"Defenders of the policies of President Barack Obama have correctly pointed to the difficult circumstances he and ‘the nation’ faced when he entered office and the dim intransigence of Congressional Republicans while they fail to address that his actual policies have derived almost exclusively from the political-economic theories of neo-liberalism—the economics of the radical right. And as Mr. Obama moves his policy proposals for his second term forward what is once again apparent is that both the policies and his articulation of them are from the radical right. His proposals to shutter Federal housing agency stalwarts Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, his use of dubious legal opinions to consolidate the power of ‘the Executive’ and to justify the murder of citizens and non-citizens without due process, his support for trade agreements that effectively hand domestic governance over to multi-national corporations, his growth of an intrusive surveillance state and pompous dismissal of criticism of it and his stuffing his cabinet and likely the Federal Reserve Chairmanship with neo-liberal ideologues all confirm that the policies of his first term were not a product of circumstance, but rather the coherent implementation of a radical-right agenda. Apparently unbeknownst to many, when promoting these policies Mr. Obama has in each case used coded talking points of the radical right to sell them. That these talking points come from the grim bourgeois banker and ‘national security’ ghettoes, company towns if you will, where the fantasies and rank hallucinations of executives and Boards of Directors go unchallenged by ‘subordinates’ goes some distance toward explaining Mr. Obama’s own dismissive tone and condescension during those exceedingly rare moments when inconvenient truths are raised in his presence. Whereas in a democracy leaders respond to the concerns of the citizenry, in a corporate-state ‘leaders’ decide both the questions and the answers. Were there not fundamentally different visions of political economy and society behind the left-right divide—actual content rather than the inane banter of paid Party hacks that passes for ‘debate’ in the U.S., circling Mr. Obama’s policies with the charge ‘radical right’ might seem hyperbole. So the charge here conveys that these policies promote / reflect political capture by neo-liberalism and the restructuring of government Mr. Obama has undertaken is a reflection of the architecture of this economic order. While not necessarily the most momentous, one of the most telling policies that ties Mr. Obama’s undying support for Wall Street in his first term to his current policies is the decision to shutter Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (GSEs). These quasi-government agencies arose from the economic catastrophe of the Great Depression to insure home mortgages away from the predations of private mortgage lenders—the same ‘system’ of private mortgage lending that led once again to financial catastrophe in 2008. To add insult to injury, Mr. Obama’s talking points for the closures come straight from the Wall Street ghetto of Manhattan (my current home), including the well-refuted contention that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were responsible for the housing / mortgage catastrophe of recent vintage caused by Wall Street. The facts are that the catastrophe was caused entirely by mortgages that were underwritten by private mortgage underwriters and packaged into toxic garbage by Wall Street according to neo-liberal principles of ‘market’ economics. At this point in history Mr. Obama still has the audacity to repeat the Wall Street / radical right lie that the Federal government that ‘saved’ Wall Street at public expense was responsible for the financial and economic catastrophes Wall Street alone caused." counterpunch.org/2013/08/16/barack-obama-and-the-neo-liberal-coup/
Posted on: Fri, 16 Aug 2013 16:23:20 +0000
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