Get Ready for the Obama/GOP Alliance

[Joanne98]

by Jeff Cohen

With Obama pushing a huge troop escalation in Afghanistan, history may well repeat itself with a vengeance. And it's not just the apt comparison to LBJ, who destroyed his presidency on the battlefields of Vietnam with an escalation that delivered power to Nixon and the GOP.

There's another frightening parallel: Obama seems to be following in the footsteps of Bill Clinton, who accomplished perhaps his single biggest legislative "triumph" - NAFTA - thanks to an alliance with Republicans that overcame strong Democratic and grassroots opposition.

It was 16 years ago this month when Clinton assembled his coalition with the GOP to bulldoze public skepticism about the trade treaty and overpower a stop-NAFTA movement led by unions, environmentalists and consumer rights groups. How did Clinton win his majority in Congress? With the votes of almost 80 percent of GOP senators and nearly 70 percent of House Republicans. Democrats in the House voted against NAFTA by more than 3 to 2, with fierce opponents including the Democratic majority leader and majority whip.

To get a majority today in Congress on Afghanistan, the Obama White House is apparently bent on a strategy replicating the tragic farce that Clinton pulled off: Ignore the informed doubts of your own party while making common cause with extremist Republicans who never accepted your presidency in the first place.

"Deather" conspiracists are not new to the Grand Old Party. Clinton engendered a similar loathing on the right despite his centrist, corporate-friendly policies. When conservative Republican leaders like Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey delivered to Clinton (and corporate elites) the NAFTA victory, it didn't slow down rightwing operatives who circulated wacky videos accusing Clinton death squads of murdering reporters and others.

For those who elected Obama, it's important to remember the downward spiral that was accelerated by Clinton's GOP alliance to pass NAFTA. It should set off alarm bells for us today on Afghanistan.

NAFTA was quickly followed by the debacle of Clinton healthcare "reform" largely drafted by giant insurance companies, which was followed by a stunning election defeat for Congressional Democrats in November 1994, as progressive and labor activists were lethargic while rightwing activists in overdrive put Gingrich into the Speaker's chair.

A year later, advised by his chief political strategist Dick Morris (yes, the Obama-basher now at Fox), Clinton declared: "The era of big government is over." In the coming years, Clinton proved that the era of big business was far from over - working with Republican leaders to grant corporate welfare to media conglomerates (1996 Telecom Act) and investment banks (1999 abolition of the Glass-Steagall Act).

Today, it's crucial to ask where Obama is heading. From the stimulus to healthcare, he's shown a Clinton-like willingness to roll over progressives in Congress on his way to corrupt legislation and frantic efforts to compromise for the votes of corporate Democrats or "moderate" Republicans. Meanwhile, the incredible shrinking "public option" has become a sick joke.

As he glides from retreats on civil liberties to health reform that appeases corporate interests to his Bush-like pledge this week to "finish the job" in Afghanistan, an Obama reliance on Congressional Republicans to fund his troop escalation could be the final straw in disorienting and demobilizing the progressive activists who elected him a year ago.

Throughout the centuries, no foreign power has been able to "finish the job" in Afghanistan, but President Obama thinks he's a tough enough Commander-in-Chief to do it. Too bad he hasn't demonstrated such toughness in the face of obstructionist Republicans and corporate lobbyists. For them, it's been more like "compromiser-in-chief."

When you start in the center (on, say, healthcare or Afghanistan) and readily move rightward several steps to appease rightwing politicians or lobbyists or Generals, by definition you are governing as a conservative.

It's been a gradual descent from the elation and hope for real change many Americans felt on election night, November 2008. For some of us who'd scrutinized the Clinton White House in the early 1990s, the buzz was killed days after Obama's election when he chose his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, a top Clinton strategist and architect of the alliance that pushed NAFTA through Congress.

continued>>>
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/25-0

[zipplewrath]

1. Expresses the fears

This really is the fear of many progressives that lived through the Clinton years. DADT and DOMA as well as welfare "reform" and NAFTA all occured during a democratic White House. Some should really understand that we've been through this before and the signs are hard to ignore.

It's probably not fair to Obama, and this article is a tad over the top, but it does illuminate the worries that many of us had from the moment he honored Rick Warren. "Oh, no, here we go again". And for those of use who lived through LBJ, it's really "thrice burnt, 100 times shy".

[ingac70]

2. Repubs are not going to align with Obama on a damn thing.

They will find reasons to tear him down and bitch even when he is doing what they want.

[boomerbust]

3. LBJ and Obama

If I recall I think LBJ lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident and then escalated, and I think Obama is trying to clean up the mess of being taken to war based on lies. Two completely different situations.

[truedelphi]

7. Bill Moyers, who was LBJ's point man on media,

Doesn't think that at all.

You need to check out his program from last Friday about this very matter. Moyers talked for a brief moment or two about the many similarities between the situation that LBJ faced in 1965 with what Obama is trying to sort out currently.

you can watch the program, from last Friday, here:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11202009/watch.html

Also, I was extremely fortunate in getting to see Daniel Ellsberg in person, after watching the new documentary out about him. And from what the film indicated, LBJ didn't lie about the Gulf of Tonkin. He was told that the incident happened. In fact, the reason that the 7,000 pieces of paper that Ellsberg released as the "Pentagon Papers" - those papers had been marked "Top Secret" and kept classified not to keep the American pulbic in the dark about what was going down in Vietnam, but to keep LBJ uninformed!

[Demeter]

8. Obama's Going to Shill for the Liars on Iran, Instead

He doesn't have to cover the ground Cheney already plowed.

[corpseratemedia]

4. so he's going to "finish the job" that others couldn't do with the Taliban

while AQ is now wreaking havoc in Pakistan and engaging with NATO forces and Pakistani forces and our proxy corporate army blackwater, while many in the Pakistani forces are sympathetic with AQ.

All the while our nice soft outsourced underbelly IT infrastructure sits right next door.

Since religious radicals don't care about life or actively pursue mass death, I'm sure Obama is certain that once we "defeat" the Taliban, AQ will just focus on trying to get at our forces back there in AF, like, we'll luuuure them back in. They certainly won't go towards our massive achilles heel. Since they, in their hearts, will react like the enemy in a conventional war.:sarcasm:

India will just hold back if that occurs. If we sweet talk them enough, maybe send them more infrastructure. The muslim world will not unite with kashmir in the picture, because they believe that our reps are so truthful and fair and considerate, like we were destroying that other place:sarcasm:

No nuclear pandora's box there.:sarcasm:

yeah, it's tinfoily and probably won't happen. I'm sure our strategurists are stratigurizing that it won't. Even though for religious zealots apocalypse is all they want. :tinfoilhat:

[truedelphi]

6. if Obama's advisers think this is just Iraq Part Two, they will be amazed at how wrong they are

The Muslim world did not care all that much about the Iraqis. But Afghanistan is their home turf, and they will send in people from all over the globe for this one.

There are over a billion Muslims, while we only have 300 Million people here, most of whom are sick and tired of war.

[FatDave]

10. I thought Saudi Arabia was their home turf.

You know, Mecca, the Kaaba, the Black Stone, all that stuff? :shrug:

[Tutankhamun]

18. What does AQ stand for? AF = Afghanistan?

[frebrd]

5. When I heard "Rahm Emanuel" and "Chief of Staff".......

in the same sentence, it was pretty clear to me where we were headed!

:(

[change_notfinetuning]

11. Rahm Emanuel is the antithesis of hope and change. Nothing says politics

and business as usual like Rahm Emanuel. I also knew where we were headed, when I heard he'd be Chief of Staff, though I was hoping I'd be proven wrong. No such luck.

With Rahm Emanuel, there is no such thing as a line in the sand because there isn't a damn thing that isn't for sale (negotiable). One can only cringe at the thought of what positions he may hold in the future and the power and influence he will have.

[jgraz]

9. You mean besides the one we've had since Jan 20th?

:banghead:

[bvar22]

12. Hey! Don't be bad-mouthing NAFTA!

I'm first in line for a new NAFTA Job.
I've been waiting 16 years, so NAFTA should be kicking in any day now, and all the wonderful prosperity for the Working Class is going to make you look pretty dumb.....

Yep.....any day now!

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Seems to me there are many Democrats to the right of Obama, in Congress

and it's they who are screwing things like decent healthcare reform up, not Obama. It's not as if Obama has the power to expel them from the Democratic party, or stop them running in the Democratic primaries next time. Too many people seem to think Obama is the leader of a parliamentary party.

[showpan]

14. Here is what I found

after a little research. I didn't quite believe it at first, but after seeing all that Bush, Clinton, Bushco and now what Obama has done since in office, I believe we have been hoodwinked. There is a lot more for those who are interested in the truth.

"NAFTA is a major stepping stone to the New World Order."
HENRY KISSINGER" How to Achieve The New
World Order" Title of book excerpt by Henry Kissinger, in Time magazine (March 1994)

"What Congress will have before it is not a conventional trade agreement but the architecture of a new international system....a first step toward a new world order."
HENRY KISSINGER 1993 - July 18: CFR member and Trilateralist writes in The Los Angeles Times concerning NAFTA:

1996 - May 11 Journalist Joan Veon interviews David C. Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World (1995) and former Ford Foundation project specialist in Manila. In this interview, Korten claims that: "the World Trade Organization is creating a world government in which one organization which is totally unelected,
wholly secretive....with the power to virtually override and local or national laws if those in any way inconvenience global corporations....It was a terrible shock (to those of us who supported Bill Clinton) when Clinton came in and GATT and NAFTA became the centerpieces of his policy....And in a sense, there was almost a seamless transition from President Bush to President Clinton in that regard....Our democracy has been rendered meaningless by big money. The truth is there are politicians (who) are owned lock, stock and barrel by the big money interests....Our elections create, to some extent, a facade of choice."

"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans..."
BILL CLINTON (USA TODAY, 11 March 1993, page 2A)

"When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans... and so a lot of people say there's too much personal freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it. That's what we did in
the announcement I made last weekend on the public housing projects, about how we're going to have weapon sweeps and more things like that to try to make people safer in their communities."
PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, 3-22-94, MTV's "Enough is Enough"

"In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty wasn't such a great idea after all."
STROBE TALBOT, Pres. Clinton's Deputy Secretary of State, as quoted in Time, July 20th, l992.

1992 - July 20 Time magazine published "The Birth of the Global Nation" by Strobe Talbott (Rhodes scholar roommate of Bill Clinton at Oxford University, CFR director, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace board of directors member, and Trilateralist from a wealthy Ohio investment banking family), in which he
writes: All countries are basically social arrangements....No matter how permanent or even sacred they may seem at any one time, in fact they are all artificial and temporary....Perhaps national sovereignty wasn't such a great idea after all....But it has taken the events in our own wondrous and terrible century to clinch the case for world government."

1993 - June 22. In case there is any doubt about whether President Clinton(CFR) supports world government, on this date he signs a letter to the World Federalist Association congratulating Strobe Talbott(CFR) on receiving (june 24) the WFA's first "Norman Cousins Global Governance Award." The WFA is a leading force
for world federal government. Clinton's letter states: "Norman Cousins worked for world peace and world government...Strobe Talbott's lifetime achievements as a voice for global harmony have earned him this recognition....He will be a worthy recipient of the Norman Cousins Global Governance Award. Best wishes....for future success."

1994 - May 3: President Clinton signs Presidential Decision Directive 25, which strengthens the U.N. and describes how American soldiers will serve under foreign commanders. PDD25 will only be released to top administration officials and a few member of Congress, the general public is refused access.

"Time and again in this century, the political map of the world was transformed. And in each instance, a new world order came about through the advent of a new tyrant or the outbreak of a bloody global war, or its end."
Feb 28, 1990---this quote is six months before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August.
- Bush Sr.

"Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective--a new world order--can emerge...... We are now in sight of a United Nations that performs as envisioned by its founders." --Bush Sr. Sep 11 1990

Pres Bush delivers an address to Congress titled "Toward a New World Order," regarding the crisis in the Persian Gulf after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August. He will follow this with and October 1 address to the U.N., in which he will speak of the "collective strength of the world community expressed by the U.N....a historic
movement towards a new world order."

"I think what's at stake here is the new world order....a reinvigorated United Nations." - Bush Sr. Jan 7 1991

"(The Gulf crisis) has to do with a new world order. And that world order is only going to be enhanced if this newly activated peacekeeping function of the United nations proves to be effective." - Bush Sr. Jan 9 1991

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GThfWVCfjVo&feature=player_embedded
"The president-elect is coming into office at a moment when there is upheaval in many parts of the world simultaneously," Kissinger responded. "You have India, Pakistan; you have the jihadist movement. So he can't really say there is one problem, that it's the most important one. But he can give new impetus to American foreign policy partly because the reception of him is so extraordinary around the world. His task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period when, really, a new world order can be created. It's a great opportunity, it isn't just a crisis."

Obama and the New World Order....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPr3jT1zyrs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iotc10SGzxY&feature=fvw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tasAu_gkmDQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe7Gf1H0hmg

[Tansy_Gold]

19. Excellent research

The problem with a man like Bill Clinton is that he forgets not everyone is like him. He thinks he's like everybody because he comes from "humble" beginnings, but what gets a man like him out of those humble beginnings is his difference from the other people in them.

So when he moved out of those humble beginnings and started doing things that he thought would help the new Bill Clinton, he also sorta thought they'd help the people who were like the old Bill Clinton. But he'd moved out of those humble beginnings and was thinking like more one of the have-mores, and less like one of the have-nots.

Gee, seems to me the same could be said of Barack Obama. . . . . .....


TG

[classysassy]

15. Mr President

you are getting some awful advice from your advisers.Listen to the wise,discard the unwise advice , trying to win a war in Afghanistan, is very unwise.

[burning rain]

16. Opponents of escalation might see a certain grotesque humor.....

in being accused of "cut and run" and "giving aid and comfort to the enemy," and smeared as traitors under a Democratic administration.

[seeinfweggos]

17. I think you are right, for the most part.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that insurgents ALWAYS win against outside armies. For one you need to know the attitude of the indigeonous non-combatants toward the foreign army and toward the insurgent. The Sunni Awakening/Split with Al Q was certanly a main factor in winding that war down. What are the attitudes of the Afghan people on all of this? If they dispise the Taliban and are willing to put up with us, it is winnable.

What I agree with you the most on is the need to stop killing civilians - though that requires more ground troops.