Obama keeps turning right

The hits just keep on coming. Now its NAFTA. I was watching Democracy Now! this morning, and the guest Joseph Nevins, mentioned that Obama had recently given a speech where he'd changed his stance on NAFTA since the primaries.

Gee, what a shock.

A quick search found a link to CNN article about the speech.

Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified," he conceded, after I reminded him that he had called NAFTA "devastating" and "a big mistake," despite nonpartisan studies concluding that the trade zone has had a mild, positive effect on the U.S. economy.

Does that mean his rhetoric was overheated and amplified? "Politicians are always guilty of that, and I don't exempt myself," he answered.

Can I say "I told you so?" For someone like me who always felt like Obama looked like a con and didn't believe him, this isn't exactly a great shock. And especially in this case, since one of his advisors had let it slip months before that Obama was lying about NAFTA. Remember this ...

Goolsbee "candidly acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged, particularly in the Midwest, during the primary campaign" but reassured Rioux that Obama's NAFTA-bashing "should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans." Three weeks later, Canada's CTV News reported that a "senior member" of Obama's campaign had phoned Wilson personally to advise him to "not be worried about what Obama says about NAFTA."

At the time, the Obama campaign denied this story. But gee, guess what turned out to be the truth?

At this point, huge alarm bells should be going off about Obama. During the Democratic primaries, Mr. Obama tried to position himself as the Great Progressive Hope. The problem is, apparently it was all a lie. Now Obama is apparently giving a series of speeches where he is disavowing everything he said in the primaries. We've seen it in foreign policy. Now we find out that all that talk sympathetic to workers who've lost their jobs was just 'overheated rhetoric' in the campaign.

Now all we get from Sen. Obama is the old Clintonesque bull about 'labor' and 'environmental' standards. The only update to this old red herring is adding the word 'enforceable'. Of course, politically you have to realize he's added that new word to try to get around the fact that most people have figured out this was just window dressing in the Clinton era to try to get people to accept a very pro-corporate trade deal that was going to cost Americans jobs and drive down our standard of living. The trick is to realize that the Clinton era Democrats of course never said that the labor and enviromental standards they were touting were in fact 'unenforceable'. Expect more of the same from the Obama Democrats. The trade deals will continue to enhance his big contributors, and a few years later everyone will know that his 'enforceable' standards didn't mean squat.

Shouldn't Democrats and people on the left be very concerned by now that the Obama that was presented in the primaries was essentially a fraud? Don't these quotes above from Obama clearly say that the man was simply willing to say anything and take any position in order to win the nomination? Why is it I can almost hear him making an under-the-breath comment of "gee, you really believed that?"

Here's the core of the problem. We know what the Democratic Party represents. We've seen the Clinton presidential era, we've seen their lack of opposition to the Republicans when in the minority, and we've seen the actions the Democratic majority in Congress is taking. Almost as I type they are fully funding the war (again), and massively expanding the government's powers to spy on Americans without a warrant. And just along the way they are making sure the telecoms that have been funneling them money all this year can't be sued for breaking the law and spying on us when the spying was illegal.

We can see the ACTIONS the Democrats take. We see them support the bankruptcy bill that the banking and credit card industries wanted knowing this economic downturn was coming. We see them supporting a bill big pharma wanted that protected big pharma profits by blocking Americans from shopping for meds overseas. We constantly see from their ACTIONS that the Democrats support an aggressive militaristic empire abroad that spies on its citizens in the name of security and that they follow trade and economic policies that benefit their big contributors at a big cost to the rest of us.

Sen. Obama in the primaries tried to pretend that he opposed this. Sen. Obama in the primaries tried to differentiate himself from Sen. Clinton (who is directly connectd to these same policies) and pretend he was an alternative.

But, clearly he is not. What we are now hearing on a regular basis from Sen. Obama is "Ha, Ha, I fooled you!".

Its way too late for the Democrats to correct their mistake. The only people who can change their votes are super-delegates, and not only are they the same Democratic party hacks who support these psuedo-republican policies, but the only alternative is probably DLC founder Hillary Clinton who's been the poster child for these policies for two decades now. And the real clincher is that the Democrats won't think its been a mistake. Listen closely and you'll certainly hear the Democrats tell you that its perfectly normal to lie to the party members to get a nomination then radically change all your policies to something different. That alone should tell everyone to get far, far away from the Democrats.

Nope, its clear the Democrats are not the answer. Its clear that this is the time for everyone on the left to move to campaigns and parties that really represent our interests. Supporting politicians that disrespect us by lying to our faces to get our votes in not the answer. There are candidates on the ballot this year that have shown a committment throughout their public lives to representing our interests and fighting corporate interests. I speak of both Rep. McKinney and Mr. Nader (links in column on right).

If you vote for Obama, you are voting for a candidate that is going to continue the policies of Clinton, Reid and Pelosi. The fine print always said this, even though the candidate and his campaign said otherwise. And now we know that Obama will directly lie to you to get you to put him in office. What he wants is power. And what he's just shown is that he lacks the morals and character that would keep him from saying anything to get it.

There are clearly better choices on the ballot this Nov.