One Response to “Hillary Unleashes Aggressive E-Mail Taunts, Pricey Dinners; Obama Scouts the ’Burbs”

1. Irene Says:
   April 15th, 2008 at 5:31 pm

   To the Editor:

   Neither Barack nor Clinton - now let́s talk Change

   I never cease to be amazed at the naïveté of most people who get their news from 80-second bytes on the television. They do not bother to read newspapers or to research other sources of information. They are swayed, unquestioningly, more by what people say than what they are doing and what they have done. From the outset, I must categorically state that the following is not being made in support of Hillary Clinton.

   My first choice was Dennis Kucinich who, I believe, represents all the progressive ideas for change in this country. After his withdrawal, my second choice was John Edwards who, I trusted, would have probably adopted many of Kucinich’s ideas into his platform. I was very unhappy that John Edwards also withdrew. After that, I began doing an awful lot of research on the two remaining candidates. Now that I am retired, I have the luxury of indulging in doing as much research as I want. It was extremely disappointing to find out that Barack Obama is not the progressive who will lead us into the promised land.

   Let us begin with Obama’s statement about taking money from lobbyists, to wit:

   I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists - and won. They have not funded my campaign, they will not get a job in my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president.

   Yet, a review of his campaign finance records shows that he collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from lobbyists and PACs as a state legislator in Illinois, a US senator, and a presidential aspirant. From 1996 to 2004, almost two-thirds of the money he raised for his campaigns–$296,000 of $461,000–came from PACs, corporate contributions, or unions, according to Illinois Board of Elections records. The records show that he tapped financial services firms, real estate developers, healthcare providers, oil companies, and many other corporate interests. From Federal Election Commission data: “Another nonprofit, the Center for Responsive Politics, which that tracks money in politics, reported that in 2004 Obama collected $128,000 from lobbyists and $1.3 million from PACs.

   From Exelon (the nation’s largest nuclear power plant operator), as of March 2007, Obama had accepted $159,800 from its executives and employees. Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank, in a July 2007 article in Counterpunch, wrote that, “. . . the atom lobby during the 1990s had a stranglehold on the Clinton administration and now they seem to have the same suffocating grip around the neck of the brightest star in the Democratic field today: Barack Obama. Back in October 2006, Ken Silverstein wrote in Harper’s Magazine, that “Since announcing his candidacy for the Illinois Senate seat, Obama has raised the astonishing sum of nearly $21 million and has built close relationships with a number of traditional fat-cat donors. For example, one of Obama’s leading career patrons is Skadden, Arps ($53,271, according to the most recent disclosure filings), a leading corporate law firm and one of the biggest donors to the Democratic Party. . . . Obama has said that he’s considering a presidential bid. He has a lot of attractive qualities and a pretty solid record, but that kind of ambition requires deep pockets and good connections.”

   Now, about Iraq

   Taylor Marsh, at the Huffington Post is pretty “sure he’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” It is interesting to note that Obama has almost the “same votes as Clinton on Iraq. However, when Senators Kerry and Feingold offered legislation on the floor to redeploy, Obama made a speech against it.”

   Kate Zernike and Jeff Zeleny, on March 9, 2008, wrote in The New York Times that after arriving at the Senate,

   Mr Obama kept his head down . . . was cautious–even on the Iraq war, which he had opposed as a Senate candidate. He voted against the withdrawal of troops and proposed legislation calling for a drawdown only after he was running for president and polls showed voters favoring it. . . . Mr. Obama wanted to vote to confirm John G. Roberts Jr for the Supreme Court, for example–he thought the president deserved latitude when it came to appointments.” He was advised against it and was told that “Mr. Obama would be reminded of the vote every time the court made a conservative ruling that he found objectionable. . . .But, for the most part, he stuck to party lines; there were few examples of the kind of bipartisan work he advocates in his current campaign. He disappointed some Democrats by not taking a more prominent role opposing the war–he voted against a troop withdrawal proposal by Senators John Kerry . . . and Russ Feingold . . . in June 2006, arguing that a firm date for withdrawal would hamstring diplomats and military commanders in the field.

   [. . . and about standing tall]

   To others, the mismatch between Mr. Obama’s outside profile and his inside accomplishments wore thin. While some senators spent hours in closed-door meetings over immigration reform in early 2007, he dropped in only occasionally, prompting complaints that he was something of a dilettante. . . . He joined a bipartisan group . . . that agreed to a final compromise bill . . . Yet when the measure reached the floor, Mr. Obama distanced himself from the compromise, advocating changes sought by labor groups. The bill collapsed. . . . To some in the bipartisan coalition, Mr. Obama’s move showed an unwillingness to take a tough stand.” A member of the bipartisan group stated, “He [Obama] folded like a cheap suit . . . . What it showed me is you are not an agent of change. Because to really change things in this place you have to get beat up now and then.”

   and the subprime mortgage collapse . . . and the economy, the realities of history, the military, etc.

   It is interesting to note that The Nation’s own Max Fraser, in a February 11, 2008 article entitled “Subprime Obama,” points out his weak stand on his major national malady. At the time of this article, John Edwards was still in the race. Mr. Fraser writes:

   . . . the Democratic presidential candidates are pushing plans to address the crisis. John Edwards and Hillary Clinton are pledging substantial federal resources to stabilize the mortgage market and intervene on behalf of borrowers. Barack Obama’s proposal is tepid by comparison, short on aggressive government involvement and infused with conservative rhetoric about fiscal responsibility. As he has done on domestic issues like healthcare, job creation and energy policy, Obama is staking out a position to the right of not only populist Edwards but Clinton as well.

   . . . Obama has not called for a moratorium and interest-rate freeze. Though he has been a proponent of mortgage fraud legislation . . . , he has remained silent on further financial regulations. . . . Obama’s foreclosure plan mostly avoids direct government spending in favor of a tax credit for homeowners, . . . about $500 on average, beyond which only certain borrowers would be eligible for help from an additional fund.

   Obama’s disappointing foreclosure plan stems from the centrist politics of his three chief economic advisers and campaign’s ties to Wall Street institutions opposed to increased financial regulation. David Cutler and Jeffrey Liebman are both Harvard economists . . . they work on market-oriented solutions to social welfare issues. Cutler advocates improving healthcare through financial incentives; Liebman, the partial privatization of Social Security. . . Robert Pollin, an economist at U. Mass, believes, “these . . . advisers reflect Obama’s very moderate economic program.”

   A review of The Audacity of Hope by Ted Glick (Black Agenda Report), points to a passage on p. 55 that reads, “We did not have to go through any of the violent upheavals that Europe was forced to endure as it shed its feudal past. Our passage from an agricultural to an industrial society was eased by the sheer size of the continent, vast tracts of land and abundant resources that allowed new immigrants to continually remake themselves.” Mr. Glick asks, “The civil war was not a ‘violent upheaval?’ What about the Native peoples who were violently and forcibly displaced from those ‘vast tracts of land,’ the reality of slavery or the taking of half the land of Mexico by military force? Nowhere in the book does Obama correct this inaccurate, essentially racist view of U.S. history.

   “He calls for ‘a revised foreign policy . . . that matches the boldness and scope of Truman’s post-World War II policies’ (p. 303). Truman . . . presided over a dramatic expansion of U.S. imperial policies economically and militarily and the Cold War . . . what turned into full-scale McCarthyism domestically. Obama’s perspective is that . . . ‘we will probably need a somewhat higher [Pentagon] budget in the immediate future . . . to restore readiness and replacement equipment.’ (P. 307) So much for a reversal of Bush’s dangerous and expensive military build-up . . .

   Do you remember Elvira Arellano, the young mother who sought refuge from INS in a Chicago church? Her son was born in the US, therefore a citizen of the US, but INS wanted to break up the family by sending her back to Mexico. On Feb 13, 2008, she wrote an opinion article in El Diario/La Prensa entitled “¿Estamos los latinos con Obama?” [Are we Latins with Obama?]. In that article she wrote:

   We went to Obama to ask him to take the initiative in supporting a bill in the Senator that would permit 35 families in Illinois whose children were born in the US and therefore citizens to stay in the US. Obama and his aides got together with us and with Congressman Luis Gutierrez. Promises were made, but Obama opted not to listen to us . . . and told us his vote was a matter of “tactics.” Both he and Clinton voted for the wall on the border. It is not the case that Clinton’s position is any better. [my translation]

   How about superdelegates?

   The Center for Responsive Politics has found that campaign contributions have been a generally reliable predictor of whose side a superdelegate will take. Along those lines, it is interesting to note from Lindsay Renick Mayer article in Capital Eye that “ . . . while it would be unseemly for the candidates to hand out thousands of dollars to primary voters, or to the delegates pledged to represent the will of those voters, elected officials who are superdelegates have received at least $904,200 from Obama and Clinton in the form of campaign contributions over the last three years, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. . . . Obama, who narrowly leads in the count of pledged, “non-super” delegates, has doled out more than $698,200 to superdelegates from his political action committee, Hope Fund . . . Clinton does not appear to have been as openhanded. Her PAC, HILLPAC, and campaign committee appear to have distributed $205,500 to superdelegates.” Not bad for someone who professes to the highest levels of moral integrity.

   Let’s move on . . .

   Bruce Dixon, the Managing Editor of Black Agenda Report, wrote that, “ . . . there are sane, solid and sensible reasons for black voters to question whether Barack Obama will represent them at all. Many remember that his first act as a US Senator was to refuse to stand with the Congressional Black Caucus and California Senator Barbara Boxer in opposition to Ohio’s nullification of hundreds of thousands of black votes. . . . [his] second, third and fourth acts were he declined to ask any difficult, pointed or revealing questions of Condoleezza Rice and two of the president’s disastrous Supreme Court nominees, and he actually voted for two out of three of these . . . Obama’s sixth and seventh . . . acts as a senator were to vote for a bill that made it nearly impossible for ordinary people to sue giant corporations who rob, defraud, maim or kill, and another vote to renew the hated Patriot Act.”

   His explanation about Wright (or was it airbrushing?)

   None of us can deny that Obama is a dynamic speaker with superior oratorical talent. He is able to move people to tears with his eloquence, some wax rhapsodic about Obama’s cool. I have heard otherwise intelligent, grown-up people say, “I get weepy every time I watch his Yes we Can speech. His March 18th speech, which he elegantly begins with the words, “”We the people, in order to form a more perfect union” was certainly a gem in terms of rhetoric, oratorical talent, and elegance. He said, “Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely.” However, in his explanation in the Huffington Post, entitled, “On My Faith and My Church,” he wrote,“The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign.” Who’s kidding whom? Based on this, to all of those who would argue to the contrary, I say, No, he is not the second coming.

   As a matter of fact, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are two sides of the same coin. If you are really interested in someone who represents a departure from these two consummate politicians, you will go with Cynthia McKinney of the Green Party.

   Finally, an overheard anonymous comment: “ . . . you aren’t supposed to point this out until after he gets the nomination! Until then you should only report the number of lepers he has cured or the instances in which he transubstantiates ordinary bread into his own flesh . . .”

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