creation of the nation: OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

Activist Post

George W. Bush was clearly a mentally-challenged puppet of the military/banking/oil elite. The policies put it in place at breakneck speed after 9/11 were provably predetermined by think tanks well in advance. Not that other presidents were any less controlled by this hidden agenda, but there was a noticeable in-your-face quickening of corporate-government tyranny under Bush.

These policies like wars of aggression, illegal surveillance of Americans, torture of detainees indefinitely held without formal charges, unfair "free trade" agreements, and bank bailouts rightfully enraged many progressives during the Bush years. Yet, not only have these policies accelerated under Obama, even more of the draconian playbook is unfolding.After 8 years of Bush's reign that ended with a record low presidential approval rating in the low 20s, Obama's promise of hope and change inspired many beyond mainline progressives. His campaign speeches were so powerful that they landed him the Nobel Peace Prize without having done anything for world peace except to offer the idea in order to get elected. As a Constitutional law professor and attorney, Obama appeared to have a greater understanding of rights and the balance of power than did flunky Bush.

Although policies being implemented under Obama's leadership exhibit the continuation of Bush's tyrannical agenda, his stunning betrayal of populist and Constitutional principles in support of these actions makes him the ultimate hypocrite. Additionally, because Obama is a much more influential orator than Bush, his service to the puppet masters is far more dangerous to the American people he's supposed to serve.

There have been many articles written about Obama's unkept promises and outright lies, but here are 10 actions that prove Obama is just as bad if not worse than Bush:

Tax cheat Geithner
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Bank/Corporate Bailouts: Although the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), otherwise known as the bankster bailout, occurred on Bush's watch, Obama fully supported it as necessary. Obama then followed up this massive wealth grab with a gargantuan stimulus bill which has basically been absorbed by the financial crisis as well. All said,Bloomberg and others reported the taxpayer guarantees for Wall Street are upwards of $23 trillion. Additionally, the best part of Obama's cabinet and appointed czars are directly connected to big banks like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. Furthermore, Obama and Democratic leaders gave the Federal Reserve even more regulatory power over the economy. The Administration hails the Financial Reform bill as a big political accomplishment, but the bill never addressed the three major problems: doesn't break up or reduce the size of too-big-to-fail banks, doesn't remove the massive government guarantees to the giant banks, and it won’t even increase liquidity requirements to prevent future meltdowns. The inmates are too clearly running Obama's asylum.

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Betrayal of the Poor: Bush never pretended to give a damn about the poor and the systematic mechanisms that keep them poor; openly calling the "haves and have mores" his "base." But Obama has been portrayed as different, mainly because the Democratic party is viewed as more empathetic to the poor. Obama promised affordable healthcare, to create new jobs, and to increase access to a college education. However, the mandated healthcare bill has proven to actually hurt the poor, the "jobs" bill HIREwas nothing but a smokescreen to pass capital controls, and college loans are increasingly worse than useless since record numbers of students can't find work to pay them off. So far he only seems to be helping the poor by extending food stamps to a record number of needy Americans -- which is currently on the spending cut chopping block by the way. Obama also extended Bush's tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans while the poor suffer the dramatic effects of inflation and the approaching austerity cuts demanded to prevent a government shutdown.

Expansion of Free Trade: Obama excoriated NAFTA, GATT and other so-called "Free Trade" agreements that were put in place under Clinton and Bush (with CAFTA). One of Obama's campaign mailers to Ohioans read "one million jobs have been lost because of NAFTA, including nearly 50,000 jobs here in Ohio." And Obama told unions that "he has always opposed NAFTA, and said the trade deal should be amended and renegotiated." It is abundantly clear that free trade agreements have not done well for American manufacturing and its workers (just like Obama told us during his campaign). These free trade agreements are designed to only help the multinational corporations who wrote them, and who Obama now works for. In contrast to being "opposed" to such agreements, the government moves forward with many new similar agreements.

Escalating Wars of Aggression: Whoever thought it couldn't get worse than Bush in regards to wars of aggression -- especially by a Nobel Peace Prize recipient -- have been proven dead wrong. Obama has now unilaterally attacked more countries than Bush, notably bombing inside Pakistan, Yemen and now Libya without Congressional approval. Obama is worse than war-mongering Neocons because he moved the war bar from requiring a real or manufactured threat to justify American military intervention, to vague humanitarian justifications. In other words, if a secular dictator is stamping out a handful of jihadists that threaten his regime, we will now bomb the dictator and support the jihadists when it serves corporate interests. By all counts Obama is serving the same military/oil masters no matter what labels or excuses are given. It is truly a hideous display to watch progressives support Obama's wars as if they're more righteous than Bush's.

Dees Illustration

Torture and Sport Killing: Bush accepted some blame for the Abu Ghraib torture debacle. Rightly so, as it was his Administration that set forth more enhanced interrogation permissions down the chain of command that ultimately resulted in such disgusting behavior. Obama used the notion of closing Guantanamo prison to score political points and to appear as "anti-torture." Not only does Guantanamo remain open two years into his presidency, the detainees have less rights than they did under Bush. Additionally, Obama has allowed the torture of American soldier Bradley Manning simply for being a suspected whistleblower. If he allows this type of treatment to an American citizen, we can only imagine the tactics that are still being used against enemy detainees. If it's fair to blame Bush for Abu Ghraib, then it seems fair to blame Obama for allowing an environment where the U.S. military is engaged in sport killing of innocent civilians -- which also seems to negate his calls for humanitarian purity in other nations.

Illegal Domestic Surveillance: It seems the monster surveillance-industrial complex that was kicked off under Bush remains in full swing under Obama. Obama voted for the Bush/Cheney FISA-telecom immunity after vowing to support a filibuster of it while he was a Senator. Glenn Greenwald reported: "So candidate Obama unambiguously vowed to his supporters that he would work to ensure 'full accountability' for 'past offenses' in surveillance lawbreaking. President Obama, however, has now become the prime impediment to precisely that accountability, repeatedly engaging in extraordinary legal maneuvers to ensure that 'past offenses' -- both in the surveillance and torture/rendition realm -- remain secret and forever immunized from judicial review." And Carol Rose added, "The link between secrecy and surveillance is critical: in effect, our government is increasing its power to watch its citizens, while diminishing the power of citizens to watch their government – the very antithesis of democracy." It's telling how out of control illegal surveillance has become when private foreign companies are hired to spy on American environmental activists. This is in addition to the TSA's roll-out of naked body scanners and intrusive pat-downs selectively enforced at airports and fiercely defended by Obama's DHS.

Rule of Law is Dead: The Rule of Law is an ancient concept that means a society is governed by rational, objective written laws, as opposed to the personal whim or arbitrariness of some king. Under this pretext, no one is above the law, not even kings. Yet, we have seen this concept steadily erode from reality over many decades, but not so blatant as under George W. Bush whose team permanently subverted the rules in favor of the elite. Under Bush and now Obama, the corporate elite clearly get away with massive crimes against humanity and overwhelming fraud, while the little people are still routinely punished for all minor offenses. With not even a hint of punishment, banks can openly loot and defraud the public, the government can spy on Americans, the TSA can grope our private parts, while large corporations continue to poison us and the environment with impunity. The Feds, under Obama, have even raided legal medical marijuana dispensaries and private organic cooperatives. In addition, Obama signed an Executive Order to indefinitely detain "terror" suspects even after acquittal -- while other lawmakers seek to remove Miranda Rights. Who is prosecuting these crimes and injustices? When the criminal corporations with their government partners continue to run the system, there will be no rule of law, or justice.

Dees Illustration

Free Speech Restrictions: Bush mainly used fear, intimidation, access and fake reporters to control the establishment message. He and the media cartel acted in concert to sell gigantic lies to the public. Now, as more people replace their television service with the Internet, "news" has been more difficult for the establishment to control. As the global awakening takes place, the crackdown on free speech intensifies under Obama. The crackdown has been most obvious on the Internet (see next section) and on peaceful protesters. In a comically hypocritical moment that exemplifies how tyrannical this administration has become, Hillary Clinton was giving a speech about supporting the right of peaceful protesters while her security thugs violently removed a "veteran for peace" from the audience for standing in silent protest. Additionally, there was an absolute police state put in place during the 2009 G20 meeting in Pittsburgh to shut down peaceful protests. Finally, we know what direction the current Administration is headed in terms of free speech, given the recent White Papers revealing their desire to "outlaw" or "tax" conspiracy theories, and to make it a felony offense to share copyrighted information even when no money is involved.

Internet Rights Eroding: The open and free Internet is under full assault under Obama's leadership. It has become obvious that there has never been much in the way of Internet privacy, especially since the Patriot Act went into full effect. But now, free access to information via the Internet is the target of legislation such as The Protecting Cybersecurity as a National Asset Act, aka the "Internet Kill Switch" bill, and the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), aka the domain "Blacklist" bill. The free Internet is also being threatened by market-based "net neutrality" agreements, civil lawsuits, technical censorship via search engines, and yes, blogging taxes too. Finally, the DHS has been arbitrarily seizing domain names, which is clearly unconstitutional. Given that Obama is completely in bed with Google and others in the corporate information cartel, you can bet he will show his support for these endeavors even if only by remaining silent as they are debated then implemented.

Obamacare Fascism: Even many progressives view Obamacare as a purely fascist policy. When a progressive tries to defend Obamacare these days, the best argument they can give is "at least Obama tried to fix the problem." It's their way of subtly deflecting blame to Bush for ignoring it because he was too busy "smokin' turrurists outta their holes". Healthcare reform was meant to increase competition and affordable coverage for all Americans. Yet, the private insurance monopolies remain and citizens are mandated to buy from them under penalty of jail, while 1000 of the most connected corporations are exempt from the law. Furthermore, the FDA remains under the full control of Big Pharma/Chemical giants and the giveaways to the drug companies have only increased. Finally, when there are huge profits involved in deciding if people live or die, and budgetary rationing of services, you will always have "death panels." So, yes, the corporate government healthcare merger is complete with for-profit "death panels." Folks, if you want to know what the modern-day definition of fascism is, you just read it.

We can sense the hate mail is coming from die-hard "team blue" fans here, but America doesn't stand a chance without an honest assessment of what she represents and where she is heading under the policies outlined above. The Bush-Obama evolution is as blatant as it gets that the current two-party system has morphed into one that would more properly be labeled The Corporatist Party. We might do better to look beyond the two teams that so many root for, and realize that there is one central clubhouse from which they both operate.

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Do Obama's Proposed New Copyright Laws Go Too Far? (Part I)

Obama Administration IP Czar Victoria Espinel

David Makarewicz, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

On Tuesday, the White House's Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, Victoria Espinel, provided Congress with a White Paper (available for download here), outlining a series of the Obama Administration's recommended legislative changes to combat online piracy and counterfeiting. Significantly, the recommendations include making it a felony offense to stream infringing content and giving Federal agencies wiretapping authority to obtain evidence of criminal copyright and trademark offenses.
The White Paper is the product of the IP Czar's review of "existing laws to ensure that they were effective and to identify deficiencies that could hinder enforcement." The review was conducted in conjunction with a group of federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and the State Department.

These new proposals, as well as the Obama Administration's recent questionable domain seizures and previous controversial proposed laws, such as COICA, have raised questions about what Obama's legacy will end up being with regard to internet issues.

In the White Paper, Espinel attempts to camouflage some of the potentially controversial recommendations behind lofty goals like health risks, national security, counterfeit drugs and combating criminal gangs. However, many of the key measures, such as the new wiretapping powers and increased sentencing for repeat offenders, appear to be potentially applicable to any website operator and not limited to any one group or purpose.

Several points of the White Paper also still need to be investigated and clarified. For example, it requests that Congress change the law to clarify that "infringement by streaming, or by means of other similar new technology, is a felony." However, there is no attempt to clarify what activities fall into the category of "other similar new technology." Does this only refer to technology that has not been invented yet? Are search engines that list streaming sites the type of "other similar new technology" that will be subject to felony charges?

Around the web, the initial reaction to the White Paper is mixed. CNET hints that we should question the motives behind the Obama Administration's crackdown on copyright infringement by pointing out that "No less than 78 percent of political contributions from Hollywood went to Democrats in 2008, which is broadly consistent with the trend for the last two decades, according to OpenSecrets.org."

Techdirt is more direct with its criticism, pointing out:

The thing is, every time the government ratchets up IP laws in ways that don't match with the way most people view the world, the less respected those laws become. Rather than actually increasing enforcement, these moves decrease respect for those laws.

On the other hand, Ars Technica applauds the fact that "The list largely avoids big controversies—Web censorship, 'three strikes' rules—in favor of a focus on health, safety, and serious criminal activity."

While I agree that these proposals could be worse, I believe the White Paper's potential to arm the United States government with another powerful new set of weapons aimed at websites demands more analysis than I can do in a single article. Therefore, this will be the introductory post of a multi-part analysis that I will roll out over the course of the next few days that will provide a more detailed review of the recommendations in the White Paper, as well as what these recommendations tell us about the Obama Administration's intellectual property philosophy and agenda.

Part II will review the Government's proposed new wiretap authority for copyright offenses.

David Makarewicz is an attorney practicing internet law concerning privacy rights and copyright defense for websites and blogs. Visit Dave at Sites and Blogs to keep up with breaking Internet news.

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