Barack Obama
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Sucker bait or the politics of smoke and mirrors By William Bowles
Effectively, it’s the commercialization of the political process, ‘democracy’ reduced to an advertizing campaign, ‘new and improved, contains the miracle ingredient Obamatron™, the result of years of research by our dedicated scientists.’ Too true, the decision to select Obama as the snake oil salesman for capitalism was made many years ago. Continue reading
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William Blum: Anti-Empire Report, Number 64
Okay, let’s get the obvious out of the way. It was historic. I choked up a number of times, tears came to my eyes, even though I didn’t vote for him. I voted for Ralph Nader for the fourth time in a row. Continue reading
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The Obama Dilemma: A Mission Impossible? By William Bowles
To expect Obama or even the entire US government to actually reverse the process set in motion by the over-accumulation of capital is akin to trying to stop a fully laden oil tanker by sticking your foot out. Continue reading
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Joe Bageant: The Sucker Bait Called Hope
We go into a new year with millions of Americans still clinging to The Audacity of Hope. And we do so because we are victims of learned helplessness, learned from the cradle as it is rocked by the foot of the Capitalist consumer state. Continue reading
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Elena PONOMAREVA: What Should We Expect From the New US President?
America’s having a new President remains the number one global news, but it is already time to put an end to the dreams of quite a few journalists, experts, and seemingly knowledgeable political scientists that Obama’s victory in the US presidential race is a prologue to an era free of confrontation and marked by cooperation… Continue reading
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Ali Fathollah-Nejad: Obama’s "Coalition of the Willing" Against Iran? Continuity rather than Change in US Foreign Policy
The London-based U.S. analysts did not signal any change of an Obama administration’s foreign policy stance especially when compared to the Bush administration’s second term. Their remarks implied that the U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) of 2002 and 2005 which formed the basis of President George W. Bush’ s foreign policy agenda and which included… Continue reading
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COHA: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to Embark on a Highly Revealing Latin American Journey Sure to Give Washington Heartburn
After attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima on November 21-22, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev will embark on a short regional tour, where he will meet the leaders of Brazil, Venezuela and Cuba, for which Moscow is intensely motivated for different reasons. Continue reading
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Mohamed Khodr – Et tu Obama: Who will your Appointees Serve – Israel or America?
Despite such warnings from our founding fathers against the corruptive influence of a minority “faction/special interest group”, our government has nevertheless surrendered, pandered, implemented, paid and died for the vital interests of a small foreign nation, Israel. Continue reading
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Methinks they do protest too much By William Bowles
I think the best measure of the value of Barack Obama to capitalism was the huge—and audible across the planet—sigh of relief breathed by virtually every corporate/state media outlet, let alone the politicians, when he got elected. Continue reading
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Yuri BARANCHIK: Why Does the US Elite Need Obama?
Electing Obama as an ‘anti-Bush’ character is a sign that the US elite is aware of the fact that neither the US economy nor its political system are no longer efficient tools of continuing the domestic and external policies course that Washington pursued in the past 8 years. Continue reading
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Leonid IVASHOV: Obama to Move Into the White House: Do Changes Await the US Geopolitics?
Some of the reasons behind Obama’s victory are of the ethnic, cultural, civilizational, and psychological character. The balance between the white and the non-white populations in the US is shifting, and African Americans are taking an ever bigger role in the US politics. Continue reading
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ALI ABUNIMAH: Obama’s ambiguity – What it reveals about Mideast ‘peace’
13 November, 2008 Sons are not responsible for the racism of their fathers. But they do have a responsibility to let others know that they disagree vehemently with such sentiments. This is certainly the case for individuals in public service, particularly the man President-elect Barack Obama has chosen as White House chief of staff. Yet, Continue reading
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Jeff Halper: A BONE IN AMERICA’S THROAT
Will an Obama Administration be good for Israel? “Be good for Israel” is our code for “Will the US allow us to keep our settlements and continue to support our efforts to prevent negotiations with the Palestinians from ever bearing fruit?” Continue reading
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Friends of Lebanon – One Week On, a letter to Barack Obama
Mr Obama, it has been a mere week since you were elected, and already you have destroyed any semblance of hope held for peace in the Middle East. Over sixty years of US subservience to the Zionist dream has not brought peace to anyone, not even to the Israelis. It certainly is time for a… Continue reading
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Media Lens: Obama – Wiping The Slate Clean
13 November 2008 MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media November 13, 2008 Appearance And Reality In The Relaunch Of Brand America In 1997, the British media filled with talk of “historic” change. Blair’s victory that year “bursts open the door to a British transformation,” the Independent declared. (Neal Ascherson, ‘Through Continue reading
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Barack Obama — a wolf in sheep’s clothing or just the shepherd? By William Bowles
13 November 2008 “There is no doubt that the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States is historic. But does framing him as America’s “first black president” show that we have not come nearly as far as we’d like to think?” — How Far Have We Really Come from the “One-Drop Rule”? by Judith Continue reading
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Howard Zinn on Barack Obama
His campaign slogan was, “Yes we can.” Now the question is “Will he?”. President-elect Barack Obama faces a daunting list of challenges on the political, social and economic horizons.Now that the celebrations in the United States, and around the world, have quietened down, reality has set in. America is involved in two ongoing wars and Continue reading
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Freedom Rider: Told You So
12 November, 2008 It’s not as if we at BAR didn’t warn you. Barack Obama’s first major act as president-elect was to select as his chief of staff Rep. Rahm Emanuel, whose ‘role as Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was to insure that anti-war and other progressive candidates stayed out of the running.’ Continue reading
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FAIR Media Advisory: Media Tell Obama–Don’t Be a Lefty Like Clinton
Immediately after Barack Obama was pronounced the victor in the 2008 presidential election, corporate media began to tell him how he ought to govern–in most cases, urging him to hew toward the center. Continue reading
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Jamison Foser: All over but the lying
Republicans, and some journalists, had spent months (falsely) saying Obama is the single most liberal member of the U.S. Senate — and maybe even a socialist. The American people responded by electing him in a landslide. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 