And sadly (expectedly?) it’s looking more like the same. Don’t agree? Consider the following as evidence. In a stump speech last September, Obama said, “George Bush and Dick Cheney may have perfected the art of special-interest driven partisan politics, but they didn’t invent it. It was there before they came into office, and if we’re not careful it will be there after they leave. That’s what’s at stake in this election.” (Translation, the Clintons promoted special-interest driven partisan politics and electing Hillary would guarantee more of the same.)
So, what is he doing to implement this newly found change during this transitional period? First, he appoints two former high-end Clinton aides, Rahm Emanuel and John Podesta, to top advisory roles. Second, he appears to have chosen Hillary, herself, to represent the United States as Secretary of State. As one blogger put it, “The problem with the Clintons is that they’re just so exhausting…I mean, doesn’t the rest of the world hate us enough already?” Third, (in a move that squashes the faint hope conservatives were clinging to that at least Warren Buffet is/was advising him on the economy),
we have this gem from Obama economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, “I don’t know what the number is going to be, but it’s going to be a big number. It has to be. The point is to, kind of, get people back on track and startle the thing into submission.” Apparently, the “change” millions of Americans put their hope in is really just the same old players spewing the same old nonsense. Remember the Treasury’s reassuring justification for the bailout in September? “It’s not based on any particular data point. We just wanted to choose a really large number.” Uh, mister potato head, things have deteriorated since then, what makes you think another “really big number” will solve the problem now?
Thanks for nothing, America. Change we can believe in is really turning out to be more of the same crap. If this continues another two or three election cycles (more, less?) I fear we’ll all be doomed. Not necessarily because our leaders are trying to screw things up, it’s just that they, and we, continue to think and vote like they are smarter than the 800 pound gorillas in the room, like deficits, trade imbalances, over-supplied money and meddling foreign policy. (And before you McCain supporters chime in remind yourself that he was probably even dumber than Obama, as hard as that is to comprehend, on the economy and had a disposition that was even more partisan and malleable to the wrong influences.)
Moving forward
It’s beyond encouraging us to “contact our Senators”, blah, blah, blah. We can do that until we are blue in the face. But as long as we keep electing the same old goons to office we continue to guarantee the same two-faced responses. It’s time we stop pointing the finger at our elected leaders, blaming them for our problems, and take a long, hard look in the mirror. After you take that long, hard look, splash some cold water in your face (maybe give your self a slap or two on the cheeks – you know like a boxer going into the ring) and try to awake yourself to the fact that we are culpable in our political problems. After all, we are the ones voting every four years. The sooner you realize that you, whether democrat or republican, continue to get played by the same political hacks every four years, the sooner we can begin to anticipate more substantive change to come to our political system. Let’s encourage each other to continue to kick our addiction to false, promised hope every four years. Personalities don’t save nations or reverse their course. Principles and common sense, or adherence to them, do.
