Last June I urged then-candidate Barack Obama to use his presidency to transform the country for the 21st century world, not simply to repair the damage to our economy, foreign policy, and defenses done by the Bush administration. By that standard, his first three months have been a remarkable success.
Using stimulus investments, President Obama is repairing an aging infrastructure, investing in education, stimulating new technologies and inventions, and starting us toward the post-carbon economy. Instead of trying to prop up a failing 20th century economy, he is investing in the new model.
Likewise, by his early foreign travel, meetings with traditional allies, openings to former cast-off nations, willingness to listen not dictate, and commitment to the global agenda of the new century, including climate remediation, arms reduction, and poverty, he has restored our standing in the world and, by his very image, transformed the world's idea of America. We will need new alliances in this century and he has launched the effort to create them.
The transformation of our military is hindered by two ongoing, inherited wars. Even as new strategies for those wars are adopted and commitments wound down, President Obama will have the opportunity to accelerate a new agenda started by Secretary Gates. That agenda is to size, shape, and equip our forces for the low-intensity conflicts of the 21st century, not the nation-state wars of the 20th.
Mr. Emanuel is right: crises are too important to waste and the Obama administration is using the many crises it inherited not to go backward but to launch into the new century--finally.
I voted for Obama and feel betrayed on the main issues
No end for the wars
Wall Street Crooks running his Financial policy.
Both Lies ...and its bad for you.
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/05/phases-of-empire-freezing-to-death.html
The biggest Pentagon budget in history.
Still no habeus corpus for detainees.
Pouring troops into Afghanistan
Giving 2 trillion dollars to the people who own the banks while the people who have mortgages get repossessed.
Etc.
Which century, exactly, is Obama launching the US into?
There are two cliches that I believe are appropriate when looking at the Obama administration:
1. Bait and switch.
2. Dog and pony.
If in doubt, look 'em up.
I think you may be missing one perspective.
You wrote: ...President Obama will have the opportunity to accelerate a new agenda started by Secretary Gates. That agenda is to size, shape, and equip our forces for the low-intensity conflicts of the 21st century, not the nation-state wars of the 20th...
It is likely that nation-state wars are not so much a part of history as they are not currently feasable due to the sheer superiority of the U.S. Once we re-shape our military to fit and fight smaller skirmishes, we'll not dominate as we currently dominate. That could well lead to open warfare since opponents believe they may have a chance to win.
With respect,
BewareBigBrother
Most of the public (all who are being steadily immiserated and many persons of conscience who aren’t) want the growth of inequality stopped cold, and would support a Constitutional Amendment to this effect. With such an amendment, all legislative and policy measures could be subjected to an “inequality impact statement” and judicially struck if they enlarged class differences.
Senator Hart’s old boss George McGovern notes in his recent Lincoln biography that presidential-candidate Lincoln really got traction by pointing out that his newly minted Republican Party believed slavery was morally wrong and should be limited to the South, and that the Democrats believed slavery was morally right and should expand everywhere.
Today many in both parties believe inequality is morally right and should continue. President Obama’s policies are increasing inequality apace.
Inequality will dominate politics in the 21st century the way the slavery question dominated the 19th Century. On this cardinal moral issue, the Democrats are no better than the Whigs were on slavery. A new pro-equality party is waiting to be born.
Eric C. Jacobson
Public Interest Lawyer
Culver City, California
Thought so . . .
Discontinuing sending drones over Pakistan would be meaningful.
Ending the war in Iraq would be meaningful.
Ending the StarWars project in Poland would be meaningful.
Mr. Emanuel sounds as if he actually likes the fact we are being hounded with one crisis after another, as if he wants to play politics with them. That is the last thing any rational person should be doing. Perhaps he needs to go back to small-time politics in Chicago with his buddy Blagojevic, because he is obviously in way over his head on the national stage.
As far as your buzzword "post-carbon world". How exactly are we going to make that happen? I've yet to see the first plan to pursue green technology of any substance. A hybrid car is still an oil using, gas burning, hunk of junk. Same with ethanol.
Oil and oil based fuels are an 18th century technology. Bailing out Wall Street, which is a 19th century methodology, won't get us to the 21st century either. Nor will capitalism which is a 17th century ideology. A proven failure at that. And it's now come full circle in explaining the virtues of the bailout. It's not so the corps can survive, it's so that capitalism can! Sad that the capitalists would rather the country fail, than their precious ideology.
Obama isn't doing anything for the environment.
He isn't doing anything to stop our mind-set of endless war.
He isn't doing anything to assure that the behavior of the previous administration that violated our constitution and any last shred of our moral integrity will not be repeated. In fact, he, by his inaction, has assured that it will be repeated.
Is that a fair assessment?
Endless war, I was referring to what Mr. Hart said, not what President Obama has done or said. Low intensity warfare plans, sounds to me, like preparing for endless war or intervention. I guess I should have used the word POSSIBLE. I'm sure Mr. Hart was not advocating that at all, I hope. :o)
As far as his not doing anything to the previous administration, that's probably where you were most correct. By allowing it to go unpunished, means that it will be a seeming endorsement. You'll have people saying "Bush got away with it, why can't I?".
Also, what you say sounds suspiciously like the GOP's 2 biggest military failures, "do more with less" and "LEAN Concept". I served in the military during the first, when Cheney slashed our military to the bone. I served in civil service when Rumsfeld slashed our military AGAIN, with the second. While they look good on paper, they do not work in the real world. How do you think our troops ended up over in Iraq without proper supplies and equipment? It was a direct result of the lean concept which said not to stockpile anything, only to order it when you need it. Problem was, those orders took months and years to fill. By that time, as an example, many of our troops died needlessly because they weren't issued the body armor like they should have been before they ever got to Iraq.
I've said it probably 5,000 times, and I'll be happy to say it 5,000 more times. "You cannot know where you are going until you know where you have been". I don't know who said that famous quote, but it's 100% correct. It speaks more volumes to me, than does the comparative quote about those failing to learn from history. If we are ever going to get into the 20th century, let alone the 21st, we have to realize where we've been, what we've done wrong, fix those mistakes and get back on track so that we can finally get to where we need to be. Anything less will not get us to our destination.
How do you think the allies would have reacted towards us immediately following WWII if President Truman had said "My plate is full and we got this Berlin Airlift and Korean War fixing to happen, we don't have time to dwell on the past and hold any kind of trials at Nuremburg."?? Our allied countries would have went nuts. The French, most of all, would have been furious. Churchill would have wept and resigned, refusing to ever speak to an American again.
And you are asking us to surrender our moral obligations to uphold everything that is right and just?
When all is said and done, "it is the economy stupid"