Obama Fails As Schoolyard Bully
Politics / US Politics Aug 21, 2014 - 10:57 AM GMTBy: Raul_I_Meijer
When I think about what an American president should do, and should be, the first thing that pops into my mind is (s)he should be a peacemaker. It would seem to be the no. 1 requirement for someone who’s the leader of the most powerful nation on the planet, and therefore the leader of the free world.
If that person is not a peacemaker, if (s)he is not focused on diffusing trouble and violence when and where they rear their ugly heads, how could the entire world possibly not be in a state of perpetual warfare? But here we are, there’s no such American leader in sight, and the prospects of one appearing anytime soon are zero.
Despite what anyone might say or claim, and many will do just that, today America makes war, not peace. A lot of people tell a lot of stories of how and why the American Empire is winding down, but they’re usually talking about the US dollar or energy resources or the rise of China.
For me, it’s the failure of the strongest power in the hood to maintain peace and calm, that tells the story in the clearest terms. If the leader doesn’t just not keep the peace, but actively ignites battles, all the rest are doomed to fight amongst each other until either the end of time, or the end of the leader’s prominence, whichever comes first.
Today, as we look at what goes on in Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, the Gaza Strip, there’s no way we can say the US hasn’t had a stoke-the-fire role in each of these conflicts, and in most cases has even been the main instigator. If you’re the biggest bully on the block, and you keep on bullying people, your days are numbered. It’s the law of the jungle.
Once you’re on top, expectations and responsibilities change. You just went from conquering the fort to holding the fort. And that change is very hard to make. Then again, it’s not as if no-one in 20th century American history ever had an idea of how it works. Robert Kennedy. Ron Paul.
But today American policy is made in the headquarters of Big Oil, the military-industrial complex and Wall Street. All of whom stand to profit hugely from chaos and bloodshed in foreign countries, and won’t shy away, never have, from putting American boots on the ground if they feel that will boost their profits. Boots worn by kids who know the army is their only chance at ever getting a real education, but never make it back home.
This was inevitable from the moment money was allowed to enter US politics, and it inevitably got stronger over time, until it culminated in the recent Supreme Court decision that there should be no effective limits to how much influence the rich can purchase themselves in Washington.
And if you’ve got the cash to buy yourselves the best writers and spin doctors in the world, you can maintain the illusion of democracy, of one man one vote, for a very long time. We all witness that principle on a daily basis. It can be done. People can be made to believe they live in a democracy, that they live in a nation and a political system where their voice counts and has real meaning, for long after they stopped having any voice at all.
It takes those same spin doctors, it takes control over all relevant media (and you decide what’s relevant), and it takes the best speech writers, but since money is no object, why worry, you can always buy better spinners and media and writers than anyone else.
You can’t lose. You have complete control. You can buy the government, the media, and what’s more, through the advertizing industry, you can buy the picture people have of them, and of you.
No matter what harm bankers and oil drillers and gunmakers engage in, they can make sure the public sees them in a favorable light. It may not seem that way at first blush, but remember, the banking/oil/military complex doesn’t need you to love them, only to not hate them, to not demand their downfall. And they’re very successful in that.
Who calls for Exxon to be swept from the face of the earth, or JPMorgan, or Boeing? Nobody. That’s all these firms need, given what’s left of the democracy we once aspired to be. As long as they have that, they can continue to manipulate prices for oil and gold and American homes and jobs as much as they want, for their own benefit and at the cost of everyone else.
America’s role as instigator in theaters like Ukraine – which can be blamed on Putin -, in Iraq – plenty of potential bad guys there – remains hidden thanks to the usual suspects, NY Times, WSJ, Bloomberg etc, let alone CNN and Fox, all of which claim independence, and all were long since purchased hook, line, sinker and fishing pond.
Even inside America, how are things different exactly? The first black president prefers Martha’s Vineyard to a visit to the first serious racial riots since he got the job. Not exactly hands on, to say the least. Or a peacemaker. More like just another neighborhood bully, or a ‘representative’ of that bully. Even worse.
Obama should have been in Ferguson at least a week ago. The fact that he didn’t go has me worried about all those places just like Ferguson, where jobs and conditions and prospects have gotten much worse for so many young black – and white – people, and where “authorities” seem only too eager to show of their power and their new federal government issued toys, which scream ‘overkill’ from all angles, and were purchased with borrowed money.
I wish I could say this is not going anywhere. It is going somewhere though. Just not anywhere you or I should want to go. But we have been pre-empted, what we think or feel no longer matters. The system decides, fully independent from what we as participants in this democracy are legally entitled to, and are supposed to do: guide our nations’ policies towards what we want, not what a handful of corporate interests want.
We lost that. We no longer have any influence on what Obama decides, or Congress, or the next president. It’s gone.
By Raul Ilargi Meijer
Website: http://theautomaticearth.com (provides unique analysis of economics, finance, politics and social dynamics in the context of Complexity Theory)
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