Suicide Squad

The POTUS They Wanted

By STEPHEN FLEISCHMAN
Weekend Edition
August 7 - 9, 2009
Courtesy Of CounterPunch

It’s out in the open now. They can’t work us over anymore. We know who they are.

Our own oligarchy is out to get us. Global capitalism, feeling the pulse of socialism, is fighting to make the world safe for corporate hegemony—and corporate America is leading the pack.

It began with the destruction of our manufacturing base; off-shoring plants, outsourcing jobs to the lowest wage areas—a race to the bottom.

Will we let them continue the process? Who do we have to stop?

* the military-industrial complex that President Ike Eisenhower warned us about way back in the 20th Century. You can add the mainstream media complex to that…

* and the mighty corporate insurance and pharmaceutical industry that’s been keeping proper health care from the American people for over sixty years. When they hear the words “single payer”, they reach for their guns.

* and there is the rest of corporate America and its rabble of sycophants, the military contractors and their mercenaries to keep the wars going, the hordes of lobbyists, the propagandists that pervade our institutions, all of academia from grade schools to universities, radio, television, internet, print and new media.

Leading this parade is the custom made front man—POTUS—the President of the United States. It was originally conceived to be a front woman, Hillary Clinton. But along came a Chicagoan, Barack Obama, with a liberal and wishful thinker following, promising to end the wars and give the people single payer health care. He didn’t mean any of it but the oligarchy saw a capable con-artist.

So the power structure dumped Hillary and gave the prize to Obama. (Oh, you thought the election had something to do with it?)

Obama fit the image of the POTUS they wanted, from his charm to the color of his skin —the Pied Piper of the South Side—his subservience guaranteed by the two major pillars of the oligarchy. He was quick to assume the “white man’s burden”.

Hillary, of course, was pissed but she wasn’t going to break ranks. She gracefully accepted the position of Secretary of State.

The oligarchy’s strategy, the Ayn Rand sagacity of the 20th Century—attack “big” government, return to laissez-faire capitalism.

It goes with monopoly and war. One or two or more wars must be kept going for the economy’s sake. Empire building is part of this game. Our empire is extensive.

“Obama is commander-in-chief of an unprecedented network of military bases that is still expanding,” says Catherine Lutz in “The New Statesman” (7/30/09). She has made the count. “The global reach of the US military today is unprecedented and unparalleled. Officially, more than 190,000 troops and 115,000 civilian employees are massed in approximately 900 military facilities in 46 countries and territories. The US military owns or rents 795,000 acres of land, with 26,000 buildings and structures, valued at $146bn (£89bn). The bases bristle with an inventory of weapons whose worth is measured in the trillions and whose killing power could wipe out all life on earth several times over.”

Obama continues the surge of US troops into Afghanistan. Apparently, he hasn’t heard yet that Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. Hasn’t he read Rudyard Kipling?

“When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle an' blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.

I guess Barack has never Kippled.

Obama continues to spread the beneficence of America into what is now called Af-Pak, killing civilians indiscriminately in Pakistan with his new toy, the remote controlled drone.

While all this is going on, we are also leading this country and the world into an economic mess. Employment is flopping, businesses are flipping and home mortgages failing.

Wall Street is being led by the same people who brought it to the ragged edge of disaster—Gaithner and Summers, rewarded by Obama, the former, made Secretary of the Treasury, the latter, top economic advisor to the President.

Legislation for the people is languishing in Congress.

"We have a system today that works well for the insurance industry, but it doesn't always work well for you," President Obama admitted in a speech to a town hall meeting in Raleigh, NC, last week, “what we will have when we pass these reforms, are health insurance consumer protections to make sure that those who have insurance are treated fairly and insurance companies are held accountable."

What he hasn’t insisted on is the “public option” in the legislative package. Is he worried he won’t have the insurance industry’s bundle when he runs for re-election in a few years?

Corporate power stands in the way--antithesis of democracy. Corporate groups are joined together into a single governing body in which the different groups are mandated to negotiate with each other to establish policies in the interest of the multiple groups. This is defined by Wikipedia, the internet encyclopedia, as Corporatism.

Now that we know what is happening and who the scoundrels are, what are we going to do about it?

Stephen Fleischman, writer-producer-director of documentaries, spent thirty years in Network News at CBS and ABC. His memoir is now in print. See www.amahchewahwah.com, e-mail stevefl@ca.rr.com.