Is Barack Obama a closeted Republican?

It is discomforting, if not puzzling that Mr Barack Obama, a Democratic Presidential candidate, promising positive blazing changes, has chosen to use Ronald Reagan, a former Republican President as an example; as well as to endorse the Republican party in an interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal editorial board.

After all, Reagan was a controversial figure head, who was notorious for his human rights and environmental record, mismanaging the economy, and having the dubious honour of being the first President who surrounded himself with a bunch of neo-conservative advisers during his administration. They included Defense Department aide Richard Perle, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz.

Upon hearing his comment, John Edwards, another Democratic candidate, was quick to denounce Obama for using Reagan as an example. On Reagan, Edwards said, this was ‘the man who busted unions, the man who did everything in his power to destroy the organized labor movement, the man who created a tax structure that favored the richest Americans against middle class and working families… was destructive to the environment by removing a lot of the regulation that existed

Edwards is spot right on all accounts.

On busting unions, just months into being office in 1981, Reagan fired about 12,000 federal air traffic controllers from the Professional Air Traffic Controllers’ Organization (PATCO) who, ironically, supported his presidential campaign. While it was a violation for governmental employees to strike at that time, the result was to ‘break the union and signal to corporations that it is acceptable to be anti-union.’

The former President’s track record in the management of the American economy has often been labelled as ‘Reaganomics’, which, according to Robert Pollin, Professor of Economic and founding co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, benefited the rich and not the poor.

In the article, ‘Reaganomics Revisited, Beyond the Glow of Nostalgia’ published on Counterpunch, he cited the increase of individual poverty rate from 11.9 per cent under Carter to 14.1 per cent under Reagan as an indicator. He also cited the fall of average real wages. The average figure during his presidency ‘was $15.72 per hour (in 2005 dollars), was 7.6 per cent below the average hourly wage under Carter of $16.95, and 9.6 below the Nixon/Ford peak of $17.39.’

He summed up, ‘Reagan’s fiscal program was fundamentally about tax cuts for the rich, a massive expansion in military spending, sharp reductions in social expenditures, and an acceptance-or better still, an embrace-of large-scale federal government fiscal deficits on these terms.’

Even on the topic of environmental conservatism, Reagan nominated advisers who actively sought to break the laws for the benefit of corporate profiteers. Jeffrey St. Clair charted the rise of these figures, known as the ‘Sagebrush Rebels’ or ‘the Crazies on the Hill,’ which featured two prominent stalwarts - James Watt, the head of the Department of Interior and Anne Gorsuch in the Environmental Protection Agency.

In an excerpt of Jeffrey’s book on Reagan’s Administration, he had this to say about Watt, ‘ Within a matter of months Watt proposed the sale of 30 million acres of public lands to private companies, gave away billions of dollars worth of publicly-owned coal resources, fought to permit corporations manage national parks, refused to enforce the nation’s strip mine law, offered up the Outer Continental Shelf oil reserves to exploration and drilling, ignored the Endangered Species Act and purged the Interior Department of any employees who objected to his agenda.’ Gorsuch, on the other hand, according to him, created a ‘climate of cronyism that infected the EPA in those days… pander to its political allies: Coors, Browning-Ferris Industries, Westinghouse and Monsanto.’

His claims were supported by Amanda Griscom on Grist.com, a Washington based environmental group. In her article on Reagan’s environmental legacy, the writer quoted Frank O’Donnell, director of Clean Air Trust, who reported on environmental policy for The Washington Monthly during the Reagan era, “EPA budget cuts during Reagan’s first term were worse than they are today.” Phil Clapp, president of National Environmental Trust said, ‘the administration tried to cut EPA funding by more than 25 percent in its first budget proposal’.

While Edwards had not touched on Reagan’s foreign policy, it was the latter’s aggressive ‘anti-communism’ efforts, in the form of funding and supporting right wing Latin American dictatorships that proved most disturbing. Reagan’s support of these illiberal and violent regimes paved the stage for repressive military assaults causing massacres and human rights violations.

The Iran-Contra scandal in which proceeds from weapon sales to Iran was secretly used to fund the anti-communist Contras in Nicaragua, an illegal act under the Congress, caused a civil war in Nicaragua, leading to the deaths of 50,000 people.

In El Salvador, Reagan’s administration pumped in more than $4 billion on economic and military aid to the military government, resulting in more than 75,000 deaths, most of them civilians, who were caught in the crossfire. He also supported General Efrain Rios Montt’s coup in Guatemala that caused the death of than 200,000, mostly indigenous people, over a lengthy 36 years period of civil war.

Reagan’s supporters may argue that the former President was an important figure, at least, in contributing to world stability for his overstated role in ending the Cold War. Yet, scholars and historians have disputed that version of history. In fact, Reagan was purportedly ‘anti-communist’ as has been witnessed through his support of Latin American military dictatorships. He admonished, called the Soviet Union an ‘evil empire’ and came up with belligerent military policies which escalated the arms race. Efforts which are clearly promoting distrust and increasing tension with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

During his administration, he approved the Star Wars, or the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a military defense program (as a deterrence against the Soviets), using ground and space-based systems to protect America from strategic nuclear ballistic missiles attack.

As such, he actually extended the cold war by promoting hard-line rhetoric in the Communist bloc, and not the other way round. Academics also argued that the end of the cold war were due to internal pressures within Soviet Union, in the form of declining legitimacy, an increasing need for reforms and widening gaps in the society as the reform process unfolded. All these were significant factors in ending the cold war.

Perhaps a Sunday Times Online article, uncannily titled, ‘Republicans defect to the Obama camp’ will provide clues as to why Barack Oabama has chosen Reagan as his exemplifying example of change.

The writer, Sarah Baxter, reported that Barack Oabama is converting, not just Republicans, but also those who used to be ardent Bush supporters. For example, John Canning, a previous Bush supporter and investment banker; and Tom Bernstein, who co-owns Texas Rangers baseball team with the current President.

Robert Kagan, founder of the neoconservative think think, Project for the New American Century, and a supporter of John McCain, has publicly endorsed Obama, as a “pure John Kennedy”, a neocon hero of the cold war for his support of the war.

At the end of Sarah’s article, Obama was strangely labelled, the ‘Black Ronald Regan’ for his unwavering optimism for the future. Is it therefore, any surprise, that Mr Obama has chosen to cite the former President as an agent of change, and perhaps, implicitly and unconsciously, his source of inspiration?

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References:

1. Edwards, Clinton critical of Obama, Associated Press, Nedra Pickler, 19 January 2008

2. Reagan presidency pivotal for unions; Workers: Organized labor’s situation worsened under his administration, Baltimore Sun, Stacey Hirsh, 8 June 2004

3. Reaganomics Revisited; Beyond the Glow of Nostalgia, Counterpunch, Robert Pollin, 22 February 2006

4. The Nature of Ronald Reagan, Will the Earth Accept His Corpse?, Counterpunch, Jeffrey St. Clair, 8 June 2004

5. How Green Was the Gipper?, A look back at Reagan’s environmental record, Grist, Amanda Griscom, 10 June 2004

6. In Central America, Reagan Remains A Polarizing Figure, Washington Post Foreign Service, Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan, 10 June 2004

7. Republicans defect to the Obama camp, The Sunday Times, Sarah Baxter, 6 May 2007

Gay Rebellion

Oxford St is the centre of the gay nightlife in Sydney. In the last few years there has been an increase in the incidence of homophobic attacks.

In early December, a gay couple were attacked after leaving the nightclub Arq, which is on Taylor Square. This attack seems to have been the catalyst for a rebellion amongst the gay community in Sydney to “Reclaim the right… to be who you are”.

Over the last few years, there has been an increase in the number of straight bars and nightclubs on Oxford St. Personally, I have not seen or detected an increase in anti-gay sentiment, but then again, I rarely venture onto Oxford St. This is supposedly reflected in the assault statistics provided by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics, but there is no specific statistics on homophobic assaults.

A street protest is planned for Harmony Park on Australia Day. There has been some concern over the poster used to promote the protest, which some feel have been overtly racist - whereas the intent of the posters were to reflect the images from the Pet Shop Boy’s video “Go West”. These posters have now been removed.

A couple of years ago, there was a series of racially motivated disturbances around Sydney - also occurring close to Australia Day. These were centred around the beach suburb of Cronulla.

A Facebook group has been started, called “Taking Back Oxford St” whose description is:

In the wake of increased violence towards the gay and lesbian community on Oxford St, Sydney, it is time to act to make sure that all gays and lesbians are not only safe, but that hate crimes are not tolerated.

The organisers state:

… there is no discrimination being directed against anyone OTHER than violent thugs who gay-bash … this event must not and will not become a ‘Queer Cronulla’

As of the time of writing the group has 822 members.

I hope that the protest next weekend is peaceful. Violence and aggression of all forms is wrong.

Book Review: Beyond Chutzpah

Beyond Chutzpah; On The Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History

By Norman G. Finkelstein

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It is often believed that the controversy surrounding the Israel- Palestine conflict is such a difficult issue to understand that in order to make sense of the situation, one would need to read widely from well- respected scholars and academics who would be able to sieve out the large amounts of information available. The author of Beyond Chutzpah, Norman Finkelstein, who wrote Image and Reality of The Israel-Palestine conflict however, believes the reality and ground facts are in fact simpler that most would care to admit.

In his Introduction, he wrote,

The Israel-Palestine conflict is often said to pose questions of such unique profoundity or complexity as to defy conventional analysis or resolution. It’s been variously cast as a cosmic clash of religions, cultures, civilizations. Even normally sober observers like Israeli writer, Meron Benvenisti used to contend that its essence was a “primordial, irreconcilable, endemic shephard’s war.” In fact, such formulations obfuscate rather than illuminate. No doubt, the conflict raises thorny theoretical and practical problems, but not more so than most other ones. It is also perfectly amenable to comparative analysis, bearing in mind, as always, the limits to any historical analogy. The obvious reason Israel’s apologists shun such comparisons and harp on the sui generis character of the Israeli-Palestine conflict is that, in any of the roughly comparable cases - the Euro-American conquest of North America, the apartheid regime in South Africa - Israel comes out on the “wrong” side in the analogy.

While that is strictly not the core basis of this book, explaining in intricate details the whys (this reviewer believes Image and Reality serves that function better), it comes out, perhaps, unconsciously as a work which however ‘illuminates’ the situation; as it works on two levels.

Firstly, Beyond Chutzpah is a critique of Israel’s human rights violations against Palestinians. Given that human rights organisations often only publicize statements or released lengthy reports on these abuses on a periodic basis, one rarely gets an understanding of the dire situation. The book compensates for this ‘blind spot’ by compiling some of these human rights abuses in subsequent and related chapters by quoting on respectable human rights organisations such as Amnesty International, B’ Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights. The horrifying picture that is drawn shows that such abuses are systematically planned and executed. From its use of lethal force mainly through the Israel Defense Force (IDF) to state sanctioned assassinations, torture on prisoners and house demolitions (as a form of collective punishment), Israel has violated many of the stipulated international human rights laws and yet, never suffer from any physical setbacks from the UN.

The seriousness of such violations is astounding. On house demolitions for example, the only country in the world to have such a practice, according to Middle East Watch, is Iraq under Saddam Hussein rule. The torture of Palestinian political suspects by Israeli security services according to AI, dated back to as early as 1967.

On another level, Beyond Chutzpah acts as a confrontational and direct criticism of Alan Dershowitz’s work, The Case for Israel, which the latter seeks to explain Israel’s position in the conflict. The criticisms leveled against Dershowitz’s book, is not to criticise Dershoqitz’s analysis per se, since observations and opinions can be different despite having the same facts. What it does, is to dispel the clout that Dershowitz possess, for simply being a Harvard professor, and hence, his work, being tagged as credible. Beyond Chutzpah acts on a factual and logical level by tearing apart The Case for Israel explaining how the book does not withstand academic scrutiny as it is supported by falsifications, plagiarism and dubious sources. As such, the book, on the criticism of The Case for Israel, not only seeks to destroy the myth perpetuated by Dershowitz, but also widens and deepens the reader’s knowledge of the conflict indirectly.

Norman writes that Dershowitz’s book seeks to defend Israel’s human rights record, which the latter deems to be “generally superb”. The irony, is that not only does Dershowitz not quote these human rights organizations mentioned above, but that he wrote them off as biased against Israel. Instead, he relies on Israeli military sources to support his findings and considers organisations such as Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a pro- Israeli group, to be more credible.

If recent events are to indicate, with the American President, George Bush, making his holy pilgrimage to Israel and West Bank, hoping to solve the quintessential Middle Eastern conflict that has plagued the region for years, one gets a sense of deja vu of helplessness as he commented on the ‘inconveniences for Palestinians in checkpoints’ (but a necessity for Israel security); or that Palestinians have to choose between Hamas or Fatah revealing his deep-seated ignorance or perhaps racist sentiments and underestimating Palestinian misery. He even made a callous remark in Israel when he said America should have bombed Auschwitz camp in which Condeleeza Rice has to stepped in and clarified that he meant the railway tracks. Such is the level of idiocy of the head of the current Administration that it begets disbelief.

Someone send George Bush a book! Beyond Chutzpah is highly recommended.

The official website of Norman G. Finkelstein is located at http://www.normanfinkelstein.com. He has written various books including The Holocaust Industry and Image and Reality of The Israel-Palestine conflict.