Robert Gates? How is this "Change"?

How exactly does keeping the executor of the "surge" amount to "change." Even Rumsfeld by the time he was shit-canned had come to accept the idea that the "wise men" of the Iraq Study Group were right and the the US would have to start drawing down its force levels in Iraq (see Gardner, "Mr. Rumsfeld's War" in Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam: Or, How not to learn from the past (ed) Gardner and Young).

It is now abundantly clear that "change" was merely a vacuous slogan which the Power Elite used to engineer continuity. Obama is a pawn of the vested interests.

What could be better than a "Green Deal"?

Mike Davis calls for economic triage. Before any light-rail for mid-to-upper class commuters, Davis calls for investments in health and education. These sectors are more labor intensive and will deliver more bang where it is is needed most.
Davis offers a warning: beware of the "green bubble" and eco-profiteers. The problem is capitalism.

The State of Exception Continues

Obama will employ the same tactics in pursuit of the same ends. Democracy Now! on (and here) Obama's "intelligence" advisers.

Looting the Treasury on the Way out the door

Electoral politics in the US are a spectator sport. They keep us safely anesthetized. Elections are the opiate of the masses.

Naomi Klein on the thieves in high-places and the futility of the electoral process:

Unfortunately for the market, voters have just voted for change. They voted for a candidate who really turned the election into a referendum on this economic policy of rampant deregulation. So you’ve really got a problem here. How do you reconcile the market’s desire for status quo with the voters’ demand for real change? There is no way to do that without a few bumps along the way. And I’m quite concerned that what we’re seeing from Obama’s team is an accepting of this logic that they need to give the market what it wants, which is continuity, smooth transition, which is really just code for more of the same. And when you hear names like Larry Summers being bandied about for Treasury Secretary, that’s feeding the market exactly what it wants, which is more of the same.

Barack Obama turned his election campaign into a referendum on the mania for deregulation and free trade and really less trickle-down economics. He said the idea of giving more and more to the people at the top and waiting for it to trickle down to the people below, and that really resonated with voters, and they elected him on that platform. And let’s remember, Amy, because this really is about democracy, that his campaign turned around when the economic crisis really hit Wall Street. He was losing ground to McCain when the crisis hit Wall Street, and Obama started using this language of really putting the ideology of deregulation on trial. That’s when his numbers turned around. That’s when he went on his winning streak that took him all the way to Election Day.

Yeah, this bailout is really not a bailout at all; it’s a parting gift to the people that the Bush—that George Bush once referred to jokingly as “my base.” You know, in one of my columns recently, I likened it to what European colonial rulers used to do when they finally realized they had to hand over power; they would loot the treasury on the way out the door.

You know, I always think about what the International Monetary Fund does when developing countries come and ask for a loan. Think about what they’re doing right now. The International Monetary Fund says, “You want a loan? Well, here’s our list of conditions.” They used to call it structural adjustment. The same thing could be done to the auto industry. If they’re coming for a bailout, they should be structurally adjusted, and taxpayers should be playing IMF to the auto industry and insisting that they change the way they work, that they build green automobiles, that they protect jobs. It can’t simply be a blank check.

Economists with Guns

A review of: Bradley R. Simpson. Economists with Guns. Authoritarian Development and U.S.-Indonesian Relations, 1960-1968. Stanford University Press, 2008.

Review Published by H-Diplo on 10 November 2008

Change you can predict?

Talk about government of AIPAC, by AIPAC, and for AIPAC. Wow:

First Joe "I am a Zionist" Biden as Veep, Rahm Israel Emanuel as CoS, Hillary "let's build and Apartheid Wall and invade Iraq" Clinton as SecState, and Joe "let's save Western Civ from Islamo-Fascism" Leiberman as a top "Dem" on the hill... Where will "AIPAC's lawyer" Dennis Ross (the one who wrote Obama's AIPAC speech) end up?

oh but not to worry, Obama's read Team of Rivals... so he has a healthy respect for having diversity of opinions around him: I'm sure a breakthrough in America's relationship with the Mid East is just around the corner.... "change" (you can believe in) is coming. i'm sure Rashid Khalidi, Ali Abunimah, Bob Malley, Bill Quandt, Bill and Kathleen Christi will be given a "seat at the table" and will be able to "balance out" out the AIPAC hawks in the room... yeah, and I've got a mortgage backed security to sell you.... what was it they were were so fond of saying back in the 60s, something about, "we turned a corner," or something about a "light at the end of the tunnel," or "critical turning point" .... something like that. something to the effect of: just be patient, "change" is coming, we're winning, so sit down, shut up and don't ask any questions...

but you know, on second thought, maybe the Dems are right. Bipartisanship IS, after all, a supreme virtue. how else would we have gotten the joys of the Cold War, the GWOT, the Patriot Act, the $700 billion bank heist, ect.... Maybe we shouldn't "look back, we want to look forward," right? yeah that's great logic. why would anyone ever want to look backward? What could you possibly learn by looking backward? Forget about the past. the past is over. It has nothing to do with the present. What good could possibly come from looking back to (say) america's experience with Vietnam? The Phillipines, El Salvador, or countless other places (Alabama, Ukiah, etc...)? What could we possibly learn by looking at those sad and "divisive" experiences in American history? Can't the Republicans and the "Me Too Party" just get along? Why on earth should a "people of plenty" ever become engaged in any kind of social conflict?

The Christisons are not exactly enamoured with this logic.

Bill and Kathleen Christison are ashamed to say that years ago they were both analysts with the CIA. In recent years Bill has written numerous articles on U.S. foreign policies, while Kathleen for over 30 years has written on Middle East Affairs. She is the author of two books on Palestinians and U.S. policy on Palestine-Israel. Bill and Kathleen visit Palestine frequently and are joint authors of a book, forthcoming in mid-2009 from Pluto Press, on the Israeli occupation and its impact on Palestinians, with over 50 of their photographs.

Paul Craig Roberts defends the "Real Economy"

Roberts argues that the crisis has hardly begun and that we better get our priorities in order:

GM’s divisions in Canada and Germany are asking those governments for help. It will be something if Canada and Germany come through for the American automaker and the American government doesn’t.

Conservative talking heads are saying GM is a “failed business model” unworthy of a $25 billion bailout. These are the same talking heads who favored pouring $700 billion into a failed financial model.

The head of the FDIC is trying to get $25 billion--a measly 3.5 percent of the $700 billion for the banksters--with which to refinance the mortgages of 2 million of the banksters’ victims, and Bush’s Secretary of the Treasury Paulson says no. Why aren’t the Democrats all over this, too?

Apparently, the Democrats still think they are the minority party or else their aim is to supplant the Republicans as the party of the rich.

Any bailout has its downsides. But if America loses its auto industry, it will lose the suppliers as well and will cease to have a manufacturing sector. For years no-think economists have been writing off America’s manufacturing jobs, while deluding themselves and the public with propaganda about a New Economy based on finance.

A country that doesn’t make anything doesn’t need a financial sector as there is nothing to finance.

...

Budget deficits from 6 years of pointless wars and from unsustainable levels of military spending have helped to flood the world with dollars and to drive down the dollar’s exchange value. Consumers themselves are drowning in debt and can provide no lift to the economy. Millions of the best jobs have been moved offshore, and research, design, and innovation have followed them.

...

Paulson should rethink the automakers’ and FDIC’s proposals. A bank produces nothing but paper. Automakers produce real things that can be sold. Occupied homes are worth more then empty ones.

Paulson’s inability to see this is the logical outcome of Wall Street thinking that highly values deals made over pieces of paper at the expense of the real economy.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.