[PAA-Discuss] The Two Faces of Barack Obama

[Lee Loe]

I think very few of the people receiving this email vote because of what
"MSM" tells them. I think we are all conscientiously researching our options
learning as much as we can before we cast our votes in the primary and in
Nov. We care, too, Kris. I am especially deeply worried about the world in
which our grandchildren, our precious grandchildren, are going have to
exist. Lee Loe

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From: discuss-bounces at paa-tx.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at paa-tx.org] On
Behalf Of Ron and Kris Graham
Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2008 11:07 AM
To: Discuss at paa-tx.org
Subject: [PAA-Discuss] The Two Faces of Barack Obama



I am going to keep posting articles on Barack Obama, so people will know who
it is they are voting for when they vote in the Democratic primary. If you
are tired of reading about Barack Obama then by all means delete this
particular e-mail. I have nothing against Obama personally. I don't think
he's an evil man. I do, however, think he is a part of the continuing
problem in the United States and not a part of the solution. I believe
people should be fully informed about a person before he/she casts a vote.
All too often people vote for whoever they feel is the best candidate based
upon what the MSM tells them or based upon how they feel about the person
personally i.e. looks, charisma, experience, electability etc.

 

It's not necessary that anyone comment unless he/she wants to. The
information below is merely food for thought. For the record, I don't like
Hillary Clinton one bit, and she is definitely wrong for this country.

 

Kris

 

The two faces of Barack Obama

by Bill Van Auken

 

Global  <http://www.globalresearch.ca> Research, February 14, 2008

wsws.org 

 

Appearing before a packed auditorium at the University of Wisconsin Tuesday
on the night of his victories in the "Potomac primaries," held in Maryland,
Virginia and Washington, D.C., Illinois senator and Democratic presidential
candidate Barack Obama delivered a speech that was notable for its populist
demagogy, not only on the war in Iraq but also social conditions in America.

The Wisconsin rally is the latest in a series of campaign events that have
drawn large and predominantly younger crowds-20,000 at the University of
Maryland and 17,000 in Virginia Beach on the eve of Tuesday's primaries-and
which have seen Obama adopt a more "left" public face.

The Illinois senator has the instincts of an agitator and seeks to give the
crowds what he senses they want. In Wisconsin, he linked "record profits"
for Exxon to the rising "price at the pump," provoking enthusiastic
applause. He spoke of trade agreements that "ship jobs overseas and force
parents to compete with their teenagers for minimum wage at Wal-Mart." And
he pledged to be a "president who will listen to Main Street-not just Wall
Street; a president who will stand with workers not just when it's easy, but
when it's hard."

Turning to the question of Iraq, he declared that "our troops are sent to
fight tour after tour of duty in a war that should've never been authorized
and should've never been waged," and derided those who "use 9/11 to scare up
votes."

He continued by citing deteriorating social conditions facing average
Americans: "the father who goes to work before dawn and then lies awake at
night wondering how he's going to pay the bills;" "the woman who told me she
works the night shift after a full day at college and still can't afford
health care for a sister who's ill;" the retiree "who lost his pension when
the company he gave his life to went bankrupt;" and "the teacher who works
at Dunkin Donuts after school just to make ends meet."

He responded with promises of tax cuts for working people, health care
reform, better pay and a government that would "protect pensions, not CEO
bonuses."

Echoing the rhetoric of Martin Luther King, he concluded his speech with the
vow that "our dream will not be deferred, our future will not be denied, and
our time for change has come."

There is an element in these speeches that would seem to give pause to the
Democratic Party establishment and the big business interests it represents.
Obama's rhetorical excursions could be seen as leading into dangerous
territory. After all, the Democratic Party has served as an indispensable
partner in the Bush administration's policies of war abroad and social
reaction at home.

But this populist primary rhetoric is only one face of Obama. There is
another, and it is turned firmly towards the very corporate interests he
publicly criticizes, which have poured tens of millions of dollars into his
campaign.

On the day after the Potomac primaries, BusinessWeek ran a special report
entitled, "Is Obama Good for Business?" While the piece provided no direct
answer to this question, the attitude taken by the business magazine
appeared to be a qualified "yes," based in large part on the private
discussions that the Illinois senator is holding with top Wall Street and
corporate insiders even as he is delivering his public appeals for "change."

Thus, BusinessWeek noted, last Sunday, after learning of his victory in the
Maine Democratic caucuses, Obama sat down at his computer to exchange emails
with Robert Wolf, CEO of UBS America, one of his major Wall Street
"bundlers," responsible for bringing in millions in donations from fellow
multi-millionaires to finance what Obama refers to as his "movement."
According to estimates made by the Center for Responsive Politics, 80
percent of the money raised by the Obama campaign last year came from donors
affiliated with business, with Wall Street leading the pack. More than half
of the money came in the form of donations totaling $2,300 or more.

In addition to Wolf, Obama stays in regular touch with Warren Buffett, the
second-wealthiest individual in America, with a net worth of some $52
billion. Among his leading economic advisors is Austan Goolsbee, a
University of Chicago professor and prominent advocate of free market
policies.

The Volcker endorsement

Perhaps most significant was last month's little reported endorsement of
Obama by Paul Volcker, who was appointed Federal Reserve Board chairman by
Democratic President Jimmy Carter in 1979 and remained in charge of the US
central bank for nearly seven years under the right-wing Republican
administration of Ronald Reagan.

Volcker was responsible for inaugurating a high-interest-rate regime
demanded by the dominant sections of finance capital in the name of the
battle against inflation. His monetary policy was inextricably linked to the
offensive against the working class begun with the firing of the air traffic
controllers and the breaking of the PATCO strike and continued with the
shutdown of large sections of basic industry and the unleashing of the worst
economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The ultimate
effect of these policies was a vast transfer of wealth from the mass of
working people to a narrow financial elite, a process that has continued to
this day.

In a statement announcing his backing for Obama, Volcker noted that he had
previously avoided involvement in partisan politics. He said that he was
moved to intervene now not "by the current turmoil in markets," but because
of "the breadth and depth of challenges that face our nation at home and
abroad." He added, "Those challenges demand a new leadership and a fresh
approach." Obama's leadership, he concluded, would be able to "restore
needed confidence in our vision, our strength and our purposes right around
the world."

Larry Kudlow, the right-wing pundit and former Reagan administration
economic advisor, commented on the endorsement earlier this month, noting
that he had once worked as a speechwriter for Volcker and describing him as
"a great American... a classic conservative... a man of fiscal and monetary
rectitude."

Volcker, Kudlow wrote, "would not have made this endorsement on a whim.
Believe me. He never gets involved in these kinds of political decisions."
He concluded by asking: "Is Volcker the new Robert Rubin [the Wall Street
insider who directed the Clinton administration's economic policy]? Is it
possible that Mr. Volcker is somehow tutoring Obama? Is it possible that
Obama is more financially conservative than originally believed?"

These are the real relations that are being forged behind the scenes as
Obama delivers left phrases from the podium. Those like Volcker see the
Illinois senator as a useful vehicle for effecting major changes aimed not
at ameliorating the conditions of life for masses of working people, but
rather at securing the global interests of American finance capital.

No doubt, they believe Obama, who would be America's first African-American
president, is best suited to confront the dangers posed by continuing
economic crisis and rising social tensions. Who better to demand even
greater sacrifices from the working class, all in the name of national unity
and "change?" At the same time, he would present a fresh face to the world,
which they hope would help extricate US imperialism from the foreign policy
debacles and growing global isolation that are the legacy of the Bush
administration.

Given these big business ties, Obama's campaign rhetoric about confronting
poverty and social inequality involve a level of cynicism and demagogy that
is truly staggering. His incessant promises of change are not tied to any
radical economic program that fundamentally challenges the profit interests
of the giant corporations and Wall Street.

On the contrary, Obama has advanced a conservative fiscal policy, pledging
himself to a "pay as you go" approach and stressing the need to reduce debt
and deficits. Given that he would take office with a near-record $400
billion deficit inherited from the Bush administration, this already
determines an agenda of austerity measures.

On Wednesday, the candidate toured a General Motors plant in Janesville,
Wisconsin and put forward a so-called jobs program involving investments in
infrastructure and alternative energy that would total $210 billion over 10
years. In the face of the deep-going crisis confronting American capitalism,
this is less than a drop in the bucket-and even this drop would quickly
evaporate in the face of demands for deficit reduction.

Those who don't want to talk about capitalism should by rights keep their
mouths shut when it comes to poverty and unemployment. One cannot deal with
either seriously without confronting the private ownership of society's
productive forces and the immense social inequality that it has created. The
defense of jobs and living standards, the right to decent housing, health
care and education for hundreds of millions of Americans can be advanced
only through a far-reaching redistribution of wealth from the super rich to
the broad mass of working people.

Clearly, the likes of Wolf, Buffett and Volcker are backing Obama because
they know that he has no intention of going anywhere near such a policy.

As for the question of war, those looking to the Obama campaign as a means
of ending American militarism will be sorely disappointed. The Illinois
Senator has vowed not to reduce the ballooning US military budget-which
consumes an estimated $700 billion annually-but rather to increase it. He
has called for the recruitment of another 65,000 soldiers for the Army as
well as 27,000 more Marines. He has vowed to put "more boots on the ground"
in the "war on terror," the pretext invented by the Bush administration to
justify "preemptive war," i.e., military aggression aimed at asserting US
hegemony over the oil-rich regions of the Middle East and Central Asia.

As for Iraq itself, his promises to end the war are belied by his pledge to
keep American forces in Iraq to defend "US interests" and conduct
"counterterrorism operations," a formula that would see tens of thousands of
US soldiers and Marines continuing to occupy Iraq and repress its population
for many years to come.

To the extent that Obama's rhetoric arouses popular expectations-and there
are indications that it does-these will inevitably be dashed. In all
probability, this will happen once the primary season is over and Obama is
confronted by the Republican right as well as elements within the Democratic
Party itself with the demand that he clarify his program. Should he capture
the White House in November, he will head an administration committed to
defending the interests of the American oligarchy both at home and abroad.

Those turning towards the Obama campaign as a means of effecting progressive
social change in the US and bringing an end to US militarism abroad will
find that the Democratic Party and the corporate and financial interests it
represents will allow neither.

These necessary goals can be achieved only through a decisive break with the
Democrats and the entire two-party system and the independent mobilization
of the working class through the building of a mass socialist movement.


 
<http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=listByAuthor&authorFirst=Bil
l&authorName=Van%20Auken> Global Research Articles by Bill Van Auken 

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