Barack Obama – Page 3

Dodd-Frank is the Obama presidency

The Dodd-Frank financial reforms are a year old and very little has changed in the banking system. As Matt Stoller points out, the bill was more about creating the illusion of a solution to the financial crisis than imposing the kind of financial restructuring needed to prevent future problems and begin a real stabilization of the economy.

After the immediate crisis was contained, losses were socialized, and profits returned to financial executives, Congress had to put together a “solution”. It would have a giant bite at the apple in restructuring our regulatory apparatus. But in order to perpetrate the oligarchic banking structure, it would be important that no structural changes to the industry be implemented. Not one regulator was fired for his or her part in the crisis. The Justice Department adopted a posture of legalizing financial control fraud by refusing to prosecute anyone involved in the meltdown, and continues to allow millions of cases of foreclosure fraud to continue. Ben Bernanke was renominated, and the administration fought a bitter below-the-radar battle to secure his confirmation. With a few modest exceptions, the risk-taking and leverage in our financial markets continues apace, and the deregulatory neoliberal mindset is still dominant. The Federal Reserve has been audited, but the system is now accountability-free for high level operatives in finance and politics. And now that Elizabeth Warren has been thrown overboard by the administration, the lockdown of the financial system is nearly complete.

And mostly, that’s what Dodd-Frank accomplished. It rearranged regulatory offices and delivered a new set of mandates, but effected no structural changes to our banking system. Congress never asked what happened, or why, or even, what kind of banking system do we want? And that’s because Obama’s Treasury Secretary already had the answers to these questions.

So, unemployment hovers at between 9 and 10 percent, the housing market remains in the dumper and consumer confidence remains low. The euphoria that followed the election of a Democrat who professed to be a reformer has abated once it was clear that he is nothing more than a brand (in Chris Hedges’ words) who talks a good game and shills for the establishment. So now, rather than the dawning of a promised progressive era, the November 2010 election brought us a Congress controlled by kooks and cranks who are more than willing to send the nation to financial default.

But the president and his supporters continue to praise his efforts, which they say prevented a full collapse. That may have been enough in the early part of 2009, but two years on, we have a right to expect more from him and from the Republicans who now control the House of Representatives.
The sad fact, as Dodd-Frank hits its first birthday, is that it is a perfect representation of the Obama presidency.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Why Obama?

I voted for Barack Obama, with reservations, in 2008. I knew he wasn’t a progressive, but I’d hoped that, in the face of a near-economic depression, he might follow Franklin Roosevelt’s path and become more progressive when he entered office.

I knew it was a long shot and I had no illusions.

But I’m a minority among progressives, with too many still making excuses for what has proven to be a failed presidency. Obama has, to date, done little to create jobs, little to reverse the nation’s economic decline and has, instead, opted to make Wall Street whole.

And while he blames Republicans for blocking more progressive reforms, it has been the president himself who has turned his nose to his left flank. He removed single-payer from the table before the health-care debate began, offered a stimulus plan that was too small by half even before it was watered down by Senate Democrats and moved to address deficit concerns well before it was economically logical.

But we still get defenders from the left and in the media of both his economic and national security policies. And we still hear the tired argument — if not Obama, then who? The argument is the flip-side of the Anybody But Bush movement that began percolating — unsuccessfully – in 2003 and 2004. it is based on the notion that the left must give its unconditional support to the president or someone like Michele Bachman or Mitt Romney will win the White House and things will really get bad.

That is a fear-based argument that let’s the president off the hook for his own failings and marginalizes the left at a time when the country needs to hear legitimate and detailed critiques from the president’s left flank.

We’re now two and a half years into the Obama presidency. We remain mired in the recession he inherited from his predecessor, with unemployment hovering at between 9 percent and 10 percent and the ranks of the long-term unemployed and underemployed being much higher. Foreclosures continue to rise, the health-care industry remain in charge and our infrastructure is crumbling. We’re engaged in three wars in four countries (or is it four wars in five countries?) and have a growing national security state and expanding imperial presidency.

At some point, the president needs to take responsibility for this.

I’m not advocating that the left not vote for Obama in 2012. But the left’s votes should not come cheaply. And it should not remain silent as the president drifts farther to the right. Enough is enough.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Announcing an end that is not an end

The draw down has been made public.

The plan: 10,000 troops out by the end of the year; another 20,000 by next fall and a steady draw down after.

That’s not exactly a sprint and, of more concern, it leaves about two thirds of the troops in place as President Obams’s first term comes to a close — or his presidency ends. Either way, that’s too many men and women in Afghanistan and makes it too easy for the nation’s leaders to back away from the withdrawal plan.

This is not, despite what the president said tonight, an end to the war in Afghanistan. The war is going to continue to smolder for several years, just as the war in Iraq continues to smolder.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Our politics remain fractured, even with bin Laden’s death

I was trying to figure out what I should write in response to the news that Osama bin Laden was killed yesterday by American troops. It is not an easy topic, given my general abhorrence of the tools or war and my opposition to the death penalty, and my sense that his death might have some cathartic impact on our culture.

And yet, the chants of “USA, USA, USA,” and the tears and jubilation I witnessed on TV last night leave me feeling oddly disembodied.

I think the reason is that I remember the speed with which our political culture descended into jingoistic chest-thumping and I am concerned that the chanting and rooster-like crowing we are engaging in now will only lead us back to that uncomfortable place.

Just as significantly, there resides just below the surface of this apparent unity a festering ugliness that has only grown worse during the Obama presidency.

Reading the comments on my Patch sites, I was struck by these comments:

God bless America. Funny how Obama jumps right in to take all the credit!!

Then:

Barack Hussein, who never wore the uniform one day in his life, will take credit for the brave men who went in to a hostile country and rid us of Bin-Laden. How did Barack Hussein get this by Holder and the Justice Dept.?

The fact that bin Laden was living in a suburb of a major Pakistani city will be explained by some B.S. rather than the plain truth that the Pakis despise us and, while taking our money, give full support to our enemies.

Great job by the CIA and military. It is they whom we must rely on, and not the venal politicians like Barack Hussein.

A later respondent summed up what I think is the best way to view the two above comments — comments that are flying around via email and on Facebook and not just on news sites:

I assume that if Bush had given the order, you would have given him no credit as well? And that you would have repeatedly referred to him with thinly veiled bigotry?

Everyone, from our brave troops to our intelligence community to the President and his advisors deserve credit for finally putting this creep in the dirt. Let’s enjoy the achievement and celebrate being Americans.

There are other dangers, as the historian Rick Perlstein writes on his Facebook page:

I’m already seeing my liberal pals naively saying: neato! Now BHO can do his thing and bring the troops home, and end this “Global War on Terrorism” business just like he’s always wanted. But the only thing he said about the GWOT in the speech was that it ain’t over, and so did George W. Bush in Obama’s support—”the fight against terror goes on.” The modern presidency never gives up its power.

The modern presidency — which dates from the Kennedy administration — has only grown in unilateral power over the last 50 years. Obama, in far too many ways, has used the Global War on Terror as an excuse to maintain the powers accumulated in his office by his predecessors and to expand them (unmanned drone strikes in a nation with whom we are not only not at war, but that is supposed to be our ally).

I wish I could say I feel good about where we are this morning, but I am fearful that the imperial presidency and the rah-rah jingoism evident today might just give each other sustenance and push us one step farther down the road to fascism.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Race and the birth-certificate non-issue

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The president did something he should never have had to do: Release his birth certificate. As this amazing commentary points out, this is about his citizenship as determined by race. The right is apoplectic over this issue because it believes that someone who looks like Barack Obama should not be allowed to be president. He is not a full citizen, the birthers believe, for no other reason than his race.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.