Bankers
and Military Hog Power Under Obama
A
Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
To listen to this Black Agenda Radio commentary, click the flash player below.{mp3}20090107_gf_urban_policy{/mp3}
"In
appointing Adolfo Carrion to chair the Office of Urban Policy, Obama
showed how unimportant that office really is."
Barack
Obama has all but slammed the door to any meaningful progressive
presence in his administration, which should be described as a
center-right government, heavily weighted to the interests of finance
capital and the military. By retaining Bush's Secretary of Defense,
Robert Gates, Obama ensures the continuity of U.S. imperial policies
abroad, buttressed by an obscenely bloated military budget.
Proponents of American empire can also rest easy with Hillary Clinton
as Secretary of State - actually, quite a logical choice, since the
Democratic primary debates showed Obama and Clinton to be
near-identical on foreign policy matters, with both politicians
supporting expanded U.S. military manpower.
Obama's
loyalty to the battered U.S. banking class is also unquestionable. He
has placed unrepentant finance capital high-rollers at the controls
of his economic machinery, in the Department of Treasury and among
his top economic advisors. Although the Lords of Capital have lost a
great deal of their money - and your money, and the money of children
not yet born - their political power will be undiminished in the
coming Obama administration.
In
the current economic and imperial crisis, real power is exercised
through the Treasury, which has been converted into an ATM for the
once-rich and still powerful, and through the Pentagon, a "demonic
suction tube" that strips the society of every resource that is
not nailed down, as Dr. Martin Luther King pointed out 40 years ago..
These are the Power Portfolios, and they are firmly in the hands of
the right-wing of this center-right administration. Working men and
women may well have an ally in the soon-to-be Secretary of Labor,
Hilda Solis. But broad economic policy determines whether one has or
keeps a job, and those areas of policy are dominated by Obama's
banker friends, none of whom gives a damn about the interests of
labor.
"Obama
has placed unrepentant finance capital high-rollers at the controls
of his economic machinery."
Even
if there were not a general economic meltdown, the U.S. military's
voracious appetite would represent the biggest obstacle to domestic
social change. Barack Obama campaigned for a bigger military. By
keeping Robert Gates on at the Department of Defense, Obama makes
clear that there is no fundamental policy conflict between himself
and George Bush. Otherwise, the Gates retention makes no sense -
unless, of course, one is hopelessly addicted to ObamaL'aid, in which
case, one is prepared to disbelieve the evidence of one's own eyes.
Obama
defenders were especially excited about the creation of a new White
House Office of Urban Policy. This would be that magical place where
new ideas for urban revitalization would be born, close by the
president's ear and near to where the money flows. What we got was
Adolfo Carrion, the President of the Borough of the Bronx, a man
despised by New York housing activists as a tool of the rich real
estate developers who supplied most of his campaign money; a
political hack whose favorite poverty program is aid to the Yankees,
the richest team in baseball. In appointing Carrion to chair the
Office of Urban Policy, Obama showed how unimportant that office
really is. If you're looking for the real action in the Obama
administration - the places where money and power coincide - you'll
find it with the bankers and the Pentagon - as always. For Black
Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR
executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at
Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Isaac Saney is a Cuba and Black studies specialist and historian at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
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