us election
6 Nov 2008
In The Park With Obama
After their epic trek across the US, our election correspondents get swept up in Chicago's joyous mayhem on election night, and hear that already-famous speech first-hand
By late Tuesday afternoon in Chicago, you still couldn't find a Democrat prepared to call it for Barack. Although many expressed relief that the Republicans had run out of time to alter the course of events, vivid memories of 2004 kept fears of a shock defeat alive.
The rumour of up to a million people attending Grant Park was enough to dissuade many a hardcore Obama supporter. As part of one of the many election night parties in Chicago, a panel of experts at Chicago music venue Schubas (in the standard shape of academics, writers and think tankers) discussed the election and its likely consequences in front of a giant screen. As they weighed the depth of international disaffection with the Bush administration, CNN declared Pennsylvania officially for the Democrats. Leaping, yelling celebration instantly cancelled the discussion.
Although it wasn't over, it was close enough that many were thinking of a certain park downtown where the man himself would soon appear.
Before leaving we noticed one woman in her 20s. She was quietly crying and shaking her head as she stared at the screen which now announced Obama's solid and growing lead in Ohio. We went over to assure her that it was indeed real. "I just can't believe it," she said, and carried on happily crying.
Once the networks had officially projected a Democrat victory, tens of thousands who had sensibly been elsewhere for the election count suddenly needed to be in Grant Park for the acceptance speech, scheduled for 11:00pm.
As the human tide swept through gridlocked traffic towards the park, John McCain's concession speech sounded from car radios. Fists thrust high in the air, people ran to cars to high-five drivers and men wrapped their arms around unsuspecting women, spinning them in the air. A black woman rising out of a sunroof, her substantial booty just covered by tiny black shorts, was instantly lit by camera flashes as she writhed and wriggled. T-shirt sellers spruiked new "I was there" t-shirts, and sold campaign shirts at two for $5. All verbal communication was drowned in a cacophony of car horns.
This being the 21st Century, teams of officers kept people on the sidewalks, somehow stopping the surge from immobilising traffic altogether. Reaching Grant Park, we were greeted by temporary fences 100 metres outside the ticketed event at the centre, where 65,000 ticketed spots had been claimed within hours of them being announced. City officials corralled supporters into parkland where big screens were waiting, technicians adjusting the volume to boom out over the park.
Across the site's undulating landscape, late arrivals stuck in the low points struggled for higher ground. Groups clustered beneath the small screens of handheld video-cameras people were using like periscopes, holding them high above their heads to relay the images playing on the jumbo video screens around the park. Above the crowd, these digital eyes shone white like lighters at a rock concert, awaiting Obama's imminent arrival.
On-screen, shown pressing up against the barricades with the rest of the masses, was Chicago native Oprah Winfrey, clad in a "Hope Won" t-shirt. "What's she doing in the crowd?" exclaimed one horrified Chicagoan, who thought Oprah deserved better.
When their new president-elect strode to the podium, cheers came with a force. Even people relaying the event on mobile phones were silenced as Obama began to speak.
"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy — tonight is your answer."
The raucous cheer that erupted from the crowd was equal parts elation and relief — relieved that electoral fraud hadn't taken this win away, and elated that what had seemed far-fetched just 12 months ago was now reality: America really had an idealistic, intelligent, inspiring black president.
In 1968, the nation had looked on in horror as Grant Park hosted a bloody clash between police and young anti-war protesters at the Democratic National Convention. This time, 40 years later, with two wars in progress and a shattered financial system, Barack Obama used the midtown park to call on his fellow citizens to help him restore the nation, "the only way it's been done in America for 221 years — block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand".
Then, as he told the story of Ann Nixon Cooper, the 106-year-old voter from Atlanta, Georgia, the significance of the moment registered. That the rights we now consider inalienable had once seemed impossible. "So tonight, let us ask ourselves, if our children should live to see the next century — if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper — what change will they see? What progress will we have made?"
And with that, America became a nation officially mobilised by hope. From Grant Park the masses gushed up and over bridges and swarmed through Chicago's Financial District. As the crowd marched between its skyscrapers, periods of relative calm were interrupted by euphoric cheers that would roar from the back, travel like a Mexican wave to the head, and dissipate again.
Anybody with a half-interesting sign, notably the "I Love The Shit Out Of You America" holder, was rushed by punters brandishing digital cameras, cursing low-light capture delays as they were engulfed by the fast moving crowd. The big memento grab was on, and would continue. (The next morning, Chicago newsagents reported customers buying the Chicago Tribune ten copies at a time, and by 1:30pm, any hope of our taking a couple back to Australia was gone.)
Aboard one of the last specially scheduled late trains out of downtown, most looked exhausted, mustering raised but hardly clenched fists at each stop with a chant of "O Ba Ma". Bob, in his late 50s, had been volunteering until that afternoon. He'd been there from the beginning. "Right from the start he had that quality, and I thought we'd seen the end of that with Kennedy."
Bob knocked on doors for months when Obama was running for the Senate in 2004, helping his precinct to a record 86 per cent victory. A psychotherapist, Bob can't resist the narrative of Obama's rise, and believes the power of Obama's story played a significant part in his momentum. "Barack embodied that character of 'inspirational unifier come to lead the people against new challenges'," Bob reckons. He's glad that Obama's sense of humour and obvious emotional attachment to his family distinguish him from the martyr role that has claimed so many of his predecessors.
Bob is one of an army of activists that Obama has enlisted. A feature of his acceptance speech was his call to commit again to "service and sacrifice". By insisting that change has now become possible rather than already accomplished, it felt like he was keeping a lid on the "mission accomplished" sense of euphoria. The celebration was tinged with an awareness of the impending workload. Just for a second, the spectre of actual sacrifice and work had caused the crowd to pause. Then he linked this effort with pride in community, of belonging to one great nation, and the air again pulsed with "Yes we can, yes we can".
It remains to be seen whether this massive team of active supporters will heed the call. It has been Obama's genius to involve his supporters in a way that now binds them in a promise of ongoing commitment. In this way he has made all future success theirs, as well as any failures.
Emerging from Montrose station into suburban Chicago, we waited at a stop light with a handful of straggling punters. Cycling by, a well-built Asian-American sat up in his seat, raised his arms and called out: "Tomorrow we wake to a brighter day".
It was possibly the only time yet in our lives when this sentiment did not sound trite at all.
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Newsvine
Facebook
Kwoff
Discuss this article
To participate in the discussion Sign in or Register
And you guys were there telling us what was happening real time, thanks for your articles and your perspective. Lets hope he is as good as everyone thinks he will be.
Reminds me of the Titanic before it sank, the passengers celebrating the lovely music, champagne corks popping and general disbelief that the great ship was on it’s way down.
"Hurrah for the captain!" I can hear them cheer, and if anyone wants to know what it must have been like during those last moments of that sinking ship you should just visit the USA as it celebrates Obama’s victory.
PS stay close to a liferaft
What a wonderful account of an historic moment. I wish I was there!
I was lucky enough to see live on TV McCain’s gracious speech, and then, the oratory brilliance of Obama made me cry! I was so carried away with emotion that I thought I might have children after all!
Obama’s election brought a feeling of hope that had been squashed by 8 years of Bush and 11 of Howard. I only hope that Obama comes through a lot better than Rudd has so far!
Well done David and Jess for the great coverage!
Onya Wonky!
Thanks J & D and the 20% of hapless, swinging American eligables who somehow made this a reality! We are unfortunately o/s without a decent telly, but loving every blogalicious minute of this moment in history. Woohoo!
Fantastic account of an incredibly historic moment. Hold that moment! and Hold that moment! and Hold that moment!and REMEMBER that moment ……
If only every day was like this!
Thanks for the report. It must have been amazing to be there.
Thanks for that great description of a beautiful night. New Yorkers have also been transformed from their no-eye-contact, looking-out-for-myself traits to share with each other the joy of such an historic victory. (At least for a couple of days). I can’t remember many occasions in my life where I’ve felt a city completely come together. Especially around a politician. A politician that people really believe in, a politician without cynicism about what politics can achieve. Wow! How novel!
The whole article is trite. Mediocrity has long been made compulsory - it used to be optional for people to celebrate it, now even non-celebration is the ultimate dissent!
Obama is more proof that "mediocrity and ego can make it". His oligarch backers keep pushing that message because it reassures them with the respectable veneer of meritocracy. A turgid and literally monotonous victory speech by a fraud fond of his own voice.
Hilary had three things Obama will never get:
1. Genuine grassroots popular support (proven in the primaries, but over-ridden cruelly by corrupt party delegates. Obama got there by a marketing campaign run by a vast and much more expensive campaign apparatus.
2. Brains. Obama has some, but it’s all syphoned into his ego.
3. Guts. Obama doesn’t have it in him to bite any of the hands that feed him, especially that of his main sponsor George Soros (who was open about his disdain for Hilary, and his annoyance that she kept embarassing his Obama push by producing thumping popular support throughout the Democrats’ states.
Pity that Obama won’t have the spine to conscript boomers for his "Afghanistan Surge". Who will be desperate enough to volunteer for that? Oh, bummer, the same folks with no job and no chance as in Vietnam: "white trash" and black Americans.
I’m sure that were many who had no concept of history and the occasion, who sneered at Lincoln in his time. For mine, it is a day I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Howardites and Bush lovers will just have to grit their teeth and dream of past glories.
Harry Morton Father and son Bush and John Howard all went down with the Titanic.Hilary’s speech writers were not as good as Obama’s. The other difference was that Obama is genuine and did not really need speech writers for his acceptance speech. His other advantage is that he has not the long connection to the oil industry that Bush grandfather, father and son had, plus unlike George W he is intelligent.
"Howard, Bush 1 and 2", etc. Why imply that I support such corrupt scum, just because I have read the detail of Obama’s corruption, and his serious character flaws.
Let’s see: maybe you assume I back those guys ‘coz they’re white? Duh. You have no concept of the brainless bipartisan manipulation that’s being played on your own head, desertdude.
No connections to the oil industry - well, that’s a rather rash call given the interconnectedness of the monetarist quicksand pit that they call the finance sector, especially since Obama rushed into supporting Paulson’s bail-out scams. Lincoln now! Gawd, so many historians coming out of the woodwork to prop up the US election’s cliche-schmaltz in the mainstream media.
Harry, trust me when I tell you that it is going to take a whole lot more than pretty little speeches to save this Titanic mate.
And the connection to the oil industry is irrelevant when you consider who paid for Obama’s campaign and who Obama is appointing to his new government as payment for those funds. Besides, it is a well recorded fact that Obama is a relative of Dick Cheney.
You also fail to note the likes of Soros, Emmanuel, Goldman Sachs and all the other warmongering "neo-cons" who have suddenly surfaced on Obama’s side of that sinking ship.
It is a triumph of hope over reality to ignore, as most here do, the real fact that the competing policy influences in an Obama administration with people like Dennis Ross and Anthony Zinni and Rahm Emmanuel as National Security Advisor appointments, coupled with their views of US Foreign Policy and Militarism which you will find identical to that of the Republican administrations with the same goals and which are opposed only in the nature and form of the rhetoric which they use to bullshit the world’s public into accepting this US militarist empire gone mad.
Obama may be a smooth talking Kenyan on the outside Harry, but on the inside he is the personification of the greatest Nigerian scam in history!
Ah, but remember Soros is expressly NOT a neo-con, rock. He identifies himself outside that label - it’s an exclusive club membership thing. And to emphasize his "leftist" credentials (puke) to all the gullibles and plain dishonest shysters of this media-saturated regime.
Good to mention your bugbear Goldman Sachs again in this context though, considering that Obama backed their recent special "favored status" treatment even by the terms of the Paulson- and Gordon Brown/Greenspan-led corporatism.
If I’m not mistaken, Goldman Sachs’ background in funding and appointments reveals a continuation of the Meyer Lansky mob syndicate.
Questions without notice for Rockjaw and Mil-observer.
Is it possible for any person to be elected in the USA without them being endorsed and financially supported by individuals with wealth and power?
If, as I suspect, it is impossible, what exactly would you like to have seen happen? Bloody revolution? Maintainence of the incredibly compromised status quo?
I certainly have enjoyed the positivity that has been generated across the world, even though you guys don’t feel it. Asking others to join your boycott of happiness is unproductive and simply mean spirited.
How terribly New Age. Some woolly relativism about money being involved regardless. Check the indications of repeat briberies used to usurp Hilary Clinton’s consistent grip on the Dems’ popular vote against Obama. Check the assassination of one key Hilary mobilizer among the Dems’ delegates. Check Soros’ global reach, his British imperialist loyalties, and his background of service to the Nazis about which he is unrepentant - even proud.
You’re being scammed into fascism, which is as "mean-spirited" as it can get. You go off and tie-dye your jodhpurs, roust up some others as potential recruits.
"I certainly have enjoyed the positivity that has been generated across the world, even though you guys don’t feel it. Asking others to join your boycott of happiness is unproductive and simply mean spirited." - you want to celebrate - hey, I’m celebrating too.
Only I am not celebrating a falsehood, or a fiction or an illusion. I am celebrating in response ot my inalienable right to pursue my own happiness, and NOT because some smooth talking nobody has capitalised on the guilty conscience of a militarist USA to take control of that nation with the intent to do precisely the same as his Republican predecessors.
Sure, it is great to see a non-white President of the USA, but it would be much more valuable to see a Palestinian Prime minister of Israel, or a legislature made up of the true representative Palestinian majority of that country instead of seeing Israelis taking their place as Obama’s security staff and setting the world up for another decade of the same genocidal b/s we have witnessed over the past decade where this stupid Pax Americana has been hoodwinked into fighting imperialist wars on behalf of it’s terrorist ally in the middle east by appointing neo-con warmongering Israeli citizens to it’s highest offices.
You celebrate all you want Dr Dog, I am just not as easily bullshitted as you are.
mil-observer, is it that awkward feeling that makes you diss Obama? Are you afraid you’ll become just another one of the masses following the latest deity? Or are you just living the counter-culture dream?
You’ve said elsewhere here that Obama is on the Soros payroll. Yes, Soros is a Obama campaign donor. There were thousands. But payroll? Where’s the link?
And the Hillary is the better qualified/more support/was robbed/brains and guts. Maybe she does. But would she have won the red states Obama did (or others).
Maybe the ascendancy of administrations: Bush Clinton Bush Clinton has a lovely consistency to it but it’s a messy, ill conceived process called democracy and only the wiliest and fortuitous becomes the head of state. That’s the system, it’s dirty, it’s corrupt and it’s the only one they’ve got.
Axelrod and others had a plan. They executed it and they won. I found this:
The Clinton campaign had nobody on the payroll to call superdelegates in March 2007. “People didn’t know about superdelegates,” a high-ranking Clinton staff member said. “Nobody figured it out. They thought it was all about winning states and not delegates".
You’ll love this blog: http://obamawtf.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-obama-beat-hillary-clinton.html
Frankly, much of your criticism of Obama could be replicated with any number of candidates but mediocrity? And name a politician not in love with the sound of their own voice?
With respect, the rest of your comments are tin hat stuff.
Ringo: Soros is not just some Obama donor. Almost the entire Obama campaign network has his stamp on it, well in advance. I prefer to avoid simplistic identification of individuals in such oligarchical (therefore collective) processes, but Soros and his funded organizations are the outstanding link. Similar to the situation with the psycho-regime of Georgia which, surprise surprise, Obama spewed his threats against while McCain had to try just keeping up! Or the quacky ICG, where Gareth Evans got onto the Soros machine while Cheryl Kernot got into the same racket but via ‘Release’, a front for Soros’ OSI on drug liberalization.
Therefore, Obama’s mediocrity too was a fitting partner to that of McCain. Amid all the effusive and hyperbolic praise for Obama, it’s worth reviewing his actual lack of command, confidence and public speaking ability. Even the beige (non-)"debates" with McCain demonstrated these aspects of his mediocrity.
Most of your comments are fluffy, cuddly, hello-kitty stuff. Cute lil’ Fabian critters of pseudo-left gush and fashion sense. Especially the ironic profundities about "counter-cult", considering that such "68er" decadence is crucial to the mythologies sponsored through the media saturation.
You are one sour dude mil-observer! As for backing ol’ Hillary, who’s being "scammed into fascism"? You might be pleased to know that the small joy I had listening to Obama’s fine speech - and no matter who wrote it, it shits on anything I’ve ever heard Hillary say - that I’m now back into my fascist reality, ready to get depressed over the lack of positive change in the world. But hey, I just love the pure symbolism of a black man in the white house who’s so heavily supported by that former Nazi George Soros. God bless America and all its chocolate cities!
Obama may be related to Dick Cheney, and I am related to the Queen. But I haven’t seen a lot of her lately.
And if the ship’s going down in the ice without lifeboats, I’ll have the champagne thanks.
Some of us are just not fit enough I guess. Could be those decadent connections.
"I certainly have enjoyed the positivity that has been generated across the world, even though you guys don’t feel it. Asking others to join your boycott of happiness is unproductive and simply mean spirited."
I had much the same attitude directed at me by friends after Howard’s reign ended. Why is it ‘mean-spirited’ to point out the neo-liberal connections of Obama, or the fact he’s already appointing war mongers to his future administration, or the fact that he wants not peace but a ‘surge’ in Afghanistan, and continued ‘pressure’ on Iran, or the fact that he’s sided with Israel for a 100% Israeli Jerusalem, or the fact that if Americans believe he will be a voice for the poor, he’s already made it clear with a vote for the bailout that this is the last thing on his mind?
Are you asking mil-observer and rockjaw to side with you (and the rest) in baseless optimism, simply because noone likes a moaner? It is, of course, fine if this is the case and this is admitted, but I’d expect a little intelligent backing of attacks on their realism otherwise.
You don’t need a solution to refuse to ignore or accept the problem - such rhetoric is designed purely to shut people up; quiet people are harmless people. I don’t have a solution (that anyone will listen to) regarding
-racism and oppression of Aborigines
-of palestinians
-bankers using governmental socialist framework to prop a crumbling capitalist system
But these things will continue a lot more freely if noone is complaining or kicking up dust - such thinking (‘best not complain’ thinking) is precisely why it becomes increasingly easy for governments to destroy the interests of common people in the interests of the elite. If the masses show no inkling of rising up, what have they to fear?
Having had the dubious luxury of watching the sycophantic British press in the last few days almost wetting themselves over the Obama victory, I’m convinced the rebranding of America is an elaborate, but empty PR objective. The US needs more love from the rest of the world (its lost a lot in the last eight years) if it is to continue its reign as the world’s superpower (faith, we’ve found out recently, plays a central role in the US economy).
What makes it all the more noticeable here is that the very same journalists who have spent the last eight years doggedly defending Bush/Blair and their colonial wars are now telling this country (and the world) that everyone has been longing for this change, and everyone hated Bush, and that the world will be so much better now. What makes this two-faced switching so frustrating is that there seems to be an incredible number of people about fully prepared to accept - on face value, with no evidence - this as the new reality.
How easy it is to fool people. The only hope here is that Obama back-tracks all the militaristic/elitist policies he promised and begins to work for the people. But that’s not a hope most thinking people would bet money on.
cheers, Derek
And for mil-observer, I would like to remind him/her that despite the great PR which limits every western election to two parties, Hilary was not the only other choice - there was, for example, Ralph Nader, who struck me as the sort of American I would like to see head the country.
Hilary, on the other hand - wife of Clinton ( bomber of Somalia, eastern Europe, killer of more than half a million Iraqis) - is no person I’d like to see in charge either.
She made it clear Iran was on her hit-list (as it is on Obama’s), and she was no more working for the good of poor Americans than Bill.
cheers, Derek
dereklane: fair enough to identify some of the deficiencies with Hilary. I don’t agree that she was in the same "bomb Tehran" clique, even though she made the squawking noises to try keeping the fanatics off her case. JFK did similar nonsense over Vietnam and, more notoriously, Cuba! But from the record of her statements during the primaries, the overall thrust of Hilary’s agenda indicated more statist responsibility and sovereign USA guts, all as a very real potential challenge to douchebags like Paulson and Helicopter Bernanke.
Hilary was rolled alright - it was a mugging by an entire clique of usurers who care not a jot for America, its people or its traditions - much less its democracy!
Yes, I agree that Bill Clinton has a very dark stain from Iraq, though remember that’s mostly an embargo body-count that came less directly via the UN security council. I believe that Hilary’s spine is from much sterner stuff than Bill’s, and that’s my own optimism based on her fairly consistent guts. Soros clearly hates her too, which would almost guarantee her my vote.
One point I believe is overdue in these threads: it is essential to get a longer-term view of US history in this context. Much vitriol attends the USA as a state given the recent decades of aggressive imperialist warfare, but the western alliance’s ventures there nearly always reveal interests of a globalizing oligarchy - hardly a genuine or sincerely articulated US national interest, especially in the bogus "war on terror". The current corporatist push, with Obama as poster-boy, covers London at least as much as it does Washington and Canberra. However, that bail out and underwriting madness is at odds with US economic sense since Alexander Hamilton, through to Lincoln, FDR, JFK and LBJ. If the JP Morgan Chase- and Goldman Sachs-led cartels had done such scamming of state treasure with any of the afore-mentioned in position, ex-Goldman clowns like Paulson would likely be in San Quentin as we speak. Obama, Pelosi, Frank and the whole sorry gaggle of their cowardly congress colleagues would have at least been under investigation, especially in light of their oaths of loyalty. Notice that I did not mention Republican felons there - it seemed superfluous given their previous form on Iraq in particular; psychopath Cheney was perhaps the best case for impeachment ever, which is an important comparative point when trying to comprehend the duress applied to Bill Clinton near the end of his second term.
God help America - and us.
ERRATUM on my previous about Obama and Georgia:
"Similar to the situation with the psycho-regime of Georgia ATTACKING RUSSIA which, surprise surprise, Obama spewed his threats against while McCain had to try just keeping up!"
Wow, it’s great to see the paranoids out and proudly wearing their imaginary hair shirts with slogans like "Berlusconi is a Socialist!" and "Castro Killed Harold Holt!". September 11 and the Kennedy assassination all over again! George Soros, the evil puppet-master, is coming to suck the blood from your virgin daughters! Run! Run! How strange it is to search for the least likely explanations for everything when the most likely will do. Is it possible that Soros felt affronted by the mess that George W Bush had made of the United States? After all, the rest of us did, so why not Soros? He’s got plenty of money and he’s spent some of it to make himself feel more like a solution and less like a problem. How very sinister. Does anyone believe he’s bought more influence over US policy than his millions of predecessors did?
As to Hilary Clinton, the spleen about her failure seems to be more a product of resentment at the "rock-star" aura of Obama than anything else. For me, the symbolic importance of a black President, to Americans and to the rest of the world, is the most significant thing about his win. I don’t think Clinton’s policies were any better or any more intelligently thought-out, and I could get no pleasure from the prospect of a dynastic succession, given that the US presidency, especially under Bush and his new Supreme Court, is already looking more like the monarchy it was designed to replace and reproach than a truly democratic alternative. Obama’s smart, level-headed and a quick learner. He’ll be an interesting President.
Dear Derek, thank you for thoughts on ‘best not to complain’ thinking. I’ll now revert back to plain old complain thinking, which has served people like us so well so far. Heck, if the whole world could complain think with us, just imagine what we could achieve! People like poor old Dr.Dog out there who are not thinking right and ‘easily bullshitted’ need to be stopped at all cost. I’m glad I’m one of the thinking kind who really knows how to complain, especially with mentors like you and mil-observer. Keep up the good work lads, and be the change you want to see. Peace and Love, Wonky
Wake up folks, and stop kidding yourselves (or stop toadying and trying to kid the rest of us). The US Fed has been plundered, it’s ongoing, while the OECD’s counterparts got the same treatment. Such smug complacency, unsolicited service to billionaires, and (apparently) naive and casual disregard for facts during this severe crisis - which has only just started. This is not about "complaining" either; if you refuse to diagnose or make sense of what is happening, then you cannot possibly offer a solution or cure - just more of the same, or worse.
True, we should not exaggerate Soros’ significance, even though he is a major Obama sponsor and confounder against Hilary Clinton’s popular-vote success in the Democrat primaries. But consider Obama’s miniscule political experience (a short term in the senate) as just one other useful measure of Soros’ unprecedented influence.
Most significantly, Soros’ background and personality offer insight into the mentality and ideology of the entire oligarchy of speculators now setting themselves up to be the more entrenched international feudal lords of a coming Dark Age.
Soros’ father wrote in his own published memoir how his son enthusiastically took to work as a courier for the "Jewish Councils" set up by the SS in Eichmann’s organization of racist extermination. Couriers like Soros helped to identify and prepare Jewish families for transport to eastern Europe’s death camps. Implicit in the council members’ work was the understanding that they themselves were exempted from the transports. But Soros’ father became so concerned at his son’s enthusiasm that he arranged for George to pose as a Hungarian (gentile) minister’s son, for different and more remote work instead confiscating the property of transported (and mostly murdered) Hungarian Jews, for deposit into the coffers of the SS.
It is understandable that Soros and his father can justify their wartime decisions on basic and desperate survival motives; such extreme conditions would demand extreme adjustment and behavioral callousness, similar to many people’s experience of imperialist aggression and coercion in general. However, George Soros has since expressed an absolute lack of any remorse or sense of guilt over having worked in his youth to help the SS in its murderous tasks. Indeed, Soros has stated calmly that he "had no choice" then in exactly the same way as he has justified his exploitative, opportunistic and destructive acts against developing countries targeted in his locust-like raids as a speculator in non-regulated, globalized "free market" finance. According to Soros, if he did not do it, then someone else would - no responsibility, no remorse, and no choice (contrary to the most basic tenets of neoliberalism about "choice").
Therefore, it would be misleading to claim that there is some actual "Jewish" role in this world calamity, as some bigots allege: as far as I know, the activist and unrepentant mania of Soros would be deemed very strange, secular, corrupt, twisted and sinful when considered against the tradition and morality of one of humanity’s earliest monotheist religions. On the larger scale of events, perhaps the case of Soros suggests that such a role as his is even worse than the direct participation in evil by the most vicious and cynical of the fascist-collaborating Kapos.
Soros works for imperialism. He is by no means alone, of course, but he is a very energetic sponsor of many forces at work destabilizing many regions of the globe. As he has himself said: his goal is "to make governments accountable". He meant "accountable" to himself and his oligarchical mates. The bail outs and corporatism have gone some way to achieving that aim, with Obama’s rapid and promotional help in passing Paulson’s legislation in congress.
Hey mil, I’m sure you fears of Soros are well founded, and I’m no fan of speculators making billions in the so-called free market. But what of his philanthropic efforts, and his criticism of the system that he and Warren Buffet say is at fault for making it possible to make billions from playing the speculative game. At least both Soros and Buffet HAVE given billions to worthy causes. Your arguments may all be sound, but I’m still unsure of how you’re offering any solution or cure?
mil-observer
I’m relieved that you haven’t yet fingered Soros as a member of the world-wide Jewish conspiracy. Are you sure his Nazi activities weren’t all an act to get him under Barack Obama’s guard and give the Zionist Entity control of the White House? Have you read the Hillsong hymn book, in which it’s proved that Jesus of Nazareth was in reality hand-in-glove with the money-changers, aiming at Universe domination? And where does Harold Holt fit in to all this?
Wonk, I’m not scared of Soros one bit: I wouldn’t be exposing his putrid and poisonous soul repeatedly like this if I was scared of the smug, degenerate junkie that he obviously is, or if I was scared of his thousands of dependent, sycophantic toadies.
Your presumption about Soros’ "philanthropy" seems to me naive and very misplaced (perhaps you took George Negus’ words at face value). Do you mean: OSI, ICG, Release, the Beckley Foundation, the Open Society Georgia Foundation, the ECFR, HRW? There are many more, and no discernible philanthropy going on, but much imperialist, free-trade infiltration and geo-strategic destabilization. At a stretch, the only conceivable philanthropic role appears at first glance in HRW, but I’ve examined their operations quite closely and I found repeatedly that HRW effects interventionism and advocacy almost exclusively in countries where the state is fighting against destabilization. For the actual state-vehicles of destabilization - in the Mid-East and Africa especially - forget it ("torture watch" at best).
For "solution and cure" my case is implicit in my attacks against those who would trash sovereignty and peace for the sake of their neo-lib, free-trade looting and mayhem. However, I explicitly support a return to popular social democracy, protectionism for workers and farmers, with statist control of the finance sector. FDR and Jack Lang are legendary heroes, both cruelly betrayed and misrepresented, especially now that the reverse processes are so far advanced i.e., a rampant free-trade finance sector which has enslaved the state and the people.
Peterbest, here you are again discussing topics way above your head. What you know of the "money changers" one could fit, in broad font, on the foreskin of a sparrow, and there would still be enough space for the Talmud!
Who needs a conspiracy when the facts present such wonderful grounds for alarm? But "facts" is not one of your strong points Peterbest.
Mil Observer, the money of Soros is like the small change of a semi-successful fish and chip vendor in comparison to the money behind Obama. Soros is a pathetically small player in comparison with:-
Kravis, Janklow, Robert Rubin (again), Roger Hertog - a giant neocon, Sidney Harman, husband to Jane Harman, Penny Pritzker, (aka "Obama’s wallet"), Lester Crown, of the "other" Chicago billionaire family to the Pritzkers, Iran hawk. Ken Bialkin (formerly of ADL), and completely off his rocker. Then there is Robert Belfer of WINEP. Douglas Schoen, pollster to Menachem Begin. James Tisch, a leading pro Israel anti Palestinian lobbyist - who needs a conspiracy THEORY? The truth is fantastic enough!
There are a few non-zionist names, like Walter Russell Mead, but does he count? After all he is the Kissinger fellow at CFR and who also loves to attack Professors Walt and Mearsheimer as "anti-Semites" and yet who did not even know the name of Israel’s Prime Minister at a recent AIPAC conference.
Then there are the power brokers whom Obama has basically already appointed to his government, people like Summers and Rahm Emanuel (whose father is a self confessed murderer and member of a terrorist group) - and the cherry on the cake will be when Obama appoints, as head of the CIA, a person previously disqualified from Federal Office because of spying against the USA for a foreign state, but who is not prosecuted because dual citizenship is ONLY allowed if you are Israeli. Even in the USA the Israelis have reserved for themselves special benefits above the rights of others.
There is only one "foreign state" which is allowed to break every civilised law with impunity.
As one of the USA’s longest serving Congressmen commented last night, "under Obama we will have more Israelis in our government than even Israel dares to appoint. If that fact does not scare your hopes for world peace, nothing ever will"
So celebrate all you want, but make sure your celebrations are wrapped in ignorance because the truth of the Obama Presidency presents nothing worth celebrating unless you are happy with another decade of war, threat of nuclear confrontation and genocides on a scale even worse than that seen in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.
Thanks for the elucidation on the syndicate behind puppet Obama, rock. I gather these guys might tie in to my reference elsewhere to the inheritors of the Meyer Lansky mobsters? It looks more worrying than I thought.
I can understand your concern for the more strategically focused clique of Zionist-Israel activism in the Obama push. But I still think that Soros has more disproportionate influence for his relatively globally expansionist reach and organizational scope, especially in the long under-rated "civil society"/NGO sector. The only clear comparison suggested in your list would be links with Kissinger at the policy-formulation levels. Of course, that is not to dismiss the reputedly compatible and universal reach exercised by the Israeli intelligence apparatus too!
Please correct my assumptions there if you have any further dirt on this crowd.
Get back onto the net, Rockjaw, and scrutinise those sparrow foreskins for the latest news about the Elders of Zion who poisoned the Africans with AIDS, killed Kennedy, toppled the Twin Towers and made Shane Warne retire. Like an economic Rastafarian you spout high-sounding nonsense, inside information that would change the universe if only the non-initiated would wake up and pay respect to your superior wisdom. The psychiatric wards are full of people who see how everything really works and smile knowingly at the ignorance of their fellow inmates. Alas, their crowns are only cardboard and their plastic sceptres have no magic in them. Wave on!
Peterbest "…The psychiatric wards are full of people who see how everything really works…" don’t annoy them while you’re there PB, and when they give you good behaviour time you should use it to visit a library to fill in those gaping holes in your education you were telling us all about in another forum.
Rockjaw
Don’t be so pompous and full of yourself. It’s like being lectured by a parking attendant with a Messiah complex. Of course you see secret things barred to the rest of us, and links and connections the rest of us miss, so it must be frustrating to you that you’re not more widely recognised as God. Still, be patient and in time perhaps the world will acknowledge your genius, your gapless education, your invariable rightness.
Aw gee thanks PB, that really means a lot to me, but you will have to have somebody else’s children because I am not really interested.
Sorry to disappoint you like that Peterbest.
Rockjaw
Spoken like a true Messiah.
Just think of it rock: he’s probably holding down a senior position in one of our police or intelligence agencies (the "parking attendant" jibe points to the seniority part anyway). A total contempt for any cognitive skill or rigor.
Peter, just participate in the debate - despite anything your views are as valuable as anybody else’s - if I irritate you or aggravate you, just ignore me as though I do not matter - I will do the same - that way other people will extract some benefit from these forums and we won’t screw it up for everyone else.
Milobserver and Rockjaw, you have once again been unable to answer my main question, which is, what would rather have happen? I think you can’t, because you have no positive and workable alternative to put forward. In this case the role of critic is an easy one to take, but does nothing to provide a model for improvement.
In the real world of relative evils I still contend that Obama is streaks ahead of Bush or McCain.
Got it exactly Dr Dog. Much easier to bully, abuse and declare an unseen conspiracy than savor the possibilities and hope.
Dog, if you review your posts here, you will realize that you did not actually pose that same question earlier. Your indignant riposte makes no sense unless you believe that I am meant to have some online powers of telepathy.
Your initial questions rather took off from an implicit truism i.e., the certainty that some amount of "wealth and power" will support "any person elected in the USA". Now, I am a worker on a relatively meagre wage, but I have some measure of "wealth and power", however small; my union, of course, has considerably more, as does my network of other political contacts. But even such extrapolation of "wealth and power" has no bearing on your attempted comparison in truism. So I think your initial question has a weak, rhetorical quality, with little connection to the following questions about what I would want instead of the corrupt Obama circus of celebrity cults, cynical race-baiting, and pseudo-activism.
You ask whether I support "maintenance of the incredibly compromised status quo", but it should be obvious from my commentary that I oppose such maintenance (or fascistic reinforcement), especially in the areas of imperialist aggression, bail-out looting of public treasure by financier-parasites, and fascist corporatism (sorry for the tautology) aimed at benefiting the same. Therefore, your more specific, direct question there is misconceived.
Your mooted, discursive option of "bloody revolution" is disturbing. It suggests to me that you realize that the western political system is so corrupt that such extremely immoderate and violently desperate action may become a real prospect, especially during the impending catastrophic scarcity and hardship promised by the political puppets’ impotent bungling and cowardice around their financier-masters’ systemic breakdown.
I have already made my more immediate preferences clear by my allusion to the briberies, assassination and other anti-democratic incidents which occurred during the Democrats’ primaries and nomination processes. Of course, there is some hypothetical speculation there, and actual "hope" based only on tentative pledges from Hilary Rodham-Clinton’s team. Regardless, I don’t mean the type of cheezy "hope" pushed by Murdoch’s organs with abstracted prints of Obama’s face!
But the grassroots support for real leadership is waiting, as demonstrated in the protests against the bail-out heists. The desperate need is there, as clear from the ongoing callous evictions and sackings. What is not there in the endorsed oligarchy (as absent here too) is those elements of properly defined "leadership" and the true "hope" that such implicit courage must offer.
Dr Dog, firtsly, were you aware that there were other candidates apart from McCain?
A democracy which cannot adequately present all it’s candidates to the voting public cannot claim to meet the minimum requirements of a modern democracy.
Secondly, were you aware that there are over 300 million Americans who are NOT simultaneously foreign nationals?
A quick look at the demographics of the USA will confirm that the Obama government will represent the interests of only a very small proportion of them, despite all the rhetoric and the wonderfully eloquent speeches one cannot get rid of the distinct impression that this presidency is the triumph of expensive marketing and not a triumph of largely undefined political promises of an undefined "political change".
It would seem more natural to expect a presidential candidate who runs on a platform of peace to choose to surround himself with fewer hawkish pro war neo-cons who are the nationals of one exclusively specific foreign state which has been in an eternal state of war against all it’s neighbours.
This is especially so when you consider the fact that almost 100% of the voting public of the USA do not simultaneously carry the passports of foreign states.
It is natural to expect less suspicion from a government made up of the nationals of the country which it represents rather than the nationals of a foreign state.
mil-observer,
Using either your latent telepathic powers or the scroll button take another look at 7.11.08 on these posts. There you will see that I have asked whether you beleive a candidate can be elected in the US without relying on the support of some kind of syndicate such as the one you tell us hopelessly compromises Obama. If ‘wealth and power’ is too broad a term then rely on the values you have provided, such as warmongering, corporate fascism, whatever you like.
Please note I am not suggesting you are wrong about the people behind the campaign but simply about your view as to the inevitability of such a structure being necessary to acheive the presidency. And yes, Rockjaw, I am aware that there are more candidates, which is why I posed the question in that way in the first place. If you are going to tell me you wanted a minor party to win well thats fine, but hardly a real world solution.
Further to that would you accept that McCain would be similarly compromised? This is, if you like, the real basis for my questions. If you tell me that you beleive MCain to be uncompromised in relation to the matters you have raised, I can walk away from these posts knowing that the basis for your critisism of the Obama camp is just a sour grapes thing from a couple of arch conservatives.
If, however you accept that all candidates are so compromised I would still like to know what you would have liked to have seen arising from this election. This is the reason I asked about bloody revolution and status quo, because they seem the two extremes of options available. Feel free to develop options of your own, fellows, but I still would like to know what it is you want. I would like you to go beyond just having all bad things stop, it’s just not realistic.
The Western system is corrupt. No doubt about it. True democracy does not exist in the USA or here in Australia. Corporations and individuals including the massive and frighteningly powerful military industrial complex do all they can to subsume the system to their needs. People in general are venal and weak-minded, easily led by media hype and simplistic ideas. Obama is not the best man for the job of president. Nor is McCain. Nor, probably, are any of the possible candidates. Neither the USA or Israel has a skerrick of moral authority left. These things are a given.
Given that reality, though, I still would rather Obama is president rather than McCain. What is your position?
"If you are going to tell me you wanted a minor party to win well thats fine, but hardly a real world solution" - Which minor party are you talking about? The other candidates were from the same major parties, only they did not share the same support from the war lobby and the banking lobby which has done so much damage to the world’s financial system.
The whole point, Dr Dog, is that these two lobby groups get to decide who will or will not enter the seats of power. Any candidate, whether Democrat or GOP, which does not toe the war lobby line simply receives no media coverage and they are overwhelmed into submission by the spending power of the war lobby.
The "sour grapes" is, I hope, exactly what will change things when the average voter, who has shown disgust for the Republicans with this Obama vote, finally realises that the Democrats are no better and they decide to vote in a government which recognises that it is neither the Republicans nor the Democrats who are misleading the nation, but the lobby groups behind these presidential campaigns which need to be prevented from monopolising the democratic process.
Hopefully they will vote the next candidate in on the basis of the one who is least likely to succumb to lobby group pressure.
Obama has committed himself to his fund contributors, and there is little left to commit to the electorate who voted him in to power.
Sorry dereklane, just saw your post and have to say you make some sense with regard to still bringing up issues that concern you without having a solution, with two good examples.
If, like Rockjaw and mil-observer however, you have clearly studied the issue in detail I would expect you to have some ideas for a solution, or an alternative to the unacceptable system.
Sadly I seem to have been cast in some sort of pro-Obama maniac, whereas I was really just suggesting that if a young black person feels more empowered by his win, and more likely to become on some level more political, or even just feels more able to participate positively in their society, then that is a matter of great joy.
After all the article at the top is about hope. That was what I was responding to. I look forward to Rockjaw’s or mil-observer’s article that lays out all the information they have gathered about Obama’s supporters but that is for another day.
Dr. Dog "…I look forward to Rockjaw’s or mil-observer’s article that lays out all the information they have gathered about Obama’s supporters but that is for another day…" - the names of the primary supporters have already been posted on this forum above as well as on another NM article on the Obama presidency Dr Dog.
Every one of the names I have presented can be easily checked and verified and information on the individual personalities is easy to obtain.
The first thing which you will find obvious is that these people manage to avoid ALL media coverage - no news media ever mentions them by name - why?
The second item you will find obvious is that these same contributors all represent the same pro-war industries wqhich kept Bush in power.
Additionally every President which these people have funded since Kennedy has somehow managed to make it to the Whitehouse. I find that peculiar to say the very least. Even more peculiar is how the main stream media always manages to miss this very important point.
The third thing you will find obvious is that by far the vast majority of these lobbyists all enjoy the citizenship of the same foreign nation - very peculiar indeed.
The fourth thing which is obvious is the massive financial contributions to the Obama campaign from a "foreign source" where the identity of the foreign contributor is withheld - why?
Is it possible the same prominent British and European bankers who were personal guests of the Obama and Clinton campaign prior to the elections were also the mysterious "foreign contributors", particularly if you consider the serious risks to the banking industry during this historical banking crisis if one of the other candidates made it to the Whitehouse?
There are other parties Rockjaw, that I understand constitutionally could have a candidate if they had the numbers; Greens, Libertarians etc.
This aside, I see what you are saying, and I share your hope that both major parties abandon lobbyists as the source of their policies and funds.
I hope that we do the same here in Australia, and have been terribly concerned about the evidence that political donations are having the same effect.
Thank you for your clarity, Rockjaw. I still prefer Obama to McCain for the reasons stated above.
"I was really just suggesting that if a young black person feels more empowered by his win, and more likely to become on some level more political, or even just feels more able to participate positively in their society, then that is a matter of great joy."
I have no argument with that. I’ve read an excerpt from a recent Michael Albert piece, which certainly suggests that. If that presages a rise in social activism in the US, that’s great news. If its just a high brought on by the progress of seeing a black man leading the US that fizzles out, that’s not so great. Jess Jackson saw it as progress, obviously, and I don’t think he’s been beguiled by a massive PR campaign - he’s been in it too long for that. But had anyone asked him, I’d bet he’d say it was - had to be only the beginning.
My concern is that - as Rockjaw points out - what Obama’s PR is claiming and what his policies/administration appointments are claiming are two separate things. However, if the American public doesn’t rest on its laurels, instead choosing ‘this moment in time’ to continue and strengthen its grass roots activism (against war, debt, poverty, etc), Obama (or his people) may find him/themselves forced to listen to the people post-election - unlike what happened after the euphoria of Blair’s appointment, or even Rudd’s (though neither as ground-breaking, both were welcomed enthusiastically and almost uncritically).
As it is, the PR is almost certainly having the opposite effect - that of calming potential social activism in the US (and everywhere) - so convincing is the rhetoric that the job is done. The reality is that its not even close. Take away the fact he is black (not a small thing for reasons you pointed out), and there’s very little difference between his policies and his new appointees and that of Bill Clinton’s.
Most people, of course, argue that Clinton was head and shoulders better than Bush, but it depends a lot on priorities. He, of course, was busy in the middle east, north Africa, and the eastern bloc during his tenure - the crucial difference was that large numbers of American and British soldiers didn’t die. But non-Americans did, and in far greater numbers, as they have without fail during almost every different American leadership since WWII.
If Obama removes all US occupation troops from the middle east/persia/Asia, and focuses on bettering the lot of Americans in America, I’ll freely, and happily admit I was wrong. I *hope* I am - but I can’t see any logical reason for that hope, except if I look at the masses of ordinary Americans, who may make such things happen. Obama is not the messiah. I’m not saying you think that, but the majority of the sycophantic media appears to think so (definitely the case here in Britain).
cheers, Derek
Dog: First, a correction to one of your comments, where you attribute to me some possible concern about "corporate fascism". I actually identified a specific, historical process known as "fascist corporatism" - a la Mussolini - where the recent bail outs, guarantees and takeover subsidies mirror processes performed by the Italian state from the ’20s, though these latest versions are on an enormously larger scale.
Second, your questions in the 7.11.08 post, verbatim: "Is it possible for any person to be elected in the USA without them being endorsed and financially supported by individuals with wealth and power? If, as I suspect, it is impossible, what exactly would you like to have seen happen? Bloody revolution? Maintainence of the incredibly compromised status quo?" But then you redact your 7.11.08 questions into "There you will see that I have asked whether you beleive a candidate can be elected in the US without relying on the support of some kind of syndicate such as the one you tell us hopelessly compromises Obama. If ‘wealth and power’ is too broad a term then rely on the values you have provided, such as warmongering, corporate fascism, whatever you like."
Clearly, the above two interrogations are substantially different. Regardless, to your second line of questioning: I do indeed believe that a candidate can be elected in the US without relying on an Obama-style syndicate, though I recognize the intensive and widespread coercive and corrupting power in this latest and other cases. That brings me to your next point, where you misrepresent myself, further to misrepresenting your own initial questions i.e., "your view as to the inevitability of such a structure being necessary to achieve the presidency". I never suggested such inevitability at all, although you yourself implied clearly, by your question and statements, some resignation before such a prospect as inevitable. Pessimistically and misanthropically, you assume also some innate character weakness within “people in general”. By contrast, I never claim or suggest any inevitability about any corruption or criminal action, or about any collusion or meek submission before the same. Perhaps indeed regulation of parties’ campaign funding could reduce such corruption. I would rather support the much more modest use of "wealth and power" where campaigns relied on regulated and popular support INITIATED from the grass roots. The Obama case (and McCain counterpart, less successfully) operated the other way around, where lavishly funded civil society and publicist/media networks effectively manufactured a subsequent donation drive FROM the targeted grassroots. Such perversion of democracy rather reminds me of neo-lib PPP scams for infrastructure projects.
To recapitulate, my assessment describes an imperialistic and free-trade oligarchy’s continued globalizing coercion via Obama, according to precedents of strategic destabilization evident in simple, overt facts of organizational structure, funding, personalities and events. I re-state such grounds for my argument in order to yawn off (again) the tired "conspiracy theory" insults. Now, rockjaw focuses instead on a more internal and aggressive Israel-Zionist usurpation or infiltration of the US polity, about which I claim that such syndicate players indicate more direct, local participation and funding in the Obama campaign. I still disagree with rock on certain interpretations and points of emphasis there (and on the potential Clinton role too, it seems), but I suspect we’re otherwise talking about two sides of the same coin. Therefore, such two distinct blocs or factions of Obama’s syndicate may not be in active collusion and cooperation with each other, but they would at least strive to be mutually accommodating and compatible. That would make sense if we recall Soros’ background of enthusiastic, unrepentant work experience for Eichmann’s SS; hardly the basis for relaxed, unguarded and unqualified cooperation, or warm and easy integration, with even the most Lebensraum-hungry Zionists!
Your next two questions concern “what it is that (I) want”, and which radio button would I click in an online poll i.e., Obama / McCain, a la Coke / Pepsi, Lib / Lab.
Now I have no illusion about the appalling mediocrity of McCain - or his running mate, or of his immediate Republican predecessors. I understand that certain public records indicate McCain’s record in North Vietnamese captivity to be quite inglorious too, to the point of having ratted on his fellow American prisoners in order to get favored treatment. So I have never suggested that we should have backed McCain as a preferred candidate. However, I am open to the possibility that there might have been some potential opportunity for elite-level resistance via McCain’s character weakness, combined with his doddering mediocrity and lack of confidence. I believe such character weaknesses to be actually similar to Obama’s, but this issue concerns the extent of control over the respective candidates. Put more simply, I prefer to get a weak and stupid boss with no confidence and little control from higher than a weak and stupid boss whose own bosses keep him firmly in line. At least with a less controlled and weak boss – like McCain - we workers can get the job done properly and maintain high productivity, teamwork, morale and independence. Perhaps a McCain presidency offered such prospect to a resistant clique of senior bureaucratic, military and party patriots. I discerned little if any such prospect from an Obama presidency, but again, I am open to a similar possibility of such elite-level mobilization around an energized Bill Clinton, for example. So no conceivable “support” by myself for McCain: at best some very tentative, conditional and even hypothetical hope – lukewarm at best, and only prompted by the prevailing conditions of an overwhelmingly pro-Obama, neo-lib propaganda barrage and the very absurdity and hokiness of the McCain-Palin nominations. I would add another slender source of hope in the Palin nomination i.e., its potential as a symbolic gesture of tacit support for a Russia-Alaska Bering Strait Tunnel, a project much backed in Russia and a prospective source of excellent developments towards a peaceful economy. Again, I don’t expect that Palin herself would have any real role in such a prospect (forget that!), but I allow for the possibility of such effort by a clique of reformist oil barons and Alaska-focused representatives. Of course, any such possibility would itself imply a badly compromised agency in “reformist oil barons” - perhaps a euphemism for rats jumping for the lifeboats on oilman Bush’s scuttled ship.
Then, well, I have already expressed just what I want on this very thread. Verbatim (08.11.08): ‘For "solution and cure" my case is implicit in my attacks against those who would trash sovereignty and peace for the sake of their neo-lib, free-trade looting and mayhem. However, I explicitly support a return to popular social democracy, protectionism for workers and farmers, with statist control of the finance sector. FDR and Jack Lang are legendary heroes, both cruelly betrayed and misrepresented, especially now that the reverse processes are so far advanced i.e., a rampant free-trade finance sector which has enslaved the state and the people.’ There was also my other post where I referred to the traditional American conceptions of economic development, regulated capitalism, and statist responsibilities for the common welfare. I urged (also 08.11.08) a certain broader historical perspective on past US policy too - not the superficial manipulation of nostalgia and token-brandishing (like the Gordon Brown / Greenspan “New Bretton Woods”!). I dropped key names there: Hamilton, Lincoln, FDR, JFK, and LBJ (Ike and others probably deserved some qualified mention too). If you need me to digress towards more specific and prescriptive advice, then I reiterate my calls from earlier NM threads:
- declare bankruptcies NOW, including cancellation of the unpayable derivatives pollution
- stop, if not reclaim from, the bail-out and subsidy scams
- restore statist responsibilities for control of (sane) credit, interest and state reserves, including for preferential funding of long overdue (non-PPP) infrastructure. I would add too:
- reclaim public property looted via neo-lib privatizations.
If the parasite-usurers don’t like it (and they won’t), and they get some Saudi royal croney to replay his terrorist brinkmanship and extortion in response, then arrest ‘em, detain ‘em - shoot ‘em if you have to. The key message to all political, bureaucratic and military leaders, in all nations, is this: let the people know whose side you’re really on, then RESIST. Resist like your life and the lives of all your loved ones depend on it, because right now they do!
Well that was very clear thanks mil-observer.