Not Chimera in the first sense – “a fire-breathing she-monster” – ouch – but the second sense: “an impossible or foolish fantasy.” Double-ouch.
Is the dream of an “Obama” more than reality can bear? Is fundamental and decisive change impossible in a rigid State system riddled with both the desperate bureaucratic mind-set which views change as Al Qaeda and the corruption, cronyism and secrecy meant to combat reform at every turn?
Were we fools to buy Obama’s hope of change?
Of course, we can’t know the answer. Time will tell. But Obama’s words and actions since his election appear to point to a strategy. The strategy is to make change from within the system, like all those 60s hippies/peace protestors turned lawyers, brokers and managers, as opposed to taking change to the system head-on.
Nothing wrong with that. Theoretically. Depending on the system. But the question some are asking is: With the way things are – economic catastrophe, global emergency, a national crisis of confidence, an abyss between the rich and the poor – is it enough just to futz around with stuff? Does the system need more than a tweak here and there? Does it need an overhaul?
For some the glass is half full. Overhaul healthcare; call it Universal even though it isn’t single-payer and say – Yea! – problem solved. And don’t get me wrong, as one of the nearly 50 million Americans without health insurance, primarily because I am unemployed, I look forward to my healthcare plan that’s just as good as any Congressman’s. That’s what Obama promised and that’s what I expect.
Create jobs! Yea! Re-build the roads, schools, hospitals, libraries, parks and public squares. Create green-collar jobs to fuel our lifestyle, divest from carbon-burning, waste producing energy and transform our way of life from the 19th to the 21st Century.
Hell, Bush spent a trillion bucks killing a million Iraqis; can’t we spend a trillion to save a few hundred million Americans?
I think Barack Obama has the opportunity to be a great domestic president. He has the charm and intelligence to forge changes in domestic policy and systems to make a smoother running homeland.
But, I don’t hear Obama talk too much about winding down a fading global empire before we all crumple together in the mass of wasted expenditure caused by those wouldn’t know a “last throes” if it sat on their face.
The United States has more than 700 military bases in more than 130 countries. George, “don’t fuck with foreign entanglements”, Washington is turning over in his Mount Vernon mausoleum. Since the end of World War II we have engaged in more than 60 foreign entanglements – about one a year.
All we hear from Obama is we’ve got be the strongest, bestest, nicest and meanest army ever in the whole wide world, amen. We’re going to take the fight to the pesky terrorists who got lucky once – though no one really knows how it all happened and by whom exactly. We’re going to surge in Afghanistan which hasn’t seen a successful occupation since the ancient Greeks.
And all for what? To make America safer from a people who would view the Dark Ages as an improvement?
Seriously, we are in Iraq why? Because we made it so bad after our illegal, irresponsible and immoral invasion (in which the perpetrators will never be held accountable) we have to stay there until things get better or all the oil is gone which ever comes first?
Why are we and NATO in Afghanistan? Because of 911 seven years ago? And we’ve dispersed “Al Qaeda” and rousted the Taliban and we’re there now because we made it so bad after the invasion, (based upon lots hyperbole and flimsy evidence) we’ve got to stay there until things get better or, because it is Afghanistan, hell freezes over, which ever comes first?
Why do we have 700 military bases scattered around the globe? The threat is who? What? Are we defending freedom or exporting democracy? Are spreading ‘free markets’ or are we controlling them? Are we invited, and if so, why? Do some leaders need American troops on their soil to stay in power against the will of their people?
Why is there not the political will to look at the militarized world and understand it is the problem and not something put in place to solve problems? The militarized world – arms merchants, gun runners, the military-industrial-complex (the revolving door between politics and business) – all mechanisms of WAR FOR PROFIT – is the problem.
And no one is saying if you let them people won’t kill you. No one is saying don’t defend yourself. All we are saying is when one is brought up on the values of the United States of America, to which Obama is promising to return us, then it is very hard to imagine preemptive attack as defense (the Bush Doctrine). If some third-rate power like Afghanistan (laughable), Iran (preposterous) or Venezuela (Peter Sellers made the movie) wants to attack us, let them. There are fools born every minute. But to attack them first because they mouth-off or push our buttons or because people are afraid of them BAAWWAAAWAAA (either honestly or for propaganda) is not the American Way.
Will Obama renounce the Bush Doctrine? He has said we won’t torture; will he say we won’t preemptively attack?
It was a pretty good run of over a half century the wool was pulled over the American people’s eyes as they were turned from citizen to consumer and corporate wars were waged in the name of freedom. Fruit companies. Oil companies. Resource companies. Commodity companies. Business-as-usual.
There is a separation between Church and State. Is it time for the same prohibition against Corporation and State?
Will Obama say Capitalism, the West’s 20th Century religion, went off the tracks, as its long perceived weaknesses came to fruition? Systems only work in theory. They are run by people. Marx wasn’t a revolutionary or political economist as much as he was a modern observer of the human character and his deepest insight about the problem with capital is what happens when a man gets a hold of it.
He goes crazy. And other men get envious. And pretty soon everyone is crazy.
Or as Marx said – wealth would concentrate into fewer and fewer hands leading to an inevitable revolt by the working class because of the resentment invoked by the wealth gap between owners and workers.
Will Obama tell us the very definition of society means: fellowship?
For those of us on the left who’ve been laughed at as fringe or marginalized as “angry” (conveniently ignoring right-wing hate,) it is easy to be discouraged based upon Obama’s personnel picks so far. Insiders, cronies and establishmentarians. A change of underwear.
Lots of my friends say, “Just wait, don’t let all this fool you, Obama is playing his cards close to his vest; just wait until he’s office, then he’s gonna…, uh, well, just wait and see.”
And I agree. What else can one do? Fool me three times and shame on…Satan? The question remains; will our hopes and dreams and expectations for what America could be, be dashed again? Or is there a chance this plane can be brought out of its tailspin before the wings come off, the engine fails and the mountaintop looms. Will America go down in history as The Icarus Nation; brilliant, daring and reckless, or is our history yet to be written?
Will Obama be the champion for humanity we hunger for or our last Emperor?
