Change Anyone?

The American voters, and those of us around the world who were wholeheartedly behind Barack Obama’s election should have read the fine print below the taglines “Change” and “Hope” on his campaign signs and posters. The American people should have demanded to know exactly what “Change” he wished to bring to the country, and how much “Hope” the American people should have for a better future.

There are over 40 million Americans without health insurance. A public health care system has been proven to save upwards of 80% on costs due to the absence of the massive corporate administrative system. A public health care system would make sure all Americans would be insured, whether they were insured by the government, or by a private corporation. If an American already had private insurance a public system would help drive down costs in the private sector due to the competition. Health care reform is currently being pressed by Obama and Congress, but the public option is not on the table. Any type of health care reform without including a public option will fail.

Obama, like George W. Bush before him, has pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into the banking system. This system, since the 1980s, has created an illlusion of buying power, driving up a false sense of supply and demand. The more credit people had access to, the more they bought. Well, the illusion, much like David Copperfield’s dissapearing Statue of Liberty, has been figured out. The last thing Obama should be doing is kickstarting the ability of the credit system to build back up that illusion. He should invest those hundreds of billions of dollars into infrastructure, creating real jobs that pay real money. With that real money individuals can live within their means and create an accurate balance between supply and demand, preventing the chaos now ensuing.

Speaking of infrastructure, Obama has also pumped billions into the auto industry.  Now, the auto industry at this time has nothing to do with infrastructure, but if Obama had the vision that so many others seem to have, then he should transform the auto industry into a green technology/transportation/infrastructure creating machine! This would prevent the closure of these plants, the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, the weakening of the unions, as well as it would begin a massive restructuring of the country based on new forms of green transportation and tehchnology, creating even more jobs, and perhaps in the near future giving the United States the ability to export such technology and expertise. Instead he seems to have no current plan of preventing the plant closures or saving the jobs of hundreds of thousands of workers. Let the auto industry continue on creating cars!  Oh, they’ll be electrical, or hybrids, true, but the window of opportunity for positive transformation will pass, as it is unfortunately doing at this point.

Now I know Obama had pledged a greater military force in Afghanistan, but wasn’t he suppose to get out of Iraq? I thought he had mentioned that a few times? Maybe not?

However, not all is dark and bleak! The positive view of the United States around the world is beginning to be renewed (it’s been a long time!), and Obama is doing a fantastic job attempting to work with other world powers, even those who might not even be middle powers on the global stage. But Obama’s positive image around the world may not entirely translate into a continued positive image at home.

People want change. Big change like those topics discussed above. Yes, it has only been 4 months since Obama has taken office, but he could at least give his voice to such issues. He has the power to impliment drastic change, to force the Democrats in Congress to follow suit. He has been acting more like a ‘to the right centrist’ than a true progressive.  Perhaps his political dealings have always been such and we had projected our progressive wishes upon him. If this is true then the American people are in for some massive disappointments, and the greatest opportunity that United States of America has ever seen for such change since the Great Depression may be lost for another seventy-five years.

Walter Crankite Reporting