For two years, Americans have heard an unrelenting mantra of change emanating from the campaign trail. But now that President-elect Barack Obama has begun forming his cabinet, we’re seeing a cadre of more deeply entrenched insiders than any administration that has preceded it.
In regard to key foreign policy advisors, all three of Obama’s selections either initially supported the Iraq war, or still do. On the economic front, each appointee maintains a close relationship with the Jewish triad of Ben Bernanke, Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan—as well as bailout engineer Henry Paulson.
1. TIMOTHY GEITHNER – TREASURY SECRETARY
Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, president and CEO of Federal Reserve Bank of New York, director of policy development for IMF, member Group of Thirty (G30), employed at Kissinger & Associates, architect of the recent 2008 financial bailouts, mentored by Lawrence Summers and Robert Rubin.
2. PAUL VOLCKER – ECONOMIC RECOVERY ADVISORY BOARD
Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, North American chairman of Trilateral Commission, Federal Reserve chairman during Carter and Reagan administrations, president of Federal Reserve Bank of New York, G30 member, chairman Rothschild Wolfensohn Company, key figure in the collapse of the gold standard during the Nixon administration, longtime associate of the Rockefeller family.
Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, North American chairman of Trilateral Commission, Federal Reserve chairman during Carter and Reagan administrations, president of Federal Reserve Bank of New York, G30 member, chairman Rothschild Wolfensohn Company, key figure in the collapse of the gold standard during the Nixon administration, longtime associate of the Rockefeller family.
The selection of the 81-year-old Volcker puts an inveterate enemy of the working class at the side of the new president, and demonstrates the class character of the right-wing government that Obama is assembling.
No other individual in modern US history is so closely identified with the deliberate creation of mass unemployment to drive down wages and smash the organized resistance of the working class to the demands of corporate America. He put into motion policies that led to the destruction of large sections of industry and the explosive growth of financial speculation in the US economy.
Volcker served as Fed Chairman from 1979 to 1987, a critical period in the history of the American working class, in which the official labor movement was effectively destroyed as an instrument of workers' self-defense, and the unions transformed into what they are today: a mechanism for the suppression of workers' struggles and the destruction of their jobs and wages. Democratic President Jimmy Carter nominated Volcker—a former Chase Manhattan Bank executive—to head the Federal Reserve in August 1979, at a turning point for the American ruling class and world capitalism as a whole.
Runaway price inflation had sparked a series of bitter strikes by workers seeking to defend their living standards, and the Carter administration had suffered a humiliating defeat when more than 100,000 coal miners struck for 111 days in 1977-78 in defiance of a presidential no-strike order under the Taft-Hartley Law. The White House had been unable to cow the miners into submission—they publicly burned copies of the president's back-to-work order on the picket line—and Carter was compelled to rely on the leadership of the United Mine Workers union to deprive the rank-and-file of any gains from their struggle.
Volcker was brought in to initiate policies that would suppress inflation—and the wages movement in the working class—by driving up the rate of unemployment. Under his leadership, the Federal Reserve rapidly raised interest rates to an unprecedented 20 percent, choking off home-buying and purchases of cars and other durable goods and triggering a series of corporate bankruptcies.
Once Reagan entered the White House in January 1981, Volcker worked closely with the new Republican administration, and was reappointed by Reagan in 1983 to continue his inflation-fighting course. In 1982-83, the US economy plunged into the sharpest recession of the post-World War II period. The economic devastation was focused particularly in the industrial Midwest—steel mills, auto plants, coal mines were shut down, many of them permanently.
The response to the attacks by big business and the Reagan administration was the biggest wave of strike struggles since the 1940s, beginning with the PATCO air traffic controllers strike in August 1981, where Reagan ordered the firing of 12,000 workers and made the firings stick. He had the backing of the entire US ruling elite, Democrats and Republicans alike, and critical assistance from the AFL-CIO bureaucracy, which blocked any large-scale mobilization of workers behind the PATCO strikers, leaving them to isolation and defeat.
Volcker famously praised Reagan for breaking the PATCO strike, calling his action the most important factor in bringing inflation under control. PATCO set the pattern for the struggles which followed: Greyhound, Phelps Dodge, Hormel, International Paper, A. T. Massey Coal, Continental Airlines, and Eastern Airlines. Isolated groups of workers engaged in militant and protracted battles, in many cases against state repression and employer violence, all stabbed in the back by the AFL-CIO. The outcome was the destruction of union locals, the arrest, imprisonment and even murder of striking workers, the strengthening of the bureaucratic apparatus, and the emergence of corporatism—labor-management "partnership" —as the guiding philosophy of the American unions.
Particularly relevant today is the role played by the Democrats in the bailout of Chrysler Corporation in 1979-80. The Carter administration provided loan guarantees to Chrysler in return for concessions by the United Auto Workers union, including the first-ever cuts in wages and benefits imposed by a major American trade union on its own membership—setting the pattern for the concessions bargaining of the 1980s.
Like a criminal returning to the scene of the crime, Volcker now goes back to Washington as a principal adviser to another Democratic Party administration preparing to bail out bankrupt auto manufacturers at the expense of the auto workers and the working class as a whole. He can rely on his direct personal experience with the UAW bureaucracy to demand that the union finish the job it began three decades ago: transforming what was once the most powerful section of the American working class into a super-exploited mass of low-paid, casual laborers, without any rights.
When Obama announced that he was establishing the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, with Volcker as its head, he praised the "sound and independent judgment" of the former Fed chairman. The financial aristocracy has summoned the old reactionary for one last service in attacking the working class.
3. RAHM EMANUEL – CHIEF OF STAFF
Member of Israeli Defense Force, staunch Zionist, senator, Board of Directors for Freddie Mac, member of Bill Clinton’s finance campaign committee, made $16.2 million during 2.5 years as an investment banker for Wasserstein Perella. His father was a member of the Israeli Irgun terrorist group.
4. LAWRENCE SUMMERS – NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL
Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, treasury secretary during Clinton administration, chief economist at World Bank, former president of Harvard University, Brookings Institute board member, huge proponent of globalization while working for the IMF, prot�g� of David Rockefeller, mentored by Robert Rubin.
5. DAVID AXELROD – SENIOR ADVISOR
Political consultant whose past clients include Sens. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Christopher Dodd; main Obama fixer in the William Ayers and Reverend Wright scandals.
6. HILLARY CLINTON – SECRETARY OF STATE
Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, clandestine CIA asset used to infiltrate the anti-war movement at Yale University and the Watergate hearings, senior partner at the Rose Law Firm, key figure in the Mena drug trafficking affair, architect of the Waco disaster, implicated in the murder/ cover-up of Vince Foster, and many other deaths.
7. JOSEPH BIDEN – VICE PRESIDENT
Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senator since 1972, member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, current chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, strong Zionist sympathizer who recently told Rabbi Mark S. Golub of Shalom TV, “I am a Zionist. You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist.”
8. BILL RICHARDSON – COMMERCE SECRETARY
Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, former U.S. congressman, chairman of the Democratic National Convention in 2004, employee of Kissinger Associates, UN ambassador, governor of New Mexico, energy secretary, major player in the Monica Lewinsky cover-up with Bilderberg luminary Vernon Jordan.
9. ROBERT GATES – DEFENSE SECRETARY
Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, former CIA Director, defense secretary under President Bush, co-chaired CFR task force with Zbigniew Brzezinski, knee-deep in the Iran-Contra scandal, named in a 1999 class action lawsuit pertaining to the Mena drug trafficking affair.
10. TOM DASCHLE – HEALTH SECRETARY
Bilderberg, Council on Foreign Relations, former Senate majority leader, Citibank lackey, mentored by Robert Rubin.
11. ERIC HOLDER – ATTORNEY GENERAL
Key person in the pardon of racketeer Marc Rich, deputy attorney general under Janet Reno, facilitated the pardon of 16 Puerto Rican FALN terrorists under Bill Clinton.
12. JANET NAPOLITANO – HOMELAND SECURITY DIRECTOR
Council on Foreign Relations, Arizona governor, attorney for Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings, U.S. attorney during the Clinton administration, instrumental in the OKC cover-up, where she declared, “We’ll pursue every bit of evidence and every lead,” described as another Janet Reno, soft on illegal immigration (i.e. pro-amnesty and drivers licenses to illegals).
13. GEN. JAMES L. JONES – NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR
Bilderberg, Trilateral Commission, European supreme allied commander, special envoy for Middle-East Security during Bush administration, board of directors for Chevron and Boeing, NATO commander, member of Brent Scowcroft’s Institute for International Affairs along with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Bobby Ray Inman, Bilderberg luminary Henry Kissinger and former CIA Director John Deutch.
Other Appointments
Media Reaction to His Energy, Environmental and Education Team
The Nation magazine cheerled for Obama from the start, glorified his election, sees in him a "sea-change of course (for) progressive-driven reform....(the) end of the Reagan era....an end of the occupation of Iraq," and a socially liberal new beginning. The magazine often hyperventilates, and it's at it again about Obama's "Green Team."
According to a December 16 Mark Hertsgaard commentary, "Leading environmentalists in Washington are ecstatic about most of (Obama's new) cabinet choices" and hail his 'Green Team' selections. A "Green Dream Team" for Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters. Anne Aurilio, DC director of Environment America said "It's pretty clear that (Obama's) picks represent a 180-degree change in terms of what direction they're going to be heading on critical issues facing the country."
Joseph Romm, a former DOE official and current Climate Progress contributor, praised Carol Browner as a Clinton EPA Administrator and was just as enthusiastic about Steven Chu because of his views on climate change, his experience at Lawrence Berkeley Lab, and "his reported skepticism about coal's future in a carbon-constrained world."
These individuals "are three of the most tough-minded but level-headed environmentalists in Washington; their endorsements are worth heeding. And it is certainly true that Obama's green team promises a major shift in direction from what Bush and Cheney have pursued.."
Nonetheless, according to Hertsgaard, Obama's position on climate change, though far better than Bush's, is weak compared to what the EU aims for by 2020 and his view on coal is unclear. His support for so-called "clean coal" has no basis in reality. It's an industry-invented phrase about the dirtiest fossil fuel on the planet and nothing in prospect will "clean" it.
Hertsgaard gives Chu mixed reviews. He's long on "scientific credibility....seems likely to ask hard questions about coal (and says) energy is the single most important problem that science has to solve."
On election night, Obama said "a planet in peril" is one of the three greatest problems awaiting him and promised "a massive effort" for new green energy investment to heal the economy and environment as well as place the US in the lead on climate negotiations.
The Wall Street Journal had mixed views about his "Team to Guide Energy (and) Environment(al)" issues.
It mentioned his "seriousness about combating climate change....and spending heavily to boost energy efficiency and promote renewable energy. He also appears to be moving to the left," according to Chamber of Commerce president William Kovacs by choosing "people who are committed to moving forward with regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, which we believe is a huge mistake."
His Energy Secretary choice, however, "brings sterling credentials as a scientist to a job that often has gone to former politicians." So does his Education Secretary, "a hometown friend who has introduced some education reforms popular with conservatives without alienating teacher unions....we applaud the choice."
So did the Chicago Tribune in saying: Arne Duncan "brings to the task a decade of experience at Chicago schools, the nation's third-largest system. (His) efforts to restructure struggling schools, experiment with incentive pay for teachers in high-poverty schools and reward students with money for grades earned him critics and champions alike."
The New York Times suggested a "Hard Task (ahead) for (Obama's) New Team on Energy and Climate" in listing "a host of political, economic, diplomatic and scientific challenges that could impede his plans to address global warming and America's growing dependence on dirty and uncertain sources of energy."
In an editorial, The Times also noted that the League of Conservation Voters hailed Obama's energy and environmental picks and called them "a Green Dream Team." They "seem united in their concern for the threats facing the planet and unafraid to use the pricing power of the market or the financial power of government to address them." Obama has "chosen well," according to The Times, while noting that "nothing happens (in Washington) unless the president want it to."
Unmentioned is his agenda's dark side, his key campaign advisors, the forces they represent, the powerful interests directing him, a policy team to serve them, and his thus far very effective populist smoke screen.
It's why James Petras calls him "the Greatest Con-Man in Recent History....our 'First Afro-American' Imperial President, who wins by con and rules by guns," and add guile to the mix as well. He's surrounded by Wall Street bankers, civilian and military hawks, corporate lawyers, and his latest less-than-people-friendly selections. As Petras puts it: He's "the perfect incarnation of Melville's Confidence Man. He catches your eye while he picks your pocket" with foreign wars, backing corporate swindlers, and his latest picks to pursue nuclear militarism, power plants in your back yard, routine radiation discharges, cancer epidemics from them, the potential for a catastrophic accident, ending public education, and a pro-environmental smoke screen to keep wrecking it out of sight and mind.
Steven Chu - Energy Secretary
He'll become Obama's new Energy Secretary, but hold the cheers. He's professor of physics and molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley and director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), originally called the UC Radiation Lab. He also shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics with Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William Phillips for developing methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light.
Today the Energy Department runs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and continues its radiation research. In the 1940s, it was a stealth operation with little regard for public or environmental concerns. It's much the same today. According to the Berkeley Citizen (BC) in August 2006, LBNL represents "75 Years of Science, 75 Years of Pollution." Since 2004, Steven Chu has run it, its 4000 employees, $600 million budget, and its nuclear proliferation agenda.
BC says there's "more to science than generating new discoveries," especially when radiation is involved. "It's about taking responsibility for" research dangers, and in that regard LBNL has plenty to answer for. The "rad lab has no buffer zone between it and nearby residents and the adjacent central campus." Evaluations have flagged radiation emissions from two of its commercial user operations, the Bevatron and National Tritium Labeling Facility. They were bad enough to force their closure in the 1990s.
Other concerns relate to air monitoring given LBNL's proximity to nearby homes. There is none or scant little. The Lab operates "with a grossly outdated, long-range development plan, a fifteen-year-old environmental assessment," and refuses to consider the impact of its lab expansion, research, and harmful fallout. Overall, its attitude is "cavalier" and indifferent to the community around it.
According to BC, LBNL makes poor environmental choices and is "in crisis. With seemingly little to lose, (it's) scrambling to meet the future and reinvent itself. There seems to be very little goodwill or concern for public safety." Neither is there by its bosses in Washington. "Responsible stewardship is needed now. After 75 (now 77) years, it's about time." And for Steven Chu to assume it in his new position as DOE Secretary. Don't expect it.
He strongly backs nuclear power and called it "a necessary part of the portfolio" at the annual Stanford University economic summit last March. Yet he downplays its risks that are considerable. According to Helen Caldicott, nuclear power is dangerous and won't solve our energy problems. Each commercial reactor is an atom bomb factory. Moreover, they require a vast infrastructure, called the nuclear fuel cycle, that uses huge and rapidly growing amounts of fossil fuels. Each stage in the cycle adds to the problem, starting with the enormous energy needs to mine and mill uranium fuel.
Then there are tail millings that need fossil fuels to remediate. Other cycle steps need them as well, including plant construction, dismantling, cleanup, handling contaminated waste, storing and transporting it. It's economics also don't add up - for construction, insurance, government subsidies, and more. Add the human health toll on uranium miners, nuclear industry workers, and everyone living close to reactors or downwind from them. Plus the waste storage problem and the need to guarantee against seepage for 500,000 years.
Chu's support for the industry is why he'll be DOE Secretary. When asked in 2005 if fission-based nuclear power plants should be a larger part of the energy-producing portfolio, he responded: "Absolutely," and elaborated with a cavalier attitude about its dangers in advocating for "recycling" of waste.
As professor of journalism and frequent writer on environmental and energy issues, Karl Grossman states: "recycling and reuse of nuclear garbage ends up spreading poisons that cause cancer, genetic damage, and other causes of premature death." Chu is "trapped (in a) nuclear mindset," according to Greenpeace USA's Jim Riccio. He downplays safe, clean renewable technologies; ignores the concerns that Caldicott and others raise; staunchly advocates for the industry; and will head to Washington to support it.
Carol Browner
This writer said this about her in an earlier article. She served as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for eight years under Bill Clinton, and held the longest ever tenure in the office. She then was Senator Al Gore's Legislative Director, and in 2001, joined the Albright Group, a global strategy firm headed by former secretary of state Madeleine Albright.
She's also a principal of Albright Capital Management, an investment advisory firm concentrating on emerging markets, chairs the National Audubon Society board, and is on the boards of the Alliance for Climate Protection, the League of Conservation Voters, and APX, a company providing "leading-edge Market Operations and Environmental Solutions." She's got the right credentials, makes the right moves, says the right things, supports the right people, and will enter the Obama administration well vetted and safe. She'll be Obama's "energy czar," or "czarina," according to some, and "the greatest administrator (the) EPA ever had," according to Obama transition co-manager, John Podesta. Not according to others despite whatever good intentions and successes she may have had.
A 1990s observer said that her EPA (in 1995) gutted the Toxic Substances Control Act to reverse the ban on importing PCBs, an extremely toxic chemical used as an industrial lubricant and as a fire retardant in electric transformers.
Prior to George Bush, another writer called the Clinton administration the most anti-environmental one in recent memory, and said Al Gore silently and directly assisted the effort. A typical example illustrates it. He and Browner cited a hundred or more studies linking dirty air to asthma and premature death. Publicly they supported establishing tough regulatory standards for air pollutants such as ozone and soot emissions.
Critics and the right wing media responded. The White House backed down, asked for a 10-year delay on new standards, a 30 - 50% reduction in proposals requested, and lower EPA fines for violators. For her part, Browner went along, stood silent and surrendered.
In March 2007, CounterPunch's Jeff St. Clair wrote about Gore as vice-president in an article titled "The Green Imposter" and exposed the "official myth (that he) and the national greens fought off the Visigoths." Straightaway, he, Clinton, and their team made "a series of retreats, reversals and betrayals that prompted David Brower, the grand old man of American environmentalism....to conclude that 'Gore and Clinton had done more harm to the environment than Reagan and (GHW) Bush combined.' " According to St. Clair, "The years from 1993 to 2000 were bleak ones for environmentalists, as Clinton and Gore retreated from one campaign pledge after another," and, of course, team members acquiesced, Browner for one.
Lisa Jackson - EPA administrator
Before becoming governor Jon Corzine's chief of staff on December 1, Jackson was New Jersey's top environmental official as head of the state's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). At best, her record was mixed, but for critics it was poor to dismal. According to the Washington-based Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), it "should disqualify her from serving as the next head of the US Environmental Protection Agency. In many instances, Jackson embraced policies at DEP echoing the very practices at the Bush EPA which Senator Barack Obama condemned during the presidential campaign."
DEP employees called her "politicized" and accused her of suppressing scientific information, issuing gag orders and threats against professional staff members who objected, and acting against the environment, not for it. "Little of what occurred during her 31-month tenure" qualifies her to be Obama's EPA administrator. "Under her watch, New Jersey's environment only got dirtier, incredible as that may seem." Other criticisms of her stewardship included:
-- DEP malfeasance endangering public health;
-- rising water pollution levels;
-- the contamination of drinking water supplies and poisoning of wildlife with no cogent state response;
-- the gross mismanagement of the state's hazardous waste clean-up program; and
-- one of her first administrative acts was to appoint the lobbyist for the New Jersey Builders Association as her assistant commissioner to oversee water quality and land use permits;
Jackson later convened an industry-dominated task force to rewrite DEP policies and relax pollution enforcement; her entire tenure was marked by closed-door deal-making with polluters and lobbyists; she can now do nationally what she did to New Jersey.
Ken Salazar - Interior Secretary
Environmentalists object, and so do others for his Senate record.
In May 2005, he was one of the "Gang of 14" to compromise on filibustering Bush's judicial appointments. Under the agreement, the so-called "nuclear option" would only be exercised under "extraordinary circumstances," meaning Bush appointees nearly always went unopposed and a rogue slate now occupies the federal bench.
Salazar also supported the appointment of Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General and introduced and sat with him at a Senate confirmation hearing. In addition, he backed Gale Norton for Interior and the worst of her pro-business policies; William Myers III, a former ranching industry lobbyist and Interior Department solicitor, for the federal bench even though the American Bar Association rated him "not qualified."
His overall environmental record is dismal. In 2005, he voted against increasing fuel efficiency, or so-called "Corporate Average Fuel Economy" (CAFE) standards, for cars and trucks. He also opposed an amendment to repeal tax breaks for ExxonMobil and other Big Oil companies and supports oil and gas drilling on federal lands with few restrictions.
In August 2006, he supported Joe Lieberman against the moderate anti-war candidate Ned Lamont. He also voted to end protections that limit offshore Florida Gulf Coast drilling, subsidies for the livestock industry, others for ranchers and other users of public lands and the national forests. He fought efforts to increase Farm Bill protections for endangered species and the environment and threatened to sue the US Fish and Wildlife Service when its scientists determined that the black-tailed prairie dog may be endangered.
In 2007, he was one of the few Democrats to oppose a bill to require the Army Corps of Engineers to consider global warming when planning water projects. According to Project Vote Smart (a mostly volunteer group that vets political candidates and elected officials), the US Humane Society rates Salazar 25% on his voting record. The Fund for Animals scores him 0% for 2005 - 2006 while the Defenders of Wildlife (with a long record of questionable practices and undisclosed funding sources) rates him 60%.
Overall, environmentalists are angered and justifiably so. Kieran Suckling, head of the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) said: Salazar "is very closely tied to ranching and mining and very traditional, old-time, Western, extraction industries. We were promised that an Obama presidency would bring change." Salazar will deliver none. He's especially weak on "protecting scientific integrity, combating global warming, reforming energy development and protecting endangered species."
Tom Vilsack - Agriculture Secretary
He was Iowa governor from 1999 - 2007, a former chairman of the right wing Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), and Obama's choice for Agriculture Secretary. Not a farmer, his agricultural background consists of building relationships with the state's large corn producers and supporting their generous subsidies. He's also closely tied to the Ag giants, and, of course, that's a prerequisite for his new job. With him directing policy, their agenda is safe, not the public's.
In February 2004, he gave Monsanto two awards for "environment excellence" - one a "special recognition for energy efficiency/renewable energy" and the other a "special recognition for air quality." Besides being the world's largest GMO seed producer, Monsanto makes a stew of toxic chemicals and spreads them globally - including glyphosate herbicide, alachlor, and butachlor.
The company is responsible for releasing at least 265,000 pounds of chemicals annually into the Mississippi River. According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, "the combined effect of the Monsanto discharge with other discharges may severely stress and degrade the (aquatic) habitat." That's besides how it poisons top soil with chemical contaminants and GMO plantings.
Nonetheless, the Organic Consumers Association said it welcomes Vilsack's apparent backing for a "modest reduction in our nation's annual $17 - 25 billion subsidies to chemical, energy-intensive and genetically engineered crops such as corn, soybeans, and cotton." However, it wants all "non-green" subsidies ended. "We can no longer afford to use US tax money to subsidize chemical and energy-intensive crops that basically prop up factory farm profits and the junk food industry, make consumers unhealthy, waste valuable non-renewable resources, and destabilize the climate."
Obama and Vilsack will disappoint. They support ethanol and other biofuels production, big subsidies for the Ag giants, and the proliferation of harmful GMO crops. Why else would the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) once give him the Governor of the Year award "for his support of the industry's economic growth and agricultural biotechnology research."
In 2000, Vilsack founded and chaired the Governors Biotechnology Partnership (initially with 13 governors and now over double that). It's a clearing house for biotech information and to promote the worldwide acceptance and use of GMO seeds.
In 2005, he initiated the Seed and Plant Preemption Bill to prevent local authorities from regulating these seeds, including deciding if and where they may be planted and the right to establish GMO-free buffer zones. These foods harm human health, but Vilsack supports their proliferation everywhere. The Agriculture Department under his stewardship will assure it.
Arne Duncan - Education Secretary
Since June 2001, he's been CEO of the Chicago Public Schools and will be Obama's new Education Secretary. Children of the nation watch out. Duncan jeopardizes your educational prospects if he'll do for the nation what's he done to Chicago. Sadly, that's why Obama chose him.
Last April, this writer did a major article on Destroying Public Education in America and explained how privatization schemes threaten to end a 373 year tradition. Duncan has been a lead player in Chicago. He'll now take his agenda national. Here's an excerpt from the article:
Duncan led Chicago's Renaissance 2010 Turnaround strategy for 100 new "high-performing" elementary and high schools in the city by that date. Under five year contracts, they'll "be held accountable....to create innovative learning environments" under one of three "governance structures:"
-- charter schools under the 1996 Illinois Charter Schools Law; they're called "public schools of choice, selected by students and parents....to take responsible risks and create new, innovative and more flexible ways of educating children within the public school system;" in 1997, the Illinois General Assembly approved 60 state charter schools; Chicago was authorized 30, the suburbs 15 more, and 15 others downstate. The city bent the rules, initially operated about 53 charter "campuses," and now has nearly 100.
Charter schools aren't magnet ones that require students in some cases to have special skills or pass admissions tests. However, they have specific organizing themes and educational philosophies and may target certain learning problems, development needs, or educational possibilities. In all states, they're legislatively authorized; near-autonomous in their operations; free to choose their students and exclude unwanted ones; and up to now are quasi-public with no religious affiliation.
Ken Salazar - Interior Secretary
Environmentalists object, and so do others for his Senate record.
In May 2005, he was one of the "Gang of 14" to compromise on filibustering Bush's judicial appointments. Under the agreement, the so-called "nuclear option" would only be exercised under "extraordinary circumstances," meaning Bush appointees nearly always went unopposed and a rogue slate now occupies the federal bench.
Salazar also supported the appointment of Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General and introduced and sat with him at a Senate confirmation hearing. In addition, he backed Gale Norton for Interior and the worst of her pro-business policies; William Myers III, a former ranching industry lobbyist and Interior Department solicitor, for the federal bench even though the American Bar Association rated him "not qualified."
His overall environmental record is dismal. In 2005, he voted against increasing fuel efficiency, or so-called "Corporate Average Fuel Economy" (CAFE) standards, for cars and trucks. He also opposed an amendment to repeal tax breaks for ExxonMobil and other Big Oil companies and supports oil and gas drilling on federal lands with few restrictions.
In August 2006, he supported Joe Lieberman against the moderate anti-war candidate Ned Lamont. He also voted to end protections that limit offshore Florida Gulf Coast drilling, subsidies for the livestock industry, others for ranchers and other users of public lands and the national forests. He fought efforts to increase Farm Bill protections for endangered species and the environment and threatened to sue the US Fish and Wildlife Service when its scientists determined that the black-tailed prairie dog may be endangered.
In 2007, he was one of the few Democrats to oppose a bill to require the Army Corps of Engineers to consider global warming when planning water projects. According to Project Vote Smart (a mostly volunteer group that vets political candidates and elected officials), the US Humane Society rates Salazar 25% on his voting record. The Fund for Animals scores him 0% for 2005 - 2006 while the Defenders of Wildlife (with a long record of questionable practices and undisclosed funding sources) rates him 60%.
Overall, environmentalists are angered and justifiably so. Kieran Suckling, head of the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) said: Salazar "is very closely tied to ranching and mining and very traditional, old-time, Western, extraction industries. We were promised that an Obama presidency would bring change." Salazar will deliver none. He's especially weak on "protecting scientific integrity, combating global warming, reforming energy development and protecting endangered species."
Tom Vilsack - Agriculture Secretary
He was Iowa governor from 1999 - 2007, a former chairman of the right wing Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), and Obama's choice for Agriculture Secretary. Not a farmer, his agricultural background consists of building relationships with the state's large corn producers and supporting their generous subsidies. He's also closely tied to the Ag giants, and, of course, that's a prerequisite for his new job. With him directing policy, their agenda is safe, not the public's.
In February 2004, he gave Monsanto two awards for "environment excellence" - one a "special recognition for energy efficiency/renewable energy" and the other a "special recognition for air quality." Besides being the world's largest GMO seed producer, Monsanto makes a stew of toxic chemicals and spreads them globally - including glyphosate herbicide, alachlor, and butachlor.
The company is responsible for releasing at least 265,000 pounds of chemicals annually into the Mississippi River. According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, "the combined effect of the Monsanto discharge with other discharges may severely stress and degrade the (aquatic) habitat." That's besides how it poisons top soil with chemical contaminants and GMO plantings.
Nonetheless, the Organic Consumers Association said it welcomes Vilsack's apparent backing for a "modest reduction in our nation's annual $17 - 25 billion subsidies to chemical, energy-intensive and genetically engineered crops such as corn, soybeans, and cotton." However, it wants all "non-green" subsidies ended. "We can no longer afford to use US tax money to subsidize chemical and energy-intensive crops that basically prop up factory farm profits and the junk food industry, make consumers unhealthy, waste valuable non-renewable resources, and destabilize the climate."
Obama and Vilsack will disappoint. They support ethanol and other biofuels production, big subsidies for the Ag giants, and the proliferation of harmful GMO crops. Why else would the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) once give him the Governor of the Year award "for his support of the industry's economic growth and agricultural biotechnology research."
In 2000, Vilsack founded and chaired the Governors Biotechnology Partnership (initially with 13 governors and now over double that). It's a clearing house for biotech information and to promote the worldwide acceptance and use of GMO seeds.
In 2005, he initiated the Seed and Plant Preemption Bill to prevent local authorities from regulating these seeds, including deciding if and where they may be planted and the right to establish GMO-free buffer zones. These foods harm human health, but Vilsack supports their proliferation everywhere. The Agriculture Department under his stewardship will assure it.
Arne Duncan - Education Secretary
Since June 2001, he's been CEO of the Chicago Public Schools and will be Obama's new Education Secretary. Children of the nation watch out. Duncan jeopardizes your educational prospects if he'll do for the nation what's he done to Chicago. Sadly, that's why Obama chose him.
Last April, this writer did a major article on Destroying Public Education in America and explained how privatization schemes threaten to end a 373 year tradition. Duncan has been a lead player in Chicago. He'll now take his agenda national. Here's an excerpt from the article:
Duncan led Chicago's Renaissance 2010 Turnaround strategy for 100 new "high-performing" elementary and high schools in the city by that date. Under five year contracts, they'll "be held accountable....to create innovative learning environments" under one of three "governance structures:"
-- charter schools under the 1996 Illinois Charter Schools Law; they're called "public schools of choice, selected by students and parents....to take responsible risks and create new, innovative and more flexible ways of educating children within the public school system;" in 1997, the Illinois General Assembly approved 60 state charter schools; Chicago was authorized 30, the suburbs 15 more, and 15 others downstate. The city bent the rules, initially operated about 53 charter "campuses," and now has nearly 100.
Charter schools aren't magnet ones that require students in some cases to have special skills or pass admissions tests. However, they have specific organizing themes and educational philosophies and may target certain learning problems, development needs, or educational possibilities. In all states, they're legislatively authorized; near-autonomous in their operations; free to choose their students and exclude unwanted ones; and up to now are quasi-public with no religious affiliation.
Here's what the president praised. Lisa Delpit is executive director of the Center for Urban Education & Innovation. In her capacity, she studies charter school performance and cited evidence from a 2005 Department of Education report. Her conclusion: "charter schools....are less likely than public schools to meet state education goals." Case study examples in five states showed they underperform, and are "less likely than traditional public (ones) to employ teachers meeting state certification standards."
Clearly a failing grade on what's spreading across the country en route to total privatization and the triumph of the market over educating the nation's youths.
In 1991, Minnesota passed the first charter school law. California followed in 1992, and it's been off to the races since. By 1995, 19 states had them, and in 2007 there were over 4000 charter schools in 40 states and the District of Columbia with more than one million students in them and growing.
Chicago's two other "governance structures" are:
-- contract (privatized) schools run by "independent nonprofit organizations;" they operate under a Performance Agreement between the "organization" and the Board of Education; and
-- performance schools under Chicago Public Schools (CPS) management "with freedom and flexibility on many district initiatives and policies;" unmentioned is the Democrat mayor's close ties to the Bush administration and their mutual preference for marketplace education; the idea isn't new, but it accelerated rapidly in recent years.
Another part of the scheme is also in play, in Chicago and throughout the country. Inner city schools are being closed, remaining ones are neglected and decrepit, classroom sizes are increasing, and children and parents are being sacrificed on the alter of marketplace triumphalism.
Consider recent events under Mayor Richard Daley in Chicago. On February 27, the city's Board of Education unanimously and without discussion voted to close, relocate or otherwise target 19 public schools, fire teachers, and leave students out in the cold. Thousands of parents protested, were ignored and denied access to the Board of Ed meeting where the decision came down pro forma and quick. It wasn't the first time and won't be the last. For years under the current mayor, Chicago has closed or privatized more schools than anywhere else in the country, and the trend is accelerating. Since July 2001, the city closed 59 elementary and secondary schools and replaced many of them with charter or contract ones.
The trend continues in Chicago and across the country to "reform" education nationally, hand it to business profiteers, destroy teacher unions, end public education, commodify it, educate the well-off, cheat underprivileged kids, consign them to low-wage, no benefit service jobs, and end the American dream for millions.
Arne Duncan will head to Washington to do it with schemes like the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) that became law on January 8, 2002. It succeeded the 1994 Goals 2000: Educate America Act that set eight outcomes-based goals for the year 2000 but failed on all counts to meet them. Goals 2000, in turn, goes back to the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and specifically its Title I provisions for funding schools and districts with a high percentage of low-income family students.
NCLB is outrageous, and Duncan administered the worst of it in Chicago. It's long on testing, school choice, and market-based "reforms" but short on real achievement. It's built around rote learning, standardized tests, requiring teachers to "teach to the test," assessing results by Average Yearly Progress (AYP) scores, and punishing failure harshly - firing teachers and principals, closing schools and transforming them from public to charter or for-profit ones.
Critics denounce the plan as "an endless regimen of test-preparation drills" for poor children. Others call it underfunded and a thinly veiled scheme to privatize education and transfer its costs and responsibilities from the federal government to individuals and impoverished school districts. Mostly, it reflects current era thinking that anything government does business does better, so let it. And Democrats (like Duncan and Obama) are as supportive as Republicans.
So far, NCLB renewal bills remain stalled in both Houses, election year politics have intervened, and final resolution will be for the new administration and 111th Congress to decide. For critics, that's positive because the law failed to deliver as promised. Its sponsors claimed it would close the achievement gap between inner city and rural schools and more affluent suburban ones. It's real aim, however, is to commodify education, end government responsibility for it, and make it another business profit center.
Obama promised to fix "the broken promises of" NCLB. Whatever's done will affect millions of students already harmed with little chance that the worst of this act will be changed. Arne Duncan won't let it. He told Congress that NCLB funding "should be doubled within five years, and that the law must be amended to give schools the maximum amount of flexibility possible...." Repealing the law, ending the funding and privatization schemes, and fostering policies to educate all kids equally regardless of socioeconomic status is what's needed.
Below are some of Duncan's policy initiatives in Chicago:
-- using the Chicago Board of Education's $5.5 billion budget to hand out no-bid contracts to cronies for all sorts of goods and services; Duncan recommends them to the seven-member board, and nearly always they're approved unanimously with no discussion or debate;
-- militarizing the city's high schools (to the greatest extent ever in the city and perhaps the country) on the pretext of offering students "choice;" he not only institutionalized JROTC programs, but he established high schools devoted entirely to military studies; the overwhelming majority of their students are poor minorities;
-- he litigated to be freed from an early 1980s federal desegregation consent decree; he claims he's done all he can to comply even though Chicago school students are predominantly black and over 90% black and Latino; the city has over 300 segregated schools and an additional 40 or more all-Latino ones;
-- he opposes and litigated against federal oversight of special education programs; he violates the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), ignores parents' wishes, the needs of the children, and teachers are forced to go along; and
-- under Duncan, Chicago has nearly 100 quasi-private charter schools, many of them run by for-profit companies; less than 10% of them are integrated; the city is notorious for violating the education needs of minority students; its schools for them are sub-standard and abysmal;
Mary Schapiro - head the SEC
She's Obama's pick to head the SEC, an agency in disarray under George Bush and earlier. Its mandate is to enforce and regulate federal securities laws, the industry, the nation's stock and options exchanges, and other electronic securities markets. Its web site states that its "mission....is to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation."
The problem is that under George Bush and earlier, SEC provided scant little of it and most often none at all where it matters most. The result is incidents like the Madoff scandal costing investors worldwide billions. His investment firm wasn't even registered with the SEC until September 2006. Yet the agency was alerted that he was running a scam and still did nothing to investigate. Earlier there was Enron, Worldcom, many others, and still more to come. Plus the greatest ever financial/economic crisis, the result of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), mortgage-backed securities (MBSs), subprime loans, and other structured finance fraud (making Madoff look minor by comparison) for lack of oversight and good policy, that may wreck world economies before it's over.
Too often SEC is a facilitator, not a regulator, and when the latter it's careful not to interfere with the powerful. Whether Schapiro will change things is problematic and doubtful. She spent years advocating for Wall Street to be self-regulating. There's little doubt where her interests lie and which ones she'll represent in her new post.
She's currently CEO of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and served as president of NASD Regulation (National Association of Securities Dealers). In 2006, she became NASD's chairman and CEO. FINRA calls itself "the largest non-governmental regulator for all securities firms doing business with the US public" at a time virtually none of it exists, and where was FINRA as the current global crisis unfolded.
Earlier in 1994, Schapiro was chairperson of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) that supposedly regulates commodity futures and option markets, but, in fact, too often is derelict. When Wendy Gramm (wife of former Senator Phil Gramm) headed the agency (from 1988 to 1993), she and her husband pushed through the "Enron Loophole" for the company's "Enron On-Line." It freed it from oversight, let it fleece customers and investors, and ultimately its employees from bankruptcy. Before it did, Wendy joined Enron's board and reportedly earned from $915,000 to $1.8 million for her services, including her earlier ones.
From 1988 - 1993, Schapiro served six years as an SEC commissioner. In January 2008, George Bush appointed her to the newly established President's Advisory Council on Financial Literacy. It focuses on economic empowerment issues and is run by the Treasury Department. Schapiro is also a member of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) and was chairperson of the IOSCO SRO Consultative Committee from 2002 - 2006. IOSCO is another body supposedly "to promote high standards of regulation in order to maintain just, efficient and sound markets." It, too, was quiet in the run-up to the global crisis and surely did nothing to prevent it.
Ray LaHood - Transportation Secretary
He's a Republican congressman (since 1995) and insider. He's also closely linked with Obama's Chief of Staff-designee Rahm Emanuel. According to some, his resume is thin. He doesn't serve on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and as a member of the Appropriations Committee, he's not involved in transportation funding. In his new role, he'll play a big part in Obama's economic stimulus efforts, especially its planned infrastructure components.
Hope for Peace and Justice rates LaHood 0%. The non-partisan LCV Scorecard (on energy and environmental issues) gives him a lifetime 27% rating and even lower scores for individual years. The Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) rates him 25% and NARAL Pro-Choice America rates him 0%. LaHood is another establishment pick, called a moderate but, in fact, is hard right, and, according to critics, a poor choice for an important job.
Gary Gensler and Daniel Tarullo
On December, Obama chose Tarullo for a vacant Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) seat. Lest readers forget, the Federal Reserve is a private for-profit banking cartel (representing Wall Street, not the public) in charge of the nation's money, its supply and price. As economist Michael Hudson explains, bankers don't earn their money. They "extract" it from the economy, meaning, of course, from us.
One example is with the Fed Funds rate an effective 0%, banks can borrow at that rate, lend at whatever they wish and make big profits. For credit cards, it's up to 20% or more plus hidden and special fees. For 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, it's on average 5.19% as of December 18.
Michael Hudson explains; " It involves a lot more than credit cards and home mortgages. It includes a whole range of financial engineering schemes, massive fraud, the bubble economy, war and militarism, much more as well."
Gensler will contribute to the problem as head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). He's a former Treasury Undersecretary (1999 - 2001), before that Assistant Secretary of the Treasury from 1997 - 1999, and another Goldman Sachs alumnus, so watch out. And refer to the above on how the CFTC, like the SEC, is ill-managed. Odds are that Gensler, a Wall Street insider, will continue that tradition. It's up to him to prove otherwise.
The same goes for all Obama selections, including New York housing commissioner Shaun Donovan for Housing Secretary, Bronx Borough president Adolfo Carrion for director of the new Office of Urban Policy, and former Senator, majority leader, and consummate insider Tom Daschle for Health and Human Services. On his watch, the prospect for universal health care is zero. His reform advocacy (like Clinton's in the 1990s) is to let marketplace medicine handle it. Clearly that route won't work, and Daschle's mandate is to assure it.
Two additional appointments will be announced on December 19 - California Representative Hilda Solis for Labor Secretary and former Dallas mayor, lobbyist, and Lloyd Bentsen aide Ron Kirk for US trade representative. Kirk is strongly pro-"free trade," meaning, of course, the one-way kind benefitting US business at the expense of exploited developing nations. He'll pursue that agenda in his new post.
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
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