For his first task as president, Barack Obama said Friday he'll call in the nation's top military officials and “tell them we have a new mission” - end the war in Iraq.
Next on the list is reforming the nation's health-care system, so everyone in the United States has basic health care and costs are reduced for families and businesses.
And, third, craft a new energy policy that “requires a shift away from the sort of wasteful energy usage of the past, and to develop alternative fuels like solar, wind and biodiesel,” Obama said in an interview on his campaign bus near the Montana Tech campus.
End the war. Get affordable health care to every citizen. Change our energy policies.
Well nobody can say that Obama is not ambitious.
Any one of these tasks would be a monumental undertaking for a President. An undertaking that could eat up four, or even eight years, and still fail.
Getting us out of Iraq is going to be the most complicated and ticklish maneuver ever undertaken by our military. This is not simply helicopters leaving Saigon with civilians hanging from the struts. This is getting a military that is spread far and wide out in one piece. It means protecting the civilian contractors as they scramble across the border. It means convincing a mercenary army (Blackwater), that easily outnumbers our own military, to also leave even though it is certain their clients will want them to stay. It means leaving behind a number of permanent bases that are in various stages of construction, and flushing that investment down the drain. It means leaving the oilfields (the real reason we went into Iraq), in the hands of the Iraqis.
I am not saying it should not be done. It absolutely should. I am just saying it is going to be a fucking nightmare.
And then there is healthcare. Getting this thing passed is going to take a Herculean effort. There are deals to be made to get the Congress to pass it. Senators, many who have taken millions in drug company and HMO lobbyist money, are going to be very difficult to convince. Essentially the only way this will happen is by filling the Senate with Democrats and having their constituencies applying pressure to them to get it passed. That means hundreds of millions invested in advertising dollars alone.
I am not saying it should not be done. It absolutely should. But it ain't going to be easy. And that is huge understatement!
Then there is changing our energy policies. Holy shit, this is going to be perhaps the most difficult of all. Americans love their cars, sometimes more then their children! We want to go where we want, when we want.
The oil companies are spending hundreds of millions planting doubt in the minds of every American that is necessary, or possible, or in any way better then the gas that we are using right now. They have tons of money and they are fighting for their very livelihood. They will continue to present a challenge until the American people stop listening to them.
Then we have to face the fact that we have no clear idea of where to go. Electric cars? Hybrids? Bio-fuels? Solar powered? Hydrogen powered? Hell even water powered is being considered.
How long to choose? How long to implement? What do we do in the meantime?
Hell I am not saying we shouldn't do it. We absolutely must do it. I am just saying it is going to be a truly epic battle.
So I look at Barack Obama. Tall and skinny, with that winning smile, and I ask myself is he up to the job? And I realize no, he isn't.
Not by himself he isn't.
He needs us. All of us. Only then can we expect to make the kinds of changes that our children and their children can be proud of us for. Like our parents and grandparents did after WWll, it is our turn to sacrifice.
Are you ready? Because I am.
Yes the Bush administration is horrible. People need to learn that BOTH parties are bought and paid for. As long as people do not understand the constitution (and the Federalists papers that show the intent of the constitution), do not become active in local politics, and stop watching TV, the situation is hopeless. The world's elite do not care which puppet anyone votes for. Both Kucinich and Paul had something important to say but the public was too stupid to listen. Both major parties, via the mainstream media, will continue to push issues that promote their interests while packaging them as something that will benefit the dumbed down public. The government of the United States, and the dumbed down public are both too far gone. In this day and age, there simply is no excuse for people to avoid researching issues on their own. International newspapers and alternative media is a start. The best we can hope for now is total economic devastation and I doubt most people have the mental capacity to understand why that is. I truly am sorry about all of this. I don't want things to be they are and I was far more happy before I started investing time into learning how the world really works. Even if citizens were to be killed in large numbers, I still doubt they could figure things out. If you do not have stored food, weapons to protect that food, escape plans for both rural areas and outside of the country, you have not been paying attention. With just a little digging, these people actually tell you exactly what they want to do.
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