Barack Obama: A Mighty Wind

A little more than a year ago, on election night 2008, I blogged about being proud that the people had elected Barack Obama and expressed the hope that now the country might be able to seek a new direction, a more inclusive, progressive and peaceful direction. Sadly, it took only a year for any illusions regarding the direction the President would choose to be finally dispensed with. While Obama's recent decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan might be thought of as the last straw, it was becoming clear much sooner that Obama is perhaps the biggest political wind-bag to blow into Washington in many a decade. On virtually every major (and minor!) decision, Obama has demonstrated with his actions, the only true indicator of intent, that his is an administration of the status-quo, not one of change. It might not be so deflating if he had run a more "technocratic" campaign, but no, Brand Obama was all about "the change we need," and the "audacity of hope," a claim to change the way Washington works, etc., etc. It must now be clear to all but the most deluded groupies that this was mostly all smoke and mirrors, merely reflecting the way political campaigns are executed these days. That is, one says to the people whatever one needs to say to get elected, but upon election one governs at the behest of America's corporate oligarchy, regardless of what was said. Where to begin?

It didn't take long for my hopes to begin to fade. You see, what with the extreme economic crisis, financial corruption on a massive scale, and all this prior to Obama's inauguration, it should have been pretty clear to a "candidate of change," that some new economic thinking was in order, or that, at a minimum, those who stood by, or at worst, collaborated in the economic dissolution of the country, should not be entrusted to manage the aftermath. So, naturally, our candidate of change installed an economic team made up of precisely the same crowd who had either placed the charcoal in the grill, fanned the flames, or had watched happily while it all went up in smoke. The prime culprits here being Obama's chief economist Lawrence Summers and the current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. No change spotted here. More recently, because of his superb job in doling out trillions of dollars of taxpayer money to his banking buddies, "bailout" Ben Bernanke, the same Ben Bernanke who had been completely asleep at the Fed tiller as an economic tsunami engulfed the nation, was, rather than shown the door, nominated to another four year stint at the head of the Federal Reserve! To understand why Bernanke should absolutely be replaced as Fed chairman, see the comprehensive indictment by Nomi Prins. In nominating Bernanke for another term Obama noted the desire to "reassure the financial sector." Reassure them of what!? That the money spigot wouldn't be turned off? Maybe the financial sector could do with some assurances that change was coming down the pike! No, definitely not change.

Further to our economic mess, as billions of public funds were being transferred to the banks, we were reminded over and over that this would not be allowed to happen again, and that "business as usual" was finished. We were told that new regulations would get tough with the banks and other corporate crooks. Well, what happened? Guess what, it's back to business as usual! Indeed, Wall Street outfits like Goldman-Sachs will out-do themselves in corporate bonuses this year, scarcely twelve months after literally walking off with the public's strongbox. While talk of new regulatory authority has been heard in Congress, at the moment there has been no new legislation to address the incredible corruption that is now endemic in the US and international financial system. At present Obama appears to be AWOL on this issue. One might think that perhaps, as a first start, it would be prudent to go back to the old regulatory regime that was in place prior to the "financialization" of the US economy. I'm thinking Glass-Steagall here, that piece of quaint, Depression-era legislation that actually worked! Imagine that, it kept banker and corporate rapaciousness somewhat in check. You guessed it, naturally there can be no return to such "old" schemes. Summers and Geithner will see to that, it wouldn't be "prudent" to go back to an "over-regulation" of the banks. Remember, these guys are Obama's guys. Still no change spotted.

Chief among Obama's campaign rhetoric was talk about overcoming the "cynicism" in Washington, and changing the way business is done. He talked endlessly about removing the political sway of lobbyists, and incorporating a new openness in government. Let's take a look at these goals in the context of the administration's health care reform agenda. Well, before even proposing a plan Obama met with insurance and health care industry executives many times in the White House, presumably to try and reach some accommodation with them regarding reform. He also cut a deal with Pharma, the pharmaceutical industry trade group, in some attempt to try and "bring them on board" to the reform effort. When word of such meetings hit the press, Obama's White House, rather than engaging in the new openness, tried to conceal the White House visitor logs from the public. Before the fight had even begun, Obama was seeking to make accommodation with the pharmaceutical lobbyists. Was this necessary, an end to the cynical ways of the past? Doesn't sound like it to me. If anything is clear from the health care reform saga it is that Obama, and the Democratic party in general, has had as its first agenda a desire to not upset the insurance and health care delivery industries. Rather than seeking to enact changes to benefit the public at large, the primary constraint seems to be to appease the health care insurance lobby at all costs. More of the change we need? Sorry to say so, but I don't see it.

During the campaign Obama repeatedly, and rightly in my opinion, attacked McCain and the Bush administration with regard to their approach to civil liberties and foreign affairs, suggesting that once elected he would reverse the trajectory established by Bush, Cheney and the Republican Party in these areas. So, after a year in office what can we see. On virtually every decision with regard to civil liberties, the Obama administration has argued for the same policies and interpretations that Bush so infamously enacted. Bush notoriously expanded the State's Secret privilege, to shield from view and immunize virtually any government decision or conduct that might reflect poorly on the administration. As Glenn Greenwald has clearly articulated, the Obama administration has adopted exactly the same interpretation of "... these same secrecy and immunity weapons." Even in cases where the Obama administration had nothing to do with the original conduct, he has sided with the Bush interpretation. Such conduct is deeply troubling, and the fact that it goes against the rhetoric he used to "sell" himself on the campaign trail makes it even more disturbing. While Obama has seemingly moved to close the extra-legal prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, at present it remains opens, as do numerous other extra-legal CIA "black sites," that Obama apparently is content to see remain open. He has also re-affirmed the right, first decreed under Bush, to detain essentially anyone deemed to be a "terrorist," or "enemy," indefinitely. While he has appeared to place some additional legal restraints on such detention, the basic principle of indefinite detention appears to be fine with Obama, and this from a one-time Constitutional scholar. Based on the campaign rhetoric, it's hard to argue that this represents significant change.

Another early decision that was very disturbing from one who had professed to bring about profound change was his decision to keep Robert Gates on as Secretary of Defense. Gates was Bush's choice to replace Rumsfeld, and while just about anyone would be an improvement over "the Donald," that's hardly a ringing endorsement. Gates was, and still appears to be, one of the last of the Cold Warriors. His public service career is exceptional in that he was wrong about virtually every major international development during the time he served at the CIA. So why would Obama see the need to keep in office such a mediocrity? Was it all about the bipartisanship? An effort to placate "unplacatable" conservative wing-nuts in the Republican Party? We see how well that's turned out. If Obama was going to implement a really new direction in US foreign policy, then why enlist an old Cold-war, Bush-appointed re-tread to do it? After all, it seems pretty clear that Gates never met a war he didn't like. And if it was one thing that separated Obama from the other presidential wannabes, it was his apparent anti-war credentials, and while this was prefaced with opposition to "dumb wars," such as Iraq, one certainly got the sense from the rhetoric that Obama would chart a new direction in foreign affairs.

Which brings us to the last straw, Obama's recent, awful, despicable, Afghanistan speech. Let's start with the location. While nothing can compare with George W. Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" photo-op, Obama's decision to use US Army cadets as cheering "props" to announce his escalation of the Afghanistan war has disturbing similarities. Then consider the whole frame of the speech. Bush's neo-cons could have written it. It represented a virtually complete acceptance of the Bush rationale for the "global war on terrorism," all the tired, refuted canards about how US "security" is threatened by, as an Afghan woman put it, "... by those skinny, lice covered, illiterate, dirty men in those craggy hills of this broken country?" From the man who brought us the "audacity of hope," all we got was a "dose of fear." We could have gotten that from George W. Bush, and at least we would have known what we were getting. And then, towards the end he had the audacity to suggest to us that we should come together, in unity, around this ludicrous policy? A policy that at the same time would both escalate and set a withdrawal date? That we should just further bankrupt our future and ruin another generation of over-deployed soldiers, not to speak of the innocents that are sure to die in Afghanistan? No thanks Mr. President, we can see the cynicism in that, and we're not buying. We got all this, but not before invoking more of the worn out, ridiculous, and deadly myths of American exceptionalism; we don't seek to dominate, we don't seek to occupy, blah, blah, and this from a man who should and probably does know better, but, who, ever the political cynic, was happy to try them out again on the American public. Amazingly, Obama will be presented with the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize in less than a week's time. Truly, war is peace. Change? hardly.

Obama's first term is scarcely 1/4 over and already he has done enormous damage to efforts to redress the nightmare of eight years of Bush - Cheney rule. He has adamantly decided to "look Forward," and has made it clear that bringing accountability to those who ran roughshod over the Constitution is not among his interests. Rarely have I ever seen a situation where the rhetoric of a political figure has been so at odds with his actions. It is hard not to reach the conclusion that Obama pulled the wool over many people's eyes. How destructive is this? It represents a powerful debasement of the political process, even when compared to Republican malfeasance, and simply further breeds the cynicism that he ostensibly claimed to be ending. Obama seems to be intent to drive away most of the support that brought him to office. Almost unbelievably, he seems to be governing at the whim of precisely those interests that he railed against in the campaign. He may still have time to reverse some of these trends, but based on his actions from one year in office I have seen no indications that he plans to do so. No, it seems Obama is basically Bush-lite, but with the dangerous ability to craft persuasive sentences and to deliver them as if he really believes them. Or perhaps he does believe them, but is simply so weak as to be unable to stand up for what he believes in. Either way, Obama and the Democratic Party had seriously think about the path they are traveling down, because for their sake and that of the Country, it's looking like a dead end.