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<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Is This Barack Obama's 2nd Term? Is it Bill Clinton's 3rd?
Or Is It Ronald Reagan's 9th?</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr>
<H1 class=title>Is This Barack Obama's 2nd Term? Is it Bill Clinton's 3rd? Or Is
It Ronald Reagan's 9th?</H1>
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<DIV id=node-13546 class="node odd full-node node-type-blog">
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<DIV class=submitted>Wed, 04/10/2013 - 15:53 — Bruce A. Dixon</DIV></DIV>
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<DIV class="field-item odd"><IMG
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title="" alt=""
src="http://www.blackagendareport.com/sites/www.blackagendareport.com/files/imagecache/feature400/obama_n_reagan_toasting_2.png"
width=400 height=300> </DIV></DIV></DIV>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=3>By
BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2>They say that elections do matter, and that there are real differences
between Republican and Democratic presidents. But backing up the view to 30
years, that difference looks a lot more like continuity, both at home and in
America's global empire. </FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=4><B>Is This Barack Obama's 2<SUP>nd</SUP> Term or Bill Clinton's
3<SUP>rd</SUP> Term, or Ronald Regan's 9<SUP>th</SUP>?</B></FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=3>By
BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>The
answer is yes to all three. Ronald Reagan hasn't darkened the White House door
in decades. But his policy objectives have been what every president, Democrat
and Republican have pursued relentlessly ever since. Barack Obama is only the
latest and most successful of Reagan's disciples.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2>Like the present era, the Reagan presidency marked a series of decisive
rightward turns for US empire at home and abroad. </FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2>Reagan's invasion of Grenada, along with his bloody contra wars in
Central America and southern Africa signaled the renewal of on and off the books
of US military interventions when and wherever the logic of empire suggested,
and regardless of namby-pamby concerns of human rights, domestic or
international law. But if being a Republican means you can be a naked
imperialist at home as well as abroad, being a Democrat like Barack Obama means
making sufficiently ambiguous noises war and empire to enable corporate media
and your own campaign to manufacture a false narrative of actual and substantive
difference between Democrats and Republicans. </FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>The
first president Bush invaded Panama, and landed US troops in Somalia, a supposed
“humanitarian” intervention. Bill Clinton massively increased the shipment of US
military hardware and training to more than 50 of Africa's 54 nations, fueling
the conflict in Congo which has taken 7 million lives to date. That's continuity
of purpose and of policy.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>In
Barack Obama's case all he had to say was that he wasn't necessarily against
wars, just against what he called “stupid wars.” Corporate media and “liberal”
shills morphed that lone statement into a false narrative that Barack Obama
opposed the war in Iraq, making him an instantly viable presidential candidate
at a time when the American people overwhelmingly opposed that war. Once in
office, Barack Obama strove mightily to abrogate the Status of Forces Agreement
with Iraq which would have allowed US forces to remain there indefinitely. But
when the Iraqi puppet government, faced with a near revolt on the part of what
remained of Iraqi civil society, dared not do his bidding, insisting that
uniformed US troops (but not the American and multinational mercenaries we pay
to remain there) stick to the withdrawal timetable agreed upon under Bush,
liberal shills and corporate media hailed the withdrawal from Iraq as Obama's
“victory.” </FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2>Barack Obama doubled down on the invasion and occupation of large areas
of Afghanistan, and increased the size of the army and marines, which in fact he
pledged to do during his presidential campaign. Presidential candidate Obama
promised to end secret imprisonment and torture. The best one can say about
President Obama on this score is that he seems to prefer murderous and
indiscriminate drone attacks, in many cases, over the Bush policy of
international kidnapping secret imprisonment and torture. The Obama
administration's reliance on drones combined with US penetration of the African
continent, means that a Democratic, ostensibly “antiwar” president has been able
to openly deploy US troops to every part of that continent in support of its
drive to control the oil, water, and other resources there.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>The
objectives President Obama's Africa policies fulfill today were put down on
paper by the Bush administration, pursued by Bill Clinton before that, and still
earlier pursued by Ronald Reagan, when it funded murderous contra armies of
UNITA in Angola and RENAMO in Mozambque. It was UNITA and RENAMO's campaigns,
assisted by the apartheid regimes of Israel and South Africa that pioneered the
genocidal use of child soldiers. Today, cruise missile liberals hail the Obama
administration's use of pit bull puppet regimes like Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda,
all of which shot their way into power with child soldiers, to invade Somalia
and Congo, sometimes ostensibly to go after other bad actors on the grounds that
they are using child soldiers.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>If
either George Bush, or if Ronald Reagan had openly deployed US troops to Africa
on anything like the scale President Obama has, black America would be up in
arms. They wanted to. They couldn't. It seems that now, by giving us a black
president, the empire can get just about whatever it wants.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>It
works the same way at home. Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush would have
liked to tamper with social security, but dared not. All Reagan could do was
tell welfare queen jokes, and despite Reagan's open disdain of organized labor,
NAFTA was a distant wet dream of corporations and billionaires. The first
president Bush proposed NAFTA but could never get it through Congress. It took a
Democratic president, Bill Clinton, who marshaled a minority of Democrats in
Congress to vote with Republicans both to pass NAFTA and to eliminate welfare.
It was Bill Clinton who publicly embraced Republican myths about balancing the
US budget, while allowing liberals to imagine he would deliver a “peace
dividend.” The second president Bush openly trumpeted right wing lies about the
solvency of social security and the (lies which Barack Obama happily repeats to
this day) and tried more than once to privatize it. Again, that's continuity
across administrations and parties.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2>True to form, Obama picked the ball up where his predecessors left it and
has run relentlessly righward ever since. Barack Obama uses the language of the
elites when he calls social security, Medicaid and Medicare and other federal
benefits “entitlements” and asserts that their growth must be trimmed. He
championed the formation of a deficit reduction commission chaired by Democrat
Erskine Bowles and Republican Alan Simpson, both advocates of privatizing social
security and drastic cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and federal benefits and tried
to fast-track their recommendation through Congress. Fortunately that
recommendation never came. </FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT
size=2>Just last week, Obama offered as his opening position in negotiations
with Republicans, the chaining of social security and all other federal benefits
to the consumer price index --- a monstrous betrayal that will reduce social
security benefits by as much as $100 monthly by a decade from now. It wasn't
anything he had been cornered into by Republicans. It was the point from which
Barack Obama decided to start. That's continuity. Only a Republican president,
like Richard Nixon, could go to China in the 1970s. Only a black Democrat can
break his promises to labor on championing a card check law, refute his
commitments to a just and fair media with network neutrality, and do nothing to
roll back the prison state which has engulfed black and brown youth. Only a
black Democrat could deport more Latinos than all the last three Republicans
together, in his first term alone.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>In
the game of advancing the interests of the American people, it seems, Democrats
and Republicans are not mutual opponents. They are a tag team, each one pushing
the ball further and further down the field in the wrong direction. It's still
winter in America, and the dead hand of Ronald Reagan still guides this nation,
decades after his exit from the White House. Welcome to the 9<SUP>th</SUP> term
of Ronald Reagan, in the person of Democrat Barack Hussein
Obama.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2>One
could also argue, since we are in the grips of the greatest depression, although
we don't call them that any more, since the 1930s, and Obama's economic policies
bear more in common to Herbert Hoover than to Franklin Roosevelt, that we're
living through Herbert Hoover's third term as well. But we'll save that for
another day.</FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0.06in"><FONT color=#800000><FONT
face="Arial, sans-serif"><FONT size=2><I>Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at
Black Agenda Report, and lives and works near Marietta GA. He is a state
committee member of the GA Green Partyand can be reached via this site's contact
page, or at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.</I></FONT></FONT></FONT></P>
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<DIV id=comments class=block>
<H2 class=comments>Comments </H2><A id=comment-34985></A><!-- comment -->
<DIV class="comment odd clear-block">
<H3 class=title><A class=active
href="http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/barack-obamas-2nd-term-it-bill-clintons-3rd-or-it-ronald-reagans-9th#comment-34985">Obama/Reagan/</A></H3>
<DIV class=submitted><SPAN class=comment-name>ProfessorEmeritusPB</SPAN> - <SPAN
class=comment-date>04/10/2013 - 21:32</SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV class=content>How about all of the era's you mentioned tied to the age
preceeding WWII Returning?<BR>I think it is much more like the regime of the
leaders of Germany in the 1920's - 1940's. I sense a sycopathic, sociopathic,
mentality which has created a surreal landscape of America, one in which mirrors
Alice in Wonderland and 1984, where evil is done and with glee, and gusto,
spewing lies and words which give the impression that we have elected on both
sides of the asile cowards, liars, mass murdering hypocrits, and serial killers
all odf which ideas such as TPP, Bail-In, NAFTA, The Patriot Act, The Military
Commission's Act of 2006, 2009, the NDAA and now mounting to thousands of
EO's, and worst of all, we elected a series of Bilderberg, Club of Rome,
Tri-Lateral Commission, Depopulationist Tea Party and Democratic Party are
nothing more than One Party, with two names, which when mixed in a bowl would be
one thing, fascism at best, Nazism at worst.<BR>A Place where people and
children are exposed to seeing politicians placing targets on the backs of
educators, where the lawmakers teach people to hate the gifted, the highly
intelligent, the brave, the elderly, the sick, the vulnerable, and the words,
"Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Which in essnse means,
"What soever you do unto these the least of thy brethren, you do also unto me."
Which further more bluntly said is, "What soever you do unto these the least of
thy Brethren, I shall likewise do unto YOU, For All Eternity!"<BR>If there
is reincarnation, this is it. The words of ther Tea Party mimic those of German
leaders in the 1920's through 1940's, and the actions of of the other side of
the asile displays all the greed, envy and hatred of both sides and their
origins before WW II.<BR>
<UL>
<LI>"Our people are trying to break the bond set by God. That is human conceit
rising against God. In this connection we must warn the Führer, that the
adoration frequently bestowed on him is only due to God. Some years ago the
Führer objected to having his picture placed on Protestant altars. Today his
thoughts are used as a basis not only for political decisions but also for
morality and law. He himself is surrounded with the dignity of a priest and
even of an intermediary between God and man... We ask that liberty be given to
our people to go their way in the future under the sign of the Cross of
Christ, in order that our grandsons may not curse their elders on the ground
that their elders left them a state on earth that closed to them the <A
class=extiw title="Kingdom of God"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_God">Kingdom of God</A>.
<UL>
<LI>Statement on behalf of the <A class=extiw title="Confessing Church"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessing_Church">Confessional
Church</A>, signed by nine other pastors, as quoted in <A
class="external text"
href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,847755,00.html"
rel=nofollow>TIME magazine (27 July 1936)</A></LI></UL></LI></UL>
<UL>
<LI>The oppression is growing, and anyone who has had to submit to the
Tempter's machine-gun fire during this last week thinks differently from what
he did even three weeks ago.
<UL>
<LI>Last sermon before being imprisoned by the Nazi regime of Germany (27
June 1937), as quoted in Religion in the Reich (1939) by Michael Power, p.
142</LI></UL>
<LI>We have no more thought of using our own powers to escape the arm of
authorities than had the Apostles of old. No more are we ready to keep silent
at man's behest when God commands us to speak. For it is, and must remain, the
case that we must obey God rather than man.
<LI><A class=extiw title="Martin Niemöller"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Niem%C3%B6ller">Friedrich Gustav
Emil Martin Niemöller</A> (<A class=mw-redirect title="14 January"
href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/14_January">14 January</A> <A title=1892
href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/1892">1892</A> – <A class=mw-redirect
title="6 March" href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/6_March">6 March</A> <A
class=mw-redirect title=1984
href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/1984">1984</A>) was a <A class=extiw
title=Pastor href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastor">Protestant pastor</A>
and social <A class=extiw title=Activist
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activist">activist</A>.
<UL>
<LI>Last sermon before being imprisoned by the Nazi regime of Germany (27
June 1937), as quoted in Religion in the Reich (1939) by Michael Power, p.
142.
<LI>"In Germany they first came for the Communists,<BR>and I didn't speak up
because I wasn't a Communist.<BR>Then they came for the Jews,<BR>and I
didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.<BR>Then they came for the trade
unionists,<BR>and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade
unionist.<BR>Then they came for the Catholics,<BR>and I didn't speak up
because I was a Protestant.<BR>Then they came for me -<BR>and by that time
no one was left to speak up."
<LI>Am I wrong to say, PRAY FOR A NEW PASSOVER?</LI></UL></LI></UL></DIV>
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<H3 class=title><A class=active
href="http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/barack-obamas-2nd-term-it-bill-clintons-3rd-or-it-ronald-reagans-9th#comment-34986">I
feel we are finally</A></H3>
<DIV class=submitted><SPAN class=comment-name>miles scott vonlogan</SPAN> -
<SPAN class=comment-date>04/11/2013 - 00:01</SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV class=content>I feel we are finally entering in what called a global
Mexican Stand off. The masses on all sides have no fear of death
because what they are experiencing is not life except. Our Fearless
Leader has his head stuck down a Glorified Rabbit Hole.<BR></DIV>
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<DIV class="comment odd clear-block">
<H3 class=title><A class=active
href="http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/barack-obamas-2nd-term-it-bill-clintons-3rd-or-it-ronald-reagans-9th#comment-34984">Well,
Obomber did say he</A></H3>
<DIV class=submitted><SPAN class=comment-name>beverly</SPAN> - <SPAN
class=comment-date>04/10/2013 - 20:59</SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV class=content>Well, Obomber did say he admired Reagan's cleanup of the
excesses of the 60s/70s. When black folks heard that during the first
campaign, they should have run like hell. The average black person
got the excrement end of the stick during Ronnie Raygun's regime. Today,
the black masses are even worse off under Ronnie's loving disciple
Obomber than they were under him. These dire straits
are not just of an economic and social nature but
also psychological as people have lost their minds over Obomber and
are under his spell to the point where he could tell them all to go
to FEMA camps and let the banks take their money and 75% or more would
do so no questions asked. No wonder the empire is already grooming more
Obomber clones such as Corey Booker (and any "rising Latino politico" since
they'll be the lead minority group shortly and the black folks will be of no
consequence for the empire on the Dem or Repub side). The globalists can
loot and pillage far more easily with a nonwhite front for the empire who will
silence dissent and eradicate all common sense from the minds of the
sheeple.<BR></DIV>
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<DIV class="comment even clear-block">
<H3 class=title><A class=active
href="http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/barack-obamas-2nd-term-it-bill-clintons-3rd-or-it-ronald-reagans-9th#comment-34983">Hope
and change my a$$</A></H3>
<DIV class=submitted><SPAN class=comment-name>roth</SPAN> - <SPAN
class=comment-date>04/10/2013 - 18:39</SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV class=content>Excellent article! <BR>People wanted change from Bush so
they gave it to them, or so them thought: Reagan in "black-face".<BR>Like
Brzezinski said in his 1970s book <STRONG>Between Two Ages</STRONG> this is the
technetronic era - total mind control over the people through the mass media and
powerful personalities' such as Obama. Placate the liberals and impoverished
classes by giving them a token representative of what appears to be their
"own people". Works wonders.<BR></DIV>
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<DIV class="comment odd clear-block">
<H3 class=title><A class=active
href="http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/barack-obamas-2nd-term-it-bill-clintons-3rd-or-it-ronald-reagans-9th#comment-34982">The
results of too many Lame Ducks</A></H3>
<DIV class=submitted><SPAN class=comment-name>Richtown</SPAN> - <SPAN
class=comment-date>04/10/2013 - 17:57</SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV class=content>Great piece Bruce !<BR>It recently occurred to me that
our troubled Democracy has suffered through several decades of unrestrained
leadership via the Presidential Term Limit invoked 65 years ago. If we look back
we see a litany of questionable policies enacted during the second Lame Duck
terms of almost all our presidents since Dwight Eisenhower. You cover many of
these questionable actions during administrations over the past thirty years in
your piece but this extends back to the Nixon Administration with the Water Gate
debacle that occurred during his 2nd term and our little publicized initial
involvement in Viet Nam as the Eisenhower administration sent military advisors
in the waning days of his administration.<BR>In addition to the afore mentioned
troubling economic policies promoted during the Reagan administration, his
second Lame Duck term included Iran Contra and the collapse of the Savings and
Loan Industry.<BR>Clinton's second term contribution to this, among others, was
the deregulation of the banking system removing vital safe guards in place since
the Great Depression. This action alone was instrumental in causing a major
collapse of our economic system a mere eight years later.<BR>George Bush junior
completed his second term with Quantitative Easing firmly in place using the
assets of the Federal Government via the privately owned Federal Reserve to bail
out a string of corrupt privately owned Wall Street Investment Banks that
escaped any and all oversight from the government agencies charged with that
responsibility.<BR>Obama is now in his Lame Duck term and the questionable
actions of past administrations during this period appear to be coming together
under this administration. Average Americans face the real possibility of losing
access to New Deal Social Reforms that improved the standard of living for
countless generations over the past eighty years. We should at least have a
discussion on the continuation of this term limit policy that fly's in the face
of voters who should be the only ones allowed to make this decision in a
Democracy !<BR></DIV>
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<DIV class="comment even clear-block" jQuery1365690936671="26">
<H3 class=title><A class=active
href="http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/barack-obamas-2nd-term-it-bill-clintons-3rd-or-it-ronald-reagans-9th#comment-34980">The
"White" House</A></H3>
<DIV class=submitted><SPAN class=comment-name>keith1818</SPAN> - <SPAN
class=comment-date>04/10/2013 - 17:22</SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV class=content>All Mrs. B. H. Obomba is doing is sucking up to the
White bullies so he too can be a war criminal. It is sickening to watch
(all) politicians play the same disgusting game. They never deviate
from their pursuit of money
and celebrity.<BR></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>