Obama’s team: A right-wing cabinet for a government of big business

Dandelion Salad

By Patrick Martin
http://www.wsws.org
19 January 2009

In advance of his inauguration, President-elect Barack Obama has assembled a cabinet drawn from the upper echelons of American society and the right-wing of the Democratic Party. Despite his invocations of “change,” his appeals to antiwar sentiment and to young people in the course of nearly two years of campaigning, there is not a single figure in the leading personnel of the Obama administration drawn from the more liberal elements of the Democratic Party, let alone anyone representative of the broad masses of working people and youth.

The right-wing character of Obama’s nominees is described by the media under the approving labels of “centrist,” “moderate,” and—most of all—“pragmatic.” This terminology signifies that the incoming Obama team consists entirely of individuals who pass muster with the corporate-financial elite. There is not a whiff of genuine oppositional sentiment, let alone political radicalism, among the lot of them.

[…]

via Obama’s team: A right-wing cabinet for a government of big business

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

see

“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”

Under Obama, feds may still snoop library files

Betraying the Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King by Andrew Hughes

Obama-Barack

Book Review: “We Hold These Truths” by Richard C. Cook

by Josh Sidman
Dandelion Salad
featured writer
January 19, 2009

I was recently asked by the administrator of Dandelion Salad, a news and politics website that I contribute to regularly, to review a book written by another contributor to the site. The book is entitled We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform and deals with a subject that I have written about at great length. While the author and I disagree about what should be done, we both agree that there is a fundamental flaw in our monetary system and that any attempts to repair our financial system that ignore the nature of money itself are bound to fail.

Anyone wishing to order a copy of the book can do so here.

———-

“Credit should really be viewed as a publicly-regulated utility like water, clean air, or electricity.” For this thought alone, Mr. Cook’s book is worth reading.

The main thesis of the book is that by improperly ceding control of credit creation to private financial institutions, the government has abdicated its responsibility to govern this all-important tool for the benefit of society at large. The private institutions which enjoy an unfair monopoly on credit creation use it to siphon off a portion of our national productivity, thereby leaving us with a perpetually unbalanced financial situation which necessarily results in an ever-increasing debt burden hanging over the real economy.

Planet of Lost Souls by Mickey Z.

Dandelion Salad

by Mickey Z.
Foreign Policy Journal
January 19, 2009

“For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” – Matthew 16:26

I wasn’t supposed to be born. After my mother gave birth to my sister, the doctors told her she’d never have another child. They couldn’t say exactly why (later, she was diagnosed with endometriosis) but they were pretty damn certain…the way doctors tend to be pretty damn certain. Wisely, my mother ignored such white coat condescension and less than two years later, yours truly arrived on the scene. Mom called me her “miracle baby” and I think this played a role in the amazingly close relationship we always had.

[…]

Again, so incredibly basic but within that simplicity lies the secret: If we were to look upon all living things as part—along with ourselves—of one collective soul, it becomes impossible to live in denial about war, global poverty and disease, oppression, the destruction of our eco-system, etc. It becomes unbearable to visualize animals in a slaughterhouse, a laboratory, a circus, or a zoo. For anyone dwelling anywhere near the realm of reality, it is downright excruciating to contemplate 80% of the world’s forest and 90% of the large fish in the ocean being gone. If we are indeed “all part of one big soul,” as Tom Joad wonders, how can we not weep uncontrollably when—on this planet of abundant resources—a human being starves to death every two seconds?

[…]

via “Planet of Lost Souls” by Mickey Z.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Chomsky: Undermining Gaza

Dandelion Salad

by Sameer Dossani
Editor: Emily Schwartz Greco
Foreign Policy In Focus http://www.fpif.org
January 16, 2009

Noam Chomsky is a noted linguist, author, and foreign policy expert. Sameer Dossani interviewed him about the conflict between Israel and Gaza.

DOSSANI: The Israeli government and many Israeli and U.S. officials claim that the current assault on Gaza is to put an end to the flow of Qassam rockets from Gaza into Israel. But many observers claim that if that were really the case, Israel would have made much more of an effort to renew the ceasefire agreement that expired in December, which had all but stopped the rocket fire. In your opinion, what are the real motivations behind the current Israeli action?

CHOMSKY: There’s a theme that goes way back to the origins of Zionism. And it’s a very rational theme: “Let’s delay negotiations and diplomacy as long as possible, and meanwhile we’ll ‘build facts on the ground.'” So Israel will create the basis for what some eventual agreement will ratify, but the more they create, the more they construct, the better the agreement will be for their purposes. Those purposes are essentially to take over everything of value in the former Palestine and to undermine what’s left of the indigenous population.

[…]

via Foreign Policy In Focus | Chomsky: Undermining Gaza.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

see

Prof. Noam Chomsky Speaks at the “Chomsky on Gaza” Public Forum + Obama’s Foreign Policy

Israel-Palestine-Gaza-Occupation

Gaza Crisis Appeal

Change from the bottom up

Dandelion Salad

SocialistWorker.org
January 19, 2009 | Issue 688

The time is now to start translating the hopes and expectations of change into action.

THE BUSH days are finally over–dramatically put to an end by the first African American president of a country built on slavery.

With Barack Obama’s inauguration as president on January 20, there will be another wave of the kind of celebration that could be found in cities across the country on Election Night–not only marking the end of a hated regime, but of the history made by its successor.

Millions of people are counting on getting a hearing from the new White House. And that has the new White House…a little worried. Members of the new administration have admitted to the press that they fear hopes in Obama may be running too high–that the millions who celebrated his victory may expect too much, too soon.

In a recent interview, Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said, “You don’t need to have demonstrations in front of the White House to convince this president that there is a disparate impact in the African American community around issues such as health care and education. He’s got that.”

Jarrett’s message appears to contradict the message that Obama carried throughout his campaign–that organizing from the bottom up was the key to progress. “We’re the change we’ve been waiting for,” Obama often said.

Teaching Creation or Evolution? Or Both? By Roland Michel Tremblay

By Roland Michel Tremblay
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
The Marginal
19 January, 2009

Let’s be controversial. When I lived in Los Angeles, there was this huge national debate about what to teach those children in school all over America: creation or evolution? It seemed that there was no place for both, as if we could not trust our children to make their own mind out of several possibilities. As if there was urgency at an early age to brainwash them into something, by presenting them a ready made set of beliefs for them to take as the absolute truth. No one should choose what should be taught. Everything should be taught. This is the sign of great nations.

I used to only believe in evolution, but no longer, isn’t this a miracle? Before you call me a traitor, let me explain. I’m not sure why creation and evolution are supposed to be at such opposite ends. In my mind there could easily have been a creation, followed by an evolution. Creation never had to be instantaneous, or do we have to take the Bible literally and creation could only have been spontaneous? And even then, is it not possible that a spontaneous creation could still show all the signs of a proper evolution? It would be a first requirement, if this reality was to make any sense at all.

“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”

Dandelion Salad

The Who: Won’t get fooled again

filmed in 1978

The Best Of – Home Of Classic Music on Nov 1, 2012

Olmert: Massive weapons smuggling from Iran and Syria to Hamas

Note: Propaganda Alert

compiled by Cem Ertür
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
19 January, 2009

1) Hamas announces week-long ceasefire in Gaza

2) Leaders pledge to end arms smuggling

3) Olmert: Hamas an offshoot of Iran

4) Text of U.S.-Israel agreement to end Gaza arms smuggling

5) Presentation of the wishes of the Diplomatic corps;  Speech by the President of France Nicolas Sarkozy

—————————–

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5542830.ece

excerpt from ‘Hamas announces week-long ceasefire in Gaza’

by Martin Fletcher and Azmi Keshawi, Times, 19 January 2009

[UK Prime Minister Mr Gordon] Brown said British naval vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden would help to intercept weapons from countries like Iran. “This fragile ceasefire has got to be followed immediately, if it is to be sustainable, by humanitarian access . . . by troop withdrawals, by an end to arms trafficking,” he said.

———————–

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1232275662182

excerpt from ‘Leaders pledge to end arms smuggling’

Under Obama, feds may still snoop library files

Dandelion Salad

Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
http://www.sfgate.com
Saturday, January 17, 2009

President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee for attorney general has endorsed an extension of the law that allows federal agents to demand Americans’ library and bookstore records as part of terrorism probes, dismaying a national group of independent booksellers.

Eric Holder said at his confirmation hearing Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee that he supports renewing a section of the USA Patriot Act that allows FBI agents investigating international terrorism or espionage to seek records from businesses, libraries and bookstores. If not renewed by Congress, the provision will expire at the end of 2009.

The searches must be authorized by a court that meets secretly and has approved the government’s requests in nearly all cases, according to congressional reports. The target of the search does not have to be suspected of terrorism or any other crime. A permanent gag order that accompanies each search prohibits the business or library from telling anyone about it.

[…]

via Under Obama, feds may still snoop library files.

h/t: ICH

see

Pepe Escobar: Where is the special prosecutor? + Turley discusses Holder, torture, FISA

Domestic Spying on Dandelion Salad