Obama - Crazy like a Fox

Obama has done it again. Attempting to heal wounds and repair relations between previous enemies, he has raised the bee swarm of conservative ire. In a speech to Vietnamese leaders, Obama referenced Ho Chi Minh's letters to then President Truman at the end of World War Two seeking US help in gaining Vietnamese independence after the fall of Japan. The existence of these letters is historical, as is Ho Chi Minh's regard for America's founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson. But to the right, Obama is merely relaying leftist mythology and replaying the political errors that led to our failure to hold onto Vietnam. Some people just can't seem to let go of the past, or work a way out of a hide-bound ideological take on the world.
It's a similar sort of denial that takes over right wingers on the issue of climate change, where Gaia has dared to defy the market system and declared its own self-regulatory mechanisms that pay little heed to individual self-interest. Of course, environmentalists need to understand that it's only been 450 years since Sir Francis Bacon proposed ravishing Nature for the purpose of unlocking her secrets and it's going to take some patience while we get used to living within our limits on the blue-green planet. But don't count on Obama to storm the ramparts of the oil companies. He's way too smart for that. The dragon has its talons dug deep within his own administration, and its going to take a massive effort on the part of a world-wide movement based on generational equity, not race or class, to cut us loose from impending disaster.

(photo credit: Templar 1307/Flickr.com)