Finally, Obama is President Essay Example for Free

Finally, Obama is President Essay The American people has sworn into office the most unlikely man of all – African-American, the son of a Kenyan father and a white mother, but possessed in himself the capacity to bind different sectors of American society in believing that Change can really happen, that a return to the old ways is not the path in the next few years of the proud and mighty American people. Today, on the 20th of January, 2009, Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States of America, the land of the free, and truly the land where perhaps anything is possible. In his speech, Barack Obama touched upon many ideas – of freedom, of the need to continue remembering the past as the guidepost of the future, of the need to expose false world leaders that cling to power through the silencing of dissent and corruption – but none perhaps would be most remembered than his attribution to our nation’s rich historic fabric, which is now shaping the current political discourse under the new Obama administration. Obama mentioned the American war struggles, to wit – For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn. Obama made reference to the great wars our people fought – Concord as one of the greatest battles during the American Revolution against the British Empire; Gettysburg as the site of the bloodiest civil war battle between the Union and Confederacy; Normandy as the landing site of American troops involved in the Western front of World War II; and Khe Sanh, as the venue of our soldiers’ valiant stand against Vietnamese troops in South Vietnam. Obama used these historic references of war to remind the people of the collective struggle of the American people in pursuit of democracy, not only its establishment in American soil, but to spread and extol its virtues around the world – defense of democracy against British colonialism, German fascism, Soviet-proxy communism, perhaps even against the racism and white supremacist tendencies of the Confederate states. As to the truth of the reference to the actual history, no one can deny the blood and sweat and lives which the American people sacrificed for our own democratic ideal. We have sent the best and brightest of our men and women into the different theaters of war in order that our way of life as a nation may be preserved, and contribute into the building of a democratic internationalism around the world, from the dismantling of fascism in the aftermath of World War II, to the discrediting and eventual collapsing of the Soviet Union in 1991. Had it not been for Normandy, together with other Allied powers including the Soviet Union fighting in both the Western and Eastern fronts, World War II would have all been lost under the might of the Third Reich. Had it not been for Concord and Lexington, American democracy as we know it might not have been ever established, where there exists co-equal three branches of government with check-and-balance powers, and individual freedoms such as the right to assembly and the right to petition government for redress of grievances might have never been codified. Had it not been for Vietnam, our people would never have known that not all wars are just and necessary, and some wars are in pursuit of an aggressive military agenda, serving no purpose save for being a proxy war with the Soviet Union. Had it not been for Gettysburg and the American Civil War, the struggle for the abolition of slavery may have waited a little longer, allowing perhaps the continuing treatment of African-Americans as mere chattel. Barack Obama’s use of these historic references serves to prove that his presidency is nothing short but historic, albeit a revolutionary administration that shall sweep the country off its feet, in the same manner as all these historic references had – in changing to the core the politics, economy, and culture of our country. In light of the deepening economic crisis we are facing today, it is true that Obama and the American people deserve nothing short but revolutionary changes in order for us to rise above the quagmire of recession. If Obama needs to sequester erring banks for mismanaging the funds of the people, he must do so to save the American economy. If he must further bail-out the different basic industries of the country such as the automotive industry in order for it to continue functioning as stable American brands, he must do so too. If he must leave the war in Iraq to concentrate on the real war in Afghanistan and the rising Al-Qaeda threat, he must be as resolute as the American soldiers who recovered the France town-after-town from the German Army. What is most important in his historical referencing to our own great wars and battles would be the role of the American people in all of these revolutionary changes, that he unflinchingly said, to wit – Time and again, these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction. In his speech, he always glorified the necessary role of the American people in changing American society. It was not through leaders like him, nor policymakers and generals of old, do we win our wars and battles, but through the collective resolve and action of our people. It is the American people that create their history, not great men. Referencing Today’s Recession With the Great Depression April 2, 2009 The past few days, leaders of the different states from all parts of the globe attended the G20 Summit in London to discuss the ways and means by which the world may find itself out of the current global financial meltdown straddling economic growth not only in the industrialized world but is not affecting much of the developing countries as well. Barack Obama, in his speech reminded the world to cease involving itself with greater protectionism that only through believing in the glory of free-but-now regulated market can the world find itself out of the economic mess it finds itself in. He even mentioned the Great Depression, to wit – Now, just keep in mind some historical context. Faced with similar global challenges in the past, the world was slow to act, and people paid an enormous price. That was true in the Great Depression, when nations prolonged and worsened the crisis by turning inward, waiting for more than a decade to meet the challenge together. Even as recently as the 1980s, the slow global response deepened and widened a debt crisis in Latin America that pushed millions into poverty. What is most interesting for our purposes today is the constant referencing of today’s crisis to the American Great Depression of the 1930s, where millions of Americans lost their jobs, banks closed and severe internal migration among Americans ensued. The Great Depression of the 1930s is being used as a reference to describe the gravity of the economic recession faced by the country and the world today. The news is replete of its effects at present – massive retrenchments and lay-offs, the closure of factory and once mighty businesses, the foreclosure of homes, the inability of parents and students to pay college tuition, the closure of banks and the general absence of confidence in our markets. Scenes of the Great Depression are repeated again and again, with pictures of the infamous Great Crash of 1929 played and replayed in cable news channels juxtaposed with references to the current state of economic affairs. If the question is whether, there exists a one-to-one correspondence with regard to the gravity of the circumstances of both the Great Depression and today’s recession, we cannot say yet at the moment, as we still stand at a point of historical equipoise, due to the continuing crisis ravaging the American economy. However, the historic reference with regard to describing almost the same economic situation of today and the Great Depression is correct, as the latter was also a global economic downturn, and completely showed how far the free market can fall, and what its effects on the people may be. Like the Great Depression, the present crisis is broad-ranging in scope, as it affected not only the stockbrokers, bankers, hedge fund managers, among other financial professionals and investors, but it also damaged the American lower- and middle-classes whose houses were foreclosed and their education loans sapped, due to many factors, such as fund mismanagement by creditors, eventual unemployment, among others. Even the economic remedies being proposed at this moment, such as the financial bail-out and the general trend towards greater government spending and regulation are hallmarks of the Great Depression, with Keynesianism becoming a relevant economic theory once again, signaling a clear break from the mainstream neo-liberal economic thought that demanded less government intervention in the economy to keep the market free. The Keynesian idea was simple, and is alarmingly true even today when viewed with the current economic policies set by the Obama administration to keep people fully employed, governments have to run deficits when the economy is slowing because the private sector will not invest enough to increase production and reverse the recession. At this moment, the Obama administration has a trillion-dollar spending plan to pump-prime the economy at a time when markets are most reluctant to part with their investment money. As to whether this shall trigger an eventual reverse from the downtrend, we will know soon enough. The use of the Great Depression in the contemporary moment serves a dual purpose – to state concretely the dire situation the American people faces today and warn the nation from being drowned in complacency and disbelief, and to serve as a reminder that there is no crisis that the American people failed to withstand, that at the end of these dark nights of recession, a New Deal shall soon be implemented and with all our help, we shall overcome as we have had in the past. Images of past crises have been powerful enough to rouse the people into meaningful action – the spectre of Nazi and Soviet invasion in American soil threatening our way of life was enough to convince much of American men to enlist in the fight against fascism in World War II and in the Korean and Vietnam wars during the Cold War era. The images of internal human migration, hunger, unemployment, destitute citizens with no bread on the table through the Great Depression, in like manner, serve its clear political objective – inform the people of the reality of the economic situation, but nonetheless challenge them to become patriots and contribute to the building of the nation amid the ravages of the present recession. The State of the Union Address February 25, 2009 On the 25th of February 2009, a little over a month since being inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States of America, President Barack Obama addressed the nation, its Congress and unleashed his economic reform agenda to combat the deepening economic recession. In answer to the growing cynicism that government must keep its hands off the economy and retain the old neoliberal economic model, President Obama stated clearly that government has a role to play in ‘laying the foundations of our common prosperity. ’ In furthering his point, he turned to historic policies that shaped the country as we weathered from crisis-to-crisis, to wit – For history tells a different story. History reminds us that at every moment of economic upheaval and transformation, this nation has responded with bold action and big ideas. In the midst of civil war, we laid railroad tracks from one coast to another that spurred commerce and industry. From the turmoil of the Industrial Revolution came a system of public high schools that prepared our citizens for a new age. In the wake of war and depression, the GI Bill sent a generation to college and created the largest middle class in history. And a twilight struggle for freedom led to a nation of highways, an American on the moon, and an explosion of technology that still shapes our world. In this excerpt, President Obama makes several historical references to different socio-economic milestones in American society that were achieved despite political and economic difficulties. Obama posits that in the middle of the military offensives between Union and Confederate forces, the foundations of the modern American railroad system were laid. He states that from the American public school system was born from the push-and-pull of the Industrial Revolution. He asserts that the GI Bill was responsible for educating war veterans who were fresh from our victories in Europe and the Pacific. He also says that amid the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the nation was able to establish the Interstate Highway System, send Neil Armstrong and company to the moon, and facilitate a growth in science and technology. These historical references were used to again highlight the greatness and resilience of the American people amid crisis situations like the economic recession we face today, creating images of hope that we shall all overcome soon enough. The references were also used to add historic weight to his new economic agenda, which included the one-trillion dollar stimulus package, a pump-priming plan different from the seven-hundred billion dollar bail-out plan of the Bush administration. The historic milestones were used to buttress the point that his own economic agenda shall be a milestone in itself, given the chance and support of Congress and the American people. As a general statement on the integrity of the historic reference, these were well researched assertions, somewhat intimating a causal relationship between crises and economic milestones. It is a fact that it was during the civil war when Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act in 1862, a statute that authorized the creation of a transcontinental railway. It is true that due to the onslaught of the Cold War, (1) Dwight Eisenhower envisioned the creation of an Interstate Highway System to help in the deployment of supplies to military troop in the event of an invasion, (2) the space race prompted NASA to fast-track research on space travel, and soon after laid the stimulus for greater technology research. He was also correct in his assertion that the GI Bill indeed provided college and vocational education to returning war veterans, notwithstanding other benefits. Again, as in the previous entries with regard to the historical references of the Obama Presidency, President Obama uses these historic references to draw attention to his own making of history, as the President of the US amid a recession, in the mold of Lincoln, Eisenhower, Roosevelt. On the other hand, the historical references again serve as a reminder to the American people that amid the global economic recession – they shall overcome, that despite the foreclosure of homes, the retrenchment of jobs, and the closure of banks, historic reforms shall soon be in place to ensure that the economic milestones of decades past shall not be reversed fully and that our people may continue enjoying the fruits of our democratic ideals. The historical references also show that we only have to turn to our own past and history as a nation to determine that a decisive remedy for our economic woes shall soon be in sight. It appeals to the patriotic nature of a great number of our fellow Americans, where nativist tendencies continue to linger, particularly in America’s heartland areas. Moreover, President Obama’s historical references are consistent with his unrelenting call for collective action and unity amid the crisis, because none of those achievements would have been possibly without the labor and support of the people themselves. None of those were ever achieved by the single stroke of a President’s pen nor the policymaker’s brief, but was perfected by the sacrifices of men and women in American history. Obama on the Use of Nuclear Weapons Prague, Czech Republic April 5, 2009 On the fifth of April, 2009, fresh from the G20 Summit on the global economic crisis, President Barack Obama delivered a speech on his policy on nuclear weapons. He acknowledged the dangers posed by the production, proliferation and use of nuclear weapons, and has pledged to ensure that international law measures shall be put in place in pursuit of preventing its production, spread and use among states, and more importantly, illegal trading among terrorists in the black market of secrets and even excess warheads from former Soviet satellites. He proposed a strengthening of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, an escalation of a US-Russia bilateral treaty on the reduction of dangerous weapons, protective measures against proliferation of materials for the production of weapons-grade uranium, among many other proposals that have roused the Czech public into countless applause. On the other hand, he acknowledge the right of Iran for the peaceful use of nuclear energy, subject to strict inspections but warned the Islamic Republic from forcibly pursuing nuclear and ballistic weapons, as it would only further its isolation from the rest of the community of nations. In view of this policy context, President Obama referred back to the origins of the arms race between the US and the Soviet Union to show the unjustness of the very existence of these weapons, to wit – The existence of thousands of nuclear weapons is the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War. No nuclear war was fought between the United States and the Soviet Union, but generations lived with the knowledge that their world could be erased in a single flash of light. Cities like Prague that existed for centuries, that embodied the beauty and the talent of so much of humanity, would have ceased to exist. The historical reference here is the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, which started in the aftermath of World War II, when the world was fiercely divided between the camps espousing capitalist democracy as represented by the Americans, and the socialist camp as led by the Soviet Union. While no bullets were ever shot during the entire course of the War from the late 40s to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, both states were engaged in proxy wars in different third world countries, such as Korea in the 1950s where the US sided with the South and the Soviets provided support to the North’s Kim Il Sung. More importantly, the entire period of the Cold War was also the venue for the arms and space race between the two great powers, in which both camps sought to produce the most powerful weapons and rockets, including those of the nuclear kind. In the course of the War, both camps produced an overwhelming array of nuclear weapons, in order to check on each other’s growing military might. The use of the historical reference was more to warn the world of the horrors of a prospective nuclear war, and that his government shall never be a party to such a war, notwithstanding taking concrete measures to ensure that the very fissile materials to be used in producing weapons-grade nuclear power shall never be placed in the wrong hands. Moreover, his references to the Cold War nuclear race were also done to buttress his position on the other uses of nuclear technology such as the production of electricity, which Iran, as a sovereign state, may fully do. President Obama was correct in his depiction of a nuclear war which may destroy entire cities and civilizations. Even prior to the nuclear proliferation of the Cold War, the world was already a witness to the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, when American bomber planes dropped atomic bombs over these entire cities and vaporized a majority of its population. The paranoia of the world and the American people on threat of nuclear war was so great that different states sought the ratification of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to pressure nuclear-wielding states, either to abandon their nuclear program fully or decrease the number of stockpiled nuclear weapons. With regard to the meaning of the historical reference as per the contemporary moment, he posits that the Cold War proliferation of nuclear weapons is one of the most dangerous consequences of the then bipolar world, in which all efforts must be done towards the reversal of such a situation, whether through consented desistance of nuclear-powered states, or through the creation of tougher and more engaging multi-lateral treaties dealing with the subject of nuclear weapons. Its meaning today is no different from the dangers that lurked in the use nuclear weapons in decades past, and President Obama is fully concerned that nuclear energy must remain in the hands of only those states that would harness its benefits peacefully and never in pursuit of aggressive military, even terrorist, objectives. References: 1. ___________. (2009). Transcript: Obamas G20 Press Conference. CBS News. Retrieved April 2, 2009 from http://www. cbsnews. com/stories/2009/04/02/politics/100days/worldaffairs/main491 4735. shtml? source=RSSattr=Politics_4914735 2. Obama, B. (2009). Prague Speech on Nuclear Weapons. Huffington Post. Retrieved April 5, 2009 from http://www. huffingtonpost. com/2009/04/05/obama-prague-speech-on- nu_n_183219. html. 3. Obama, B. (2009). Obama Inaugural Address. The New York Times. Retrieved January 22, 2009 from http://www. nytimes. com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20text- obama. html? _r=1. 4. Obama, B. (2009). Remarks of President Barack Obama Address to Joint Session of Congress. The White House Briefing Room. Retrieved February 27, 2009 from http://www. whitehouse. gov/the_press_office/remarks-of-president-barack-obama- address-to-joint-session-of-congress/. 5.