American progressives don’t appear to grasp the implications behind the fact that only slightly over half of those who voted in the last presidential election (53%) did so for Barack Obama, presumably to bring change for Americans as individuals, and also as a nation.

And that the counter-reformists, who comprised a lion’s share of the remaining vote (47%) did so to maintain the status quo, one in which the elite among them holds 80 to 90 percent of the nation’s wealth, influence and power that run government, make most significant corporate/business decisions, and hold most key positions in the full spectrum of American institutions. Continue reading →

No, Mr. President, we cannot move on, as you keep suggesting; not until we recognize, accept and make amends for all the criminality incurred in our name during the recent past. All those trips you made overseas at the onset of your presidency, or the interview at al-Arabiya TV, will be seen by the world as nothing but empty palaver. FULL ARTICLE

Had William Shakespeare been reincarnated as a modern-day president of the United States, he might have modified one of his more famous quotes to say: “the better part of justice is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my presidency.” It did apply to Gerald Ford with his pardon of Richard Nixon; it did apply to Bill Clinton as well with his unwillingness to disinter and do the forensics on the cadaver of the Iran-Contra affair; and it does apply today to our current president, Barack Obama, and his promise not to prosecute CIA officials on the critical issue of torture. FULL ARTICLE

Just as my disappointment grew at the prospect of an unchanging foreign policy toward the Middle East, and a current absurd position escalating a no-win war in Afghanistan – or his unwillingness to help prosecute criminals in the past administration, starting with George W. Bush – this president’s economic prescription for the ongoing crisis is nothing short of an unfair repackaging of an infected, tired corporatism for a brainwashed people that to date have not been told the truth: that they have been living beyond their productive means for way too long. FULL ARTICLE

Americans start the year facing seven deadly absurdities, but they also have the knowledge in how to overcome them. Yet, it is likely that they will end 2009 holding on to the same absurdities which they now face as 2008 fades into history; as they succumb to “more of the same” instead of adopting, once and for all, change. FULL ARTICLE

Rod Blagojevich, America’s newest political bad boy, now subject of impeachment by Illinois’ lawmakers intent on vanquishing him from the governor’s post, is an overt and crude example of how politics function in this nation. Overt this time, in the tradition of dirty, in your face, defiant politics that have forever, it seems, accosted Illinois, and more specifically, Chicago. FULL ARTICLE

By making two foreign policy decisions within a week after assuming power, two far-reaching decisions yet domestically of low political risk, Obama could single-handedly open up the floodgates of goodwill.  And it could simply take the form of an assertive general statement made after two brief phone calls to Havana and Moscow.  Two short conversations made in candor, and one press release unequivocal in meaning, even if lacking in details. FULL ARTICLE