Wednesday, January 23, 2008

The Audacity Of Hype
















AN AUDACIOUS DEFERENCE TO POWER


If the Democrats’ candidate in 2008 is Obama, we can be sure that the right-wing Republican noise machine will denounce the nation’s potential first non-white male president as a dangerous “leftist.” The charge will be absurd, something that will hardly stop numerous people on the portside of the narrow U.S. political spectrum from claiming Obama as a fellow “progressive.” Certain to be encouraged by Obama and his handlers, this confusion will reflect the desperation and myopia that shaky thinking and the limited choices of the U.S. electoral system regularly instill in liberals and some squishy near leftists.

So what sorts of policies and values could one expect from an imagined Obama presidency? There is quite a bit already in Obama’s short national career that has to be placed in the “never mind” category if one is to seriously believe his claim (cautiously advanced in The Audacity of Hope) to be a “progressive” concerned with “social and economic justice” and global peace.

Last August, Obama audaciously told thousands of labor union members at Chicago's Soldier Field that he was "running for president...because of you, not because of folks who are writing big checks." He made a big point of the fact that he "does not take money from corporate lobbyists," unlike business-friendly Hillary Clinton.

He uttered his worker-pleasing words even as his campaign was bending with fierce plutocratic winds fanned by giant global investment firms and corporations that were helping him join leading corporate Democrat Clinton in setting new electoral fundraising records.

Ever wonder why the "progressive" (as he repeatedly describes himself) Obama dances for Wall Street on the (fake) Social Security "crisis" and sounds like Mitt Romney and Rudy Guliani in decrying the specter of "government mandated" universal health care? Curious about why the avowed environmentalist thinks that nuclear power should be considered part of the solution to America's energy crisis and has recently joined Hillary in voting for the extension of the corporate-neoliberal North American Free Trade Agreement to Peru?

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Obama's presidential campaign has received nearly $5 million dollars from securities and investment firms and $866,000 from commercial banks through October of 2007. Obama's top contributor so far is Goldman Sachs (provider of $369,078 to Obama), identified by Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) investigators as "a major proponent of privatizing Social Security as well as legislation that would essentially deregulate the investment banking/securities industry." Eight of Obama's top twenty election investors are securities and investment firms: Goldman Sachs, Lehman Bros. (#2 at $229,090), J.P. Morgan Chase and Co. (# 4 at $216,759), Citadel Investment Group (#7 at 4166,608), UBS AG ($146,150), UBS-America ($106,680), Morgan Stanley ($104,421), and Credit Suisse Group ($92,300). The last two firms are also known to be leading privatization advocates.

Meanwhile, Obama's presidential run has been "assisted" by more than $2 million from the health care sector and nearly $400,000 from the insurance industry through October of 2007. Obama received $708,000 from medical and insurance interests between 2001 and 2006. His wife Michelle, a fellow Harvard Law graduate, was until a recently a Vice President for Community and External Affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals, a position that paid her $273, 618 in 2006.

And Obama's sixth largest contributor is Exelon, the proud Chicago-based owner and operator of more nuclear power plants than any entity on earth.

Go figure.

As for his "lobbyist ban," last August the Los Angeles Times reported that Obama "raised more than $1 million in the first three months of his presidential campaign from law firms and companies that have major lobbying operations in the nation's capital." Campaign finance expert Stephen Weissman observed that this raised troubling questions about the practical relevance of Obama's much-ballyhooed pledge to turn down donations from "federal lobbyists."

Obama's rise to national prominence and presidential viability has in fact depended significantly on PAC and lobbyist money.

To give one example, Obama received $33,000 in the first quarter of 2007 from the Atlanta-based law firm Alston & Bird, which maintains a large lobbying division in Washington. Obama's $33,000 came bundled from a number of "consultants" employed by the firm.

Also deleted from Obama's "ban" are state lobbyists. Obama took $2000 from two Springfield, Illinois lobbyists for Exelon, which spent $500,000 to influence policy in Washington in 2006 and gave $160,000 directly to Obama.

An especially big dent in the armor of Obama's effort to sell himself as the noble repudiator of lobbyist, PAC, and special interest money generally was inflicted in early August of 2007. That's when the Boston Globe published a widely circulated article titled "PACs and Lobbyists Aided Obama's Rise: Data Contrast With His Theme." Globe reporter Scott Helman reviewed campaign finance records to find that a "more complicated truth" lurked "behind Obama's campaign rhetoric." Obama's rise to national prominence and presidential viability, Helman discovered, depended significantly on PAC and lobbyist money, including large sums from "defense contractors, law firms and the securities and insurance industries" to his own powerful PAC "Hopefund." Of special interest was Helman's determination that Obama was retaining close and lucrative funding relationships with leading Washington-based lobbyists and lobbying firms while technically avoiding direct contributions from those key campaign finance players.

NEVER MIND






















When politicians offer nothing, and the people demand nothing, then the powers-that-be are free to continue doing whatever they choose. The death knell of participatory politics can often be a very noisy, celebratory affair - such as we have witnessed in the call-and-response ritual of "Change!" "Hope!" and other exuberant but insubstantial campaign exercises.

After more than four years of observing Obama's descent from vaguely progressive rhetoric to shameless pandering and vapid "Change!" mantra nonsense are we to ignore the facts on the ground stick our heads in the sand and say never mind?

Never mind, for example, that Obama was recently hailed as a “Hamiltonian” believer in “limited government” and “free trade” by Republican New York Times columnist David Brooks, who praises Obama for having “a mentality formed by globalization, not the SDS.” Or that he had to be shamed off the “New Democrat Directory” of the corporate-right Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) by the popular left black Internet magazine Black Commentator.

Never mind that Obama (consistent with Brooks’s description of him) has lent his support to the aptly named Hamilton Project, formed by corporate-neoliberal Citigroup chair Robert Rubin and “other Wall Street Democrats” to counter populist rebellion against corporatist tendencies within the Democratic Party. Or that he lent his politically influential and financially rewarding assistance to neoconservative pro-war Senator Joe Lieberman’s (“D”-CT) struggle against the Democratic antiwar insurgent Ned Lamont. Or that Obama has supported other “mainstream Democrats” fighting antiwar progressives in primary races. Or that he criticized efforts to enact filibuster proceedings against reactionary Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

Never mind that Obama “dismissively” referred—in a “tone laced with contempt”—to the late progressive and populist U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone as “something of a gadfly.” Or that he chose the neoconservative Lieberman to be his “assigned” mentor in the U.S. Senate. Never mind that Obama opposed an amendment to the Bankruptcy Act that would have capped credit card interest rates at 30 percent.

Never mind that Obama voted for a business-friendly “tort reform” bill that rolls back working peoples’ ability to obtain reasonable redress and compensation from misbehaving corporations. Or that Obama claims to oppose the introduction of single-payer national health insurance on the grounds that such a widely supported social-democratic change would lead to employment difficulties for workers in the private insurance industry—at places like Kaiser and Blue Cross Blue Shield. Does Obama support the American scourge of racially disparate mass incarceration on the grounds that it provides work for tens of thousands of prison guards? Should the U.S. maintain the illegal operation of Iraq and pour half its federal budget into “defense” because of all the soldiers and other workers that find employment in imperial wars and the military-industrial complex? Does the “progressive” senator really need to be reminded of the large number of socially useful and healthy alternatives that exist for the investment of human labor power at home and abroad—wetlands preservation, urban ecological retrofitting, drug counseling, teaching, infrastructure building and repair, safe and affordable housing construction, the building of windmills and solar power facilities, etc.?

In an interview with Klein, Obama expressed reservations about a universal health insurance plan recently enacted in Massachusetts, stating his preference for “voluntary” solutions over “government mandates.” The former, he said, is “more consonant with” what he called “the American character”—a position contradicted by regular polling data showing that most Americans support Canadian-style single-payer health insurance.

Never mind that Obama voted to re-authorize the repressive PATRIOT Act. Or that he voted for the appointment of the war criminal Condaleeza Rice to (of all things) Secretary of State. Or that he opposed Senator Russ Feingold’s (D-WI) move to censure the Bush administration after the president was found to have illegally wiretapped U.S. citizens. Or that he shamefully distanced himself from fellow Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin’s forthright criticism of U.S. torture practices at Guantanamo. Or that he refuses to foreswear the use of first-strike nuclear weapons against Iran.

Never mind that he joins victim-blaming Republicans in pointing to poor blacks’ “cultural” issues as the cause of concentrated black poverty (Obama, The Audacity of Hope)—not the multiple, well-documented, and interrelated structures, practices and consequences of externally imposed white dominance and corporate-state capitalism. Or that he claims that blacks have joined the American “socioeconomic mainstream” even as median black household net worth falls to less than eight cents on the median white household dollar.

Never mind Obama’s power-worshipping campaign book “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream” (2006) – the book to which Obama refers reporters asking him for policy specifics behind his often vague statements – refers to the United States’ rapacious, savagely unequal and fundamentally “materialist” capitalist economy as the nation’s “greatest asset.” “Audacity” absurdly praises the “American system of social organization” and “business culture” on the grounds that U.S. capitalism “has encouraged constant innovation, individual initiative and efficient allocation of resources.” It commends “the need to raise money from economic elites to finance elections” for “prevent[ing] Democrats...from straying too far from the center” and for marginalizing “those within the Democratic Party who tend toward zealotry” and “radical ideas” (like peace and justice). It praises fellow centrist Senator and presidential rival Hillary Clinton (D-NY) for embracing “the virtues of capitalism” and applauds her “recognizably progressive” husband Bill Clinton for showing that “markets and fiscal discipline” and “personal responsibility are needed to combat poverty”– an interesting reflection on the militantly corporate-neoliberal Clinton administration’s efforts to increase poverty by eliminating poor families’ entitlement to public cash assistance and privileging deficit reduction over social spending.

Never mind that “Audacity” also advances a model of health care reform that mocks his claim to support "universal" insurance. Like the [corporatist] Democratic Leadership Council Obama advocates retaining the for-profit nature of American health care, and mandating that poor people pay for it, somehow. His plan is only ‘universal’ in the sense that mandatory auto insurance is universal.































"I believe that U.S. forces are still a part of the solution in Iraq.”
- Barack Obama

Obama’s handlers and supporters place considerable emphasis on the claim that the junior senator from Illinois has voiced a “consistent position against the war” and (by extension) the Middle East. The assertion has some technical accuracy; Obama has publicly questioned the Bush administration’s case for war since the fall of 2002. But serious scrutiny of his “antiwar position” shows that the supposedly “pragmatic” and “non-ideological” Obama speaks in deferential accord with the doctrine of empire. In Obama’s carefully crafted rhetoric, Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) has been a “strategic blunder” on the part of an essentially benevolent nation state. Given his presidential ambitions, it is unthinkable for him to acknowledge the invasion’s status as a great international transgression that is consistent with the United States’ long record of imperial criminality. It is equally unimaginable for him to acknowledge that the war expressed Washington’s drive to deepen its control of strategic petroleum resources—an ambition in direct opposition to the alleged U.S. goals of encouraging Iraqi freedom and exporting democracy.

In a recent address designed to display his foreign policy bona fides, Obama showed his continuing willingness to take seriously the claim that OIL was an effort to “impose democracy” on Iraq, even faulting the Bush administration for acting in Iraq on the basis of unrealistic “dreams of democracy and hopes for a perfect government” (Obama, “A Way Forward in Iraq,” speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs [CCGA], November 22, 2006).

Consistent with his denial and embrace of Washington’s imperial ambitions, Obama has refused to join genuinely anti-war forces in calling for a rapid and thorough withdrawal of troops and an end to the occupation of Iraq. In a critical November 2005 speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Obama rejected Rep. John Murtha’s (D-PA) call for a rapid redeployment and any notion of a timetable for withdrawal. Obama’s call for “a pragmatic solution to the real war we’re facing in Iraq” included repeated references to the need to “defeat” the “insurgency”—a goal that means continuation of the war.

Obama’s November speech to the CCGA advocates a vaguely timed Iraq “scenario” in which “U.S. forces” might remain in the occupied state for an “extended period of time.” Obama advances a “reduced but active [U.S. military] presence” that “protects logistical supply points” and “American enclaves like the Green Zone” (site of one of the largest and most heavily militarized “embassies” in history) while “sending a clear message to hostile countries like Iran and Syria that we intend to remain a key player in the region.” U.S. troops “remaining in Iraq” will “act as rapid reaction forces to respond to emergencies and go after terrorists.” This is part of what Obama meant when he told a fawning David Brooks that, “the U.S. may have no choice but to slog it out in Iraq.”

At one point in his CCGA oration, Obama had the audacity to say the following in support of his claim that U.S. citizens support “victory” in Iraq: “The American people have been extraordinarily resolved. They have seen their sons and daughters killed or wounded in the streets of Fallujah.”

This was a spine-chilling selection of locales. Fallujah was the site for a colossal U.S. war atrocity. Crimes included the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the targeting of ambulances and hospitals, and the practical leveling of an entire city—in April and November 2004. The town was designated for destruction as an example of the awesome state terror promised to those who dared to resist U.S. power. Not surprisingly, Fallujah is a leading symbol of U.S. imperialism in the Arab and Muslim worlds. It is a deeply provocative and insulting place for Obama to choose to highlight American sacrifice and “resolve” in the occupation of Iraq.

It gets worse. Obama has repeatedly voted to spend billions on the illegal invasion since his arrival in the U.S. Senate. He inveighs against the “Tom Hayden wing of the Democratic Party” and has told congressional Democrats they would be “playing chicken with the troops” if they dared to actually (imagine) de-fund the Cheney-Bush “war.”

He voted to confirm as Secretary of State (of all things) the mendacious war criminal Condaleeza Rice, who played a critical role in advancing the preposterous Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) claims Bush used to invade Iraq.

He distanced himself from fellow Illinois U.S. Senator Dick Durbin when Durbin faced vicious right-wing attacks after daring to tell some basic truths about U.S. torture practices in Iraq.

Obama has repeatedly and absurdly claimed that the illegal invasion was launched with the “best of democratic intentions.”

He praises U.S. military personnel for their “unquestioning” “service” in Iraq and (despite numerous U.S. atrocities there) for “doing everything we could ever ask of them.”

His belated calls for withdrawal are hedged by numerous statements indicating that an Obama White House would maintain a significant military presence in and around Iraq for an indefinite period of time. And Obama has refused to support taking a reckless (possibly even nuclear) U.S. military assault on Iran off the table of acceptable U.S. foreign policy options.

Barack Obama reacts to the world's response to imperialism in precisely the same way as his counterparts; he proposes more war. Obama wants to add almost one-hundred thousand new troops to the U.S. military, to alleviate the shortage of manpower that Iraq attrition has wrought. In his speech to the Woodrow Wilson Center, Obama gave away their destination: Waziristan. Obama wants a more aggressive approach to the so-called "war on terror," to take "the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

So what we have in Barack Obama is an alternative War Party, planning an alternative War. He has told us so, and we should believe him. He is no peace candidate, and goes out of his way to prove it.

A DEEPLY CONSERVATIVE MAN
















“I believe all of you are as open and willing to listen as anyone else in America. I believe you care about this country and the future we are leaving to the next generation. I believe your work to be a part of building a stronger, more vibrant, and more just America. I think the problem is that no one has asked you to play a part in the project of American renewal.”

- Barack Obama, speaking to the masters of “American” finance capitalism at the headquarters of NASDAQ, Wall Street, New York City, September 17, 2007

STANDING UP AND KNEELING DOWN

Maybe it’s because Barack Obama and his handlers are sensitive to the need to reassure ruling forces that the “first black United States president” will not challenge existing hierarchies. Maybe it’s because he’s bought and paid for by big money. Or maybe it’s because he believes in his “deeply conservative” heart that good Americans show deep respect for their socioeconomic masters. Whatever the explanation it’s hard to imagine ever seeing an avowedly “progressive” political candidate more eager than Obama to display his deep willingness to obsequiously kiss the ring of dominant political and economic authority. For someone who is marching across the country calling on working- and middle-class Americans to “get fired up” and “stand up” for democracy (and for him), Obama sure likes to spend a lot of time groveling before supposed upper-class superiors.

OBAMA INC.

This “new Democrat” Barack Obama is engaged in the exact same “juggling act” as the “old Democrats” i.e. Clinton. He likes to call himself a “progressive” and to identify himself with “the principles of equality,” the “Golden Rule” and the cause of “social justice,” citing as evidence his youthful experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago. Still, Obama is a freshly minted millionaire who recently purchased an opulent Georgian Revival Mansion below price at $1.65 million thanks to some help from the felony-indicted political fundraiser and longtime Obama friend and campaign finance pivot man Tony Rezko.

Obama is a company man. He knows the language, the subtle and overt signals, and emits them like a beacon. Ruling circles have gotten the message, and that is why corporate media have made him a contender, and corporate billfolds have financed him. The "skinny kid" made his bones at the Democratic National Convention, in August, 2004, while he was still an Illinois senatorial candidate - a shoo-in against the hopeless and deranged Black Republican Alan Keyes. Obama put all white fears to rest: "There is no white America. There is no black America. There is no Latino America. There is no Asian America. There is only the United States of America." Hallelujah!

The scam of this still-new century enthralls and envelopes the nation, a narrowly-packaged farce in which political twins Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama pretend they are not joined at the hip on every public policy issue that has been allowed to enter the corporate media-vetted discourse: health care, Iraq, trade. Even these points of (non)contention disappear in the din of purely commercial marketing mantras with infinitely malleable meanings: "Change," "Hope," "Reform."

When no real change is offered - when both frontrunners are wedded to a lingering presence in Iraq and to reestablishing U.S. hegemony in the world; when insurance and drug companies are left virtually untouched by duos' tepid forays into broadening health care coverage; and when neither offers a whisper of an idea on halting the corporate-engineered global Race to the Bottom, then it is certain that, although "change" may come, it will be at the direction of the rich who have brought the nation and planet to the very brink of catastrophe.

But then, Obama would never have risen so quickly and remarkably to his current position of dominant media favor and national prominence if he was anything like the egalitarian and democratic “progressive” that some liberals and leftists imagine. In the corporate-crafted and money-dominated swamp that passes for “representative democracy” in the U.S., concentrated economic and imperial power open and close doors in ways that preemptively suffocate populist potential. Big money is not in the business of promoting genuine social justice or democracy activists (so-called “gadflies” like Wellstone, to use Obama’s description).

Understanding public policy as a mechanism for the upward distribution of wealth, it promotes empire and inequality by underwriting the smothering K Street culture and the revolving door that feeds it—not just lobbyists themselves but the entire interconnected world of campaign consultants, public relations agencies, pollsters, and media strategists—without whose favor and assistance serious presidential bids are next to unthinkable.



















“For years I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions of society, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you’ve got to have a reconstruction of the entire society...a radical redistribution of political and economic power.”
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., May 1967

Saturday, January 19, 2008

21st Century Schizoid Man

Police officer and police brutality, report, police officer, scanner, taser, police video, report, officer. Police department, log, police officer, car, officer, deviance, news, police officer, forum, state police, arrest, police video, car, police officer, false report.. police brutality, rights, police officer, car. Police brutality, cop, police.














Report, police corruption, assault, police corruption, crimes, police officer, forum, state police, police officer, report, officer, scanner, taser, police officer, message board, state police, log, police officer, deputy, police video, officer, report, police officer, state police, log, police officer.













Corruption, crimes, police department, officer, deputy, police scanner, police corruption, state, police department, police scanner, taser, police corruption, crimes, police jobs, deviance, police department, deviance, sex, police scanner, police officer, report, log, police officer and police brutality, report, arrest, police officer, scanner, officer.














Police department, deviance, misconduct, police jobs, police officer, scanner, officer, police officer, forum, state police, arrest, police video, report, rights, police officer, false report.. police brutality, rights, police officer. deviance, girl, Police officers -police video-deputy - crimes - forum - police officers - deputy - forum - police video, officer. Police officer.














Pictures of police officers, police video, deputy, Police officer pictures, police pictures, police video, pictures of police officers, police corruption. Police officer, Car searches-police video, pictures of, police video, state police, police video, police record. police video. Attorney, Lawyer. Police abuse, florida police department, colorado police department, police video, Texas police departments, police video, officer, police brutality.














Police video, police video, Attorney, Lawyer, Car searches. Search warrant. Police officer, Deputy and police corruption, Police brutality state police, police video, police record. Attorney, Lawyer. Attorney or Lawyer - Police officers and police Corruption Police officers- police video, officer. Forum, and Police video -forum - police corruption-Attorney-police video-Lawyer-Police Corruption and Police.Police brutality, cop, police.











Cars, police corruption, police video, officer, deputy, police officer, state police, police officer, cop, officer, deputy, police officer, forum, state police, police department, police scanner, police corruption, police department, cops, police scanner, police officer, report, rights, police jobs, police video, deviance, sex, police department, police scanner, corruption, police officer, police department, police scanner, police officer, deputy.




















"Cat's foot iron claw
Neuro-surgeons scream for more
At paranoia's poison door
Twenty first century schizoid man.

Blood rack barbed wire
Politicians' funeral pyre
Innocents raped with napalm fire
Twenty first century schiziod man.

Death seed blind man's greed
Poets' starving children bleed
Nothing he's got he really needs
Twenty first century schizoid man."

- Peter Sinfield

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

House Passes 696 Billion $$$ Offensive War Bill















House passes defense bill.

Today, the House passed a new $696 billion defense authorization bill that includes a pay raise for troops.
AP reports:

President Bush had rejected an earlier version of the legislation because he said it would expose the Iraqi government to expensive lawsuits.

The new bill, which passed, 369-46, would let Bush grant Iraq immunity under the provision, which otherwise guarantees that U.S. victims of state-sponsored abuse can sue foreign governments in court. Iraqi officials objected to the measure because they said it would have subjected Baghdad to high-dollar payouts in damages from the Saddam Hussein era.

The administration now supports the bill, said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

”We appreciate that the House moved quickly to address the serious concerns the president had,” he said.

The revised measure also makes the 3.5 percent pay increase for troops — included in the original bill — retroactive to Jan. 1.

LINK

Sunday, January 13, 2008

The War Party's Laundry List






























A list of the national security and foreign policy advisers to the leading presidential candidates from both parties.

DEMOCRATS

Hillary Clinton

Madeleine K. Albright, President Clinton’s secretary of state and now chairperson of the National Democratic Institute, foreign policy adviser

Samuel R. Berger, President Clinton’s national security adviser and now a principal at business consultancy Stonebridge, foreign policy adviser

Lt. Gen. Daniel William Christman, a former West Point superintendent and now senior vice president for international affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, foreign policy adviser

Gen. Wesley K. Clark, President Clinton’s Kosovo commander and now a Democratic fundraiser, endorsed Sen. Clinton Sept. 15

John H. Dalton, President Clinton’s Navy secretary and now president of the Financial Services Roundtable’s Housing Policy Council, veterans and military retirees for Hillary

Lee Feinstein, a deputy in President Clinton’s State Department, national security coordinator

Leslie H. Gelb; president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, a former New York Times correspondent and a former State and Defense Department official, informal adviser

Richard C. Holbrooke, President Clinton’s UN ambassador and broker of the Dayton Peace Accords (and now a Washington Post columnist), foreign policy adviser

Martin S. Indyk, President Clinton’s ambassador to Israel and now director of Brookings’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy, foreign policy adviser

Gen. John M. ("Jack") Keane, a former Army vice chief of staff who co-crafted the Iraq "surge" and is now a military analyst (sometimes for ABC news), military issues adviser

Lt. Gen. Claudia J. Kennedy, former deputy chief of staff for intelligence, veterans and military retirees for Hillary

Lt. Gen. Donald L. Kerrick, President Clinton’s deputy national security adviser, organizes meetings of retired officers

Col. Andrew F. Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, briefed Hillary Clinton as well as Sen. John McCain and Gov. Bill Richardson

Vali Nasr, Naval Postgraduate School professor, Middle East adviser

Michael O'Hanlon, Brookings senior fellow and former Congressional Budget Office defense and foreign policy analyst, supporter

Rep. (and retired Vice Adm.) Joseph Sestak, veterans and military retirees for Hillary

Andrew Shapiro, Sen. Clinton’s Senate foreign policy staffer

Jeffrey H. Smith, former CIA general counsel and now a partner leading the public policy and government contracts group of law firm Arnold & Porter, national security adviser

Strobe Talbott, Brookings president, informal adviser

Togo D. West, President Clinton’s secretary for veterans affairs and former secretary of the Army, veterans and military retirees for Hillary

Former Amb. Joseph C. Wilson IV, the half of the Plamegate couple who criticized the administration for using questionable evidence to promote the Iraq war, endorsed Sen. Clinton July 16
Barack Obama

Former Amb. Jeffrey Bader, President Clinton’s National Security Council Asia specialist and now head of Brookings’s China center, national security adviser

Mark Brzezinski, President Clinton’s National Security Council Southeast Europe specialist and now a partner at law firm McGuireWoods, national security adviser

Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s national security adviser and now a Center for Strategic and International Studies counselor and trustee and frequent guest on PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, foreign policy adviser

Richard A. Clarke, President Clinton and President George W. Bush’s counterterrorism czar and now head of Good Harbor Consulting and an ABC News contributor, sometimes Obama adviser

Gregory B. Craig, State Department director of policy planning under President Clinton and now a partner at law firm Williams & Connolly, foreign policy adviser

Roger W. Cressey, former National Security Council counterterrorism staffer and now Good Harbor Consulting president and NBC News consultant, has advised Obama but says not exclusive

Ivo H. Daalder, National Security Council director for European affairs during President Clinton’s administration and now a Brookings senior fellow, foreign policy adviser

Richard Danzig, President Clinton’s Navy secretary and now a Center for Strategic and International Analysis fellow, national security adviser

Philip H. Gordon, President Clinton’s National Security Council staffer for Europe and now a Brookings senior fellow, national security adviser

Maj. Gen. J. (Jonathan) Scott Gration, a 32-year Air Force veteran and now CEO of Africa anti-poverty effort Millennium Villages, national security adviser and surrogate

Lawrence J. Korb, assistant secretary of defense from 1981-1985 and now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, informal foreign policy adviser

W. Anthony Lake, President Clinton’s national security adviser and now a professor at Georgetown’s school of foreign service, foreign policy adviser

James M. Ludes, former defense and foreign policy adviser to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and now executive director of the American Security Project, national security adviser

Robert Malley, President Clinton’s Middle East envoy and now International Crisis Group’s Middle East and North Africa program director, national security adviser

Gen. Merrill A. ("Tony") McPeak, former Air Force chief of staff and now a business consultant, national security adviser

Denis McDonough, Center for American Progress senior fellow and former policy adviser to then-Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, foreign policy coordinator

Samantha Power, Harvard-based human rights scholar and Pulitzer Prize winning writer, foreign policy adviser

Susan E. Rice, President Clinton’s Africa specialist at the State Department and National Security Council and now a Brookings senior fellow, foreign policy adviser

Bruce O. Riedel, former CIA officer and National Security Council staffer for Near East and Asian affairs and now a Brookings senior fellow, national security adviser

Dennis B. Ross, President Clinton’s Middle East negotiator and now a Washington Institute for Near East Policy fellow, Middle East adviser

Sarah Sewall, deputy assistant secretary of defense for peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance during President Clinton’s administration and now director of Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, national security adviser

Daniel B. Shapiro, National Security Council director for legislative affairs during President Clinton’s administration and now a lobbyist with Timmons & Company, Middle East adviser

Mona Sutphen, former aide to President Clinton’s National Security adviser Samuel R. Berger and to United Nations ambassador Bill Richardson and now managing director of business consultancy Stonebridge, national security adviser
John Edwards

Barry M. Blechman, President Carter’s assistant director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and founder and chairman of the Henry L. Stimson Center, military advisory group

Irving N. Blickstein, former assistant deputy chief of Naval operations and a RAND researcher, military advisory group

Derek Chollet, Edwards’s Senate foreign policy aide, chief national security adviser

Lt. Gen. Michael A. Hough, former Marine Corps deputy commandant for aviation, military advisory group

Gen. Paul J. Kern, former Army Materiel Command commander who directed the internal investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib and now a lobbyist with the Cohen Group, military advisory group

Gen. Lester "Les" Lyles, former commander Air Force Materiel Command and now an aerospace consultant, military advisory group

Gen. Gregory S. ("Speedy") Martin, former commander Air Force Materiel Command and now a consultant, military advisory group

Rear Adm. William J. McDaniel, former commanding officer of Portsmouth Naval Medical Center, military advisory group

Rear Adm. David R. Oliver Jr., former principal deputy under secretary for acquisition and technology and now CEO of aerospace and defense company EADS North America, military advisory group

Michael Signer, onetime aide to former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, deputy policy director for foreign affairs and national security

Maj. Gen. Allen Youngman, former Kentucky adjutant general and now a defense lobbyist with American Business Development Group, military advisory group

REPUBLICANS

Rudolph Giuliani

Gerard Alexander, University of Virginia politics professor and American Enterprise Institute visiting scholar, European advisory board

Peter Beering, Indiana terrorism preparedness coordinator and principal with consulting firm Indianapolis Terrorism Response Group, homeland security advisory board

Peter Berkowitz; Hoover Institution senior fellow and George Mason Law School professor focusing on laws, ethics and politics; senior statecraft, human rights and freedom adviser

Robert C. Bonner, former U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner and now a partner with law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, chief homeland security adviser

David R. Cameron, Yale political science professor, European advisory board

Robert Conquest; Soviet-era historian and former adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and now a Hoover Institution research fellow; senior foreign policy advisory board

Lisa Curtis, former staffer to Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and now a Heritage foundation senior research fellow, senior South Asia adviser

Carlos Eire, Cuban activist and Yale renaissance studies professor, senior foreign policy advisory board

Joshua Filler, former director Department of Homeland Security Office of State and Local Government Coordination director and now a homeland security consultant, homeland security advisory board

Louis J. Freeh, former FBI director, homeland security advisory board chairman

Nile Gardner, Heritage Foundation senior research fellow and onetime foreign policy researcher for former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, European advisory board

Stephen Haber, Hoover Institution senior fellow and Stanford history and political science professor, senior western hemisphere adviser

Charles Hill, former aide to Reagan-era secretary of state George P. Shultz and now a Hoover Institution research fellow, chief foreign policy adviser

Kim R. Holmes, President George W. Bush’s former assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs and now the Heritage Foundation vice president of foreign and defense policy studies, senior foreign policy adviser

Daniel Johnson, former Minnesota homeland security director, homeland security advisory board

Former Sen. Robert Kasten, R-Wisc., former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee Foreign Operations Subcommittee, senior foreign policy advisory board

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., homeland security advisory board

Martin Kramer, former director of Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, senior Middle East adviser

Andrew B. Maner, former Department of Homeland Security chief financial officer and now a member of the board of directors at emergency management software provider Previstar, homeland security advisory board

John T. Odermatt, former commissioner of the New York City Office of Emergency Management and Citigroup’s corporate director of business continuity, homeland security advisory board

Norman Podhoretz, Hudson Institute adjunct fellow and former editor of Commentary magazine, senior foreign policy advisory board

David Pryce-Jones, novelist and essayist, senior foreign policy adviser

John Rabin, former program director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Lessons Learned Information Sharing and now a consultant, homeland security advisory board

Stephen Peter Rosen, President Reagan’s National Security Council staffer for political-military affairs and now a Harvard professor of national security and military affairs, senior defense adviser

Howard Safir, former New York City Police commissioner and now a crisis management consultant, homeland security advisory board

Richard J. Sheirer, former New York City emergency management commissioner and now a senior vice president with Giuliani Partners, homeland security advisory board

Seth Stodder, former Customs and Border Protection director of policy and planning and now a senior counsel and lobbyist with law firm Akin Gump, homeland security advisory board

C. Stewart Verdery Jr., former Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary for policy and planning and founder of lobbying firm Monument Policy Group, homeland security advisory board

Thomas Von Essen, former New York City Fire commissioner and now a senior vice president with Giuliani Partners, homeland security advisory board

Kenneth Weinstein, CEO Hudson Institute, foreign policy adviser

Joe Whitley, former Department of Homeland Security general counsel and now partner with law firm Alston & Bird, homeland security advisory board

S. Enders Wimbush, Hudson Institute director of future security strategies and former security consultant, senior public diplomacy adviser

Stephen Yates, former deputy assistant to Vice President Cheney for national security affairs and now a lobbyist and American Foreign Policy Council senior fellow, senior Asia adviser
John McCain

Richard Lee Armitage, President George W. Bush’s deputy secretary of state and an international business consultant and lobbyist, informal foreign policy adviser

Bernard Aronson, former assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs and now a managing partner of private equity investment company ACON Investments, informal foreign policy adviser

William L. Ball III, secretary of the Navy during President Reagan’s administration and managing director of lobbying firm the Loeffler Group, informal national security adviser

Stephen E. Biegun, former national security aide to then-Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and now Ford Motors vice president of international government affairs, informal national security adviser

Max Boot, Council on Foreign Relations editor and former Wall Street Journal editorial editor, foreign policy adviser

Brig. Gen. Tom Bruner, Iowa veterans advisory committee

Lorne W. Craner, International Republican Institute president, informal foreign policy adviser

Lawrence S. Eagleburger, President George H.W. Bush’s secretary of state and a senior public policy adviser with law firm Baker Donelson, endorsed McCain April 10

Brig. Gen. Russ Eggers, Iowa veterans advisory committee

Maj. Gen. Merrill Evans, Iowa veterans advisory committee

Niall Ferguson, Harvard historian and Hoover Institution senior fellow, informal foreign policy adviser

Michael J. Green, former Asia adviser to President George W. Bush and now Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Asia policy adviser

Gen. Alexander M. Haig, Jr., President Reagan’s secretary of state, endorsed McCain April 10

Maj. Gen. Evan "Curly" Hultman, Iowa veterans advisory committee

Robert Kagan; senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington Post columnist and former speechwriter for then-secretary of state George P. Shultz; informal foreign policy adviser

Brig. Gen. Robert Michael Kimmitt, current deputy Treasury secretary, informal national security adviser

Henry A. Kissinger, President Nixon and President Ford’s secretary of state who met McCain in Vietnam and is now a consultant, informal adviser

Col. Andrew F. Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, briefed McCain as well as Sen. Hillary Clinton and Gov. Bill Richardson

William Kristol, The Weekly Standard editor, informal foreign policy adviser

Adm. Charles Larson, former superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy and now chairman of consulting firm ViaGlobal Group, informal national security adviser

Robert "Bud" McFarlane, President Reagan’s national security adviser and now a principal with Energy & Communications Solutions, energy and national security adviser

Brig. Gen. Warren "Bud" Nelson, Iowa veterans advisory committee

Brig. Gen. Eddie Newman, Iowa veterans advisory committee

Maj. Gen. John Peppers, Iowa veterans advisory committee

Maj. Ralph Peters, writer and retired Army officer, informal national security adviser

Brig. Gen. Maurice Phillips, Iowa veterans advisory committee

Gen. Colin L. Powell, President George W. Bush’s secretary of state, informal foreign policy adviser

James R. Schlesinger, President Nixon and President Ford’s secretary of defense, energy and national security adviser

Randy Scheunemann, national security aide to then-Senate Majority Leaders Bob Dole and Trent Lott and now a lobbyist, defense and foreign policy coordinator (for this cycle and 2000)

Gary Schmitt, former staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee and now an American Enterprise Institute scholar, foreign policy adviser

Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to Presidents Ford and George H.W. Bush and founder of business consultancy the Scowcroft Group, adviser

George P. Shultz, President Reagan’s secretary of state and a Hoover Institution Fellow, endorsed McCain April 10

Brig. Gen. W.L. "Bill" Wallace, Iowa veterans advisory committee

Maj. Gen. Gary Wattnem, Iowa veterans advisory committee

R. James Woolsey, former CIA director and now a vice president at consulting company Booz Allen Hamilton, energy and national security adviser
Mitt Romney

David Aufhauser, former Treasury Department general counsel and now general counsel of USB investment bank, counter-terrorism policy advisory group

Jorge L. Arrizurieta, lobbyist and major Republican donor, Latin American policy advisory group

Former Rep. Cass Ballenger, R-N.C., onetime chairman of House International Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Latin American policy advisory group

J. (Joseph) Cofer Black, former CIA and State Department counterterrorism official and now vice chairman Blackwater USA, senior adviser on counterterrorism and national security

Ted Brennan, former aide to then-Reps. Cass Ballenger, R-N.C. and Henry Hyde, R-Ill., Latin American policy advisory group

Lt. Gen. John H. ("Soup") Campbell, former vice director of Pentagon information systems and now a lobbyist for satellite communications, counter-terrorism policy advisory group

Alberto R. Cardenas, lobbyist and former chairman of the Florida Republican Party, Latin American policy advisory group

Robert Charles, former assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement, Latin American policy advisory group

Samuel Cole, COO of BlueMountain Capital Management, counter-terrorism policy advisory group

Mark Falcoff, American Enterprise Institute Latin America scholar emeritus and onetime consultant to President Reagan’s Commission on Central America, Latin American policy advisory group

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., ranking Republican on House Intelligence Committee, intelligence adviser

Kent Lucken, foreign service veteran now an international private banker with Citigroup, counter-terrorism policy advisory group

John McClurg, formerly of the FBI computer investigations and critical infrastructure threat assessment center and now vice president Honeywell Global Security, counter-terrorism policy advisory group

Larry Mefford, former FBI agent and counterterrorism official, counter-terrorism policy advisory group

Amb. Tibor Nagy, Jr., career foreign service officer with ambassadorial tours in Ethiopia and Guinea, counter-terrorism policy advisory group

Amb. Roger Francisco Noriega, former assistant secretary for Western hemisphere affairs under George W. Bush and now a lobbyist, Latin American policy advisory group

Mitchell B. Reiss, former state department policy planning director, foreign policy adviser

V. Manuel Rocha, career foreign service officer and former ambassador to Bolivia, Latin American policy advisory group

Steven Schrage, former State Department international law specialist, foreign policy and trade director

Dan Senor, former Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman and now a lobbyist and Fox News contributor, sometimes foreign policy adviser

Jose S. Sorzano, Latin America aide to President Reagan and chairman of corporate consultant Austin Group, Latin American policy advisory group

Larry Storrs, former Latin America specialist at the Congressional Research Service, Latin American policy advisory group

Caleb ("Cal") Temple, formerly with the Defense Intelligence Agency and now executive vice president of Total Intelligence Solutions, counter-terrorism policy advisory group

Former Rep. Vin Weber, R-Minn., lobbyist and chairman of the National Endowment for Democracy, policy chairman

Ed Worthington, FBI veteran, counter-terrorism policy advisory group

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

The Audacity Of 'Hype'
















There is a simple -- and not very profound -- reason why Barack Obama appears headed for the Democratic nomination, and it comes down to three simple things: Manufactured Media Hype, Corporate Loyalty and a Room Full of Lobbyists.

Never mind, for example, that Obama was recently hailed as a “Hamiltonian” believer in “limited government” and “free trade” by Republican New York Times columnist David Brooks, who praises Obama for having “a mentality formed by globalization, not the SDS.” Or that he had to be shamed off the “New Democrat Directory” of the corporate-right Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) by the popular left black Internet magazine Black Commentator (Bruce Dixon, “Obama to Have Name Removed From DLC List,” Black Commentator, June 26, 2003).

Never mind that Obama (consistent with Brooks’s description of him) has lent his support to the aptly named Hamilton Project, formed by corporate-neoliberal Citigroup chair Robert Rubin and “other Wall Street Democrats” to counter populist rebellion against corporatist tendencies within the Democratic Party (David Sirota, “Mr. Obama Goes to Washington,” the Nation, June 26). Or that he lent his politically influential and financially rewarding assistance to neoconservative pro-war Senator Joe Lieberman’s (“D”-CT) struggle against the Democratic antiwar insurgent Ned Lamont. Or that Obama has supported other “mainstream Democrats” fighting antiwar progressives in primary races (see Alexander Cockburn, “Obama’s Game,” the Nation, April 24, 2006). Or that he criticized efforts to enact filibuster proceedings against reactionary Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

Never mind that Obama “dismissively” referred—in a “tone laced with contempt”—to the late progressive and populist U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone as “something of a gadfly.” Or that he chose the neoconservative Lieberman to be his “assigned” mentor in the U.S. Senate. Or that “he posted a long article on the liberal blog Daily Kos criticizing attacks against lawmakers who voted for right-wing Supreme Court nominee John Roberts.” Or that he opposed an amendment to the Bankruptcy Act that would have capped credit card interest rates at 30 percent. Or that he told Time magazine’s Joe Klein last year that he’d never given any thought to Al Gore’s widely discussed proposal to link a “carbon tax” on fossil fuels to targeted tax relief for the nation’s millions of working poor (Joe Klein, “The Fresh Face,” Time, October 17, 2006).

Never mind that Obama voted for a business-friendly “tort reform” bill that rolls back working peoples’ ability to obtain reasonable redress and compensation from misbehaving corporations.

Never mind that Obama voted to re-authorize the repressive PATRIOT Act. Or that he voted for the appointment of the war criminal Condaleeza Rice to (of all things) Secretary of State. Or that he opposed Senator Russ Feingold’s (D-WI) move to censure the Bush administration after the president was found to have illegally wiretapped U.S. citizens. Or that he shamefully distanced himself from fellow Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin’s forthright criticism of U.S. torture practices at Guantanamo. Or that he refuses to foreswear the use of first-strike nuclear weapons against Iran.
















Resolute, Tough, Intense... Presidential

It's all very well for Sen. Obama to campaign on a "we can make change" platform. It's all very well for Obama to recite the mantra of "Hope" ad nauseum. It's a great marketing idea. However, because the mechanics of government have become so detached from the interests of the electorate, the truth of the matter is that "we," in a practical sense, are altogether powerless--irrespective of which candidate we put in the Oval Office. We The People have, for quite some time, seen the interests of campaign financiers and lobbyists taking precedence over our own. And all the clever rhetoric in the world will not alter that sorry situation.

Now of course Obama would be better than the simian creature that currently occupies the White House, but he clearly is not our best option (based on his voting record). The MSM and their corporate masters desperately want to give one of their chosen few the appearance of being destined to be the next president. They would be tickled to have anyone from the Republican camp, but they know the American people are almost certainly going Democratic this time around. So what are their options? Simple, select those who are least likely to upset the applecart and promote them to the front (Clinton, Obama and, to a lesser degree, Edwards) while marginalizing anyone who poses a threat to the status quo (Kucinich, Gravel).

Obama, if elected, will be hailed as a "historic change", and he will be, but primarily in a cosmetic sense. If you look closely at his record (as I shall be doing over the next few weeks), you will see that he might have the capacity to make you feel good, but with little promise for real change.

The reality of the situation is this- lobbyists and employees of finance, real estate, and related firms have kicked down millions in bundled contributions to all of the leading candidates. Now, those lobbyists have backed off and are watching and waiting in the shadows.

Regardless of who wins the Democratic and Republican primaries, the lobbyists will still be waiting and watching.

The Republican operatives will roll out every dirty trick in the book as the electoral process proceeds, and have already started doing so. Their goals will be to reduce Democratic turnout and increase Republican turnout. Democratic political operatives will be doing the same thing - sort of a "George Lakoff vs. Frank Luntz" view of the electoral process. Talk is cheap, however, and Lakoff and Luntz are nothing but psychological manipulators, truth be told.

Let's say that Obama wins the primary and the presidency. People will cheer, we'll see a lot of self-congratulatory behavior, and people will go home to sleep, oh-so-happy about their victory over the Republican Party.

However, that's the point that the lobbyists wake up and roll into action - AFTER THE ELECTION. They'll contact all their people in the Obama campaign, they'll demand favors, and they'll push candidates for various government departments and cabinet posts who will protect their interests. They'll present pre-written bills that they want the President to support, and on and on. This is the case regardless of who wins.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Mind If We Talk Some Shit®

They ain't sayin' shit.

They ain't intending on sayin' shit.

They never intended on sayin' shit.

All they do is talk shit.

Anyone who thinks they are gonna say shit is full of shit.

This ain't no shit.



















































Click On The Image And Then Magnifier To See Who Owns Your Candidate