Tag: systemic failure

The public humiliation of President Obama

A sad thing is happening to Barak Obama. As it has during past periods of crisis, the American electorate sought the “necessary man,” a highly qualified leader to assume the powers of the Presidency. Obama has the personal qualities of intellect and character to address the great difficulties facing the nation. But as daily events are beginning to reveal, Obama’s presidency has been betrayed from within. All of the bold measures he promised during his campaign and in recent speeches are being steadily undermined by his own advisers and deputies. How can this be?

Over the last thirty years, the moneyed interests in the United States developed a sophisticated system of recruiting and co-opting large numbers of politically prominent or promising individuals. By means of selective promotions, institutional subsidies, book contracts, and many other forms of professional favoritism, the owner’s of our nation’s wealth, corporations and private fortunes, have effectively bought off the entire set of candidates for national leadership. As Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall said “I don’t care who does the electing as long as I do the nominating.”

The American plutocracy controls the mass media. It controls talk radio. It controls popular entertainment. But, most importantly, it controls the pool of individuals from whom Barak Obama chooses the officers of his administration. The otherwise inexplicable actions of Geithner and Summers are no mystery once one understands that they were recruited to be agents of wealth decades ago. The persistence of the Military Industrial Complex and the likelihood of fresh attempts to raid Social Security are not puzzling once one understands that anyone “qualified” to lead these agencies and survive confirmation hearings is an agent of the plutocracy.

The consequences of this situation are unfortunate for our new President. Having promised vigorous action, his growing impotence in the face of concerted resistance to his policies BY HIS OWN APPOINTEES will result in his public humiliation. The only way out of this trap is to replace the plutocratic hand-puppets in his administration with outsiders who would immediately be labelled as “dangerous,” “radical,” or “fringe” figures, the standard code words used to denounce leaders whose first loyalty is to our republic and not to America’s wealthiest.

Every time one of Obama’s promises to the American people is betrayed by a member of his own administration, our President is humiliated. His popularity will not survive such humiliation, and unless he makes abrupt changes in his inner circle, the hope he promised our nation will prove false.