In January 2009, the “Yes We Can” kid officially took office.’ It was an exciting time for this country and the hope of change vibrated. After all, this was the first time we accepted a black man into the White House.
When Obama echoed the statement, “Yes, we can,” many of us thought he was sounding the bell for meaningful change. But, alas, it appears that we were wrong.
Today, we are confronted and threatened with the possible passage and ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement.
The TPP agreement negotiated—in secret, even from Congress—between representatives of governments and giant, multinational corporations . . . the true rulers of the U.S. groups representing the interests of labor, environmental, consumer, and human rights were not at the negotiating table. Interestingly, only a few of the “chapters” of the agreement are actually about “trade” at all. The rest are about the “rights” of corporations and investors.
Despite President Obama’s expenditure of large amounts of political capital to get this treaty ratified, many economists, as well as those with legal expertise, are very critical of this pact. For example:
The TPP allows foreign corporations to bypass U.S. law.
The current TPP text allows multinational companies to challenge U.S. laws, regulations and safeguards through a provision called investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS), a private justice system. Foreign investors can seek compensation from the United States for enforcing regulations and safeguards designed to protect America’s working families and the environment.
The TPP allows climate change to go unchecked. The current TPP text doesn’t contain any enforceable climate change commitments. It does nothing to discourage U.S. manufacturers from moving their factories to TPP countries with weak climate regulations. This damages both to U.S. jobs and our efforts to address climate change.
The TPP gives global banks even more power than they already have. The current TPP text could make it even harder for countries facing an economic crisis to stabilize their economies. Not only can large international banks still sue countries in crisis, the TPP expands the rights of international banks to challenge bank regulations in front of private tribunals made up of their own people. Giving global banks more power makes another global financial meltdown more likely, not less.
The TPP makes affordable medicines harder to find. Quality, affordable and accessible health care is a human right and trade policy should not interfere with public health care choices, nor should it threaten public health. Unfortunately, the current TPP text threatens access to affordable medicines by including new monopoly rights for pharmaceutical companies—delaying competition by affordable generics—and allowing companies more opportunities to interfere with government cost-saving efforts.
Here in the USA, workers are clamoring for an increase in the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Many of these folks have to work at least 2 jobs to pay their rent and put food on the table. The ratification of TPP will put U.S. workers in direct competition with foreign workers many of whom get paid poverty wages well below $7.25 per hour.
Thousands of jobs were lost to U.S. workers when NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) was passed because the business community found that they could manufacture their goods with cheaper labor outside this country.
Why exacerbate this problem by ratifying another trade treaty with so many negatives as noted above? By putting U.S. workers in competition with foreign workers, it would result in the lowering of wages here. And then it hit me, that would be the capitalist’s wet dream . . . a permanent poverty working class that would accept any job for any amount of money. This would eliminate any leverage the workers have to demand a living wage.
So, the question screams out at us, what does Obama see in this treaty that most of the rest of us don’t see? Is it possible he sees what we see and this is what he stands for and who he is . . . a corporatist in working man’s rhetoric? When he said “yes we can,” who exactly was he speaking to? Or, what seems more likely, is he merely following orders, implementing the agenda of the ruling class?
The reality of politics in the U.S. is that it matters not who sits in the White House. In all fairness to Obama, there is an agenda established by the ruling class that must and will be fulfilled. After all, they paid for the president and the members of Congress and they expect loyalty in return.
Obama’s subservience to Wall Street and the banksters did not begin with TPP.
Let’s take a look at “Obamacare” or the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature achievement.
Before negotiations began with head honchos of the health insurance industry, people, including many elected officials, were clamoring for a public option. The public option would be a government insurance offering, much like Medicare or Medicaid, to help keep the premiums of private health insurance under control. It would allow those who could not afford to pay the private insurance premiums the option of buying into the public option program.
Seventy-two percent of the public expressed their support of the public option. Yet, before negotiations began to restructure the health insurance system, Obama withdrew the public option from consideration. When doctors and nurses, who supported the public option, demanded a place at the negotiating table, they were thrown out of the meeting and some were arrested.
Of course, one might question the wisdom of negotiating changes in healthcare insurance with the very people who had been exploiting and ripping off the public for many years. Although there were elements in the final agreement that were improvements, the bill was a boondoggle for the insurance industry. Millions of people who had no insurance were now mandated to buy into an insurance program. This mandate allowed the industry to gather millions of new customers and offered no mechanism to control costs. Also, millions of people still were left without coverage because they didn’t qualify.
As expected, the premiums over the past 7 years have increased and many people who could no longer afford health insurance have had to drop their coverage. In 2016 alone, the premiums increased by 20.3%.
Obama chose to cater to the private insurance industry rather than implement a government program that guaranteed insurance for all regardless of income . . . a program like Medicare that has been very well run and successful.
Healthcare is a right and should not be in the hands of for profit capitalists who watch the bottom line, not our health care.
What else has the Obama regime offered us?
Despite winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Obama has kept the U.S. in a state of war for every minute of his presidency. Here is a review of U.S. military action in the past 7 years:
Since 2010, the U.S. has launched a series of drone strikes in Yemen.
In 2011, the U.S., with their coalition of the willing, initiated massive bombings in Libya, eviscerating the infrastructure of that country.
In 2011, the U.S. began their drone strikes in Somalia. This marked the 6th nation in which drone strikes had been carried out. The other nations included Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen and Libya.
In 2012, U.S. troops were deployed to Jordan.
In 2012, U.S. troops and two batteries of Patriot missiles were sent to Turkey.
In 2013, Navy SEALs conducted a raid in Somalia and simultaneously another raid took place in Tripoli, Libya.
In 2014, hundreds of U.S. troops were deployed to protect American assets in Iraq which I would guess would be the oil fields. In August, the U.S. Navy began a series of airstrikes throughout northern Iraq.
Obama is the “war-ending” president who has ordered airstrikes in seven different countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and Syria. One has to wonder about the issue of sovereignty. Does it exist or does the U.S. have the right to determine where and when it should be respected? In every case, the U.S. has crossed national boundaries to deliver their bombs and missiles.
The U.S. never declared war on any of the countries in question. To do so would have required consent of Congress. Instead, under the War on Terror craze, the executive (president) assumed the power to unilaterally go into any other country and bomb the shit out of it, thus making the U.S. the greatest purveyor of terror in the world. Just last weekend, our Labor Day weekend, the U.S. completed 60 airstrikes covering 6 countries.
U.S. terror is not limited to active military action of “our” armed forces. Support of terror in our “War on Terror” includes U.S. financial support and the sales of weapons to such bastions of democracy as Israel and Saudi Arabia which then utilize these weapons to slaughter innocent, unarmed people in Palestine and Yemen.
Also, let us not ignore the U.S. support of the coup in the Ukraine where a democratically elected president was forced out of office and replaced by a fascist government dominated by neo-Nazis. Predictably, the U.S. has provided financial support as well as arms to prop up this new government.
In 2012, President Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act. After the legislation cleared Congress, the ACLU commented that signing the bill “will damage both his legacy and America’s reputation for upholding the rule of law”
Not only did the NDAA allow for the indefinite detention of those assumed to be threats to U.S. security, Obama also assumed the power to decide which people presented an imminent threat to the U.S. and should be assassinated without charges and without a trial. Every Tuesday, Obama meets with his advisors to make up what they have called the Kill List, a list of targets for assassination which includes U.S. citizens.
As a constitutional lawyer, one would assume that Mr. Obama recognizes the limits the Constitution places on the executive’s powers. Yet, he has chosen to assume the role of cop, prosecutor, and executioner.
So, when people refer to Obama as the best president ever, exactly what are they examining to make that determination? Obama, just like the many presidents before him, is the high level lackey of the capitalist, imperialist, and militarist class whose function it is to implement the programs of the ruling class. Mr. Obama has done that beautifully for the past 7+ years and has avoided any mass public outcry. He has successfully seduced the American public into passive acceptance.
A few years back, Glenn Ford, editor of Black Agenda Report, in an interview with Amy Goodman, was asked “Do you consider Obama the lesser of two evils”? Mr. Ford responded, not at all, “he is the more effective evil.”
GOD BLESS AMERIKA!!
Dave Alpert has masters degrees in social work, educational administration, and psychology. He spent his career working with troubled inner city adolescents.
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If Obama is the best president ever, what does that say about the previous presidents?
Posted on September 14, 2016 by Dave Alpert
In January 2009, the “Yes We Can” kid officially took office.’ It was an exciting time for this country and the hope of change vibrated. After all, this was the first time we accepted a black man into the White House.
When Obama echoed the statement, “Yes, we can,” many of us thought he was sounding the bell for meaningful change. But, alas, it appears that we were wrong.
Today, we are confronted and threatened with the possible passage and ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement.
The TPP agreement negotiated—in secret, even from Congress—between representatives of governments and giant, multinational corporations . . . the true rulers of the U.S. groups representing the interests of labor, environmental, consumer, and human rights were not at the negotiating table. Interestingly, only a few of the “chapters” of the agreement are actually about “trade” at all. The rest are about the “rights” of corporations and investors.
Despite President Obama’s expenditure of large amounts of political capital to get this treaty ratified, many economists, as well as those with legal expertise, are very critical of this pact. For example:
Here in the USA, workers are clamoring for an increase in the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Many of these folks have to work at least 2 jobs to pay their rent and put food on the table. The ratification of TPP will put U.S. workers in direct competition with foreign workers many of whom get paid poverty wages well below $7.25 per hour.
Thousands of jobs were lost to U.S. workers when NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) was passed because the business community found that they could manufacture their goods with cheaper labor outside this country.
Why exacerbate this problem by ratifying another trade treaty with so many negatives as noted above? By putting U.S. workers in competition with foreign workers, it would result in the lowering of wages here. And then it hit me, that would be the capitalist’s wet dream . . . a permanent poverty working class that would accept any job for any amount of money. This would eliminate any leverage the workers have to demand a living wage.
So, the question screams out at us, what does Obama see in this treaty that most of the rest of us don’t see? Is it possible he sees what we see and this is what he stands for and who he is . . . a corporatist in working man’s rhetoric? When he said “yes we can,” who exactly was he speaking to? Or, what seems more likely, is he merely following orders, implementing the agenda of the ruling class?
The reality of politics in the U.S. is that it matters not who sits in the White House. In all fairness to Obama, there is an agenda established by the ruling class that must and will be fulfilled. After all, they paid for the president and the members of Congress and they expect loyalty in return.
Obama’s subservience to Wall Street and the banksters did not begin with TPP.
Let’s take a look at “Obamacare” or the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature achievement.
Before negotiations began with head honchos of the health insurance industry, people, including many elected officials, were clamoring for a public option. The public option would be a government insurance offering, much like Medicare or Medicaid, to help keep the premiums of private health insurance under control. It would allow those who could not afford to pay the private insurance premiums the option of buying into the public option program.
Seventy-two percent of the public expressed their support of the public option. Yet, before negotiations began to restructure the health insurance system, Obama withdrew the public option from consideration. When doctors and nurses, who supported the public option, demanded a place at the negotiating table, they were thrown out of the meeting and some were arrested.
Of course, one might question the wisdom of negotiating changes in healthcare insurance with the very people who had been exploiting and ripping off the public for many years. Although there were elements in the final agreement that were improvements, the bill was a boondoggle for the insurance industry. Millions of people who had no insurance were now mandated to buy into an insurance program. This mandate allowed the industry to gather millions of new customers and offered no mechanism to control costs. Also, millions of people still were left without coverage because they didn’t qualify.
As expected, the premiums over the past 7 years have increased and many people who could no longer afford health insurance have had to drop their coverage. In 2016 alone, the premiums increased by 20.3%.
Obama chose to cater to the private insurance industry rather than implement a government program that guaranteed insurance for all regardless of income . . . a program like Medicare that has been very well run and successful.
Healthcare is a right and should not be in the hands of for profit capitalists who watch the bottom line, not our health care.
What else has the Obama regime offered us?
Despite winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Obama has kept the U.S. in a state of war for every minute of his presidency. Here is a review of U.S. military action in the past 7 years:
Obama is the “war-ending” president who has ordered airstrikes in seven different countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and Syria. One has to wonder about the issue of sovereignty. Does it exist or does the U.S. have the right to determine where and when it should be respected? In every case, the U.S. has crossed national boundaries to deliver their bombs and missiles.
The U.S. never declared war on any of the countries in question. To do so would have required consent of Congress. Instead, under the War on Terror craze, the executive (president) assumed the power to unilaterally go into any other country and bomb the shit out of it, thus making the U.S. the greatest purveyor of terror in the world. Just last weekend, our Labor Day weekend, the U.S. completed 60 airstrikes covering 6 countries.
U.S. terror is not limited to active military action of “our” armed forces. Support of terror in our “War on Terror” includes U.S. financial support and the sales of weapons to such bastions of democracy as Israel and Saudi Arabia which then utilize these weapons to slaughter innocent, unarmed people in Palestine and Yemen.
Also, let us not ignore the U.S. support of the coup in the Ukraine where a democratically elected president was forced out of office and replaced by a fascist government dominated by neo-Nazis. Predictably, the U.S. has provided financial support as well as arms to prop up this new government.
In 2012, President Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act. After the legislation cleared Congress, the ACLU commented that signing the bill “will damage both his legacy and America’s reputation for upholding the rule of law”
Not only did the NDAA allow for the indefinite detention of those assumed to be threats to U.S. security, Obama also assumed the power to decide which people presented an imminent threat to the U.S. and should be assassinated without charges and without a trial. Every Tuesday, Obama meets with his advisors to make up what they have called the Kill List, a list of targets for assassination which includes U.S. citizens.
As a constitutional lawyer, one would assume that Mr. Obama recognizes the limits the Constitution places on the executive’s powers. Yet, he has chosen to assume the role of cop, prosecutor, and executioner.
So, when people refer to Obama as the best president ever, exactly what are they examining to make that determination? Obama, just like the many presidents before him, is the high level lackey of the capitalist, imperialist, and militarist class whose function it is to implement the programs of the ruling class. Mr. Obama has done that beautifully for the past 7+ years and has avoided any mass public outcry. He has successfully seduced the American public into passive acceptance.
A few years back, Glenn Ford, editor of Black Agenda Report, in an interview with Amy Goodman, was asked “Do you consider Obama the lesser of two evils”? Mr. Ford responded, not at all, “he is the more effective evil.”
GOD BLESS AMERIKA!!
Dave Alpert has masters degrees in social work, educational administration, and psychology. He spent his career working with troubled inner city adolescents.