by Stephen Lendman
It’s all over but the mourning. After weeks of tooing-and-frooing theater, Obama signed the deal from hell. Understand clearly what happened. A bipartisan conspiracy took step one to ending America’s social contract. Subsequent ones will follow.
On the chopping block are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and publicly funded pensions, heading perhaps first for privatization while slash and burn cuts continue. In addition, all other New Deal/Great Society programs are earmarked for elimination. But don’t expect political Washington or America’s media to explain.
Raising the debt ceiling was subterfuge, a scam. For decades it’s always been done routinely without debate. America’s media went along with the charade, manipulating public fear to accept what’s now law.
On August 2, in a 1:06PM Rose Garden statement, Obama hailed the budget deal, saying:
“Congress has now approved a compromise to reduce the deficit and avert a default that would have devastated our economy. (The agreement is) an important first step to ensuring that as a nation we live within our means.”
“This is, however, just the first step. This compromise requires that both parties work together on a larger plan to cut the deficit….”
Except for announcing future cuts, his entire statement wreaked of duplicity, suppressing what’s really at stake. It’s so destructively ugly, in fact, no politician or major media journalist would dare explain. More on The New York Times coverup below.
Appearing on Russia Today (RT.com), trends analyst Gerald Celente explained things lucidly as he always does, saying:
The budget battle was a charade on the beltway. Rising gold prices reflect what’s happening. The higher they go, the louder they explain America’s dire economic state.
“The whole world knows what’s going on. I heard your Prime Minister Putin say that the United States is acting like a bunch of parasites, and that’s what this is when it comes to the dollar” that’s being devalued.
“It’s been going on for a long time, but they’re not calling it a devaluation, but they’re flooding the world with cheap dollars. So the more of them out there, the less valu(able)” they become. “It’s a de facto devaluation,” meaning more dollars are needed for a basket of goods.
The deal showed America can’t deliver. It “can’t deliver on its wars (in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, on drugs)….They’re losers, the government in everything they touch. Look at all the trillions of dollars (they’ve) pumped into the system since (2008)….Everything they (did turned) to failure.”
“Why would any thinking adult look at the Republicans and Democrats, the inepts and incompetents, to come up with a program that’s going to salvage the nation.”
These are “the same people who caused the problem.” Does anyone think they’ll solve it? “That’s called insanity.”
Asked why military spending isn’t cut, Celente said when he was a young man, the business of America was business. Today it’s war, reflected in multiple permanent ones and annually rising military expenditures. Cutting them is off the table, rhetoric aside saying otherwise.
In 1960, Dwight Eisenhower “warned that the military industrial complex was taking over the country. What more proof do you need,” looking at what’s going on under Republicans and Democrats. “It’s the ruling mindset of the ruling military in charge,” complicit with political Washington, claiming a bogus national security threat.
Moreover, despite what they did and plan, “the American economy as well as much of the global economy is heading into the Greatest Depression. Everything they’re doing (won’t) salvage it….How is cutting back going to create more jobs? How (will it) fix the real estate (crash)? How is it going to fix the trade deficit problem?”
“It’s not. The Greatest Depression is underway, and all they’re doing is making it look as though they have a plan to stave it off. They’re not going to!”
In fact, waging class war takes precedence. Waging imperial ones and rewarding corporate favorites requires making working Americans sacrificial lambs – losing their jobs, homes, savings, and futures.
That’s political Washington’s real agenda, obeying orders from Wall Street and other corporate CEOs, leaving them unrestrained to accumulate limitless wealth, by stealing it from ordinary people.
The entire debt limit crisis was a charade, a scheme to punish working Americans, Obama the point man to do it, and who better than the nation’s first Black president, a Democrat doing what no Republican would dare.
Despite 75% or more of Americans wanting Social Security and Medicare left untouched, and large majorities supporting higher taxes on rich elites, their wishes don’t matter.
Instead, duplicitous “shared sacrifice” was hyped, America’s media in the lead regurgitating it – their customary support for wealth and power, leaving out all others.
Bailing out Wall Street and corporate favorites, Bush and especially Obama bankrupted America. Now he wants working Americans punished, including millions impoverished, out of work, ill fed and housed.
It highlights how low political Washington has sunk, but just wait. You ain’t seen nothing yet. Far worse ahead is coming. None of it will be pleasant. America’s duopoly assures it.
The New York Times: Playing Its Customary Role
On August 2, writer Jennifer Steinhauer headlined, “Debt Bill Is Signed, Ending a Fractious Debate,” saying:
After House and Senate passage, Obama “immediately” signed it into law, blaming Republicans for a crisis he exacerbated by bad policy, catering to Big Money at the expense of responsible governance and public need.
Steinhauer said nothing to explain it. Nor did Times writer Binyamin Appelbaum headlining, “Spending Cuts Seen as a Step, Not as Cure,” quoting Obama saying:
“Is this the deal I would have preferred? No. But this compromise does make a serious down payment on the deficit reduction we need, and gives each party a strong incentive to get a balanced plan done before the end of the year.”
False, but Appelbaum didn’t explain. Nor did an August 2 Times editorial headlined, “Hiding Behind the Budget Act,” accurately saying the Budget Control Act of 2011 is “like a tired opera production….full of clumsy staging and failed gimmicks left over from previous decades.”
“It is not only bad policy, (it’s) bad procedure” by appointing a 12-member bipartisan House/Senate Super Congress to fast track legislation through both Houses without amendments. In other words, Big Money-written bills will be voted on up or down with no changes. That’s another form of tyranny – of the minority over the majority and most Americans.
Discussing the dangers of Super Congress authority and legislative gimmickry, the editorial stopped short of explaining what’s fundamentally at stake.
At issue is destroying America’s social contract, undoing decades of social change, returning the nation to 19th century harshness, and supporting wealth and power interests only.
It’s The Times’ longstanding specialty at the expense of working Americans, real democracy and truth, the whole truth, warts and all.
The best its editorial could say was “be wary of politicians who substitute gimmickry for governing,” without explaining its worst elements.
A Final Comment
In his summer 2011 Trends Journal, Celente warned about what he sees coming – another inevitable major (likely false flag) terror attack, “send(ing) shock waves throughout the world….”
What will it mean when it happens, he asked? If against a major Western nation, “(b)ank holidays will be called, the US and other fragile economies will crumble, gold and silver will soar, and already-troubled currencies will crash.”
Moreover, “(e)conomic martial law will be declared.” Once introduced it’ll remain. “Civil rights will be suspended and (especially in America) already intolerably intrusive” police state harshness will intensify.
A strategically timed/media hyped “terror” attack will cause “all hell (to) break loose.” Imagine an Orwellian future with implemented curfews, suspended civil rights, the dollar crashing, limited food and gas purchases, and restricted ATM and credit card transactions.
Presidential Executive Orders are in place to do it, as well as “Fusion (terrorism prevention/response) Centers and FEMA detention camps,” plus thousands of specially trained US troops “to deal specifically with economic collapse and civil unrest,” ready for immediate deployment.
Imagine a future Celente sees coming, making today seem mild by comparison. Imagine no place to hide. Imagine a bipartisan conspiracy planning it. Imagine America’s media complicity. Imagine a time ahead looking back seemed inconceivable.
Understand what America once was no longer exists, heading for much worse to come. Forewarned is forearmed. Only popular anger can stop it.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
