The essence of Obama is to make gestures that will please everyone, but to do it without genuine enthusiasm or pleasure—and therefore please no one. Ordinary people feel he cares not a whit about them, and the moneyed class resents his occasional populist-firebrand rhetoric. It is a mark of cynicism to operate like this. It is also not necessarily a winning formula for a politician. And for a country, it is a disaster.

***

If Obama wants to inspire, he has to pick sides. And that’s not so hard to justify when one side constitutes almost everybody, and the other maybe one percent of one percent.

Now, to be sure, taking on the big boys is full of risks. We write about those at WhoWhatWhy all the time—including here and here.  Presidents who buck the established order face great peril.

But when you do choose to take that position, you can’t just do it kinda sorta, when poll numbers demand action. You’ve got to hunker down, figure out who your real friends are, get protection (literal and figurative) and go for it. That is, if you have it in you to do so. Ron Paul’s growing popularity, and bursts of interest in figures like Gingrich and Bachmann and Cain (before gaffes, deficiencies and attack ads cut them down to size) shows that perceived gumption goes a long way with the public.

Obama, on the other hand, most decidedly does not tend to “go for it.” (His lack of a cooperative Congress is no excuse, since leadership by example can on its own make things happen.)

To be sure, he has installed administrators throughout the government whose inclinations are to actually carry out the mandate of their agencies (gasp!)—on the environment, education, consumer protection, workers, and more. In that sense, at least, he is the polar opposite of George W. Bush.

But on the things that really matter to the elite of the elite within the One Percent, he is nowhere. Nobody has gone to jail for the picking of the American pocket by the banksters; no one has even been indicted.

Now, if none of the actions that led to the Great Recession constitutes a crime, then the president should be pointing that out and talking about tough new laws. (The wealthy have always understood that as long as you control the law, nothing you do can get you in too much trouble.)

As we have noted, Obama failed to take action to directly help homeowners, even as some regional Federal Reserve (!) economists were urging him to do exactly that. Meanwhile, he gave the bankers, the hospitals, the insurance industry, the military contractors, pretty much whatever they wanted.

The illegal wars, torture and other crimes and shames perpetrated by the Bush administration have gone unprosecuted and generally unacknowledged by the administration.

His all-important Justice Department tends to go after small fish, and largely victimless crimes (86 percent of the prison population, more than half of those drug related—excluding those Wall Street types who use illegal drugs in their penthouses, risk-free). Last year Attorney General Eric Holder said the department’s  top priority was protecting Americans from terrorism (apparently not of the economic sort—nor of the Saudi sort), followed by crime prevention (apparently not of the economic sort), and then protecting Americans from financial fraud (apparently not of the large-scale sort), and finally, protecting the country’s “vulnerable populations” (but apparently not from the biggest thieves.)

Obama occasionally alludes to the rot in the hearts of so many people at the highest levels of the financial system, but does nothing about it. And as I pointed out in the UBS banker piece, turning one of the worst exemplars of that system’s corrupt tendencies into one of his closest friends represents either a reckless blindness to the messages he is sending, or a deliberate thumbing of his nose.

But why should people be surprised by Obama? The system only lets “system types” thrive and get to the top. The only system types who shake things up are those who derive the confidence to do so from their own privileged background, like FDR and JFK. Obama himself was merely the representative of the fact that certain “acceptable” people of mixed race with proper demeanor and “credentials” would now be welcomed to the feast if they behaved properly. He never really established a track record of leadership or boldness prior to running for president. People just fell in love with their projection of what “Yes we can” meant.

But what matters now is what comes next. What matters is whether he will be re-elected, and if so, whether as a lame duck with “nothing to lose” he will do what 99% of the country longs for him to do: take aim at the core corruption and greedy self-dealing that is destroying America.

Obviously, to stay in the game, he must to some degree play the game the way it is being played. But he can howl hard about how unhappy he is with it. And he can speak directly about ways in which as a second-termer he is going to lead the charge in fundamentally challenging the corruption.

More and more, it seems Obama’s message is, “Yes, I’m In a Can”.  That’s not very inspiring. And it’s not going to get him—or us—where we need to go.

GRAPHIC: http://addictinginfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/obama.jpg

Sometimes, to get a really clear perspective on things, we need to turn to a comedian. Unfortunately, we can’t get updates from the dear, departed George Carlin. But a lot of his work comes off as if it were written yesterday. Such it is with his 2005 routine, “The American Dream.”

Thanks to the fellow here, we have a transcript (with a little copy-editing from yours truly)—and performance video.

If expletives offend you, this is a good point to…click back to the home page. Otherwise, ladies and gents, Mr. George Carlin….

Transcript

….there’s a reason education SUCKS, and it’s the same reason it will never, ever,  EVER be fixed.

It’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it. Be happy with what you’ve got.

Because the owners, the owners of this country, don’t want that. I’m talking about the real owners now, the BIG owners! The Wealthy… the REAL owners! The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions.

Forget the politicians. They are irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice! You have OWNERS! They OWN YOU. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought—and paid for—the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls.

They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want.  Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want:

They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests.

That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that!

You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shitty jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street—and you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later ‘cause they own this fucking place! It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it! You, and I, are not in the big club.

By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted, folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care! Good honest hard-working people; white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue—these are people of modest means—continue to elect these rich cock suckers who don’t give a fuck about you….they don’t give a fuck about you… they don’t give a FUCK about you.

They don’t care about you at all… at all… AT ALL.  And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth.

It’s called the American Dream—because you have to be asleep to believe it.

Image Credit:  (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jesus_is_coming.._Look_Busy_%28George_Carlin%29.jpg)

Still, it’s those snoozers that invariably have the most profound consequences for all of us. And now, with the federal debt debate raging, is the time to make a strong cup of coffee, rub your eyes, and focus.

Here’s a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies’ Program on Inequality and the Common Good. You’ve probably heard some of these statistics, and some of these ideas. But not all—and this is the moment where it all comes together.

The authors say that the shutdown talk was never necessary, not if we were talking about the right things.

Here’s the “executive summary”:

The United States is a wealthy society. But our wealth has pooled at the top.

• We face mammoth state and federal budget cuts because we have, in large part, failed to sufficiently tax America’s millionaires and prevent aggressive tax avoidance by multinational companies.

• Wealth and income have concentrated in the United States at incredibly rapid levels. The richest 1 percent of households own over 35.6 percent of all private wealth, approximately $20 trillion. The number of households with incomes exceeding $1 million has grown from 15,753 in 1961 to 361,000 today, adjusted for inflation. This is a 968.4 percent increase, while the U.S. population only grew 69.3 percent over this same 50-year period.

• As wealth and income have become increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, middle class living standards have imploded, due both to wage stagnation and the deterioration of public services and investment. Poverty has remained persistent — and even worsened. As a result of the economic meltdown, the number of Americans living in poverty has spiked to the highest level in 15 years.

Our tax system now raises proportionately less from affluent taxpayers and large corporations than it did 50 years ago in 1961, the year President Barack Obama was born.

• Households with incomes over $1 million in 1961 paid an average 43.1 percent of their incomes in federal income taxes. Today, households with $1 million income or more pay 23.1 percent, almost half as much, adjusting for inflation.

• If households with income over $1 million today paid their federal income taxes at the same rate that comparable households paid taxes in 1961, we would this year raise an additional $231 billion.

• If affluent households, those with incomes in 2011 between $200,000 and $1 million, paid at 1961 rates, the U.S. Treasury would see another $151 billion.

• If U.S. corporations paid at the same effective tax rate that they paid in 1961, the additional tax revenue would total $485 billion.

• In 1961, small business owners and individuals paid twice as much in federal income taxes as large corporations. By 2011, small business owners and individuals will be paying nearly five times in taxes what corporations pay.

These five tax revenue reforms could raise a total of as much as $4 trillion over the next decade:

• Establish several higher income tax brackets for millionaires: $60-$80 billion a year

• Scrap overseas corporate tax havens: $100 billion a year

• Introduce a modest financial transaction tax: $150 billion a year

• Revamp the estate tax to include progressive rates: $25 billion a year

• End preferential treatment for income from dividends and capital gains: $88 billion

The authors of the report know what sort of response to expect, and anticipate it:

Critics of the proposals we present here would, if these ideas gained political momentum, no doubt howl “class warfare” and dub these initiatives “job killers.” Some would argue that government shouldn’t be in the business of “picking winners” in the economy.

But our current tax policy is already picking winners every day. Our government is subsidizing practices that are burning up the earth with climate change — and freezing out the regionalized green businesses of the future. We’re rigging the tax rules to benefit the wealthy and global corporations at the expense of everyone else.

It concludes:

Until we as a nation reverse the Great Tax Shift, we will be debating — and likely imposing — totally unnecessary and avoidable austerity measures at every level of government. We will keep on firing teachers, police officers, and mental health workers instead of ending the games that corporate tax dodgers play and insisting that all Americans, including the most affluent, contribute to our national well-being.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities already reports that more than 46 states have imposed severe budget cuts that hurt vulnerable residents and endanger economic recovery. Now we face almost unimaginably deep cuts at the federal level as well. As a nation, we can — and we must — do better.

Whatever you make of this proposal—like it, hate it, or somewhere in between, it’s something worth discussing.  If you are one of the lucky ones who has been blessed, fairly or not, with the benefits this country, its people and its economy can bestow, you might well ask—what have I done in return? And—whether or not I like these measures (and who does like paying more for anything than they have to)—why don’t I step up and do the right thing? After all, I can afford to.

Many Americans beat their breasts and argue that they contribute enough through getting up in the morning and doing what they do. Taxes are bad, period, they say. It’s all a waste and a rip-off and lazy people taking my hard earned money. Government is inherently sinister and oppressive.

That’s really a uniquely American perspective, and doesn’t in any way reflect the reality of the need to pay for things we all use—things that in many ways benefit the wealthy far more than they’d like to admit.  Still, the resistance to taxes has a hugely powerful place in the national psyche, and the emotional tug is profound.

So, no, you don’t need to concede anything at all if you don’t want to.

But you could.

Image Credit:  (http://www.flickr.com/photos/29084098@N00/5121932180/)

Embattled Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi: Good or bad? How about GE Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt?

Here are your answers, straight from the top: Qaddafi, way bad. And Immelt? Good guy, business and civic leader. Should be a key adviser to the president.

On Qaddafi, we already knew he was a bad guy. But now we find out what he’s been up to that really distresses business leaders. The very same business leaders who profoundly influence the American political process and the foreign policy decisions this country makes. According to a report in the New York Times,

In 2009, top aides to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi called together 15 executives from global energy companies operating in Libya’s oil fields and issued an extraordinary demand: Shell out the money for his country’s $1.5 billion bill for its role in the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 and other terrorist attacks.

If the companies did not comply, the Libyan officials warned, there would be “serious consequences” for their oil leases, according to a State Department summary of the meeting.

…The episode and others like it, the officials said, reflect a Libyan culture rife with corruption, kickbacks, strong-arm tactics and political patronage since the United States reopened trade with Colonel Qaddafi’s government in 2004. As American and international oil companies, telecommunications firms and contractors moved into the Libyan market, they discovered that Colonel Qaddafi or his loyalists often sought to extract millions of dollars in “signing bonuses” and “consultancy contracts” — or insisted that the strongman’s sons get a piece of the action through shotgun partnerships.

Who wants to pay such bribes? Get rid of the guy.

Now, let’s turn to Immelt. First, you need to know that he’s a darling of the political and media establishment. The president is extremely high on him. President Obama has chosen Immelt for a super-crucial position for him and his re-election fundraising apparatus, as the White House’s “business community liaison.” That’s shorthand for the kind of people who intercede with big companies that might or might not help fund the campaign. A bit like those Qaddafi “signing bonuses” cited above.

Even more importantly, Obama has named him chairman of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.  Keep this in mind when you consider the following….

How is Immelt helping this country out? For one thing, he is a king of the job exporters, a pillar of the Indian economy. But that’s not all. As the New York Times noted the other day, Immelt’s company pays no U.S. taxes. That’s right. No taxes.

General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010.

The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.

Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

That may be hard to fathom for the millions of American business owners and households now preparing their own returns, but low taxes are nothing new for G.E. The company has been cutting the percentage of its American profits paid to the Internal Revenue Service for years, resulting in a far lower rate than at most multinational companies.

Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore. G.E.’s giant tax department, led by a bow-tied former Treasury official named John Samuels, is often referred to as the world’s best tax law firm. Indeed, the company’s slogan “Imagination at Work” fits this department well. The team includes former officials not just from the Treasury, but also from the I.R.S. and virtually all the tax-writing committees in Congress.

Immelt’s got the situation wired from top to bottom, all of his options hedged. That’s why he’s a “good guy”, unlike Qaddafi, whose brutality was never enough of a problem until he began shaking down American and other oil companies.

Why is Immelt Obama’s guy? Good question. He was a political donor to George W. Bush. In July, 2004, during Bush’s re-election campaign, Immelt was quoted by the Bush campaign saying that “this is the best economy we’ve seen in years.”

Then he started getting the group hug from the Dems and the liberal media. Pretty soon, the hagiographies were pouring out. In 2005, Bill Clinton rolled out his “Clinton Global Initiative,” with Immelt as one of the attending big names. In February, 2006, while touting his book “Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future” on Meet the Press, former Clinton operative Paul Begala described Immelt as  “the greenest guy…that is to say, environmentally correct and profit-making.”

Here’s Immelt on Charlie Rose in 2007: [Bold added for emphasis]

JEFFREY IMMELT: We`ve got to compete. We`ve got to be smart, we`ve got to use our entrepreneurial ability. We`ve got to get more kids studying engineering….

CHARLIE ROSE: … you know all these candidates. Are they talking about it? Are they aware of it? Is it part of their conscious as they think about leading this country?

JEFFREY IMMELT: I think in varying degrees, it is. You know, I think Senator Clinton understands it. I`ve talked to her. I think Governor Romney clearly gets it.

JEFFREY IMMELT: I think Rudy has always gotten it. I think he`s been able to do that. But it`s.

CHARLIE ROSE: Senator Obama get it?

JEFFREY IMMELT: I think they all do. But.

CHARLIE ROSE: They get the idea that the U.S. has to be competitive around the world?

CHARLIE ROSE: Not only competitive, though, in terms of..

JEFFREY IMMELT: Hard work.

CHARLIE ROSE: Hard work, yes. And also competitive — where do you think we have to be competitive in terms of values and what we stand for and who we are? Or does that matter?

JEFFREY IMMELT:  I think as an American, it clearly matters, right? I mean, values are a part of the bedrock of a successful country….I think values count, Charlie. I don`t want to pass judgment on anybody here tonight, but values are important for this country, values are important.

There you have it. Values count.

And politicians can count, too. Somehow, guys like Immelt count for more than millions of us. Strange, strange math in this country.

Image Credit:  (msnbc.msn.com & gstatic.com)

And while we’re at it, here’s DirtDiggers on Shell’s spin on its controversial doings in Nigeria:

One of the advantages for a corporation in resolving a sensitive lawsuit out of court is that it can proclaim innocence and insist it is settling for other reasons. Royal Dutch Shell has done just that in a case brought in connection with the 1995 execution of author Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other activists who campaigned against the oil company’s operations in the Ogoniland region of Nigeria.

Shell actually was even more brazenly self-serving than the typical company that says it is settling in order to put the case behind it. The Anglo-Dutch transnational insisted that its willingness to pay the plaintiffs US$15.5 million – $5 million of which will go into a trust fund for the Ogoni people – was a “humanitarian gesture.” It was unusual for Shell to allow the amount of the settlement to be disclosed, but it was apparently worth it to draw attention away from the lawsuit’s charges that the company collaborated with the repressive military regime that ruled Nigeria in the 1990s and that put Saro-Wiwa and the others to death after a sham trial. . . .

It is understandable why the plaintiffs and their lawyers . . . would feel a need to settle a case that had dragged on for 13 years and provide some financial assistance to the Ogoni community. Yet it is frustrating to see Shell trying to turn an outrage into an opportunity to burnish its image. . . .