Not Counterfeit--Ingenuous

This goes somewhat contrary to my Obama thesis, which states that our prez has been stymied by events and the subterfuge of Wall Street and those whose interests demand a continuous raid on global resources, and thus perpetual war.

My argument is that Obama might have been a pacifist with an egalitarian streak, a man who started out a dreamer but soon--very soon--learned the lessons of realpolitik in the "New American Century."  Remember--that right-wing plan began as a "project,"  but it is very real now.

More than any politician I can recall in my lifetime, he was molded by real power.  He came to the fray empty-handed--if not empty-headed--without an ideology, without a plan.  His rhetoric appealed to people tired of the aggression of Bush and Cheney, but a condition of his acceptance by real power said he would have to continue the Afghanistan War and redouble efforts to deny all of Central Asia while making a move in Africa.

He was assigned with putting down every insurgency around the globe that threatened U.S. hegemony.  He had to join the thieves or be run out.  He chose to play the game of his masters, the people who gave him the best job he's ever regretted.  (Obama didn't act like a man who cared if he won or not in '12; more the other fellow was so bad that even the prez's obvious disinterest couldn't oust him.)

Illustrative of his entry, and in hindsight his guaranteed failure, was his initial handling of the Iraq War when it was given to him like a hot potato. Such a man of peace was he that he couldn't imagine a continued occupation of that country--a war and occupation he never believed in.  But things were so destabilized by the fiasco that he couldn't escape its terrible consequences, now playing out.

West calls him a conniver and "counterfeit."  I say he was in the beginning ingenuous.  I blame modern capitalism rather than the man bogged down by its untenable machinations. I say he is a domestic victim of empire's appetites--no less than a U.S. worker whose job has been shipped overseas or a black man gunned down by authority on a U.S. street corner.

That isn't to insinuate that I like or support anything he does. Quite the opposite.  Unless our very quest is altered and the U.S. gets off its global resources panic and changes, we'll destroy ourselves.

It's not just a few celebrities who are suicidal these days.


TS