US AND OBAMA

from murph

Yup, we're married now, for better or worse, in sickness and health, we are married for at least four years. Unless we want to talk about a divorce, we are going to have to get along with each other. After having lived through 8 years married to the mafia, this should be a piece of cake. I know that my cynicism over this marriage indicates that I distrust this government, just not quite as much as the Bush years. However, we got him now, got to make the best of it.

As in any relationship, there has to be mutual trust. With the Bush years, it sure seems to me that there was no trust on either side of the relationship, except in the case of the hard line civilian neocon advocates, whose numbers rapidly dwindled as time went on. Now we have the hard line Obamaites with their complete trust in the relationship.

Obama campaigned on the promise of change. Of course, I really don’t remember any campaign where change wasn’t mentioned. But, Obama made it a mantra to the great enthusiasm of a great deal of the populace. The change is supposed to be away from the excessive policies of the Bush administration. Of course, a large percentage of the population wants a change from the dreadful Bush years.

To a large extent, it depends on what changes are made, how extensive they are and how successful they are to keep this marriage going. What I question is just what changes the general part of the population really wants. I suspect that, deep down, what the population wants is a return to the blue light specials and happy motoring that they were used to. They of course, don’t want to deal with escalating cost of living, depressed housing prices, and high cost of fuel, unemployment and depressed wages for blue collar labor. Hell yes, makes sense. But, do we agree that this is going to be possible, that we can go back to what was? This is answered by what paradigm, what part of reality you believe in. I think that despite whatever intentions Obama has, the majority of the population will soon be disappointed and disillusioned with his administration because we are constrained by reality (as I see it anyway) from ever returning to what we had in the past. So despite Obama’s intentions, this country is again going to be disappointed.

Here is where the trust comes in. Depending on what people envision in whatever changes need to be made, trust in the new administration will not last long because this administration is not going to be able to meet the expectations of the general population. This is the problem with our politics in general and campaigning in general. To win elections and gain initial general support, you have to exaggerate what you will do if elected, and minimize the not possible stuff. Despite the intentions of the candidate, this is true. And, if we get a candidate who is a liar and does not have the population’s best interest at heart to begin with, we are going to get a whole bunch of shit when they are elected, as evidenced in the last 8 years of Bush. The only way Obama could get the initial trust of the population was to make promises, even if they could not be met. Can you imagine how popular he would have been if he had campaigned on the idea that all of our natural resources are depleting faster than they can be renewed, that we are going to have to radically change our way of life, that we are going to have to scale back our standards of living, that the current crop of bankers need to be eliminated from the society. He wouldn’t have gotten past the first weeks of the primary. Look at the policies that Ron Paul advocates, most of which I can agree with. He can hardly get out of the starting block on multiple attempts, despite his grass root support.

So the trust in our relationship with Obama has to be mutual. If he really advocates the necessary changes, will the population still trust him? I doubt it. When it comes down to the bottom line, the population does not want real change; it just wants one set of bums they don’t agree with out of power. Is the general population really going to reject greed, massive effects of entitlement with individual wealth, and excessive government control in the name of security? Remember when Carter was president, and warned us that this was going to happen? He was ridiculed, cursed, and driven into the margins of history on that issue alone. If Obama starts advocating austerity and having to lower standards of living and radical changes of existing life styles, the same thing will happen. If he started to really prosecute the criminals leaving the white house, the divisions in this country would intensify; I would suspect into violence.

So the end of this is whether you trust this new administration to do their best for us, the population, or not. No matter how well intentioned Obama is, no matter how much support he is able to keep, we are not going to reverse a national paradigm of the last 60 years in 4 years. That paradigm of greed is good, that we can have whatever we wish for, that we deserve all the benefits we have, that infinite growth is good and possible, is only going to go into reversal by situations over which no one has control and for which there are no solutions.

The best that I can hope for and trust in this new group of power people is that if they really do have the welfare of the population as the center of their policies and actions, that they can manage to soften the landing we are headed for as we fall off the cliff of unsustainability. Despite his charisma and intellect, he is not going to restore the happy 90’s of excess and spending. It is perhaps unfortunate that our leaders are unable to voice such sentiments. If they were, we could have been preparing for the last 30 years and suffered far less than we are sure to suffer in the future. So once more, just what do you trust Obama to do or not do? Really want a Las Vegas divorce this early in the game?

From freeacre:

Building on the “trust” issue, I am reminded of the scene in the movie when Jack Nickelson says, “Truth? You can’t handle the truth!” Trust works both ways. In any event, it needs to be earned and can be expanded upon in steps. We can decide to trust him so a certain extent, and see what happens. So far, so good, in my book.

But, he also needs to be able to trust us. How much truth are we as a nation going to be able to handle? I think he will be experimenting. Will we take the ball and run with it when he opens up the vaults that hold the formerly secret information? Will we “Be the Change” that we want to see? Will we begin to waste less? Drive less? Produce things again? Or will we go back to our slumber and just piss and moan in the face of scarcity? Will we once again wish we could just bomb any country that has resources that we want to exploit? Demand bailouts that are impossible to repay? Give the “Federal” Reserve more power? Whatever. The dye is cast. The collapse will happen – fast or slow.

We need to see what he will do. And, I think, he needs to see what we are willing to do.

Hopefully, there will be a transformation in this country after we experience the hardships implicit in the fast crash scenario. The best case scenario would be that we could build a society based on the traditional harmonious ways of the original people who were here when the pilgrims landed, combined with some of the best innovations since then that would work in the new paradigm. The worst case would probably look like FEMA camps and the corporate New World Order imposed by the goon squads.

We are walking a tightrope here. Personally, I plan to just put one foot in front of the other and hope to get to the other side. That side is gonna be free. It’s going to be sustainable. And, it’s going to honor those who have died to make it so.