01-19-2017, 01:35 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-19-2017, 01:39 PM by TeacherinExile.
Edit Reason: punctuation
)
I don't weigh in too often on threads like this because I'm an independent (not to be confused with a "swing voter"). Indeed, I've never cast a vote for a Democrat at the top of the ticket, though I have cast a few votes for down-ballot candidates if their policy proposals and voting records comported with my values. But I will admit, I would have voted for Sanders if he had secured the party's nomination.
I did not vote for Obama in either election, although I've always admired his intelligence and eloquence dating back to his scintillating speech at the 2004 Democratic convention. He captured my attention then, and I might well have pulled the lever for him in 2008...
...but I backed off after doing my own due diligence. When it comes to a relative political neophyte--such as he--with little or no voting record to go by, I have a simple "screen" that I run. It can be summed up as "The money they take, the company they keep." During his 2008 campaign, Obama surrounded himself with the "Usual Suspects" (Larry Summers foremost among them) and raised more funds from Wall Street than even John McCain. That combination was a big red flag for me. And my misgivings about Obama's ability to stand up to Wall Street were soon confirmed when he assembled his economic team and kept Timothy Geithner on as Treasury Secretary.
The blog Wall Street on Parade posted an excellent summation today on our outgoing president: "Obama's Perpetual Farewell Tour"
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2017/01/ob...well-tour/
An excerpt midway through the article appears below:
We were also not among the converted as a result of spending months conducting a forensic examination of Obama’s campaign accounts. In May of 2008, we wrote the following:
“The Wall Street plan for the Obama-bubble presidency is that of the cleanup crew for the housing bubble: sweep all the corruption and losses, would-be indictments, perp walks and prosecutions under the rug and get on with an unprecedented taxpayer bailout of Wall Street. (The corporate law firms have piled on to funding the plan because most were up to their eyeballs in writing prospectuses or providing legal opinions for what has turned out to be bogus AAA securities. Lawsuits naming the Wall Street firms will, no doubt, shortly begin adding the law firms that rendered the legal guidance to issue the securities.) Who better to sell this agenda to the millions of duped mortgage holders and foreclosed homeowners in minority communities across America than our first, beloved, black president of hope and change?
“Why do Wall Street and the corporate law firms think they will find a President Obama to be accommodating? …vetting included his remarkable ‘yes’ vote on the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, a five-year effort by 475 lobbyists, despite appeals from the NAACP and every other major civil rights group. Thanks to the passage of that legislation, when defrauded homeowners of the housing bubble and defrauded investors of the bundled mortgages try to fight back through the class-action vehicle, they will find a new layer of corporate-friendly hurdles.”
CounterPunch was also not among the converted. It published an anthology of articles on the red flags in the Obama candidacy, titled Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion. CounterPunch editors, Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank, describe the books as follows:
“The election of Barack Obama sparked long-dormant tingles of optimism in even the most entrenched political cynics. But the promise of an Obama revolution fizzled out even before his inauguration, as the president-in-waiting stocked his cabinet with corporate hacks, cut secret deals with Wall Street titans...Let this book stand as a painful reminder to those who think anything less than social struggle will net tangible gain.”
Here's my "two cents" about our 44th president: For all his considerable talents, Obama quite simply blew it. His achievements, such as they are, only nibbled at the edges of what truly concerns working-class and middle-class Americans. And he, his heir apparent, and the Democratic Party have paid a heavy political price for that shortfall. To be sure, Obama is a far sight better than his predecessor, though that's not saying much. (Let's face it, George W. Bush set the bar pretty damn low.) Even so, much of Obama's "legacy" is about to be wiped out in one fell swoop, beginning tomorrow...
I did not vote for Obama in either election, although I've always admired his intelligence and eloquence dating back to his scintillating speech at the 2004 Democratic convention. He captured my attention then, and I might well have pulled the lever for him in 2008...
...but I backed off after doing my own due diligence. When it comes to a relative political neophyte--such as he--with little or no voting record to go by, I have a simple "screen" that I run. It can be summed up as "The money they take, the company they keep." During his 2008 campaign, Obama surrounded himself with the "Usual Suspects" (Larry Summers foremost among them) and raised more funds from Wall Street than even John McCain. That combination was a big red flag for me. And my misgivings about Obama's ability to stand up to Wall Street were soon confirmed when he assembled his economic team and kept Timothy Geithner on as Treasury Secretary.
The blog Wall Street on Parade posted an excellent summation today on our outgoing president: "Obama's Perpetual Farewell Tour"
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2017/01/ob...well-tour/
An excerpt midway through the article appears below:
We were also not among the converted as a result of spending months conducting a forensic examination of Obama’s campaign accounts. In May of 2008, we wrote the following:
“The Wall Street plan for the Obama-bubble presidency is that of the cleanup crew for the housing bubble: sweep all the corruption and losses, would-be indictments, perp walks and prosecutions under the rug and get on with an unprecedented taxpayer bailout of Wall Street. (The corporate law firms have piled on to funding the plan because most were up to their eyeballs in writing prospectuses or providing legal opinions for what has turned out to be bogus AAA securities. Lawsuits naming the Wall Street firms will, no doubt, shortly begin adding the law firms that rendered the legal guidance to issue the securities.) Who better to sell this agenda to the millions of duped mortgage holders and foreclosed homeowners in minority communities across America than our first, beloved, black president of hope and change?
“Why do Wall Street and the corporate law firms think they will find a President Obama to be accommodating? …vetting included his remarkable ‘yes’ vote on the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, a five-year effort by 475 lobbyists, despite appeals from the NAACP and every other major civil rights group. Thanks to the passage of that legislation, when defrauded homeowners of the housing bubble and defrauded investors of the bundled mortgages try to fight back through the class-action vehicle, they will find a new layer of corporate-friendly hurdles.”
CounterPunch was also not among the converted. It published an anthology of articles on the red flags in the Obama candidacy, titled Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion. CounterPunch editors, Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank, describe the books as follows:
“The election of Barack Obama sparked long-dormant tingles of optimism in even the most entrenched political cynics. But the promise of an Obama revolution fizzled out even before his inauguration, as the president-in-waiting stocked his cabinet with corporate hacks, cut secret deals with Wall Street titans...Let this book stand as a painful reminder to those who think anything less than social struggle will net tangible gain.”
Here's my "two cents" about our 44th president: For all his considerable talents, Obama quite simply blew it. His achievements, such as they are, only nibbled at the edges of what truly concerns working-class and middle-class Americans. And he, his heir apparent, and the Democratic Party have paid a heavy political price for that shortfall. To be sure, Obama is a far sight better than his predecessor, though that's not saying much. (Let's face it, George W. Bush set the bar pretty damn low.) Even so, much of Obama's "legacy" is about to be wiped out in one fell swoop, beginning tomorrow...