May 12, 2009

LIVING FOR CHANGE: Obama's First 100 Days

Detroit activist Grace Lee Boggs' analysis: ..."Obama’s weaknesses are especially troubling because in the coming period the situation in the U.S. will increasingly resemble that of post-World War I Germany when military defeat, the Great Depression and gigantic inflation created the conditions for Hitler’s rise to power.
"Our responsibility, at this watershed in our history, is to face the past honestly and do the things necessary to heal ourselves and our planet..."

Her weekly "Living for Change" newsletter for May 10-16, 2009, starts:

"I supported Obama’s election because his “Together We Can” campaign helped restore in the American people, and especially in young Americans, the conviction that we have the power within us to create the world anew.

"I didn’t support him for his color or for his politics, which are those of the average Democratic politician. I was also clear that, once in the Oval Office, Obama’s options would be limited.

"However, President Obama’s appointments and actions have been worse than I anticipated. True, things are worse now than when he began his campaign. But that should have challenged him to probe more deeply into the roots of the crisis.

"Instead, his immediate re-appointment of Bush’s Defense Secretary and sending additional troops to Afghanistan reveal that, despite his early opposition to the Iraq war, he has no understanding of the root cause of 911: that the Muslim world is fed up with U.S. support of Israel’s occupation of Palestine and of the Saudi regime. The new Pentagon budget also reveals that counter-insurgency, or putting down the spreading global rebellion against the U.S., is what the administration is preparing us for.

"Similarly, the appointments of Geithner and Summers reveal that Obama has no grasp of the root causes of the economic meltdown and climate crisis."...

Read full article here.