Hope and change: two words that came to embody the campaign of Barack Obama. It was believed that Mr. Obama would bring hope to the needy and the downtrodden, and change to the marginalized, the poor, and the pained. Of course, at the time many of us wondered if the promise of these things was quite simply: too good to be true.
Though we are only six months into his administration, it seems that our apprehensions were entirely too correct. Instead it appears that all of the talk about Obama being some sort of post-racial Messiah sent to save us from our own short-sightedness is merely an awful lot of hype. And the change promised by Obama? It weighs down the future of every man, woman, child, or business that ever believed they could become something more like a ball and chain clamped to their ankle.
The Obama Administration speaks of restoring relations with the world, and yet they continue to bungle diplomatic events with wrongly-encoded DVDs and mistranslated buttons. Obama's spent his time abroad bowing and apologizing to the other nations only to have his meager requests of them laughed off. Meanwhile, those enemies who have emulated my raptor friends fromJurassic Park
Instead of helping to bring change to an Iranian people longing to be free of a corrupt and oppressive government, the Obama Administration stood with its nose upturned as though it was none of our business, despite the protestors' desperate attempts to use every means available to seek our support. In so doing, President Obama left the protestors yelping like dogs held back from their goals by their leashes.
Obama was described as a thoughtful leader who would surround himself with independent-minded, bi-partisan thinkers to solve the economic crisis. Instead, we see tax cheats, lobbyists, hyper-partisans, and radicals leading the charge on everything from the economy to health care, and unelected, never-vetted Czars in charge of major aspects of US policy.
The change he brought to our economy has come with the shackles imposed by accepting government funds. GM lost a CEO and control over their dealerships for their bailout money. Creditors lost their investments to union bosses. AIG employees lost their privacy. Even state governors have had the manacles slapped onto their wrists so that they can be force-fed the pork-fried Stimulus money.
Indeed, the Stimulus was touted as an instant solution to our economic woes, designed to "create or save" (a nonsensical euphemism if there ever was one) three to four million jobs. When unemployment continued to skyrocket and the economy failed to move in any direction but down, the administration had no choice but to walk back the hype in favor of whimpering that we all misunderstood, that the Stimulus was merely to blunt the sharp point of the recession and provide long term economic assistance.
And then there's health care. Obama has spent months on the stump trying desperately to make Americans believe that their health care is terrible, and that he and only he has the solution to their problem: a government option. President Obama is so certain of this that he believed he could drive it through Congress in a mere month, and certainly the power with which he has been embodied made this nearly believable. But, not only has he failed to meet that goal, he has lost total control of the issue as well, if he ever had it.
In the midst of his attempt to regain said control, President Obama knocked just that much more sparkle off his shiny facade by proving his post-racial identity to be merely more hype. He was quick to ally himself with the idea that the arrest of Professor Gates by Officer Crowley was both stupid and racially motivated in the same breath as his admission that he did not have all the facts.
Obama's change for Officer Crowley was to slap the cuffs of a racism accusation on the man and toss him to the rabid animals of the national media with whom not even this King Lizard would dare tangle.
So here we are, and like Jacob Marley moaning at Ebenezer Scrooge, I implore my fellow citizens to feel the weight of the links Obama is attaching to us. See through the glossy veneer of his polished exterior and realize that he is not about hope and change; he is about hype and chains.
Though we are only six months into his administration, it seems that our apprehensions were entirely too correct. Instead it appears that all of the talk about Obama being some sort of post-racial Messiah sent to save us from our own short-sightedness is merely an awful lot of hype. And the change promised by Obama? It weighs down the future of every man, woman, child, or business that ever believed they could become something more like a ball and chain clamped to their ankle.
The Obama Administration speaks of restoring relations with the world, and yet they continue to bungle diplomatic events with wrongly-encoded DVDs and mistranslated buttons. Obama's spent his time abroad bowing and apologizing to the other nations only to have his meager requests of them laughed off. Meanwhile, those enemies who have emulated my raptor friends from
Instead of helping to bring change to an Iranian people longing to be free of a corrupt and oppressive government, the Obama Administration stood with its nose upturned as though it was none of our business, despite the protestors' desperate attempts to use every means available to seek our support. In so doing, President Obama left the protestors yelping like dogs held back from their goals by their leashes.
Obama was described as a thoughtful leader who would surround himself with independent-minded, bi-partisan thinkers to solve the economic crisis. Instead, we see tax cheats, lobbyists, hyper-partisans, and radicals leading the charge on everything from the economy to health care, and unelected, never-vetted Czars in charge of major aspects of US policy.
The change he brought to our economy has come with the shackles imposed by accepting government funds. GM lost a CEO and control over their dealerships for their bailout money. Creditors lost their investments to union bosses. AIG employees lost their privacy. Even state governors have had the manacles slapped onto their wrists so that they can be force-fed the pork-fried Stimulus money.
Indeed, the Stimulus was touted as an instant solution to our economic woes, designed to "create or save" (a nonsensical euphemism if there ever was one) three to four million jobs. When unemployment continued to skyrocket and the economy failed to move in any direction but down, the administration had no choice but to walk back the hype in favor of whimpering that we all misunderstood, that the Stimulus was merely to blunt the sharp point of the recession and provide long term economic assistance.
And then there's health care. Obama has spent months on the stump trying desperately to make Americans believe that their health care is terrible, and that he and only he has the solution to their problem: a government option. President Obama is so certain of this that he believed he could drive it through Congress in a mere month, and certainly the power with which he has been embodied made this nearly believable. But, not only has he failed to meet that goal, he has lost total control of the issue as well, if he ever had it.
In the midst of his attempt to regain said control, President Obama knocked just that much more sparkle off his shiny facade by proving his post-racial identity to be merely more hype. He was quick to ally himself with the idea that the arrest of Professor Gates by Officer Crowley was both stupid and racially motivated in the same breath as his admission that he did not have all the facts.
Obama's change for Officer Crowley was to slap the cuffs of a racism accusation on the man and toss him to the rabid animals of the national media with whom not even this King Lizard would dare tangle.
So here we are, and like Jacob Marley moaning at Ebenezer Scrooge, I implore my fellow citizens to feel the weight of the links Obama is attaching to us. See through the glossy veneer of his polished exterior and realize that he is not about hope and change; he is about hype and chains.
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