The world, and especially the United States, has been given a gift. Not the rulers and kings and presidents and the elite, but the common person. The gift is the greatest contrast in human history and the highlighting of its biggest contradiction. That gift has immeasurable value. That gift could save humanity.
The contrast we were given is that between Presidents Bush and Obama. Bush represented a culture of war, torture, loss of civil liberties, economic collapse, and banal behavior. Obama represents intelligence, calmness, pragmaticism, hope and change. There has never been a greater contrast between American presidents. The contradiction we were given comes with the path Obama appears to be taking during his Presidency, the same thing only different.
The contrast and contradiction could not be more evident. That is the gift. It is a gift of truth and realization. The truth that nothing can change the mechanisms controlling the world other than the people standing up and making it change. And the realization that if Obama can’t do it, we likely will never find a single person who can.
I’ve lived for well over half a century. As a child, WWII was still fairly fresh in most citizens minds and the bulk of the population had been affected by that war. WWII changed things forever. It gave the U.S. the opportunity to become the world superpower. Powerful forces working behind the scenes took control of this agenda and have engineered the deaths of millions of humans to advance that agenda. This overall world approach has been largely ignored by common citizens while the country went through various phases. The fifties saw the consumer lifestyle come into full force. The sixties were a time of protesting civil rights and the Vietnam war. Since that time, the country has been bombarded with the continued escalation of the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) and unregulated capitalism.
Citizens struggled to understand the whole picture. Then along came Bush and his cadre of evil people. People who had the hubris and capabilities to take the game to a whole new level. They thought they could justify things up front, like torture and invading countries based on lies. Bush was so far out there that only the ignorant, uninformed, or the republican political robots could tolerate his antics. The people wanted change so badly that when a black man named Obama gave eloquent speeches telling them what they wanted to hear, they literally broke into tears. The people were ready and waiting.
Its been almost 100 days since Obama took office. There are lists of what Obama has accomplished in that time that on the surface, look pretty good, comparatively speaking. But what he hasn’t done is disturbing and shows contradictions from his pre-election speeches. He is escalating the Afghanistan conflict and furthering our activities in Pakistan. The indications are that the GWOT and the Grand Chess Game, espoused by his trusted advisor Brezsinski, are in full throttle and geopolitical games are all systems go. We still don’t know for sure whether his CIA, or whoever they contract out to, is not torturing. He does not have a good plan for getting out of Iraq because the security on the ground will never be sufficient for that to happen. He will NOT investigate the torture allegations.
Back to the gift. The contrast and contradition we have experienced makes it clear that the only way to change U.S. foreign policies and force the U.S. to take a more humane and sensible approach to world affairs, will need to come from the people. Obama can not and will not do it without us. In that sense, the gift may be the best one we could have received. Obama is the President. He must take the heat, and he is responsible for listening to the people. Now the people must make him listen.
Crossposted at Daily Kos: http://www.dailykos.com/story/…