The great deception is still ongoing. Four years into the financial ‘crisis’, while the general economy seems to be on the mend, even if at anemic pace, unemployment is still perniciously high and projected to remain so for foreseeable future. Obama’s populist rhetoric continues as he claims the state of the union to be strong. In this version for 2012 elections he is the champion of middle class as he warns the need to protect it. Meanwhile, the candidate who had the richest of rich propel him to the presidency as the media made him a rock star and has done nothing past seem so glorious, continues to get more money from Wall Street than all Republican candidates combined.
That was true before he was first elected and has been true since. Every year including his first year as he was labeled a ‘socialist’ in the media owned by the very rich that supported him. Nine trillion dollars later handed to the ultra rich was his thank you as he ‘fought’ for a health care that has no public component as a ‘concession’ to get the bill done. For that we now have an insurance industry that has a tighter grip on health, more consolidation of Wall Street financials, banks and almost every other sector of the economy and less competition than ever before. Had a white president done what Obama has, people’s anger would have turned violent, making the 60’s riots look peaceful in comparison.
The richest have become even more so during the Obama presidency, and more so every year he has been president, and the Bush tax cut extension was another ‘concession’ he ‘had’ to make. Disparity between rich and poor in America today is greater than that of Egypt. Yet it took three years into his presidency to propose a ‘jobs’ proposal even at a relatively meager $400 Billion (about 4% given out to banks et al) and of course, it would still not materialize. Meanwhile, not a single major perpetrator of various frauds, schemes and thievery has been brought to justice despite some hearing entertainment shows, and executive and board compensations at top financial and insurance related sectors are even higher than before 2008 with Goldman Sacks, Obama’s dear advisor, and supplier of most key financial government positions including most Treasury Department positions as in Geithner or Paulson before him.
Bush Light, aka Obama, has lost much of his shine, here and overseas but has the same machinery behind him to squeeze another term out. Of course, Republican characters and buffoonery help this divine comedy. Rumors of his intent to start a war with the rapist republic, seem to have some life but he does not need to start it, rather put them in a position to walk into a trap or an outright façade; much like the Gulf of Tonkin. Much like his presidency and the immaterial but well planned Iraq NO vote years earlier, the path has been mapped with precision. He has sent Norooz greetings and a few other messages of rapprochement, and quietly swapped captured ‘diplomats’ with IRR quietly in early days of post 2009 uprisings as he gave lip service to those getting killed in the street. Rest assured, Obama ba oonast, na ba ma.
His sanctions against Iran will position him as strong on foreign policy, and his new middle class championing will take care of domestic front with a little luck and printing more dollars. Not bad for the rapist republic either as its failure at every conceivable level has become apparent except for its hired lobbyist and apologists from Dabashi to Parsi. And if he cannot extract enough concessions from them and war ensues, he can say all diplomatic options were exhausted and cannot allow violation of Nuclear redline. He will have certainly further fortified his credentials for the Nobel Peace Prize he won while pouring more soldiers into Afghanistan, kissed Saudi king’s hand like a subject as he showcased Saudi Arabia and Egypt as examples of progress, looked the other way in Egypt and Bahrain while endorsing a war on oil-rich Libya without actually getting into one. Never mind untold atrocities ongoing in various parts of Central Asia endorsed in the ever filthy game of oil.
The good news in this sea of deception of the last three-plus decades that started with ‘devolution of 79’ and election of Reagan’, as Margaret Thatcher expressed so casually a few years back, is the Occupy Movement. It may not show its full impact on 2012 elections, but it will mature as more Americans start smelling the fumes as the great hoax unravels, and starts reclaiming American democracy. The crescendo of the Occupy Movement will take a while but it almost has to end in murder. A very high profile murder of the most prominent and well protected the history of democracy. Liberal democracy died a long time ago but without an occupy-type of success, democracy has no hope at all; any form of democracy.
Fortunes of Iran and America seem to be tied in a strange twist of fate. Perhaps that explains why Iranians in America have fared so well as a population. We are more alike than different and our mutual is different kinds of slide of past three decades is not all coincidental.
Now do you think anyone else is going to win the 2012 presidential elections?
