He had me at “Yes We Can”
Wednesday, December 8th, 2010
Barrack Obama had me. He had me at “yes we can.” he had me at “Change is coming to America.”
He had me. But he has me no more.
Over the past two years as president, Obama’s confident message of “change we can believe in,” has morphed into a mumbled: “…uh, let’s have change everyone agrees on, okay?… please?” Gone is the dynamic speaker who inspired hope in so many of us. In its place is a weak, indecisive man whose policies seem little differen tfrom those of his predecessor. We wanted an FDR. What we got was Mr. Rogers.
Go down the list. On the domestic front we have had hundreds of billions in continued bailouts of banks and insurance giants. Bailouts of large corporations like General Motors. All this largess has come with no strings attached. There has been virtually no oversight over who gets the government handouts and what it is used for. The cave in to health insurance corporations and big Phrma in the health-care bill is a blatant example of an administration that surrenders before the battle has even started. Add in continued record unemployment, massive home foreclosures and individual bankruptcies coupled with incredible multi-billion dollar bonuses for corporate executives and you have a growing divide between rich and poor that Obama seems unwilling to do anything to change. The President says he is trying to promote compromise. However, the astonishing alacrity with which he continues to give in to republicans and their corporate paymasters makes him seem like a weak, cowardly, unprincipled man who is unwilling to stand up and fight for anything.
Americans love a good scrap. We’ll even support a hopeless underdog if that underdog is willing to stand up to the bully and poke him in the eye. By giving in to republicans like Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, Obama is coming off looking like a weakling who is so afraid of the bully on the beach that he will lie down and kick sand in his own face. Compromise is not a bad thing. However, the President’s seeming unwillingness to fight against conservatives on any issue is revolting in the extreme.
As bad as the domestic front is, the international situation is worse. We have a continuous war in Afghanistan with no end in sight. We have undeclared wars in Pakistan and Yemen, and the ramping up of rhetoric for war in Iran and possibly North Korea. We continue to print money to fuel our out of control military spending, and we continue to exhibit an unsustainable imperialistic foreign policy that is, in many ways, even more pronounced than it was under George W. Bush. Even Guantanamo which Obama promised to close within a year of becoming president is not only still open with lots of prisoners still being held without even the hope of a trial.
Now we have the flap over the release of “confidential” diplomatic cables by the whistle blowing site “Wikileaks.” The Obama administration’s response to the release of these documents has been appalling. That Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the entire diplomatic core received a huge black eye over the release of the documents is undeniable. The Wikileaks cables demonstrate convincingly that the United States government under Obama is continuing down the same path of imperial hubris that was the hallmark of his predecessor. The U.S. continues to meddle in the affairs of other countries even to the point of engaging in unethical and immoral illegal acts like spying on members of the United Nations and engaging in sabotage of climate control talks in Denmark.
The government’s response to the revelations is equally revealing. Just as under George W. Bush the Obama administration’s reaction is not to apologize or admit error. It is not to change its behavior. Instead, the government’s only action is to circle the wagons and attack, destroy or at least silence the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, by any means possible. On an individual level, viewing the revelation of one’s unethical and even illegal behavior as a personal attack is not the reaction of one who possesses strong moral character. On an international level, any country that reacts to its secrets being revealed by launching attacks on the whistle blower who revealed them is not exhibiting courage. Is the Obama administration so desperate to appear strong and tough that they can’t own up when a few of their secrets get revealed?
Reacting to someone who exposes you as a fool by clobbering them over the head does not make you any less of a fool. It just makes you a bully.
Subsequent posts will deal with why I believe further support for Obama is futile. For now let me just say that hope as a commodity is not infinite. I’m afraid my supply for Obama has been exhausted. Somewhere between now and the next election President Obama may grow a spine and start fighting for the things in which he believes. He may. But given his actions to date, I very much doubt it.
