Mark LeVine: Obama Edges to the Dark Side
Possibly the most dramatic mea culpa in Presidential history, Bill Clinton, newly appointed as UN Special Envoy for Haiti, admitted to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the US policy of compelling poor developing countries to buy US agricultural products at subsidised prices, which destroyed local agricultural sectors, was a disaster.
“I did that. I have to live every day with the consequences of the lost capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people, because of what I did. Nobody else."
For where Clinton helped lay the groundwork for the demilitarisation of America's political and economic systems through his uncritical embrace of neoliberalism (which, despite the "liberal" in the label, inevitably leads to neoconservatism and war), Obama, with the greatest of care and deliberation, is heading to the 'dark side' that the millions of Americans who voted for him did so with the justified expectation that he'd avoid.
Politics of insanity?
The warning signs that President Obama's trajectory would depart from his campaign rhetoric were clear from the beginning. Like when the newly minted President chose for his senior economic advisor's men like Lawrence Summer, Clinton's one time Treasury Secretary, who were responsible for the policies that besides destroying Haiti's rice crop, also enabled a million and one corporate get rich schemes such as the sub-prime mortgage bonanza whose collapse has left the country in its current disastrous condition.
Another clue was surely the fact that Obama's defence spending from the start outstripped his Republican predecessor's, even though his campaign reached national prominence precisely with his pledge to end the war in Iraq, which should logically have meant a major reduction in the military budget....
Read entire article at Al Jazeera
“I did that. I have to live every day with the consequences of the lost capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people, because of what I did. Nobody else."
For where Clinton helped lay the groundwork for the demilitarisation of America's political and economic systems through his uncritical embrace of neoliberalism (which, despite the "liberal" in the label, inevitably leads to neoconservatism and war), Obama, with the greatest of care and deliberation, is heading to the 'dark side' that the millions of Americans who voted for him did so with the justified expectation that he'd avoid.
Politics of insanity?
The warning signs that President Obama's trajectory would depart from his campaign rhetoric were clear from the beginning. Like when the newly minted President chose for his senior economic advisor's men like Lawrence Summer, Clinton's one time Treasury Secretary, who were responsible for the policies that besides destroying Haiti's rice crop, also enabled a million and one corporate get rich schemes such as the sub-prime mortgage bonanza whose collapse has left the country in its current disastrous condition.
Another clue was surely the fact that Obama's defence spending from the start outstripped his Republican predecessor's, even though his campaign reached national prominence precisely with his pledge to end the war in Iraq, which should logically have meant a major reduction in the military budget....