President Obama’s Failed First Year

President Obama recently said as he accepted the Nobel Prize, “It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root without security; it is also true that security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine and shelter they need to survive. It does not exist where children can’t aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within.”

I wasn’t sure if he was speaking about a struggling nation somewhere in the world where a government had failed to protect its people from dangers pounding on it like a blistering winter storm blanketing its citizens with a few feet of snow, or the United States, for that matter. He spoke about people without adequate food, clean water, medicine and shelter, which are needed in order not only to survive, but also to provide a life for themselves and others. He emphasized that a nation is not a nation if it’s children, as well as others, do not have access to a decent education, or a job, which not only stimulates the economy, but gives life to families.

Was President Obama speaking about Iraq, Uganda, or, just maybe, the very country he presides over as its president?

How are we scoring Mr. Obama’s first year as our president? The very person who pledged to sail in Change We Can Believe In as if he were coming across the finish line of the Sailing Federation’s World Cup, it appears, as captain, has hit a sandbar just a mile into the race and tore a hole in its hull. His ship has been grounded.

I don’t see any accomplishments that as a progressive I can say were changes that I could believe in. Actually, they were policies that fit into the opposite category—failures.

We began the year with the Clintonian and Reaganesta economic toy soldiers who, in the past had spoken of different field instructions, more cautious in fact, about the economy, but once anointed by the new commander-in-chief went forward and continued the economic policies of Little Boy Bush by instructing the Federal Reserve’s Field General, Bennie-The Beard-Bernanke, to load up the wheelbarrows of cash and dump them into the laps of the very “infestment” bankstas that brought down the economy in the first place. No interest necessary Citi, or “Golden Sacks”.

The marching orders read that the “infestment” bankstas were to go forward and increase their capital reserves, since they never really had enough to cover the 30-year long betting cycle of risky loans, and credit default swaps, which made them all very, very rich upper classmen. So, to follow through they went ahead and gambled taxpayer dollars at the Wall Street casino tables, as well as moved forward advancing bets in foreign currencies, commodities, and in other stock markets. In other words, much of the cash they borrowed for free went overseas, just as the jobs they took away from us by outsourcing our own manufacturing livelihoods.

Bennie the Beard was crowned Man of the Year by Time magazine, even though he wrongly spoke about the security of our economy. Bada Bing Bernanke once said that the banks were not involved with subprime lending. In 2007, this economic crime syndicate field marshal general said, “ Importantly, we see no serious broad spill over to banks or thrift institutions from the problems in the subprime market…The troubled lenders, for the most part, have not been institutions with federally insured deposits.” Wow!! Was this guy trying to do some stand-up comedy when he said that?

It is hard to believe that since Bernanke, a PhD and expert in the Great Depression, was so successful selling so much propaganda about the economy, that he was able to be crowned Man of the Year. No doubt, he actually sold policymakers on taking a revised version of Alan Greenspan’s prior bag of crap and made it stick to the wall, such as believing that financial innovations were good for the economy and made banking safer!!! He threw up against the Wall of Crap a belief that our economy had entered a time in history that ushered in smaller and less frequent downturns, which he coined “the great moderation.”

These sweet-as-pie assessments of our grand ‘ole economy were made back in 2007 just before he went squawkin’ to Congress warning about a falling sky Chicken Little style; yet, Bennie The Beard was reading a brand of his homegrown tea leaves as the sky came raining down with Humpty Dumpty type banks, mortgage foreclosures, and failed financial innovations burning down the house so much that he needed a backhoe to get himself out from under the charred rubble. And, that backhoe was driven by Congress, which was blackmailed into accepting the Paulson-Bernanke-BushBoy economic extortion plan.

As we all know, five of ten of the nation’s largest “infestment” banking institutions were underwater with subprime loans that had to be bailed out by their field marshal general stationed at the Federal Reserve headquarters. These bankstas were so worried that they demanded from Congress the creation of a $700 billion bankster rescue program called TARP.

The reality is that Bennie The Beard actually failed to protect America’s depositors, homeowners, and investors to the tune of $12 trillion!!! Now, if that legacy deserves Man of the Year, then what would it take to deserve the dishonor of the Worst Man of the Year?

As the year progressed, the promise to end the war in Iraq became just an exaggeration, similarly to how Sarah Palin boasted to America using that infamous line: “I can see Russia from my house.”

Today, we are still in Iraq, and have escalated the troop deployment in Afghanistan. The war profiteers continue their gleeful praises of our War President. The stockholders of GE, General Dynamics, Halliburton, KBR, and the rest are so happy to see their end-of-the-year dividend/ 1099s all coming in profitably. In addition, Blackwater, ie. Xe, and now remade into The U.S. Training Center, has been allowed to become the new, domestic Brownshirts ready to be deployed anywhere inside the United States by our new president, even though Eric Prince, its commander-in-chief, should be put on trial as a war criminal. Our government continues to use Prince’s private, mercenary military force overseas, too.

More change we can believe in.

As we move threw the year, the bankstas were paying out huge bonuses funded by the taxpayers through various Fed and Treasury programs. There were no significant regulatory changes, nor the elimination of too-big-to-fail. The mega-banks were even allowed to become bigger as they gobbled up closed down smaller banks.

None of the mega-banking CEOs or top executives has been jailed for fraud, either. The Justice department has not done any serious, large scale investigations clearly defining why this economic fraud occurred, who were the ones to blame, and why are they still smiling.

We saw a token “real” economy bailout of only a couple billion dollars because the remainder of the economic stimulus package bailout went into tax-cuts. The Republicans hijacked a Democratic Congress, once again. The unemployed-under employed-no longer looking for work, and the part time wanting full time unemployment picture has reached a near Depression era aggregate figure of almost 20%. 16 million unemployed.

Foreclosures grew to 1 in 6 homeowners. Those still paying mortgages, but are now underwater is around 1 in 4.

Wages continue to erode or stay stagnant. Those who are leery of losing their jobs have cut back on their spending.

34,750 lobbyists continue to infect our government with powers that are unprecedented.

Corporate bankruptcies are looming on the horizon. Bank credit card defaults and those 30-60-90 days delinquent have been on the upswing. Professor Elizabeth Warren, PhD, and chairperson of the Congressional Oversight Bailout Committee has warned our president that we could be on the brink of losing our middle class!!!  But what does our president do when such an honorable and brilliant person hoists the distress flag on his ship? He goes out-of-town, gives a nice speech, and informally poses for pretty pictures. When not doing that he is ducking the issues, or letting others do the work.

Professor Drew Westen, PhD, and political psychologist, summed it up in the first paragraph of his outstanding article called, “Leadership, Obama Style, and the Looming Losses in 2010: Pretty Speeches, Compromised Values, and the Quest for the Lowest Common Denominator”----

“As the president’s job performance numbers and ratings on his handling of virtually every domestic issue have fallen below 50 percent, the Democratic base has become demoralized, and Independents have gone from his source of strength to his Achilles Heel. It’s time to reflect on why.”

Professor Westen goes on to say “What’s costing the president are three things: a laissez-faire style of leadership that appears weak and removed to everyday Americans, a failure to articulate and defend any coherent ideological position on virtually anything, and a widespread perception that he cares more about special interests like bank, credit card, oil, and coal, and health and pharmaceutical companies than he does about the people they are shafting.” Beautifully said!!! There is more!! “Consider the president’s leadership style, which has now become clear: deliver a moving speech, move on and when push comes to shove, leave it to others to decide what to do if there’s a conflict, because if there’s a conflict, he doesn’t want to be anywhere near it.”

YIKES!! Is this the Change We Can Believe In? Have we elected a cowardly president afraid to take on the opposition, the important issues and defend the very people that elected him president?

Dr. Westen continues the hammering. “Leadership means heading into the eye of the storm and bringing the vessel of state home safely, not going as far inland as you can because it’s uncomfortable on the high seas. This president has a particular aversion to battling back gusting winds from his starboard side (the right, for the nautically challenged) and tends to give in to them. He just can’t tolerate conflict, and the result is that he refuses to lead.” “This White House has no coherent message on anything.” Bravo! Bravo! I don’t feel alone anymore. I have been calling out President Obama since day 2, and now the crowd is thickening.

With health care, President Obama delivered nothing he promised. Dr. Weston says that “If the president had simply placed appropriate blame on the health insurance industry for its pre-existing conditions, it’s cutting off care for breast cancer victims in the middle of treatment, and its doubling [of] our premiums and co-pays during the Bush years, he would have harnessed populist anger and pushed this bill through six months ago, and it would have looked like the change we were told to believe in.” Well said!!!

There will be no public option. The health care industry will be covering nearly every American and receiving taxpayer dollars in return. More corporate socialism delivered to the richest sectors in the nation. The allowance to import drugs for Canada will continue to be outlawed.

The Employee Free Choice Act has not been made into law.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has said that the US president has failed to provide accountability on torture.

In the area of domestic spying, “The people at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) make a sobering case why President Barack Obama’s Department of Justice’s new arguments in a case involving warrantless wiretapping are much worse than those made by former president George Bush. In a motion to dismiss Jewel v. NSA, EFF’s litigation against the National Security Agency for the warrantless wiretapping of countless Americans, the Obama Administration’s made two deeply troubling arguments. First, they argued, exactly as the Bush Administration did on countless occasions, that the state secrets privilege requires the court to dismiss the issue out of hand. They argue that simply allowing the case to continue “would cause exceptionally grave harm to national security.” As in the past, this is a blatant ploy to dismiss the litigation without allowing the courts to consider the evidence. Then, Obama’s Department Of Justice second argument is the most pernicious. They claim that the U.S. Government is completely immune from litigation for illegal spying — that the Government can never be sued for surveillance that violates federal privacy statutes.

This is a radical assertion that is utterly unprecedented. No one — not the White House, not the Justice Department, not any member of Congress, and not the Bush Administration — has ever interpreted the law this way.” (http://fromtheleft.wordpress.com,“In Domestic Spying Case, Obama DOJ’s New Arguments Are Worse than Bush’s” 4-9-09)

We continue to see that President Obama has not been the person he claimed to be on the campaign trail, or on inauguration day. I see a person who has sold out to the corporate elite beginning on day two. He has become our Manchurian President. The question is will he show courage in 2010, and no longer remain the coward? Will he become a commanding leader demanding effective and necessary changes that we all can believe in? This remains to be seen, but from what he had thus far demonstrated, the answer is doubtful. FDR led from a wheelchair. His physical limitations were only that to him. President Obama must show progressive action, instead of allowing those with agendas to keep him in the deadly center leaning right.

Thanks for reading, jerry