This was originally written and published to several places online on 1/19/2009.
OBAMA AND THE ILLUSION OF CHANGE
The kind of change that we are being promised is not the kind of change that we need and deserve. I understand that there will be major improvements with Obama in office. I understand that on the surface his policies are better than those of Bush or McCain. But what exactly are the policies that Obama is selling to us? His rhetoric is clean and precise and he is obviously charismatic. It is likely that the federal minimum wage will increase, that some sort of health care system will provide health care to more people, that there may be a tax break for the majority of us and a tax increase for the wealthy. These are all good things for the average American citizen. Obama may be able to improve our alternative energy and sustainability issues. Perhaps his image will help improve our foreign relations and his intelligence and linguistic abilities will help improve diplomacy. So it is obvious on the surface that Barack Obama will be a better president than John McCain would have been. The question still needs to be asked, though, whether or not Obama will be overhauling the entire system and producing real change or just covering up the symptoms of a failing democracy infected by unregulated capitalism, special interest lobbying, a bloated military-industrial complex and an American Empire foreign relations mentality? What exactly will change? Will the actual system become more fair, balanced, moral and ethical or will the real change be a change of Image?
THE ECONOMY
One of the most prominent issues facing our country right now is our economy. It is obvious we have a crisis on our hands but what most people don’t seem to realize is that there are extensive reasons for this crisis that go much deeper than failing financial institutions. The new addition of the auto industry to the economic crisis is just the beginning and we will continue to see more sectors of our economy fall into decline. The government bailout will be only a temporary fix. To me it looks for like we are being ripped off by criminal corporations. Most of Obama’s plan revolves around “jump-starting the economy” and re-arranging the way that people and corporations are taxed. Most likely jump-starting the economy means spending money on public projects, utilities, infrastructure and possibly expanding the space program. This economic idea is much like jump-starting a car battery, it will work for a while but eventually the battery needs to be replaced with a new one. We do need to charge the economic battery up long enough to make the transition to a post-modern or integral economy, but it does not appear that Obama has any plan to do this. Our current economic model is dependent not only on production but also on consumerism. That means it is important that people have enough money to be continually buying new things. Obama says that he will cut taxes for the poor, simplify the tax filing process and increase taxes for people making $250,000 or more a year. He also says that he will end some tax breaks and loopholes for corporations. That will free up some of the money to begin circulating within the economy again, which is a good thing for the short term.
On the surface this all sounds pretty good, but what about the deeper challenges of maintaining a fiat-based monetary system and continually trying to control the inflation bubble by adjusting the amount of money that is allowed into the system? This isn't the first time the bubble has burst, remember the Dot Com crash? Ever since the creation of the Federal Reserve we have tried to maintain a monetary system whose currency has no intrinsic value. Granted, we have done a pretty good job fooling ourselves and the world into thinking that our currency has any real value beyond the paper it was printed on. The bills that we use are not backed by any physical commodity and are actually similar to bills of credit because we ‘borrow’ our money from the Federal Reserve, with interest. We run on a debt-based monetary system that is continually devaluing the worth of the U.S. dollar. We are currently paying a little over $200 billion a year for interest on our debt. Not to mention the Federal Reserve does not seem to be constitutionally legal, but that is a topic too big for now.
Our tax system has become just as corrupted as our monetary system. Since the Reagan administration we have seen both the wealthy and our corporations receive enormous tax breaks, strengthening and expanding the economic divide. Our economy relies on everyday people buying consumer goods and if there isn't enough money in their hands then they can not spend enough to maintain the system. So most Americans borrow money, the same way that our government borrows money. Since Reagan, each president has been increasing an already bloated military budget while decreasing the funding for social services and welfare. It was not Bush that caused our economic system to collapse; it has been a long time coming. It may be easier to place the blame on one man, but in reality we can not do that. We look to Obama for a solution to our economic crisis, but he will not make the change necessary to prevent future economic inflation and cyclical economic collapses as that inflation bubble pops over and over again unless he begins implementation of an entirely new post-modern or integral economic model.
There are potential solutions for stabilizing the value of our currency, such as reforming or eliminating the Federal Reserve and printing our own currency, or returning to the gold standard or a commodity-based value backing. Whatever we do, it is clear that we need to either reform the current fiat monetary system or create a new system and we can not continue playing this economic game. Will Obama address these problems? Probably not. During the primaries it seemed the only major candidate allowed by the media to address these issues in public was Ron Paul, and he has been doing so for quite some time. Other third party candidates, such as Ralph Nader, address these problems as well, but they are subjected to a media blackout.
- Note from future self: Does a cryptocurrency like BitCoin have the potential to fix the system? Only time will tell.
EDUCATION
America obviously has a major problem with public and higher education. Our literacy rate and competency in math and science continues to drop and our children are not being well prepared for college. Even if a child makes it through K-12, college has become increasingly expensive and out of reach for most American families. No Child Left Behind has been a disaster and our public schools are dangerously under-funded. Not to mention we can’t keep our teachers because they are not prepared or paid enough. Obama plans on funding early education and affordable high-quality child care. He also plans on providing more funding to prepare children for Kindergarten, to recruit, prepare and support teachers, increase funding for after school programs, simplify the process for financial aid and provide college students with a $4,000 tax credit in exchange for 100 hours of community service. He says that he will completely reform the No Child Left Behind act so that schools are not penalized for poor performance. This will most likely increase the efficiency of our educational system, but what about the educational system itself?
The current education system is not suitable for the growth and development of early adolescence. We all went through middle and high school and most of us recognized that there was something very wrong. School does not teach us how to think but instead teaches us what to think, how to obey authority, how to rely on specialists and people other than ourselves for our knowledge and how to become productive members of a capitalist/industrial society. We live in a culture of arrested development because our school system extends the age of childhood dependency by stunting cognitive and creative growth, teaching conformity and not allowing children adequate time to develop themselves as free-thinking individuals. The school system is deliberately dumbing down our children so that we will not be able to challenge the political and capitalist system. This may have been necessary to provide docile workers in the industrial age but in a post-industrial information age it is essential that we identify the problem with public education and restructure our academics to produce more productive, free-thinking individuals at a younger age. By the age of sixteen, a young adult should be more than ready to enter into higher education.
Our youth need time for introspection and the development of higher levels of consciousness. We need to expand what we think of as education to include not only the objective but also the subjective realms of existence. College often suppresses the spiritual developmental line, by either forcing that development line into hiding or attempting to replace it with science and materialism. There is very limited college academia that helps students train their mind to move through the traditional states of consciousness or recognize stages of consciousness or the varying lines of development. This is left up to the religious institutions, the vast majority of which have not moved into a post-conventional or world-centric perspective. We also need to provide our youth with the opportunity for absolutely free college educations. More often than not the price of a college education will put the majority of individuals in debt for a good portion of, if not all of, their lives. Higher education is really the first chance for our youth to explore specialized realms of study and it is not surprising that there can be difficulty in figuring out what kinds of skills or knowledge one wants to pursue. At the very least I propose providing free education through the Bachelor’s Degree, then perhaps beginning to charge for graduate school. The world is moving into the post-modern, information age, the integral age and beyond, yet our educational system is still geared towards the modern, industrial, conventional, consumer age. If we want to compete in the global economy, it is essential that future generations are mentally prepared.
ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT
Although Obama seems to promote renewable energy sources, reducing green house gases and promotion of hybrid car technology, he also supports the use of nuclear energy, domestic oil and clean coal production. One of Obama’s primary talking points was investing $150 billion over 10 years to create new jobs in the Clean Energy industry. Think about that for a moment; $150 billion over ten years is only $1.5 billion a year. In comparison with the $700 billion bailout package that Obama voted for, or the military budget in excess of $965 billion (nearly $1 Trillion dollars) a year, we can see that $1.5 billion a year is not nearly enough money. Obama is providing Americans with the appearance that we are seriously working on renewable energy, the same way that car and oil corporations run ad campaigns promoting their ‘research and development’ of new energy technologies or boast that their new car gets 40mpg. There are many alternative sources for our energy such as Geo-thermal, wind, solar and water, as well as reliable technology for electric and water-powered cars that do not rely on fossil fuels. These technologies are deliberately suppressed by the energy, automotive and gas/oil industries that spend mass amounts of money lobbying our government officials to keep it that way. Obama also supports a global carbon tax and trade system. The fact is that carbon is not the most important pollutant to be thinking about. Yes, we probably have a global warming problem, but our planet is also awash in more harmful chemicals and pollutants that should be addressed immediately. Most importantly we should be figuring out what to do with the enormous amount of throw-away consumer goods and garbage that has been stacking up in our landfills. We should be looking at the chemicals and pesticides being used in the agricultural industries. Our water is becoming increasingly contaminated with pharmaceutical waste and it now looks like fluoride isn’t even necessary for our dental health. Not to mention, we still haven’t figured out what to do with all our nuclear waste. When addressing our environmental health we need a much broader perspective and we certainly need more funding than $1.5 billion a year. I would like to see more regulation of pollutants and serious consequences for industrial polluters. Not fines and penalties, but jail time, revoking of corporate charters and other serious deterrents. Let’s start showing that we are going green by converting government buildings to green technology. Let’s require that most, if not all, government cars are electric or at least hybrids. Instead of writing the automotive industry a blank bailout check, let’s tell them that all of their cars need to be hybrids and a certain percentage have to be alternative energy vehicles, both with strict emission standards. Let’s provide tax credits to people who convert old vehicles to alternative energy, the same way Obama plans on providing a tax rebate to anyone who buys a hybrid car. The real problem is not that we need more money for research and development; the technology already exists. It could certainly be improved with funding, but the point is that we can begin the process right now. Let’s start putting some of this real green technology to use and push the old energy paradigm out of the way. Obama may talk about it, but I guarantee you that in the next four years we will not see half of the progress that is possible.
POLITICAL ETHICS
Obama claims that he will reform the way our political process is influenced by corporate lobbyists and special interests by increased transparency and monitoring of campaign contributions, special interest tax breaks, federal contracts, earmarks and pork barrel spending. Obama’s plan revolves around making this information available for internet search by the public. Obama is playing a very dangerous game by claiming to be an ethical political reformer. According to the Boston Globe, “in Obama's eight years in the Illinois Senate, from 1996 to 2004, almost two-thirds of the money he raised for his campaigns -- $296,000 of $461,000 -- came from PACs, corporate contributions, or unions, according to Illinois Board of Elections records. He tapped financial services firms, real estate developers, healthcare providers, oil companies, and many other corporate interests, the records show.” Also, according to the Los Angeles Times, “though Obama has returned thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from registered federal lobbyists since he declared his candidacy in February, his presidential campaign has maintained ties with lobbyists and lobbying firms to help raise some of the $58.9 million he collected through the first six months of 2007.” Obama has raised more than $1.4 million from members of law and consultancy firms led by partners who are lobbyists. This is just the beginning; investment banks UBS, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley are all among Obama’s top donors and supporters. Recently, Obama asked one of the biggest recipients of Wall Street campaign contributions to be his chief of staff, Rep. Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel was the top House recipient in the 2008 election cycle of contributions from hedge funds, private equity firms and the larger securities/investment industry. He became an Illinois congressman after working as an investment banker. Like Obama, some of his top donors are investment banks UBS, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley. This could go on forever, so I will stop right here. All politicians must play the campaign finance game, but claiming not to while doing it is even more unethical than doing it and admitting to it. I’m sure we will see some interesting appointees to his cabinet with strong ties to special interests in the months to come. On the other hand, Obama is planning on providing the public with a vast internet database so that we can see who is receiving what money and where it is coming from. There are, however, internet sites that already specialize in this kind of data. The big question is, even if this information is available to the public, what will the people do with it? Probably nothing. I do believe that Obama appears to have good intentions, and maybe as our government becomes more and more transparent, the voters will begin to move outside of the two-party system in search of new candidates.
FOREIGN POLICY
The strong point in Obama’s policy on foreign relations is that he wants to improve America’s image and promote diplomacy before the use of military force. It’s about time, right? However, when we look at the basic structure of Obama’s foreign policy, the targets look about the same. Obama will not be ending the War on Terror charade or America’s pressure on Iran. He plans on pulling major operative forces out of Iraq but leaving a residual base. Obama has declared that some of the troops in Iraq will be redirected into Afghanistan to look for Bin Laden and other terrorist targets. Obama will also put the pressure on Iran to end it’s Nuclear program, whether or not it is for nuclear energy or nuclear weapons. By the end of his term Obama claims he will “secure all loose nuclear materials in the world… and will negotiate a verifiable global ban on the production of new nuclear weapons material to curb the spread of nuclear weapons.” This obviously does not include America’s stash of nuclear weapons, although it will most likely be thinned down to what we now know is a ‘safe deterrent level.’ Or in other words, enough to intimidate other nations without nuclear weapons and hold nations with nuclear weapons in check. Although Obama claims to be working towards a solution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, he has said that he is pro-Israel. America’s support of Israel will not end with Obama as president; we will continue to send Israel billions in aid and continue to support their military and defense fund. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict needs to continue to justify our military presence in the middle east and Israel is our strongest ally in the region.
Obama is also very concerned about the global poverty problem. He will double our foreign assistance to $50 billion dollars. Once again, not a lot of money when we look at the bailout package and the budget of the military-industrial complex. This sells the world the illusion that we care about poverty in other countries. What about the American corporations that use third world labor and pay below living wages? What about America’s fascination with diamonds and the disgusting conditions of the diamond trade? Why is our military so focused on securing oil in the middle east when so many countries are run by governments that, like our country, purposefully maintain a social stratification system that supports the huge economic divide between the rich and the poor? Global poverty is a big issue but the solution is not in economic stimulus packages or $50 billion dollars in aid. We need to look at the system that allows poverty to be so pervasive. We have a huge and growing problem with poverty in our own country. Raise the federal minimum wage to a real living wage and while we are at it, control the wages that corporations pay to foreign workers when outsourcing jobs. They will no longer be able to save so much money by sending our jobs to other countries and our unemployment rate will drop dramatically because those jobs will come back to America. We would also no longer be supporting the exploitation of the third world labor force. While we are at it, instead of using our military force to steal the resources of other countries, overthrow governments and exploit the people, why not use it for genuinely humanitarian reasons? Let’s go into countries that actually need and legitimately want our help in freeing the people. Let’s stop providing weapons for war. Let’s stop allowing banks to fund both sides of every conflict. Let’s provide medical assistance and help rebuild infrastructures in countries that need it. Let’s build schools, hospitals and fire stations instead of blowing them up. Let’s make some amends for all the destruction and death we have caused.
The last point of concern I want to address in this section is Obama’s policy on strengthening NATO, maintaining the development of a North American Union and seeking new partnerships in Asia. NATO is a move towards a global military. The NAU is similar to the EU, or European Union, and an Asian Union is in development. When the NAU is fully developed, it will most likely use the theorized Amero currency, like the Euro that the EU uses. Asia will follow suit in uniting several Asian countries. The partnership between the NAU, EU and AU will be a major step towards the plan for a global government laid out by the Trilateral Commission and Council on Foreign Relations. NATO will be the military force of this Trilateral Government. NAFTA is already well on its way to creating the super highway known as the Trans-Texas Corridor, which will run from Mexico, thru the United States and into Canada. The funding for the highway is coming from foreign investors and the tolls will go to them. This development of infrastructure is a major step in the creation of the NAU. America has already signed an agreement in 2008 with Canada called the Civil Assistance Plan (CAP) to allow military intervention across borders during a “civil emergency.“ That means that if there is a “major event,” the U.S. military can be deployed into Canada or Mexico and vice versa. Restrictions on travel, employment, natural resources and trade are also being lifted, essentially opening the borders between Mexico, the U.S. and Canada. The Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America was launched in March of 2005 and signed by Prime Minister Harper of Canada, President Bush of the U.S. and President Calderón of Mexico. Obama seems to support this move towards the NAU and eventual trilateral government. This is a complicated subject but worth looking into and keeping an eye on as it develops. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a major development early in 2009, probably starting in Canada, that will be used to further the NAU agenda.
HEALTH CARE
Although we do not know much about how Obama’s healthcare plan will work, his website says that “the Obama-Biden plan provides affordable, accessible healthcare for all Americans.” Healthcare costs for the typical family will be reduced by $2,500 a year and Obama will clean up the corruptive practices of insurance companies while at the same time streamlining form procedures to save money and time. Obama’s healthcare program will cost around $50-65 billion dollars a year. Once again, I say that in comparison to the military budget and the corporate welfare bailout package, that is not nearly enough funding for something as important as the health of our citizens. While Obama was Senator, he claimed he supported a single-payer healthcare system, but while running for president claimed that he never said he supported a single-payer healthcare system. That is what we need, free and universal healthcare for all American citizens. I don’t care how much he reduces the healthcare cost for a ‘typical’ family; that still leaves millions of Americans without healthcare. No matter what healthcare system Obama implements, I will still not be able to afford it, even though I work 40+ hours a week and live frugally. If a family can not make enough money on a 40+ hour work week to have three meals a day, then how are they supposed to afford this healthcare plan? We should look at other countries that have working, free healthcare systems, do what we can to make them work in our country and then make them better. This is not only an economic and health problem but also a moral and ethical problem. Letting people die or suffer because they can not afford to see a doctor is unacceptable. Obama will be making a major step in the right direction, but I wish that he held to his initial promise of a single-payer system. We should be redirecting our tax dollars away from the military budget and into domestic problems like healthcare, poverty reduction and infrastructure repair.
HOMELAND SECURITY and WAR IN IRAQ
If you go to Obama’s website and check out the Homeland Security issue page, you will see the number one bullet point is, “Barack Obama will defeat terrorism worldwide.” First, Obama says that he will responsibly end the war in Iraq, only to redirect our efforts towards Afghanistan. Obama’s own website says that, “Barack Obama will not hesitate to use military force to take out terrorists who pose a threat to America.” Obama’s website goes on to say, “Obama and Joe Biden will strengthen U.S. intelligence collection overseas to identify and interdict would-be bioterrorists before they strike.” Notice these pre-emptive policies are similar to those of the Bush Administration. Obama’s Homeland Security plan revolves around securing our borders with virtual and physical barriers, doubling our security efforts at airports and ports, addressing the problem of cyber-terrorism by developing new technology and security measures, preparing for bio-terrorist or other terrorist attacks and actively finding and removing terrorists before they strike.
Under the Obama withdrawal plan, we will be leaving a residual force in Iraq. As we began our war in Iraq, Obama says that he warned of “an occupation of undetermined length, with undetermined costs, and undetermined consequences.” However, Obama will continue the War on Terrorism, which is of undetermined length, cost and consequences. When we leave Iraq, Obama plans to leave the formation of a new governmental structure to the Iraqi people. We will make deals involving oil revenue sharing and our residual force will continue to help train Iraq’s security forces. As a ‘humanitarian gesture’ we will “provide at least $2 billion to expand services to Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries, and ensure that Iraqis inside their own country can find sanctuary.” How are we still being fooled into thinking $2 billion is a lot of money? After all the destruction we have caused, it is like wrecking someone’s car and giving them $20 dollars to get a cab ride home. This insufficient amount of money does nothing but give the world and the people of America the illusion that our government cares. We have also seen that although Obama originally opposed the war in Iraq, during his presidency he will continue to support the War on Terror, pre-emptive use of military force and expansion of the American Empire and Military-Industrial Complex. I don’t believe Obama has the power to pose a serious challenge to or reform the Military-Industrial Complex, but I do believe that he has the power to let the populace know that it is still a great threat. We need another president to speak out, like Dwight D. Eisenhower did during his Farewell Address of Jan. 17, 1961 when he said, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex.”
TAXES
Obama’s tax plan looks pretty good. The reduction of taxes for the vast majority of American’s is exactly what we and our economy needs. He also plans on closing some corporate loop-holes and cracking down on offshore tax havens. I haven’t gotten a chance to look at the actual details and implementation of the plan but if he can pull it off, the overall summary looks like major improvement. I still think it falls short but will in the very least provide some immediate relief to the majority of the population. Personally, I would like to see a dramatic increase in taxes for multi-million dollar corporations and also tax breaks for any small businesses worth less than $5 million dollars, to promote competition, innovation and new start-up companies. I would also like to see an increase in taxes for all people making more than $250,000 dollars a year so that we can adequately fund social programs such as free health care, rebuild our failing infrastructure and reverse the expanse of income inequality. I would prefer to see a tax plan that completely eliminates federal taxes for any individual making less than $30,000 dollars a year. This wouldn’t be as necessary if we had a reasonable federal minimum living wage, but as of now we do not. Adjusted for inflation, the current minimum wage is less than it was in 1955. Approximately 37 million people are living below the poverty line and nearly 13 million children are living in poverty. Obama says that he will raise the minimum wage to $9.50 by the year 2011. Full time employment (40 hours a week) at $9.50 an hour still yields a yearly income of under $20,000 dollars a year, before taxes. $20,000 dollars had the same buying power as $2,529.85 in the year 1955. That is a staggering depreciation in the value of the dollar due to inflation. $20,000 dollars a year may be enough to provide basic necessities for a single person but it is certainly not enough money to raise a child or support a family. A more reasonable minimum wage increase would be $15 dollars and hour, which would bring the yearly household income to just under $30,000 dollars a year. This is still not a lot of money but would technically be enough to afford rent, three meals a day, utilities and other basic necessities. However, this doesn’t take into account the cost of health insurance, hospital visits or the costs of higher education, just the basic necessities of food, shelter, clothing, etc. It would also be reasonable to ask that an inflation calculator was built into the minimum wage so that it was automatically adjusted each year accordingly.
Some European countries have begun the process of placing a cap on the salary of major corporate CEO’s and holding them accountable if they fail to manage their business. They are also beginning to regulate the extraordinary large severance packages being offered to CEO‘s, even if they are fired or quit their jobs. America has the largest ratio between the lowest and highest paid worker of any industrialized nation. It’s about time that we catch up with sound business practices and begin to evaluate how salary is distributed within these corporations. I am not saying that we need absolute income equality, what I am saying is that the inequality has gotten out of hand. These over-paid members of the corporate class are reducing the wage of the working class and are being handed money that could be re-invested into the company or the health and prosperity of the work force. We need a solid solution to the domestic poverty problem that does not involve welfare, stimulus packages or tax rebates. We need to look at the root of the problem and prevent poverty before it starts.
FAITH
It appears to me that the most important avenue for change in our country will come through Obama’s principles on faith. Faith and Religion may be the single most important and complicated subject in our country. Although our President can not make people change their religious beliefs, he does has the platform to bring attention to the problems we face when it comes to faith and he has the ability to spark serious conversation about what it means to be religious.
Obama’s view on faith is indeed post-modern and post-conventional. The problem with religion is that it has been so severed from other lines of human development that it has not been allowed the room to advance into the rational, pluralistic or integral levels of development. When spirituality was divorced from the rational mind, rationality was so disgusted with the mythic perspective of religion that it suppressed spirituality altogether. Essentially the age of reason mistook the level of mythic spirituality with the line of spiritual development and threw out both, not allowing religion to establish itself in a rational world or beyond. This caused major tension between religion and science because religion became angry that the rational world would not make room for their beliefs and science looked down on religion as an outdated pre-modern system that needed to be jettisoned from the rational world. So this mythic level of religion is conformist, conventional and ethnocentric, which does not allow for multiple belief systems to share the same world space and rationality won‘t allow it to develop beyond this harmful perspective. If we stop suppressing religion we will find that a person can be religious and have a post-conventional, world-centric perspective that allows for multiple paths to God, agnosticism or atheism. From the pluralistic perspective a person can still be Christian and at the same time believe that other people can find salvation through other paths or spiritual leaders. We need to allow the spiritual line of development to progress or we will continually face these problems with religious division, violence and the political exploitation of mythic level religious beliefs. Obama calls for a pluralistic perspective of religion, where room in our collective space is made for all religions, those religions are brought into the public discourse without exploitation, taken seriously, questioned and examined under the light of pluralism.
Obama can not convince people of a pluralistic perspective of faith but bringing these problems into the public discourse is a big step in recognizing the problem. Hopefully as it permeates the collective sphere of awareness it will open up new avenues of information and also open people up to advanced stages of spiritual development. This could also be a major step in advancing other lines of development in the general populace.
SUMMARY
Although I believe Obama will be a progressive president, I can not bring myself to fully support him because he does not embody the kind of radical change I would like to see in this nation. It is possible that my mind could be changed by meeting with him over a cup of coffee but what we all know about Obama is not first hand knowledge. We all base our decisions on what we hear or see in the media, on the internet or through word of mouth. We vote based on the image that we have created of a person we have never met. Obama chose how to present himself to the people and I have thoroughly reviewed his website, read many of his speeches, watched many of his videos and looked at criticism and support of his policies from other sources and perspectives. I don’t have all the information and can only make a judgment based on my own research but it looks to me like Obama will not be addressing many of the core issues that I am concerned with, instead he offers temporary surface solutions. Maybe he will pave the way for someone in the future to seriously change the system, but Obama is not the agent of real change that he claims to be. He is an excellent, articulate, charismatic, intelligent politician and I look forward to seeing what he will do for our country over the next 4 or possibly 8 years. I genuinely believe he is a new kind of politician and perhaps alongside the neo-conservatives we will see a new class of neo-liberals emerge.
As American voters, it is up to us to be extremely critical of both the Democrats and Republicans. We can not get caught up in the hype and buzzwords. We can not merely approach these presidential elections as a competition, voting for the better of two candidate or the lesser of two evils, as we have in the past. I fully understand and respect the difference between a tactical vote and a vote of conscious. When we vote for one of the candidates in a two-party system, based on who we think is better and regardless of whether with fully agree with all of their policies, we are voting tactically. When we vote for a candidate who has no chance of winning but embodies the values and policies that we really can support, then it is a vote of conscious. As long as we are voting based on information that we ourselves have gathered and analyzed, either kind of vote is valid. The danger arises when we get caught up in the hype, slogans, buzz words and disinformation and let it gloss over the real issues at hand. We can not be swayed by promises of Change and Unity and we can not chant “Yes we can!” without, at the same time, questioning and being critical of all of Obama‘s policies. If a person supports Obama and I ask them why, I expect them to have an answer that goes beyond the image being projected. I don’t want to hear about how he’s a different kind of politician that a person can believe in or how he embodies real change, I want to hear the why and how. Obama is right about one thing, it is up to us to put serious pressure on all of our politicians to make any change happen. We can not make the mistake of thinking that Obama is our political savior and will fix all of our problems for us. Obama is not the agent of change, we are all the agents of change. If we want things to be better we have to research and seek out information, we have to support institutions and candidates who stand for what we believe in, we have to hold politicians and corporations accountable, we have to speak up and we have to demand the change that we want to see. We can not continue to project ourselves onto our leaders and relieve ourselves of our own responsibility to make this nation and this world a better place.
