Obama's Dilemma

THE FORCES THAT LIMIT OBAMA

Jack Bragen

Copyright 2010

To many people's consternation, it seems that no matter who is president, many of the same injustices in the United States seem to persist. Under President Bush, we had an un-winnable war in the Middle East. And now, with President Obama, we are waging war against an even more formidable enemy—still in the Middle East. For those who don't want the U.S. to participate in such military actions, it must create a great deal of distress as well as distrust of the President.
Obama's administration has continued many of the same government bailouts of giant companies, and has refrained from fulfilling his campaign promise that he would redistribute the wealth. These are the same actions and lack of actions that would have happened under the Bush administration.
The biggest difference, it seems, between Bush and Obama is one of style. President Obama clearly has the advantage here, and has a masterful way of speaking and conducting himself. When we heard Bush speak to the public, it was as if we were hearing a pro basketball player, or perhaps a used car salesman—not very presidential.
In his campaign, Obama promised to "rock the boat" and this hasn't happened. President Obama's actions and policies have been middle of the road. Obama's similarities to the behavior of Bush have led me to the conclusion that the world we live in is Asimovian.
In Isaac Asimov's Foundation science fiction series, written many decades ago, there existed a science known as Psychohistory. In those books, the Psychohistorians could predict the destiny of large numbers of humans based upon mathematical formulas. The theory implied that it doesn't matter whom you vote for because human destiny is already mapped out.
The President no matter which person that is, is forced to make certain decisions based upon the pressures that he or she is under, based upon the necessity of avoiding disastrous results, and based upon being in a position of knowing things that individual didn't know prior to becoming President. It seems that it may matter very little who is president, since any person elected will be forced to behave in almost the same way, with a small amount of room for some of their own choices.
In the books, there were certain things that threw human destiny off track, such as one character who had mutated to have mind control powers called "the mule." So, while in those stories human destiny was preordained, there were a few things that could change the game that couldn't be predicted.
If any one of us reaches our potential, with it comes the possibility that we could reshape human destiny.