Step By Step

Why hasn't Obama changed the world in four months?

Was it another case of lots of promises during the campaign, but no action later? Have we been fired up and got all ready to go, only to find the roads are closed off, torn up and impassable? Is Obama just another empty suit, promising change and delivering much-the-same? I'm not as downbeat as our resident Bad Hatter and I am seeing some interesting things happening. Oh, not everything has been hunky-dory, no argument on that, but let me talk about some things I am seeing.

I think to some extent Obama is willing to let others get out ahead of certain issues, rather than him taking the lead on everything. He is to some extent a lightening rod; if he supports too many things then there will just be a shopping list of issues, all associated with him. If too many in government feel that they are cut out of the consultive process that could spawn a high level pattern of dissent, leaks and disloyalty. There will always be some of that, either through conviction or out of political motives, but things are not so bad right now. It feels as though a lot of the government is pretty okay with the pace that things are moving at. The economy is a huge problem. Some structural issues had been so neglected by the free- market dolts in the Bush administration that a vast international ponzi scheme was allowed to grow and spread, like a viral nightmare that impacted banks all over the world. Unraveling that has served to bring the economy of our country back to earth, which is a less exciting place than we are used to. We will survive, with some key adjustments. The world economy will not collapse, we are not going to all starve, but it was no small thing. So that's kind of our top priority. Obama said it best when he said that a year ago he could never have imagined that Iraq would not be our top national issue.

There are a lot of other things Obama feels strongly about: public health and universal coverage of some form, a new relationship with other nations, a more equitable tax system, appropriate use of science in the pursuit of public good. All of those take work. He can personally push a lot of those issues, but on other issues he seems content to take a centrist approach while letting others carry the battle. It seems to work fairly well in some occasions, at other times it leaves everyone feeling disappointed that he is not up there on a soapbox haranguing the public. I am inclined to wait and see how each issue plays out, rather than demanding that he throw his entire political capital at each and every one. It calls on the public to step up and engage in public discourse, instead of letting a big daddy government figure it all out for us. I am very okay with that. We all have a stake in these issues and a responsibility to stay engaged and make our voices heard. When was the last time you wrote to or e-mailed your Congressman? or someone else's? If you feel strongly about an issue, I urge you to log on to their Congressional contact site and concisely give them a goose on the subject that is bothering you. They are not psychic, for most of the year they do not live in their districts, so you need to reach out and let them know what one of their voters thinks they should be doing.

Obama also has a website where you can go and dump your cares and woes. He cannot read but a fraction of them I assume, but someone does and collates the number of letters that urge a particular course of action. If you send a message once a week you can, fractionally, help move our national debate. There are other things you can do, but I'm not going to dwell on them. It is our government, and we are not just sheep.

Arthur