News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. July 5, 2013: So it’s July 4th.
Or at least it is while I am writing this latest episode of Obama’s America.
The sun will soon set for the rocket’s red glare that will burst across the Land.
In Obama speak they would be called drones.
Anyway July 4th – a day built on myths both real and imagined.
The Founding Fathers (and their mothers) would never have imagined an African American President of what they formally named these United States of America on July 4, 1776. A lot of the guys (the gals weren’t there) in Independence Hall in Philadelphia had an accurate name for Black men and women. They called them “property.”
Still there was a Spirit in that room and what was to follow at least among some of them not the property owners, who imagined in the distant future very different kind of country from any that had ever existed on the Earth. They made a start that Thursday.
Over 200 years later still to the surprise of many America did get a Black President. What no one realized was what kind of President he would come to be. WHY? Because he told us he would be a very different President than the one we really got from Barack.
Which brings us to July 4, 2013.
Back on Election Day 2008 to the euphoria of many and the fear of others on the right we thought we were getting a “revolutionary” President not in the military sense but a President who would be distinctly different than those before him. How could he not be not only was Brack Obama Black but far more he convinced us he would be different.
Six years and as many July 4ths later we know the Truth.
While he is no worse than any of his predecessors in same ways and worse in others it is just as true never has any President of these United States displayed as larger a gap between the promise and the reality. That is Barack Obama’s worst sin.
It is indeed ironic or not take your pick that the Right Wing accuses him of being a “revolutionary” President destroying their vision (sic) of America when he is more like them than they will ever admit most of all because he is Black.
Let me contrast two “documents” to make the point. President Obama’s own words today. The transcript of his July 4th weekly radio address. The other is a an op-ed piece in the Financial Times (yes from England) by one of their journalists Gideon Rachman, titled ”Obama and the crumbling of a liberal fantasy hero.”
First Obama …
“Hello and Happy Fourth of July, everybody. This weekend is a time to get together with family and friends, kick back, and enjoy a little time off. And I hope that’s exactly what all of you do. But I also want to take a moment today to reflect on what I believe is the meaning of this distinctly American holiday.”
“That is the spirit we are called to show once more. We are facing an array of challenges on a scale unseen in our time. We are waging two wars. We are battling a deep recession. And our economy – and our nation itself – are endangered by festering problems we have kicked down the road for far too long: spiraling health care costs; inadequate schools; and a dependence on foreign oil.”
Now Rachman:
“It has taken a long time, but the world’s fantasies about Barack Obama are finally crumbling. In Europe, once the headquarters of the global cult of Obama, the disillusionment is particularly bitter. Monday’s newspapers were full of savage quotes about the perfidy of the Obama-led US.”
“More important would be the broken promise to close the Guantánamo detention centre and – above all – the massive expansion of the use of drone strikes to kill suspected terrorists in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere, It has gradually dawned on President Obama’s foreign fan club that their erstwhile hero is using methods that would be bitterly denounced if he were a white Republican. As Hakan Altinay, a Turkish academic, complained to me last week: “Obama talks like the president of the American Civil Liberties Union but he acts like Dick Cheney.”
Back to Obama ….
“Now is the time to lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity. Now is the time to revamp our education system, demand more from teachers, parents, and students alike, and build schools that prepare every child in America to out compete any worker in the world.”
“Now is the time to reform an unsustainable health care system that is imposing crushing costs on families, businesses, large and small, and state and federal budgets. We need to protect what works, fix what’s broken, and bring down costs for all Americans. No more talk. No more delay. Health care reform must happen this year.”
“And now is the time to meet our energy challenge – one of the greatest challenges we have ever confronted as a people or as a planet. For the sake of our economy and our children, we must build on the historic bill passed by the House of Representatives, and make clean energy the profitable kind of energy so that we can end our dependence on foreign oil and reclaim America’s future.”
Back to Rachman …
“It is not just Mr. Obama’s record on security issues that disappoints the likes of Mr. Altinay. Liberals in Turkey, Egypt, Russia, Iran and elsewhere complain that the US president has been far too hesitant about condemning human rights abuses in their countries. Or to adapt Mr. Altinay’s complaint: when it comes to foreign policy, Mr Obama campaigned with the human rights rhetoric of Jimmy Carter but has governed like Henry Kissinger.”
“In one column, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times compared Mr. Obama unfavorably to a fictional president, portrayed by Michael Douglas, in a film. This drew a sharp response from Mr. Obama when, in a recent speech, he called out to Mr. Douglas – “Michael, what’s your secret, man. Could it be that you were an actor, an Aaron Sorkin liberal fantasy?”
A final word from Obama …
“We are not a people who fear the future. We are a people who make it. And on this July 4th, we need to summon that spirit once more. We need to summon the same spirit that inhabited Independence Hall two hundred and thirty-three years ago today. That is how this generation of Americans will make its mark on history. That is how we will make the most of this extraordinary moment. And that is how we will write the next chapter in the great American story. Thank you, and Happy Fourth of July.”
And finally Rachman again …
“Of course, like any politician, he pumped up expectations when running for office. But when Obama-mania really took off in 2008, it swiftly moved into a realm beyond reason. What was candidate Obama meant to say to the 200,000 Berliners who turned out to cheer him that year – “Go home guys, this is silly”? When the new president was given the Nobel Peace Prize, simply for existing, all he could do was graciously accept.”
So what is the difference between Barack Obama’s July 4th message and Gideon Rachman’s commentary. One is delivering a pack of lies; the other truth.
The problem is the one telling the truth is not President of the United States.
Wishing us the July 4th we deserve not the one Barack Obama gives us.
About The Writer: Arthur Piccolo is a professional writer and commentator and often writes about Latin America for New Americas.
