A Country Against Itself

Since the 2008 election there has been much debate, or argument, about whether the elected president Obama will be able to hold up to his promises made during his campaign and whether or not he is on the right track to accomplishing his goals as our newly elected commander and chief. Many citizens, news articles, and main stream media hosts have argued that he in fact cannot, will not, and has not thus far lived up to our expectations while many others argue quite the opposite. Many accusations have been made against our new president, many of which have over time proved to be full of nothing but fallacies. One of these false accusations directed towards the president was that the president planned to immediately pull a large number, if not all, of our troops out of Iraq to bring them home. This was simply a misconception by the hopeful but ill informed American citizens. Although his plan was to in fact pull a large number of troops out of Iraq, a huge part of the campaign was in doing so to transfer them to Afghanistan where he and several other chiefs of staff believed the war on terrorism should have been all along. A few other serious misconceptions, I discovered in an August 22 White House press release, made by the American people in regards to their expectations of president Obama were things like illegal immigrants being covered by his new health care reform, abortions funded by the taxpayers money, reform leading to entire governmental take over of our health care, and "death panels" being formed to decide who receives health care treatment and benefits. Most of these are chalked up to outrageous rumors but when a rumor is taken seriously by a large enough group of people, it can lead to an out of control uprising and unruly mass of emotionally driven citizens. I firmly believe that president Obama is doing, has done, and will continue to do a better than fair job in office and strive to act upon not only what is ethically and morally in the best interests of our country, but will do the same for people the world over as a whole. If one takes a minute to look to media outside of our own propaganda driven American media, they will see that many other countries are applauding Mr. Obama for the role he has taken in building the peace and strengthening the relationship between our international allies and friends the world over. A man that is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize is surely doing something right, in whatever his pursuits may be. I commend him, though I may not always agree with him, on the job he has done for our country and other thus far as our first black president of the United States, which is surely a heavy weight to carry in terms of responsibility and expectations.

Enough Is Never Enough

In an Counter Punch blog article entitled Where $18 An Hour Is Too Much, the author Carl Ginsburg discusses what he calls a problem in the pay rate of the New York baking factory's workers. He states that apparently America cannot afford to pay these workers $18 an hour, which he says totals to $2,300 a month. Ginsburg goes on to discuss the fact that New York's homeless population is at an all time high at about 120,000 women, men, and children. He continues stating that, "Barack Obama believes in banks over jobs." He says that president Obama would have these workers believe that, "growth in the GDP will free up markets, loosen credit, and create good jobs...", but states that this is a "one-sided belief" and will not create jobs for many years to come. He finalizes talking about how on the COBRA health care plan, the government covers 65% of workers premiums for up to nine months but still leaves hundreds of dollars monthly for the workers to cover on their own to pay the insurance company. He states that it is for these reasons that so many Americans qualify for food stamps due to that fact that these workers will not find a living wage job for some time to come. From the beginning of the article, Ginsburg makes his seemingly very biased view point fairly difficult to understand. Though he covers several factors on the matter being discussed, his method of writing and order in which he discusses these topics are very scatter brained and difficult to keep up with. He does not give a very smooth flow between paragraphs which makes it fairly hard to understand what point he is trying to make, and about what matter his point is covering. He opens discussing that the baking factory workers pay was cut from $18 an hour to "only" $14 an hour. This is a very biased and one-sided mind set to be thinking on and does not allow much room for other ideas of solutions to what Ginsburg believes to be a serious problem. He definitely takes a strict New Yorker's view point approach to his writing and doesn't seem to have even considered the fact there may be several other options. Why couldn't these unemployed workers move out of state or even to another city if the living conditions are so difficult for them? New York seems to be far beyond over populated anyways, and it seems to me that this idea could possibly be a kill two birds with one stone solution. Ginsburg comes off even more biased when he states Barack Obama favors banks over jobs and calling Obama's belief in the GDP's growth a solution to job, credit, and market problems "a simplistic and one-sided proposition at best...". It seems to me that over all Ginsburg has not put much thought into what his is writing about other than his own personal opinions and doesn't seems to think that there can be any other view point outside of what he discusses.

Where IS The War Leading Us?

In a September 27, 2009 article entitled Where The War Is Leading Us, the author Ruben Navarrette discusses President Obama's plans for moving troops into Afghanistan and how these efforts appear to be changing over time. Navarrette begins stating that it seems that the president has little faith in his newly appointed top U.S. military commander and doesn't care for the General's opinions on warfare matters. The author goes on discussing how General McChrystal has asked for 45,000 additional troops to prevent failure of the Afghanistan efforts despite a difference of opinions within the White House. Navarrette concludes by stating that the support of the war by American citizens has dropped to an all time low of 39% and questions why the president is doing nothing to back the military with what it needs to do what is necessary in what the president called a "war of necessity." It seems that Navarrette's intended audience for this article is anyone who is willing to listen to and consider his stand on the topic. Although it is not a completely opinionated and/or biased article, his credibility as a political writer is questionable at best when read. He seems to be very favorable of the war in Afghanistan and definitely has biased against the president and his plan of action. Throughout the article, Navarrette makes a few very logical and evidence supported points although the evidence backing them could be considered very semantical and somewhat contrived. Through the passage, Navarrette continues to make statements to the effect that president Obama is not doing what he has stated he plans to do but doesn't seem to take any consideration into how long it may take to put forth these actions through Congress and the amount of time it takes to pass an action like this in U.S. government. Navarrette's claims that Obama is not living up to his standards or doing what he needs to in order to ensure the United State's safety come off very opinionated, non concrete evidence supported, and very biased against the president's short- lived actions in office up to this point.