[DEBATE] : (Fwd) More on Obama, Emanuel and a frank Ralph Nader

[Patrick Bond]

Weekend Edition
November 7 / 9, 2008
CounterPunch Diary
Hail to the Chief of Staff

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

The first trumpet blast of change ushers in Rahm Emanuel as Obama’s 
chief of staff and gate keeper. This is the man who arranges his 
schedule, staffs out the agenda, includes, excludes. It’s certainly as 
sinister an appointment as, say, Carter’s installation of arch 
cold-warrior Zbigniev Brzezinski as his National Security Advisor at the 
dawn of his “change is here” administration in 1977.

Emanuel, as Ralph Nader points out in my interview with him below, 
represents the worst of the Clinton years. His profile as regards Israel 
is explored well on this site by lawyer John Whitbeck. He’s a former 
Israeli citizen, who volunteered to serve in Israel in 1991 and who made 
brisk millions in Wall Street. He is a super-Likudnik hawk, whose father 
was in the fascist Irgun in the late Forties, responsible for 
cold-blooded massacres of Palestinians. Dad’s unreconstructed ethnic 
outlook has been memorably embodied in his recent remark to the Ma’ariv 
newspaper that "Obviously he [Rahm] will influence the president to be 
pro-Israel… Why wouldn't he be [influential]? What is he, an Arab? He's 
not going to clean the floors of the White House."

Working in the Clinton White House, Emanuel helped push through NAFTA, 
the crime bill, the balanced budget and welfare reform. He favored the 
war in Iraq, and when he was chairing the Democratic Congressional 
Campaign Committee in 2006 he made great efforts to knock out antiwar 
Democratic candidates. On this site in October and November, 2006, John 
Walsh documented both the efforts and Emanuel’s role in losing the 
Democrats seats they would otherwise have won.

In 2006 Emanuel had just published a book with Bruce Reed called The 
Plan: Big Ideas for America, with one section focused on “the war on 
terror”. Emanuel and Reed wrote, “We need to fortify the military's 
‘thin green line ‘around the world by adding to the U.S. Special Forces 
and the Marines, and by expanding the U.S. army by 100,000 more troops. 
…Finally we must protect our homeland and civil liberties by creating a 
new domestic counterterrorism force like Britain's MI5.” Recall that 
Obama has been calling throughout his recent campaign for an addition of 
92,000 to the US Army and US Marine Corps.

Emanuel and Reed had fond words for the mad-dog Peter Beinart, neocon 
warrior theoretician for the Democrats, roosting Marty Peretz's The New 
Republic, and author of The Good Fight where Beinart explained why a 
tough new national security policy is as essential to the future of of 
progressive politics as a united front against totalitarianism and 
communism was to the New Deal and the Great Society. Emanuel and Reed 
also commended Anne-Marie Slaughter's proposal for "a new division of 
labor in which the United Nations takes on economic and social 
assistance and an expanded NATO takes over the burden of collective 
security." In other words, let NATO shoot the natives and the UN clean 
the floors.

Walsh took a hard look at the 2006 Democratic primary race between 
Christine Cegelis and Tammy Duckworth in Illinois's 6th CD, a Republican 
District, which had elected the disgusting Henry Hyde from time 
immemorial. In 2004 Cegelis, who iwas only mildly antiwar, ran as the 
Democrat with a grass roots campaign and polled a remarkable 44 per cent 
in her first run. It was not too long before Hyde decided to retire, and 
the field seemed to be open for Cegelis in the November poll, in 2006.

Enter Rahm Emanuel, who promptly dug up a pro-war candidate, Tammy 
Duckworth. Although she had both her legs blown off in Iraq, she 
remained committed to "staying the course" in Iraq. Duckworth had no 
political experience and did not live in the 6th District. Emanuel 
raised a million dollars for her and brought in Joe Lieberman, Barak 
Obama, John Kerry, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton to support her. 
Despite all this help and with the Cegelis campaign virtually penniless, 
Duckworth barely managed to eke out a primary victory by a measly four 
percentage points.

To win the House, the Dems had to win 15 seats from the Republicans. 
Walsh identified 22 candidates hand picked by Emanuel to run in open 
districts or districts with Republican incumbents. Of these, nine 
adopted a US “must win” in Iraq position and only one of Rahm's 
candidates was for prompt withdrawal from Iraq.

Then, after the election, Walsh assessed Rahm’s supposed brilliance in 
winning back the House. “Looking at all 22 candidates hand-picked by 
Rahm, “ Walsh wrote, “we find that 13 were defeated [including 
Duckworth], and only 8 won! And remember that this was the year of the 
Democratic tsunami and that Rahm's favorites were handsomely financed by 
the DCCC. The Dems have picked up 28 seats so far, maybe more. So out of 
that 28, Rahm's choices accounted for 8! Since the Dems only needed 15 
seats to win the House, Rahm's efforts were completely unnecessary. Had 
the campaign rested on Rahm's choices, there would have been only 8 or 9 
new seats, and the Dems would have lost. In fact, Rahm's efforts were 
probably counterproductive for the Dems since the great majority of 
voters were antiwar and they were voting primarily on the issue of the 
war (60 per cent according to CNN). But Rahm's candidates were not antiwar.

Talking to Nader about the Campaign, on November 5.

AC: In 2000,you drew nearly 10,000 people to a speech in Portland, 
Oregon. This year you got barely 2,000 in in the whole of Multnomah 
County where Portland lies, perhaps the most progressive county in the 
nation. Is this a sign of the withering of the progressive ggleft or the 
dead end of independent political campaigns?

Nader: It’s a sign of the swoon in the voting booth by people who told 
pollsters that they were going to vote for me at a level of 4 to 7 
million; that is, 6 per cent nationally in the summer and 3 per cent the 
day before the election, according to CNN. In Washington DC district 
Obama got 94 per cent. I said to people, how many years have you known 
me? And they answered, it’s a historic occasion. I wanted to be part of 
history. The real issue in this campaign is the voters. These are people 
who knew all about Obama’s flipflops, his support for offshore drilling, 
for FISA, his role as the number one corporate cadidate.

When you in prison and you’re told you can’t get out and to chose 
between TB and cancer you’ll chose. It’s beyond politics, it’s 
psychology. This is what happens when we’re trapped in the winner take 
all closed system, watching tv.

The pattern is: Progressive politics for three years, and in the fourth 
year it renews itself with heavy doses of regressive politics and 
charges forward again.

I thought we’d get two to three millon votes. We had a huge internet 
presence.

AC: How many votes did you get? This year and in the last two campaigns?

Probably 700,000. In 2000 it was 2.8 million. In 2004, 450,000. But 
those figures don’t tell the story. In New York this time for example it 
was almost impossible to find me on the ballot.

AC What about you calling him an Uncle Tom on Fox?

Nader: On Fox I said that as the first African American president we 
wish him well. The question is, will he be Uncle Sam for the people or 
Uncle Tom for the giant corporations which are driving America into the 
ground. Fox cut it off after “corporations”.

He is less vulnerable to criticism and harder to criticize because of 
his race. When I said he was talking White Man’s talk, the PC people got 
really upset.

It doesn’t matter that he sides with destruction of the Palestinians, 
and sides with the embargo. It doesn’t matter that he turns his back on 
100 million people and won’t even campaign in minority areas. It doesn’t 
matter than he wants a bigger military budget, and an imperial foreign 
policy supporting various adventures of the Bush administration. It 
doesn’t matter that he’s for the death penalty ,which is targeted at 
minorities. But if you say one thing that isn’t PC, you get their 
attention. I tell college audiences, a gender, racial or ethnic slur 
gets you upset, reality doesn’t get you upset.

Can Obama speak truth to the white power structure? There’s every 
indication he doesn’t want to. For example, in February he stiffed the 
State of the Black Union annual meeting in New Orleans. He’s a very 
accommodating personality.

AC: Ralph, Why do you think Ron Paul was able to excite younger voters 
and you weren't?

Nader: Ron Paul? There’s the novelty aspect. It was his first try. He 
hasn’t been losing. He gets the hard core people focused on the gold 
standard, and abolishing the federal reserve. The “Get government off 
our back”, rock-ribbed Goldwater people. He says the things mainstream 
Republicans can’t.

AC: Are the Republicans down for the count for a while?

Nader: Any time there’s a terrorist attack they’re back in business. 
Enough people will soon forget what Bush and Co actually did. At the 
moment conservatives have been subjected to Obama’s shock and awe, but 
they still have all these social issues. As a candidate Obama dodged the 
Gay Marriage Ban ballot, but they’ll throw the social issues at him. The 
Republican inventory is intact: “tax and spend”, “over regulation”, plus 
all these social issues.

AC Does Palin have a future?

Nader: No.

AC: How about the liberals and the left now?

Nader: The real crisis is the self-destruction of the liberal 
progressive community. It’s got nowhere to go, other than to renew its 
three out of four year cycle of criticism of the Democrats. They’ve 
nowhere to go because they’ve made no demands. He’s been a candid 
right-center Democrat and they’ve given him a free ride. No demands. 
 From Labor? No demands. He gave them a sop on the card check. He 
campaigned for two years, promised blacks nothing, Latinos nothing, 
women’s groups nothing, labor nothing. Contrast the lack of demands on 
the liberal progressive side to what the Limbaugh crowd exacted from McCain.

AC: You think Michael Moore could have made some demands in return for 
his support?

Nader: Moore knows were his bread is buttered. He’s seen what the 
Hollywood set and the others did to me.

AC: How do you see the next phase playing out?

Nader: Obama faces three crises: wars overseas, economic collapse and 
the deficit. They can’t use fiscal policy very much, so he’s going to be 
strapped by things like Medicare.

He’s got along on general rhetoric, but now each decision will shake 
some section of the liberal constituency.

They need to launch a comprehensive program dealing with poverty, low 
income housing, corruption and extortion in the ghettoes, and doubling 
the minimum wage to compensate for inflation.

They need to address the right of labor to form trade unions without 
coming up against the steel wall of Taft Hartley

Health insurance? He’ll extend tax supports which will give the 
insurance companies more business. He should deal with drug prices, but 
that’s a battle he won’t undertake.

How’s he going to deal with the auto companies which are in deep 
trouble? Take the proposed GM-Chrysler merger hich makes no sense and 
will mean lay-offs for 90,000 workers. If people don’t want the cars 
then the sacrifices and subsidies are to no avail.

The only way this guy can ever get his head above water is if he is 
courageous. What he’s basically doing so far is giving the Clinton crowd 
a second chance. Rahm Emanuel? He’s the worst of Clinton. Spokesman for 
Wall Street, Israel, globalization.

Second: demilitarize foreign policy, establishing the international 
stability that flows from our becoming a respectful but energetic 
humanitarian superpower, confronting world issues like drinking water 
and infectious diseases.

He has to reverse course on Afghanistan. As Ashraf Ghani former finance 
minister for Karzai has said, the approach to Afghanistan should be the 
need for justice, the fundamental basis of all public order.

Third, he’s got to develop economic policy for the greatest good for the 
greatest number. Public works not bailout. Put money where it matters.

He’s got to say to the rich and powerful, you have to give up your 
greed. It should be a two-track presidency, dealing with issues day to 
day, and strengthening the fiber of democratic society. That’s partly a 
matter of shareholder authority, worker-owned pension funds, which is a 
third of Wall Street. If every such fund was given the authority to 
control what they own, it wd be over. Look at all institutional 
shareholderd in Fannies. Their holdings are worth one per cent of what 
they were and these were the second safest investments after Treasuries! 
Believe in first principles: what you own, you control. If you screw up 
you’re free to sink -- the first and second principles of capitalism.

I’m going to write Obama a letter in the next month saying, what you 
have to do is a pre-State of the union where you lay out exactly where 
the Bush Administration has left America, in category after category, so 
you will not be hung with it. In the pre-state of the union, Obama 
should say, This is the mess
I’ve inherited.

Second, Obama has to cut the sequence of war crimes and high crimes and 
misdeameanours. If not, he’ll become a war criminal himself within a 
month. Shut down Guantanamo with strict directives, no torture. If he 
continue his policies, then he’ll become a war criminal. If you going to 
restore the rule of law, you have got to draw the line between what 
you’re going to do and what you refuse to inherit. Then it’s a real 
fresh start.

Obama’s a guy who’s got away with a ten minute speech for two years. He 
won too easily. He didn’t have to respond to the liberal constituencies. 
He’s really had it very easy, because he had an easy act to challenge 
and an easy act to follow ,

AC: How do you feel about your run?

Nade: I’m happy I ran, because the alternative is total surrender. I 
carried the banner to 50 states. I surprised myself. Look at the 
abolitionist Liberty Party in the mid-19th century. It didn’t get a 
tenth of one per cent. Did you think those people wasted their vote? We 
were quite successful this time in beating back ballot access barriers , 
in Arizona and Ohio. It’s like the early stages of fighting Jim Crow laws.

AC: The history of third parties over the past thirty years is not very 
encouraging.

Nader: We’re advancing majoritarian programs and the majority voters are 
trapped into the two party choice This is what happens. Obama sank 
public funding. Not only did he betray the principle and therefore 
shattered his credibility. In so outdoing he way outraised McCain. I 
read the trade literature. Not one of these industries -- banking, 
insurance, automotive, oil, agribusiness, international trade – is 
worried. They’re all totally calm. The corporate state moves on.

Corporate power has unique characteristics. It is perfectly willing and 
able to corrupt, regardless of sexual or ethnic preference. It offers 
equal opportunities to be corrupted or coopted . That’s why it’s very 
difficult for the civil community, which is affected by principles, 
nuances, honest disagreements, to confront the monistically commercial 
corporations. No one says ‘the big debate inside Exxon is whether to go 
more for oil or solar. That’s why every religion in the world, in their 
scriptures, issues a warning not to give too much power to the merchant 
class. The commercial instinct is relentless, consistent, limitless in 
achieving its goal. It will run rough-shod to destroy, co-opt or dilute 
civic and spiritual values that stand in its way.