How Obama Got His Start

Tells the Facts and Names the Names jan. 1-15, 2012 Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair vol. 19, no. 1 Paul Krugman After Russia’s Winter Break Learns the Facts Liberals and Communists Regroup of Life On Health By Israel Shamir Insurance Moscow idwinter recess stopped ev- in broad daylight. By Rob Urie erything in Russia. It was like As for the natives, there was the bois- rinceton economist and New York August in France some years terous New Year celebration, quite simi- Times editorialist on econom- Mago, mutatis mutandis, with snow in- lar to the Western Christmas, the feast ics and politics, Paul Krugman, stead of sand, fir trees instead of palms, of partying, booze, presents and corpo- Pis the preeminent mainstream econo- and vodka instead of pastis. For two rate events. Coming a full week later, the mist of this era. While no innovator, weeks, the whole country laid off work Russian Christmas retained all the qual- Krugman is a knowledgeable defender of and relaxed. Moscow was blissfully ity of a religious feast, so peaceful, so the Keynesian economic framework that empty of its crowds, though Red Square tranquil with its well-attended midnight melded some elements of Marxian analy- was thronged by hundreds of Tajik and service. And afterward there was another sis, such as the recurrent crises of capital- Philippine “guest workers.” Usually busy week for skiing and relaxing. ism, with traditional capitalist econom- shifting snow loads and washing floors, People also traveled a lot. Ordinary ics. Like Keynes, Krugman seeks to patch the invisible class was free to view the masses descended on Turkey and the crumbling façade of the economic tourist sights of the capital and to be seen shamir continued on page 2 orthodoxy, not to repair its rotting foun- dation. The absence of political struggle in his economics is one of the hallmarks The Change They Believed In of Keynesian analysis that Krugman has dutifully carried forward. Krugman has also been, and not just How Obama Got His Start coincidentally, a leading proponent and By Robert Fitch defender of Barack Obama’s subsidy of Listen to a powerful voice from the grave, On November 14, 2008, right after Obama private health insurers, informally called Robert Fitch. An excellent journalist and all- had been elected, Fitch gave a speech to the Obamacare, under the premise that there around left troublemaker, he died in March Harlem Tenants Association. The warm glow exists some necessary relationship be- last year at the age of 72. ignited in countless progressive and left tween forcing people to buy health insur- Fitch wrote a great deal on the role of Wall hearts by the “Change we can believe in” can- ance and their receiving health care. It Street and the real estate elite in planning didate had not yet been extinguished by the wasn’t until the inventor of Obamacare, New York City, and laid out the full criminal chill embrace of reality. Fitch had no illusions Republican presidential hopeful Mitt saga in The Assassination of New York, pub- about Obama, and expressed none that day to Romney, made his public faux pas about lished by Verso in 1996. As Doug Henwood the Harlem tenants. Better still, with a wealth “firing” health insurance companies that wrote of a central theme of book, “So many of of detail, he set the rise of Obama in the con- the reality of political struggle between the things that were attributed to anonymous text of a city – Chicago – in the throes of the them and their victims, sometimes re- global forces, like the deindustrialization of racket known as “urban renewal.” We are ferred to as customers, ever occurred to the city and its transformation into the pro- printing that little-known speech now. Who, Krugman. totype of the globally oriented post-industrial really, is Obama? Here’s an important part of The purpose here is not to criticize metropolis, were consciously guided by bank- the answer. AC/JSC. Krugman, who seems from his public ers, developers, and their hired hands. They persona and work to be an entirely de- used all the instruments of state power – sub- hat is an Obama administra- cent fellow. But it is to argue that once sidies, zoning laws, eminent domain – to get tion going to do for cities, political struggle is brought back in, the their way.” housing and neighborhoods? economics that make the most sense to True of New York; true of Chicago where Of course, we can’t really know what’s the mainstream are flipped on their head. W Barack Obama began his journey to the going to happen in the future. We can What seems like the pragmatic solution, Chicago state legislature, to the U.S. Senate only know what’s already happened. So, given the perceived realities of health and finally to the White House. it’s an exercise that reminds me a little urie continued bottom of page 7 fitch continued on page 3 Col. 3 jan. 1-15, 2012 shamir continued from page 1 but now they are trying to regroup, while significant investments on its own behalf. Egyptian Red Sea beaches. Nationalists negotiating with Putin’s government be- The register shows that its sole contribu- went to Ustyug the Great, a tiny an- hind the scenes. Their numbers are small, tion to the partnership when it was set up cient borough in the permafrost Russian but they are well positioned. Though in December 2007 was the sum of £19.” North. The Facebook revolutionaries ex-Finance Minister Kudrin is now out This is actually an excerpt from the flew away to Bali, Goa and Acapulco. of power and with the protesters, all his Guardian article on Tony Blair, but it Only now have they begun to trickle back former minions are still installed in the could be, with slight change of names, a to Moscow and other big cities. The mo- upper echelons. The opposition has a lot Navalny report on “Russian corruption.” ment of an “orange revolution” – if it ever of media at its disposal barring the pow- Such ugly arrangements – together with was – has been lost, perhaps irrevocably. erful federal TV channels, and the latter profiteering, usury and asset-stripping The long winter break calmed people are mainly putting out entertainment. – are the mainstay of the current world down and cooled their spirits. It is also The opposition has its supporters among political economical system. They should too cold for demonstrations. But some the ultra-rich, and within the inner sanc- be disclosed, outlawed and punished, changes are likely to occur. tum of the Secret Service as well. Liberal no doubt, but they are not uniquely or The Communists finally decided to anti-Putin papers receive quite a lot of predominantly Russian, rather “mod- initiate some demos of their own, while advertising from friendly oligarchs. ern-capitalist.” The U.S. ambassador in inviting other activists to join them. The Alexei Navalny is a new, rising star Moscow reported on Navalny some years first Communist-led demonstration was of the opposition movement, though ago to his bosses, calling him “a Russian scheduled for January 22, to build up he has received some negative publicity Don Quixote” (08MOSCOW2632), for the party chairman Gennady Zuganov he fought a widely spread and common as a credible alternative to Putin in the The opposition has its injustice. forthcoming elections. Zuganov prom- supporters among the Interestingly, this cable was first pub- ised, if he wins, to free the jailed oligarch lished by the Guardian team led by their Mikhail Khodorkovsky and to hold new ultra-rich, and within Russian correspondent Luke Harding, elections to the Parliament, these being the inner sanctum of but Navalny’s name was excised – a ha- main demands of the liberal demonstra- bitual protective tactic by Harding for tors. Thus, the Communists try to attract the Secret Service as Russians connected with Western power the restless liberal Frondeurs to their well. Liberal anti-Putin structures. Navalny spent a few months side. For pro-Western forces in Moscow, on some education program at Yale. that will be a difficult choice: they will papers receive quite Many conspiratorially minded Russians have to decide whom do they hate more: a lot of advertising are suspicious of Navalny and view him Putin or Communists? as a “Washington’s agent,” but, for our The opposition has lost its momentum, from friendly oligarchs. part, we shouldn’t fault Navalny for his muckraking but rather congratulate him too. He made his name on disclosures on his work. of the barely legal tricks of Russian of- Navalny’s other line was the uncover- EDITORS ficialdom integrated with the moneyed ing of shady oil deals. The U.S. Embassy Alexander Cockburn crowd. These disclosures would hardly was not impressed by his results: they Jeffrey St. Clair amaze Americans who remember Enron checked his findings, according to the and the Brits who follow Tony Blair’s tax wikileaked cable 08MOSCOW3380, with ASSISTANT EDITOR saga. Apparently, that is in part where the Western managers who told them in con- Alevtina Rea Russians learned the features of real capi- fidence that Russian seaborne oil trade BUSINESS talism, mainly warts. had became “open and transparent,” in Becky Grant “Windrush Ventures No. 3 LP, for ex- the words of Dave Chapman, general di- Deva Wheeler ample, consists on paper of a partnership rector of oil trading for Shell Russia. between an entity owned by B. himself The idea of Navalny as a new savior ran DESIGN and an anonymous off-the-shelf compa- into obstacles, as his liberal supporters Tiffany Wardle ny.

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