How Many Clinton Retreads Does It Take to Screw Up an Obama Administration?
Kevin Gosztola
While I suppose many Obama supporters and fans have not been vetting Obama’s picks for his staff and his Cabinet, I have by going through Internet databases and Google to find information on any person Obama has selected to be part of his administration. And, it appears that Americans who wanted real change have been deluded. Not tricked but deluded.
Now, there is a virtual one-stop shop for anyone interested in Obama’s prescription for change. Written by Jeremy Scahill, this piece titled, “This Is Change? 20 Hawks, Clintonites and Neocons to Watch for in Obama's White House” details all the people posed to shape Obama’s foreign policy. As for Obama’s economic policy, it looks like Obama will be tapping in to Robert Rubin & Co. and will be utilizing Rubinomics when establishing economic policy. Rubin is responsible for repealing the Glass-Steagall Act, which enabled commercial to underwrite and trade instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations. (This in layman’s terms means the repeal is partly responsible for the current financial meltdown.)
It’s not like a significant portion of America didn’t see this coming. It’s just that less than 5% had the fortitude to not choose John McCain or Obama on Election Day and instead vote for a third party candidate like Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, Bob Barr, or Chuck Baldwin. Throughout the election, this sliver of the American population continuously tried to compel Obama supporters and members of Obama’s fan club to force him to earn their vote and were brushed off or snubbed. Voters who considered voting for a candidate other than Obama or McCain based on the fact that Obama and McCain had yet to earn their vote were mocked and derided. As Chris Hedges detailed recently in his must-read piece, “America the Illiterate”, Americans, even peace, justice, and freedom activists whose agenda was and still is at odds with Obama, were bought off by “slogans, smiles, the cheerful family tableaux, narratives and the perceived sincerity and the attractiveness” of a candidate. Many Americans made small contributions to Obama’s campaign despite the fact that private entities like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Latham & Watkins, Time Warner, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Microsoft, General Electric, Google Inc., and News Corp were donating hundreds of thousands of dollars. In fact, while the Obama campaign made a big to-do out of the small contributions, the Washington Post reported this on October 22nd: Lost in the attention given to Obama's Internet surge is that only a quarter of the $600 million he has raised has come from donors who made contributions of $200 or less, according to a review of his FEC reports. That is actually slightly less, as a percentage, than President Bush raised in small donations during his 2004 race, although Obama has pulled from a far larger number of donors. In 2004, the Bush campaign claimed more than 2 million donors, while the Obama campaign claims to have collected its total from more than 3.1 million individuals. Dear Obama supporters, was Obama promising change we could believe in or change we needed to small contributors or big donors, which donated to the Obama for America Fund and then the Obama Victory Fund and then forced the Obama campaign to open a third fund, the Committee for Change, so that donors which had already donated tens of thousands of dollars could donate tens of thousands of dollars more? Ask yourself, just what did these big donors hope to get? I mean, Obama supporters may not have thought about this but bipartisanship and unity and making Washington work are all things that the private sector may have been hoping for. Corporations need a government willing to unite and not engage in partisanship so that gridlock does not prevent deregulations and bills which benefit Big Business from being stalled. We can’t have that next big bailout being stalled in the House or Senate now, can we? Let’s be honest. Delusions of grandeur, visions of hope and change, filled the hearts and minds of America’s electorate and Americans having been through Bush gladly bought into these delusions. Few prepared for this moment otherwise many Americans especially bloggers and Internet news writers would be talking about who they think should be an Obama Cabinet like In These Times did at the end of September when they published their two-part piece, “22 to Know: Our Picks for an Obama Cabinet.” Had progressives and liberals been organized and less invested in a candidate who was at odds with many of their beliefs and values, they would be out in the streets like they were when Bush was planning to go to war in Iraq right now, and they would be demanding that this policy change opportunity not be squandered
Instead, it has been proven once again that Americans rarely respond to policy change opportunities and most often only respond politically to policy change threats. What’s the most vibrant political action in America right now? Prop 8 protests. And why? Because the measure takes away a right previously granted to residents in the state.
The current situation just lends credence to the hypothesis that Obama won because people were afraid of more war and more economic collapse if McCain won.
Such a hypothesis is one that I wish is not proven to be true, but if it does prove to be true, I will not be surprised.
Americans have this opportunity, this Obama, and yet, it seems that the vast majority have disengaged themselves. I want to tell myself that Obama supporters and Obama fan club members weren’t just hoping Obama would beat McCain and end the era of Bush. I want to tell myself that Obama supporters and Obama fan club members voted for Obama because they had in mind an agenda that they wanted to see pursued for the next four to eight years. Yet, as I see Clinton retreads filling key positions that could have powerful influence over the kind of change Americans see in the next four to eight years, I think to myself that many just wanted to win---they wanted victory. Americans wanted an end to the desperation they felt throughout the past eight years. Forget that on Election Night, Chris Matthews reported on MSNBC: CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC ANCHOR: I talked to one of the top Obama people in Chicago today to try to get some reporting on what a transition might look like. There are three watch words to this new team that's going to be formed in the next couple of weeks to run the country. One is bipartisan. In fact, that's the number one hallmark of what they're going to try to do, is put together a bipartisan government. Number two, diversity. Of course it's going to be a diverse government, not just an African-American president, but a truly diverse government that is going to be formed. And third, youth and no retreads. They're not going to bring back people from previous administrations to try to rebuild something old that was around before. That will rub some people the wrong way, but I think it's fascinating they've already figured out what they want. They want something bipartisan, diverse and new. And they're going to try to make this work. And the people who apparently are going to play the role in putting this together are John Podesta, who worked, of course, with Bill Clinton in the transition, Pete Rouse, his chief of staff in the Senate, and Valerie Jarrett, who was on tonight. Those three people apparently given the lead positions in trying to put this thing together. It's going to be one rock-em, sock-em news story for the next three months. It's going to be bigger than the election, the building of this new administration. If it's truly going to be brand-new with youth and no retreads and diversity and bipartisanship, I think that hand that was reached out from John McCain tonight is really important and the hand that was reached back, because John McCain is the best there is at reaching across the aisle, and Barack Obama hasn't done that yet. This is his chance to reach over and do it, with the strong hand that he's got from this incredible mandate from the voters. I only wish Obama and his transition team were filling the Cabinet and other jobs in the administration right now with that criteria in mind Who did Obama supporters think would be in the Obama Administration if “No Drama” Obama was going to bring unity and bipartisanship to Washington? All along it was going to be Clinton retreads. So, the question that must be asked right now is this: How many Clinton retreads does it take to screw up an Obama Administration?
Better, how many Clinton retreads does it take before Americans become critical of Obama? Obama needs the people to raise their voices high and utter constructive criticism.
This man hopes to bring change to Washington without being a challenging and transformative personality.
What do you think of that?
Stay Tuned...There's a part 2 on it's way.
Kevin Gosztola goes to Columbia College in Chicago where he is studying film. He hopes to become a documentary filmmaker. He is currently working as a production assistant on a documentary called "Seriously Green" which traces the development of the Green Party throughout the 2008 election. He has a passion for journalism and writes articles or press releases in his spare time. Kevin Gosztola is also a student activist who believes in questioning the way America's systems work(its electoral system, its military-industrial complex, its foreign policy of American exceptionalism, its media which has become the Fourth Branch of government,etc.)
His ambitions have him currently organizing and raising money for a Chicago Conference for Media Reform in April or May of 2009. It will be organized by college students to promote youth involvement in media reform and justice. Those interested in attending or helping with the organization of the program should contact him.
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www.opednews.com/articles/How-Many-Clinton-Retreads-by-Kevin-Gosztola-081122-184.html