I have had it with this smooth talking con man who played off
our disgust with Bush and distrust of Clinton style politics in order to get himself
elected and jam the worst of Clinton style politics down our throats.  Since then he has provided the absolute minimal leadership to
achieve a minimal health care reform with a huge Democratic majority, undermined efforts at financial reform, and
deep kissed his corporate allies over and over again. At our expense. Obama had seemed to try and walk the balance between serving Americans and serving business.  

Now he seems no longer to be trying. Obama and his lackies are making it illegal, punishable by a prison term, to take pictures of the Gulf
spill except from a distance.  For
Obama apparently taking pictures of corporate disasters in our own country is worse, far worse, than torturing people to death.  Details and documentation below the fold.

Mr. “transparency in government”
(remember all his promises to that effect?) has decided, like the corrupt hierarchs in
the old Soviet Union, that citizens should not be allowed to take photographs
of the catastrophe unfolding on the Gulf Coast. It’s not their coast, it’s the
government’s, or maybe it’s BP’s, or maybe there is no difference anymore.

Think I am too harsh?  Watch 

For details Glenn Greenwald, as usual, gives you the scoop. 

In addition, the corporatist government now ruling us has
decided taking pictures of other BP facilities that might be breaking the law is verboten without official permission.  Transparency?  Fuggetaboutit.
Freedom of the press?  Nope.  Freedom of speech?  Surely you jest.  Informed citizenry?  No thanks. Just contribute money to the “Mr. Yes-We-Can but No-I-Won’t” fraud’s reelection.

Someone might defend Obama by referring to the $20 billion
escrow he got from BP.  I once did. 
This again is about the minimum he needs to avoid being saddled with the blame
after BP drags out people’s efforts at being compensated for the damage done to
them.  Damage far  exceeding $20 billion.  

Remember, Exxon Valdez took 20 years to settle, and then paid for only a small amount of the damage they caused, aided by a subservient Supreme Court that cared more for corporations than human beings. (Not much has changed, none for the better.)  Criminals
like Exxon, BP and their crooked lawyers can afford to wait and nickel and dime their victims. 
Human beings cannot. 

But of course, if few Americans know how bad
it is because the media is kept away while the locals keep quiet because they depend on BP for their income after it wiped them out, well that’s gravy for BP.  Meanwhile it waits for corporate justice to reduce their liability years down the road, after it’s out of the public eye.

Or maybe Obama has found BP to be a decent working partner? He
may have. Americans have not.  In
the 77 days since the spill BP has skimmed or burned about 60% of what it had
promised regulators it could remove in one day. Sounds like how people used to
talk about Communist efficiency.  Mere human beings would be liable for fraud and perjury
saying stuff like that while promising in their documents that walruses  and other Gulf life would not be seriously affected.  But our little corporate servant in the White House
just asks how much more he can be of service to our overlords.  

This company needs to die, not be coddled by Republicans and
Democrats.

Obama cannot blame the Republicans or “blue dog Democrats” in
Congress for these most recent travesties of decency and legality.  They are occurring
on his watch and under his authority.  They are his.  Yes – he inherited a huge mess
accomplished by the worst group of incompetents and ideologues this side of the
old Communist Party.  But since
obtaining his inheritance he has spent more time and treasure licking corporate
behinds than serving this country.

The Liar in Chief complains we are “obsessed” about his stupid, corrupt and senseless war in Afghanistan, but he is certainly not obsessed about
serving the constitution or the people who voted for him.  He badly needs
to be primaried because the Republicans will offer us nothing any better, and
probably far worse.  Like they did last time.  In my view
Obama has lost the right to represent decent Americans, no matter how
likeable his wife and kids are.

I hope there are Democrats with the courage to primary him basing their campaign on the promises he made and broke, the hints he dropped and forgot, and the
cravenness he has demonstrated once too many times. I’d vote for them, and I am
far from alone. Till Obama is dumped in the primaries we have a choice between a corporate hack in the Democrats and an nutcase corporate hack in the Republicans.  

And I have little patience with Teabaggers saying “I told
you so” so save us the crocodile tears.  The difference between good Americans’ dismay over Obama and yours is that you oppose him only because he is not a
Republican.  As you proved over and over under Bush, you really do not care about the constitution  Obama’s tactics are your
tactics, only he is slightly nicer.  We oppose him because he is attacking the
foundations of our system when we elected him to reverse the damage Bush did
with your enthusiastic support. 
You, by contrast, simply contribute to the destruction of our country.

UPDATE

This attempted suppression of information is in keeping with Obama’s corporate masters efforts to prevent any real scientific investigation of what is happening, as we see here. We should all be good peasants and know our place.