Obama In Balt GOP Snake Pit, JD Salinger Dead At 91, Ben Bernanke Gets Senate Nod, Afghan War Protest

January 29th, 2010 - by: danny

I am in Boston, speaking today at 1:30 PM at the NEU Conference on Anti-Imperialism and the War on Terror at MIT. MIT building 34-101, 50 Vassar Street, Cambridge It should be interesting what with 911 Truthers taking part.

Barack Obama went to Baltimore yesterday, and into a Republican political snake pit to reassure his adversaries that he is just like them. In a revealing encounter with ideologues, he insisted he is not one.

“I’m really not.”

Snicker, Snicker.

He went on a Rodney King mission to plead and implore, “can’t we all just get along?” He doesn’t like being called a Bolshevik, when he is in fact acting more and more like a Bushevik. [Single Payer Doctors Arrested Outside Baltimore Hotel While Obama Speaking to Republicans] Please, guys, I am one of you.

This display of wannabe collaborationism and pandering to people whose whole strategy is built around demonizing him as a Socialist and worse was based on an obvious fallacy: the polemics that divide the two parties are not based on principled or intellectual differences or who has the best ideas. For the right, this is all driven by a strategic analysis about how best to play to and exploit widespread anger and frustration with a collapsed economy, more that who Obama is or what he stands for. They have nothing so offer so they have to be the Party of No. It’s not personal. It only sometimes looks that that way. He’s a foil for them, not a potential partner. They have a boiler room, not a seminar room, approach. They want to win, not woo.

The Repugs are wedded to a political calculation that hot button polarization is their best strategy to catapult the GOP back into power. They believe it’s been tested in several recent elections and will not fail. They care more about organizing than mesmerizing. It is shocking that a community organizer doesn’t get that!

The last thing they want is to be pals and realize we are all in this together. The American people Obama speaks of serving are not the people who these battle axes care about. They are building a base, not mounting a PR campaign. This is all about winning activist and disaffected minorities, not a broad consensus based on what’s best for the country. They are fighting state by state, not nationally. Isn’t that obvious? They want to be feared, not loved.

Yet Obama persists with his bi-partisan illusions. At the State of the Union, he blasted lobbyists. The next day he was sucking up to them. Ditto for the Banks, attack them one day, soft pedal your critique the next.

Like Bill Clinton before him, he wants to be in the center, and to stay there he believes he has to steal/coopt Republican talking points like tax cuts, nuclear power, and deficit reduction, etc. ad nauseum. Clinton was successful at repositioning himself because he also cultivated minorities — remember he was, symbolically at least, “the first black president.” Obama, on the other hand is black, and has to cultivate white support, which he believes requires him to tilt to the right. He knows that what’s left of the left has nowhere else to go so he placates them with slogans and minor measures.

He and the Repugs are talking past each other to different constituencies. He wants to be liked, to play ball. They don’t care about that. The fact that he came to them enboldened them, made them feel more important and more like winners. He was on the defensive, not them. He needs them, or feels he does, not the other way around. Rather than mobilize his base, he’s pandering to theirs. This is not an approach that can or will work. He may score some debaters points but it looks weak–and is.

TRANSCRIPT

Russert: Republicans Say It Was a Mistake Cameras Were Allowed to Roll During President’s Appearance at Retreat

AUTHOR JD SALINGER DEAD AT 91
FED HEAD BERNANKE WILL BE RECONFIRMED
MORE COMMENTS ON HOWARD ZINN

A day after the President blamed the banks and the Bush administration for creating the financial meltdown, the Senate announced they will ratify the confirmation of Ben Bernanke, first appointed by Bush as the head of the Fed, despite all the concerns about his failure to act to stop dangerous lending practices. The White House lobbied for his reappointment despite significant opposition from politicians.

U.S. Senate Confirms Ben S. Bernanke in New Term at Fed

The Senate indicated that it would confirm Ben S. Bernanke for a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve, taking the key procedural step of voting 77 to 23 to end debate, in what is known as a cloture vote. The final vote was 70-30 in favor of Bernanke. Mr. Bernanke’s current four-year term expires on Sunday.

Comments economist Simon Johnson at BaselineScenario.com

Reappointing Ben Bernanke solves none of our problems. In fact, given his stated intentions, a Bernanke reappointment implies larger bailouts in the future — thus compromising our budget further with contingent liabilities, i.e., huge payments that we’ll have to make next time there is a crisis. What kind of fiscal responsibility strategy is this?

Rather than messing about with a meaningless (or damaging) freeze for part of discretionary spending, the White House should fix the financial system that — with too big to fail at its heart — has directly resulted in doubling our net government debt to GDP ratio from 40 percent (a moderate level) towards 80 percent (a high level) in a desperate attempt to ward off a Second Great Depression.

If you think we can sort out finance with Ben Bernanke at the helm, it was sensible to reappoint him. But when the time comes for members of the Senate themselves to be held accountable, do not be surprised if people point out that pushing Bernanke through — come what may — was the beginning of the end for any serious attempt at reform.

Ultimately, sensible democratic governance prevails in the United States. Sometimes it takes a while.”

Let’s Make Up News

Hill: After Obama rips lobbyists, K Stree. insiders get private briefings

A day after bashing lobbyists, President Barack Obama’s administration has invited K Street insiders to join private briefings on a range of topics addressed in Wednesday’s State of the Union. Read more

A number of business publications commented that Obama “softened” his remarks on the banks during his on-again/off-again flirtation with populism during the State of the Union address.

AFGHANISTAN

President Obama mentioned Afghanistan approvingly. He did not mention the revelations in this TomDispach report:

In this pioneering piece, TomDispatch regular, Anand Gopal, who has most recently been reporting from Kabul for the Wall Street Journal, breaks one of the big stories of 2010. After a year of investigation, he tells of the widespread and feared American “night raids” in Afghanistan and the network of secret prisons on U.S. military bases that goes with them, where detainees from the raids are held, in many cases abused, and in some cases disappeared — or possibly worse.

There is a striking, unknown, and horrifying tale here about the dark side of the American war in Afghanistan. You learn, for instance, of the team of U.S. troops, “most of them tattooed and bearded,” who came in the night and broke into the Ghazni city home of Majidullah Qarar, the spokesman for the Minister of Agriculture…

Listen: An audio interview with Anand Gopal in which he discusses his investigation.

The big news in the NY Times about Afghanistan was a report that the US military is about to try to buy off a Pahshtun tribe and involve it in the war on the Taliban. A Conference in London of Afghan Donors meet To come up with a strategy to clean up corruption in Kabiul. More peace talk underway.

AFGHAN PROTEST ON FACEBOOK

(Mashable) An organization called Rethink Afghanistan has executed a widespread war protest on the White House’s Facebook page.

It began with a drive for 20,000 signatures at Rethink Afghanistan’s website, but folks who added their signatures were also given instructions for participating in the Facebook protest.

Hundreds of people have posted the following message or something very close to it to the White House page:

“President Obama, I am one of more than 20,000 signers of this petition from Rethink Afghanistan: ‘In your State of the Union address on January 27, 2010, I want you to provide a concrete exit strategy for our troops in Afghanistan that begins no later than July 2011 and which completes a withdrawal of combat troops no later than July 1, 2012.’ Petition: http://bit.ly/7romlW”

Huff Post: Senator Leahy Slams Supreme Court Justice Samuel “No, It’s Not True” Alito

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) lashed into Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Thursday morning on the Senate floor, calling out the swing vote who overturned a hundred years of precedent to legalize deep corporate involvement in elections.

Leahy said that, in 36 years in the Senate he had never come to the floor to criticize a court decision, but was moved to do so by the activist nature of last week’s 5-4 ruling in the Citizens United case.

He personally attacked Alito, noting that his confirmation testimony was under oath, yet was proven false by his brazen and radical dismissal of a century of precedent.

“In his confirmation hearing, Justice Alito — and I might say, under oath — testified that the role of the Supreme Court is a limited role. It has to do what it is supposed to do vigilantly, but it has to be equally vigilant about not stepping over its bounds and invading the authority of Congress,” Leahy recalled Alito apparently lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee. “That was then — when he was seeking confirmation. This is now.”

Leahy said that he was speaking on the floor as chair of that committee and there are few historical precedents for such a direct rebuke of the court. “The conservative activist bloc on the Supreme Court reached an unnecessary and improper decision that is going to distort future elections,” said Leahy. “It creates new rights for Wall Street at the expense of Main Street.”

IT IS TONY’S TURN—ANTI WAR PROTESTS PLANNED IN LONDON FRIDAY

The Australian Age reports:

Tony Blair’s long-awaited appearance before the Iraq inquiry Friday smacks as much of voyeurism as it does of modern justice and geopolitics.

So feverish is media and public excitement about the grilling that the inquiry chairman, Sir John Chilcot, has been forced to grant seats by public lottery – 3000 people applied – as well as employ special security costing thousands of pounds.

The reality is that Mr Blair’s testimony is unlikely to shed much new light on the decisions that led to Britain’s decision to go to war in Iraq. Questions of legality and moral legitimacy have been raked over and over in three previous investigations, the most recent in the Netherlands.

Since December, a cavalcade of civil servants and advisers, including Mr Blair’s right-hand man, Alastair Campbell, have given evidence, some steadfastly defending the decision to go to war, others crying that their warnings of ”no, Minister” had been loud but went unheeded.

US PRISONS SURGE

We have heard a lot about Gitmo but little about the growth of the US prison industry.

LATEST ON HAITI

HAITI: Telegraph: “West urged to write off Haiti’s $1bn debt”

Governments have been urged to write off Haiti’s international debts of nearly $1 billion ( £620 million) after its prime minister said rebuilding the country could take a decade.

Jean-Max Bellerive told an emergency meeting of ministers in Montreal, including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that the “colossal” effort would take “at least five to 10 years”.

He said: “The people of Haiti will need more and more and more in order to complete the reconstruction. What we’re looking for is a long-term commitment. Haiti needs the massive support of its partners in the international community in the medium and long term.”

Responding to criticism that the Haitian government had been almost invisible during relief efforts he said it was working in “precarious conditions”.

“We are fully conscious that the prime responsibility for our future lies in the hands of the Haitian government and the Haitian people.”

I read tonight that of the money being sent by the Administration–even as the Haitian Ambassador watched the speech from the gallery–only one cent of every US government aid dollar goes to the Haitian Government while 33 cents goes to our military.

JohnPilger.com: The Theft of Haiti

The theft of Haiti has been swift and crude. On 22 January, the United States secured “formal approval” from the United Nations to take over all air and sea ports in Haiti, and to “secure” roads. No Haitian signed the agreement, which has no basis in law. Power rules in an American naval blockade and the arrival of 13,000 marines, special forces, spooks and mercenaries, none with humanitarian relief training.

The airport in the capital, Port-au-Prince, is now an American military base and relief flights have been re-routed to the Dominican Republic. All flights stopped for three hours for the arrival of Hillary Clinton. Critically injured Haitians waited unaided as 800 American residents in Haiti were fed, watered and evacuated. Six days passed before the US Air Force dropped bottled water to people suffering thirst and dehydration.

The first TV reports played a critical role, giving the impression of widespread criminal mayhem. Matt Frei, the BBC reporter dispatched from Washington, seemed on the point of hyperventilation as he brayed about the “violence” and need for “security”. In spite of the demonstrable dignity of the earthquake victims, and evidence of citizens’ groups toiling unaided to rescue people, and even an American general’s assessment that the violence in Haiti was considerably less than before the earthquake, Frei claimed that “looting is the only industry” and “the dignity of Haiti’s past is long forgotten.” Thus, a history of unerring US violence and exploitation in Haiti was consigned to the victims. “There’s no doubt,” reported Frei in the aftermath of America’s bloody invasion of Iraq in 2003, “that the desire to bring good, to bring American values to the rest of the world, and especially now to the Middle East … is now increasingly tied up with military power….”

Trauma Relief for Haiti

Once the rescue efforts have subsided, relief teams have departed only then the planning for psychosocial rehabilitation begins. Haiti will be in need for psychological assistance to cope with the devastation. The loss of loved ones, the loss of limb, the fear of the unknown and what the future will hold for them, is a slow and painstaking psychological recovery process. The Association for Trauma Outreach & Prevention (ATOP) of Meaningfulworld, an international charitable organization devoted to fostering a meaningful, peaceful, and just world, is assisting the Haitian community in NY greater tri-state by providing phone consultations, PTSD briefing, consultations, and education. ATOP is also planning a mission to Haiti starting on March 10th 2010.

HAITIAN ACTION COMMITTEE

Politics of The Earthquake: Respect the People of Haiti by Robert Roth — Haiti Action Committee

“Now we watch the U.S. gear up for a massive military operation in Haiti, while people die due to lack of medicine, or starve while food supplies sit on the airport tarmac. We see the pictures of families digging their relatives out of the rubble, with no aid in sight. We read the usual racist slurs against Haitians, called “scavengers” or “looters” when, after many days with no assistance, they look for food and water in abandoned homes. We read that the problems of Haiti are rooted in “their culture and religious beliefs”, rather than in the harsh realities of colonialism and occupation. We hear CNN reports of a field hospital being ordered out of a community for “security reasons” by the United Nations, even in the face of wounded and dying people. And we read that Doctors Without Borders cargo planes were denied landing space in Port-au-Prince by U.S. military authorities.

This is a time to respect the resiliency and courage of the Haitian people. It is a time for aid, not charity, for solidarity not a U.S. military take-over. And it is a time to return President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to his homeland.”

The News Dissector