We were promised change. America bought into the mantra, assuming change meant for the better. What we've gotten, however is a line-up of "criminals" that can only promise more of the same. Unless we are to believe jaguars can change their spots. I mean, let's look at some of the cabinet members so far chosen by Barack Obama.
Rahm Emanuel: A pro-Zionist in the mold of Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu— soon to be rabid, hate-filled Prime Minister? —who believes Palestine is only for Jews; that the reality of Israel as the ancestral homeland of the Palestinians for millennia be damned. Having named a Zionist apologist as chief of staff, his closest advisor, means President Obama will not be getting any conflicting points-of-view about Israeli continued intransigence vis-à-vis peace with Palestinians. Obama spoke forcefully about ending terrorism first by finding and killing Osama bin Laden then by transferring U.S. troops from Iraq to Afghanistan to eradicate Al Qaeda. Only one problem there…Even as America's most wanted terrorist himself has stated, the root of terrorism is two-fold: America's brutal foreign policy that has decimated peoples of every continent and of equal portion, America's aiding and abetting Israel's illegal land grab and occupation of Palestine. Going after Al Qaeda won't stop terrorism. Stopping Zionist terrorists and revamping financial and economic aid programs so that the help actually helps, will stop terrorism. I'll be further fleshing out the Zionist history of degradation and usurpation of an entire people to the applause of and with military assistance from the United States of America.
Paul Volcker: Named to Obama's Presidential Economic Recovery Advisory Board. A quote from the fantastic book, "Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" by Naomi Klein should suffice. "A new kind of shock was in the news: the Volcker Shock. Economists used this term to describe the impact of the decision made by Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker when he dramatically increased interest rates in the United States, letting them rise as high as 21 percent, reaching a peak in 1981 and lasting through the mid-eighties. In the U.S., rising interest rates led to a wave of bankruptcies, and in 1983 the number of people who defaulted on their mortgages tripled. The deepest pain, however, was felt outside the U.S. In developing countries carrying heavy debt loads, the Volcker Shock – also known as the "debt shock" or the "debt crisis" – was like a giant Taser gun fired from Washington, sending the developing world into convulsions. Soaring interest rates meant higher interest payments on foreign debts, and often the higher payments could only be met by taking on more loans. The debt spiral was born." Now, he stands poised to continue thieving from the have-nots for the benefit of the very few haves. An old Chicago School adherent—meaning a devotee of Milton Friedman's Savage Capitalism where markets should have no regulation whatsoever and government should play no role whatsoever in financial/economic concerns of the nation – Volcker will no doubt opine that only through harsh measures born by the population will recovery be had. Remember Reaganomics? Supply side economics that drove the United States deep into debt was the mainstay of that period.
Tim Geithner: Formerly the New York Federal Reserve President will become the Treasury Secretary. He is another Chicago School advocate. And, I guess it needs to be stated, he was on board when all the shit was hitting the fan over the past decade yet there do not appear to have been any pleas from him to regulate the financial markets prior to the meltdown. Another Free Marketeer.
Austen Goolsbee: Yet another Chicago School economist appointed. If the reader hasn't yet grasped the import of such selections, Google Milton Friedman or Chicago School of Economics or Von Mises (which is where the theory of socialized cost and privatized profits being the percs to which elite interests are entitled originated). Read and weep.
Just with the above mentioned appointees America can pretty much resign itself to the fact that terrorism and brutal capitalism will continue to run amok. Maybe President-elect Obama will soothe us with a smile and some wonderful sentiments. Of course, if you've been victimized by the prevailing status quo, such remedies will do nothing to ease the pain of your suffering.
George Bush was a disaster by any measureable standard. A McCain Administration would've been worse just by virtue of being the same. Barack Obama should be given a chance. However, with just the first picks above, how much different can things possibly get? As shown time and time again in "Shock Doctrine" all capitalistocratic perversities perpetrated throughout the world were made possible by crises be they natural (Katrina) or otherwise (current financial meltdown). Then the "medicine" is administered and makes the patient worse off.
Seven trillion dollars and still mounting; a cost to be shouldered by the American people. Most Americans believe that this whole crisis is predicated on mortgages defaulting; that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were responsible. That is not the truth. It was the private sector issuance of highly leveraged financial instruments (credit debt swaps) amounting to somewhere around $62 Trillion (or three times the worth of the entire planet) that is at the root of the current crisis. In fact, while holding the majority of mortgages the FMs only are holding 20 percent of defaulted mortgages. So, the problem was and remains private sector greed.
If Obama listens to the advisors so far chosen, we won't see justice being done. What we'll have is more of the same: Thieving money from the people (via retirement fund raids, wage declines, benefit give-backs, etc) and channeling that money upward into the hands of the top one percent. That's what has been happening ever since Reagan. To this day you can find advocates of Reaganomics screaming bloody murder over school taxes being too high. The irony, of course, is that because of Reaganomics, less money went from the Federal government to the states so, therefore, less money went from the State to the locality, ergo more property tax hikes to make up the difference (even as more and more Federal and State mandates were enacted without funding provisions).
Henry Paulson standing up and stating that a crisis of depression era proportion was upon us was the first shot in a war against middleclass Americans. President-elect Obama, if he does nothing else, MUST read "Shock Doctrine" before it's too late for all of us. Fine words won't be enough for this battle.
