Greens urge Obama to appoint Cabinet members dedicated to real change
Source: Green Party of the United States
Nov 21, 2008 - 4:48:01 PM
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A Cabinet full of corporate honchos, lawyers, and shills will not "look like
America," say Greens
WASHINGTON, DC -- Green Party leaders called on
President-elect Barack Obama to appoint a Cabinet that will pursue real reform,
in accord with Mr. Obama's promise of change in the new
administration.
"Democratic and Republican presidents alike have a record
of naming industry chiefs, corporate board members and lawyers, and others loyal
to wealthy, elite interests," said Holly Hart, secretary of the Green Party of
the United States. "If President Obama truly believes in 'change we can believe
in,' he'll appoint a Cabinet that looks like America -- not just in ethnic and
gender diversity, but in its dedication to the needs of working Americans and
the goal of international peace and justice."
Greens called Mr. Obama's
choice of Rahm Emanuel for White House Chief of Staff especially unfortunate,
citing Mr. Emanuel's position as managing director of investment banks Dresdner
Kleinwort Wasserstein, earning him $18 million between 1999 and 2002 and his
track record in Congress since 2003.
The appointment of Mr. Emanuel
confirms Mr. Obama's pledge to AIPAC that he will maintain the same uncritical
support for Israel as the Clinton and Bush administrations, whose policies
resulted in increasing human rights violations against Palestinians and greater
instability in the region. Mr. Emanuel was also one of the original drafters of
NAFTA and now favors similar antidemocratic 'free trade' pacts with Colombia,
Panama, and South Korea, which would cost more US jobs and suppress
environmental and labor protections.
Green Party leaders said that Rahm
Emanuel's appointment was consistent with Mr. Obama's choice of Sen. Joe Biden
as his Vice President. Despite his reputation in the media as a defender of
working people, Mr. Biden helped draft a law signed by President Bush that
relaxed regulations on financial institutions, giving them more power over
Americans facing financial problems and transferring risk from predatory lenders
to borrowers. As an architect of mandatory minimum drug laws (including the RAVE
Act), Sen. Biden helped put the children of working families behind
bars.
Among the corporate-connected names on the list for the Obama
Cabinet are Eric Holder, Jr. for Attorney General and former Iowa Gov. Tom
Vilsack for Secretary of Agriculture. Mr. Holder is a partner at Covington &
Burling, which represents the National Football League, Chiquita, and Merck, and
Gov. Vilsack is an enthusiastic advocate of genetically engineered crops and
corn- and soy-based biofuels, with ties to Monsanto, whose products and policies
have destroyed independent and family farms around the world.
"Barack
Obama's mantra of 'change' is already a lie. With Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of
Staff, and with Hillary Clinton rumored to be Secretary of State, the Obama
White House is ready to pursue much of the same agenda as previous
administrations," said Cliff Thornton, co-chair of the Green Party of the United
States. "It's a twisted irony that some tried to tag Obama as a socialist, a
perception that will make it that much easier for his administration to continue
the practice of redistributing wealth from middle- and low-income Americans to
America's wealthiest. Bill Clinton was denounced as a liberal by the same
right-wing pundits whose corporate buddies he was handing America over to. The
same sell-out is going to happen all over again."
"Voters who elected
Barack Obama because of his promise of change and the hope of a progressive
administration need to wake up and realize they're in for yet another fight.
Only if the voters hold Obama to his promises can we avoid the same
pro-corporate and warhawk policies that came out of the disastrous Clinton and
Bush White Houses," added Mr. Thornton.
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