Have we all become so apathetic and self-involved as a society that we don't realize what has happened to our rights as a constituency?! I bet plenty of us could tell you who's dating who in celebrimaginaryville, that we just can't wait for that new ep of The City next week, or thank god there won't be another Gossip Girl re-run for a while. I myself have been feeling overwhelmed in trying to sift through all of the information that happens on a day to day basis to try and come up with key points for anyone that wants to take the time to read this. There is a lot out there, but it is our responsibility to pay attention and figure out what is going on with the appropriation of the money that is being taken out of our earnings.
I feel really uneasy after Obama's first week. I know you guys all love him. I even bought into it at first and thought that for once I was actually giving my vote to someone that was going to make a difference, but not a $825+ Billion dollar difference for big business. For my friends that are reading this, I am completely sober right now and this is going to be a clear, streamlined argument as to why I wish I could take my vote back and give it to Nader (it's a whole clean conscious thing for me).
1) Obama's major campaign contributions by industry were mostly from Lawyers/Lobbyists and Financial Institutions (favors are owed).
2)Some of Obama's carefully selected staff:
Timothy F. Geithner: United States Secretary of the Treasury- Tax Evader, Ex-President of Fed. Reserve Bank of New York
Tom Vilsack: United States Secretary of Agriculture - Supporter of Hormone Injected/Genetically Engineered farms and Corn Syrup Cash Crop
Steven Chu: United States Secretary of Energy - Got British Petroleum to give $500 million of funding for EBI: which is essentially the Helios Building that for some reason still needed a $50 million subsidy from the State of California (Arnold asked for it) so it can house 50 B.P. scientists to research Bio fuels... wait...what?
Tom Daschle: United States Secretary of Health and Human Services - married to Linda Hall (lobbyist for American Airlines, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin), Fellow Tax Evader, Health care solution: Federal Health Board - single-payer strategy (Heavy Fed. Reg usually leads to increased cost for consumers, noticeably favors the larger profiting companies, causes smaller companies/competition to die out)
Neal S. Wolin: Deputy Counsel to the President for Economic Policy and Deputy Assistant to the President - President and C.O.O. of HIG
3)Big public slaps in the face to us under his watch, and all they get is a little wrist slap - Note how the article says: "The truth is, this is probably the last year for a good long while that Wall Street bonuses are going to be so out of line with reality. Partly that is because the government simply isn’t going to let it happen again, at least not at any institution that has taken bailout money." AGAIN! AGAIN! WHY DID THEY LET THAT HAPPEN IN THE FIRST PLACE!!! Am I the only person contracting a brain aneurysm from reading this, surely Lewis Black feels my pain here.
*More to come soon
3 years ago
2 comments:
I too am concerned that Obama's cabinet isn't progressive enough, but I'd be hard-pressed to find any current establishment politician that is untainted. I don't think, however, that means Obama can just forge his own path; he still needs the legislature. (We have 3 branches of government, marginally.)
As well, it's a bit unfair to blame Obama for "allowing" the bonuses to happen. Those happened in the past, and there's nothing legally he could do about them since that was GWB's bailout. He did what he could do, which was use the bully pulpit.
Yes, everyone knows it was GWB's bailout. Obama had a vote in it too, correct? I am not blaming everything on Obama, I am just making a point that it doesn't matter who is in office, they all have a shared agenda.
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