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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Os-kee Wow-Wow, Illinois.<br>
<br>
... the yell that always thrills me<br>
And fills my heart with joy<br>
Is the good old Oskee wow-wow<br>
That they yell at Illinois...<br>
<br>
C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:C1CB6391-28D6-4855-8B12-552764D6821F@gmail.com">
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In a speech Friday at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, former President Barack Obama publicly joined
the escalating offensive against President Trump being mounted by
sections of the ruling class and the state. The speech, directed
at channeling both popular and ruling class opposition to the
Trump administration behind the Democrats in the fall midterm
elections, marked Obama’s first direct attack on his successor.
<div class=""><br class="">
Obama’s speech came as the culmination of a series of
extraordinary events over the past two weeks that have brought
the acute political crisis in the US to a new and explosive
level of intensity.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
First came the week-long spectacle of bipartisan hypocrisy and
political reaction occasioned by the death of Republican Senator
John McCain, one of the most ferocious war-mongers in the US
political establishment. Democrats sought to outdo the
Republicans in eulogizing McCain as an “American hero” and model
statesman.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
Within two days of McCain’s burial, the media was ablaze with
revelations from the forthcoming book on the Trump White House
by Washington Posteditor Bob Woodward. Woodward, citing
anonymous interviews with high-ranking Trump officials, paints a
picture of turmoil and dysfunction in which figures such as
Defense Secretary James Mattis and White House Chief of Staff
John Kelly call Trump an idiot. Woodward recounts incidents of
Trump administration officials countermanding orders from the
president, a situation Woodward characterizes as
an “administrative coup d’état.”<br class="">
This was followed by the New York Times’ publication of an op-ed
piece by an anonymous “senior official” in the
Trump administration describing the activities of an internal
“resistance” to Trump within the White House. The piece cited
discussions among Trump aides about seeking his removal on the
grounds of mental incompetence, as stipulated in the
25th Amendment to the US Constitution. It made clear that the
“resistance,” promoted by the Timesand the Democrats, supports
Trump’s tax cuts for the rich, removal of corporate regulations
and increase in military spending. It attacks Trump for his
“softness” toward Russia and North Korea and his overall
impulsiveness, unpredictability and recklessness.<br class="">
Obama’s speech was along similar lines. He presented an absurdly
potted history of American progress on the basis of the
“free market,” with, he acknowledged, some imperfections—such as
the wars in Vietnam and Iraq (which killed millions of people).
His administration was supposedly part of this march of
progress.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
He cited as evidence of his own progressive record the
extra-judicial murder of Osama bin-Laden and his engineering of
the “recovery” from the 2008 financial crisis. He reiterated his
theme of 2016 that “things were great” in America by the time he
left office.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
“And by the time I left office, household income was near its
all-time high, and the uninsured rate hit an all-time low,
poverty rates were falling. I mention this just so when you hear
how great the economy is doing right now, let’s just remember
when this recovery started.”</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
Obama made no attempt explain why, despite his tireless efforts
on behalf of ordinary Americans, the Democratic Party lost
control of both houses of Congress during his administration and
disgust with the Democratic Party was so intense that the
billionaire conman and semi-fascist Trump was able to pose as a
friend of working people and win the 2016 election.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
The reality, of course, is that Obama presided over the
funneling of trillions of dollars to Wall Street to rescue the
financial oligarchy, carrying out the greatest redistribution of
wealth from the bottom to the top in history. This was paid for
by wage cuts and the destruction of decent-paying jobs, replaced
by poverty-wage, part-time and temporary employment, the gutting
of health benefits for millions of workers under “Obamacare,”
pension cuts, the closure of thousands of public schools and
layoff of tens of thousands of teachers, and a general lowering
of the living standards of the working class.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
Trump’s attacks on democratic rights were prepared by Obama’s
brutal policy of deportations, his continuation of
indefinite detention and the Guantanamo torture camp, his
support for mass domestic spying and his program of drone
assassinations, including of US citizens. The wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq were continued and new wars were
launched in Libya and Syria.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
According to Obama, however, Trump was a radical departure from
this wave of “progress,” a “symptom” of the “politics of fear
and resentment.” It was the “powerful and privileged” pushing
back. Obama criticized Trump for “cutting taxes on the wealthy,
unwinding regulations and shrinking the safety net,” focusing
however on the swelling of the deficit.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
He did not try to reconcile this account with his own reaction
to the 2016 elections, which he called an “intramural
scrimmage” between two sides of the “same team.”</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
Obama saved his most biting criticism for Trump’s supposed
softness toward Russia, appealing in the process to the
tradition of cold war anti-communism.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
“They’re undermining our alliances,” he declared, “cozying up to
Russia. What happened to the Republican Party? Its central
organizing principle in foreign policy was the fight against
communism, and now they’re cozying up to the former head of
the KBG.”</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
Alluding to the concocted narrative of “Russian meddling” in US
elections, Obama denounced Trump and congressional Republicans
for “actively blocking legislation that would defend our
elections from Russian attack.”</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
The central focus of Obama’s speech was an appeal to disaffected
Republicans and conservatives to vote for the Democratic Party
in the fall. He went out of his way to denounce Trump for
attacking the Justice Department, which is spearheading
the witch hunt against immigrants, and the FBI.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
He declared: “But I am here to tell you that even if you don’t
agree with me or Democrats on policy, even if you believe
in more libertarian economic theories, even if you are an
evangelical and our position of certain social issues is a
bridge too far, even if you think my assessment of immigration
is mistaken and the Democrats aren’t serious enough about
immigration enforcement, I’m here to tell you that you should
still be concerned with our current course and should still want
to see a restoration of honesty and decency and lawfulness in
our government. It should not be Democratic or Republican.”</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
In making this right-wing appeal, Obama took a swipe at the
Sanders wing of the Democratic Party. “I’ll be honest,” he
said, “sometimes I get into arguments with progressive friends
about what the current political moment requires. There are
well-meaning folks passionate about social justice who think
things have gotten so bad, the lines have been so starkly drawn,
that we have to fight fire with fire… I don’t agree with that.”<br
class="">
These events have underscored two basic facts: there is
absolutely nothing progressive or democratic in either of the
warring camps, and the methods being employed by Trump’s ruling
class opponents, spearheaded by the Democratic Party,
are themselves deeply undemocratic. They are the methods of a
palace coup.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
In so far as the resolution of the political crisis gripping the
US capitalist class is left in the hands of the warring factions
within the ruling elite and its state apparatus, the outcome
will be a further turn to the right, intensified attacks on
democratic rights—the Democrats are already spearheading
the drive for internet censorship—more brutal austerity and an
escalation of war internationally...
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">--Barry Grey <<a href="http://wsws.org"
class="" moz-do-not-send="true">wsws.org</a>> 8 September
2018<br class="">
<br class="">
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