Retrospective: Three years after Obama’s inauguration
On Jan. 20, 2009, I documented my fellow Marines’ reactions to the inauguration of President Barack Obama. I interviewed a total of six Marines including one of myself.The sentiment expressed by us was mostly positive, with the lone exception of one Marine who I thought was being overly cynical.
The interviews started with my best friend Isaac Clayton (in the video above) — an Afghanistan War and Marine veteran who also saw action in Southeast Asia — who was almost breathless in his excitement and hopefulness about his new Commander-in-Chief. Isaac said that he was thrilled that Obama said in his speech: “As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.” Isaac added, “It’s a great thing to see someone stand up and say, ‘Yes, we’re America. Yes, we have ideals. And no we won’t sacrifice our ideals for a false sense of security.”
Justin Tyler went even further, proclaiming that he knows that Obama will do a good job. He hopes that real change will finally happen and reverse the course of the country that is seeing the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
It is worth noting that both Isaac and Justin supported Obama’s candidacy. That their choice for the White House won is something that they are obviously celebrating. The other three Marines interviewed, did not support Obama’s candidacy. They are, however, cautiously supportive.
For example, Saldana expressed disappointment that military voices were not heard in the 2008 presidential elections, but said that “There’s hope. Everybody has hope.” There is also Kurtis, a supporter of Sen. John McCain, who said he respects the will of the American people and respects his new Commander-in-Chief. Myself, I thought that it is very inspiring that Americans and the world were jarred from their apathy and started to care about the outcome of this American democracy.
The lone dissenter from all this excitement and cautious optimism was my friend Dustin. He slept through the televised ceremony and proclaimed that he could not care less about the inauguration. “He’s a liar anyway. Why would I need to watch an inauguration — he’s gonna lie to me anyway,” explained Dustin. “As the main figurehead, that’s their job is to lie to us. To make us feel good about ourselves.” I thought at that time that it was extremely cynical of him. Oh, how naive I was.
I asked Isaac what he thinks of Obama now:
A person who the financial sector elected joined a bunch of the same people and did fucked up stuff. By my own admission, I was naive to think he’d be much different than all the other puppets.
He does, however, gives Obama some credit and blasts his Republican rivals:
The only difference between Obama and his GOP contenders is that Obama at least talks like he gives a shit about the American people. The others fully embrace greed and jackassery.
It is precisely Obama’s pretense of empathy for the American people which makes him so alluring to people even after his administration commits supreme crimes against humanity and complicity in the abrogation of the rule of law. Liberal firebrand Glenn Greenwald has exhaustively documented Obama’s abuses of power, from waging wars in Libya absent Congressional authorization to the due-process-free assassinations of American citizens and the many other awful things that would normally draw condemnation if it were done under a Republican presidency, and yet none of these atrocious policies has created significant backlash from progressives. In fact, a cursory reading of top liberal pundits gives an impression of wholesale endorsement of these policies that were so aggressively opposed under the Bush administration. Combine this progressive endorsement of Bush policies with the total lack of empathy from the Republicans for the plight of the poor and the oppressed, a picture emerges of an increasingly dire state of our electoral politics.
This year’s election will be a choice between two pro-war, pro-NDAA, pro-Patriot Act, pro-SOPA, pro-bailouts, pro-debt, anti-OWS, and anti-liberty presidential candidates. Almost four years ago, there was a veneer of hope and a promise of change. Maybe things will be different, but any change that has come about has been of the expansion of the Police State, expansion of our imperialist wars, and the runaway plunder of this nation’s wealth for the benefit of the very powerful.
The act of voting once represented an exercise of American freedom and liberty — no longer. The 2012 presidential elections will become an exercise of hopeless consent to our failed economic policies, to war and the police state, and a rejection of peace, liberty, and the rule of law. We will go to the voting booth as if a prisoner heading to his prison cell to face four more years of harsh sentence. The partisan hackery which cripples this nation’s political discourse has left this country brimming with sad excuses and bereft of hope.
Marines react to Obama’s inauguration:
1. Reactions to Obama’s Inauguration: Isaac Clayton
2. Reactions to Obama’s Inauguration: Justin Tyler
3. Reactions to Obama’s Inauguration: Jayel Aheram
4. Reactions to Obama’s Inauguration: Saldana
5. Reactions to Obama’s Inauguration: Kurtis
6. Reactions to Obama’s Inauguration: Dustin
