The Dichotomies Stirred up by Obama


I think if nothing else, Obama has been successful in stirring up a swirling riptide of dichotomies within us, especially those who claim a liberal bias, because we are uncertain of his commitment and/or follow through and whether he would trade off our loyalties for one republican vote.

Elusive success is more a measure of action than honeyed words. What troubles me is that beyond the words, the tangible stuff that begins with a good foundation, does not seem terribly keen or well thought out. And we don’t have to go very far to see examples of that. Consider the bail-outs and the rescue attempts, the job programs and health care. Although they represented an improvement over what had transpired in the prior eight years—which amounted to nothing, they seemed almost taped together with baling wire and spit. And who are the architects responsible? The experts. Think about it. Perhaps what was most surprising was the fact that he showed his talent for accommodation by selecting those who were most commonly associated with the disasters of the past. These were the experts on fiscal policy, banking, and massaging the numbers. Well, to the rest of us, those bona fides are in question today.

Will Obama’s programs be rejected for being unclear, not fully thought out and open to distortion or misinterpretation? That’s bad enough but when you factor in the pressure from Republican obstructionists it seems that we, the people, will never wind up with a fair shake. Mind you, that it is clear that our minions in Congress have not gathered their forces or shown their spleen. Is this a precursor to some impending great movement that still does not have its standard bearer? It’s hard to say.

Truth to tell, Obama is a fascinating and beguiling character. He is at once the Renaissance man, a man of style and dignity and representative of the penultimate “coolness; ” yet we still harbor reservations that are not quite tangible enough to put a finger on.

And yet, when you reflect on it all, the tendency is to say, “Now, come on. Don’t be so hard on the guy. After all, nobody’s perfect.”

Yes, I know he has been the most visible, most intelligent spokesman that this country has had in recent memory and most are thankful that we got rid of the cowboy in Toy Story at any cost. Obama, is clearly no ideologue; but a pragmatist willing to negotiate to cut a deal. Overall, he humbles us with his ability to hit just the right tone in his messages and convey the feeling that “you get it.”

So, in the final analysis, what could it be that nags at us?

Could it be that what he considers a plus is for us a failure of will or commitment? Do we question whether his heart and his mind are traveling in the same direction?

For me, I resonate with what he says. It is in the methodology and the execution that I take issue with. Is that a real concern or something that my paranoid self has dreamt up? It is almost as if I am concerned that he is so anxious for acceptance, that what will be left of any proposition is the bones with the meat having been shredded off in his attempts to please the rival cabals of special interests. Yet, despite all that he is willing to do, he has been largely unsuccessful at winning converts from the other side of the aisle. Is this instructive? Are the Republicans such obstructionists, that they will stab themselves in the foot before they even give one droplet of their special bodily fluids to serve the people. Put in prosaic terms, are they even worth the effort?

Let me cite an example, in the beginning of his term of office, Obama made it quite clear that his government was going to be moving forward and not seeking to dredge up the past or pin blame on others. This was going to be a positive administration committed to addressing the problems of America in 2009.

That might have been the noble thing to do, or maybe the most expedient considering the the number and complexity of critical issues on his plate and our own doubts as to whether anyone could make Humpty Dumpty whole again.

But how exactly was he going to win over a recalcitrant republican party to his side when it seemed crystal clear that they were unable, or unwilling, to agree on anything; when they looked more like the Katzenjammer kids willing to throw a monkey wrench to fowl up the works wherever they could. Moreover, despite their dysfunctionality, they all had developed long term amnesia and saw little connection between the events of the last eight years and their own commitment to conservative principles.

Take this a step further. The model of Republican chutzpah was set by Paulson, who insisted that we would have to cough up over 700 billion dollars for bail-outs of the banks or the whole country would surely face a looming disaster of unbelievable proportions. (He seemed to forget that by our vote, we had already given the administration carte blanche to commit murder and mayhem in our names.) Anyway, we bought it, accepting the Henny Penny outlook in order to avert disaster.
If anything, Paulson has to be the poster-boy of what can be done through brinkmanship combined with the narrowest perspective that believes anything outside of Wall Street is not worth thinking about. After all, it is all about profits; and always has been.

And Paulson pulled it off without extracting good terms or the cooperation of the banks to buttress up Main Street, a coup that will be long remembered by the left for leaving the rest of us hanging.

The Devil seems to be in the details of this administration.

In bringing in those responsible for the abuses to address the abuses, Obama set a tone indicating that the platform of the left was no longer relevant to the kind of compromises and good guy tactics that were necessary to placate the big money and the “influentials” he needed on his team.. Maybe there is some logic to that because they are probably the only one’s left who remember how the system can be made to work. But that is more cynical than truth.

What came out of it was the fact that even we, lowly peons, discovered that we know as much as the experts. Who can forget the two leading experts on finance sitting before Charlie Rose with their eyes glazed over and their mouths hanging open . It was not pretty.

I do remember that at the height of the Wall Street collapse, all of the Wall Street gurus started to speak in tongues; no one had a solution and it was clear, that words alone were not going to change the outcome. Moreover, it was clear that self-interest was alive and well, and that all of the guilty were not as interested in Redemption as they were hoping for the chance to live another day. And it worked! (Unless, you include Lehman Brothers.) You don’t have to go much further than the way AIG managed to get bailed out with its scheme of insurance for the banks something that nobody could understand or do without, it seemed.

So, it seems, that beginning with day one, we were compromised by the Wall Street gurus now popping up on “our side.”

And this kind of failure seemed to resonate through all legislation.

Yes, it wasn’t long before the new Administration came out with a rescue program to get business up and running again. Only, in the application and methodology, it didn’t seem to accomplish anything. It turned out that some audacious States even used the money not to build jobs but to balance the budget. To date, no discussion of accountability.

Where were the jobs?

And what kind of programs were being envisioned for small business?—the largest employer of the nation’s work force. Despite how some of us tried to get through, it was clear that this search for new ideas was not going to go much beyond Somers and company.

This gave even more reason for us not to excuse the past.

Whether we liked it or not, the facts were known to us. Government had allowed the private sector to go “off-shore” to lower costs and overhead.

A loss to American workers!

Never mind, we were still buying into the idea that services could replace manufacturing and that services were “clean” and manufacturing “dirty.” In short, we had been sold a bill of goods that our media never picked up on or investigated. The trouble with that idea was that it was wrong from virtually every angle. Service sector jobs did not displace manufacturing and never would. And any of the government’s accountants should have been able to tell him that. Nor would the promise of “off-shoring” help Americans keep their jobs or maintain a quality of life.

The fact that companies were acquired, merged, and disenfranchised virtually overnight, or bought out by foreign interests, didn’t seem to penetrate; neither did the concept of “down sizing” which was heralded as being in the best interests of American business and industry; when, in truth, it was simply another device to make the rich richer. And the American people in their naiveté, simply lapped it up.

And this development which raged for years, in combination of all of the other slipping and sliding that the Bush people allowed, only set us up for what was to come.

The truth was that we were rapidly morphing into a retail nation with Walmart leading the pack. Today, over 1700 of Walmart’s top 1900 suppliers are based in Asia.
And we might say, well, they’re only one example. It’s not as simple as that. Walmart is a retail category unto itself. It does more business in sheer volume than all of the other major retailers combined. So, it’s a decision that should weigh heavily on those who decide policy at the highest levels.

Nor does current policy pay attention to the Immigration problem. More than 12 million illegal aliens perform all kinds of jobs in this country and for the most part, who happily for the die-hards, weaken the strength of unions. And isn’t winning what it’s all about?,

Then, too, America, under Clinton, had jammed through legislation called NAFTA that was supposed to level the playing field for business; but it had just the opposite effect. In fact, few Congressman read the legislation prepared by the lobbyists before the vote and, today, we have to live with it.

Sadly, I doubt whether anyone has read the small print. NAFTA has resulted in many jobs going to places like India and China with no corresponding bounce for American manufacturers.

Further, most of the companies who have left our shores are no longer paying taxes to the US further depriving our country of the benefits that allowed these companies to arise and become successful in the first place.

But this is only the beginning. Our schools are being tapped into by private interests so that the great research efforts that spawned a good part of our growth in the fifties and sixties are no longer functioning as pure research facilities despite the fact that they operate here, receive government funding that comes from taxpayer sources.

So, we need to look into that as well.

For the most part, America is in hock to its creditors. For most of the advanced world, America simply exports raw materials, natural resources and agricultural products and imports manufactured goods. We do not make a TV in the US any longer and we do not even have a machine tool industry even if we wanted to start a new industry.

It is disgraceful. We owe China over 8 trillion dollars. And we are indebted to Japan, England, Saudi Arabia. Under the present way of looking at trade, America has become a colony selling its natural resources, scrap and agricultural products and importing finished goods. Sad beyond words!

Here’s what I propose to get America moving again. We reverse the polarity of our sinking fortunes and cancel all of the policies of the last eight years, dismantle NAFTA and the South American agreement and take our country back from those who would sell us down the river to satisfy their own self-aggrandizing interests.

In the interests of a kind of harmony and a spirit of working together, we have set aside the past; by the same token, those who could move health care and other concerns forward, have chosen to ignore what’s happened in the past and have not let down their
aggressive obstruction of all pending legislation in health care, control of banking, approval of executive appointments, global warming, etc. Perhaps, they need to be reminded of what they condoned over their last eight years when they were responsible to the American people’s protection and welfare.

It is my thesis, that if we want jobs, if we want respect, if we want to reconnect and kick-start our business and industry, we need to get back to fundamentals and that means getting rid of all of the programs of the last eight years and changing the way America does things. And if the Republicans don’t like our kick-ass posture, tough!

Les Aaron
The Armchair Curmudgeon