On Wednesday, Obama addressed income inequality. He called it “the defining challenge of our time.” He did so disingenuously.<\/p>\n
Throughout his tenure, he’s transferred America’s wealth to corporate interests and super-rich elites. He stole it from ordinary people doing so.<\/p>\n
Even Wall Street Journal editors said “few presidents have done more to increase inequality than he has.”<\/p>\n
Median household income fell throughout his tenure. It’s 4.2% lower than when he took office. It keeps heading south.<\/p>\n
Rich investors profited hugely. Most never had it so good. “Mr. Obama is Chief Economist of Nottingham posing as Robin Hood,” said Journal editors.<\/p>\n
He’s waging war on middle America. He’s destroying it on his watch. He’s increasingly leaving the nation’s most disadvantaged on their own. More on what he said below.<\/p>\n
He’s arguably America’s worst ever president. He did what many thought impossible. He exceeded the worst of George Bush.<\/p>\n
His rap sheet is long and loathsome. He’s got three more years to extend it. Numerous previous articles explained.<\/p>\n
One said impeaching him is a national imperative. Others said he belongs in prison, not high office.<\/p>\n
Many explained how he wrecked the economy. He looted the nation’s wealth. He handed it to banksters and other corporate crooks.<\/p>\n
America’s 1% benefitted handsomely. They did so at the expense of most others. Protracted Main Street Depression era levels persist.<\/p>\n
Conditions increasingly go from bad to worse. Force-fed austerity compounds things. The worst is yet to come.<\/p>\n
Obama transformed America more than ever into a kleptocracy. Gangsterism reflects official policy. High-level public and private corruption is rampant.<\/p>\n
Wealth is disproportionately shared. Ordinary people are exploited. Washington’s criminal class is bipartisan.<\/p>\n
Democracy is more illusion than reality. Americans get the best money can buy. Diktat power rules.<\/p>\n
Obama is thirdworldizing America. He’s banana republicanizing it. He’s turning it into a dystopian backwater. A race to the bottom reflects official policy.<\/p>\n
Administration policy prioritizes wealth, power and privileged interests. It lets vital popular needs go begging. Obama’s operated this way throughout his tenure.<\/p>\n
He consigned growing millions to poverty, unemployment, underemployment, hunger, homelessness and despair. He’s got more human wrecking in mind.<\/p>\n
He wants US resources used for militarism, warmaking, and homeland repression. He wants ordinary people left high and dry.<\/p>\n
He’s waging war on hard won labor rights. He’s destroying them on his watch. He commodifying public education. He’s making it another business profit center.<\/p>\n
He wants healthcare industry giants more than ever profiting from illness and disease. He wants it at the expense of universal coverage.<\/p>\n
He doesn’t give a damn about ordinary people. He wants them used and abused. He wants it globally. He wants supportive constituents exploited and neglected.<\/p>\n
He’s waging multiple direct and proxy wars. He’s got more death and destruction in mind. He wants unchallenged US global dominance.<\/p>\n
He wants all political, economic and military rivals eliminated. He supports some of the world’s most ruthless despots. He wants all sovereign independent governments removed.<\/p>\n
He wants subservient pro-Western ones replacing them. He wants America’s imperium advanced. He’s waging war on humanity ruthlessly.<\/p>\n
He wants fundamental freedoms compromised en route to eliminating them altogether. He’s enforcing police state harshness doing so.<\/p>\n
He wants vital truths and full disclosure suppressed. He wants government wrongdoing left unpunished. He wants whistleblowers exposing it silenced. He targeted more than all his predecessors combined.<\/p>\n
He wants America’s most disadvantaged further deprived. He wants vital social benefits reduced en route to eliminating them altogether.<\/p>\n
He’s hard-right, neoliberal, reactionary, belligerent, pro-corporate, anti-labor, anti-populist and anti-social justice.<\/p>\n
He believes anything government can do business does better so it it. He turns a blind eye to international, constitutional and US statute rule of law principles.<\/p>\n
He’s a moral coward. He’s a serial liar. He disgraces the office he holds.<\/p>\n
Even New York Times editors called him “The President of Inequality.” What matters most to Americans is anxiety over economic hard times, they said.<\/p>\n
Six in 10 workers worry most about being laid off. It’s the highest number in decades. Since Obama took office, job security sunk to Depression era levels.<\/p>\n
Inequality in America matches third world countries. Conditions are getting worse, not better. Obama’s race to the bottom agenda bears full responsibility.<\/p>\n
Times editors correctly said “concentrated wealth leads to more frequent recessions, higher household debt, and growing cynicism and despondency.”<\/p>\n
It’s expressed in little “faith in government’s ability to do anything about the problem.” Intent matters most.<\/p>\n
Inequality didn’t happen by chance. It was planned. Race to the bottom policies began decades ago.<\/p>\n
Class war reflects them. Obama is responsible for more human wreckage than any of his predecessors. His agenda remains unchanged.<\/p>\n
His speech was long on demagogic boilerplate. It was short on promises made to be kept. Business as usual remains policy.<\/p>\n
Obama lied claiming otherwise. His presidency reflects a trail of broken promises. He says one thing. He does another.<\/p>\n
He’s done so since day one in office. Disingenuous rhetoric substitutes for good intentions. Honesty isn’t his long suit. Nor are popular interests.<\/p>\n
He lied saying he “ran for president (to) mak(e) sure our economy works for” everyone. He called doing so the centerpiece “of last year’s campaign.”<\/p>\n
In the last year alone, poverty and real unemployment rose on his watch. Half or more of all US households are either impoverished on bordering it.<\/p>\n
Unemployment based on 1980’s model is 23.5%. Fake headline numbers conceal it. Underemployment is out-of-control.<\/p>\n
Most working households struggle to get by. Many don’t earn enough to live on. They’re one missed pay check away from being out of luck altogether.<\/p>\n
Force-fed austerity remains policy. Social America is on the chopping block for elimination. Doing so is official Obama administration policy. Equality is a convenient illusion.<\/p>\n
Obama’s promise to “shore up Social Security for future generations” reflects another one to be broken. He planned doing so straightaway in office.<\/p>\n
He targeted Medicare. He wants major changes in both programs. He wants them privatized. He wants ordinary people increasingly on their own.<\/p>\n
He wants them responsible for their retirement income and healthcare. He wants Wall Street crooks able to rip them off more than already.<\/p>\n
Business as usual assures harder than ever hard times. Obama’s rhetoric wore thin long ago. Growing numbers know he can’t be trusted. He’s a con man writ large.<\/p>\n
Promises substitute for constructive policies. “(O)ur way of life” mumbo jumbo reflects supporting concentrated wealth, power and privileged interests. Ordinary people are increasingly left out.<\/p>\n
America is a let ’em eat cake society. Obama’s agenda reflects its worst features. It’s not about to change now.<\/p>\n
Throughout his tenure, super-rich elites benefitted hugely. They got around 95% of income gains. Billionaires doubled their wealth. Much higher inflation than reported meant ordinary people lost out.<\/p>\n
They’re much worse off now than five years ago. Nothing ahead suggests positive change. Expect millions more to be impoverished before Obama leaves office.<\/p>\n
Expect unemployment and underemployment to grow. Obama claims otherwise. “(O)ver the course of the next year and for the rest of (his) presidency, (he’ll) “focus all (his) efforts” on fighting inequality, he said.<\/p>\n
The same way he’s done it for the past five years. Rhetoric substitutes for promises made to be kept.<\/p>\n
His pathetic human misery antidote is inadequately raising the minimum wage. In inflation adjusted terms, it’s lower than since the 1970s.<\/p>\n
He supports increasing it to $10.10 an hour. Doing so would leave a family of four with one full-time working member impoverished.<\/p>\n
Most urban ones would be deeply so. They need double or more that much to get by. Annually rising inflation increases their burden.<\/p>\n
Obama disingenuously called for “making high-quality preschool available to every child in America.”<\/p>\n
He did so despite slashing Head Start. It’s for comprehensive education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services for low-income families with children.<\/p>\n
Thousands were stricken from the rolls during harder than ever hard times. Expect many more left out before Obama leaves office in January 2017.<\/p>\n
On December 3, he launched a concentrated effort to sell his Affordable Care Act (ACA). He’ll continue it through December 23. It’s the deadline for January 1 coverage.<\/p>\n
Press events and social media will complement his message. He intends delivering it virtually daily. He did so in his Wednesday address.<\/p>\n
He lied calling ACA an egalitarian program. It’s a scam. It’s a ripoff. It’s a healthcare rationing scheme. It’s to enrich insurers, Big Pharma and large hospital chains.<\/p>\n
It leaves millions uninsured. It leaves millions more way underinsured. It flies in the face of what’s needed. Universal coverage alone works.<\/p>\n
In 2007, candidate Obama supported it. He said “affordable, universal health care for every single American must not be a question of whether. It must be a question of how.”<\/p>\n
He promised action to enact it in his first term. He lied. ACA is polar opposite what he endorsed. He proved his word isn’t his bond.<\/p>\n
His approval rating shows it. A recent CBS poll had him at 37%. Others have him hovering around the 40% level.<\/p>\n
He may end up as low as Bush before he leaves office. Another 15 point drop will match him at around 25%. Growing human misery appears heading him in that direction.<\/p>\n
Lincoln once said “(y)ou can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”<\/p>\n
Growing anti-Obama sentiment shows most people don’t buy mumbo jumbo promises made to be broken. Maybe no one but diehards and fools will before he leaves office.<\/p>\n
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.<\/p>\n
His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.claritypress.com\/LendmanII.html<\/p>\n
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.<\/p>\n
Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.<\/p>\n
It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.progressiveradionetwork.com\/the-progressive-news-hour<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.dailycensored.com\/obamas-rogue-agenda\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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