Petition to Stop Barack Obama from Considering Appointing Larry Summers for the Secretary of the Treasure Post

(To check out a list of potential nominees for the various positions, check out this Yahoo News post From Michael Marchman)

Obama is considering appointing Larry Summers to be Secretary of the Treasury. This is a TERRIBLE way to start things off for Obama. An online petition has been started to talk Obama out of this move. (See link below). I hope you'll sign it.

Summers was President of the World Bank when he argued that toxic/polluting industries should be sent to the Third World where, among other things that people contribute less to the global economy and therefore if some people are going to be poisoned by pollution, it's better that it be Third Worlders. And he was president of the World Bank!! Read his statement (#1) below -- it is truly dispicable. I've used it for years in my classes and think it is sufficient, on its own, to render him totally unacceptable as Tres. Sec.

He also argued, while President of Harvard that fewer women are in medicine and the sciences largely due to a lower innate ability by women to excel in these fields. (He resigned sometime later after these comments spartked an uproar at Harvard).

Finally, while at the World Bank and as Tres Sec under Clinton, he was a strong and influential advocate of the neolibera/free market model that is largely responsible for the current financial and economic crises here, but which has been absolutely devastating to most of the Third World (since the 1980s).


I don't usually send this kind of thing around to friends and family, but I feel very strongly about this. If he is appointed, it will feel to me like a slap in the face from Obama, just days after voting for him.


Michael

PS. I'd be interested to hear any thoughts/comments from youse guys about this. (Especially if you read link #1 below).


Here's the petition.

If you don't Larry Summers, check out these two links!

1. While Chief Economist of the World Bank: "Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]?"

2. While President of Harvard he argued that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers.