- Lessons from the Gulf
-
- The aftermath of last April's Deepwater Horizon disaster
left Big Oil again triumphant, thanks to the Obama administration's close
industry ties, conspiring with BP in the greatest ever environmental crime.
At the time, Public Citizen's Tyson Slocum said BP has "the worst
safety and environmental record of any oil company operating in America."
-
- It's been cited numerous times for willful negligence,
shoddy maintenance, environmental crimes, neglecting worker safety rules,
manipulating energy markets, and making a mockery of good industry practice
in a business devoid of standards and ethics.
-
- It'll be years before the full extent of damage is known.
However, it's already clear that BP turned much of America's Gulf into
a toxic wasteland. Independent scientists confirmed the disaster, citing
fouled waters, beaches, marshes and wildlife, the extent and level of toxicity
extremely hazardous to human, fauna, and flora life and sustainability.
-
- The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)
warned that hydrocarbon/dispersants contamination "direct(ly) threat(ens)
human health from inhalation or dermal contact." Millions have been
exposed. A future public health disaster looms. An epidemic of diseases
are expected, some potentially lethal like cancer.
-
- Administration-BP complicity caused it, followed by coverup
and denial, when independent research showed most oil remains. It still
does. Moreover, Corexit dispersants increased toxicity manyfold. As a result,
seafood is contaminated and unsafe. Vast areas of the Gulf and shorelines
are hazardous to human health. The seabed is covered with an oily fluid.
Oil and gas leaks continue unabated. Dispersants spraying continues. The
Gulf's Loop Current has been disrupted, weakening the Gulf Stream. Global
waters and weather patterns have been affected, perhaps catastrophically.
-
- The long-term human, wildlife, and environmental harm
potential is vast and serious. The disaster effects are increasing, not
diminishing. A chain reaction of unpredictable phenomena may cause droughts,
floods, crop failures, and global food shortages. Already many illnesses
have occurred. Massive fish kills continue, and life along Gulf coastal
areas may be threatened for decades.
-
- The administration's response: On August 14, Obama gave
the all-clear, saying oil no longer is flowing, and "as a result of
the cleanup effort, beaches all along the Gulf Coast are clean and safe
and open for business."
-
- He lied as he always does willfully and repeatedly on
all administration policies - foreign and domestic, war and peace, human
health, welfare and safety, and everything of public concern, defrauding
and betraying Americans, what he does best.
-
- Targeted Assassinations
-
- The Obama administration authorized CIA operatives and
Special Forces death squads to kill US citizens abroad, suspected of terrorist
involvement. Hollywood tough guy Chuck Norris responded, saying:
-
- Obama is "abandon(ing) our Constitution....based
on nothing more than" suspicion. "That's right. No arrest. No
Miranda rights. No due process. No trial. Just a bullet," bomb or
slit throat, Washington's new approach along with torture as official policy.
It's justice, American-style under Republicans and Democrats. Obama is
even more extreme than Bush. He flaunts the rule of law, disgracing America
and making the entire world unsafe.
-
- Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen in Yemen,
was first named, targeted for opposing US belligerency, not crimes. All
Americans are at risk globally, based on suspicions, not proof.
-
- Moreover, in September 2009, it was learned that Central
Command head General David Petraeus issued a secret directive, sending
covert US Special Forces to friendly and hostile states in the Middle East,
Central Asia, the Horn of Africa, and by implication anywhere in the world
to "penetrate, disrupt, defeat or destroy" terror threats and
"prepare the environment" for planned military attacks.
-
- Overall, the Obama administration significantly expanded
America's secret war against Al Qaeda and other named terrorists, using
Special Forces in 75 countries. By now it's perhaps even more, usurping
greater power than George Bush. Involved is gathering intelligence and
using drone attacks and other methods against civilians, killing thousands,
including targeted US citizens, denied due process and judicial fairness.
It's more proof of eroding constitutional freedoms.
-
- Destroying Public Education in America
-
- Continuing Bush's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) fraud,
Obama is spearheading his own Race to the Top, using failed NCLB practices,
including rote learning, testing, teaching to the test, school choice,
and (short of real achievement), market-based reforms.
-
- In an unprecedented assault on public education, he's
pitting one state against another, promoting school closures, mass teacher/staff
layoffs, and wage and benefit cuts - arguing for draconian measures and
privatizations to qualify for federal funding.
-
- It's an insidious scheme to end a 375 year tradition.
Today it's being incrementally destroyed to commodify education, end government
involvement, make it another business profit center, benefit the well-off,
revive a separate and unequal nation, consign poor kids to low-wage, no
benefit service jobs with no future so why educate them. It thus puts the
American dream out of reach for millions, besides destroying it altogether,
except for children from super-rich or rich families.
-
- Education Secretary Arne Duncan heads the effort. Formerly
Chicago Public Schools CEO, he wrecked them by closures, teacher firings,
budget cuts, militarizing city high schools, and privatizations, including
nearly 100 quasi-private charter schools, many run by for-profit companies.
He plans the same for America, replacing public education with marketplace
inequality, what poor kids across the country can expect.
-
- Targeting Net Neutrality and Privacy
-
- Obama maintained Bush administration policy, expanding
intrusive government surveillance, including by monitoring personal Internet
communications. Moreover, despite a campaign pledge to support "network
neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet,"
he reneged across the board. As a result, a free and open Internet is now
threatened, including under provisions of S. 3804: Combating Online Infringement
and Counterfeits Act (COICA) if enacted with a similar House bill.
-
- It aims to break the Internet one domain at a time, by
requiring domain registrars/registries, ISPs, DNS providers, and others
to block Internet users from reaching certain web sites. In other words,
if passed, COICA will let Washington suppress free speech and block access
to non-infringing and other material, inflicting enormous constitutional
damage in the process.
-
- In addition, a leaked September 2010 House Energy and
Commerce Committee draft bill, if enacted, will let cable and telecom giants
establish, among other provisions, premium higher-priced lanes (two Internets),
effectively destroying Net Neutrality, compromising the last free and open
space. Despite his campaign promise, Obama supports these measures. If
enacted, they'll institutionalize thought control, the main weapon of police
state authority.
-
- Note: Net Neutrality is a defining issue of our time
to keep the last public space free and open, letting users access all content
without restrictions, limitations or restrictions, maintaining a level
playing field for everyone.
-
- On December 21, that ended when the Democrat-controlled
FCC bowed to giant cable and telecom demands, compromising Net Neutrality.
Corporate interests got control. Another Obama promise was broken, subverting
digital democracy for profit and the ability to block unwanted content.
-
- A full account of what was feared can be accessed through
the following link:
-
- http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/12/net-neutrality-part-ii.html
-
- High Court Injustice
-
- The entire court represents elitist, pro-corporate, imperial
interests, including Obama's two appointments, notably Elana Kagan. As
Solicitor General, she argued that combating terrorism takes precedence
over First Amendment rights. As Harvard Law School dean, she hired Bush's
outgoing Office of Legal Counsel director, Jack Goldsmith, to teach law,
a man Professor Francis Boyle calls "a war criminal."
-
- She also endorsed Bush's bogus "unlawful enemy combatant"
notion, what Boyle calls a "quasi-category to create an anti-matter
universe of legal nihilism where human beings (including US citizens) can
be disappeared, detained incommunicado, denied access to attorneys and
regular courts, tried by kangaroo courts, executed, tortured, assassinated
and subjected to numerous other manifestations of State Terrorism."
-
- It brazenly violates fundamental constitutional protections,
ones shredded post-9/11. Kagan strongly supports it and other illegal measures,
including presidential power, the "unitary executive" kind under
Bush and now Obama, as well as any practice fighting terrorism. Her presence
further solidifies extremist High Court control.
-
- Targeting Whisleblowers, Endangering Truth
-
- On April 27, 1961, Jack Kennedy said:
-
- "The very word secrecy is repugnant in a free and
open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed
to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided
long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent
facts far outweighs the dangers, which are cited to justify it."
-
- In a free and open society, principled leaking is vital
to expose abuses of power and help make rhetorical democracies real ones.
However, more than ever under Obama, those doing it are targeted, publicly
denounced, pilloried by the media, fired if journalists, and at times
arrested and prosecuted. The Obama administration has been more aggressive
than his predecessors - going further than Nixon or Bush, including against
Thomas Drake.
-
- A former National Security Agency (NSA) senior executive,
he was bogusly indicted on April 15, 2010 on multiple charges of "willful
retention of classified information, obstruction of justice and making
false statements."
-
- Julian Assange perhaps now is threatened for revealing
hundreds of thousands of diplomatic, as well as Iraq and Afghan war documents
- by candidate Obama promising transparency, accountability, and reform
of extremist Bush policies. Instead, he systematically hardens them, usurping
surveillance powers, including warrantless wiretapping, accessing personal
records, monitoring financial transactions, and tracking email, Internet
and cell phone communications to gather secret evidence for prosecutions.
He also claims Justice Department immunity from illegal spying suits, an
interpretation no member of Congress or administration ever made, not even
Bush or his Republican allies.
-
- As a result, no one is safe, including human rights activists,
political dissidents, anti-war protestors, Muslims, Latino immigrants,
lawyers who defend them, journalists exposing federal crimes who don't
disclose sources, and whistleblowers like WikiLeaks, army Pfc. Bradley
Manning, and government insiders, privy to lawlessness they want revealed.
According to Obama prosecutors, they're enemies of the state for supporting
a free and open society, one endangered, in fact, without them.
-
- Note: On December 10, the Senate passed S. 372: Whistleblower
Protection Enhancement Act of 2009 (introduced on February 3, 2009).
-
- The National Whistelblowers Center issued a red flag
alert, saying:
-
- "S. 372 is a bad deal for whistleblowers."
Two "poison pills" undermine the bill's minor benefits. Specifically,
for the first time, federal employees aren't protected, in violation of
an earlier federal court ruling ordering corrective action for a whistleblower.
"The provision also runs counter to every major study on how to detect
fraud," including a recent one by the Association of Certified Fraud
Examiners. It and others concluded that protecting whistleblowers is the
best way to expose it and those culpable.
-
- The second rollback gives the "broken" Merit
Systems Protection Board (MSPB) greater power instead of reforming it.
It lets MSPB dismiss whistleblower cases without hearings.
-
- There's still time for the House to act responsibly.
Public pressure alone makes it possible.
-
- Political Prisoners in America
-
- America has by far the world's largest prison gulag with
over 2.4 million held in federal and state facilities, local jails, Indian,
juvenile, and military ones, US territories, and numbers held by Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Half are for nonviolent offenses, many for
political activism, others for political advantage to incite fear and hysteria
for the bogus war on terror. As a result, large numbers have been wrongfully
convicted, including many dozens for murders they didn't commit.
-
- Post-9/11, Muslims became the target of choice, many
hundreds hounded, vilified, rounded up, persecuted, and either deported
or imprisoned on bogus terrorism charges.
-
- They're also illegally entrapped, Obama's Attorney General
Holder letting enforcement officials or agents induce, influence, or provoke
crimes that otherwise wouldn't be committed. It's routine practice, an
"essential law enforcement tool" to invent terror attacks, then
prevent them, duping people to believe they're safer, unaware that Washington
is the real threat, not innocent victims, rotting in prison to prove it.
-
- In addition, Blacks and Latinos are victimized by racist
drug laws, get tough on crime policies, a guilty unless proved innocent
mentality, three strikes and you're out, or simply too poor for a proper
defense.
-
- Confinement conditions are harsh and abusive, including
long-term isolation, poor medical care, physical abuse including torture,
and perfunctory parole hearings denying their right to justice.
-
- Obama prosecutors continue these practices ruthlessly,
including torture as official state policy. War on terror priorities take
precedence over lawful practices, no longer assuring safety in America
under a president as disdainful as his predecessor, even worse in disturbing
ways.
-
- Food Fascism Legislation
-
- In July 2009, the House passed HR 2749: Food Safety Enhancement
Act of 2009. It's code language for its real intent - to assure greater
agribusiness consolidation and empowerment at the expense of small farmers
and producers, as well as consumers.
-
- In March 2009, the Senate version was introduced - S.
510: FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. After consumer groups exposed its
true purpose, it stalled but didn't die.
-
- On November 30, New York Times writers Gardiner Harris
and William Neuman, announced the bad news, headlining "Senate Passes
Sweeping Law on Food Safety," saying:
-
- "The bill is intended to keep unsafe foods from
reaching markets and restaurants, where they can make people sick - a change
from the current practice, which mainly involves cracking down after outbreaks
occur."
-
- Once again, The Times lied, displaying its support for
wealth, power, and global corporate predation, endorsing S. 510 instead
of exposing and condemning it. It did mention a problem, however, explaining
the bill could die for lack of enough lame duck session time for House
and Senate versions to be reconciled.
-
- To solve the problem, "Top House Democrats said....that
they were considering simply passing the Senate version to speed approval
but that no decision had been made."
-
- Still another problem remains, Roll Call's John Stanton
saying S. 510 "violated a constitutional provision requiring that
tax provisions originate in the House. By pre-empting the House's tax-writing
authority," the bill was temporarily in limbo without resolution until
the House passed it on December 8 in an amendment to HR 3082: Military
Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act,
2010.
-
- On July 10, 2009, the earlier version passed the House.
On November 17, 2009, the Senate approved its own bill. Obama never signed
it because (on December 10, 2009) both Houses passed HR 3288: Consolidated
Appropriations Act, 2010, signed by Obama on December 16.
-
- In the lame duck session, HR 3082, including amendments,
is being used as a vehicle to pass a one-year Continuing Resolution (CR)
for discretionary government funding through FY 2011. Included is amendment
language to resolve the tax origination problem, assuring S. 510 passes
and becomes law.
-
- On December 19, it did in new form (unanimously with
no recorded vote), as an amendment to HR 2751: Consumer Assistance to Recycle
and Save Act, passed by the House on June 9, 2009. On December 21, the
House followed suit, Democrats (including Obama) as eager as Republicans
to empower agribusiness at the expense of small farmers and consumers.
-
- Earlier, Obama urged action, saying:
-
- "With the Senate's passage of the Food Safety Modernization
Act, we are one step closer to having critically important new tools to
protect our nation's food supply and keep consumers safe."
-
- False, according to the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense
Fund (FTCLDF), calling House and Senate bills "food tyranny,"
giving the corporate-run FDA sweeping new powers:
-
- "to criminalized and imprison farmers and food producers
while doing absolutely nothing to address the real root of the food contamination
problem: Factory animal farm operations (regulated by the USDA, not FDA)."
-
- "If you're in the food business," said FTCLDF,
"better begin preparing now to avoid the FDA SWAT teams" from
cracking down on small farmers and producers, while letting their corporate
allies operate freely. As a result, expect more harm, not improved safety,
as well as greater than ever consolidated control of America's food - instead
of decentralized production, processing and distribution, assuring safer,
cheaper, more reliable products.
-
- Obama's Failed Ecuadorean Coup Attempt
-
- What worked in Honduras, failed in Ecuador, President
Raphael Correa lucky to survive a plot to oust (or perhaps kill) him. Coup
plotters shut down airports, blocked highways, took over an airbase, parliament,
and Quito streets, the pretext being a law restructuring police benefits
despite Correa having doubled their wages.
-
- In fact, Washington's fingerprints were all over another
Latin leader removal plot, less than 100% supportive of neoliberal extremism.
For Correa, it's not his domestic austerity and pro-business policies,
but his ties to Hugo Chavez and Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (ALBA)
membership, a WTO/NAFTA alternative based on fair, not corporate one-sided
free trade, the curse of Latin and other states for decades.
-
- Correa survived, perhaps chastened enough to shift increasingly
right, sacrificing more popular interests to keep power. If not, Washington's
long knives remain sharp and ready to try again to oust him. Obama has
proved as ruthless as Bush.
-
- Provoking North Korea
-
- Last March, Pyongyang was falsely blamed for sinking
a South Korean ship. At the time, evidence suggested a false flag, manufactured
to stoke regional tensions. The incident occurred near Baengnyeong Island
opposite North Korea. US Navy Seals and four US ships were conducting joint
exercises in the area. The torpedo used was German, not North Korean as
claimed. Germany sells none to Pyongyang. Yet it was blamed for what it
didn't do, a clear case of Pentagon-manufactured mischief.
-
- On November 23, another incident heightened tensions
after North Korea shelled a South Korean island, AP reporting:
-
- "The skirmish began when Pyongyang warned the South
to halt (provocative) military drills in the area, according to South Korean
officials. When Seoul refused and began firing artillery into disputed
waters, albeit away from the North Korean shore, the North retaliated by
bombarding the small island of Yeonpyeong, which houses South Korean military
installations."
-
- Despite repeated warnings, the South provoked the North,
likely wanting a hostile response at the behest of Washington. The pattern
follows how the 1950 Korean War began, getting Monthly Review co-founders
Leo Huberman and Paul Sweezy, in 1952, to cite I F Stone's belief that
it was the greatest swindle in military history, blaming the North for
what the South initiated in cahoots with the Truman administration wanting
war.
-
- Stone called it international aggression. So did Huberman
and Sweezy 14 months into the conflict saying:
-
- "....we have come to the conclusion that (South
Korean president) Syngman Rhee (a US puppet) deliberately provoked the
North Koreans in the hope that they would retaliate by crossing the parallel
in force. The northerners (who wanted a unified Korea, not war) fell neatly
into the trap," giving Truman the war he wanted.
-
- At issue now is whether Obama wants another one despite
waging two unwinnable wars. It seems unlikely, but little by this administration
surprises after nearly two years of out-of-control belligerency.
-
- On December 4, it continued as US and South Korean forces
conducted live fire naval maneuvers in the Yellow Sea, provoking an angry
Chinese response. At the same time, Pentagon and Japan's military held
one of their largest ever joint military exercises with thousands of troops,
hundreds of aircraft, and the USS George Washington, a nuclear armed aircraft
carrier, and its accompanying ships.
-
- On the same day, South Korea began week-long live fire
drills in waters off North Korea's coast. More are planned, and according
to Kim Kwan-jin, the South's new defense minister, "I don't care about
North Korean responses and they are not worth considering." He also
vowed to bomb the North if Pyongyang again attacks.
-
- China called for emergency Six-Party Talks, including
both Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and America. Washington, Tokyo and Seoul
rejected them, holding their own instead, excluding China, a clear affront
not soothed by Obama calling Chinese leader Hu Jintao. On December 6, China's
People's Daily highlighted deteriorating Washington/Beijing relations in
an op-ed titled, "How should China handle America's 'return to Asia?'
" Given America's penchant for belligerency, China has clear reason
to worry.
-
- Choosing saber-rattling over diplomacy, regional tensions
are now heightened. The Obama administration is using the South and its
own area forces as weapons against the North with no reason to want conflict.
Washington may have other ideas.
-
- Obama's Repressive Immigration Policy
-
- Since taking office, Obama made America more than ever
a police state, including by targeting immigrants, holding thousands in
hundreds of unlisted, unmarked detention facilities in nearly every state
before secret courts deport them, at times stranding them far from home
countries.
-
- In 2009 and 2010, record numbers were deported, including
many long-time residents contributing to their communities productively.
No matter. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) goon squads reign
terror on them, targeting homes, work places, and other locations where
they congregate.
-
- In detention, their conditions are inhumane. Secret courts
deny due process, and dozens of deaths have occurred in captivity. Women
are especially impacted, vulnerable to sexual harassment, rape, and loss
of their US-born children, American citizens, seized in raids, and put
up for adoption.
-
- Overall, Obama's immigration agenda is brutal and unjust,
normalizing police state tactics, forcibly separating families, destabilizing
workplaces and communities, and committing widespread civil rights abuses,
treating aliens like criminals, not with respect they deserve.
-
- Obama Capitulates to Republicans
-
- Unsurprisingly, a corporatist hard-right president favoring
wealth and power over social justice and popular need broke another campaign
pledge by capitulating on extending tax cuts and other benefits for the
rich, while offering working Americans chump change.
-
- His deal is worth up to $1 trillion, the lion's share
to corporations and the nation's wealthy, promoted as stimulus to create
jobs and revive economic growth. In fact, it's roughly neutral, offsetting
stiff, growing headwinds that otherwise would have had greater impact without
something counteracting them in place.
-
- However, make no mistake. Obama took care of his own,
a strategy he hopes will assure another four years and get enough Democrats
elected with him. As for his base, he wants their votes, even lying to
hide his betrayal, including class warfare planned during the next two
years. More on that below.
-
- Greater Homeland Repression Ahead
-
- Former Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional
Rights (CCR), now serving in Chicago's People's Law Office, Michael Deutsch,
believes hardened "anti-terrorism" laws are coming against activists
seeking social justice.
-
- The Department of Justice (DOJ) is using the Supreme
Court's June 2010 Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project decision. It called
nonviolent First Amendment speech and advocacy "coordinated with (or)
under the direction of" groups designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations
(FTOs) criminal activity.
-
- Under the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty
Act, Congress made it a crime punishable by up to 10 years, later 15 for
anyone providing "material support or resources to a foreign terrorist
organization or attempts or conspires to do so." The statute defines
it as:
-
- "....any property, tangible or intangible, or service,
including currency or monetary instruments or financial services, lodging,
training, expert advice or assistance, safe houses, false documentation
or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal
substances, explosives, personnel and transportation except medicine or
religious materials."
-
- In fact, many groups and individuals providing peaceful
advocacy are threatened, including Jimmy Carter for training all Lebanonese
parties (including Hezbollah) on fair election practices. He submitted
an opposition amicus brief.
-
- CCR called the ruling "one of a very few times that
the Supreme Court has upheld a criminal prohibition of speech under strict
scrutiny, and the first time it has permitted the government to make it
a crime to advocate lawful, nonviolent activity."
-
- Deutsch now believes Obama's Justice Department will
target political groups and activists, using their First Amendment rights
in support of liberating struggles, including against Israeli apartheid
and occupation. Under material support's new definition, anyone backing
(rightly or wrongly) designated terrorist groups may be prosecuted as criminals,
no matter their just cause. Obama is even more lawless than Bush. As a
result, expect harder-line enforcement to come.
-
- Obama's Neoliberal Austerity
-
- Instead of vitally needed stimulus to revive a troubled
economy, Obama plans austerity, using the pretext of deficit cutting urgency
to shift more public wealth to super-rich allies already with too much
but want it all.
-
- As a result, two deficit cutting commissions proposed
punishing social cuts. They barely touched defense, endorsed corporate
and super-rich benefits by lowering income tax rates dramatically, and
recommended a national sales tax, harming working households most.
-
- In addition, they want deep Medicare cuts and comprehensive
tort reform to make it harder for aggrieved patients to file malpractice
suits. They proposed raising the Social Security retirement age to 69,
while at the same time, reducing cost-of-living increases, now based on
annual (jerry-rigged low) inflation rates.
-
- Other recommendations included ending home mortgage and
most other deductions and credits, taxing employer provided health insurance
to encourage less comprehensive coverage and make healthcare cost more,
freeze vital non-defense discretionary spending for four years, then cap
it according to GDP growth, and various other schemes hitting working households
hardest.
-
- On December 3, Obama's National Commission on Fiscal
Responsibility and Reform (NCFRR) voted 11 - 7 for a national impoverishment
plan to make super-rich allies richer. Fourteen votes were needed for
- congressional consideration, yet supportive "liberals"
like Illinois Senator Dick Durbin called it a major victory.
-
- Another faux progressive also endorsed it, North Dakota
Senator Kent Conrad, saying in a December 1 press release:
-
- "he supports the far-reaching debt reduction package
produced by the President's (commission, calling it) a moment of truth....to
avert a national fiscal crisis."
-
- Even opposing members expressed overall support, signaling
what's likely once the 112th Congress considers the plan next year. In
a December 4 press release, Obama also effectively endorsed it, saying:
-
- "I want to thank the (commission) members....for
their important work in highlighting the magnitude of the challenge before
us, and outlining an array of options to confront it....we simply cannot
allow our nation to be dragged down by our debt. We must correct our fiscal
course....our success depends on our willingness to engage (in) honest
conversation and cooperation....we will all have to budge on long-held
positions."
-
- In other words, tax working Americans more, shred their
social safety net, leave disadvantaged people on their own, while maintaining
out-of-control militarism, support for criminal bankers and other corporate
favorites, as well as super-rich allies by lower taxes and other benefits.
-
- The latest example: Obama capitulating to Republicans
on extending Bush's tax cuts for the super-rich on income, capital gains,
and dividends. Also on their federal estate tax that lapsed at the start
of 2010. Despite rhetorical disapproval, Democrats concurred, while at
the same time agreeing to address deep austerity cuts for working Americans.
-
- Overall, class warfare is planned for a future America
unfit to live in, worse than now, a time of economic crisis, permanent
wars, and increased homeland repression against dissent.
-
- The class struggle between haves and have-nots keeps
escalating. Already powerful winners have emerged. Wealth disparity extremes
are unprecedented. Expect mass impoverishment, greater crises, and increased
worker exploitation ahead. Congressional "progressives" and unions
like the AFL-CIO effectively support it. So does Change to Win's four affiliated
unions:
-
- -- International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT);
-
- -- Service Employees International Union (SEIU);
-
- -- United Farm Workers of America (UFW), and
-
- -- United Food and Commercial Workers International Union
(UFCW).
-
- Changetowin.org's web site describes the organization
as:
-
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