NOVANEWS
by Stephen Lendman
Except for bankers, war profiteers, other corporate favorites, and America’s super-rich, it’s hard imagining why anyone supports a president backing policies harming so many at home and abroad.
The good news perhaps is that growing numbers are awakening, the latest June 7 – 9 Zogby International poll showing recent lows in Obama’s popularity:
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– 56% disapprove of his job as president; 43% approve;
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– 39% say he deserves reelection; 52% want change;
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– congressional approval also dropped to 17%, a testimony to mass public disdain; and
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– given America’s direction, waging multiple imperial wars at the expense of vital homeland needs, expect an angrier public reaction ahead as pain levels rise.
Human need always trumps other concerns, especially when vast national resources aren’t used to relieve it, many millions left on their own sink or swim when they most need help. War profiteering and other corporate priorities come first.
However, Main Street America is mired in depression. High unemployment and underemployment are unaddressed. For millions, depravation is extreme. Double digit inflation is rising. One in six Americans face hunger, yet Obama and lawmakers demand austerity when stimulus is needed.
Progressive Radio News Hour commentator economist Jack Rasmus sees bad current conditions worsening, saying:
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– early 2011 consumption growth fell sharply compared to 2010 levels – from 4 – 2.2%; rising gas prices accounted for 60% of it;
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– inflation adjusted real spending remained flat;
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– retail sales are weak;
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– rising food, energy, healthcare, education, and local taxes have been punishing;
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– except for the wealthiest 10% of households, most others are struggling to get by, many without employment or enough of it;
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– housing is mired in depression, as bad or worse than the 1930s with no end of it in sight; and
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– the so-called post-mid-2009 recovery has been “the weakest and most lopsided….in the post-1945 period.” But you’d never know it from TV touts, extolling what a small minority enjoy, all others not their concern.
America, in fact, is declining, not rising. Rasmus predicts “a major economic relapse” ahead as Washington plans painful domestic budget cuts (including raping essential entitlements and other vital social services) to sustain out-of-control war making and reward the nation’s super rich already with too much.
As a result, the American dream is a bad joke. In his June 11 commentary, analyst Bob Chapman says its “lifeblood is being sucked out by free (not fair) trade, (predatory) globalization, offshoring and outsourcing” manufacturing and other jobs, leaving fewer employment opportunities at home for growing numbers (including new graduates) wondering how they’ll ever get by.
In fact, 11.7 million new millennium manufacturing jobs disappeared as well as 440,000 businesses, mostly small and mid-sized ones trampled by corporate giants.
June 11 on the Progressive Radio News Hour, Professor John Kozy discussed his latest article titled, “Business and Jobs,” saying predatory capitalism is unsustainable:
“In two short centuries, it:
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– turned human beings into beasts of burden and their rulers into mere teamsters;
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– polluted the earth’s atmosphere, streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans;
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– extinguished uncounted species;
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– exterminated millions of human beings (for profit);” and
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– keeps exhausting unrenewable natural resources wastefully.