Demicans and Republicats, the Lesson to be Learned from Barack Obama

Many have speculated on the diametric difference between Obama's campaign message of fundamental change and the fundamental lack of change in his actions and policies as President. Some say Obama did not bring change because the office of President changed him. Others, with whom I agree, say that Obama never intended to bring change, that he is the great deceiver. From his very first decision to name Rahm Immanuel as his Chief of Staff and his ouster of Howard Dean as head of the Democratic National Committee it was clear that nothing resembling the change he trumpeted during his campaign was going to take place. It has only gotten worse. There is a large and chilling lesson to be learned from this enormous deception. That lesson is crystal clear in telling us who is in charge of this country and what their intentions are for those of us who live here and those on this planet that may suffer from the use of America's power both economic and military.

From his 700 million dollar bailout of major US banks (talk about "trickle down"), to his pursuit of American oil hegemony on the shores of the Caspian Sea, otherwise known as the Afghanistan surge, Obama has demonstrated his allegiance to the wealthy of this nation and the continued political domination of corporations. It is, in my judgment, imperative that the people of this country become focused on corporate America as the single largest threat to their democracy and personal well being. Profit, not people, has been the articulating dominator of this country far too long. It is now a question of them or us. Obama, with a mandate no president has had since Ronald Reagan, refused to use it to redirect this country to the welfare of its citizens instead of the welfare of its wealthy.

The depth of Osama's commitment to the wealthy and their corporations is portrayed in an excellent, well documented report by David DeGraw titled Af-Pak War Racket: The Obama Illusion Comes Crashing Down. The report can be found at http://ampedstatus.com/af-pak-war-racket-the-obama-illusion-comes-crashing-down. DeGraw describes how the Afghanistan surge is actually directed at denying Russia and China access to one of the world's largest oil reserves located on the Kazakhstan coast of the Caspian Sea. More accurately, it is aimed at providing that oil to United States oil corporations. Wall Street firms, especially Goldman-Sachs, are involved in this effort by way of setting up an oil commodities market outside the United States to handle the world-wide competition for this oil. Thus, to make the depth of the deception that is the Afghanistan War a little clearer, the United States military is waging war, killing and being killed, for the benefit of oil corporations who will not only make immense amounts of money from that oil, but will, in addition, manipulate the speculative market for this oil to further raise the oil's cost and their profits. This monstrous undertaking involving the killing and maiming of the innocent in the thousands for the benefit of egregiously wealthy corporations, their officers and investors, is but an instance of the capitalist greed we have unleashed upon the world. We progressives must make clear the depths of calumny that the people are being subject to. DeGraw's essay is a good place to start.

As a result of Obama's abandonment of progressives it is, in my judgment, fruitless to continue the pursuit of some sort of accommodation with him. He patently is not interested. The problem is what is to be done to save our democracy in the absence of political clout. Some, such as the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) are focused on electing progressive candidates to national, state and local political offices. Commendable as this is, I do not think we have time for this approach. The Copenhagen climate conference, for example, has demonstrated that the wealthy portion of the planet is prepared to sacrifice the poorer southern nations of the world, especially Africa, by way of "cap and trade" the market for which strongly favors the wealth of the rich countries. The United States is a major player in this effort, which would lock in this market approach until at least 2020, which is way beyond the time we have to act on this most momentous of issues. As I say, we do not have time for an incremental approach to changing our government and our national priorities.

To my mind progressives have to organize to take the issues and the short term impacts that they will generate to the people. As an example, Sam Pizzigati has proposed that instead of just increasing the taxes on the rich, who, with their time and money, will energetically seek to reverse them, we need in addition to cap both the top and the bottom of the annual income scale. Sam's essay can be found at http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2009/1109pizzigati.html . Decades ago Robert Theobald proposed a guaranteed annual income for all citizens. He saw that, with the advancement of technology and the consequent elimination of jobs, the job could no longer be the sole vehicle for distributing the gross national product. A guaranteed annual income or some surrogate would "cap" the bottom of the economic scale. Capping the maximum income that a citizen could receive would not only create a more equitable society, it would, by linking the welfare of the rich and the poor with these "caps," provide a constant awareness among the citizenry of equity, especially when the wealthy begin their often devious efforts to increase their wealth at the expense of the rest of society. The importance of this latter point can be demonstrated by reflecting on how Reagan persuaded the average American that increasing the wealth of the already wealthy by tax breaks and other measures would stimulate the economy and thereby provide jobs for the rest of us. In this connection it should also be noticed that we have been indoctrinated to accept the "business cycle" as normal. What is seldom pointed out is that since the advent of modern technology, especially computers and robots, after every recession there have been fewer jobs available. In other words the "normal" business cycle is now in the business of eliminating jobs. As long as the job remains the basic means of distributing the gross national product this problem can only increase.

I think we can now see more clearly what Ralph Nader has been saying for years, namely, that in the area of corporate domination of American society there is no significant difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. They are both wedded to corporate domination of our country and our world. As for the latter matter Arundhati Roy, in her book of essays titled Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers has described the corporate pillaging of India by the very same corporations that have been so detrimental to our own society. What David DeGraw has shown us about Obama and what Sam Pizzigati has proposed as a remedy for the dominating role of wealth in our society reflects both the cause of our terrible times and the kind of remedy progressives need to pursue. Lacking a political party progressives need to push both the underlying cause of our dysfunctional and increasingly dangerous societal behavior and the kind of remedies need. This is exactly what the progressives did at the turn of the 20th century with their push to base our currency on silver and gold rather than the much scarcer gold alone, which the wealthy could so easily control. This is the significance of William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech. Let us go forth and do likewise.

Bob Newhard