Paul Street, a former college professor and author of several books, has been a dogged critic from a radical left perspective of Obama-mania and Obama's subservience to the interests of big business and American imperialism. Obama, of course conducts this subservience beneath a veneer of progressive and populist sounding rhetoric. In foreign policy, he has pursued more or less the same agenda as George W. Bush but with a far more moderate style and much more pleasant sounding rhetoric. Street quotes the Wall Street Journal editors from December 2009 as declaring approvingly that Obama, in his continuation of important aspects of Bush's foreign policies, had given legitimacy to those policies. This legitimacy appears in the reaction of liberal people who objected to the foreign policy of Bush but have been silent when Obama does the same things as Bush in foreign affairs.
Street's first chapter discusses Obama's complicity with Wall Street's multi-trillion dollar rip-off of the federal government (the bailout). He notes that an editorial in the London Financial Times and an article from FT reporter Edward Luce expressed approval of Obama's financial reform package, which would eventually become the Dodd-Frank bill. Luce reported that the financial industry was basically satisfied with the bill while the FT editors noted that Obama did not propose to seriously regulate the derivatives industry or restore Glass-Stegall's wall between investment and commercial banking. He quotes New York Times reporter Gretchen Morgenson that Obama's financial reform merely "tinkered around the edges" and, in particular, did nothing to break-up the increasing concentration of ownership in the banking industry. Street quotes a prominent Wall Street Obama funder, Orin Kramer, cautioning that Obama must indulge in some populist rhetoric now and then about obscene Wall Street bonuses, to keep public opinion pacified and thus ensure the overall stability of the capitalist system. Similarly, Street quotes an LA Times account of an address Obama gave to a convention of bankers. The audience started whining about efforts to impose very mild regulations on the salaries of executives from bailed out firms and Obama cautioned them that they needed to support his policies. Obama said that he was the only one standing between them and "the pitchforks."
You think Obama desires a redistribution of wealth from employers to workers? Well Obama presided over a bailout that resulted in the elimination of tens of thousands of union jobs in the auto industry. Street quotes William Greider that GM, by 2014, will have increased its production in places like South Korea, Mexico and China by the equivalent of four of its American production plants, which is the number GM closed down in the United States. Obama has helped GM restore itself by getting rid of union jobs and allowing it to increase its use of low wage/no benefits labor in the third world. Street quotes Greg Palast that Obama's "car czar" Steve Rattner maneuvered to enable GM to pay off its debts to the Wall Street banks by allowing it to raid the pension funds of the company's workers.
In his foreign policy chapter, Street describes Obama's adherence to the traditions of American imperialism. He notes some of the civilian deaths from Obama's drone strikes and bombings in Afghanistan, Yemen and Pakistan. He quotes New York Times reporter James Traub and former David Petraeus advisor David Killcullen that the large civilian casualties from drone strikes play a big role in inflaming anti-American opinion in Pakistan. Street points out how the Obama administration has protected the torturers of the Bush administration. The Obama regime even threatened to withhold intelligence about possible terror attacks in Great Britain if the British government released info about the torture of a Gitmo detainee. He points out that Obama's withdrawals of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan have seen corresponding increases in deployment to those countries of private mercenaries from firms like XE Services (formerly Blackwater). He notes that Obama (in mid-2009) refused to call Hosni Mubarak a dictator and praised the Saudi tyranny.
Street describes how Obama quietly supported the coup regime in Honduras. In spite of some critical remarks about the coup, Obama only suspended a tiny portion of overall US military aid to the country and endorsed a major IMF loan to the coup government. The Obama regime endorsed the illegal government's holding of an election in November 2009, in a climate of repression of dissent in the country, that brought to power a right wing politician intent on protecting the country's business oligarchy.
Street has a chapter on Obama's health care plan. He calls Obamacare a very insurance industry friendly proposal, noting that it keeps the insurance industry, with its grossly inefficient bureaucracies and huge costs, in the driver's seat. The plan does nothing to contain premium price rises. At the end of the bargaining process, any measure that might seriously threaten the power of the insurance industry was eliminated from the legislation. Single payer health insurance would be substantially less costly than the private health care system. Street notes that polling data has long showed significant support for single payer (and a public option as well) amongst the American population. But the insurance industry used their vast influence (which included large campaign donations to Obama) to protect its interests. I think Street should have clearly enunciated more of the unpleasant details of Obamacare in this chapter and written less in general terms about how bad it is. He quotes a study conducted in part by the Harvard Medical School which alleged 45,000 deaths per year in the US as a result of lack of adequate access to health care.
Street also discusses Obama's betrayals in the realm of abortion rights, gay rights and his quiet continuation of the Bush regime's attack on civil liberties.
This book is a nice antidote to the idiocy and lunacy of the right wing talk radio critique of Obama and the unwillingness of most on the liberal-left to offer substantial criticism of him.
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