As you may have read, Barack Obama was all set to host a party for himself worthy of an Ottoman sultan on his spread on Marthas vineyard. Five hundred people invited hundreds of servants, possibly some writing elements or carrying his litter. Now weve learned that the party has been scaled back, but you know it: hasnt been scaled back Barack Obamas ambition or his desire for your money. Courting the longtime Obama advisor Valerie. You should still pay somehow for Barack Obamas birthday gift im, asking you to chip in six or sixty dollars to help bring us the Obama Presidential Center to life in Chicago. Is this the ugly face of neoliberalism? That is a rhetorical question? Glenn Greenwald writes on sub stat. He keeps tabs on the Obama Presidential Center and he joins us tonight

thanks so much for coming on Barack Obama has gotten very rich from Netflix, not sure what hes doing for them, but he certainly is rich. Why is he asking for more money? Now yeah, I mean. First of all, I think we should stop and comment on the fact that public officials, when they leave power, routinely get not just rich but like they turn into plutocrats like tycoons and Beasley thats, its not just Obama, by the way, yeah, not just Obama, the Clintons Tony Blair, George Bush, all of them have become extremely wealthy once they leave power, which I think is a big problem in a democracy, but leaving that to the side the idea of presidential libraries originally that didnt exist for like one hundred and fifty years, because the idea was just a private citizen, you go serve in public office and then you go back to private life. You dont need like a shrine to your existence when what happened was it was born of good motives,

Frank and Roosevelt knew he had gone through all of these historically momentous events like the great depression and World WAR Ii, and he said you know these papers of mine dont belong to me. They belong to the public and historians lets just kind of create a library where historians can go study for it and over the years it became bigger and bigger and bigger, and what Obama is doing is unprecedented. Not only is it so grandiose in size so much bigger than anyone elses, it has four different buildings and 235 foot Museum tower in his honor. Its like, not even a roman emperor, would do that, but he has also removed it from record keeping system, which is a was been administered by the national archives that ensures that the papers belong to the public. The idea on the first place they now belong to him and so to keep control of it, hes raising money from people in the middle of a pandemic and joblessness and eviction crisis right as he was planning a multimillion dollar birthday bash at his twelve dollars million estate, which is his second weekend home on Marthas

Vineyard. It is, as you say, the ethos of neoliberalism leaders get rich at the expense of everybody else else. How long before we have mausoleums with embalmed bodies of our leaders through which we file. You know we sent schoolkids to file respective respectfully and kind of pay their respects to the cheerleaders of old yeah, and I mean I think, a good question is well traditionally. The ruling class has been very reluctant to be so flamboyant about their abuse of power in their accumulation of wealth, because that can create a lot of instability in the society when people know the extent to which they are being exploited and abused, theyve generally been more humble about it or tried to hide it, but Heres Obama throwing an enormous party Steven Spielberg was coming. Pearl jam was going to play, and then you have verily Jarrod his lifelong aid, saying hey reach into your pocket and give us money to build a shrine to Obama at some point. The question is:

how long is the population going to tolerate that thats right? At least televangelists promised salvation at least to get something out of it? Glenn Greenwald Great, to see it.