A rollercoaster week

[Political Waves]

Well, what a week of hot air and ill wind. I had very modest expectations of Obama's first Oval Office speech in over a year. The political climate and the astrological projections [see the last piece] didn't give it much of a chance as a game changer; but I thought he did what he needed to do. Gave the public a look at his concern and promised to keep on it, knowing that at least half of the nation would give him hell no matter what he said, the other half tapping their foot.

 

The speech was very even, and written for the average 10th grader; shamefully, a lot of citizens found it too cerebral, nonetheless and not emotional enough. A gent over at AlterNet wrote an alternative speech, dumbed down to 7th grade level -- brutal reality check.

The day after the speech, Obama went to work on the BP folks and hammered out some agreements, which was the bone the public was looking for -- now they're chewing on it, growling.

Our Fe Bongolan wrote an excellent piece over at the Planet Waves blog, making a point that few seem willing to -- getting 20 billion bucks in up-front money is an extraordinary accomplishment, breaking the corporation's fast shuffle for the first time in ... at least ... recent history. And you'd think we'd all breathe a little easier -- but wait! What's that we hear from the GOP?

Texas Rep. Joe Barton ... or, as Jon Stewart called him, the "disdainful asshole" -- called Obama's escrow deal with BP "shakedown" -- which is, as digby makes clear, code for "how dare that black guy hustle these very white overlords for money."  When the Dems smelled this macaca moment and raised a howl, the GOP pulled in Barton, making him apologize for apologizing.

But that didn't stop the rowdy Right -- Rep. Michele Bachman said that BP shouldn't agree to be "fleeced." Rush Limbaugh called it a "bailout." The Republican Study Committee, with its 114 members in the House, called it a "shakedown." Gingrich, not to be outdone, called Obama an extortionist.

From the Left, the Seize BP websit has harsh words for the deal:

According to a report in Forbes, BP could absorb $35 billion in spill costs before it would have a "material impact" on its operations. But instead, it will be allowed a paltry $5 billion a year, in an installment plan over four years.

And we won't be seeing Tony Hayden anymore -- he's going home to that life he wants back, we'll have a new American face for BP to throw rocks at.

We've got a lot of reality ahead to deal with, dearhearts -- I wrote about it in the weekly. And I keep hearing snips and bits, rumors and whispers, about a shattered ocean floor and how this could be even more catastrophic than we think. I'm holding my breath on that one.

Oh, and off topic but in case you thought Big Bidness had lost a bit of their arrogance, Huffy is warning that JPMorgan is sending in a team to Afghanistan to explore the exciting new report on minerals with this headline:

High-Risk Investors Look To Exploit Newfound Mineral Wealth, Worry That Afghans Can Keep Finds: 'That Needs To Be Corrected'

Get a rope!

Just the really interesting reads, below. Bonus is astrology on Obama's speech by Lynn Hayes.

Jude

 

Barack Obama’s Oil Speech Rewritten to a Seventh Grade Level
Chauncey DeVega, AlterNet
June 17, 2010
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/06/17/are-the-masses-asses-barack-obamas-oil-speech-rewritten-to-a-seventh-grade-level/

Are the masses asses?

There is a deep tension in American politics between so-called “elites” and “real Americans.” As a complement, there is a long tradition of anti-intellectualism in American life. The popularity of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and the rise of the New Right all in some part speak to this cynicism and disdain–especially among the most populist conservatives–for the educated, “liberal classes.”

In connecting the dots, the amateurish assault on higher education by the Texas and Arizona school boards, with their Orwellian whitewashing of American history, is also part of this populist disdain for expert knowledge. As detailed by Lee Harris in The Next American Civil War, much of the faux Right populism of the tea baggers and their enablers is based on some sense that Washington and “the godless liberals” are too far removed from the values and beliefs of “real” “everyday” Americans.

To turn a phrase, it would seem that stupid is the new (old) black and where the Idiocracy want to reign supreme.

The calls for Obama to be “angry” and to “show some emotion” are a cousin to this phenomenon. According to the pundit classes Obama is hamstrung by a crisis in communication. As opposed to being more like Adlai Stevenson, Obama ought to connect with the people as a “regular guy” cut from the same mold as George W. Bush and Joe the Plumber. Ultimately, education is a liability, for as smeared by Sarah Palin, Obama’s credentials as a “constitutional lawyer” make him too much of a technocrat–an egghead and nerd of sorts–to relate to “real Americans.”

From this worldview, solutions to the challenges faced by America overseas and abroad are best met with moxie, passion, and moral certitude. Not surprisingly, there would seem to be little room here for a nuanced approach to policy making either at home or abroad.

In keeping with this narrative, President Obama’s speech on the Gulf Coast oil disaster is being greeted by some as too sophisticated and complicated for the “average” American to understand. As noted by experts featured on CNN, Obama’s oil speech was written at a 10th grade level: What is apparently a pitch thrown too high for a public that (perhaps) has been dumbed down by a failed educational system, which views their role as citizens in a manner indistinguishable from that of consumers, and that has embraced a mantra that government is always a problem and never a solution.

It would seem that the public wants simple answers to complex problems. They want moral appeals, heroes and villains, and cut and dry solutions. If Paul J.J. Payack, president of Global Language Monitor is to be believed, the American people would like to be spoken to as though they are in the 7th grade–with few syllables, and in short sentences.

In keeping with his suggestions, what follows is my rewriting of President Barack Obama’s speech on the Gulf Coast oil disaster at a grade level appropriate for the American people to understand. In closing, I must ask once more: Are the masses indeed asses?

****
President Obama’s (Now Made Grade Level Appropriate) Oil Speech to the American People

Hello,

The U.S. is in big trouble right now. People need jobs and more money. We are fighting bad guys who hate us in other countries. Our soldiers are doing a good job killing the bad people.

Now, I want to talk to you about the oil in the ocean down South. On April 20th an oil rig blew up. Too many people were killed. There was a big hole dug deep in the ground by the oil rig people. It started to leak oil out into the water. The water is really deep.

We have never had a hole dug that deep into the ground to get the oil out. BP, the big company that dug the hole doesn’t know how to plug it up. I got scared. I then got on the phone and called up some smart people.

One of them is so smart he won a prize for his ideas. His name is Doctor Steven Chu. He works for me. He runs the Department of Energy. He is very bright.

The oil is like a big monster. It is evil. It is hard to cleanup. The oil is killing fish and birds. People who work on boats in the water can’t make money. To fight the monster I told the navy to help. The smart people are going to dig another hole in the ground. With the BP folks they are going to soak up the mess like a big paper towel. I hope that the hole in the ocean will stop leaking in a few weeks.

The water is really sick. We may not be able to get it better for a long time. This is very bad for all of us. BP made this mess. They are going to pay to fix it. I am ordering them to give money to people who can’t work because of the oil. BP is very bad. They did not act like they cared about making a big mess.

The BP people killed the nice people that worked for them. We need to make sure we know why the oil rig blew up. They dug a deep hole in the ground. They didn’t even think about plugging it up. Now, we need to make a rule so that does not happen again. No more messes!

America uses too much oil. This is why BP dug a deep hole in the ground. America needs to get new energy. We will get smart people in a room who can figure out how to do this. I will talk to anyone who will be fair and play nice on this issue. I want good ideas. I do not care where they come from.

Each year the people who fish and live near the messed up water get together to pray for good luck. That is a good idea. The U.S. has God on its side. We will pray that this mess gets fixed.

Remember, we are a great country. We have lots of bad things going on now. But, the U.S. always wins. We will soak up the oil. We will kill the bad guys in those other places where they pray to the wrong God and want to blow us up. The economy will get fixed. God bless America. ++


Americans Simply Don't Do Sacrifice Anymore
Bob Cesca, HuffPo
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/americans-simply-dont-do_b_615005.html

 
The president wrapped up his address Tuesday night by asking Americans to pray for the victims -- both human and environmental -- of the BP oil spill. I thought it was a strange way to end his first Oval Office address during a national emergency insofar as praying makes the situation appear too big for conventional solutions. As though all that remains between us and a sea of oil is the Hail Mary.

This morning it occurred to me that this was the only thing he could really ask Americans to do.

Why? Simply stated, it doesn't require any effort to silently invoke spirituality while stopped at a traffic signal or while chewing a gluttonous mouthful of Double Down. Actually, I take back that second part. I can't imagine doing anything other than suffering a massive infarction while eating a Double Down.

Instead of prayer, the president could have asked us all to make sacrifices towards the goal of weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels. Maybe he should have asked for sacrifice. It probably wouldn't have hurt. But it would have been mostly ignored.

Americans simply don't do "national sacrifice" anymore. During World War II, Americans were asked to ration everything from sugar to oil to cheese -- even shoes. Those days are long gone. Today, we're asked to go to Disneyland or the beach. Or we're asked to pray. (It's difficult to imagine the modern right-wing, for example, accepting the rationing of anything at the behest of the current president when most of them refuse to fill out a U.S. Census form. More on that presently.)

The BP oil spill has been a daily reminder of our toxic relationship with decomposed dinosaurs. On just about every blog and every cable news show, we've watched in shock-horror as 75,000,000 gallons of oil spew from the top of the Deepwater Horizon's blowout preventer. We see it. We cringe. Some of us shout, "Why, oh, why?!" Others curse Tony Hayward and BP. Maybe some of us curse President Obama or former President Bush. A clear majority of Americans are pissed off, and they're taking it out on everyone except themselves: the ones actually buying the oil.

Once we're exhausted with blaming and yelling, we climb into our oversized cars, crank up the air conditioner, drive to Burger King and order a ammonia-washed beef sandwich the size of a baby -- while mindlessly idling at the drive-thru.

As the president pointed out last night, scientists, experts and politicians have been urging us to make the transition to clean energy and away from fossil fuels. In the last ten years alone, we've endured the largest terrorist attack on our soil and subsequently fought two wars, all prompted by American intrusions into the Middle East to satisfy our collective petro fix.

Despite all of the warnings and the death, money and mayhem, the only thing that seemed to have temporarily curtailed our fetish for gigantic penis-extending vehicles was the 2008 spike in gas prices. But even while gas prices topped $4 per gallon, there was only a four percent decrease in driving, according to the Department of Transportation. A big number for Americans, but not nearly big enough.

We know what we have to do. All of us. But we only really make these kinds of sacrifices when we have no other choice.

For most of us, our share of energy is burned as matter of lifestyle and habit. We might turn off an extra light or two, or slowly switch to CFL bulbs, but making sacrifices big enough to smash a dent in the volume of fossil fuels we burn and the carbon footprint we leave seems almost unheard of. Especially because Americans have been conditioned to participate in the consumer economy. Not only are politicians disinclined to demand less spending on burgers and cars due to the consequential negative economic impact, but the money spilling into their campaigns from the various Big Consumer corporations won't permit any such call to sacrifice that which Big Consumer corporations are selling.

President Obama wouldn't dare suggest we eat less beef or buy fewer cars. And definitely not when we're beginning to recover from an enormous recession. If we were to actually pay attention to a presidential call to personally scale back our energy habits, the abrupt change in consumer spending could create a backslide in economic recovery and, thus, the president's shot at reelection would be jeopardized, not to mention the reelection chances of any member of Congress who rides along.

The only thing he can do -- the only thing any political leader can do -- is to slowly phase out fossil fuels in such a way that it's barely noticed and that won't immediately force us to stop cramming our pie holes with more than our reasonable share of meat, or to stop getting off on vehicles that generate a contained earthquake beneath our fat asses.

Unless, that is, we all take the initiative on our own.

Aren't conservatives always talking about self-reliance and personal responsibility? It goes without saying that conservatives will be the last ones to make any changes. These are the same ignorant simpletons who deliberately cut down trees and burn tires on Earth Day. You know, just because. This week, when asked about the horrible mining process known as mountaintop removal, Rand Paul said, "I don't think anybody's going to be missing a hill or two here and there."

At the same time, if the president had called for sacrifice, Glenn Beck and the other screeching members of the Opposite Day Party (platform: the opposite of whatever the Democrats say) would insist that the president was trying to indoctrinate Americans. Imagine if the president had mentioned in his speech an initiative for citizens to volunteer in the Gulf or to organize car pools. AM radios all across the nation would have simultaneously exploded with the high-pitched wailing of a thousand talk show hosts screaming, "Huuusaaaaaine!"

Remember, for example, when the president and the Senate passed the Serve America Act creating a volunteer corp? Beck called it the "National Enslavement Bill" and Michele Bachmann said it would include "re-education camps for children."

Ironically, these are the same people who are demanding the president show more "leadership" in this crisis. The anti-government intervention crowd.

Ultimately, the president would more easily be able dive to the bottom of the Gulf and plug the leak by tying the blowout preventer in a big knot than he would be able to convince enough Americans to even temporarily drink fewer milkshakes (in the vernacular of Daniel Plainview).

Instead, all he can really ask Americans to do is to pray. Anything more would be too disruptive.

If you're angry about the oil spill, organize a car pool, eat less beef, live closer to work and ride a bike. These aren't complicated things to do, but they do require a little effort. Maybe moving closer to work is a pain in neck, but, then again, so is 75,000,000 gallons of oil mixed with a dispersant forming a massive cocktail of poison in the Gulf of Mexico.

I think it's time to inconvenience ourselves for a change. ++


Ripping the populist mask off GOPBP
Did Barton's brain malfunction? Does Barbour know what "escrow" means? Why does Bachmann hate fishermen? Ask them
Joe Conason, Salon
Thursday, Jun 17, 2010
http://www.salon.com/print.html?URL=/opinion/conason/2010/06/17/populist

With their manic, absurd defenses of BP, certain leading Republicans (echoed by Fox News commentators) have achieved levels of self-parody far too exaggerated for a "Saturday Night Live" sketch. Everyone understands that politicians of both parties sometimes stooge for corporations. But Haley Barbour, Michele Bachmann and Joe Barton, among others, have said things about the British oil giant -- and the $20 billion escrow fund to compensate Deepwater Horizon damages -- that could only be uttered by someone truly stupid. Or someone who thinks the rest of us are truly stupid.

As a GOP representative from Houston, Barton should be expected to act like an oil industry rent-boy. That is his essential identity and purpose in life, and that is why he apologized to BP chairman Tony Hayward for the "shakedown" perpetrated against the company by President Obama. But there was no shakedown nor was there, as some conservatives have suggested, any violation of the corporation's constitutional rights. The president has no power to prevent BP from defending claims in court, nor can he prevent the Justice Department from indicting BP executives on criminal charges if sufficient evidence exists to do so. The establishment of the escrow fund was entirely voluntary, and indeed many observers believe that the decision to create it was motivated as much by self-interest and public relations as by compassion or guilt.

Haley Barbour too has behaved like an abject servant of the oil bidness for his entire public career -- and he has seen no reason to change just because an endless tide of sludge is washing up on the shores of the state he misgoverns. From the beginning of the disaster, Barbour has tried to minimize the effects of the spill and make excuses for BP, but he has outdone himself in a fit of indignation over the escrow fund. According to him, it will make full restitution to the Gulf's beleaguered workers, fishermen and business owners less likely, because it will reduce the profits BP needs to pay out damages. Of course, if $20 billion is already in escrow, then the injured parties need not worry about where the money will come from. But don't try to make sense of Barbour's argument, because you can't.

Then there is Bachmann, who represents a district in Minnesota and therefore cannot be excused for standing up on behalf of a regional economic interest. To her, the escrow fund represents a scheme for "redistribution" of wealth -- as if the people who will receive money from it are undeserving welfare recipients and as if BP had done nothing to injure them. She derided the BP executives who will pay into the escrow account as "chumps."

All of these ultra-free-market, regulation-and-bureaucracy-hating conservatives agree, by the way, that President Obama and the federal government are just as blameworthy as BP, Halliburton and the other corporations in charge of Deepwater Horizon -- because federal agencies didn't regulate them stringently enough. Regulation is very, very bad, except when Obama doesn't do enough of it.

Today Bachmann backed off those remarks a step, perhaps realizing that she sounded even sillier than usual, and assured CNN that, contrary to appearances, she isn't just a "shill" for BP. But it may be too late for her self-correction and the phony apology-for-his-apology issued by Barton today as well. Their blather has ripped away the fashionable Tea Party mask of populism, allowing us to see something much more familiar underneath, and it is something that most American voters will find repulsive. ++


Obama, the Oil Spill and the American Psyche
Elizabeth Bisbee Silber, HuffPo
June 15, 2010
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-bisbee-silber/obama-the-oil-spill-and-t_b_612038.html

President Obama is taking a lot of criticism, most of it valid, for his response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. For once, it seems pundits on the left and the right agree in their assessment of the

President's leadership and demeanor. He's distant when he needs to be hands-on; he's cerebral when he needs to be visceral; he's contemplative when he needs to be decisive. Those in the media, whether novice bloggers or well established journalists, are giving voice to the frustrations and helplessness Americans feel while watching oil gush relentlessly from the depths of the ocean.

But I think there is another phenomenon at work here, another layer in the unfolding drama of the president versus BP. Mr. Obama's failures with regard to leadership style, and his seeming inability to channel American ingenuity and moxie into a solution to this crisis, actually reflect the realities of the American psyche at this moment.

Take, for instance, President Obama's reluctance to wrest control of the cleanup operation from BP. The seemingly incongruous judgment mirrors Americans' own schizophrenic relationship with Big Oil. On the one hand, we depend on energy corporations to drive the economy, and to slake America's quenchless thirst for cheap, reliable fuel. We just don't necessarily want to know how that feat is achieved, and we demand swift, punishing retribution when our own energy demands wreak havoc on the economy and
environment.

Washington players lambast the Obama Administration for regulatory negligence and government incompetence. They chastise the President's reluctance to draw a hard, bright line in the sand on the issue of deep water offshore drilling. But Americans don't want any action the President may take to cost jobs, increase energy prices, or alter our oil-dependent lifestyles. We want the oil industry to change the way it does business without any layoffs, painful transitions, or personal sacrifice. And we want to drive big cars, live in over-sized homes, drink water out of bottles, and choose plastic at the grocery store check-out without having to suffer images of oil-soaked pelicans or tar-stained beaches.

Critics have voiced consternation at White House disengagement, and have questioned why the President spends more time talking to experts than devising a bold plan to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. But our representatives in Congress, and we as a people, focus on the politics, rather than the policies, of climate change, offshore drilling, and fossil fuel consumption and emissions. This argument has been raging for over 20 years, yet no visible progress can be measured. We are happy to argue about what should be done, but unwilling to make any of the hard choices that might save us from similar disasters in the future.

Finally, President Obama has raised eyebrows and invited derision for his perceived thin skin and testiness with regard to his media coverage in this crisis. He wants to blame the cable news culture and media preoccupation with stylistic and semantic faux pas for his inability to connect with the American public, and for the disastrous approval ratings of his administration related to the Gulf spill. Yet we, as Americans, are similarly prickly when forced to face our own complicity in this crisis. We are a good, generous, warm people, and we do not want to be associated with the insatiable greed and poor decision-making that led to this disaster.

We, too, look for others to blame, and point the finger at BP, at the President, and at the federal government more generally. But we never take a moment to glance in the mirror and look at ourselves. We refuse to see that our lifestyles and livelihoods play an integral part in this drama, and that we, too, have made terrible choices in the recent past.

The President will address the nation today, and will attempt, I imagine, to offer Americans a vision of a man in charge. Many pundits speculate he will also (or should) avail himself of the opportunity to speak frankly about the need for a long-term energy plan that unchains the United States from its big oil addiction and spirits us forward into a clean energy future. It is being billed as his JFK moment, and one of the most critical in his still young presidency. I hope he delivers, but I also hope we, as American citizens, can be honest with ourselves about the choices that need to be made, and face them with courage and determination. ++


bonus


This really is President Obama's Katrina
Lynn Hayes, Astrological Musings, BeliefNet
Tuesday June 15, 2010
 http://blog.beliefnet.com/astrologicalmusings/2010/06/this-really-is-president-obama.html#ixzz0rGfEt3gi

President Obama will address the nation tonight in a speech about the oil disaster in the Gulf Coast.  We can argue all day, and probably will, over whether Obama has done enough to stem the tide of this horrific event, but in a politically divided world such as the one we are currently in his options are limited.  There are some in Congress for whom it is more important to see Obama fail than to solve the problem in the Gulf, so Obama is left with little he can do other than wring his hands and express emotion over the devastation, something he is ill equipped to do.

Obama isn't President Clinton, who with a Leo Sun and Libra rising was a born politician, making everyone feel that they were the most important person in the universe (Libra) and basking in the glory of his success (Leo).  In a disaster Clinton is the first responder, shedding tears with the people and being one with everyone.

Obama has Aquarius rising - a transpersonal sign that chooses reason over emotion.  Obama's solution to problems is to avoid getting involved in the emotion of the situation so that reason can create a solution.  The US chart has an Aquarian Moon, so normally that would not be such a problem for Americans to deal with, but at the moment the US chart shows a "double whammy" Neptune/Moon contact with the progressed Moon conjoining Neptune in the chart,  and transiting Neptune conjoining the Moon in the chart. 

Neptune/Moon contacts blur the obvious and can distort reality - they create a desire for the ideal and a longing for something other than what we have.  The Neptunian longing is for ascension and transmutation of the ordinary world into something more magic - it's a longing to be saved and to be delivered from tragedy. 

President Obama is an excellent orator and organizer - he's practical and effective at building consensus and coming up with solutions.  But despite the fervor over his election, he's not the savior that many hoped he would be.  It's interesting that most of the criticism of Obama's handling of the disaster has been directed to his emotional response rather than to his actual actions - this shows the Moon/Neptune influence that is permeating the emotional fabric of the country right now.

When the Horizon oil rig first exploded I wrote of the conjunction of Pluto to Ceres and the environmental effects.  This event also occurred just as Chiron entered Pisces, wounding (Chiron) the ocean (Pisces) and adding to the environmental (Ceres) destruction (Pluto).  This destruction and devastation can offer a positive legacy if we take the lessons of this event to heart and recognize that we cannot continue damaging the earth in order to satisfy our unending appetite for oil. 

I just about dropped my teeth this morning when I heard Joe Scarborough, noted conservative, say on his morning program that the devastating events (Osama bin Laden, September 11, the Iraq war), of the past ten years were all the result of our addiction to cheap oil.  If certain other conservatives would put as much energy into helping to create a solution as they put into trying to ensure that Obama fails at everything he tries, we might be able to succeed as a nation.  We might have to wait for the conclusion of the Saturn/Uranus opposition in September for that to happen.

Update:  Daily Kos has images of Obama's trip to the Gulf disputing this image of Obama as the "cold president". ++

 

 

 

"I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington ... I'm asking you to believe in yours."
~ Barack Obama

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.