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Last night on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow made a brief comment about parts of Ron Suskind's new book, which suggests that President Obama's efforts to break-up Citigroup were derailed by others within his administration. A number of people who were interviewed for the book have since accused Suskind of misquoting them, or taking quotes out of context. This reaction is, in a real sense, similar to the Bush administration reaction to Suskind's 2004 “The Price of Loyalty,” which detailed former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill's insights on the failures of Bush & Co. on domestic and international issues.
“Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President” documents that, among others, Tim Geithner and Larry Summers were insubordinate to President Barack Obama. They did their best to protect their friends on Wall Street, at the expense of the orders of the President of the United States. It is important, in my opinion, to recognize that this did not take place in a vacuum.
In his 2010 book “Obama's Wars,” Bob Woodward documents that President Obama's instructions in regard to the war in Afghanistan were ignored by high-ranking military aides. The extent to which those who were supposed to be serving the President had become public in a June article in “Rolling Stone” magazine, which included an interview with General Stanley McChrystal.
Why is this important? To begin with, there is a general belief in the United States that a President is the most powerful person in the country. In theory, the President is in the driver's seat, when it comes to making the executive policies for our nation. Such blatant insubordination shows a President that his powers are actually limited, and his ability to create executive policies is handcuffed by an array of unelected people around him. This is obviously an important reality for citizens to understand, as well. Indeed, the extent of the powers of those surrounding a President goes well beyond what the public learns through books or magazines articles that merely expose the tip of that iceberg known as the “shadow (or invisible) government.”
The US Constitution provides for the chief executive to be held in check by the balance of powers that includes the Congress and Supreme Court. In theory, the Congress is supposed to have oversight of the military, which includes the power to declare war. It would be impossible for any rational person to believe that the Congress has exercised any wholesome control over the military – or, for that matter, the federal intelligence agencies – for the past five decades.
Likewise, the US Supreme Court is tasked with deciding Constitutional Law: the Court is supposed to, among other things, protect the individual rights outlined by the Bill of Rights. Yet the recent Supreme Court decisions have provided corporations with unconstitutional “rights.” Those corporations are, of course, part of the “shadow government.” One need look no further than Senator Robert Byrd's book “Losing America,” which documents VP Dick Cheney's suspension of Constitutional authority on 9-11-2001, by placing the “shadow government” – made up of members of the executive branch and corporate “leaders,” and denying Congress and the Supreme Court their powers – in charge of ruling the nation.
Older forum members know that these dynamics have been the source of great tensions before. There was a planned coup against FDR. Truman had a showdown with General MacArthur. Eisenhower warned against the undue influence of the military-industrial complex. JFK had the Bay of Pigs. LBJ illustrated the differences in nature between a bully and an alpha male, when he broke under the pressures of “the Generals” on Vietnam. Nixon was removed not by liberal Democrats, but by the efforts of right-wing intelligence operatives. And President Carter was the victim of an “October Surprise.”
In his 1960s “The Leadership of President Kennedy,” Major General Thomas Lane wrote: “The general thrust of the Kennedy military policy was to assert a political domination of the military leadership which was hostile to the traditions and practices of American government. …. John Kennedy was telling the Joint Chiefs that they must accept his judgment of military matters. ...The Presidential dictum was of course contrary to law and should have been disregarded by the Joint Chiefs of Staff … If the military leader is then willing to submit the professional integrity, morale and effectiveness of his service or services to the adverse judgments of inexperienced politicians, he is not fit to hold office.” Clearly Lane and McChrystal shared a common disease.
My opinions of Barack Obama have not been a source of wide-spread agreement on this forum. When I endorsed Senator Obama in the Democratic Primaries in early 2008, it marked a parting of ways with some old forum friends. Others lobbied to have me banned from this site. Likewise, when I have expressed some strong disagreements with some of President Obama's policies, others here have found it offensive. Such is the nature of internet political discussion sites, I suppose.
To be fair, time and again I have said that both the Democratic Party and the Democratic Left share in the blame for the recent failures. The election of 2008 involved a great force, something much larger than any single politician. But even before Obama took the oath of office, too many people began to sit back, as if the job was done. That created a vacuum, which allowed some of those in the shadow government to create and capitalize on the “Tea Party.” The right-wing hatred filled the void. The republican puppets – with the assistance of “democrats” known as “blue (lap) dogs,” fought any and every position that President Obama and the few decent Senators and Representatives took.
Time and again, I have also advocated here for resurrecting Martin Luther King, Jr.'s plan for a “Poor Peoples Campaign,” to occupy Washington, DC. A tiny minority of forum members here read my essays calling for such a movement. Those who were in general agreement suggested that the time would come. They were, of course, correct. The “Occupy Wall Street” movement is an organic expression of what King had called for in 1968.
At the unveiling of the King monument, Martin's daughter noted that he would have supported OWS. A few days later, a republican congressman from Florida said that King would have opposed OWS, and attempted to smear the protestors by calling the Marxists and communists – the exact same names his ilk called King in his day.
Decide for yourself: in his April 4, 1967 speech “A Time to Break Silence” (aka “Beyond Vietnam”), King said that “we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing-oriented' society to a 'person-oriented' society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” Sounds like OWS to me.
Critics of OWS also say that protests have never accomplished anything meaningful. I suspect that a review of King's Civil Rights protests shows otherwise. Of course, King and other leaders recognized the importance of voting. But voting does not eliminate the need to protest government and/or business policies in America. Never did, never will. Indeed, that is exactly why the Founding Fathers included Amendment 1 in the Bill of Rights. There can be no democracy without it.
In the 1970s, the American public learned that, after King's 1967 speech quoted above, military intelligence began surveilling King. This was, of course, a gross violation of federal law. It is well-documented, for example, that military intelligence kept an outpost less than a block away from King's motel room in Memphis in April of 1968.
Public protests are a powerful thing, which are a cause of concern for those who serve the 1%.
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