Obama’s Like an Overripe Fruit
How exhausted would you be after enduring this year’s campaign marathon? Should be an Olympic event. Maybe 2012. For now, we see article after article declaring that Obama is squashy like an overripe fruit. That the public is tiring of his rhetoric, his polish, his thoughtfulness, his FLIP-FLOPPING AND QUESTIONABLE STANCES ON IMPORTANT ISSUES.
Hmmm. I beg to differ on these charges. I had my doubts about Obama’s veracity. I thought it might all be too good to be true. And with feisty Russians and uppity Koreans, and how-dare-those-Chinese-women to even THINK they’d beat us in beach volleyball, one feels the need for someone with a strong support of US interests and safety and less-so about a nuanced approach to complex foreign policy “opportunities”. But that’s knee-jerk, fear talking. The world is a scary place and what I want more than ever is a SANE person (unlike the one we have now) sitting in the White House. What I want is someone with the depth and the capacity to understand the mind-boggling variables that go into making Foreign Policy decisions. This would be Obama. McCain could be good; he’s seen and experienced that area where few of us take our thoughts: the front lines where the blood and bullets fly. He’d make decisions that reflect his compassion for the men and women who fight the wars we fund.
But do you know what I really want? More than anything? Someone who won’t be on the ballot. Someone who maybe doesn’t exist right now (unless he’s Ron Paul, who had some things very right). I want a president, an entire executive branch AND a congress, that does not engage in overextending our presence, our hegemony, in areas where we don’t belong. The Bush Administration sent troops into Iraq in a bold-faced, illegal attempt to establish a US presence in an oil-producing country. WTF? We are the country capable of innovation and popular effort on a huge scale. Voluntarily. We don’t need to invade and coerce other countries to get our way like jerk-bullies on the playground. We need to pull back and stop trying to cram democracy down the world’s throat. Why? Because one of our values is diversity. We can let other systems work. The Chinese are a great example of an entirely different culture and approach to government that works well for the billions of people for whom the system orchestrates order. They don’t have democracy. They don’t need it. Something I’m clear about? I don’t need them to have it!
So Dear Mr. President-Elect, whoever you may be, please reel it back in. Please don’t tow the crusty old rotten line of nation-building or corporate entitlement that drags us into senseless wars where we don’t need to be. Please be sane, and you know what? Please do be “nuanced” but only so that we understand
that though your approach is answering complex questions, we’re sure you have the AMERICAN PEOPLE and not American Interests in mind when you respond to all those scary global situations that call for decisiveness.
George said it best, George Washington that is:
It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world.
Because we’re past our prime, hopefully, as an empire builder, let’s slow down peacefully and gracefully. Let’s divest our resources from the gulping, cash-hungry maw of mistaken entanglements. I’m hoping Obama thinks somewhere along these lines, but cynically, we know he can’t say what he truly believes and get his campaign financed.