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Hope and Trust? No way, Barack!
By Rrrandy Wurst | May 25, 2009
It’s a good and honorable thing to respect those who have given their lives for the war-prone decisions of American governmental and corporate leaders. Those who serve in the military don’t make war, they simply perform—kill and die—because America’s leaders demand it of them. Leaders make war; citizen soldiers simply follow orders, often blindly because they are taught that’s what’s expected of them to protect the American way of life. Obey orders, pure and simple.
This has been the way throughout human history, the elite making wars for their own benefit in which their citizens/peons/serfs die. You’d think we would get smart and refuse; put the elite who want war into a cage for them to fight it out. But we’re not that smart. The first American war was to gain our freedom, so that was, from our point of view, a good one. The next one in 1812 was against the guys we beat in the first one, because the Brits were acting like they hadn’t lost the previous one. Since that time, from the 1830s, Americans (particularly Marines) have fought and killed and died beyond American shores primarily to “protect American interests,” the phrase consistently used through the years which means, basically, that an American corporation which has wormed its way onto foreign soil to do its business, has pissed off the natives who are causing trouble. So the Marines, etc., are needed by the bosses to come in and kill the insurgents…”From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli,” a rousing song with a subtext of Empire.
Democracy is a grand idea. Democracy and how it is laid out in our Constitution, if not played out in America’s reality, is what we love about our country and much of the rest of the world loves about us. The idea of democracy. It sounds great, and it plays great, but only when it plays true. Monarchy can be imposed. Fascism and other totalitarian regimes can be imposed. Democracy cannot be imposed. It must be chosen, just as in a true election, leaders are honestly chosen…although once in power, chosen leaders may behave less than democratically, always of course, “for the good of the nation.”
So let’s get to Barack Obama, our source of hope to end the all-too-seamless Regime of Bush-Reagan-Clinton, which was so skilled at the 20th/21st Century game of making war and licking corporate boots. We believe in President Obama because we want and need to believe that he will be different. He is clearly different, being a black man. But I am increasingly concerned that this is his clearest difference from the prior regimes.
It’s a good and great thing that a black man occupies our White House. It says much about America that (a) it took so long and (b) we finally got it right. But do not believe that simply because the election turned out right, that all things Obama will be right, if we’ll only trust him to make things right. This is foolish. What’s more, it’s dangerous. It will mean that having suffered the worst president in American history, we are now willing to be happy with a less bad leader.
Yes, he’s doing some good things. He’s also doing some terrible things he either promised or implied that he wouldn’t do. He has backtracked on full disclosure and open government, both of which are necessary for a true democracy to work. (What is a true democracy? It’s one in which you know what you are voting for.) He is backtracking on such issues as torture and revealing torturers. He is failing to uphold our Constitution and treaties by not pursuing those who have, before him, defied our Constitution and its mandate to uphold treaties, which were violated by Bush/Cheney. Who has he chosen to make our foundering economy right? The very folks who made it go wrong, including those great minds who have given bailouts intended to strengthen failing industries, only to watch, supposedly helplessly, those bailouts go straight into the hot pockets of those who caused the failures. These have been Obama’s choices. He has given power and control over economic and financial and matters of justice to those who in the previous administrations have crapped on the American people in these areas. Why in the ever-lovin’ world would someone who ran on a platform of change select people who were the same old bad actors of the prior administrations?
The answer to that question, we and the press and the pundits may assume, is the “importance of continuity” in this complex world. As if President Obama is saying to us, “Yes, I spoke to you of change, but I didn’t precisely say quick change.” So, are we to trust that he is gaming the old system, putting in these old boys so the opposition won’t cry too loudly, then he’ll get rid of them in due time? Haven’t we yet learned not to trust politicians, even those we think are on “our side”? The best of our Founders warned us not to trust politicians, to always keep informed about their shenanigans, to assume that they enjoy power and association with the monied-gentry and can be trusted only to make as much of that power and money as they can.
I want President Obama to succeed. I’ve waited for someone like him to succeed most of my adult life. I thought it would be Bill Clinton, but I was wrong. Sure, the Republicans are doing everything they can to make Obama fail. For them it’s dirty-dealing politics as usual. But, Barack Obama is doing much of that monkey-wrenching to himself. We cannot tolerate someone who is only marginally better, someone about whom we think, “Well, at least he’s not George Bush.”
What do we do to get things going right for the people of America and the world, rather than for the big corporations-big governments-big militaries? If you have a good idea, let me know.
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Topics: Barack Obama, Corporations, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Political Corruption, The Constitution, War, iraq war | No Comments »
