Thoughts on Obama administration
GMC students party on November 4 after learning that Sen. Barack Obama has been elected as the new president of the United States.
BY MELISSA MARKSTROM
With the Inauguration just around the corner, and throngs of Obamaites clamoring for the best seat on the lawn of the most lavish housewarming party of the century, we have to ask ourselves – who else is moving in?
Obama received mixed responses to his recent administrative appointments. Neoliberals and Neoconservatives alike praised Obama’s bipartisanship, including Karl Rove, John McCain, Condoleezza Rice, and Henry Kissinger. Skeptics questioned whether Obama is trying to set up the most difficult presidency imaginable by surrounding himself with those who oppose all he supposedly stood for: diplomacy, social and environmental justice, and a level economic playing field for all. Those of us who paid attention throughout the election season, and in the crucial days since, know the American public was duped. Here’s a news bulletin for those who stopped following politics after November 4.
Obama changed his mind about repealing Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy. Although this was one of the key campaign points to deliver him into the White House, it turns out in these tough times it really is the rich who need a few more breaks.
Oh, and you know how he promised to get troops out of Iraq in a year and a half? Well, instead of surrounding himself with leaders willing and able to execute that strategy, he decided to keep Bush’s Defense Secretary Robert Gates instead. Gates is adamantly opposed to any sort of timetable in Iraq. We can expect that if the withdrawal of troops happens at all, it will be at a snails pace, at which time soldiers will be funneled into the Afghanistan escalation to fill the 20,000 new slots proposed by Obama and Gates.
As Attorney General, Eric Holder, an appointee of both Clinton and Bush, will be the country’s chief legal officer. Holder is a proponent of the Patriot Act and is currently representing Chiquita Brands International in a lawsuit brought by the families of those murdered by the Columbian paramilitary death squad Chiquita admits to funding.
Rahm Emanuel, soon to be Chief of Staff, formerly served as a Clinton advisor and will be a senior aide to the Obama administration. Emanuel is criticized for continuing to defend his vote for preemptively striking Iraq, seeking to increase the military by 100,000 troops, advocating for a draft of 18- to 25-year-olds into paramilitary service, and playing a key role in the passing of NAFTA.
With the appointment of Timothy Geithner as the Treasury Secretary, and Larry Summers as the Director of the National Economic Council, Obama’s economic team promises to carry on the Clinton and Bush regimes of deregulation and privatization. As part of the old Clinton team, Geithner and Summers are proponents of free trade agreements, which are credited with the escalation of environmental degradation, economic disparity, and an influx of undocumented immigrants.
Hillary Clinton, soon to be Chief of State, whose focus will be foreign affairs, voted to authorize the war in Iraq without reading the intelligence assessment. One of the interesting differences here, however, is that Clinton, unlike Obama, is opposed to private military companies, such as Blackwater, which deployed mercenary troops in New Orleans and Iraq. In February, Hillary came out against Blackwater the evening after Obama’s aids admitted that if troops were pulled out of Iraq the occupation would be staffed by Blackwater mercenaries instead. It will be interesting to see if Clinton continues her opposition to private military companies, or if her resistance was only a last-ditch effort to win the democratic nomination. If so, she may embrace the deployment of mercenaries throughout the world and within the U.S. as warmly as Obama.
The question is this – will Obama surprise us and be the president who really brings change to the country or will he continue to lead us along the road paved in part by Clinton and Bush? If we refuse to pay attention, to ask tough questions, to demand accountability of the man we thought we elected, Obama will be nothing more than a fresh face on the same tired, dishonest, underhanded American politician.
Short URL: http://www.themountaineer.org/?p=297
Posted by Melissa Markstrom
on Dec 19, 2008 Filed under Featured, First-Person, World.
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