Obama Disaster

I saw a Dailykos article by Badabing in which TheAtomicA commented that Obama was super-ambitious and wanted to be remembered as a great president, and bruh1 commented that America is already off the cliff and that Obama’s policies aren’t reflecting that fact, so defending him doesn’t make sense given the emergency. These are two thoughts I’ve been having. Here are the quotes:

TheAtomicA: “His ambition was clearly to be remembered in history as one of the great Presidents. I don't know if we've ever had a more ambitious President in regards to that -certainly not in my lifetime.”

bruh1: “I am trying to get beyond the he said, she said or partisan/ideological divides to bring into play a real historic understanding of the politicians we are seeing in the Democratic Party, and their inadequate response to the task in front of them. i recently realized if this were 1990 Obama would be fine. But, its 2010, and we are over the cliff, so he's not.”

Obama wants to be popular like Reagan and Clinton, so he has a mix of their policies, but America is in a mess because of Reagan and Clinton (plus Bush II) and while America could cope with Reagan and Clinton’s policies to some extent in the 80s and 90s, America is broken now, and those policies are now very dangerous.

Neoliberalism, war, and high defence budgets are crazy, but especially so in this environment. Add Bush II’s “security” policies of torture, domestic spying, detention without trial, execution of American citizens abroad, etc., and Obama is a complete disaster. He had the greatest opportunity imaginable when he entered office, but he was stuck in his old dream of being a popular president like Reagan and Clinton, and so he missed the boat. His enneagram type is 3, so he figured if he does what all the popular people do, then he can’t go wrong. Oops.

Beware: security departments and companies gradually merge into a mindless machine

Disturbingly, Obama is following Bush in increasing America’s security apparatus. In the process he is gradually wearing down privacy laws and merging the public and private sector.

As government security departments and private security companies grow and merge, that merged entity gradually becomes a machine with its own logic. This is especially problematic when it's all secret and outside of Congressional or Judicial review.

If you accidentally fall into one of that machine's "bad guy" categories, then the machine automatically sees itself as correct and disappears you to Guantanamo or wherever.

Even money won't protect you. Fame is about the only way you can be safe. That's because the world notices when famous people go missing. At least Paris Hilton will be safe.

IMO, the important thing to ask is why have such a vast security machine? It is obviously the case that either the government is overestimating the threat (even a nuke attack is unimportant in the big scheme of things) or it's a deliberate power/money grab. In other words, it is either stupid or corrupt.

And wouldn't it be better for the government to work on making America more ethical and an attractive role model than to bomb nations, torture people, and spy on its own citizens?

Happiness is more important than "security" and money.