There was never any doubt that a presidential candidate that was vetted by the power structure would be in the pocket of the Zionists. The only question is: who he will first go after? I am betting Iran.
I think the Likud memo has just had time to arrive to Obama.

Posted by: Buckaroo | Nov 6 2008 10:50 utc | 4

The new President has lots of promises to keep.
The Oval Office race this year cost a tad over One Billion Dollars, roughly half of it from each camp. Maybe Obama spent a bit more than half a billion. Maybe the split was 60/40.
The split isn’t what matters.
What matters is that most of that billion came from private and corporate donors. They paid for the race from start to finish. It was largely a private investment.
Everybody is free to vote. Only people with money to spare get to decide whom may be considered by voters.
Americans call this normal. Imagine that!
In a country where hundreds of billions followed by further hundreds of billions are available completely off budget, completely borrowed from the next generation for wars, for bank bailouts, for subsidizing the airline and auto industries, in a country where the national debt increased by a full trillion dollars during 23 days in October — our selection of political leaders remain almost exclusively the private concern of wealthy investors and corporations.
Without a half billion dollars, no candidate gets anywhere near the Oval Office. Without promises as to policies and perspectives, that half billion is not forthcoming. The bargain is implicit.
One tenth of one percent of the money thrown into the black hole of bank bailouts would pay for completely free, public, open elections where fresh ideas could be heard and judged. The public could hear from parties not promoted out of corporate boardrooms, but promoted out of the streets and fields of our nation.
But no. Government is private property. You need enormous, private financial backing to even be considered, much less vetted, much less run a serious campaign, much less win office.
Mountains of money, all the way.
So, Obama has lots of promises to keep. His policies and perspectives have long since been agreed upon among the people who paid his ticket. The same would be true of McCain if he had won. It is just the way a private matter like selecting candidates is done in America.
Obama’s actions as a Senator, joining his Democratic colleagues in failing to stop the war crimes of the Bush Administration, and actively funding them instead, and actively legalizing them after the fact, give plenty of indication that his goals are to sustain the American Empire at any cost to the American nation.
Don’t expect a revolution. Obama was invested in largely because he will tone down the militant idiocy of the past eight years. That didn’t work out as advertised, so it’s back to making nice with other nations. Back to the Clinton Administration.
Our government and major corporations will still go after American domination of the other nations of the world. America has to. If America slips from atop the globalized economy, we will have to pay our bills.
And we can’t. We haven’t stopped borrowing from the future since we borrowed money to drop bombs on Hanoi. It has gone way beyond insane levels of debt, and it has gone practically exponential at this point.
And Obama will appoint Clinton era politicians to run things. Robert Rubin, Rahm Emmanuel, Paul Volcker. The same people who helped create the wrecked economy we are in. Obama will use the same tools that created this mess to clean up this mess.
Einstein said doing the same thing while expecting different results is the definition of insanity.
America needs a 180 degree turn. We are going to get five degrees to port, and that’s all.

Posted by: Antifa | Nov 6 2008 13:10 utc | 6

As of just a few minutes ago at MSNBC, Emmanuel has not yet decided to take the job. Maybe he will stand aside for someone else and instead take a position without international overtones.

Posted by: Ensley | Nov 6 2008 14:51 utc | 8

Al, we’re trying to celebrate here. Don’t be a Wowser.

Posted by: Obamageddon | Nov 6 2008 15:26 utc | 10

b-
You are interupting the celebration! Can’t anyone have a good time around here? Can’t we escape for a little fantasy and fun? Anyone up for a chickflick tonight?
Antifa-
Well put, as usual. Perhaps five degrees to port and a patronage position is all most people want and expect from elections. As a friend from St. Croix once said, “Ah content to eat dumpling. All Ah want is a lil’ bit gravy with me dumpling.”
The Chief-of-Staff is the President’s gatekeeper, exercizing significant power by vetting who the Pres. does and doesn’t see, hence what opinions are formed. A kind of Post-modern Cicerone.
Honestly, could McCain have made a worse pick for Palestinians, and Muslims, and the Middle East? If so, then whom?
People here know that I was born and raised Jewish. I consider the treatment that the Israelis have meted out to the Palestinians over the past 90 years to be tantamount in spirit and ultimate disposition, if not intensity, to what the Nazis did to the Jews. Every time I hear some pathological Zionist utter the phrase “Never again!,” I know that they mean clearly, “Never again for MY people!,” regardless of what must be done to the untermenschen Iraqis and Iranians, and Lebanese and Syrians, etc. and it sickens me to my stomach. Like the detestable feted public intellectual, Elie Weisel, they all imitate pathetic ungainly ostriches, with their heads stuck in the eternal sands of time, only to pop up every so often to fetch a breath and squawk, “Never Again!” once more. Can a more ridiculous set of public intellectuals be found? Even Poe’s raven made more sense in cryptically uttering, “Nevermore!.” In the ultimate disposition of history, the Zionists deserve every manner of blowback imaginable for the unfeeling and inhuman hubris and hypocrisy they manifest.
To the extent that, by mere accident of birth, this is my tribe, I am, in my own small way, responsible for these outcomes, and must speak out on it.
I find it unspeakable that some would have used their time, energy, and money in the service of Obama — who after all is only an actor, a charlatan, a public face, for the vast money (much of it Zionist billionaires) and powers and nefarious interests behind the throne. With this appointment, they are now implicated in every Palestian death and indignity for the next four years.
Yes, that sounds harsh to some – but change does not come from the top down. It is the head of the rotting fish that does stink most, and this empire is rotten to the core.
The same time, money, and energy could have been spent building citizen movements to challenge power, not abetting it. What a waste.
Evo Morales would be just another Lula without 70% percent of the electorate at his back with honed machetes; Obama now has the Secret Service at his back. If you don’t understand what I just wrote, spend some time studying and learning about social movements instead of strengthening the legitimacy of power. If it weren’t for the brave resistance of the Palistinians, they would all have been herded across the Jordan river, vying for jobs in Hussein’s puppet army — all so Grandma Golda could sanctimoniously intone, “A land without a People, for a People without a land.”
Rahm Emanuel, huh! There’s a change I can believe in. Shit!
Perhaps the next four years will wake some people up, but I sincerely doubt it, and anyway, there is always a whole new gullible crop coming up without any institutional memory whatsoever, thanks to Ted Kennedy’s parting shot across the bow, “No Child Left Behind.” Oh wait, Kennedy’s on the good team. Quack, quack, quack!
I think that this blog should spend equal time covering social movements, along with the usual fare of power politics so that people can become better aquainted with more effective methods of change.

Posted by: Malooga | Nov 6 2008 15:39 utc | 12

Al: Foreign espionage in this govt is nothing new at all. Feith and Perle in particular have both been involved in scandals wherein they allegedly passed classified info to foreign governments, IIRC Turkey and Israel. Marc Grossman is similarly shady, per Sibel Edmonds’ revelations.
Bush hollowed out the government and turned it into a machine that redirects money to his political donors and the other Have-Mores. Whatever one might think about Rahm, I do believe Obama to be sincere in wanting to restore some measure of respectability to government work. Now, whether or not this will translate into action, well, who knows.

Posted by: Dan | Nov 6 2008 16:06 utc | 14

Obamageddon,
What’s a Wowser ? o_O

Posted by: Al | Nov 6 2008 16:35 utc | 16

Rahm Emanuel? Oh No, heart sinks, that is bad news.
The NY Times had an article on the Emanuel brothers in 97, which apart from some of his votes etc. was all I knew, at the time I found it of interest:
NYT 97
Does the Chief of Staff make political appointments? Or what? (Beyond personal influence.)

Posted by: Tangerine | Nov 6 2008 16:47 utc | 18

Also note that Jane Harman is being floated for CIA director or chief of national intelligence.

Posted by: biklett | Nov 6 2008 17:02 utc | 20

He is a big cheerleader for clean coal, which always reminds of Hitler as he was the first to industrialize it.
Unbelievable. Cheerleading for 80 year old technology considering the environmental armageddon with which we are confronted. How’s that Progressive? Sounds Regressive to me.

Posted by: Obamageddon | Nov 6 2008 17:30 utc | 22

it seems at one level – that it is quite simple – that we keep on doing what b started all that longe time ago – focus on the issues, try to be absolutely aware of all aspects of the crisis we shall call lightly western civilisation
& i agree with malooga that it would be also healthy for us to post on the questions of what we are doing in our communities of resistance – no matter how small no matter how important
some of this important part of our lives i imagine will be useful to one another & may serve as a windo for others to see who we are – this can be done fully & without anecdote
& again i want to sound a caution. my mother was jewish & i want us to brutally reject anti-semitism – the socialism of the stupid. i want us to deal with that question with rigour & thorougness not out of a question of delicacy but of precision
u s imperialism remains the worlds greates danger. the failure, the ongoing failure of capitalism is revealing its own truths – that is precisely why reports from our own fronts in much the same way as people spoke of what was happening practically in their neighbourhoods & cities during this election were revealing in a useful way – reports from our own frontiers will tell us of important aspects of this crisis. in much the same way that we are in debt to b for rapidly revealing the situation in georgia; we can apply the same rigour to what is happening locally
i want us to never forget what is happening all over the world – the massacres that us imperialism is the leading agent. i do not want us to forget what is happening in the occupied territories, in iraq, in afghanistan, in pakistan – what is happening in latin america – i do not want us to forget the details of our lives
the situation of the world is going to get a lot lot worse – even the more moderate voices are saying that – they cannot see clearly what is coming but they know it is catastrophic
we as people who write regularly need to share our focus between a world falling to kingdom come & what is happening, locally
my mother may have been jewish but i was brought up a bolshevik – the internationalism was there before i began ot breath & it remains there. i do not think that capitalism can resolve the situation of people back then or now
& what is most important to me, what i work with every day – is the question of eqality of opportunity. i am a great poet but i am as proud of the acts that have led elements of my community to partake in higher education & become valuable to themselves & to their communities, to make judicial agents more connected to these communities, for healthworkers to understand the particular realities of the poor, for social workers to be aware concretely of the conditions they are working in & i am proud that once every couple of months i can say something clear & lucid here at the moon. it is not without utility
we are ‘living in interesting times’ as the chinese say, we have lived with what krugman has clearly called monster for the last 8 years, we have lived with goons like john yoo – who was attacked fully in a literary rag (times literary supplement) which has often been a high class right wing rag – the author a legal scholar – called him a nazi & that is an anlysis you wouldn’t have seen in that paper even a year ago – he was in fact calling for legal redress to the crimes of bush & his enablers
we need to be as active as we have been under bush – the times demand it – & in the first instance we need to do as annamissed suggests take obama at his word – & watch every step of the way — but out analysis need to be open & not obscufactory, we need to rid ourselves of any hint of racism but we need to pronounce clearly who is the main enemy

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 6 2008 17:47 utc | 24

Obama first appointment – Joe Biden was pretty solid. Like Obama, Joe’s learnt to enjoy a hot shower after the obligatory grovel before AIPAC.
And I doubt Rahm Emanuel is going to take the COS job once he finds out the job description. It does not fit his style & temperament & he would be a fool to give up his seat for this offer.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Nov 6 2008 18:57 utc | 26

@Cyntia – @23 – So tell us, b, what’s up with this?
Well – there are two possibilities with deleted stories at D-Kos. Either the author deleted it, which, after s/he received 40 comments, I somewhat doubt. Or the gedankenpolizei, an inherent feature of D-Kos, killed the diary because it was too critical of the Zionist/AIPAC connection of a Dem functionary.
Kos has to make a living. Running against his financiers will is not in his best interest.

Posted by: b | Nov 6 2008 19:54 utc | 28

Dan–re: #5 and mention that some say Rahm Emanuel was (is?) Mossad–any links on that topic? T/U.

Posted by: jawbone | Nov 6 2008 20:01 utc | 30

Kos has to make a living. Running against his financiers will is not in his best interest.
I never go to the site. It’s for those who wish to engage in Group Think, as witnessed by the heavy censorship. It’s about forming and steering public opinion on the left….moving it to center, or center right.

Posted by: Obamageddon | Nov 6 2008 20:05 utc | 32

@13 – …—… – All this Zionist agonizing seems staged
Well – the biggest foreign policy problem the U.S. (and probably the world) has right now is the Middle East. With someone like Emanuel as a somewhat second in command, how will that get solved?
His father is a pure racist and a former terrorist. Look at the sons voting record. A U.S. representative that flies to Israel to serve in the Israeli army during a U.S. war on Iraq (1991). Now that is a real patriot. Guess what the chances are for A Concert of the Greater Middle East with a guy like that at the helm.
@20 – biklett – Also note that Jane Harman is being floated for CIA director or chief of national intelligence.
Yep – expect another “strengthened” Patriot Act and much more spying on everyone. Didn’t she vote for all Bush measures in that regard and did nothing in the committee to restrain them?

Posted by: b | Nov 6 2008 20:16 utc | 34

rahmbo just accepted.. Obama and a fair peace in the ME is history.

Posted by: Anonymous | Nov 6 2008 20:29 utc | 36

Tantalus, no flame, but that was then, and this is now.
How Rahm Emanuel Has Rigged a Pro-War Congress

In contrast to voters’ sentiment, 64% of the Democratic candidates in the 45 closely contested House Congressional races oppose a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Note carefully: not only do these Democrat worthies oppose the Murtha or McGovern bills for rapid withdrawal or defunding the war; they oppose so much as a timetable. (The number of Dem candidates supporting the Murtha or McGovern proposals is vanishingly small.) The position of these Dem candidates is indistinguishable from that of George W. Bush. How did this betrayal of the Democratic rank and file come about? Who chose these Democratic candidates that oppose rank and file Dems on the number one question on voters’ minds, the war on Iraq? How could such candidates get elected in the primaries? Two primary campaigns, now largely forgotten, give us the answer. They are near perfect case studies, and they deserve some reflection although the Dem establishment would dearly like us to forget them.

Posted by: Obamageddon | Nov 6 2008 21:32 utc | 38

I spose I should back up and say that to me the US is a state that has been polarized and destabilized almost to the point of failure. Having seen the brown-shirted, skin-headed, prognathous-jawed campaign spokesmen and the assassination plots and threats, we all know exactly what to expect next time a GOP government takes power. It’s sort of the same as with Pakistan. Before expecting them to help stabilize S. Asia, they may need some help to stabilize themselves.

Posted by: …—… | Nov 6 2008 22:34 utc | 40

Let me also add that I’ve always known that AIPAC has been putting loads of pressure on the MSM not to report anything negative about Israel. But I had no idea this very powerful lobby is doing the same to the Blogosphere. Needless to say, I’ve deeply upset by this news.

Posted by: Cynthia | Nov 6 2008 23:45 utc | 42

unlike Reagan & Dubya, Obama is very tuned-in, deliberate & listens to a lot of people so it does’nt matter all that much who his Chief-of-Staff is. And as with other administrations, the role will be adjusted to fit the styles & temperaments of both. For example, I do’nt recall that any of Clintons COS’s were overly influential is shaping his policies. Rahms temperament & style could also end up being enough of an issue that he gets shifted somewhere else eventually. And to have an aggressive type like Rahm who’s been a key player at the WH & Congress adds some very useful experience to Obama’s WH team as they ramp up. Plus the Republicans hate Rahm which lets BO front as the “good guy”

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Nov 7 2008 0:36 utc | 44

Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff at the Whitehouse is less of a harm to US policy than if he remained in the House as majority leader. Though it is probably not the reason for Obama’s decision, it is better to have him pissing out than pissing in.

Posted by: YY | Nov 7 2008 7:46 utc | 46

also, announcing Rahms appointment first, absolutely guarantees that slackers or the faint-of-heart are’nt going to be sending resumes. Rahm may not be the most likable person around but he’s helped put more people in Congress than almost anyone else and people respect & admire stuff like that.
this is not about having a Harvard MBA, its Obama street-smarts at work.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Nov 7 2008 12:10 utc | 48

shit. the waldo virus is spreading

Posted by: b real | Nov 7 2008 15:43 utc | 50

@jony_b_cool – rahm & the NDC/DLC are moderate republicans in all but name. he’s a hawk. and now is he to be a gatekeeper in the new admin?
i certainly wouldn’t use hyperbole such as “he is an INSANELY good choice” or “If Rahm did not exist, Obama would have to create him” to define the appointment.

Posted by: b real | Nov 7 2008 16:38 utc | 52

jbc-
Your attachment to what you think of as your own team is getting in the way of your rational thinking. Spend some time going over Rahm’s votes, statements, positions, and funding sources. If you don’t don’t find that his views are diametrically oppossed to yours 90% of the time, I would be very surprised.

Posted by: Malooga | Nov 7 2008 21:33 utc | 54

You mean bills like this–
“As President, I will implement a Memorandum of Understanding that provides $30 billion in assistance to Israel over the next decade – investments to Israel’s security that will not be tied to any other nation. ” -Obama AIPAC Speech, Rahms endorsement of Obama
http://www.observer.com/2008/emanuel-endorses-obama-after-aipac-speech
Party on.

Posted by: Rick | Nov 8 2008 3:07 utc | 56

…Emanuel is the son of a Jerusalem-born pediatrician who was a member of the Irgun (Etzel or IZL), a militant Zionist group that operated in Palestine between 1931 and 1948…
In modern language these ‘militants’ would be described as terrorists. History, it seems, has a sense of irony.

Posted by: mst10 | Nov 10 2008 10:36 utc | 58