Cartoon 696: What’s wrong with Obama?

The problem with Obama is trying to govern in the national interest. He is trying to do broken field running through party politics, pandering and ideology. But Obama’s travails are an attribute of a larger more fundamental issue. Democracy in America does not work.

The failure of Democracy as a system of government did not manifest immediately. It has taken over a century. Government by definition is the prioritization of actions sustaining the nation State. What has happened over time is that control of the prioritization and allocation process has come under the control of individual self interests.  These interests have a lock on the election process and the actions of decision makers in government. The interests have congealed into powerful groups such as banking and Wall Street and Business and industry. It was only yesterday that the mantra was “what is good for Wall Street is good for America”. Few Americans today would not pause at that statement.

The failure of democracy as a system of government has resulted in the funds not to be allocated for infra structure. The engineering group that annually assesses American infra structure has indicated we need an expenditure of a trillion dollars a year going forward. Can you imagine that money being allocated under the current governmental system? There is angst over the stimulus and healthcare, and these are things where the failure can be plainly seen.

• A government working in the national interest would clearly recognize government paid for and managed national healthcare is in the interest of the nation.  It might even adopt a national pension program.
• A government working in the national interest would recognize infra structure funding is a necessity. 
• A government working in the national interest would change the patent award process and retroactively change existing patent durations.
• A government working in the public interests would break up the traditional media conglomerates.
• A government working in the national interest would encourage unionization as a counter balance to the power of business and industry.
• A government working in the national interest would force broadband providers to increase their network speed to world class or compete with a national government owned open backbone.
• A government working in the national interest would force cell phone service providers to disassociate themselves from the hardware (phones).  The current arrangement lends itself to asymmetrical attack of the nation.
• A government working in the national interests would create a firewall between ideology and national interests. Not having a strong teaching of science and technology in favor of creationism is not in the national interest. Nor is the lack of easily obtained sex education and contraceptives.
• A government working in the national interests would focus on youth development. A system of compensation would be put in place to encourage the best and brightest to become educators.

It is apparent that these kinds of things, those in the national interest, would be DOA (Dead On Arrival) in American democracy.