Obama Is A Hypocritical and Dangerous Neoliberal Fraud
“Under my administration, America is producing more oil than at any time in the last eight years. We’ve opened up new areas for exploration. We’ve quadrupled the number of operating rigs to a record high. We’ve added enough new oil and gas pipeline to circle the Earth and then some,” Obama said (source)
From the outset of the Obama administration – having many professional and personal experiences with his first term EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and White House energy policy aide Heather Zichal (now a corporate gas whore)- I knew the man was a fraud. And I soon found several opportunities to expose that, for example:
- Obama CEO Summit Explains EPA Regulatory Retreat
- Another Obama EPA Backtrack On Greenhouse Gas Regulation
- Obama All In For Oil & Gas
In total frustration and disgust over the failure of US media and environmental groups to tell the truth, in 2014 and 2015, I wrote:
- Growth Rates Mask Effects on Total GHG Emissions – Obama on The Same Page as Bush on “Energy Intensity” and Economic Growth
- Look At Your Obama “All of the Above” Energy Policy
- Obama Lifts Oil Export Ban
For the same reason, I later wrote:
So, while I was not surprised, I was particularly sickened by hearing Obama’s remarks at the COP26 conference. Read it and weep:
This Obama speech was deeply offensive – to begin, because it was Obama that led the charge to make Paris a weak, meaningless, voluntary and unenforceable framework:
And on Paris, our goal was to turn progress into an enduring framework that would give the world confidence in a low carbon future, an agreement where countries would update their emissions targets on a regular basis, an agreement that would help developing nations get the resources they need to skip the dirty phase of development and help those nations that are most vulnerable to climate change get the resources they need to adapt, an agreement that would give businesses and investors the certainty that the global economy is on firm path towards a clean and sustainable future.
In other words, our hope was to create an agreement they gave our planet a fighting chance. That was our ambition. By some measures, the agreement has been a success. For the first time leaders of nearly 200 nations, large and small, developed and developing, made a commitment to work together to confront a threat to the people of all nations. That seemed proof that for all the divisions in our world when a crisis threatens all of us, we can come together to address it.
In another sickening lie, Obama touts what is now obvious discredited private corporate PR sham and Neoliberal market fundamentalism:
At the time, we also believed that if enough national governments showed they were serious about climate, then other institutions, particularly in the private sector, would start raising their sights as well. Over the last six years, that is what’s happened. Today more than one-fifth of the world’s largest companies have set net zero emissions targets. Not just because it’s the right thing to do for the environment, but in many cases because it makes sense for their bottom line.
Obama then engages in historical revisionism about his failed EPA regulatory strategy, known as the Clean Power Plan:
the determination of our state and local governments, along with the regulations and investment that my administration had already put in place, allowed our country to keep moving forward despite hostility from the [Trump] White House.
False. Obama’s core EPA Clean Power Plan was never “put in place”.
The Supreme Court blocked it. The Court is on the verge of stripping EPA of authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, based in part on Obama and Lisa Jackson EPA’s flawed regulatory strategy under the Clean Air Act.
Obama then cheerleads for passage of Biden’s lame and gutted climate plans:
We have enormous responsibilities and obviously we still have a lot of work to do. But last week, Congress passed President Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill that will, among other things, create jobs manufacturing solar panels and wind turbines and batteries and electric vehicles and build out the first ever national network of charging stations so families can travel across the US in electric vehicles. I’m confident that a version of President Biden’s Build Back Better bill will pass through Congress in the coming next few weeks. … That legislation will devote over half a trillion dollars to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over a billion metric tons by the end of the decade, at least 10 times more than any legislation previously passed by Congress.
I’ve seen no credible “net” quantification of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the infrastructure bill and the gutted Biden reconciliation bill that would support Obama’s claim that the legislation would “reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over a billion metric tons by the end of the decade.”
Obama admonishes and discourages young people from protesting. They must dial back all that activism and make it a priority to vote for Democrats, and then be good little consumers and support the Neoliberal capitalist regime by focusing on corporate market responses:
A second way you can have an impact on climate change is by pressuring companies to do the right thing. Members of your generation have already shown you’re willing to pay for products that you believe are responsible and responsive to the climate challenge, and that you’re also willing to avoid those companies that are actually making climate change worse. …Companies are starting to figure out that becoming more energy efficient is good for their bottom line because they’ll spend less on energy, but you also have the opportunity to teach them that by getting serious about climate change, they have a chance to win loyal customers and employees.
Obama even scolds activists and denounce direct action tactics – similar to how he scolded black men to “pull up your pants”:
But to build the broad based coalitions necessary for bold action, we have to persuade people who either currently don’t agree with us or are indifferent to the issue. And to change the minds of those fellow citizens in our respective countries, we have to do a little more listening. We can’t just yell at them or say they’re ignorant. We can’t just tweet at them. It’s not enough to inconvenience them through blocking traffic in a protest.
The only thing I could partially agree with was when he expressed a convoluted solidarity with workers. But in doing so, Obama managed to dismiss the “just transition” strategies advocated by climate activists. Instead, sounding like Joe Manchin and using fake populist rhetoric, he failed to mention “just transition” work and again dissed climate activists for their “highfaltin’ talk”
There are workers and communities that still depend on coal for power and jobs. And yes, they are concerned about maintaining their wages. That’s not unreasonable for them to be concerned about that. And the fact is the truth is that transitioning from dirty energy to clean energy does have a cost. And it is not unreasonable for people who often are already economically vulnerable, and maybe don’t feel particularly politically powerful. It’s not unreasonable for them to think that for all the high highfalutin’ talk, some of those costs of transition will be bourne by them. Not by the more powerful and the privilege. That’s not an unreasonable perspective for them to have.
Obama is a dangerous liar. And he’s very, very good at it.
And this lecture from a man living in a multi-million dollar estate on Martha’s Vineyard and abusing communities in Chicago by building his obnoxious massive Presidential Library in a public park.