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<DIV><FONT face=Arial>.<FONT size=3> "All that is required for Obama to achieve
his true legacy – to drive a stake in the heart of what’s left of social welfare
in the U.S. – is to bludgeon the “left” wing of the Democrats into line,
which has always been Obama’s job in the corporate political division of
labor."</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=tanstl@hotmail.com href="mailto:tanstl@hotmail.com">David Sladky</A>
</DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, January 13, 2013 6:19 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Obama’s Steady Road to Austerity</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr>
<H1 class=title>Obama’s Steady Road to Austerity</H1>
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<DIV class=submitted>Wed, 01/09/2013 - 14:36 — Glen Ford</DIV></DIV>
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<DIV class="field-item odd"><IMG
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src="http://blackagendareport.com/sites/www.blackagendareport.com/files/imagecache/feature400/barack_hoover_obama_0.jpg"
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<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><B>by BAR executive editor Glen Ford</B></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>President Obama has been remarkably
disciplined and focused in his four-year pursuit of a “grand austerity bargain”
with the GOP. “With this month’s agreement to make Bush’s tax cuts permanent for
98 percent of the public, Obama and the Republicans’ positions are closer than
ever.” It seems that soon, the axes may start to fall.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"> </P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT color=#280099><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=4><B>Obama’s Steady Road to
Austerity</B></FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><B>by BAR executive editor Glen Ford</B></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in" align=center><FONT
color=#2323dc>“<FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><I>With methodical calculation,
Obama laid the groundwork for a grand austerity bargain.”</I></FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>Barack Obama’s second swearing-in as
president will not produce anything approaching the awesome pilgrimage – the
“</FONT></FONT><FONT color=#0000ff><U><A
href="http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/great-black-hajj-2009"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>Great Black
Hajj</FONT></FONT></A></U></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>” –
that swarmed around him on January 20, 2009. Most African Americans experienced
the last inauguration as a new beginning, a collective grabbing of the gold
ring, a fantasia on the National Mall. Few caught the meaning of his coded
messages of impending austerity – a careful telegraphing of his intentions to
gut Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs.
“Our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off
unpleasant decisions – that time has surely passed," the new president told the
tearfully joyous throng, only a handful of whom understood that the “narrow
interests” he referred to was </FONT></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2><I>them</I></FONT></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>,
and that Obama had already made the “unpleasant decision” to launch an all-out
assault on the social safety net.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>Not that his plans were a secret. In the
preceding weeks, Obama had informed the editorial boards of the
</FONT></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2><I>New York
Times</I></FONT></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2> and the
</FONT></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2><I>Washington
Post</I></FONT></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2> that
“</FONT></FONT><FONT color=#0000ff><U><A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/15/AR2009011504114_pf.html"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>entitlement
reform</FONT></FONT></A></U></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>”
– the Republican code word for cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid –
was high on his agenda. But, Black folks were so transfixed by the miracle of
the First Black President, most failed to comprehend simple
English.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in" align=center><FONT
color=#2323dc>“<FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><I>Obama had already made the
‘unpleasant decision’ to launch an all-out assault on the social safety
net.”</I></FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>Four years later, it is impossible not to
hear the tolling of the bell. As early as mid-February, the pending
</FONT></FONT><FONT color=#0000ff><U><A
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/obamas-bad-deal-and-worse_b_2393095.html"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>debt ceiling
impasse</FONT></FONT></A></U></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>
will provide another opportunity to take the axe to Social Security, Medicare
and Medicaid. Only fools believe that Obama will resist the impulse, since to do
so would be to repudiate his entire first term in office. With methodical
calculation, Obama laid the groundwork for a grand austerity bargain, beginning
with his handpicked Simpson-Bowles Deficit Reduction Commission. The “fiscal
cliff” was a trap set jointly by Obama and the GOP in the summer of 2011, after
their deal for $4 trillion in cuts foundered on the issue of modest tax
increases on the rich. With this month’s agreement to make Bush’s tax cuts
permanent for 98 percent of the public, Obama and the Republicans’ positions are
closer than ever. All that is required for Obama to achieve his true legacy – to
drive a stake in the heart of what’s left of social welfare in the U.S. – is to
marginalize hard core Tea Party budget purists and, much more importantly,
bludgeon the “left” wing of the Democrats into line, which has always been
Obama’s job in the corporate political division of labor. </FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>The odds are that Obama and his Republican
tag-teammates will triumph. In many ways, they already have. By embracing the
notion that the deficit is the nation’s number one problem, Obama has firmly
embedded the logic of austerity – which is the logic of Wall Street – into
Democratic Party politics. No wonder the Democratic Leadership Council
</FONT></FONT><FONT color=#0000ff><U><A
href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/02/08/dlc-shut-down-is-howard-dean-to-blame.html"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>folded in
2011</FONT></FONT></A></U></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>.
Having served as the party’s corporate center of gravity since its founding by
Bill Clinton, Al Gore and other white, largely southern Democrats in the
Eighties to blunt Black and union influence, the DLC’s mission has been
completed by a Black Democrat (who first came to my attention when I found his
name on the DLC’s membership list in the summer of 2003). </FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in" align=center><FONT
color=#2323dc>“<FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><I>Obama has firmly embedded the
logic of austerity – which is the logic of Wall Street – into Democratic Party
politics.”</I></FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>The imminent consummation of Obama’s grand
bargain was on display for all to see in last year’s first presidential debate.
As Maya Rockeymoore, the brilliant young Black political scientist who heads up
Global Policy Solutions points out in this week’s edition of </FONT></FONT><FONT
color=#0000ff><U><A
href="http://blackagendareport.com/content/listen-black-agenda-radio-progressive-radio-network-glen-ford-and-nellie-bailey-–-week-jan-3"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>Black Agenda
Radio</FONT></FONT></A></U></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>,
“I think the president did not make a Freudian slip when he said that he and
Mitt Romney actually agree on Social Security.” The notion that Obama would turn
“left” in his second term is nonsense, said Rockeymoore, an expert on
entitlements. “The reality is, the first term Obama is the second term Obama.
That is his disposition, that is his ideology, that is where he’s at. He’s a
centrist to his heart.”</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>Actually, he's a
center-</FONT></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2><I>right</I></FONT></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>
Democrat who has positioned himself at the pivot of Wall Street’s political
project. Even the </FONT></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2><I>New York Times’</I></FONT></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2> David Sanger recognized Obama’s true orientation, back in
</FONT></FONT><FONT color=#0000ff><U><A
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/us/politics/22assess.html?_r=0"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>late November of
2008</FONT></FONT></A></U></FONT><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>,
as the president-elect was assembling his cabinet. Sanger meant it as a kind of
compliment on his choice of advisors, which “suggest[ed] that Mr. Obama is
planning to govern from the center-right of his party, surrounding himself with
pragmatists rather than ideologues.”</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>At his first inauguration, Obama chastised
Americans for “our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the
nation for a new age." He was making the case for cuts to Social Security,
Medicare and Medicaid, a choice that 80 percent of Americans, and virtually the
totality of the Black American polity, reject. But, for Obama, then and now, the
popular will is nothing but “worn-out dogmas that for far too long have
strangled our politics." Wall Street’s choices are all that
counts.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>So, who won the election? And why should
Black folks regard the outcome as some kind of collective victory? What bullet
did we dodge?</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0.06in; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT color=#280099><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2><I>BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be
contacted at </I></FONT></FONT></FONT><FONT color=#0000ff><U><A
href="mailto:Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com"><FONT color=#280099><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2><I>Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com</I></FONT></FONT></FONT></A></U></FONT><FONT
color=#280099><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2><I>.</I></FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
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<DIV id=comments class=block>
<H2 class=comments>Comments </H2><A id=comment-34225></A><!-- comment -->
<DIV class="comment odd clear-block">
<H3 class=title><A class=active
href="http://blackagendareport.com/content/obama%E2%80%99s-steady-road-austerity#comment-34225">Black
folks didn't dodge a</A></H3>
<DIV class=submitted><SPAN class=comment-name>beverly</SPAN> - <SPAN
class=comment-date>01/09/2013 - 21:51</SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV class=content>Black folks didn't dodge a single bullet. They've been
willing victims of Obomber drive-bys. Just when you think the man can't
get any worse, he spits in your eye - again. WTF is the deal with
nominating former Republithug senator Chuck Hagel for Sec of State? He
couldn't find any Demowits in his party? Hell, what difference would it
make since both sides of the political bile are warmongering ghouls. To
top the Hagel nomination, Obomber puts up the Brennan cretin for CIA.
That's the torture loving Brennan btw. And AGAIN, his sheeple can't get
their heads out of his ass long enough to see how they're being screwed by this
flim flam man. Maybe when those SS checks get smaller or cut off and the
Medicare/caid is reduced, the sheeple will realize they've been had. Or,
maybe not. Good odds that they'll just blame the Republicans - they
already are.<BR></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>