Bangkok, Thailand April 29, 2011 - Of course, a candidate must meet legal requirements before running for public office. This is a universally agreed upon concept which has been enumerated in laws in every nation, since the beginning of human civilization. However, for those who deeply examine the United States and how it has drifted from a constitutional republic to the corporate-financier oligarchy it is today, they might realize the futility of arguing over "President" Obama's qualifications for an office that has long been ceremonial, if not entirely theatrical.
Like it or not, your real government consists of unelected bankers and corporate special interests. The argument
that Obama' birth certificate makes-or-breaks his legitimacy
pales in comparison to the realization that the entire office of the
president has been usurped for at least 2 decades.
The corporate-financier agenda transcends presidencies. From Reagan to Obama, US foreign and domestic policy has moved in a continuously linear direction toward increasing corporate-financial monopolies and eroding the role and sovereignty of the US Constitution and the people who are supposed to execute it. In 1991, "Neo-Conservative" war monger Paul Wolfowitz stated that the Middle East would be turned upside down and reordered in America's favor - ironically, this operation which has been piecemeal planned and executed year-by-year since then, is finally unfolding in its entirety under the supposedly "liberal" Obama administration.
Likewise, the seemingly "liberal" free-trade agreements pushed by Clinton, were expanded into the beginnings of the supranational Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America under the supposedly "conservative" Bush administration. Of course, the blueprints for the SPP or the geopolitical reordering of the Middle East weren't drawn up by presidential administrations nor committees amongst America's elected representatives, but rather by unelected corporate-funded think-tanks like the Council on Foreign Relations or the Brookings Institute. These think-tanks represent the collective interests of the largest corporations and financial institutions on earth and are the real, often obscure architects of both American and European foreign and domestic policy.
The only difference one can delineate then, is the brand of propaganda used during each supposedly ideologically differentiated political administration to sell this unipolar, unilateral, continuous agenda to the public as it creeps forward. But even upon examining each presidential administration, we are struck with names and affiliations of members who directly represent these corporate interests. To illustrate how entirely ineffectual and meaningless "Obama" is as a president, let's examine some key members of his administration and what their affiliations are.
Timothy Geithner (Secretary of the Treasury): Group of 30, Council on Foreign Relations, private Federal Reserve
Eric Holder (Attorney General): Covington & Burling lobbying for Merck and representing Chiquita International Brands in lawsuits brought by relatives of people killed by Colombian terrorists.
Eric Shinseki (Secretary of Veteran Affairs): US Army, Council on Foreign Relations, Honeywell director (military contractor), Ducommun director (military contractor).
Rahm Emanuel (former Chief of Staff): Freddie Mac
William Daley (Chief of Staff): JP Morgan executive committee member
Susan Rice (UN Ambassador): McKinsey and Company, Brookings Institute, Council on Foreign Relations
Peter Orszag, (former Budget Director): Citi Group, Council on Foreign Relations
Paul Volcker: Council on Foreign Relations, private Federal Reserve, Group of 30
Ronald Kirk (US Trade Representative): lobbyist, part of Goldman Sachs, Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts, and Texas Pacific Group partnership to buyout Energy Future Holdings.
Lawrence Summers (National Economic Council Director): World Bank, Council on Foreign Relations
Who amongst Obama's administration can we honestly presume has the people's, or even America's best interests at heart? Goldman Sachs bankers? JP Morgan bankers? Corporate lobbyists? Indeed, these are the same banking, corporate, and political interests that guided the agenda under Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr., Regan and so on. While there is some debate over which US president was in fact the last "real" president who exercised an agenda it genuinely could claim ownership over, there is no doubt that over the last two decades the same corporate interests have been entirely steering America's people and their destiny with but the veneer of "democracy."
Had John McCain won the elections in 2008, you could rest assured he would have taken US policy in the exact same direction Obama is going today. In fact, McCain is one of the key players who has helped fund and organize the current unrest sweeping the Middle East, along with a myriad of other "Republicans" and "Neo-Conservatives." The "Arab Spring" itself was planned and being staged before Obama even took office.
Ideologically, President Obama's qualifications are important and many are right to question them. Realistically, they are a red herring, as is his entire presidency. He is in charge of exactly nothing, most likely not even the tie he puts on in the morning and surely not the words that come out of his mouth. His entire function is to perpetuate the facade that America is still run by an elected government and not an illegitimate oligarchy of corporations and financial institutions. Arguing over his birth certificate engenders him with legitimacy in and of itself - suggesting that if he had proper qualifications he would be a "legitimate" president. But he, like his predecessor Bush, are both entirely illegitimate, as is the system they purportedly preside over.
Recognizing this grave reality, and instead concentrating on the corporate-financier interests that have hijacked American politics is essential to restoring a true constitutional republic. For it is not whose hands we think hold the power, it is in whose hands that really hold the power that shapes US policy. Definitively, US policy does not favor the people, definitively the power is not in the people's hands. As long as we grasp to the illusion that through the futile exercise of elections we are somehow "in control," it will remain this way perpetually. The fact that our president is in charge of absolutely nothing and that his duties have long been shifted to an unelected corporate-financier oligarchy is the issue, not his dubious qualifications.
