goodbye to all that
As 2009 and the decade BBC refers to as the Naughties draw to a close, I can say definitively that there is nothing I will miss from these years.
Imagine a decade in which the memorable events are the theft of the presidency by George W. Bush in 2000, the planes flying into buildings on 9/11, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Katrina disaster, thousands of LGBT servicemembers kicked out of the military just for being queer (including much-needed Arabic translators), millions without health care, the second worst recession in U.S. history, torture, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, rigged and brutalitarian elections in Iran and Afghanistan, the Fort Hood massacre, Bernie Madoff scandal with the concomitant Wall Street crumble, millions of jobs lost, record unemployment and a multitude of other horrors.
No, I won’t miss 2009 nor the Naughties.
Do I have hope for the future? Yes. But it’s tempered by reality. Obama pledged hope, but thus far has brought us mostly a new level of arrogance. (Who would have thought he would grade himself with an A-/B+ on “60 Minutes”? For what, exactly? Talk about grading on a curve!)
In his Inaugural Address, Obama promised a “new era of responsibility.” But that responsibility has yet to materialize. Obama has continued some of the worst elements of the Bush Administration–secrecy when he pledged transparency, perpetuation of two wars as well as incursion into Pakistan and discussion of military action against Iran and Yemen when he ran as an anti-war candidate, perpetuation of extraordinary rendition after pledging an end to torture, Guantanamo still open and operational, despite his promise to close it within the year (that clock ticks out January 21, 2010), a public option for health care reform and so many other things.
It’s not all Obama’s fault, of course. He may have broken myriad promises, but he had help. The buck may stop at the President’s desk, but he’s not the only person in government responsible for what’s comtinued to go wrong since Obama was elected. The Congress certainly bears its fair share of responsibility for the current state of affairs.
The obstructionist Republicans were ever thus, so there’s nothing new about how they have attempted to block every progressive move since Obama took office. Who else but Republicans would vote to block protections for rape victims?
And then there are the Democrats, perpetually spineless and in a continual Lewis Carroll style disarray. The health care reform debacle is solely their responsibility. Are the Republicans trying to block reform at every turn? Absolutely. But that was expected, not a surprise. The shocker was the number of Democrats who refused to go along with essential reform strategies, like the public option—particularly when they had previously supported those options.
Many of us voted for change in November 2008. We have yet to see that realized. But 2010 is a new year and with it come new challenges, new and old responsibilities and yet another election. There is still time for this Administration to pull itself together and get with the progressive program it was voted into office upon.
Obama needs to make a New Year’s resolution to Forget the Republicans–just ignore them. The reality is, the Republicans aren’t interested in bipartisanship. And after the eight years of the Bush Administration, why should they be? They are used to creating a monolith and getting their own way by bullying. Meanwhile, the Democrats cannot seem to reach any kind of consensus on anything.
Democrats can let the past go at midnight and be re-born in 2010 with spines. It’s doable. We can have transparency, we can have honesty, we can have a progressive, forward-thinking and forward-moving government. We just have to try.—VAB
