World-News

AntiWar.Com
by Alan Bock

01/19/09

While an Obama administration is likely to have a different tone than the outgoing Bush administration, and will also come into office with a reservoir of good will that may not extend beyond the superficial, much of the evidence is that there will be more continuity than change. His plan for withdrawing from Iraq is not all that different from what the Bush administration has begun to implement, and the likelihood is that even after ‘combat’ troops have been withdrawn there will still be tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq. Obama plans to issue an executive order early on to close the Guantanamo prison camp, but his aides stress that the process of actually doing so will be gradual and difficult and could take a year or so. Then there’s his apparent conviction that the real central front in what he also calls the ‘war on terror’ (an unfortunate misnomer with implications for how one confronts problems) is in Afghanistan...

http://www.antiwar.com/bock/?articleid=14094



Fleas on a dog? Change? A new direction?

The Libertarian Enterprise
by David Earnest

01/18/09

We humans are an odd bunch. We like continuity, tradition and habit. When things happen outside the ordinary, the customary and the habitual we call that ’stressful.’ We don’t deal with change real well do we? Look around in your own world how you deal with change. Been fired lately? How did that make you feel? Been dumped by a woman or a man? How did that make you feel? Ever been first in line at the bank when 3 of 4 tellers go to lunch? Been in a speed trap? Try being rational with a 3 year old. Life is designed to be unfair, how well you deal with the intrinsic unfairness of life is a gauge of how successful in life you’ll be...

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2009/tle502-20090118-06.html



Are we there yet, Martin?

Salon
by Joan Walsh

01/19/09

Clearly Obama’s race as well as his commitment to equality and opportunity for all makes him a powerful symbol of King’s legacy. ‘I may not get there with you,’ King prophetically told supporters the night before he died, ‘but I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.’ Some 40 years later, are we there yet? Obama echoed King (and Sam Cooke) on election night: ‘It’s been a long time coming, but change has come to America.’ But how much and what kind of change, and will it be enough?’ Of course King was an activist and agitator; Obama will be president. Comparisons may obscure as much as they illuminate. Still, on the day we celebrate King’s life, it’s hard not to think about the ways Obama does and does not resemble him, and will and won’t complete his work...

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/01/19/mlk/



Very mixed feelings

Tibor's Space
by Tibor R. Machan

01/18/09

Clearly I am not euphoric about the inauguration of Barack Obama, certainly not the way that millions appear to be across America. In fact some of this euphoria is very disappointing to me because, well, it is too tribal, too much a matter of ‘one of us got elected.’ Never mind his political vision, his prospective policies, his way of conceiving of his job. Then, too, the fact that Mr. Obama is talking about a ‘new Declaration of Independence’ is frightening — what on earth would he want to change about the old one?

http://tibikem.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!B2FD693F4B9A5746!674.entry



Hounding Obama Nation, part 1

from Reason to Freedom
by Peter Namtvedt

01/18/09

He committed to limit campaign spending by public matching funds for the presidential election …. He promised to stop smoking cigarettes. … He promised to hold open town hall meetings during the campaign with John McCain. Then he reneged, because of the huge inflow of contributions. Here is a list of more promises broken …. What a political candidate says ought to mean what he really expects to get done if elected. What a winning candidate says needs to be what he will do...

http://www.reasontofreedom.com/hounding_obama_nation_part_1.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



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