No Right
I am beginning to wonder about President Obama's strategy of leading government in such a way as to completely ignore the existence of the right. It started with his decision to "go forward" instead of looking back at the mistakes we have made. The problem I have with that is that if we don't admit our mistakes and deal with them appropriately, then all we really are doing is living in denial.
I can't help but think that this is how the world must be looking at America now, that America as a whole with Obama as our leader is living in denial of what we have done to it, how our bad policies and false beliefs have impacted the rest of the world, have left the world feeling threatened by our perception of American "interests" and security. For decades now we have lived as though it wasn't the world's interests and the world's security that was at stake, but only our own. Even in globalization our intent was to strengthen our own national interests above all else. The world perceives us this way because this is the way we have been doing things. This is how America's leaders have been programming her people.
Obama wants to change the way the world perceives us.
I'm all for that change but it seems to me like we are skipping the most important step. Obama is going ahead and telling the world voila! We changed! But he's doing it without the consent of the American people. That's the issue I have. And it can't be possible that the world is so gullible as to believe that Obama actually has worked out our consent.
One obvious way to know this is to look at the reaction of the right. These Obama "changes" are making the political right in America squirm in their seats, in Congress, in the conservative media and blogs, in politics. Everybody knows that the right wants to get power back and reverse Obama's "change". That in itself is enough to convince any thinking person in this world to take Obama's promises with a grain - no, a bag - of salt.
But I seriously doubt that the problem is that shallow. The things Obama is talking about now are things that many, if not even the majority, of politicians on the left have not been pushing for. When Obama says he wants a world without nuclear weapons, that America is committing itself to such a goal, shouldn't he have already won that debate here in America? Hadn't the world noticed that Obama isn't speaking for the American majority there? Why not? Because we haven't had that debate. Obama's election didn't happen because of that debate. Congress hasn't had that debate. The American people haven't spoken on that issue. The majority hasn't been won yet. And the world can easily see this fact.
So because of that, because it appears that Obama is not debating the opposition as much as he is simply ignoring it, the world knows that Obama's words are just jive talk.
And that is a problem.
I can't help but think that this is how the world must be looking at America now, that America as a whole with Obama as our leader is living in denial of what we have done to it, how our bad policies and false beliefs have impacted the rest of the world, have left the world feeling threatened by our perception of American "interests" and security. For decades now we have lived as though it wasn't the world's interests and the world's security that was at stake, but only our own. Even in globalization our intent was to strengthen our own national interests above all else. The world perceives us this way because this is the way we have been doing things. This is how America's leaders have been programming her people.
Obama wants to change the way the world perceives us.
I'm all for that change but it seems to me like we are skipping the most important step. Obama is going ahead and telling the world voila! We changed! But he's doing it without the consent of the American people. That's the issue I have. And it can't be possible that the world is so gullible as to believe that Obama actually has worked out our consent.
One obvious way to know this is to look at the reaction of the right. These Obama "changes" are making the political right in America squirm in their seats, in Congress, in the conservative media and blogs, in politics. Everybody knows that the right wants to get power back and reverse Obama's "change". That in itself is enough to convince any thinking person in this world to take Obama's promises with a grain - no, a bag - of salt.
But I seriously doubt that the problem is that shallow. The things Obama is talking about now are things that many, if not even the majority, of politicians on the left have not been pushing for. When Obama says he wants a world without nuclear weapons, that America is committing itself to such a goal, shouldn't he have already won that debate here in America? Hadn't the world noticed that Obama isn't speaking for the American majority there? Why not? Because we haven't had that debate. Obama's election didn't happen because of that debate. Congress hasn't had that debate. The American people haven't spoken on that issue. The majority hasn't been won yet. And the world can easily see this fact.
So because of that, because it appears that Obama is not debating the opposition as much as he is simply ignoring it, the world knows that Obama's words are just jive talk.
And that is a problem.
posted by Bill | 8:21 AM
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