Ms. Altman, your main point is the same as the Presidents. Namely, if the previous administration hadn't screwed up so royally, we wouldn't be in this quagmire to begin with. I agree wholeheartedly with this. I don't want to qualify you, but based on previous ideological discussions we've had, it's safe to say that, like me, you are someone who soured on Republican ideas and tactics during the GWB administration. I was someone who drank the Cool-Aid for far too long.
My position in the original post was not necessarily as clear as I would've hoped. I don't expect any President to perform miracles, nor do I expect him to fix a broken economy, force health care through two houses of Congress and end two wars. That would be far, far too much to ask.
My main contention with the Obama administration thus far, is that he hasn't been able to ride the optimism we all felt this time one year ago into any sort of positive change in Washington. Furthermore, the level of debate in this country seems to have been lowered to the standards of people like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, who use no level of logic or sense in their debate, but somehow are the voices conservatives seem to be listening to. The fact that some are still talking about the legitimacy of our Presidents birth certificate is maddening to me. The fact that Palin is still getting press is ridiculous. Based on the optimism I felt last Janurary we should be coming closer together and figuring out the best way to solve our problems, not shouting across the aisle and having cable "news" channels advocating tea parties that all seem to have hints of racism in their chanting.
I know my argument is impatient. And I can't expect the culture of some areas of this country to change overnight. All I want is something to hang my hat on from the last year. Maybe I'm asking for too much, seeing as how his whole campaign was so inspirational. I just want more "Yes We Can," and less "Well, we're working on it."
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I'll be very frank and honest and say that I have no hope in Obama. The health care legislation is terrible, and does nothing but pander to Big Pharma and the insurance companies. Sending more troops to Afghanistan is ridiculous and dumb and the Afghans don't want us there. His 'just war' theory in Oslo sounds great, but Obama defies that ideal just by being in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan.
Obama's rhetoric, while intelligent and thought-provoking, is completely divergent from his actions. He is supposedly 'closing' Guantanamo Bay in January -- not gonna happen. He is actually starting to build many enormous detention centers in the United States borders that will house former Guantanamo detainees. (And who knows who else they will house in the future? A fact which, frankly, scares the crap out of me.) But will the detainees be given a fair trial? No. Will some of them continue in detainment without even being charged with a crime? Yes.
I could go on and on. Obama, unfortunately, is more of the same. He is not the 'socialist' the right claims he is. He's actually more of a friend to them than he is to progressives.
It seems to me, Steph, that the more liberal I get, you just HAVE to up the ante!!
All kidding aside, as much as I want the problems of the last administration to just go away, I don't think it is responsible for that to be the case. Unfortunately, the legacy of the last administration is this mess in the Middle East. Bush claimed that his surge in Iraq worked, blah blah blah, but the surge shouldn't have been necessary because the war itself wasn't necessary. Meanwhile, the situation in Afghanistan was getting worse. I'm sure you know all of this, and have a counterpoint, but at the end of the day, we should have to clean up our messes. It is difficult to begin applying the Obama doctrine when the Bush doctrine did nothing but completely screw up two countries.
It is sad to me that you have lost hope. I hope that something can happen in the coming year that can restore even a glimmer of your faith in this country. (OK, now I'm sounding like a Frank Capra movie...)
Haha, I know, I'm pretty liberal.
I don't think there's any justification for the surge in troops in Afghanistan. If we really want to help the country, there should be sustained efforts at development, infrastructure, etc. Unfortunately, that's not where the attention is being put. I believe it was actually today that I read this: the Taliban is offering to provide legal guarantees to the U.S. that they will not use Afghanistan as a staging ground to attack other countries. The condition for these guarantees is that foreign troops be withdrawn, but thus far this offer has been ignored by the Obama administration.
Obama, in many ways, is just extending Bush's policies. He made 'secret' deals (got caught) with Big Pharma, didn't even consider the option of withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, and blankly said that the U.S. will not reduce its carbon emissions, to name a few things. I would recommend reading Glenn Greenwald on salon.com, if you don't already. He's an amazingly intelligent and rational guy, and really enlightens me to the many, many things that don't get reported in big newspapers or television media, but are REALLY important for the American people to process. Also, the Fault Lines documentaries on Al Jazeera English are really, really awesome.
And yes, it occurs to me that I have probably lost hope because I'm dwelling on the bad. But it's important to criticize one's government; our representatives should be held accountable for their decisions (which is a sentiment I think you would agree with).
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