The Obama Syndrome by Tariq Ali

Author:Tariq Ali
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781844677573
Publisher: Verso Books

1 Rickey Hendon, Black Enough/White Enough: The Obama Dilemma, Chicago, 2009.

2 Walter Benn Michaels, “What Matters,” London Review of Books, August 27, 2009.

3 Joseph Stiglitz, “Bail-Out Blues,” Guardian, September 30, 2008.

4 George Stigler, “The Theory of Economic Regulation,” quoted by Simon Johnson and James Kwak in 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown, New York, 2010, 93.

5 McCarthyism had proved effective in politically cleansing the unions and Hollywood, but only the latter recovered in time.

6 The lack of popular social movements in the United States enabled the elite to impose its own solutions, and these were, unsurprisingly, designed to boost the existing arrangements. The citizens in much of South America challenged deregulation and privatization more effectively than organized labor has done in North America or Western Europe. Similar actions in the US could have exerted pressure for a public, single-payer health service, massive investment in education, and reduced military spending, and against bailouts for the car industry and sinking airlines. Let them fall, should have been the demand, so that an ecologically sound and more efficient public transportation infrastructure can be built—especially a new railway system—that serves the needs of all. The lesson is an old one: without action from below, there will be no change above.

7 Compare Susan Watkins, “Shifting Sands,” New Left Review, January/February 2010, 5–27.

8 Simon Johnson and James Kwak, “The Quiet Coup,” Atlantic, May 2009. The same authors’ book 13 Bankers is a coldblooded survey of how bankers dominate the global economy and how finance capital is undermining democracy.

9 “Where is the community organizer we elected?”, San Francisco Chronicle, November 19, 2009.

10 Available online at ny.frb.org.

11 Pam Martens, “Obama’s Economic Brains Trust,” Counterpunch, April 2–4, 2010.

12 Robert Reich, “Fraud in the Street,” on his blog at robertreich.org.

13 For a diagrammatic survey of comparative expenditure on health in the United States and Western Europe, see Appendix 3.

14 “The Fresh Face,” Time, October 15, 2006.

15 Tom Hamburger, “Obama Gives Powerful Drug Lobby a Seat at the Healthcare Table,” Los Angeles Times, August 4, 2009.

16 Arnold S. Relman, “What to Do about Health Care,” New York Review of Books, October 19, 2006.

17 Cited by Noam Chomsky, Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy, New York, 2006.

18 Sharon Lerner, “Nowhere to Hyde,” Nation, April 1, 2010. Here was another example, if one was needed, of how a measure proposed by Obama was supported by “progressives” regardless of all else. Had this been a Republican bill, the pro-choice people might have been less restrained. Even the saintly Katha Pollitt, who watches every breach in women’s rights with an eagle eye, was far too measured in her response.

19 John R. Macarthur, “Under False Colours,” The Spectator, May 5, 2010.

20 Rose Ann DeMoro, “On to Health Care Reform!”, Counterpunch, March 25, 2010.

21 Marcia Angell, MD, The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It, New York, 2005. This is a sharp and thoughtful critique of a corruption for which no cures seem to be available.

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