Obama's efforts, decisions have only worsened US problems

Editor,

It has always been clear to the nonpartisan critics of Barack Obama, even before his ascension to the American presidency, that he won’t solve this country’s fundamental problems. His embrace and farewell kiss to President Bush during the inauguration was indicative of the ensuing betrayal of the American people. The hope for a clear and decisive break with the lies, crimes and murderous wars of the past eight years has evaporated.

Hundreds of innocent people still linger in detention and torture centers like Bagram Airfield and Guantanamo Bay. Unknown numbers are either dead or suffer the horrible consequences of torture. Instead of ending Bush’s wars, Obama now says he has to “finish the job.” It’s unclear why he thinks he has to continue the murderous “job” of a criminal. One wonders who in fact controls his presidency and calls the shots. Why would anyone decide to continue known crimes instead of
disowning them and prosecuting the culprits?

The people’s right to universal health care too has been sacrificed. Any new health care bill will ensure that insurance companies continue to enrich themselves at the cost of the health of the people. Sickness and death will remain profitable — in more than one way, as long as corporate welfare encourages the industry to exploit labor and to poison nature with the latent approval of governmental agencies such as the EPA. For the same reasons of greed and profit, the U.S. won’t lead the world out of the climate crisis, but it will prolong and worsen it.

The tragic irony of American history continues under Obama. It is tragic because it deliberately ignores and repeats the ironic mistakes of a failed and deadly past under the guise of a greater good. Obama will go to Scandinavia to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize bestowed upon him out of a sheer sense of relief over the end of Bush’s terror regime only to undercut the world’s efforts to contain catastrophic carbon emissions with weak and empty promises.

This happens as he rejects the treaty to ban land mines, although proponents of the Land Mine Treaty won the same Nobel Peace Prize 12 years ago.

Obama would do well to recover the spiritual heritage of those whose memory he has repeatedly invoked. As long as Obama is confined by the strings of his corporate donors he is bound to act, as Malcolm X put it, like a “(White) House Negro,” an “Uncle Tom serving Uncle Sam,” unfree to follow the advice of Martin Luther King, Jr. against escalating the war in Afghanistan to do the political repentance necessary to win the trust of the Islamic world and pay reparations to the countless victims of Bush’s warfare policies.

Thousands of lives and billions of dollars wasted for war could then be directed to those destroyed by war, who lack the basic resources to shelter, feed and educate their children. Schools, hospitals and basic industrial and agricultural projects are the simple means to a just peace. Withdrawal from war paves this path of peace.

Joachim L. Oberst
UNM faculty