accountable for their actions. Moreover, its court interventions amount to a defense of the Bush administration’s assertions of quasi-dictatorial presidential powers.

Obama Justice Department defending Rumsfeld on torture…..In a brief filed Thursday evening, Obama Justice Department lawyers extended many of the same arguments made by Bush attorneys – that top government officials have qualified immunity from prosecution and that Guantanamo detainees do not have constitutional rights to due process.[...]

No charges likely in CIA tapes case
Raw Story Breaking News

Obama CIA Director Leon Panetta previously told a confirmation committee that there were no plans to prosecute those involved in former President George W. Bush’s interrogation program, which critics — and Panetta — describe as torture. But the new revelation that federal prosecutor John Durham won’t charge CIA operations employees with what appears to have been obstruction of justice, raises the stakes even higher.[...]

Dissent Suppression & Domestic Surveillance

Bloggers Slam Barack Obama on FISA Vote….. via eweek

Barack Obama taking the heat on telco immunity support. Hillary Clinton earns chops for opposing amnesty for AT&T, Verizon and other carriers. John McCain remains AWOL in aftermath of Senate vote.

Gail from Oldwick, N.J., was an ardent supporter of Barack Obama before his July 9 vote supporting legal immunity for telephone carriers that participated in President Bush’s domestic spying program. After the vote, she said she is “ashamed” she taught her parrot to squawk, “Obama Yes We Can!”

Ditto for Robert from Hampden, Maine, who wrote: “What comes next? From us, no more contributions, canvassing, phone banking or campaigning on your behalf … until we see what comes next from you. So far, the real change appears to be in you, not Washington.”

And those are comments from Obama’s official presidential campaign site, BarackObama.com. Opposition to Obama’s vote is so strong there, site bloggers who organized “Senator Obama—Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity—Get FISA Right” are almost 20,000 strong. It’s the largest blogger community on Obama’s site[...]

Obama Administration: Constitution Does Not Protect Cell-Site Records
Wired: Threat Level
The Obama administration says the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures does not apply to cell-site information mobile phone carriers retain on their customers.

The position is being staked out in a little-noticed surveillance case pending before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. The case has wide-ranging implications for Americans, as most citizens have or will carry a mobile phone in their lifespan.

Economic Reform and the Ongoing Financial Crisis

Making Sense of the Geithner Plan
By Umair Haque….. (a 30-something mainstream Harvard economist believe it or not)
Thought my Geithnerconomy post was over the top? Let’s do a reality check. Here’s the score, just three days in: the Geithner plan is morally bankrupt, economically toxic, and ethically questionable.

1) Banks are already gaming the plan.

2) Why? Because Geithner has just written a put option.

3) Using your money.

4) Will the government sell you a put option? Nope, you’re not rich enough. Only hedge funds are eligible. It is a transfer of wealth from you…to the guys that need it least.

5) That’s not economic democracy. It’s economic feudalism: the heart of a new cold war.

Sound harsh? Joe Stiglitz, one of my idols, is even more direct: he calls it robbery.

6) How did the robbery go down? Wasn’t the plan cooked up by Nobel-prize winning economists, IMF dudes, civil servants, Tim Geithner, Barack Obama, and other relatively impartial folks?

Lulz. Not a chance: The Geithner plan was designed by the world’s most important banker, the world’s most powerful equity investor, and the world’s biggest bond investor.

If you think what I’m writing sounds like sci-fi, try that on for size. Whose idea was the “government” bailout plan? Why, it was the idea of the three most significant players in the financial markets.

Robbery, indeed. If you’re under the age of 30, your future just got mortgaged.

Like I said before, it is a weapon of economic, political, and social mass destruction. The outlines of that should be much clearer now — just three days in, the cure is already promising to be worse than the disease.

It is economics 1.0: two step backward, instead of one step forward.

7) Barack Obama let this go down, and his political capital will be sapped by it. Rightly so, because it’s poor management, and terrible leadership.[...]

What Obama Must Do To Have Any Hope of Fixing the Economy

Why do officials keep offering plans that nobody else finds credible? Because somehow, top officials in the Obama administration and at the Federal Reserve have convinced themselves that troubled assets, often referred to these days as “toxic waste,” are really worth much more than anyone is actually willing to pay for them — and that if these assets were properly priced, all our troubles would go away.[...]

Barack Obama’s Economic Recovery Plan.
Interview with Prof. Jack Rasmus by Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign

The following is an interview with Prof. Jack Rasmus by the Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign (WERC). Rasmus is a professor of economics at St. Mary’s College and Santa Clara University in Northern California. Below he outlines the details of Obama’s economic recovery plan, showing the plan’s inadequacies and the resulting implications.[...]

Education Reform

Obama a Republican? President Parts with Democrats on School Improvement Measures
There are of course many folks who think President Barack Obama is trying to do too much too soon. Republicans, looking for every chance to assert their differences, have hammered on the president in recent days for not focusing his attention solely on the economy.[...] In unveiling his push, President Obama acknowledged that he was in direct conflict with the union position. And since those unions make up a large segment of the Democratic Party, his position was also in conflict with a large segment of his own base of supporters..[...]

Health Care Reform

Health Care Reform, Obama Style...Under Obama, real reform is off the table – profits again trump people needs.[...]On February 26, The New York Times headlined: “Obama Offers Broad Plan to Revamp Health Care….a (down payment $634 billion “reserve fund” for the next decade) toward his goal of covering the uninsured, and he would pay for it in part by cutting federal payments to hospitals, insurance companies and drug companies.” More on that below.[...]

– in introducing Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius as HHS secretary and Nancy-Ann DeParle as White House Health Reform director, Obama proposed “affordable health care for every American” while acknowledging no “silver bullet” exists to provide it, but he’ll be “flexible” to achieve it, or at least say he is while intending to do nothing to offend a powerful industry.[...]

DESPITE HEAVY SUPPORT IN POLLS, SINGLE PAYER ADVOCATES BARRED FROM OBAMA HEALTH SUMMIT
On Thursday, the White House will host a summit on how to reform the healthcare system. The 120 invited guests include lobbyists for various interest groups including the private-for-profit insurance industry, some members of Congress including Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus who has already ruled single payer “off the table,” and various others concerned with healthcare. No single payer advocates have been invited to attend.[...]

ANOTHER CZAR, ANOTHER CONFLICT OF INTEREST…..In picking Nancy-Ann DeParle to champion an overhaul of the nation’s health system, President Obama selected someone with deep roots in the Washington bureaucracy, an intimate familiarity with health policy and respect on both sides of the political aisle – not to mention degrees from Harvard Law School and Oxford University.[...]

Mr. Obama also chose to overlook Ms. DeParle’s business ties to companies that have a direct stake in the health care debate. .[...] .

Environmental Policy Reform

Hervé Kempf: Obama and the End of the Party
Chelsea Green
President Obama’s environmental policies are, without a doubt, an enormous improvement over Bush’s. He’s given more money to the Environmental Protection Agency, made climate change a major part of his agenda, and boosted environmental protections in numerous ways. But will it be enough to save us? Author Hervé Kempf (How the Rich Are Destroying the Earth) doesn’t think so. It’s a good start, but he needs the wind of a powerful and vocal grassroots movement in his sails if we are serious about saving ourselves, our environment, and our future.[...]

From The Horse’s Mouth

Clinton Admits US Drug War Failure…..Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has admitted US drug policy has not only been a failure but has in fact fueled Mexico’s drug war. Speaking to reporters at the outset of her trip to Mexico, Clinton said, “Clearly what we’ve been doing has not worked…I feel very strongly we have a co-responsibility. Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade. Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police, of soldiers and civilians.” Clinton’s comments are being called the most far-reaching by a senior US official in accepting responsibility for the rampant drug trade.[...]

Geopolitics

The Dual Dictatorship
Western donor governments, especially America, have created civil wars in several Muslim countries by imposing democracy: in the next few months, Bangladesh will probably be added to the list.[....]

Drug-War Doublespeak...The U.S. government and media are fostering a grossly exaggerated discourse on drug violence in Mexico to maintain “support for the military model of combating illegal drug trafficking, despite … evidence that current strategies are not working,” writes Latin America expert Laura Carlsen.[....]

US Continues Military Encirclement Of Russia……American Vice-President Joseph Biden at the Munich Security Conference in early February pledged to “press the reset button” with Russia.

Since then prominent Washington officials have repeated their intention to reset, reboot and so forth relations with Russia but have, starting with Biden at Munich, not relented in any substantive manner on any of the behaviors and projects that have antagonized Moscow.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently and American President Obama is to meet with his Russian counterpart Dmitri Medvedev n London early next month.

Russia has permitted the US and its NATO allies transit rights for non-military goods to assist the West’s expanding war in South Asia, though in the process is abetting the extension of the NATO military nexus from the Baltic to the Black to the Caspian Seas and hence tightening the noose around its own neck.

How are the US and NATO demonstrating their supposed resolve to mend ties with Russia, not in words but in deeds?[...]

The Obama-Medvedev turbo shuffle.…In a secret Obama letter, hand-delivered to Medvedev three weeks ago, as the New York Times revealed and the administration confirmed, the US “non-proposal proposal” essentially broke down to this: if you help us get rid of non-existent Iranian nuclear weapons, we’ll get rid of our missile shield which we don’t know if it’s any good anyway.[....]

US plans for military intervention in Sri Lanka……Sri Lanka’s Sunday Times has revealed plans for a US-led military mission into the island’s northern war zone in the guise of evacuating civilians trapped by intense fighting between the army and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

According to the newspaper, the task would be carried out by a Marine Expeditionary Brigade attached to the US Pacific Command (PACOM). The US Navy and Air Force would also be involved. The newspaper reported in its initial article on February 22 that a high-level PACOM team was in Colombo to pave the way for the operation.[...]

Human Rights

Obama Justice Department defending Rumsfeld on torture.….In a brief filed Thursday evening, Obama Justice Department lawyers extended many of the same arguments made by Bush attorneys – that top government officials have qualified immunity from prosecution and that Guantanamo detainees do not have constitutional rights to due process.[...]

Human Rights Groups Ask: Is this the Change We Can Believe In?
Obama’s positions on prisoner detention have Constitutional experts scratching their heads.[...] Human rights activists and Constitutional law experts were virtually unanimous in their condemnation of the positions taken on prisoner detention and treatment in Federal Court last week by President Barack Obama’s Department of Justice, which one group described as “a case of old wine in new bottles.“[...]

Israeli-Zionist Lobby

Obama Caves to Israel Lobby…On Tuesday morning Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, employed the indicative mood in describing the high value that Chas Freeman, his appointee to head the National Intelligence Council (NIC), will bring to the job-”his long experience and inventive mind,” for example. By five o’clock in the afternoon, Freeman announced that he had asked that his selection “not proceed.”[...]

Obama’s Silence on Gaza is Deafening…..Via the Huffington Post

Barack Obama must be given a lot of credit for his remarkable ascent to power, particularly in terms of the dignified way in which he did it. But there is a dark side to his rise to the Presidency, one progressives and liberals do not like to acknowledge.

Barack Obama had to do two things to persuade the powers that be that he was a viable candidate for President. The first was to assure the financial community that he would commit to a centrist economic platform, and the second was to sell out the Palestinians immediately and jump in bed with AIPAC.

Obama did both, and the consequences will be felt immediately. Economically, Obama has not surrounded himself with the type of people committed to real change. The enormous financial crisis has given him more room to move, but he won’t do anything dramatic (like hold Wall St to account, or provide a meaningful bailout to the average American). The results during his Presidency will mean extraordinary pain for the middle classes and poor, while the burden is shifted from those who caused it. It would no doubt be worse under a Republican, but it will not be pleasant.

With the latest Israeli assault on the Gaza strip, Obama’s wholesale sellout of the Palestinian people is being felt even more acutely. His unique position to speak up for a bitterly oppressed people has been wasted in the name of political convenience.[...]

The Military Industrial Complex

MONEY GO ROUND….The federal budget for 2010 is now being developed by Obama and Congress. Here are some early signs:

* Defense News reports that “The Obama administration has directed defense officials to sign a pledge stating they will not share 2010 budget data with individuals outside the federal government……The Pentagon and Office of Management and Budget have agreed on a fiscal 2010 defense budget top line figure of $537 billion. That level is nearly $50 billion lower than the $585 billion defense plan created during the final months of the Bush administration, and $24 billion higher than the already enacted $513 billion 2009 defense budget.”

These dollar figures do not include war funding.

Why is Obama making people working at the Department of Defense sign secrecy agreements? I thought he was going to be open and above board?

* Another news outlet reports “President Barack Obama today will seek $205.5 billion more for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, including $75.5 billion through the end of this fiscal year.”

Just a few days ago Obama said he was going to cut the federal debt in half during his first term. One way to do this he said was to cut funding for the Iraq occupation. But when he simultaneously expands the Afghanistan operation and moves US troops there from Iraq, won’t Obama have to move the money from one war front to the other? Am I missing something here? Please help me out[...]

Afgahanistan: five-year troop build-up seen
Gen. David D. McKiernan, top US commander in Afghanistan, said Feb. 18 that the heightened troop levels that President Barack Obama ordered for the country could remain

in place for up to five years. Speaking at a Pentagon press conference a day after Obama ordered 17,000 additional troops to the country, said that the build-up “is not a temporary force uplift.”

He said the build-up would “need to be sustained for some period of time,” and that he was looking at “the next three to four or five years.”[...]

Despite Celebrated Speech, Has Obama Really Ordered an End to US Occupation of Iraq?…..President Obama’s plan to withdraw US combat troops from Iraq has both been hailed by some as a signal of the coming end of the war while criticized by others as an extension of the occupation. We host a debate between Lawrence Korb, the former assistant secretary of defense under President Reagan, and Jeremy Scahill, award-winning author and investigative journalist. [...]

Obama and Israel’s Military: Still Arm-in-Arm
Despite some hopeful movement on Middle East issues, the new administration is still lavishing military aid on Israel and, by extension, the U.S. defense industry.[...]

Report: Despite Obama’s Vow, Combat Brigades Will Stay in Iraq
Democracy Now! ……Nearly four weeks ago, President Obama declared that US combat operations would end in Iraq by August 2010. Despite Obama’s pledge, new evidence has emerged that the US plans to keep combat brigades in Iraq, but they will operate under a different name. Investigative reporter Gareth Porter of Inter Press Service reveals some of the brigade combat teams currently in Iraq will stay beyond August 2010 and will be renamed so-called “advisory and assistance brigades.” [...]

Obama Signals Readiness to Further Militarize Drug War with Potential Deployment of National Guard to Mexico Border.….President Obama is considering deploying National Guard troops along the border with Mexico in response to the escalating drug war. More than 7,000 people have been killed in Mexico in drug-related violence in the last year. Much of the drug-related violence in Mexico has been fueled by the ability of drug cartels to purchase AK-47 assault rifles and other arms in the United States[...]

Finding Ways to Stay in Iraq
Those who bought into the slogans “Hope” and “Change” last fall should have read the fine print. We were warned. Over and over during the campaign for the presidency Barack Obama made it clear that “withdrawal” from Iraq on his flexible 16-month timetable [...]

Despite Gitmo Closure and Torture Ban, Obama Admin Converges with Several Bush Policies in So-Called “War on Terror.….After a month in office, the Obama administration has surprised many of its supporters by embracing or appearing receptive to key parts of the Bush administration’s counterterrorism strategy, from indefinite detention, to kidnapping and rendition, to invoking “state secrets” privileges.[...]

Police State

Growing the  Police State!
www.opednews.com……The 12th amendment to the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act (“GIVE” or download the pdf here), that was just rubber stamped by the Senate, states, “Amendment to prohibit organizations from attempting to influence legislation; organize or engage in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes; and assist, promote, or deter union organizing.”

This is being attached to a bill that will make military service mandatory and which will create a seven-million person domestic army under direct authority of the Federal government. And they’re going to be trained into believing that trying to influence legislation, engaging in protests, signing a petition, boycotts, striking, or to assist, promote, union organizing, will be an act against our government and under those guidelines, under the still in place Patriot Act, be considered an enemy combatants and can be interned without charge indefinitely.

Lets add this on to MICA document last week that was leaked buy real patriotic police that told police to treat Ron Paul, Chuck, Baldwin, and Bob Barr supporters along with “people that carry copies of the Constitution”, as suspected terrorists threats. And things start adding up.[...]

Obama in the Polls

OBAMA POLLS NOT AS GOOD AS MEDIA CLAIMS
Douglas E. Schoen and Scott Rasmussen, Wall Street Journal – It is simply wrong for commentators to continue to focus on President Barack Obama’s high levels of popularity, and to conclude that these are indicative of high levels of public confidence in the work of his administration. Indeed, a detailed look at recent survey data shows that the opposite is most likely true.[...]

Secrecy & Censorship

Obama’s DOJ follows lead of Bush regime again: It asks court to cover-up NSA surveillance secrets by dismissing case
[For the third time this month the Obama Department of Justice has taken identical legal positions advocated by the Bush regime in "national security" cases. Is this the change people voted for?[...]

State Speak

Pentagon Memo: Drop “War on Terror” …The Washington Post is reporting the Obama administration appears to be dropping the phrase “the global war on terror.” In a memo sent to staffers this week, a Pentagon security official writes, “This administration prefers to avoid using the term ‘Long War’ or ‘Global War on Terror.’ Please use ‘Overseas Contingency Operation.’” An Obama administration official said there has been no official policy change and that the memo solely reflects the opinion of the author. But its directives conform to recent public testimony from senior officials.[...]

Throwing us Bones

Obama Creates Council on Women and Girls..…..Via AlterNet

The new office is charged with working to ensure that women and girls are treated fairly in matters of public policy.

Earlier today President Obama signed an executive order creating the White House Council on Women and Girls. Flanked by Nancy Pelosi, Valerie Jarrett and White House Public Liasion Tina Tchen (the two women will head the office), Obama declared:

I sign this order not just as a President, but as a son, a grandson, a husband, and a father, because growing up, I saw my mother put herself through school and follow her passion for helping others. But I also saw how she struggled to raise me and my sister on her own, worrying about how she’d pay the bills and educate herself and provide for us.

Some critics see the council as an empty gesture — a politically expedient way for Obama to parry criticisms about his predominantly white, male cabinet. But others point out that Obama is moving in the right direction, especially considering that Bush disbanded the White House Women’s Office set up by Clinton.

What will the council actually do? According to White House.gov, the office will work to draft policy in the following areas:

* Improving women’s economic security by ensuring that each of the agencies is working to directly improve the economic status of women.

* Working with each agency to ensure that the administration evaluates and develops policies that establish a balance between work and family.

* Working hand-in-hand with the Vice President, the Justice Department’s Office of Violence Against Women and other government officials to find new ways to prevent violence against women, at home and abroad.

* Finally, the critical work of the Council will be to help build healthy families and improve women’s health care.

As Sarah Hepola writes in Broadsheet, ” … there’s not exactly an excess of reasons to celebrate. So let’s enjoy this one, shall we?”

Hilda Soliz : A Progressive Choice for Labor…….The daughter of Mexican and Nicaraguan immigrant laborers, Hilda Solis brings the most solid progressive credentials of any member of the Obama cabinet — including Obama himself.’

NOW We’re Talking…
POGO has been pretty disappointed with a number of President Obama’s appointments.  However, yesterday we got some good news.  The person tapped to chair the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board set up to oversee the massive stimulus spending spree is Earl Devaney, the Department of Interior’s Inspector General.…….

Socio-Cultural definition of

Prevailing Culture.

In accordance with emergent culture theory, any modern Western-modeled cultural group can be subdivided into 3 primary classes according to the type of power each class wields. There is the governor class of political lawmaking(design specifications) and law enforcing power(police-military). Closely aligned with the governor class is the corporate class whose primary attribute is unrivaled economic power.

Working together the corporate and governor class (GORP) design the laws to conduct the behavior and channel the surplus effort(“taxable” income & commercial exchanges) of the third class known as the general public or more specifically the subject class. The subject class’s power base is numerical superiority.

I refer to subject class as such because we are subjected to the brunt (approaching 100%) of the negative consequences that result from the legislative directives (laws or engineering specifications) co-designed by the governor-corporate class alliance.

Additionally, there are non-legislated abuses of the subject class that result from GORP practices(i.e. toxic waste dumping into air, water, soil & living organisms) that are not yet moderated or eliminated by laws despite the evidence that such practices are harmful to all living organisms and the ecology they are a part of.

Despite the subject class’s quantitative advantage, the aforementioned condition has persisted since the dawn of civilization–over 6000 years ago. The subject class has yet to organize sufficiently enough to realize and assert its power in order to counterbalance the catastrophic extremes of the GORP.

The Internet represents the subject class’s best tool with which to counteract the prevailing strategies (misinformation) of the GORP. Emergent culture (the social dynamic) arises in the subject class. Emerging cultural values i.e. environmentalism, socio-economic justice, gender equality etc. are in direct opposition to the goals of the prevailing culture.

In summary: A prevailing culture is a minority social group comprised of the most powerful political and economic classes working together to coercively extract (taxation & induced consumerism) the greatest amount of monetary value from the subject class through almost any means possible and at the expense of human lives, human suffering, social chaos, cultural decay and environmental degradation.

They accomplish their goals through their maze like law making-enforcing powers and through their ability to manipulate the mass mind through the use of continuous and sophisticated mis-information broadcasts or GORP sponsored TV, radio & print messages and commercials.

The dominant traits and values of prevailing culture throughout history. Prevailing culture is what conservatives and ultra-conservatives wish to preserve.

1. Strict Patrist Leadership: Dominant male rule in secular, religious and domestic affairs
   
2. Economic Militarism: The employment of covert and overt militarized practices to capture more subjects (consumers ), territory( political sway) and resources (market access).
   
3. Economic Parasitism: Complex and exploitive money lending practices.
   
4. Economic Engineering: Taxation of the subject class via increasingly complex laws pertaining to finance. The end purpose of which is to transfer wealth from the subject class to the governor class and those closely associated with the governor class–the corporate class. In modern day politics the governor class and the corporate class have fused into a single agency I affectionately call the US.GORP . (gov-corp).
   
5. Social Domestication: Laws designed to socio-economically dominate, restrict and pacify the subject class.
6. Gender Inequality: Women do have have the same social status, power or prestige as do the men who hold masculine virtues superior to feminine virtues.
7. Environmental Indifference: Need I say more?

Prevailing culture can be used interchangeably with other terms such as:

• Aristocracy
• Corporatocracy
• Bourgeoisie
• The Establishment
• Oligarchy
• Plutocracy
• Ruling class
• Upper Ten Thousand
• GORP
• Ruthless Class
• Leadership Class
• Current Cultural Leadership
• Current Global Leadership
• The Matrix
  
• The Menace

Site Wide Index of Subjects & Themes

Partial Index listing of site wide titles, themes and subjects that existing or subsequent articles will cover under the principal theme of….

Our Culture,

Our Inheritance,

Our Burden

The Way In and

a Way Out

from the

Nightmare of History

The Remergence and Rise of the Feminine Power; Gender balance as a prerequisite to a healthy and just society.

The Cave Walls of Culture

A Maze 6000 years in the Making

Socio-Economic Engineering or simply Cultural Engineering

How Deep is the Rabbit hole? “The Matrix” as cultural commentary

The Invisible Process of Indoctrination and Enculturation: Mind Control at its best

The Grand Illusion

Who’story?, Origins of Religion & Myth: Why you believe what you do

Warrior King as God: Anthro-theocracy the Roots of the Abrahamic Religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam)

The Judeo-Christian Culture Complex: In a Class by Itself

Westernization: The Plague of Colonialism Past and Present

All the way to Plutocracy: A Primer in Cultural Engineering

The Cradle of Imperialization 2500BC: Birthplace of the Military-Industrial Complex or Economic Militarism

A Brief story about the Long History of War: The Engine of Western Civilization

The Ultimate Consequences of Civilization as we know it.

The Genie is Out but for How Long. Why Governments Fear the Internet

Disinheriting our History

The Rise of Emergent Culture

Showdown: Prevailing Culture Versus Emergent Culture

What the Scientific Principle of Self-Organizing Criticality has to say about the coincidence of our Global Predicament and the Mayan Calendar cycle end date of Dec, 21 2012.

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The complete Analysis of President Obama’s first speech to a joint session of Congress

The Complete Analysis of President Obama’s Prime Time Pitch

Obama repeated his claim that his proposed budget will “cut our deficit in half by the end of my first term, even under the most pessimistic estimates.” But cut in half compared with what? And according to whom?

Obama starts with a figure of $1.3 trillion, saying “some of those Republican critics have a short memory, because, as I recall, I’m inheriting a $1.3 trillion deficit, annual deficit, from them.” He did inherit a huge deficit, but not entirely from Republicans. Democrats have controlled both houses of Congress for the past two years. Furthermore, the size is a bit slippery. The Congressional Budget Office projected a $1.18 trillion deficit on Jan. 8, 2009, its last estimate before Obama took office Jan. 20. That was the CBO’s estimate for the current fiscal year, which ends in September.

The president’s $1.3 trillion figure comes from an analysis released by Obama’s Office of Management and Budget in late February. We can assume that part of the reason for the higher estimate is that the economy worsened more than expected, which will reduce the government’s revenue from taxes even more than CBO had projected earlier.

If $1.3 trillion is the starting point, it is roughly accurate to say that Obama is proposing to cut the figure in half. CBO’s most recent projections of Obama’s budget put the deficit in fiscal 2013 (the last budget that would come from Obama’s current term in office) at $672 billion. That’s a 48 percent reduction from $1.3 trillion. The reduction would be even greater under the more optimistic projections from his own Office of Management and Budget. OMB projects the deficit will be about $533 billion in fiscal 2013, amounting to a cut of 59 percent.

However, both OMB and CBO predict that deficits would begin to shoot up again after the initial four-year period. OMB predicts a rise to $712 billion in 2019, and CBO forecasts a much sharper rise, reaching more than $1 trillion in fiscal 2018 and nearly $1.19 trillion in 2019 – about the same amount Obama inherited upon entering office.

Obama said he was “angry” about those “inexcusable” AIG bonuses, and called for Wall Street to restrain its “outsized” pay:

A study from the National Center on Family Homelessness, released March 9, did find that 1 in 50 children, or 2 percent of all children in the U.S., are homeless at some point during the year. But NCFH has a broader definition for homelessness than Chappell implies. Its definition isn’t restricted to children who are “sleeping under bridges and in tents.” It also includes children whose families are staying with friends or family members, in hotels and motels, in trailer parks or in “substandard” housing.

This is the definition used in the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act and a number of other pieces of legislation, but not the definition used by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD considers families homeless only if they are sleeping on the streets, in shelters or in places not designated for human habitation.

Furthermore, Chappell was wrong to claim that the 2 percent “homeless” figure is “a result of the economic downturn.” The NCFH study looked at data from 2005 to 2006 – well before the current recession started. The National Bureau of Economic Research says the current slump began in December 2007.

Chappell would be right to say that by any estimate the number of homeless children is significant even in good times, and is likely to be higher now. A 2000 study from the Urban Institute estimated that 1 million children (1.4 percent) were using assistance services and shelters at some point each year, “despite a booming economy and the lowest unemployment rate in a generation.”

Chappell would also be justified in saying too many children actually are “sleeping under bridges and in tents.” A 2008 report from the U.S. Conference of Mayors gives a rough idea of how many that might be. Based on data from 23 cities, the report estimated that on an average night in an average city 543 people in families (both children and adults) and 268 unaccompanied youth were sleeping on the street. That’s an unfortunate figure, but nowhere close to 1 child in 50.

– by Brooks Jackson, Joe Miller, Justin Bank, Jess Henig and Lori Robertson

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