Obama's Continuing 'Terror War' Policies, Failure to Deal with Torturers Raise Growing Concerns

This has been bothering me, too. I want to like Obama, but not only is there very little difference in his actual governance compared to Bush, militarily he's doubling the amount of troops (plus contractors!) in Afghanistan. Some hippie peacenik, eh? Who's in charge of the economy? Club Federal Reserve and Goldman Sachs. Further expansion of the Military Industrial Complex? Check.

The Canning (first linked article) quote from Chris Hedges is fitting: "President Obama does one thing and brand Obama gets you to believe another. This is the essence of successful advertising. You buy or do what the advertiser wants because of how they make you feel." Obama the Brand I really like: The President and his policies? Not so much.

What bothers me about this turn of political events is the perception of what's happening versus reality. The right wing noisemakers hammer on Obama for his "Socialist" leanings, when in actuality, he supports most of the same programs and same corporations they do. You'd think they'd be happy about his closet Republicanism, but that would be off script, wouldn't it? At least Bush and his gang of thugs were honest about their intentions. They didn't mind telling the rest of the country(and the world) to fuck off on a regular basis while taking what they wanted for themselves, their friends, and their cronies. Obama pays lip service to the coalition that brought him to power, yet continues to act just like Bush.

The outcome? Fox and the Right wing loonies will continue to howl(while getting what they want policy-wise, while the country continues its swing to the right--shrewd!!), Democrats and progressives will continue to be frustrated(and probably won't turn out for the mid term elections), abandon the party, and suffer a massive defeat in November, and still, nothing gets fixed. The Republicans win, the Teabaggers will be energized, the American corporate power structure will gain incredible strength(already has--thank you SCOTUS), and the rest of us remain screwed, having backed the wrong candidate from a field of wrong candidates.

Except Kucinich, of course!