A Redneck View of Obama's Presidency

By Joe Bageant, JoeBageant.com. Posted May 27, 2009.

"It don't matter who gets to warm his butt in the White House chair. The top dogs eat high on the hog and the little dogs eat the tails and ears."

When it comes to expressing plain truths, few are as gifted as American rednecks. During recent travels in the Appalachian communities of West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky I've collected scores of their comments on our national condition and especially President Barack Obama.

In America, all successful politicians are first and foremost successfully marketed brands. In fact, the Obama campaign was named Advertising Age's 2008 marketer of the year. George W. Bush's brand may have "collapsed," as they say on Madison Avenue, but things don't change much. Rednecks instinctively know this:

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Peacenik wishes Joe Bageant sounded a little more outraged in this piece, rather than sounding resigned to what is going on. Meanwhile, in Canada, Flaherty announces that the deficit will be $50 billion. $50 billion. Flaherty has all the credibility of Dr. Evil in Austin Powers. By the way, no mention of bank bailouts in the deficit story in the Globe. The suggestion is that all those bad unemployed people are causing the ballooning deficit. Joe Bageant may be happy going out and getting tanked but Peacenik wishes someone would grab a pitchfork and start the revolution.

Don't forget the Bush Protest at Metro Toronto Convention Centre on Friday at 3p.m. www.protestbush.com

Making LBJ Look Like a Piker

Who Remembers Guns and Butter?

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

President Lyndon B. Johnson’s policy of Great Society spending and Vietnam War is credited with the rising American inflation that persisted until checked by President Reagan’s supply-side policy.

In Johnson’s time the American economy and the US dollar were strong, and there was no current account deficit. Yet, LBJ’s policy of guns and butter did long-term harm.

The Bush/Obama 21st century policy of guns and butter makes LBJ look like a piker. The 2009 and 2010 federal budget deficits will be monstrous even without guns. But Obama is exiting (apparently) the Iraq War in order to start two, possibly three, more wars.

Obama has announced a doubling of US troops in Afghanistan. Widening that war will require the US to occupy, or attempt to occupy, parts of Pakistan. The disrespect for Pakistan’s sovereignty will further radicalize that large, nuclear-armed country and bring Pakistan, or at least parts of it, into armed conflict with the US.

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punditman says...Is there something about the US presidency that automatically divorces the holder of the office from reality? The US economy is going off a cliff. So -- time to crank up the belligerent rhetoric and escalate military actions. Is there something in the White House water supply?