[Peace-discuss] Is there any question who's the war party?

[C. G. Estabrook]

"...Obama has punctuated his pledges to cut federal spending and the deficit by 
firing hundreds of cruise missiles at Libya, while continuing the open-ended 
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that have killed a million people and squandered 
trillions of dollars. The White House and the Democratic Party engaged in a 
series of populist pretenses as part of the kickoff of the Obama reelection 
campaign. Despite the huge financial advantage and ruling class support, there 
is an undercurrent of nervousness, even trepidation in the Obama camp. This is 
not because of any concern over the Republican opposition, since Obama has 
embraced the same policy framework. But there are increasing signs of popular 
distrust of both parties and growing opposition to the entire structure of 
corporate-controlled politics..."

      Obama begins bid for second term:
      A president of war and social reaction
      By Patrick Martin
      5 April 2011

US President Barack Obama announced his candidacy for reelection in 2012 in a 
video statement posted on the Internet Monday and delivered via e-mail. He 
became the first candidate to formally declare for the 2012 presidential 
election, filing papers with the Federal Election Commission, a legal 
requirement to begin campaign fundraising.

Obama has already been dubbed the “billion-dollar candidate,” since his campaign 
is expected to be the first in US history to raise and spend that enormous sum. 
The number is appropriate and symbolic, given that the Obama presidency has 
served the billionaires at the expense of American working people.

The financial aristocracy—and Wall Street in particular—backed Obama heavily 
over Republican John McCain in 2008, as he raked in a record $779 million in 
contributions, more than double the previous record set by George W. Bush in 
2004. Despite claims that this fundraising edge was due to a surge in small 
donations, the majority of both Obama’s primary campaign and general election 
funding came from those able to contribute $1,000 or more.

High rollers will be called upon to do even more in the 2012 campaign. At a 
meeting last month, campaign manager Jim Messina asked 450 top “bundlers” to 
raise $350,000 apiece in 2011—the year before the election—double what they were 
asked to raise for the whole 2008 campaign. This effort alone would give Obama a 
war chest of more than $150 million going into January 2012, far more than any 
of his potential rivals in either big business party. In accumulating such vast 
sums of money so quickly, the administration is seeking to preclude any 
possibility of a challenge to the pro-corporate policies that both political 
parties uphold.
In an address to a group of well-heeled supporters last week, Obama declared, 
“We have delivered on change that we can believe in. But we aren’t finished. 
We’ve got more work to do.”

In fact, all of the administration’s policies represent a continuation and 
deepening of the rightwing policies of the Bush administration. The Obama 
administration expanded the bailout of Wall Street begun under the Bush 
administration, devoting the full resources of the federal treasury to rescuing 
the banks and safeguarding the accumulated wealth of the financial elite.

Two-and-a-half years later, corporate profitability has been restored, reaching 
the highest level ever, $1.68 trillion, in 2010, up 36.8 percent in a single 
year. Profits have increased 61.5 percent from the low point in the 2008 
financial crisis that triggered the ongoing economic slump.

The stock market has rebounded, with prices up 70 percent from the low point in 
2008-2009, and a whopping $1 trillion added to stock values in 2010 alone. CEO 
pay is back to the stratospheric levels that prevailed before the crash, up 50 
percent from 2009 to 2010, while pay levels for average workers have stagnated.

For the working class, there has been no recovery. Instead, the Obama 
administration has spearheaded a drive by corporate America to make the working 
class pay for the financial crisis and bailout, through the destruction of seven 
million jobs, the slashing of pay and benefits, and an unprecedented attack on 
public services and social programs.

At a campaign-style rally at a UPS facility Friday, Obama hailed the official 
jobless figures released that day, which showed a drop of a full percentage 
point in the unemployment rate over the past four months, from 9.8 percent to 
8.8 percent. “The last time that happened,” Obama boasted, “was during the 
recovery in 1984.”
However, analysis of the Labor Department figures establishes that the decline 
in the official unemployment rate is due not to unemployed workers being hired, 
but to discouraged workers leaving the work force in despair over the lack of jobs.

Corporate economic forecasters now project—based on the optimistic assumption 
that the US economy will not slide back into recession under the impact of 
financial crisis, war and budget cutting—that the official unemployment rate in 
November 2012 will be 8 percent or more, the highest level on an election day 
since World War II.

The slump of 2008 to the present has created an entire class of long-term, more 
or less permanently unemployed. Six million Americans have been out of work for 
six months or longer, not counting the additional millions who have dropped out 
of the labor force, and the average duration of unemployment for a newly 
laid-off worker is 39 weeks.

The big business politicians of the Democratic and Republican parties are 
seeking to add to the social misery by cutting or eliminating the benefits that 
are all that stand between tens of millions of working people and complete 
destitution. Millions of low-paid workers will get a tax increase this year 
while the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy were extended for two years with Obama’s 
blessing.

State and local governments have slashed 400,000 jobs over the past two years, 
and are now engaged in the biggest attacks on jobs, social benefits and workers’ 
rights since the Great Depression. Wisconsin has provided the most publicized 
example, but Democratic governors as well as Republican are engaged in slashing 
wages and benefits for public employees, cutting or eliminating Medicaid 
benefits and other state services.

These state cuts will be dwarfed by the impact of the coming attack on federally 
funded social programs. The down payment will come in the cuts in current 
federal spending, some $30 to $60 billion, which the Obama administration and 
Congress are expected to finalize this week.

Today the Republican-controlled House of Representatives will unveil its 
proposed budget for 2012, which will set the stage for a staggering $4 trillion 
reduction in programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, the lifeblood 
for tens of millions of elderly and poor working people.

In this, they are only following the trail blazed by Obama in his so-called 
healthcare “reform,” whose goal was not to make medical care a basic right for 
all Americans, but to cut the cost of providing healthcare, for both the federal 
government and corporate America.

These cuts are promoted with phony claims that “there is no money” for jobs, 
wages, education, healthcare and housing, by the very same politicians who 
lavish trillions on the Pentagon and on tax breaks for the corporations and the 
wealthy.

In the run-up to his reelection announcement, Obama has punctuated his pledges 
to cut federal spending and the deficit by firing hundreds of cruise missiles at 
Libya, while continuing the open-ended wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that have 
killed a million people and squandered trillions of dollars.

The White House and the Democratic Party engaged in a series of populist 
pretenses as part of the kickoff of the Obama reelection campaign.

Despite the huge financial advantage and ruling class support, there is an 
undercurrent of nervousness, even trepidation in the Obama camp. This is not 
because of any concern over the Republican opposition, since Obama has embraced 
the same policy framework.

But there are increasing signs of popular distrust of both parties and growing 
opposition to the entire structure of corporate-controlled politics. A Gallup 
poll released in February found that support for the Democratic Party has fallen 
in every state, and particularly in the belt of industrial states from 
Pennsylvania through Minnesota, where the slump has hit hardest. Support has 
fallen for the Republican Party as well, and for Congress, in the wake of the 
Republican takeover of the House last fall. In a poll taken just after the start 
of the war in Libya, Obama’s job rating fell to 42 percent, the lowest of his 
presidency.

More significant than declining poll numbers is the evidence of increasing 
militancy and social anger in the working class. The struggle that exploded in 
Wisconsin in February and March serves as a warning of much broader social 
conflicts that are on the agenda.

The driving force of these social conflicts—and the central fact of American 
life, albeit largely unacknowledged in the political system—is the unprecedented 
growth of social inequality. A layer of the super-rich is heaping up untold 
wealth, while the vast majority of the population struggle to survive from day 
to day. From Obama to the Tea Party, all factions of the American political 
establishment defend the capitalist system, which continually generates and 
deepens this inequality.

Economist Joseph Stiglitz writes about the impact of social inequality in a 
revealing commentary in the current issue of Vanity Fair magazine, headlined, 
“Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%.”

He cites well-established facts about the economic polarization in America—the 
top one percent take 25 percent of national income and control 40 percent of its 
wealth; their incomes rose 18 percent over the past decade, while the incomes of 
the vast majority of the population fell.

He notes the impact of this polarization on social policy and on political life:

“The more divided a society becomes in terms of wealth, the more reluctant the 
wealthy become to spend money on common needs. The rich don’t need to rely on 
government for parks or education or medical care or personal security—they can 
buy all these things for themselves…

“Virtually all U.S. senators, and most of the representatives in the House, are 
members of the top 1 percent when they arrive, are kept in office by money from 
the top 1 percent, and know that if they serve the top 1 percent well they will 
be rewarded by the top 1 percent when they leave office. By and large, the key 
executive-branch policymakers on trade and economic policy also come from the 
top 1 percent.”

A liberal who fears the consequences of such a top-heavy society, Stiglitz is 
warning the ruling class not to push the population too far. He writes:

“In recent weeks we have watched people taking to the streets by the millions to 
protest political, economic, and social conditions in the oppressive societies 
they inhabit… As we gaze out at the popular fervor in the streets, one question 
to ask ourselves is this: When will it come to America? In important ways, our 
own country has become like one of these distant, troubled places.”

[...]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/obam-a05.shtml


On 4/6/11 11:59 AM, Robert Naiman wrote:
> I know that you're not educable on this. I'm just trying to stop you
> from misinforming other people.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 11:55 AM, C. G. Estabrook<galliher at illinois.edu>  wrote:
>> Come on, Bob. Senate Democrats had a chance to vote against what everyone
>> admits was an unconstitutional act of war and chose instead to vote for it.
>> Just as they could have cut off funds for Bush's war (it only took 41 votes)
>> and chose not to do it.
>>
>> I'm when the Socialists voted for war credits in Germany in 1914, it "wasn't
>> good a indicator of where people stood." Maybe they were waiting for a
>> "clean" vote.
>>
>> On 4/6/11 11:45 AM, Robert Naiman wrote:
>>> The analysis of the peace folks watching this in Washington is that
>>> this vote wasn't a good indicator of sentiment in the Senate. Senator
>>> Lugar, a Republican who has been arguably the most prominent
>>> Republican critic both of the war in Libya and the decision to launch
>>> it without Congressional authorization, voted with the 90 to table,
>>> not with the 10. The question on the floor was attaching language
>>> about war powers to a small business bill.
>>>
>>> I'm not against what Senator Paul did; it's more than anyone else has
>>> managed to do on the floor of either body so far. But this particular
>>> vote is not a good indicator of where people stand. Senator Webb, like
>>> Senator Lugar (though not as prominently) has been very critical.
>>>
>>> Hopefully, Paul or Lee or others will come back with something else
>>> that will allow a more clean vote ("clean" in the sense of not being
>>> entangled with other issues.)
>>>
>>> On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 9:26 PM, C. G. Estabrook<galliher at illinois.edu>
>>>   wrote:
>>>> 10 GOP Senators Vote to Oppose Libya Intervention
>>>> Posted: 05 Apr 2011 03:29 PM PDT
>>>>
>>>> Senator Rand Paul’s resolution opposing President Obama’s use of force in
>>>> Libya gained the support of 10 Republican senators — and not a single
>>>> Democrat.
>>>>
>>>> The resolution was the same as a quote from President Obama when he was a
>>>> Senator and presidential candidate:
>>>>
>>>> “The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally
>>>> authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping
>>>> an
>>>> actual or imminent threat to the nation.”
>>>>
>>>> The resolution was defeated by a motion to table. The vote was 90-10.
>>>>
>>>> Republican Senators voting to oppose US intervention in Libya were:
>>>> Collins (R-ME), DeMint (R-SC), Ensign (R-NV), Johnson (R-WI), Lee (R-UT),
>>>> Moran (R-KS), Paul (R-KY), Sessions (R-AL), Sowe (R-ME), Toomey (R-PA)
>>>>
>>>> Where are the antiwar Democrats?
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>
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>
>