Neo Conman

Coming off of Our Dear Leader's Friday economic press conference -- only the 5th held by Obama in prime-time, the fewest of any President since they invented prime-time -- Barry Grey makes the points.

Obama and his handlers have evidently decided that the best way to confront rising anger over the administration’s refusal to provide jobs or serious relief for the unemployed is to use the Big Lie technique—presenting pro-corporate policies as their opposite, touting deepening crisis as “recovery,” and citing the reactionary nostrums of the Republicans to justify the White House’s own right-wing program. The assumption that underlies this cynical public relations campaign is that the American people are infinitely gullible and suffer from collective amnesia.

One can only wonder whether Obama believes that the American people have forgotten the actual record of his administration: his multi-trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street, his intervention to block legislation limiting bankers’ pay, his insistence that newly hired General Motors and Chrysler workers’ pay be cut in half, his refusal to bail out bankrupt state and local governments, his rejection of any public works programs to actually create jobs, his health care “reform” that slashes hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare and rations services to working people, his attacks on teachers and public schools in the name of education “reform,” his banking “reform” that strengthens the grip of the biggest Wall Street firms and sanctions the forms of swindling that led to the crash, and his efforts to run interference for the corporate criminal BP.

The most revealing moment in the press conference came in an exchange with reporter April Ryan, who asked: “On the economy, could you discuss your efforts at reviewing history as it relates to the poverty agenda, meaning LBJ and Dr. King?”

Obama responded by ruling out any government anti-poverty programs. In words that could have been uttered by Bush or any other “free market” ideologue, Obama said, “Now, I think the history of anti-poverty efforts is that the most important anti-poverty effort is growing the economy and making sure there are enough jobs out there—single most important thing we can do. It’s more important than any program we could set up. It’s more important than any transfer payment we could have. If we can grow the economy faster and create more jobs, then everybody is swept up into that virtuous circle…”

The meaning of this repudiation of past reform measures is clear: nothing is permissible that does not directly contribute to enhancing the profits of corporations and the fortunes of their executives and major shareholders. Above all, no steps can be taken to reduce the staggering concentration of wealth at the very top of the economic ladder.

Obama went on to declare, “That doesn’t mean that there aren’t some targeted things we can do to help communities that are especially in need… And I am very proud of the efforts that we’ve made on education reform—which have received praise from Democrats and Republicans.”

Here Obama revealed the actual nature of his so-called “targeted reforms.” He is “very proud” of spearheading an unprecedented assault on public education, scape-goating teachers for years of government neglect of the schools and promoting quasi-private charter schools while encouraging the closure of thousands of public institutions.