10 Reasons Obama is Just As Bad or Worse Than Bush

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
AFP image

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.

AFP image

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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The U.S. Government Must Go!

Dees Illustration

Mike Rozeff
Lew Rockwell

A chorus of U.S. and international officials keeps chanting that "Gaddafi must go" because, they keep repeating, he has lost legitimacy.

Let’s turn the tables. How legitimate is the U.S. government? I’m not talking about the popularity of particular persons like Obama, Bush I, Bush II, or Clinton. Changing faces, political parties, and administrations in Washington is a lost cause. I’m talking about national government itself. Should Washington be dismantled? Has Washington lost legitimacy as a government? If so, as a remedy, as a guide to action, as an objective to work toward, the U.S. government must go!
There are many valid ways to criticize the U.S. government. Any small government or anarchist perspective gives rise to a critique. Any adherent of constitutionality has another critique. For example, Lysander Spooner’s critique is devastating. Anyone who looks to the government’s effectiveness in serving the public will have yet another perspective. Anyone who restricts attention to economic and monetary matters will find plenty to criticize. Anyone who focuses on rights and liberties will be able to make important criticisms.

Here my perspective is to question the legitimacy of the U.S. government. Legitimacy is the perspective being used loudly by many world leaders against Gaddafi. I wonder, can we camp on their grounds and turn their own ideas against them?

World heads of state do not usually shine the light of legitimacy on one another, much less on themselves. Oh no, they are very quiet and reserved in that area. They don’t want people questioning their legitimacy, so they don’t raise the idea. Libya is atypical. Some leaders are using the rhetoric of legitimacy against Gaddafi. They believe that they can confine its use to him. They believe that they can restrict illegitimacy to instances of outright violence and ignore hidden violence. This serves their purposes.

In the post-Soviet era, criticisms by world leaders of the U.S. tend to be restrained, muted and timid. The world’s states are essentially in cahoots with one another. Many are beholden to the U.S. or tied in via relations of one kind and another. They cannot be too critical. Many have their own domestic problems and don’t want to stir up nests of hornets.

We are not so confined. If we use Obama’s criterion that violence against one’s people is a sign of government illegitimacy, then how many world governments are themselves legitimate? They all use violence and the threat of violence to maintain themselves. The fact that the threats of violence are effective and prevent outright blood on the streets doesn’t remove the presence of violence as the government’s means of controlling its citizens. Once we look under the hood at the motor of government, we find violence. At what point does such violence mean that the government’s leaders or the government itself – its very form – have lost legitimacy?

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US apologizes for more Afghan 'kill team' photos

Der Spiegel/Wikimedia Commons image

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US military apologized again Monday after Rolling Stone published more photos and videos of members of an alleged rogue army unit "kill team" accused of killing Afghan civilians for sport.

A week after one soldier was jailed after striking a plea bargain to testify against the alleged ringleader, the weekly magazine published a series of graphic images and a long story including extensive detail of the allegations.

"The photos published by Rolling Stone are disturbing and in striking contrast to the standards and values of the United States Army," said a Pentagon statement.
"Like those published by Der Spiegel, the Army apologizes for the distress these latest photos cause," it said, referring to an initial set of less graphic pictures published by the German magazine last week.

The Rolling Stone pictures, under the headline "the Kill Team," included unblurred versions of photos published by Der Spiegel showing soldiers posing with the bloodied body of an Afghan youth, holding the head up to the camera.

Battling to avoid a repetition of the Abu Ghraib scandal triggered by release of pictures of US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners, the Pentagon apologized after Der Spiegel's publication of images last week.

The new pictures were accompanied by two videos, including one set to a heavy rock soundtrack -- and reportedly shared round among soldiers -- showing two men being killed after allegedly planting a roadside bomb.

The accompanying story related how the youth shown in the still pictures, identified later as Gul Mudin, a farm worker, was picked out on January 15 last year as the first victim of the so-called "kill team."

Corporal Jeremy Morlock -- who was jailed for 24 years last week -- and Private Andrew Holmes initially threw a grenade at the teenager before gunning him down, and pretending he had attacked them with the grenade.

The little finger of the boy's right hand is missing, allegedly cut off as a trophy.

In the following months they and others staged a number of such killings, according to the Rolling Stone account, citing other witnesses questioned after the killings were revealed by a fellow soldier.

Morlock, one of five soldiers charged with murder and tried in a military court south of Seattle, is expected to be the star witness in the court martial of the alleged ringleader, Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs.

© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license

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US soldier pleads guilty over Afghan killings

US Corporal Jeremy Morlock
© AFP/US Army/File

AFP

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Washington (AFP) - A US soldier pleaded guilty Wednesday to targeting Afghan civilians for execution, as part of a rogue US army unit in southern Afghanistan last year.

Corporal Jeremy Morlock, who is set to testify against four co-accused, admitted murdering or helping to kill three men, and using illegally obtained Afghan weapons to make it appear that the victims were enemy combatants.

Morlock is the first soldier to face court martial out of five members of a rogue US Army unit from the Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Division's Stryker brigade, based out of Fort Lewis, Washington.

They were deployed in the southern Kandahar region of Afghanistan over several months early last year.


In addition to allegations that the soldiers formed a so-called "kill squad," prosecutors charged Morlock and other members of his unit with taking gruesome trophies in the form of bones from dead Afghans and smoking hashish.

They also allegedly assaulted another soldier who blew the whistle on the unit's drug use and violence.

Morlock, at times speaking in a barely audible mumble, explained the plot to start targeting civilians was first hatched in November 2009.


Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs -- who Morlock fingers as the ring-leader -- showed the men a stash of weapons he had illegally obtained in Afghanistan, and allegedly led them in formulating a plan to shoot people and plant one of the weapons on the body to make it look as if the killing was in self-defense.

"Were you going to shoot at (civilians) to scare them and it got out of hand?" Judge Lieutenant Colonel Kwasi Hawks asked the hearing.

"The plan was to kill people," Morlock replied without any hesitation.

The first victim of the kill squad died in January 2010. Morlock said the unit was in a village so that army leaders could meet with elders.

He and Private Andrew Holmes were on patrol when a man walked toward the two soldiers, who positioned themselves behind a waist-high wall.

Morlock tossed a grenade over the wall near himself and Holmes to make it appear as if the Afghan man had thrown it, and Holmes fired at the man with his machine gun.

Morlock is also the government's star witness against the four other soldiers accused over the execution of Afghan civilians -- in particular the alleged ring-leader, Gibbs.

The three others facing charges are Holmes, Specialist Michael Wagnon, and Specialist Adam Winfield.

Morlock led Army investigators to gruesome trophies allegedly taken from the bodies of civilians killed by the rogue.

At a pre-trial hearing for Holmes in November, Special Agent Benjamin Stevenson testified that, using a map drawn by Morlock, he found severed fingers in a large protective barrier near where the soldiers lived.

On Monday this week the German news magazine Der Spiegel published three grisly pictures, out of a reported cache of 4,000 documents, showing Morlock and Holmes holding up the bloodied head of a corpse.

Attorneys for the other accused soldiers have been painting Morlock as a drug-addled, mentally unstable, and fundamentally unreliable witness.

At a pre-trial hearing in November 2010 for Gibbs, defense attorney Phillip Stackhouse argued that his client had played no role in the killings.

Stackhouse asked the judge presiding over that hearing to consider Gibbs's assertion of innocence "with these dope-smoking soldiers in a combat zone. Who are you going to believe, where does the credibility lay?"

"It's just as likely that Morlock was responsible for all of these (murders)," Stackhouse added.

© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license

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Obama takes 'unprecedented' aim at leakers

Demonstrators protest for Bradley Manning
© AFP/Getty Images/File Chip Somodevilla

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Elected on a promise of a more transparent government, President Barack Obama has taken "unprecedented" aim at leakers who divulge classified information to journalists, critics say.

"We've seen the current president bringing five prosecutions so far... against people for whistleblowing, for leaks of classified information," said Daniel Ellsberg, famous for his 1971 leak of the "Pentagon Papers," which helped turn the tide of public opinion against the Vietnam War.

"All previous presidents put together brought three prosecutions... We see a campaign here against whistleblowing that is highly unprecedented in legal terms."

The White House declined to answer questions about its policy towards those who leak government secrets.
The five prosecutions include the case of US soldier Bradley Manning, who is accused of having handed hundreds of thousands of classified military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks.

Manning, 23, was arrested in June while deployed to Iraq, amid suspicions he was responsible for passing a trove of secret US government documents to the whistle-blowing website, many of which were then published around the world.

Earlier this month, the military unveiled 22 additional charges against Manning including "aiding the enemy", which carries a potential death sentence, though the army said it would not seek capital punishment.

US investigators have failed so far to establish a direct link between the Manning and the website, which began publishing the documents last year.

Rights groups have criticized the conditions of Manning's detention at a Marine base in Quantico, Virginia.

And earlier this month State Department spokesman PJ Crowley was forced to resign after publicly criticizing the "ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid" way in which he is being treated.

Another accused leaker facing possible prison time is Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA operative accused of passing US secrets to the New York Times.

And Thomas Drake is said to have revealed the existence of the George W. Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program. His trial is set to begin in Baltimore next month.

Despite the barrage of prosecutions, experts say the government will have a heavy burden in proving its case under a 1917 espionage law.

"One of the statutes says that you have to give this information... 'with the intent or reason to believe that this information is to be used to the injury of the US'," said Andrew Contiguglia, an expert on constitutional law.

"In the situation that you have here, there are former CIA operatives, military operatives, taking the information and giving it off to press people, not spies," he said.

"What makes us think that when we give information to the press, that info is going to be used to the injury of the US?"

He goes on to argue that the leaks are part of the American system.

"It's important that in order to strenghten our democracy, we have to keep our government honest, and the only way to keep our government honest is to give access to that information," he said.

Dan Marcus, a law professor at the American University in Washington, says it's possible to read too much into the administration's probes.

"All presidents and all national security branch officials worry about unauthorized leaks," he said.

"There's always been a great concern in the governments about leaks of damaging national security information, and I don't think that's changed dramatically from one administration to another."

He added that there is a bit of a double standard at play.

"There is a certain amount of hypocrisy," Marcus said.

"There are good reasons for the government trying to keep certain information secret (but) government officials often leak some information when they believe it is in the interest of the government to do so."

© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license

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Is Obama Even Worse Than Bush?

David Swanson

When I advocated the impeachment of George W. Bush, I did so despite, not because of, all the animosity it fueled among impeachment supporters. I didn't want retribution. I wanted to deter the continuation and repetition of Bush's crimes and abuses. Specifically, and by far most importantly -- and I said this thousands of times -- I wanted to deny all future presidents the powers Bush had grabbed. One-time abuses can be catastrophic, but establishing the power to repeat them can multiply the damage many fold, especially when one of the powers claimed is the power to create new powers.

There's a common tendency to confuse politics with reality television shows or to imagine that politicians are, even more than fictional heroes, your own personal friends. This tendency is only compounded by the partisan framework in which we are instructed to imagine half the politicians as purely evil and the other half as essentially good. So, let's be clear. There's very little question that Barack Obama speaks more eloquently than Bush, and that Obama at times (and more so as a candidate than as a president) expresses far kinder and wiser sentiments than Bush. It seems quite likely to me that had Obama been made president in 2000 he would have done far less damage than Bush by 2008. Obama is probably a fun guy to play basketball with, while Bush might be expected to throw elbows, kick opponents, and pull your shorts down. But I'm interested in something more important than the spectacle of personality here. I think Obama would make a wonderful powerless figurehead, and I dearly wish that were what he was. I think Americans clearly need one.

Three rough ways of looking at a president might be as follows. First, in the unimaginable circumstance in which a president encountered a homeless person on the street, would he invite him to live in the White House, or help him find a home, be nice and give him $1, ignore him, shout at him to get a job, kick him in the guts, or help him into a van and take him off to be tortured? I don't care about that way of looking at presidents. Second, do the policies the president pursues lead to massive numbers of people becoming homeless or worse? Third, do the policies the president pursues empower all future presidents to make unfathomable numbers of people suffer horribly? My contention is that Obama has not yet done as much damage as Bush in the second view but has, in a certain sense, done worse in the third view.

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RELATED:
Obama: Torturer-in-Chief


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Our Time of Universal Deceit Needs An Orwell

Paul Craig Roberts
VDare

If we were to be blessed with a 21st century George Orwell, he would coin a new “speak” to apply to “support the troops.” Would he call this “Deceptive Speak”?  Or would he be more clever?

The words certainly deserve an Orwellian name.  The catch-phrase was rolled out the minute the war started, which makes one wonder about its public relations origin.  Who can oppose supporting the troops, at least before we learned from WikiLeaks and Abu Ghraib of the intentional killing of civilians and torturing of whoever happened to be rounded up in the various sweeps? All for the fun and games of it.

“Support the troops” originated in the public relations department of the military/security complex. What “support the troops” really means is to support the profits of the armaments industry and the neoconservative ideology of US world hegemony.

“Support the troops” is a clever PR slogan that causes Americans to turn a blind eye to the brutal exploitation of our soldiers and military families for profit and for an evil ideology.


Our soldiers and military families are paying for the Bush/Cheney/Obama/neocon wars with lives, limbs, post-traumatic stress, suicides, broken marriages, children without fathers, wives without husbands, and parents without sons and daughters.

“Support the troops” is one of the most cruel hoaxes in human history, and yet the vast majority of the population has fallen for it. “War Is Peace.”

When a people are so gullible, it is little wonder that they can be marched off to unaffordable open-ended wars based on nothing but lies, deceptions, and fabrications.

America produces an endless supply of material for a new Orwell.  Imagine what an Orwell could do with Hillary’s recent speech on America’s firm commitment to dissent and the First Amendment. CIA veteran Ray McGovern stood with his back to Hillary in an act of dissent from the Obama administration’s policy of coercing Internet companies into helping to eliminate WikiLeaks as a source of information.  McGovern was dragged beaten and bloody from the room, while Hillary continued praising America’s commitment to dissent and freedom of information.

To capture this level of hypocrisy requires a George Orwell. “Dissent Is Subversion.”

“Globalism” is another doctrine that needs Orwell’s illumination. Globalism, which presidents since Clinton have told us we can’t do without, enriches transnational corporations and turns workers into serfs who cannot earn enough to pay their bills.  “Poverty Is Wealth.”

The police state measures that accompany the fake “war on terror” subject Americans to far more danger and insecurity than could ever be realized from terrorists other than those of the state itself.   “Captivity Is Freedom.”

In his marvelous book, The Emotional Lives Of Animals, Marc Bekoff describes the devastating impact on animals of being kept in small cages.  US soldier Bradley Manning has been kept illegally in an even smaller cage for eight months with no end in sight. At his press conference on March 11, one reporter found the courage to ask President Obama about the conditions of Manning’s confinement.  The great and noble president of the United States replied that he had asked the Pentagon and was assured that the conditions of Manning’s confinement “are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards.” Only a George Orwell could do justice to an American president who thinks that keeping a US soldier in conditions worst than those that drive caged animals insane is “appropriate.”

The US government, which is profligate in its wars, profligate in tax cuts and bailouts for the mega-rich, and profligate in giving unlimited monopoly power to unregulated  financial institutions, blames the resulting financial crisis on “handouts” to the poor and “entitlements” to the elderly.  Such deception needs more than exposure.  It cries out for a 21st century Orwell.

Paul Craig Roberts  was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term.  He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal.

RELATED:
Obama: Torturer-in-Chief

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Obama: Torturer-in-Chief

Activist Post

Hey liberals, wake up and defend your principles. Your boy Obama is just as bad, if not worse, than baby Bush.  Demand justice and repeal of Obama's bullshit Nobel Peace Price. Bradley Manning before Obama on the left, and after Obama on right.

Please read this key article detailing his treatment

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TV Torture on the Rise and Copied in the Field

The number of scenes of torture on TV shows is significantly higher than it was five years ago and the characters who torture have changed. It used to be that only villains on television tortured. Today, "good guy" and heroic American characters torture—and this torture is depicted as necessary, effective and even patriotic.

These facts motivated Human Rights First to launch Primetime Torture, a website investigating pop culture depictions of interrogation. The project looks at shows such as 24, Lost, and Alias. In a video clip on the site, former U.S. Army Interrogator Tony Lagouranis says that official Pentagon rules of engagement encouraged interrogators to "be creative." In the absence of useful training and guidelines, pop culture became a source of such creativity.

It would be overwhelming to debate every day the ticking time bomb scenario and other questions of torture (as the Carnegie Council did in 2005 with an expert panel). But TV and film wield impressive rhetorical power in this debate through their wide reach, continuous broadcasting, and endless reruns and rentals. The danger is that these media are nonparticipatory and not self-reflective—you can't argue with them and they rarely analyze their own coverage and trends.

The "violence in the media induces violence in real life" hypothesis may never be definitively resolved, but art imitates life and vice versa. Our narratives and public discourse define us. Television didn't mature into the educational platform many envisioned, but it is always teaching and it is always on.