[Peace-discuss] Inaugural address: more war

[C. G. Estabrook]

In a curiously flat and rushed inaugural address, Obama declared today that the 
forecast was war and more war.  As Reagan announced a generation ago that war on
terrorism would be his watchword -- and meant war on Central America -- so Obama
today announced "Our nation is at war, against a ... network of violence..." --
and meant the Muslim states of the Middle East who refuse to follow orders.

How dare they refuse, when so much oil and gas (which we, for obscure reasons 
have a right to) lies under their sand?

He condemned those "Muslim ... leaders" who "blame their society's ills on the
West." (Why, how could we possibly be causing them any trouble?!)  Bad Muslims
are "on the wrong side of history" -- because we know how to define the right
side.  ("You're either with us or with the terrorists."). But he promised the
benighted ones "that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your
fist" (so that the palm can be crossed with a Petraeus-style bribe?)

The grandiosity was to be expected, but not the cliches and bad writing.  (I
particularly liked the promise to "roll back the specter of a warming planet":
gotta watch those rolling specters...)

Here are some comments I received from various lists this afternoon:

[1] Obama:

> As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble 
> gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off 
> deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as
> the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor
> them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they
> embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something
> greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment - a moment that will define
> a generation - it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

Wasn't that pretty much the core of McCain's campaign message?

[2] Obama delivered an oration empty of positive content but full of
meretricious flourishes designed to redeem and justify the whole history of
American colonialism.  The absolute worst was his beginning--that the US is a
nation at war.  This just after swearing to uphold a constitution that precludes
anyone but Congress from declaring war.  For Obama, the war criminal Bush has
declared a "War on Terror" and that is the anticonstitutional declaration which
Obama upholds.
	
Obama paid tribute to those who "settled the West" without even
a gesture of rhetorical balance about those who fought and were massacred trying
to defend their lands and lives from those who "settled the West" and their
Custers and  Carsons.
	
Obama  lauded those who fought at "Concord and Normandy
and Khesan."  Not a word, of course, about the thousands of African-American
slaves who threw off their chains to fight and die against the revered
slavedriving Founding Fathers and for the legitimate government of their
country.  Nor, of course, a rhetorical parallel of Normandy and Tokyo or of
Khesan and Mylai -- even though the soldiers perpetrating those genocidal
massacres were no different -- and perhaps were even the same persons -- as
those who fought at Normandy and Khesan.
	
Perhaps the most sickening phrase, even more than his fulsome tribute to "The
Market" and his proclamation that health care is not a right but a commodity
that should somehow be made "affordable," was Obama's embrace of the rightist
counterposition of  "People" and "Government,"  when it would have been so
obvious, so easy, to talk about the people tackling problems through "their
government and their organizations."  It would have been so easy for him to
evoke a millions-strong antiphony of "Yes We Can!" by announcing noble goals
like moving to a CO2-free economy,  providing health care to everybody in the
country on the basis of need, providing good free education to every child from
pre-school through college, leading the world to a united effort against global
warming, guaranteeing all working Americans the ability to organize
democratically in the trade union of their choice, even "beating swords into
plowshares"...