People are so eager to rid the world of the Bush administration that they have lost all sense of reality. I could not find a single word of rational analysis within the mainstream press. The whole thing belies the complete lack of theoretical analysis within popular commentary.
Reading the transcript of Obama’s inaugural speech was like reading a J.R.R. Tolkien history of US foreign policy, as if they are hobbits battling the forces of Sauron. Ironically racism underscores the entire thing—the millions slaughtered by the US during the ‘Cold War’ can be conveniently left unmentioned, because they are essentially treated as untermenschen within political discourse. My neighbor across the street tried to begin a conversation with me with the words “Poor Obama.” Poor Obama? He wanted that job as I recall. Next thing you know, these idiots will be trying to make us sing “Kum Ba Yah” every morning. There appears to be two dominant religions in the US, Christianity and Americanism—belief in the latter requires a fairytale view of American history, and its holy texts are updated each year by Hollywood. Obama and his administration are real enemies of the working class— there will be a lot of very disappointed people this year. Fact versus fiction • The wealthiest 10% of the world’s population accounted for 59% of total private consumption • The wealthiest 20% of the world’s population accounted for 76.6% of total private consumption • The poorest fifth of the world’s population accounted for just 1.5% of total private consumption • The poorest 10% of the world’s population accounted for just 0.5% of total private consumption • At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day • The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income. • The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income • The wealthiest nation on Earth (the USA) has the widest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized nation. The bottom 40% of the population share just 0.2%, while 65 million Americans live on $7 a day or less. • In 2005, the world’s billionaires, about 500 people (approx 0.000008% of the world’s population) were worth $3.5 trillion (over 7% of world GDP) • In 2004 the total wealth of the richest 8.3 million people increased by 8.2% to $30.8 trillion, giving them control of nearly one quarter of the world’s financial assets. In other words about 0.13% of the world’s population controlled 25% of the world’s assets • From 1960 to 1997 the average income of the wealthiest 20% of the population in the developed countries went from 30 times that of the median income to 74 times median income An analysis of long-term trends showing the distance between the richest and poorest countries • 3 to 1 in 1820 • 11 to 1 in 1913 • 35 to 1 in 1950 • 44 to 1 in 1973 • 72 to 1 in 1992 12% of the world’s population use 85% of the world’s water One quarter of the world’s people live without electricity Half the world’s children live in poverty Approximately half the world’s population live in cities—in 2005 one in three were living in slums In 2003 10.8 million children died before the age of five due to poverty related causes "Striking it Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States" Democrats and Republicans shovel trillions into the pockets of the super rich. http://www.econ.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2006prel.pdf Facts and figures are one thing. The social impact is far worse. The health and education system do not function at all, then there is the garbage that is fobbed off as entertainment, and disorientation and dysfunction of a society that measures success by status and wealth. Mental illness, poverty and violent crime are on the rise. The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world, 1 in every 100 people are in jail. 90% are there because of poverty related offences. In other words the system impoverishes you and then jails you for being poor, while the ruling classes change the law or ignore it. Bush and his cabinet are murderers that are going to get off scot free thanks to the system and Obama. And Americans think casting a vote means something. How bloody stupid. The whole world has to wait and see what Obama will do. I can’t believe it. He should do as he is instructed by the people and stop the war, trial administration war criminals, stop giving trillions to the banks and reclaim the trillions the crooked bankers have pocketed to help rebuild the infrastructure and social services. He has no such intentions. He is a multi-millionaire bankrolled by multi billionaires. Obama proclaimed, “As president, I will make the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban the top priority that it should be. Obama stressed that the lesson of the Iraq debacle was the necessity to prepare for new US wars. “We must use this moment both to rebuild our military and to prepare it for the missions of the future,” he stressed. “We must retain the capacity to swiftly defeat any conventional threat to our country and our vital interests. But we must also become better prepared to put boots on the ground in order to take on foes that fight asymmetrical and highly adaptive campaigns on a global scale.” While Obama’s “left” apologists will no doubt excuse the blatant militarism and warmongering the reality is that Obama is spelling out what can be expected from the incoming Democratic administration in 2009. Its policies will be determined not by the hollow campaign rhetoric about “change” that has been Obama’s specialty, but rather by the deepening economic and social crisis of American capitalism and the determination of the American ruling elite to continue using military force as a means of offsetting its economic decline. On Jan 26, 3:45 am, wncs <[email protected]> wrote: > The market is set to react in a negative way to fourth quarter reports > from companies. Just wanted to clarify that Obama was not the > president during Q4 2008, for those who plan to blame him for what > will likely happen to the market this > week.http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/25/markets/sunday_weekahead/index.htm?po... --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
