Conservatives are constantly talking about Obama's "radical, far-left agenda."
"At last!", I said. Hearing their whines and complaints I became hopeful that our government would finally serve We, the People instead of the big corporations and the wealthy.
But then, looking around for the change that conservatives were denouncing, I couldn't find any signs of it at all! What in the world have they been talking about?!
Finally I came across a whisper of change: The Quiet Revolution | The New Republic,
Yet there is one extremely consequential area where Obama has done just about everything a liberal could ask for--but done it so quietly that almost no one, including most liberals, has noticed. Obama's three Republican predecessors were all committed to weakening or even destroying the country's regulatory apparatus: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the other agencies that are supposed to protect workers and consumers by regulating business practices. Now Obama is seeking to rebuild these battered institutions. ... Taken as a whole, Obama's revival of these agencies is arguably the most significant accomplishment of his first year in office.
OK, I get it. Obama's "radical agenda" is to undo the failed conservative radical agenda that destroyed the government and the economy, restoring the government to minimal operation.
Well, that's something, anyway. Sigh.
But my own gauge of a return to actual governance by rule of law is when I open my morning paper here in Silicon Valley and see that the government is going after a few companies for age discrimination. Never mind prosecuting people for torture, illegally invading a country, crony capitalism, or destroying the country. No, I'll believe that radical change is beginning when they are willing to take on something so blatant , obvious and wrong as the firing of people when they reach 40 or so that is going on here in front of everyone's eyes out here.
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF). I am a Fellow with CAF.