Chains You Can Believe In

There must have been a spelling error in Obama’s campaign slogan. Either that or what he meant by change was that after he is elected he’ll change his policies.

Just this morning, the New York Times (that bulwark of journalisic integrity known for its cutting edge editorials; satire inserted)reported that the Obama administration is second guessing their decision to close Guantanamo Bay.

I am sitting here wondering what radical changes are in the works. By change I had assumed that Obama would insist on moving the country in the opposite direction that it was heading in the Bush administration, yet, he has only taken up Bush’s policies more aggressively.

Take the economy for example. The Bush administration pursued a hardcore Keynesian economic policy of formidable government intervention in the marketplace and personal lives of Americans.

Obama’s idea of change…?

Pursue the same policies much more aggressively. All the while Americans seem divided on which despot to support. The Obamanites can point to no clear changes that Obama has instituted or plans to institute. The Bushites really cannot say anything after the last eight years of King George W.

One may attempt to point to Obama’s promise to end the war in Iraq, yet even if he withdraws the US occupation of this sovereign country, it would be a purely semantical argument to insist that this is any kind of change considering the fact that he is merely transferring military might from one front to another (Afghanistan and Pakistan).

I believe the campaign slogan referred not to change, but to chains. Samuel Adams spoke of these same chains when he said so well…

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may your posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”