Follow ZeroHedge in Real-Time on FinancialJuice [19]
Yesterday I thought that Barack Obama was probably the worst President in the entire history of the USA [20] given his record on unemployment and Gross Domestic Product since he has been in office. But, then again, on second thoughts, he may be the only President that he could have been. The President in the USA is no longer the President since the office is just an empty shell, the fall-out fell long ago and the strings just get pulled for arms to wave and smiles to form. Long ago, back when Ronald Reagan [21] took office he was the laughable derision of many a mirth-maker around the planet for being the actor, the far-west guy, that had a pea-sized brain and that made crass jokes about how he was going to push the button and blast the USSR off the planet. He was the guy who had a wife that did nothing but fall of podiums and stages; the stooges. But, all that time the cinema acting was just play and Barack was a youngster waiting in the wings, preparing his own entry onto the stage, to strut and fret his hour in front of the world. But, his acting school was much more insidiously secret than Reagan’s. Obama’s not the worst President of the USA.
He’s nothing today but that actor, simply because the US has lost all notion of democracy.
Obama just acts for the shop-front window-dressing game that is played out on television and in the mainstream media. It’s the others that are running the country. They are the ones that are mightily more powerful than any president will ever manage to be in the future, unless a dictator pops out of the wings and runs on stage to pull the final curtain. The spy-agencies, the National Security Agency, the private interest groups and the lobbies run the United States of America today, not Obama, not anyone else. Throw in a little bit of Wall Street [22] and the BanksterGangsters and hey presto we have a Republic. But, it’s a republic in which bananas have been replaced by other such commodities as gold, or steel or gas and petrol, but the government employees are no less influenced to illegitimately exploit their positions to further their own personal gains, while the workers of the country actually pay back the sums that are siphoned off, embezzled and fraudulently obtained.
Media
The media no longer reports on what is going wrong in the puppet-show as they have already suffered the consequences of an embittered NSA that has wrapped them over the knuckles in a stance that would liken them to patriots turned bad. Edward Snowden [23] has just made a statement that accuses the National Security Agency of drawing up a list of journalists that were critical of the US state in the wake of 9/11.
In an interview to the New York Times Magazine he declared: “After 9/11, many of the most important news outlets in American abdicated their role as a check to power – the journalistic responsibility to challenge the excesses of government – for fear of being seen as unpatriotic and punished in the market during a period of heightened nationalism”.
Heightened nationalism and extended patriotism in the USA is the order of the day. Fall into line, or the guys that pull the strings on the puppet will target you.
Paul Craig Roberts, economist and former Assistant secretary of the Treasury under the Reagan Administration, believes that the US is a ‘lawless’ state in which ‘humanity is drowning in Washington’s criminality’.
James Risen, the New York Times national security reporter risks being jailed for refusing to provide the name of a source. A court of appeal in Virginia has just ordered that a journalist must provide a source upon request from the state and that puts journalism on a bad footing for the future. Risen says he’ll stand by his convictions and go to prison if it comes down to that. The US administration has turned into a ministry of propaganda and a mouthpiece for the organs that stand behind the President.
Security
The US administration has closed down embassies around the world and shipped the diplomats out, packing up and fleeing. The attack on the United States is so imminent that for the first time in history the US has fled? Really?
But, hang on, Al-Qaeda was done and dusted ages ago we were told when the government of the United States andPresident Obama announced that Bin Laden was dead, back in 2011. But, now the National Security Agency is justified in listening in on us. Without them, millions of Americans might have suffered around the world. I’m with you, now! The imminently ‘strategically-significant’ attacks caused 21 embassies to be closed. Then 9 reopened the following day.
NIA NSA
James R. Clapper, the Director of the National Intelligence Agency itself, apologized not so long ago for lying to Congress about the activities of the NSA. When asked if the NSA [25] collected data on millions of Americans he replied that “no, Sir” it did not. Clapper is still in his position at the head of the National Intelligence Agency, but it’s hardly likely to change. Who would boot him out? It’s one of the agencies running the show.
Finance
We should have realized long ago when Ben Bernanke said to Senator (when asked to whom $2.2 trillion had been lent in the bail-out program) just one short, sharp word: “No”. Back then in2009, it was Congress that had lost the battle and the Federal Reserve that had thrown down the gauntlet at the feet of the American people.
The Federal Reserve was no longer accountable to anybody, let alone those that had been elected by the people, for the people. But the Gettysburg Address is only history, isn’t it? Impotency comes with old age, so we are told and Congress was getting on a bit, wasn’t it?
Conclusion?
The Americans are immensely proud of their country. Their nation was constructed on an idea of unity in diversity. Being diverse meant that they had to hold on to one thing. That one thing was incarnated in the body of the imaginary Presidential ideal. But, that’s long gone. Although the pride exists and lingers on still today, but the only unity is that of repaying the national debt of close to $17 trillion. Although, Professor Lawrence Kotlikoff of the University of Boston has estimated that this figure too is pure wool-over-our-eyes fantasy. The real national debt, when we have included the full cost of unfunded liabilities such as Medicare and the Social Security programs, then we reach about $222 trillion in national debt.
Obama the worst President? Probably not in the light of the fact that he isn’t President and nobody will be unless the system is modified. But, we love a scapegoat. We defend the underdog. How many of us have stood our ground and defended the banksters that were sent down for billions, the guys that have brought down the banks? How many of us have said that it was unfairly contemptible to condemn one single man as the lone wolf, the agitator of the banks’ crimes? How many of us have seen the Kerviel-ing of bankers brought to justice for what they were told to do by the guys at the top lapping up the cream? Yet, we criticize one sole man that stands as a window-dressed statue in the shop front of the Oval Office in some big White House that stood for something once and bring him down like a crashing monument after the revolution has long moved on?
It’s not Obama that is the worst President of the USA, it’s the USA that is itself the worst for letting the Wall Street guys, the banksters, the lobbies, the private enterprises, the security agencies, the others, the unknown run the country for them in the name of the President.
Is Obama the worst President of the United States of all time? Who would you put forward as your worst candidate?
Originally posted Obama NOT Worst President [28] in reply to Obama: Worst President in US History? [20]
Follow ZeroHedge in Real-Time on FinancialJuice [19]
You might also enjoy: New Revelations: NSA and XKeyscore Program [29] | Obama's Corporate Grand Bargain [30] [30] Death of the Dollar [31] | Joseph Stiglitz was Right: Suicide [32] | China Injects Cash in Bid to Improve Liquidity [33]
Technical Analysis: Bear Expanding Triangle [34] | Bull Expanding Triangle [35] | Bull Falling Wedge [36]| Bear Rising Wedge [37]| High & Tight Flag [38]