Elect Obama or Fall Into Tyranny

by Paul Craig Roberts

As articles by John Pilger, Alexander Cockburn and Uri Avnery make clear, by groveling before the Israel lobby, Obama has dispelled any hope that his presidency would make a difference.

Obama told the lobby that in order to protect Israel he would use all the powers of the presidency to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon. As in the case of Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction,” the conclusion whether or not Iran is making a nuclear weapon will be determined by propaganda and not by fact. Therefore, there is no difference between George W. Bush, John McCain, Obama and the lobby with regard to the Middle East.

As Israel has several hundred nuclear weapons, and a modern air force and missiles supplied by the United States, the idea that Israel needs American protection from Iran is a fantasy. All Israel needs to do in order to be safe and to live in peace is to stop stealing the West Bank and to drop its designs on southern Lebanon. Obama is too smart not to know that U.S. foreign policy has been Shanghaied by the lobby not in order to protect innocent Israel but to enable Israel’s territorial expansion.

Obama has dispelled hope on the economic front, as well. Obama has appointed two leading apologists for jobs offshoring as his economic advisors—Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Rubin associate Jason Furman. These two are notorious for their justifications of policies that benefit Wall Street, CEOs and large retailers at the expense of the economic well being and careers of millions of Americans.
As a result of offshoring, good jobs in America are disappearing. The Bureau of Labor Statistics job figures make it totally clear that the U.S. economy has ceased creating net new middle-class jobs in the private economy in the 21st century.

Stressing higher returns to shareholders, Wall Street pressures corporations to move their operations abroad. Wal-Mart tells its American suppliers to “meet the Chinese price” or else—a price that U.S. firms can match only by offshoring their operations to China.

Every job and product that is offshored increases the U.S. trade deficit and lowers U.S. gross domestic product. It is a losing game for America that rewards the overpaid elite of Wall Street and corporate America, while dismantling the ladders of upward mobility.

By enlarging the trade deficit, offshoring erodes the reserve currency role of the dollar, the real basis of U.S. power. Now that U.S. imports exceed U.S. industrial production, it is unlikely that the U.S. trade deficit can be closed except by a sharp reduction in U.S. consumption, which implies a drop in U.S. living standards. If the dollar loses its reserve currency status, the U.S. government will not be able to finance its budget and trade deficits.

Where is the hope when Obama endorses a foreign policy that benefits only Israeli territorial expansion and an economic policy that benefits only multimillionaires and billionaires?

The answer is that Obama’s election would signify the electorate’s rejection of Bush and the Republicans. Considering the cowardice of the Democratic Congress and its reluctance to hold a criminal regime accountable, electoral defeat is the only accountability that the Bush Republicans are likely to experience.

It is not sufficient accountability, but at least it is some accountability.

If the Republicans win the election and escape accountability, the damage Republicans have done to the U.S. Constitution, civil liberty and a free society will be irreversible. The Bush regime and its totalitarians have openly violated U.S. law against spying on Americans without warrants and U.S. and international laws against torture. The regime and its totalitarians have violated the Constitution that they are sworn to uphold. Bush’s attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, even asserted to the Senate Judiciary Committee that the U.S. Constitution does not provide habeas corpus protection to American citizens.

When federal courts acted to stop the regime’s unconstitutional practices and abuse of prisoners, the Republicans passed legislation to overturn the court rulings. The Republican Party has shown beyond all doubt that it holds the U.S. Constitution in total contempt. Today, the Republican Party stands for unaccountable executive power.

To re-elect such a party is to murder liberty in America.

The June 12 Supreme Court decision pulled America back from the abyss of tyranny. For years, hundreds of innocent people have been held by the Bush regime without charges, a handful of which were set to be tried in a kangaroo military tribunal in which they could be convicted on the basis of secret evidence and confession extracted by torture.

The Court ruled 5 to 4 that detainees have the right to appeal to civilian courts for habeas corpus protection. The Bush Republicans, claiming “extraordinary times,” had created a Gestapo system in which the government could accuse, without presenting any evidence, a person of being a threat and on that basis alone imprison him indefinitely. Justice Anthony Kennedy reminded the Republican Brownshirts that “the laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”

Bush’s current attorney general, Michael Mukassey, said he would proceed with his kangaroo trials.

President Bush indicated that he was inclined to again seek to overturn the Court with a law.

Brownshirt Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said he would draft a constitutional amendment to restore the executive branch’s tyrannical power.

Republican presidential nominee John McCain said that the Supreme Court decision protecting habeas corpus “is one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”

The four Supreme Court justices (Samuel Alito, John Roberts, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas) who voted for tyranny in America are all Republicans. They all came out of the Federalist Society, a highly subversive group of right-wing lawyers who are determined to elevate the powers of the executive branch above Congress and the Supreme Court.
The Republican Party has morphed into a Brownshirt Party. The party worships “energy in the executive.” If the Brownshirt Republicans are re-elected, they only need one more Supreme Court appointment in order to destroy American liberty.

That is what is at stake in the November election. As bad as Obama is on important issues, his election will signal rejection of the tyranny to which the Republicans are committed.

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Damned right I'm an equal opportunity offender, I'm a Conservative!

Let me start off by saying there is no such thing as a democrat or republican. Their the same thing. One uses force, the other uses charisma, but the goal is the same. People think of obama as some type of savior. He is not. He will continue to destroy the civil liberties of Americans. He will continue the progression of worldwide Pax Americana. He will just do it in a way people will condone and accept. He's no different than Mccain. He's just a wolf in a different outfit.

Its called fascism with a smile.

Vi

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Damned right I'm an equal opportunity offender, I'm a Conservative!

lol...Yes my fellow Comrade.

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"I suppose I always knew America would eventually break the planet, like some ghastly, hyperactive toddler that gets hold of a mobile phone and then smashes it repeatedly against the edge of a table". Quote from british journalist.

What do you think about presidential candidate Bob Barr? I know that realistically he will probably not get elected but I still will be voting for him.

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I don't know where I heard this but its not true, I just say this shit to be cool
My First grow http://www.rollitup.org/grow-journal...irst-grow.html

He's got my vote.

Vi

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Damned right I'm an equal opportunity offender, I'm a Conservative!

Another neo-con.

so, we are already making excuses for the inevitable failure of that great savior brak. as he makes that slow slide toward the right, will his halo seem a bit askew? after a couple years of a democrat controlled congress, haven't y'all figured out that the party of the downtrodden is no more interested in your pathetic puling than the fat cats you so abhor? your innocence is so quaint, your single minded animosity so naive.

sure the great savior is going to reign in those evil corporations. just as soon as they are no longer of use to him, right after pigs fly. maybe he'll take a cue from maxine waters and socialize...um...take over those evil oil companies. i'm pretty sure she feels that hugo chavez is a kindred spirit. i'm positive he'll stop the iraq war. after he's had a chance to confer with a score of military advisers and when the timing is right to further his own agenda. of course he'll see to it that all of our freedoms are restored. well, maybe he might just stall on that for a while. you never can tell when extraordinary executive powers might just come in handy while attempting to remake the country into a stalinist paradise.

after years of enslaving the lower class with their welfare state mentality, the liberal elite has no wish to enslave the middle class. their goal is to decimate it, to even out that playing field so that we can all live in the sort of comfortable poverty to which they think we should become accustomed. while the progressive leadership joins the rich in lording it over us mere peons and petty bureaucrats line their pockets by skimming off of a myriad of corrupt social programs, the rest of us can all march to a jaunty martial tune courtesy of an obama expanded military.

what seems pretty lame is that anyone could possibly believe the false promises of change and the smooth patter of just another huckster. yes, obama will most likely make it to the oval office. thanks to an ignorant public, sick to death of eight long years under the leadership of a moron and his henchmen, we will all get to see first hand what the true road to fascism looks like.

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When her work is done, she forgets it. That is why it lasts forever.

The only one that isn't evil is RON PAUL.. But you guys knew that already HAHA

RON PAUL REVOLUTION

~PEACE~

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"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." Ghandi........
"We must learn to live together as brothers, or perish together as fools." MLK