It's Time to Admit the Obvious: The Political Classes Deliberately Are Blocking an Economic Recovery

by William L. Anderson

These are heady times at the editorial offices of the New York Times and at the Washington, D.C., home of Sojourners. Columnist Thomas Frank of the Wall Street Journal cannot contain his glee, and the editors of The Nation are enraptured. College and university faculty members still are celebrating. Indeed, one would think that "Happy Days are Here Again" is playing over and over wherever there is a music box.

Barack Obama has delivered. He not only has produced a federal budget so profligate that even Paul Krugman has endorsed it, but his actions on the tax-borrow-spend front have earned the praise of none other than God Himself. That’s right, Jim Wallis, the founder and leader of the Marxist organization Sojourners, has studied the highlights of the document and declared them fit for praise from the Almighty. Thus, we finally are seeing the convergence of the atheists and those who say they believe in God: all can worship Obama.

I have scanned many writers and editorial pages and websites that make their home on the Left, and all seem consistent in their praise of the president’s new proposals. After Obama’s recent speech to Congress, Wallis gushed:

This wasn’t really a budget speech, or even a State of the Union. It was a call to rebuild a country – from its infrastructure, to its economy, to its values. Last night, Barack Obama called a new generation to a new American future. And from the "twittering" and Facebook status updates I am aware of going on last night, the new generation stayed up late to watch and got the speech they wanted – a vision for the new America they hope to raise their children in.

Lest one think that Wallis was enjoying just a momentary flash of glee, read on:

Some people don’t like strong leadership. I do. And this is the kind of leadership that calls and inspires people to act themselves and be part of the solutions we need. I like that too. And it’s a new kind of leadership that invites being held accountable to results. That’s fair.

Obama has a vision and last night offered a road map. And he invited citizens across the political spectrum to bring their own ideas but to join the journey and stop standing by the side of the road with their arms folded in critique. Disagreement comes with a responsibility to offer better ideas, says this president.

The words of Ty’Sheoma, a school girl from South Carolina, sitting in the gallery next to Michelle Obama, were lifted up by President Obama last night. She wrote the Congress to ask for help for her school but wanted them to know, "We are not quitters."

Furthermore, lest one thinks that Wallis is speaking only for himself, read these recent words from Paul Krugman:

Elections have consequences. President Obama’s new budget represents a huge break, not just with the policies of the past eight years, but with policy trends over the past 30 years. If he can get anything like the plan he announced on Thursday through Congress, he will set America on a fundamentally new course.

The budget will, among other things, come as a huge relief to Democrats who were starting to feel a bit of postpartisan depression. The stimulus bill that Congress passed may have been too weak and too focused on tax cuts. The administration’s refusal to get tough on the banks may be deeply disappointing. But fears that Mr. Obama would sacrifice progressive priorities in his budget plans, and satisfy himself with fiddling around the edges of the tax system, have now been banished.

As the Obama administration continues on its legislative and political path, I think that we have to re-frame the terms of the argument. For most people, the dispute supposedly is over the way to an economic recovery. On one side, there is the Keynesian demand that we spend out way out of the crisis, and the recent Nobel Prize conferred on Krugman, who is the loudest and most prominent spokesman for this policy prescription, supposedly lends this path some legitimacy.

On the other side, there are people like Peter Schiff and the Austrian Economists and mainstream economists like Robert Barro, who say that the government’s "solution" is upside down and is making the economic crisis worse. Writes Barro:

Given our situation, it is right that radical government policies should be considered if they promise to lower the probability and likely size of a depression. However, many governmental actions – including several pursued by Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression – can make things worse.

I wish I could be confident that the array of U.S. policies already in place and those likely forthcoming will be helpful. But I think it more likely that the economy will eventually recover despite these policies, rather than because of them.

As one who admires Schiff and others who have spoken out and told the truth – and I believe they are correct – I believe that it is time for us to understand a basic truth that is coming out of the new regime: There is not going to be a recovery, and that is just fine with Obama and the political classes that now have a death grip on our lives.

This is a harsh and seemingly conspiratorial statement, and people who know me know that I am extremely skeptical of "conspiracy theories," yet here I am peddling what some very well might call a "conspiracy theory." Do I believe that what Washington is doing is a diabolical plot aimed at fundamentally changing the U.S. economy in a way that economic depression will be a permanent way of life?

In a word, yes. The Obama and Democratic proposals are not simply economic documents. They are fundamentally political in nature and they reflect an understanding that few people have of the Great Depression.

When people discuss the Great Depression, it usually is in the context of whether or not the New Deal was "successful." Economists such as Robert Higgs and Murray Rothbard have argued that it was not, and Barro’s comments above add to that side of the discussion. On the other hand, we have a recent article in Salon which claimed that the New Deal produced "spectacular" economic growth, and we also have Krugman’s columns which claim that the only problem with the New Deal was that Franklin Roosevelt did not spend enough money because the "conservatives" had his ear.

Now, I go with the first group. The New Deal was an unqualified economic failure, if one judges economic "success" by things like unemployment rates, private investment, real output, and the move of people from lives of poverty to lives of plenty. Unemployment stayed in double digits throughout the decade, many people lived in poverty, and the economic output never did match what it had been during the 1920s.

However, I have to add something that most people leave out of the discussion: the New Deal was an unqualified political success, and it was successful precisely because it blocked the economic recovery. This is counter-intuitive, I realize. I have heard discussion in the halls of my university that the public will lose patience with Obama and the Democrats if they don’t deliver and "political guru" Dick Morris even predicts that further economic failure will result in the Republicans gaining political strength.

Don’t count on it. During the 1930s, the Roosevelt administration never had to worry about losing political power, and it held and added to its political majorities. Roosevelt even won a third term of office although the first eight years of his presidency had barely moved the rate of unemployment below what it had been during the worst days of the Herbert Hoover administration.

This spectacular run of political power did not come in spite of the economic crisis; it came because of it. The crisis never ended, and that provided vast opportunities for the political classes in Washington to add to their power over the lives of individuals.

We have to remember that with the exception of the U.S. entry into World War I, most Americans had little contact with governments, and especially the federal government. They lived their lives mostly employed in private business, and with their own families and private associations like churches and clubs.

The Great Depression and the New Deal changed all of that. Americans who once had held jobs that were lifting them from poverty now had to depend upon the pittance of money they received from Washington to keep them from sliding off into economic oblivion. The Works Progress Administration might have paid very little, but whatever money these people received helped to keep them alive for another month.

As James Couch and William Shughart have pointed out in their book, The Political Economy of the New Deal, the Roosevelt administration understood the political power that it had and, more important, the power that it held over the very survival of individuals and their families. In previous times, people could have ignored what was going on in Washington, but during the years of the New Deal, that no longer was possible.

Indeed, they were utterly dependent upon the political classes in Washington and that meant voting "for the right people." In his recent Christmas Day column, Krugman claimed that the Roosevelt administration was nonpolitical in its economic spending, and provided a roadmap for "good government." The meticulous research of Couch and Shughart exposes Krugman’s claim for the Big Lie that it is. Indeed, the New Deal was a vast vote-buying scheme created and maintained for one purpose: keeping Roosevelt and his party in power, and it succeeded beyond expectations.

We know that Obama and his political minions have been reading all about FDR and the New Deal, and we also know they have not been reading Murray Rothbard or Ludwig von Mises. They know all about how FDR and the New Dealers manipulated policies and continuously blocked an economic recovery that would not come about until after Roosevelt was dead and government spending was reduced drastically.

The key to holding power, however, is blocking an economic recovery and having an economy in which double-digit unemployment is the norm. Don’t think that this would trigger a revolt from the American voters. Once the voters have come to believe that their own futures are tied to the whims of the political classes, they will vote their personal security. Furthermore, the administration and Congress will do everything possible to further empower labor unions, and we can look for huge inroads as the government simply will declare that businesses and organizations become unionized – or else. Organized labor is a political creation, and that means that every working individual is going to constantly be scrutinized for political loyalties – if that person wants to keep his or her job.

A true economic recovery would strengthen businesses and families, but it would do so at the expense of the power of the political classes. Such a state of affairs no longer is acceptable in Washington, and Obama and his friends are going to make sure that we don’t forget that either.

The key to holding power, however, is blocking an economic recovery and having an economy in which double-digit unemployment is the norm. Don’t think that this would trigger a revolt from the American voters. Once the voters have come to believe that their own futures are tied to the whims of the political classes, they will vote their personal security. Furthermore, the administration and Congress will do everything possible to further empower labor unions, and we can look for huge inroads as the government simply will declare that businesses and organizations become unionized – or else. Organized labor is a political creation, and that means that every working individual is going to constantly be scrutinized for political loyalties – if that person wants to keep his or her job.

During the 1930s, the New Dealers said that the high rates of unemployment were due to the fact that the U.S. economy was "mature." I have not heard that term used just yet, but I am sure that sooner or later, we are going to be told that double-digit unemployment is going to be the permanent state of things, and that if we want employment, we have to make sure that the "right people" are happy with us.

William L. Anderson, Ph.D. [send him mail], teaches economics at Frostburg State University in Maryland, and is an adjunct scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He also is a consultant with American Economic Services.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson240.html

Copyright © 2009 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

William Anderson Archives

The Politics Of Bollocks

By John Pilger

February 06, 2009 "Information Clearinghouse" --- Growing up in an Antipodean society proud of its rich variety of expletives, I never heard the word bollocks. It was only on arrival in England that I understood its majesterial power. All classes used it. Judges grunted it; an editor of the Daily Mirror used it as noun, adjective and verb. Certainly, the resonance of a double vowel saw off its closest American contender. It had authority.

A high official with the Gilbertian title of Lord West of Spithead used it to great effect on 27 January. The former admiral, who is security adviser to Gordon Brown, was referring to Tony Blair's famous assertion that invading countries and killing innocent people did not increase the threat of terrorism at home.

"That was clearly bollocks," said his lordship, who warned of the perceived "linkage between the US, Israel and the UK" in the horrors inflicted on Gaza and the effect on the recruitment of terrorists in Britain. In other words, he was stating the obvious: that state terrorism begets individual or group terrorism at source. Just as Blair was the prime mover of the London bombings of 7 July 2005, so Brown, having pursued the same cynical crusades in Muslim countries and having armed and disported himself before the criminal regime in Tel Aviv, will share responsibility for related atrocities at home.

There is a lot of bollocks about at the moment.

The BBC's explanation for banning an appeal on behalf of the stricken people of Gaza is a vivid example. Mark Thompson, the director general, cited the BBC's legal requirement to be "impartial... because Gaza is a major ongoing news story in which humanitarian issues... are both at the heart of the story and contentious."

In a letter to Thompson, David Bracewell, illuminated the deceit behind this. He pointed to previous BBC appeals for the Disasters Emergency Committee that were not only made in the midst of "an ongoing news story" in which humanitarian issues were "contentious", but demonstrated how the BBC took sides. In 1999, at the height of the illegal Nato bombing of Serbia and Kosovo, the TV presenter Jill Dando made an appeal on behalf of Kosovar refugees. The BBC web page for that appeal was linked to numerous articles meant to support the gravity of the humanitarian issue. These included quotations from Blair himself, such as "This will be a daily pounding until [Slobodan Milosevic] comes into line with the terms that Nato has laid down." There was no significant balance of view from the Yugoslav side, and not a single mention that the flight of Kosovar refugees began only after Nato had started bombing. Similarly, in an appeal for the victims of the civil war in the Congo, the BBC favoured the regime of Joseph Kabila without referring to the Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and other reports accusing his forces of atrocities. In contrast, the rebel leader Nkunda was "accused of committing atrocities" and was ordained the BBC's bad guy. Kabila, who represented western interests, was clearly the good guy – just like Nato in the Balkans and Israel in the Middle East.

While Mark Thompson and his satraps richly deserve the Lord West of Spithead Bollocks Blue Ribbon, that honour goes to the cheer squad of President Barack Obama, whose cult-like obeisance goes on and on.

On 23 January, the Guardian's front page declared, "Obama shuts network of CIA 'ghost prisons' ". The "wholesale deconstruction [sic] of George Bush's war on terror", said the report, had been ordered by the new president who would be "shutting down the CIA's secret prison network, banning torture and rendition...".

The bollocks quotient on this was so high that it read like the press release it was, citing "officials briefing reporters at the White House yesterday". Obama's orders, according to a group of 16 retired generals and admirals who attended a presidential signing ceremony, "would restore America's moral standing in the world". What moral standing? It never ceases to astonish that experienced reporters can transmit PR stunts like this, bearing in mind the moving belt of lies from the same source under only nominally different management.

Far from "deconstructing [sic] the war on terror", Obama is clearly pursuing it with the same vigour, ideological backing and deception as the previous administration. George W. Bush's first war, in Afghanistan, and last war, in Pakistan, are now Obama's wars – with thousands more US troops to be deployed, more bombing and more slaughter of civilians. On 22 January, the day he described Afghanistan and Pakistan as "the central front in our enduring struggle against terrorism and extremism", 22 Afghan civilians died beneath Obama's bombs in a hamlet populated mainly by shepherds and which, by all accounts, had not laid eyes on the Taliban. Women and children were among the dead, which is normal.

Far from "shutting down the CIA's secret prison network", Obama's executive orders actually give the CIA authority to carry out renditions, abductions and transfers of prisoners in secret without the threat of legal obstruction. As the Los Angeles Times disclosed, "current and former intelligence officials said the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role." A semantic sleight of hand is that "long term prisons" are changed to "short term prisons"; and while Americans are now banned from directly torturing people, foreigners working for the US are not. This means that America's numerous "covert actions" will operate as they did under previous presidents, with proxy regimes, such as Augusto Pinochet's in Chile, doing the dirtiest work.

Bush's open support for torture, and Donald Rumsfeld's extraordinary personal overseeing of certain torture techniques, upset many in America's "secret army" of subversive military and intelligence operators as it exposed how the system worked. Obama's nominee for director of national intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, has said the Army Field Manual may include new forms of "harsh interrogation", which will be kept secret.

Obama has chosen not to stop any of this. Neither do his ballyhooed executive orders put an end to Bush's assault on constitutional and international law. He has retained Bush's "right" to imprison anyone, without trial or charges. No "ghost prisoners" are being released or are due to be tried before a civilian court. His nominee for attorney-general, Eric Holder, has endorsed an extension of Bush's totalitarian USA Patriot Act, which allows federal agents to demand Americans' library and bookshop records. The man of "change", is changing little. That ought to be front page news from Washington.

The Lord West of Spithead Bollocks Prize (Runner-up) is shared. On 28 January, a national Greenpeace advertisement opposing a third runway at London's Heathrow airport summed up the almost willful naivety that has obstructed informed analysis of the Obama administration. "Fortunately," declared Greenpeace beneath a God-like picture of Obama, "the White House has a new occupant, and he has asked us all to roll back the spectre of a warming planet." This was followed by Obama's rhetorical flourish about "putting off unpleasant decisions". In fact, Obama has made no commitment to curtail the America's infamous responsibility for the causes of global warming. As with Bush and most modern era presidents, it is oil, not stemming carbon emissions, that informs the new administration. Obama's national security adviser, General Jim Jones, a former Nato supreme commander, made his name planning US military control over the exploitation of oil and gas reserves from the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea to the Gulf of Guinea in Africa.

Sharing the Bollocks Runner-up Prize is the Observer, which on 25 January published a major news report headlined, "How Obama set the tone for a new US revolution". This was reminiscent of the Observer almost a dozen years ago when liberalism's other great white hope, Tony Blair, came to power. "Goodbye Xenophobia" was the Observer's post-election front page in 1997 and "The Foreign Office says Hello World, remember us". The government, said the breathless text, would push for "new worldwide rules on human rights and the environment" and implement "tough new limits" on arms sales. The opposite happened. Last year, Britain was the biggest arms dealer in the world; currently it is second only to the United States.

In the Blair mould, the Obama White House "sprang into action" with its "radical plans". The new president's first phone call was to that Palestinian quisling, the unelected and deeply unpopular Mohammed Abbas. There was a "hot pace" and a "new era", in which a notorious name from an ancien regime, Richard Holbrooke, was dispatched to Pakistan. In 1978, Holbrooke betrayed a promise to normalise relations with the Vietnamese on the eve of a vicious embargo that ruined the lives of countless Vietnamese children. Under Obama, the "sense of a new era abroad", declared the Observer, "was reinforced by the confirmation of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state". Clinton has threatened to "entirely obliterate Iran" on behalf of Israel.

What the childish fawning over Obama obscures is the dark power assembled under cover of America's first "post-racial president". Apart from the US, the world's most dangerous state is demonstrably Israel, having recently killed and maimed some 4,000 people in Gaza with impunity. On 10 February, a bellicose Israeli electorate is likely to put Binyamin Netanyahu into power. Netanyahu is a fanatic's fanatic who has made clear his intention of attacking Iran. In the Wall Street Journal on 24 January, he described Iran as the "terrorist mother base" and justified the murder of civilians in Gaza because "Israel cannot accept an Iranian terror base (Gaza) next to its major cities". On 31 January, unaware he was being filmed, Israel's ambassador in Australia described the massacres in Gaza as a "pre-introduction" - dress rehearsal - for an attack on Iran.

For Netanyahu, the reassuring news is that Obama's administration is the most Zionist in living memory – a truth that has struggled to be told from beneath the soggy layers of Obama-love. Not a single member of Obama's team demurred from Obama's support for Israel's barbaric actions in Gaza. Obama himself likened the safety of his two young daughters with that of Israeli children while making not a single reference to the thousands of Palestinian children killed with American weapons - a violation of both international and US law. He did, however, demand that the people of Gaza be denied "smuggled" small arms with which to defend themselves against the world's fourth largest military power. And he paid tribute to the Arab dictatorships, such as Egypt, which are bribed by the US Treasury to help the US and Israel enforce policies described by the United Nations Rapporteur, Richard Falk, a Jew, as "genocidal".

It is time the Obama lovers grew up. It is time those paid to keep the record straight gave us the opportunity to debate informatively. In the 21st century, people power remains a huge and exciting and largely untapped force for change, but it is nothing without truth. "In the time of universal deceit," wrote George Orwell, "telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

www.johnpilger.com

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21912.htm

School Children Complain Of "Obama Worship" During Lessons

Giant images of president projected onto classroom walls disturb kids, parents

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Wednesday, Jan 28th, 2009

Several disturbing stories have come to our attention over the past weeks and days that further highlight how sections of the American population have elevated Barack Obama to a dangerously inflated "messianic" status normally only associated with Royalty or totalitarian leaders.

What makes the following accounts so much more insidious, however, is that they all involve children.

Perhaps the most insidious is to be found on the Tree of Liberty forum where a concerned parent from Las Vegas reveals that his 1st grader son has complained of having to pledge allegiance every day at school to a huge projected image of the new president.

The post reads:

My son, who is in 1st grade, came home yesterday saying that he didn't want to go back to school anymore. So I asked him why? He said that during the Pledge of Allegiance the teacher put up a large image of Obama next to the flag. I asked him if he was sure of this and I suggested to him that maybe the teacher just put up an 8x10 photo of the president. He said, "No, it is a large picture of Obama and when we are done Ms. **** turns off the image." I also asked if they did this for Bush last year? He again said, "No." This was my sons first day back to school since before Christmas, he was on a 5 week track break.

My wife volunteers a couple of days each week with helping out with my sons teacher doing various duties. She said that she would come in early this morning to see what was going on. She just got back and reported that this was true and then some. She said she waited out in the pod area and could see inside 3 of the 5 class rooms in this section of school. She said that when the kids stand each teacher flips on the classroom overhead and a full body image of Obama, with six U.S. flags behind him, comes up about 4 feet away from the flag that hangs on the wall. She said that the image has Obama staring straight at you with no facial expressions, just a serious look. I asked my wife if Obama had his hand over his heart? She said that she was so taken aback by this that she didn't see it. What is worse is she said that all of the kids in each class faced Obama instead of the flag that hangs in the corner.

What the heck is going on?

Guys and gals, I need some advise on how to approach this. I can be somewhat hot headed so I need to plan accordingly with what to say to the principal when we go in to inquire about this. I am sure I will be brushed off so what is my next step? Obviously it will be the school district but then who? ACLU, Veteran groups, Christian groups? Who would be interested in this vile activity?

This is happening in the Clark County School District here in Las Vegas, Henderson area.

Anyone in their right mind will realize that Americans are not supposed to "pledge allegiance" or "service" to a president. The U.S. Constitution, that piece of paper that Obama clumsily swore to defend and protect, states quite clearly that elected representatives are supposed to act in "service" of the people’s best interests, not the other way around.

Imagine the outcry that would have ensued if it had been revealed that huge images of George W Bush were being projected onto the walls of schools every day during his presidency.

Indeed, a similar incident in 2006 did cause waves of consternation when video emerged of children at a so called "Jesus Camp" being asked to worship a life size cutout of Bush.

Seemingly, now that Obama is president this activity is not restricted to "wacky" religious gatherings and is becoming commonplace throughout schools in America.

Another concerned parent relates a similar story on our own PrisonPlanet forum:

I live in Toledo, Ohio & my 3 kids (16, 13 &10) had to watch the inauguration & ceremony in our Toledo Public Schools. My 13 year old daughter is supposed to write a letter to President Obama & my 10 year old is supposed to write 5 facts & 5 opinions on President Obama. what do i tell them so i dont get CSB called on me?

Given that he has been described as the "global leader", it is quite apt that Obama worship is apparently not restricted to U.S. schools. Two weeks ago the Toronto Star reported on how Rowntree Public School now has its own "Obama curriculum" complete with a theme song that "blasts" out the following lyrics from speakers in the school every day:

"Building blocks of a new vow/ A million stops and a new route ..."

Children are asked to complete "Obama video worksheets" while learning all about the president's life, but apparently not what his policies are or even what party he represents.

As part of the curriculum the students were asked to write a letter to the president, which is also featured in the article (see opposite).

The final paragraph states "You are the best because you are the first African American president in the United States of America!" and the children end by promising that they will "always remember your slogan, 'Yes we can!'".

The "Obama curriculum" is clearly not an isolated phenomenon. We have also recently reported on how one teacher has suggested removing from school curriculums all classic novels that explore racial prejudice in society, purely because Obama is now president.

When added to the footage of glassy eyed children singing beautiful melodic songs about Obama (see below) and the now infamous footage of the Obama youth brigade children blindly reciting what their elders have told them to, these stories add up to a disturbing overall trend.

The youth brigades of Nazi Germany and the former Soviet Union are obviously an extreme form of this kind of blind indoctrination, however they were more like scout organizations, their doctrines were never openly instituted in schools!

Perhaps even more disturbing is that there is no significant authoritative pressure pushing this kind of activity in schools. Clearly the teachers instigating the activities in the incidents related above are doing so of their own will, the phenomenon is a cultural one.

The fervor with which Obama is being received by portions of the American public is reaching a frightening level. It has come to the point where the new president is literally being hailed as the anointed savior of humanity.

We have flocks of celebrities encouraging Americans to "pledge service" to Obama, a disturbing notion given the fact that Obama has promised to found a "national civilian security force" and institute forms of compulsory community service for all Americans.

It is one thing for naive adults to buy into such groupthink, but to also subject young children to this, a mentality akin to the desperate prole worship of Big Brother in George Orwell's 1984, is profoundly foreboding for any so called free society.

*******************

Alex Jones’ The Obama Deception — Coming March 15

Alex Jones The Obama Deception will be the first hard-hitting film to expose Obama, his agenda & handlers cutting through all the media hype, side-issues and Left/Right rhetoric. Alex has made several films exposing the Bush agenda and will approach the Obama Administrations plans from the same non-partisan point of view looking past the frontman in the White House to the real owners on Wall Street, in the Bilderberg group and at the Federal Reserve.

Please help spread the word about this powerful new film. Make sure everyone you know whether they claim to be a Democrat, Republican, independent or none of the above sees this film before it is too late. The Obama Deception hits DVD on March 15.

http://www.infowars.net/articles/january2009/280109Obama_worship.htm