Thursday, June 3, 2010

Stupid Obama

I'm calling him "stupid" because as a Harvard trained constitutional scholar and a master of understanding and appealing to his fellow human beings, Barack Obama ought to have been smart enough to know that he's destroying his presidency with each passing day by resorting to the same old, cynical, inhuman, deluded, corporatist neoliberalism and imperialism.

The people who were inspired enough to elect him were angry at bush II's shredding of Constitutional civil rights. What does Barack Obama do? Shit all over them and the Constitution by maintaining and expanding his predecessor's assaults.

The people who were inspired by him were angry at bush II's unending, illegal, corrupt, murderous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. What does Obama do? Leave his soldiers in their permanent bases in Iraq and dramatically ratchet-up the war in Afghanistan (to prop-up the corrupt, pedophile-druglord Karzai regime).

The people who believed in him wanted genuine healthcare reform. What did Obama give them? a bloated monstrosity of legislation that tames some of the most glaring abuses of the private insurance industry while costing the tax-payers' more than single-payer would have and forcing people to buy private health insurance plans that still don't offer sufficient coverage.

People were angry about having their tax dollars going to bail-out the Wall Street crooks whose own insane greed brought them to the brink of bankruptcy. What does Obama do? Sabotages genuine attempts to reign-in Wall Street while mouthing insincere populist platitudes.

People are furious over how B.P. caused a gigantic ecological catastrophe as a result of the deregulation of the oil industry brought about by bush II's VP Dick Cheney and his top-secret negotiations with his fellow oil industry scum-bags. What is Obama doing? Continuing to mouth stupid platitudes about his "concern" while allowing B.P. to conduct the response to their catastrophe all their own way, always giving them the benefit of the doubt.

The fact that Obama faces a challenge from the even more deluded, even more intellectually bankrupt Repugnican Party isn't an excuse. There's a voting base out there that would be galvanized by the reversal of his failed politics, indeed, it's the same fucking voting base that he has to thank for becoming President of the United States of America! But Obama is all about playing the game as it has traditionally been played in order to succeed within that system, and the USA's political culture is so debased as to be incapable of recognizing when policies are toxic, insane and self-destructive. Even after everything they've done turns to shit, they still call the shots and the formal media culture grants the neo-liberal, imperialist, corporatist viewpoint its hegemonic power.

6 comments:

JimBobby said...

Unfortunately, I couldn't agree more. I was prepared for some disappointment with Bracko. Expectations were simply too high and we've seen similar problems with other political messiahs. Lech Walesa springs to mind.

Anyone familiar with US politics would need to be somewhat suspect of anyone who could rise as quickly as Obama. The Chicago political landscape is notoriously corrupt.

Those who thought Obama would be a new broom sweeping away every Bush policy and every bureaucratic crony were looking for the impossible or at least the extremely improbable.

That said, however, Obama has not lived up to even the lowest expectation. He could have shut down Gitmo. He could have refused the Nobel Peace Prize. He could have implemented many of his promises but he failed to do so on nearly every count -- as you've outlined quite well.

He is a supposedly smart guy. He should have known, above all, that you can't please everyone. Trying to strike a compromise in every contentious situation has cost him support from his former cheerleaders and played right into the hands of his detractors.

During his rise to candidacy during the primaries, I thought the US wasn't ready for Obama. As it turns out, Obama wasn't ready for the presidency. Sad.

thwap said...

We misoverestimated him.

opit said...

Remember the Chimperator ? His I.Q. is 128. His brother actually commented publicly that a favourite trick of George's was to 'act dumb' to deflect criticism and punishment.
Calling conmen crooks 'stupid' is not insightful analysis. Matter of fact, it is the siren call of the sycophant.
Obama knows exactly what he is doing. That could explain for the comment about his complexion when he left from his briefing at Bu$h's office at the time of transfer of reins of office : "green around the gills."
Canada is not too far North to be a Banana Republic. When we destroyed the P.C.s at the polls in 1993 ( 2 elected nationally ) and Chretien hijacked the losing P.C. platform for his own 'Lie-beral' administration - in the process setting a record of not keeping a single one of his Redbook Election Promises - the instant overbilling of advertisers scandal should have told us something about the power of perception.
Have a look. It's a constant source of amazement : http://opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/2009/07/perception-alteration.html

thwap said...

Well, let's agree to disagree.

I think IQ's are bullshit and I think bush II was a lazy-minded moron.

As well, the problem for these "smart con-men" is that they're destroying the source of their own strength, witness the financial crisis. (True, they're responding to the crisis by crushing everybody else even more and cementing their own power, but this only exacerbates the underlying problems.)

And Obama, whatever his cunning service to power, is ensuring himself a one-term presidency and his own personal failure.

He's a human being and I can't imagine he's completely indifferent to his historical reputation.

opit said...

"I can't imagine he's completely indifferent to his historical reputation."
With whom ? 'History is written by the winners.' I could find lovely examples of Revisionism and history being a euphamisim for Spin.
Here's one most aren't ready for. It's still an interesting read : http://pakalert.wordpress.com/2008/12/15/10-false-flags-operations-that-shaped-our-world/

thwap said...

What sort of false-flag operation do you see Obama as backing?

The long and the short of it is, as I said, that he's destroying his political base, he's destroying the economy (whether he's serving as Wall Street's foil or not) and he's going to go down in history as a ditherer.