- Except for bankers, war profiteers, other corporate favorites,
and America's super-rich, it's hard imagining why anyone supports a president
backing policies harming so many at home and abroad.
-
- The good news perhaps is that growing numbers are awakening,
the latest June 7 - 9 Zogby International poll showing recent lows in Obama's
popularity:
-
- -- 56% disapprove of his job as president; 43% approve;
-
- -- 39% say he deserves reelection; 52% want change;
-
- -- congressional approval also dropped to 17%, a testimony
to mass public disdain; and
-
- -- given America's direction, waging multiple imperial
wars at the expense of vital homeland needs, expect an angrier public reaction
ahead as pain levels rise.
-
- Human need always trumps other concerns, especially when
vast national resources aren't used to relieve it, many millions left on
their own sink or swim when they most need help. War profiteering and other
corporate priorities come first.
-
- However, Main Street America is mired in depression.
High unemployment and underemployment are unaddressed. For millions, depravation
is extreme. Double digit inflation is rising. One in six Americans face
hunger, yet Obama and lawmakers demand austerity when stimulus is needed.
-
- Progressive Radio News Hour commentator economist Jack
Rasmus sees bad current conditions worsening, saying:
-
- -- early 2011 consumption growth fell sharply compared
to 2010 levels - from 4 - 2.2%; rising gas prices accounted for 60% of
it;
-
- -- inflation adjusted real spending remained flat;
-
- -- retail sales are weak;
-
- -- rising food, energy, healthcare, education, and local
taxes have been punishing;
-
- -- except for the wealthiest 10% of households, most
others are struggling to get by, many without employment or enough of it;
-
- -- housing is mired in depression, as bad or worse than
the 1930s with no end of it in sight; and
-
- -- the so-called post-mid-2009 recovery has been "the
weakest and most lopsided....in the post-1945 period." But you'd never
know it from TV touts, extolling what a small minority enjoy, all others
not their concern.
-
- America, in fact, is declining, not rising. Rasmus predicts
"a major economic relapse" ahead as Washington plans painful
domestic budget cuts (including raping essential entitlements and other
vital social services) to sustain out-of-control war making and reward
the nation's super rich already with too much.
-
- As a result, the American dream is a bad joke. In his
June 11 commentary, analyst Bob Chapman says its "lifeblood is being
sucked out by free (not fair) trade, (predatory) globalization, offshoring
and outsourcing" manufacturing and other jobs, leaving fewer employment
opportunities at home for growing numbers (including new graduates) wondering
how they'll ever get by.
-
- In fact, 11.7 million new millennium manufacturing jobs
disappeared as well as 440,000 businesses, mostly small and mid-sized ones
trampled by corporate giants.
-
- June 11 on the Progressive Radio News Hour, Professor
John Kozy discussed his latest article titled, "Business and Jobs,"
saying predatory capitalism is unsustainable:
-
- "In two short centuries, it:
-
- -- turned human beings into beasts of burden and their
rulers into mere teamsters;
-
- -- polluted the earth's atmosphere, streams, rivers,
lakes, and oceans;
-
- -- extinguished uncounted species;
-
- -- exterminated millions of human beings (for profit);"
and
-
- -- keeps exhausting unrenewable natural resources wastefully.
-
- Moreover, under Bush, Obama, and complicit lawmakers,
the process accelerated. No wonder growing millions are mad, perhaps heading
for rebellion as pain levels become intolerable while America's super rich
prosper. Inevitably that assures trouble though no one can predict when
or what spark will set it off.
-
- Last December, months of Middle East uprisings began
after Tunisian national Mohammed Bouazizi, an unemployed graduate working
as a vegetable seller, self-immolated in front of government offices in
Sidi Bouzid, protesting police confiscation of his merchandise for operating
without a permit.
-
- Middle East/North Africa intifadas followed in over a
dozen countries from Morocco and Algeria to Egypt, Oman and Yemen. The
process shows no signs of abating, addressing intolerable poverty, unemployment,
corruption, and repression millions want ended despite brutal crackdowns
trying to stop them, including imperial US intervention to safeguard the
region for capital.
-
- Besides Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, America's bloody
Libyan/Yemen wars have taken a horrendous toll, slaughtering human beings
to save them - bombing, droning, assassinating, and immiserating millions
in conflicts with no end.
-
- Not enough for outgoing Defense Secretary Gates, a war
criminal by any standard, criticizing NATO members as shirkers. On June
10, New York Times writers Thom Shanker and Steven Erlanger headlined,
"Blunt US Warning Reveals Deep Strains in NATO," saying:
-
- Gates chastised member states for not devoting enough
resources to war making, deceitfully calling it "defense," no
matter NATO's offensive mandate from inception, inventing enemies when
none exist. Among other targets, they include Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan,
Pakistan and Libya, waging illegal wars for plunder, a policy New York
Times editorials ignore, including its latest titled, "Talking Truth
to NATO," saying:
-
- Gates is right. "NATO's shockingly wobbly performance
over Libya" alone "should leave no doubt about the Europeans'
weaknesses."
-
- Calling operation Libya for their own "defense,"
less than half of NATO's 28 members are participating, leaving America,
Britain and France to "carry the main burden....A two-tiered military
alliance is really no alliance at all," said The Times instead of
forcefully denouncing lawless aggression against a nonbelligerent state.
-
- NATO's specialty, in fact, should give members pause
why they belong to an organization criminally complicit in crimes of war
and against humanity, ones America's major media dismissively call "defense,"
reporting managed news, not facts.
-
- For example, Gaddafi is accused of killing his own people,
contradicting Defense Secretary Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen
in March refuting it. Mullen, in fact, said "(w)e've seen no confirmation
whatsoever." There's still none, but don't expect America's media
to explain.
-
- Yet Obama claimed "humanitarian" justification
for intervening in Libya, saying "innocent men and women face(d) brutality
and death at the hands of their own government."
-
- In fact, no crisis existed until America arrived - on
depleted uranium contaminated cruise missiles, bombs and shells, not white
horses promoting peace and democratic values, what Washington tolerates
nowhere, including at home.
-
- Human Rights Watch also refuted reports about Gaddafi
deliberately killing civilians, saying his forces target rebels, what independent
observers confirm. In contrast, NATO bombing causes mass casualties, ones
America's media deny, including Washington Post writer Simon Denyer's June
6 article headlined, "Libya government fails to prove claims of NATO
casualties," saying:
-
- "....Gaddafi's government churns out daily propaganda
about the alliance supposedly inflicting civilian casualties....But it
has failed to show foreign journalists more than a handful of dead or wounded
people."
-
- Denyer and other major media reporters are in Tripoli
and other Libyan cities, easily able to corroborate Gaddafi's claim independent
observers also there do regularly. Former Congresswoman/Green Party Presidential
candidate Cynthia McKinney, for example, provides truth dispatch updates
from Libya, saying:
-
- "The situation on the ground in Tripoli....could
not be more different from what is being portrayed by Western news networks
and newspapers," shamefully suppressing facts about daily NATO war
crimes, including mass casualties, atrocities, and human suffering.
-
- Her fact finding team includes former MPs and French
professors, gathering video and other evidence of NATO bombings. They cause
widespread civilian deaths, many hospitalized injured survivors, and extensive
destruction of non-military targets, including houses "completely
destroyed."
-
- Those affected ask "why," a young woman saying
"I don't understand why they want to kill us," not knowing it's
about imperial conquest, colonization and exploitation, no matter the death
and destruction to achieve it.
-
- America's major media won't explain, or about rebel insurgents
committing gang rapes in areas they control, as well as killing pro-regime
sympathizers on the spot for not supporting NATO. They say nothing about
mass carnage inflicted, blaming Gaddafi for Western war crimes, a daily
nightmare for affected Libyans never mentioned in their reports.
-
- Libya, in fact, is being systematically destroyed, balkanized,
and plundered, an inconvenient truth major media news won't discuss, perpetuating
the myth about humanitarian intervention. The lawless destruction, death
and injury count tell a different tale.
-
- A Final Comment
-
- On June 9, Gaddafi wrote members of Congress, urging
a ceasefire, saying:
-
- Funding "humanitarian relief and assistance in fostering
and furthering accommodation between the internal parties within Libya....are
at odds."
-
- "We are ready to sit at the table with appropriate
internal interlocutors lead by the United States. Let's stop the destruction
and begin the negotiations to find a peaceful solution for Libya. I appeal
to you, as the great Democracy, to assist us to determine our future as
a people. Our nation must not be colonized again by Europeans. Our country
must not be divided again. Help us to achieve our own self determination."
-
- Gaddafi specifically blamed France for wanting to seize
Libyan oil, saying it "seeks to advance its own commercial interests"
at the expense of America.
-
- In addition, he warned that the Transitional National
Council (TNC) has ties to Islamic extremists. Most are foreign nationals
who've committed horrific atrocities against Libyan civilians during the
conflict.
-
- Early responses showed his outreach fell largely on deaf
ears. Speaker Boehner's spokesman called it incoherent, "reinforc(ing)
that Gaddafi must go."
-
- Senate Majority Leader Reid's communication director
was just as dismissive, saying "we don't much care what he has to
say unless it includes a resignation."
-
- Most important is NATO calling Gaddafi a legitimate target,
confirming Washington's commitment to eliminate him belligerently or by
Hague show trial.
-
- Doing so will facilitate America's grand scheme, colonizing
and plundering Libya like all US vassal states, its resources, material
wealth and people exploited for profit.
-
- That's the dark truth America's media won't explain,
including Washington's self-annointed right to attack any nation preemptively
to fight terrorism. Hopefully thoughtful millions will spread the word,
sound the alarm, and do something in time to stop it.
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
-
- Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive
Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central
time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy
listening.
-
- http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/
|
