Obama's make or break issue

[entitoid]

Now that the messiah cheers are plainly fading and the real issues emerge above the fanfare, Obama's presidency enters its critical stage. It's a persidency that may be barely 8 months old, but the agendas that will decide upon its failure or success are very pressing.

    The "closing the Guantanamo" promise has not materialised and the shameful prison still exists. Torture is still an unadressed issue. The Iraq quaqmire continues with no end in sight and Iran is looming in the backround as well. But as far as domestic affairs are concerned, for about 47.000.000 Americans who have no health insurance at all, the health care issue remains the most important of them all. It's a rather embarassing situation for a country which perceives itself as a superpower. An article by the Guardian this weekend highlights how dramatic the situation actually is.

    The stakes are extremely high on the health care issue in America. So high in fact, that, Obama went on a live state of the nation address last week, a procedure reserved normally for emergency situations like a terrorist attack or going to war. No surprise as his presidency's success will probably be dependent on it.
    Check out the Guardian article here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/26/us-healthcare-obama-barack-change

[Francis]

I have not been following the healthcare issue. What can Obama possibly do aabout that unless he gives free healthcare to the poor? That would be too expensive.

[Mickey]

 I don't think Obama will solve all the problems created under Bush, but he is going in the right direction on all those topics. It means his presidency is already a success if you compare what he does to what republicans would have done.

[Brandon]

Thanks for link, very interesting article. It's an interesting issue which saddly highlights many of the problems in the American system in which Wall Street and corporations have far too much influence over the political system. (not that this situation situation is unique to America, before Anakin starts maoning about Europe)

If Obama can get this through it would start to justify the fuss made over him. The problem is he is now coming over as an idealist with no real understanding of how to implement his ideas. It'll be interesting to see if Obama can change the system or if the system changes Obama.

[entitoid]

You welcome, Brandon.

To Mickey: the healthcare problem is not one the Bush administration created. It's been there forever because noone ever solved it. Clinton had initiated some efforts to deal with it but they were left unfinished.
    Some problems Obama will need to handle are some that Bush solely created, but then again, the Democrats never opposed anything the Bush administration did. And last i checked Obama does belong in the Democrat ranks.
    As some Americans have been saying since the 60s: "America needs a second party".

[TBear]

I think the best you can hope for is a president not to cause a regression in any policies.  Bush did this horrendously and the consequences of his decisions will be felt for decades.  Even if Obama does not make changes, as Mickey said, it is better than the damage someone like Bush would have done in his stead.
Any attempts by Obama to change something as fundamental and complicated as healthcare is realistically most likely doomed to a certain amount of failure,  I would argue that the failure won't be his, but democracy's.
America needed someone to undo the disaster that Bush was, and they were lucky to have someone like Obama step in to take over.  This does not mean he will perform miracles.

To say the Democrats are like reublicans is over simplistic. Fundamentally the repesective parties draw a different breed of person.  Even if the end result might not vary much, the politicians and their ideals do.  However the flaw of a democracy is that all parties must do what the people demand, and the people stay constant, irrespective of who is in power.  The main parties know this, so they only have a certain amount of leeway in their policies.

[entitoid]

I beg to differ, TBear. First of all, there are certain policies where regression would be positive. War would be one obvious example. But by far not the only one. Thinking of that, and before i go on, I'd like to hear in more detail -if possible- what exactly you mean with "the best you can hope for is a president not to cause a regression in any policies" because i'm not sure i agree with the overall principle of that statement. But i may have misunderstood the way you mean it, so i will wait.

Secondly, I fail to see how democracy is responsible for America not having a universal health care system. Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweeden, Austria, Norway all are democracies and all have very succesful universal healthcare systems. So in the case of these countries how did democracy NOT hinder the healthcare system from existing?

The only ones responsible for America not having a healthcare system are those who implement the policies that prevent healthcare from existing. Who those are is explained very well by the Guardian article, in my opinion. On a secondary basis (but not far from the primary culprits) the people themselves, the voting Americans are also responsible for not having a universal healthcare system because of, well, the way they vote.

Lastly but equally importantly, no, it's not at all oversimplistic to say that Democrats and Republicans are barely differing. Yes, they might be fronting different types of politicians (to that much i will readily agree) but have you noticed how nicely they get along implementing policies together without any disagreements in the major matters? That's precisely the reason i brought up the example of where exactly the Democrats disagreed on what Bush implemented in his 8 years. That would be nowhere:
-they totally agreed on both wars in Afganistan and Iraq
-they had zero objections in the introduction of a Big Brother state as laid out by the Bush clan
-i dont remember them having any problems with Guantanamo either
-they voted in ALL the military budget demands the Bush admin. asked for while the American economy was going down the drain
-they nicely co-voted with the Republicans on ALL major cuts in public spending (schools, hospitals, academic funding etc).

These are just a few examples of total agreement between the two "different parties". I could mention several more, but the picture is quite clear.
So, in light of all this, how is it "oversimplistic" to say that the Democrats hardly differ from the Republicans?

[Peter]

I am guessing what tBear means is that democracy determines the policies, wherea the politicians only direct their attention to one issue or another. Hence why there appears to be only one party. Great post Entitoid.

[Mickey]

... the Democrats never opposed anything the Bush administration did. And last i checked Obama does belong in the Democrat ranks.

 H. Clinton voted for the war in Irak, so you can say she didn't oppose Bush, but Obama was clearly against it.

[entitoid]

Yeah so he said. Now he's the president so "what he said" has been put to the test. And, 8 months have passed and we have seen not one change in course in the war in Iraq. On the very contrary i would say. And it wasn't "just" Hilary that voted FOR the war in Iraq. It was in fact the overwhelming majority of the Democrats.
That in itself is no surprise.
To make things much simpler, Mickey:
-point me please to one single major issue where the Democrats opposed the Republicans during Bush's era. Just one please.

[Mickey]

 OK, the democrat were not opposing Bush administration, you are right.
 But the American forces are pulling out of Iraq, it will take some time, but eventually, they will be out. This is something Obama did but a republican wouldn't have done: acknowledging that they have been beaten and that they should retreat.

[entitoid]

Fair enough. Let me give you an excellent example which disproves this argument of yours. Do you actually know who withdrew American troops from Vietnam in the 70s? According to your argument it could NOT have been a republican president, correct?
Well, the answer is Richard Nixon! Nixon of all people for god's sake. Not only then a republican president but also one of the most shamed republican presidents actually withdrew American troops from a war.
If, and that is a big if, the Obama admin. eventually withdraws American troops from Iraq or Afghanistan it wont be because Bush would not have needed to do it also. Any president at this junction will be faced with this inevitability, any at all, regardless of who he is.

[Mickey]

 Your analogy with Vietnam is not totally right I think. Because the democrats (Kennedy, then Johnson) who started American involvement in Vietnam, even if republicans like Nixon agreed to it.

 I will go a little bit further by saying that helping south Vietnam to fight back the north Vietnam aggression was morally right. The way the Americans fought this war was wrong in many ways, but the need to stop communist expansion in Asia was agreed in the whole western world. This was not the case for Iraq.

[entitoid]

Even seen as you put it, still it was a republican president who withdrew the American troops from Vietnam, and that was your original argument, that a republican president would never do that. That is what my analogy is clearly refering to.
As for the Vietnam war, and whether the "whole western world" was agreed to it, i dont think the facts support this view Mickey.
America itself was rocked by one of the biggest anti-war movements in memory during the entire Vietnam war. In Europe it was not much different at all. If you mean that western governments may have agreed with the Vietnam war that would be an entirely different thing compared to the "whole western world". Public sentiment is not always reflected by what governments do, much less so in wars.

[Mickey]

Even seen as you put it, still it was a republican president who withdrew the American troops from Vietnam, and that was your original argument, that a republican president would never do that.

My original argument was that a Republican president wouldn't pull out of Iraq, not Vietnam