by Herb Ruhs, MD
Saturday, August 30, 2008 PERMANENT LINK
I accidentally tuned into Barack Obama's acceptance speech. I unthinkingly
(excuse: feeling rotten, clouded sensorium) tried to tune into the
KPFA Evening News and ended up listening to the speech instead.
It
was a good speech. Very classy. It touched on just about every
symptom of rot expressing itself in our society. However, the speech
was long on domestic social suffering and short on the perils of a
foreign policy that threatens the entire world with destruction. I
remind myself the speech was targeted on the coming election, not on
telling the truth.
The one thing Obama pointedly did not call people's attention to
was the long-standing US foreign policy of aggressive militarism. To me, Obama comes off as a militarist in the mold of every US president since WWII. He seems to be advising carrying a really,
really big stick and mumbling empty phrases about diplomacy. I end up thinking that if he is allowed to take office that there may very well be some reforms that help some folks a little, but that the basic system of plutocracy will be unchallenged and encouraged to grow yet stronger.
Beware of the physician that promises to help you with your symptoms, but is disinterested in identifying your underlying disease. We do need symptomatic treatment. We need better health care, better education, more economic and legal justice for ordinary people. But if we settle only
for symptomatic treatment, the underlying disease will progress and eventually no amount of symptomatic care will help.
We have devolved an extremely primitive political system where might and wealth make right and democratic principles and basic social justice concerns are only given lip service. Democracy means bottom-up power, but we increasingly experience top down rule. We are a failed democracy.
The only effective rule of distribution of power in the US is that the profits of the obscenely wealthy matter more than anything else. That is the disease that no prominent politician dare name, much less confront. Even Congressman Dennis Kucinich was forced to pull his punches in exchange for the opportunity to pretend to be part of the Democratic Party.
Who knows? Maybe events will conspire to cause the people to rise up and put the plutocrats in their place and cure our disease.
To me,
Obama comes off as a militarist in the mold of every US president
since WWII.
He seems to be advising carrying a really, really big
stick and mumbling empty phrases about diplomacy.
I end up thinking
that if he is allowed to take office that there may very well be some
reforms that help some folks a little, but that the basic system of
plutocracy will be unchallenged and encouraged to grow yet stronger.
Stranger things have happened. In the meantime, though, I am not encouraged by all the talk about "change" coming from the top. It just sounds like shuck and jive to me. I am still planning to vote for Ralph Nader.
