For the last few years, a lot of people have expressed how much they miss President Obama, and I do miss some aspects of his personality and his presidency: an intelligent, affable, charismatic person who helped make marriage equality an acceptable idea for many, he signed the executive order for DACA. He invested significant political capital to enact the Iran nuclear deal, which staved off the threat of war with Iran. It was historically important to have a black person as president, too. Bin Laden was killed under his watch, so there’s that, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has some good aspects like providing protections for pre-existing conditions. He repealed Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell, too, and the stock market was far more stable in 2016 than it was in 2009.
However, there were plenty downsides to his presidency that we should consider. While he technically ended torture as an American policy, he increased drone bombing and bombed seven nations at a time in 2016 alone. He regime changed Libya illegally, leading to the country’s collapse, and attempted to regime change Syria in a fairly drawn-out, agonizing process. The Democratic Party lost Congress and countless state legislatures and governorships to Republicans under his watch, and he failed to leverage his movement for change after his election in 2008. I don’t miss his drive to enact the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a gift to corporations and a slap in the face to workers and democratic processes, either.
Moreover, I don’t miss him going easy on the Bush administration for committing war crimes or his expansion of the surveillance state or setting the precedent for killing American citizens without due process. He waited until the very last minute to intervene at Standing Rock, and he was behind almost 2 million deportations. He used the Espionage Act to crack down on journalists and leakers at an unprecedented level. He also failed to demand at the very least a public option in the ACA after endorsing a single payer system during the 2008 election. He made numerous corporatist executive appointments like Arne Duncan and Larry Summers. He let the big banks off the hook after the financial crisis. He proposed cuts to Social Security, and–relatedly–he had the tendency to negotiate from the center with Republicans who had no desire to negotiate in the first place. And while the stock market might have grown during his presidency, so did wealth inequality. Even though corporate profits soared, poverty barely decreased.
Obama began his presidency with the promise of transformational change. Eight years later, though, one could argue that any number of centrist Democrats could have replicated his legacy. Ultimately, I can understand why people miss him; I prefer Obama to Trump. I know people find his presidency inspiring, and I did, too, for a time. However, I also have no desire to romanticize the Obama administration. We need to look at his legacy soberly. If we do not, we will think that what he achieved is as good as we can get and that a return to Obama-era “normalcy” in 2020 and beyond will set the country on an acceptable track. It will not. America deserves better than the results of the Obama presidency.
I really need to do more studying and write an essay on how Americanism is a genuine folk religion which reveres capital and the vague concept of “the free market” as a god of providence to be pleased in order to lead a prosperous life, also that the founding fathers are prophetic, perhaps even messianic figures who basically gave birth to this god through the revolutionary war, and that the vast majority of conservative Christians in America revere capital more than the god they claim to serve in an ironic sort of golden calf situation.
I think you’re just stupid, bro
This does sound like some of thecivilisations in my works - corporate states who don’t give a darn about the poor and needy.
Worldbuilding prompt: America, but corporatism is the state religion.
What’s pragmatically changed over the last four years?
What’s improved?
I spent nearly three years just smoking weed and trying to escape all this nonsense—America; the hypocrisy—but, I wasn’t able to get out.
I wasn’t able to break free.
I suppose I can slide some photos in here soon, but there’s no end to that. Body cam footage changes nothing (pragmatically) and protest photos have become photo shoots and terror-porn.
How many bodies have to stack up under the boot heel of this star-spangled machine?
How long will fools love their foolishness and loathe wisdom?
Is nobody else just flat-out o v e r this nonsense?
How much longer will cowards insist on pouring blood into a bottomless bucket?
So, there’s apparently research coming out now about microplastics being found in people’s bloodstreams and the possible negative effects of that and I feel the need to get out ahead of the wave of corporate sponsored “be sure to recycle your bottles!” or “ban glitter!” campaigns and remind everyone:
It’s fishing nets. It’s fishing nets. It is overwhelming fishing nets It always has been fishing nets.Unless regulations are changed, it will continue to be fishing nets.
The plastic in the ocean in largely discarded nets from industrial fishing. The microplastics are the result of these nets breaking down. The “trash islands” are also, you guessed it. Mostly fishing nets and other discarded fishing industry equipment.
Do not allow them to continue to twist the story. Do not come after disabled people who require single use plastics. Do not come after people using glitter in art projects and makeup. These things make up a negligible amount of the issue compared to corporate waste, specifically in the fishing industry. Do not let them shift the blame to the individual so they can continue to destroy the planet and our bodies without regulation.
