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ASCULUM, PART ONE: The Plot Thickens (or Why Am I Not Surprised?)
(A Chicago story… A citizen walks into his alderman’s office looking for a job. “Who sent you?” a staffer asks. “Nobody” he replies. Says the staffer, “We don’t want nobody nobody sent.” Who sent Obama? In exactly four years he’s risen from an unknown state senator to president. That only happens when somebody sends for you. - Sam Smith)
The nature of his administration was evident
as he introduced his transition team and potential members of his cabinet.The individuals selected are fixtures of the economic aristocracy
and the Washington Consensus establishment.
His Transitional Economic Advisory Board consists entirely
of members and representatives of the economic stratosphere -
CEOs, investment bankers, former SEC and Federal Reserve Chairs,
Clinton re-treads, DLC members, lobbyists, slumlords and billionaires.
In particular, the personnel of his economic transition team
and those considered as presidential cabinet appointees
contradict his campaign rhetoric about changing politics
by building a ground-up movement of the American people.
There is not one representative of the unemployed, unions or workers,
consumers or home owners facing foreclosure,
no representative from the NAACP or NOW or those
without the means to keep warm or get healthcare.
He makes not even the pretense of consulting anyone
who represents the American majority
who will be directly affected by his economic policies.
And as a demonstration of his highest priority,
his first post-electoral meeting was with this team made up entirely
of representatives of the Ultra Wealthy class
to shore up the fortunes of their friends at the banks.
His actions since the election are meant to send a message
to Wall St and the Ultra Wealthy that he stands ready to defend
their social interests and personal wealth not only in the U.S.
but abroad via military violence, all at tax payer expense,
clashing with the mandate given him by the American electorate
to reverse neoconservative and Republican politics.
Barack Obama and his transition team are setting the stage
for business as usual, underscoring
the widening gap between the hopes and aspirations
of America’s hopeful majority
and those of the DLC and the Democratic Party’s
praetorian Upper Class Warriors.
He was invented just a few short years ago in anticipation
of foreclosures, job loss, lack of healthcare, inflation,
disappearing retirement accounts, utility shutoffs,
and reactions to decaying infrastructure and education.
They needed to put a new face on the same old agenda
while continuing the American Class War
by a simple repainting of the existing deck chairs
on the luxury liner, United States of America,
and rolling out a tantalizing symbol of change
from behind which Rich White Men continue to rule,
as we slide, here in American Oz,
into the iceberg of their arrogant hubris.
Through unprecedented contributions underwritten primarily
by Wall Street, corporate interests and their big gun attorneys
he became the most heavily-funded presidential candidate in history,
never before achieved by a democratic presidential nominee.
Corporations have invested so much in him
because his State and US Senate voting record,
proves that he can be trusted
to implement their ongoing agenda.
Their 745 million dollar marketing and branding campaign,
relentlessly targeted the American electorate
a small price to pay for the billions they’ll rake in
when he, like FDR, saves capitalism.
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Penny Pritzker, his billionaire fund raiser,
is an American, sub-prime mortgage queen,
who helped develop, introduce and securitize these derivatives
for sale in America and to investors overseas.
