waging, the trillions of dollars spent, not to mention the millions of lives
affected. More to come, I'm sure. -Ed
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/hogwash_mr_president_20110126/
Hogwash, Mr. President
Robert Scheer
Truthdig: January 26, 2011
What is the state of the union? You certainly couldn't tell from that
platitudinous hogwash that the president dished out Tuesday evening. I had
expected Barack Obama to be his eloquent self, appealing to our better
nature, but instead he was mealy-mouthed in avoiding the tough choices that
a leader should delineate in a time of trouble. He embraced clean air and a
faster Internet while ignoring the depth of our economic pain and the Wall
Street scoundrels who were responsible-understandably so, since they so
prominently populate the highest reaches of his administration. He had the
effrontery to condemn "a parade of lobbyists" for rigging government after
he appointed the top Washington representative of JPMorgan Chase to be his
new chief of staff.
The speech was a distraction from what seriously ails us: an unabated
mortgage crisis, stubbornly high unemployment and a debt that spiraled out
of control while the government wasted trillions making the bankers whole.
Instead the president conveyed the insular optimism of his fat-cat
associates: "We are poised for progress. Two years after the worst recession
most of us have ever known, the stock market has come roaring back.
Corporate profits are up. The economy is growing again." How convenient to
ignore the fact that this bubble of prosperity, which has failed the tens of
millions losing their homes and jobs, was floated by enormous government
indebtedness now forcing deep cuts in social services including state
financial aid for those better-educated students the president claims to be
so concerned about.
His references to education provided a convenient scapegoat for the failure
of the economy, rather than to blame the actions of the Wall Street hustlers
to whom Obama is now sucking up. Yes, it is an obvious good to have
better-educated students to compete with other economies, but that is hardly
the issue of the moment when all of the world's economies are suffering
grievous harm resulting from the irresponsible behavior of the best and the
brightest here at home. It wasn't the students struggling at community
colleges who came up with the financial gimmicks that produced the Great
Recession, but rather the super-whiz-kid graduates of the top business and
law schools.
What nonsense to insist that low public school test scores hobbled our
economy when it was the highest-achieving graduates of our elite colleges
who designed and sold the financial gimmicks that created this crisis.
Indeed, some of the folks who once designed the phony mathematical formulas
underwriting subprime mortgage-based derivatives won Nobel prizes for their
effort. A pioneer in the securitization of mortgage debt, as well as
exporting jobs abroad, was one Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of GE, whom Obama
recently appointed to head his new job creation panel.
That the financial meltdown at the heart of our economic crisis was
"avoidable" and not the result of long-run economic problems related to
education and foreign competition is detailed in a sweeping report by the
Democratic majority on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to be
released as a 576-page book on Thursday. In a preview reported in The New
York Times, the commission concluded: "The greatest tragedy would be to
accept the refrain that no one could have seen this coming and thus nothing
could have been done. If we accept this notion, it will happen again."
Just the warning that Obama has ignored by continually appointing the very
people who engineered this crisis, mostly Clinton alums, to reverse its
ongoing dire consequences. As the Times reports: "The decision in 2000 to
shield the exotic financial instruments known as over-the-counter
derivatives from regulation, made during the last year of President Bill
Clinton's term, is called 'a key turning point in the march toward the
financial crisis.' "
Obama appointed as his top economic adviser Lawrence Summers, who as
Clinton's treasury secretary was the key architect of that "turning point,"
and
Summers protégé Timothy Geithner as his own treasury secretary. The
unanimous finding of the 10 Democrats on the commission is that Geithner,
who had been president of the New York Fed before Obama appointed him,
"could have clamped down" on excesses by Citigroup, the subprime mortgage
leader that Geithner and the Fed bailed out along with other unworthy
banking supplicants.
Profligate behavior that has hobbled the economy while running up an
enormous debt that Obama now uses as an excuse for a five-year freeze on
discretionary domestic spending cuts that small part of the budget that
might actually help ordinary people. Speaking of our legacy of deficit
spending, Obama stated, ". in the wake of the financial crisis, some of that
was necessary to keep credit flowing, save jobs, and put money in people's
pockets. But now that the worst of the recession is over, we have to
confront the fact that our government spends more than it takes in."
Why now? It is an absurd demarcation to freeze spending when so many remain
unemployed just because corporate profits, and therefore stock market
valuations, seem firm. Ours is a union divided between those who agree with
Obama that "the worst of the recession is over" and the far larger number in
deep pain that this president is bent on ignoring.
***
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27334.htm
US Threat to Palestinians: Change Leadership And We Cut Funds
Obama administration told Palestinian Authority its leaders must remain in
office if it wants to retain US financial backing
By Seumas Milne and Ian Black
January 24, 2011 "The Guardian" -- The Obama administration has privately
made clear that it will not allow any change of Palestinian leadership in
the West Bank, the leaked papers reveal, let alone any repetition of the
Hamas election victory that briefly gave the Islamists control of the
Palestinian Authority five years ago.
That is despite the fact that the democratic legitimacy of both the
Palestinian president and Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), and prime
minister, Salam Fayyad, is strongly contested among Palestinians, and there
are no plans for new elections in either the West Bank or Gaza.
"The new US administration expects to see the same Palestinian faces (Abu
Mazen and Salam Fayyad) if it is to continue funding the Palestinian
Authority," the then assistant secretary of state David Welch is recorded as
telling Fayyad in November 2008. Most of the PA's funding comes from the US
and European Union.
Almost a year later, the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, reacted
angrily to news that Abbas had threatened to resign and call for new
presidential elections. She told Palestinian negotiators: "Abu Mazen
[Mahmoud Abbas] not running in the election is not an option - there is no
alternative to him." The threat was withdrawn and no election was held.
The US consulate in Jerusalem reported to Washington in December 2009 that
"despite all its warts and imperfections, Fatah remains the only viable
alternative to Hamas if Palestinian elections occur in the near future,"
according to a cable released by Wikileaks.
The US government's private determination to use its financial and military
leverage to keep the existing regime in place - while publicly continuing to
maintain that Palestinians are free to choose their own leaders - echoes the
Bush administration's veto on attempts to create a Palestinian national
unity administration after Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in the summer of
2007.
Unlike the PLO, Hamas rejects negotiations, except for a long-term
ceasefire, and refuses to recognise Israel. Supported by Iran and Syria, the
group is classed as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US and the EU.
The leaked documents quote General Keith Dayton, the US security
co-ordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority who was in charge of
building up PA security forces until last October. He warned Palestinian
leaders in 2007 about rumours that the "Fatah old guard" were undermining
Fayyad, who he confirmed as the linchpin of US strategy in the West Bank.
"As much as President Bush thinks Abu Mazen is important," Dayton told them,
"without Fayyad, the US will lift its hand from the PA and give up on Abu
Mazen." Unlike Abbas, Fayyad - a US-trained economist who formerly worked
for the World Bank and and the IMF - is not a member of the secular Fatah
party.
Abbas was elected president in 2005, but his mandate expired in 2009 and is
no longer recognised by Hamas, among others, as the legitimate Palestinian
leader. Fayyad was appointed prime minister by Abbas after the Hamas
takeover of Gaza but his legitimacy is also strongly contested as his
appointment was never confirmed as required by the PA's parliament.
The Obama administration's determination to keep control of who runs the PA
underlines the continuity of policy from the Bush years. In the runup to the
2007 Hamas takeover of Gaza, the then US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice
was revealed in leaked US official documents to have as good as instructed
Abbas to "collapse" the then joint Fatah-Hamas national unity government.
The dependence of the existing PA and PLO leadership on US support is well
understood by those leaders, as the documents underline. Referring to
Obama's attempt to kickstart Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in 2009, US
state department official David Hale told chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb
Erekat: "We need the help of friends like you."
Erekat replied that the US president's "success is my survival".
The US consulate in Jerusalem reported in December 2009: "It is axiomatic
amongst our contacts that Fatah remains the only near-term alternative to
Hamas in Palestinian politics. Despite the toll of corruption and stagnant
peace process, our contacts believe that only Fatah has the national
liberation credentials, breadth of appeal and organisational structure to
mobilise and win a Palestinian election for the foreseeable future ...
Despite all its warts and imperfections, Fatah rermains the only viable
alternative to Hamas if Palestinian elections occur in the near future."
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