(1) As I said below, Wall Street has corrupted both parties. One of the reason Clinton's budgets focused so much on deficit reduction is that on the advice of Bob Rubin (his Treasury Secretary, who worked at Goldman Sachs before entering government service and worked at Citigroup afterward), Clinton wanted to stay on the bond traders' good side.
(2) This sucks and I hope more pressure can be brought to bear on the issue, but at least he hasn't pardoned the crooks, so if he doesn't have the cojones to prosecute them, maybe one of his successors will.
(3) Both parties, sadly, have a tradition of throwing the weight of the US military around. I would love to see an Administration pull back to something closer to isolationism, but the military-industrial complex is too powerful to allow such a drastic change in policy happen in one election cycle.
I don't know enough about your smaller points to comment.
Relative to the American political spectrum I'm pretty far to the left (if I were Canadian I'd probably be voting NDP), but Obama never campaigned as someone so far to the left. He campaigned from the center of the Democratic party (not to be confused with a "centrist" who splits the difference between the Democrats and Republicans) and that's how he's governing.
Do I wish the center of gravity in US politics was farther to the left? Absofuckinglutely. Did I expect my vote in a presidential election (as contrasted with all the other ways I as a citizen can influence the political system) to shift this center of gravity more than one or two degrees? No way in hell.
Re: Three Tiny Bright Spots
(1) As I said below, Wall Street has corrupted both parties. One of the reason Clinton's budgets focused so much on deficit reduction is that on the advice of Bob Rubin (his Treasury Secretary, who worked at Goldman Sachs before entering government service and worked at Citigroup afterward), Clinton wanted to stay on the bond traders' good side.
(2) This sucks and I hope more pressure can be brought to bear on the issue, but at least he hasn't pardoned the crooks, so if he doesn't have the cojones to prosecute them, maybe one of his successors will.
(3) Both parties, sadly, have a tradition of throwing the weight of the US military around. I would love to see an Administration pull back to something closer to isolationism, but the military-industrial complex is too powerful to allow such a drastic change in policy happen in one election cycle.
I don't know enough about your smaller points to comment.
Relative to the American political spectrum I'm pretty far to the left (if I were Canadian I'd probably be voting NDP), but Obama never campaigned as someone so far to the left. He campaigned from the center of the Democratic party (not to be confused with a "centrist" who splits the difference between the Democrats and Republicans) and that's how he's governing.
Do I wish the center of gravity in US politics was farther to the left? Absofuckinglutely. Did I expect my vote in a presidential election (as contrasted with all the other ways I as a citizen can influence the political system) to shift this center of gravity more than one or two degrees? No way in hell.