The Obandwagon rolls on

In the past couple of weeks, we’ve all no doubt seen news worldwide reporting heavily on the Obama vs Romney race to the Whitehouse and as the election date looms very near, both candidates are having their final stabs at each other as they simultaneously bounce from city to city and state to state in one final push for votes.

Political commentators say that this could be one of the closest presidential elections in years, and the case is certainly looking as such, even though there are certainly many amongst us who would mostly vie that Obama is the only man worth voting for when it comes down to it.  Outside of the USA though, it seems that we are all too quick to jump on what is clearly yet another bandwagon, barely skimming over the actual facts.   The same can surely be said for many Americans too.

While Obama purports that he is the only candidate with a real plan for ‘change’ – still trying to ride the wave of optimism that first started to build during his last campaign to the Whitehouse – there are some gaping holes in his methodology. 

To me, all the pro-Obama support in the US and at home here in Australia (as an example) is simply uninformed masses, forming ill-informed opinions about two people who have very similar motivations and very similar goals, in what could probably be described as a classic case of ‘reverse racism’.

So here are some brutal and unfortunate truths:

–          The unemployment rate in Obama’s presidency has been higher in every single month, than in any of Bush’s (US Bureau of Labor Statistics). 

–          Overall spending on overseas wars has increased massively, seeing growth from around a few hundred million dollars around a decade ago, to figures well into the hundreds of billions, currently (OMB annual budget documents).

This isn’t to mention the fact that Obama has been a campaigner for ‘peace’, by: policing the world with dangerous and exaggerated military ‘might’ – something which both candidates believe is America’s ‘role’; promising to end Bush’s ‘torture policies’ (while still leaving the US’s Guantanamo Bay camp open, after promising shutting it down would be one of his first moves as president during his current term); and through the increased use of the dangerous and largely unmonitored policy of using military ‘drones’ throughout American military campaigns (with untold, unseen, uninvestigated collateral damage and civilian death, all shrouded in secrecy).

But Obama ousted Gaddafi, killed Bin Laden I hear you say – he has also sacrificed more soldier’s lives in Afghanistan in 3 and a half years, than bush did in all 8 of his presidency.  He’s done well, hasn’t he…

What else has he presided over?

–          Increased government debt

–          Massive increases in fuel prices

–          More foreclosures, more homeless, more living below the official poverty line

–          A weaker dollar (weaker than ours in Australia for the first time I can ever remember)

–          The possibility of a massive conflict between US allies Israel, and Iran

–          Further eroding of US opinion around the world (perhaps also catalysed by the ‘occupy’ movement)

Sure, Obama has had to pass his policies through congress – his policies for ‘change’ and ‘peace’ and ‘action’ – and this may prove tough at times – but isn’t it his fault that there are so many Republicans actually in congress stopping socialist votes?  Stopping him from fixing the US healthcare system?  Its social system?  Its housing system?  Stopping him from ending the idiotic ‘war on drugs’? – (more on this) Causing him to use war to fight for peace?  What? …  You’re right, that doesn’t even make sense…

Now what of this ‘reverse racism’ idea?  Well, its all very easy to paint any Republican as being a racist, some rich white guy, so that when some black guy puts his face to an idea, we automatically feel as though it’s a positive thing.  – The ‘historically disadvantaged minority’ deserves our support, as some way of addressing past social inequalities.  It’s a valid, real concept, that can certainly be applied here, and I cant help but thinking that some clever marketing person (the same person feeding Obama all his well-rehearsed lines delivered during the presidential ‘debate’) thought it’d be a good move by the Democrats to have an African-American vying for the country’s top spot.

The craziest thing about all of this, is that in America, black-American progress has actually either halted, or declined.  These facts – revealed in a book called Invisible Men, written by sociology professor Becky Pettit of the University of Washington – virtually deny what she has termed the “myth of black progress”, since the civil rights movement of the 60’s.  Largely unsurprising, considering the US government itself has tried ever since to oppress anyone threatening to upset the status quo.

Amongst other things, she found that:

–          About half of the US prison population are black

–          That black voter turnout during Obama’s election was overestimated by a massive 13%

–          A higher percentage of young black highschool dropouts turned out to vote in the 1980 election when Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan, then when Obama beat McCain in ‘08

–          In the 1930’s, blacks were 3 times more likely to be incarcerated than whites – a figure that is now 7 times more likely

This last statistic can probably be blamed for the ‘war on drugs’ another excellent policy (unsuccessful, misguided, draconian) that Obama has supported, but Ernest Drucker in his recent book Plague of Prisons says that the pattern of arrests is ‘very different’.  And all of a sudden Obama looking after his black brothers and sisters (or anyone?) doesn’t seem so real…

Ill be clear here:  Im not pro-Romney, pro-Republican or even anti-Obama.  Its about transparency, honesty and actual facts and according to these few listed here (and many others) Obama’s policies haven’t resulted in ‘action’, ‘change’ and certainly not peace.  Moreover, Romney’s don’t either, according to Obamahype.

Unfortunately, it seems that the capability to act upon words, and do genuine good for the country they govern, or the country they are proposing to govern (lets not also forget the world they hope to police too, right?), is something that is largely null and void.  I wonder why? 

It might be worthy to note:  Both parties have seeked to raise (and spend) almost $1 billion each to fund their campaign.  That’s right, 1 fucking billion…  And we start to see what being president in the USA is really all about.  Money, and who receives the most.

And as the bandwagon passes by, with anyone and everyone gleefully jumping aboard, mindlessly shouting mantras for ‘change’ and ‘action’ fed to them by marketing spin, maybe we could all stop and think about what’s real, rather than the hyperbole that all this money has paid for.  If Obama is all about ‘action’, what’s happening, bro?