Obama is much more willing to use diplomacy and to build up solid alliances, but he has indicated that he, too, has adopted much of the neo-conservative militarist mindset about American exceptionalism and our supposed responsibility to police the planet.
In short, not all that much has changed from the Vietnam War-era when the U.S. couldn't figure out how or whether to disengage from trying to run other nations' business, and when it conducted an immoral war that wound up killing millions abroad and fomenting a political/generational civil war at home over the wisdom and costs of that misadventure.
Our illegal, immoral attack on and occupation of Iraq is similarly the
crucible for a generation opposed to this unnecessary, self-defeating war, a war despised by two-thirds of the American people. Despite Obama's announced 16-months-and-out plan, it's not clear how, or when, he will remove the majority of the troops, and whether, even if they go, many of those American troops will simply move one border over to the quagmire in Afghanistan and/or re-deploy to other bases in the Greater Middle East. In fact, Obama has hinted that events on the ground in Iraq might prolong the occupation in Iraq.
2. A RESTRICTED, CORRUPT MASS-MEDIA
The corporate mass-media in newspapers, TV networks and cable, radio talk shows, etc. are even more prone these days to serve as little more than stenographers for governmental propaganda and spin; their tendency is to support conservative values and politicians in their editorials and choices of stories to run and highlight. (Olbermann and Maddow are exceptions to the mass-media rule.)
There are few mainstream investigative reporters and editors willing to take on the powers-that-be. Example: the New York Times waited until after the 2004 elections to expose the Bush Administration's illegal domestic-spying operation, a story they had ready to go for a full year before that. Those few mainstream reporters who do color outside the acceptable lines run the risk of being fired or disciplined or being forced to resign. Most obvious examples: Dan Rather forced out at "60 Minutes" for pushing a story about Dubya's questionable service at the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, or war correspondent Chris Hedges having to leave the New York Times after speaking publicly about the truth of U.S. policy abroad.
If citizens are to exercise proper oversight of their government, they need accurate information. These days, even more than in "The Sixties," citizens have to consciously search out alternative sources beyond the corporate mass-media to get a clearer fix on what's really going on: For reliable information, the curious must look to the foreign media, to the handful of trustworthy investigative journalists in the mainstream U.S. press, to the satirists and comedians, and, most importantly, to unencumbered political analysis on the internet.
3. DEMS' TIMIDITY & COMPLICITY
There are some definite exceptions, but by and large politicians in Washington, as always, seem devoted to watching out for their own interests and covering each others' backs. Maybe that's why they seem tone-deaf to what's really agitating their constituents outside the D.C. Beltway.
Lobbyists hired by the powerful interests whose money rules in the nation's capital have an inordinate influence on legislation, much more than they had in the Vietnam era. One shouldn't expect this system to change much in the foreseeable future. Politicians feel the need to suck on the lobbyists' teat because they need the money for their permanent election cycles. Public financing of those political campaigns, which might reduce the influence of special-interest money, appears to be dead in the water.
One would hope that now that the Democrats have increased their majorities in the House and Senate that they would be in the forefront of major reform. But the Democrats haven't demonstrated much interest in any drastic alterations of how campaigns are financed, in fixing our compromised and corrupted voting system, in punishing criminal acts and war crimes of high officials by ordering impeachment hearings, in cutting off financing for the occupation of Iraq, in restoring Constitutional protections decimated during the past eight years of Republican rule in the White House, etc. etc.
Certainly the Congressional Democrats, and President Obama, will serve average Americans better than when CheneyBush ruled the Executive Branch. But the Democratic leaders, Pelosi and Reid, on key issues tend to be overly-cautious accomodationists rather than true fighters for significant change.
I'm prepared to be delighted by being proven wrong, but it appears that the "change" promised by Obama and the Democrats may be measured in small, incremenetal doses in the next four years, thus protecting the ongoing System, when what is required is a massive overhaul and reform.
Just look at the humongous bailout of the financial system by the federal government. We're heading fast toward a major '30s-like Great Depression, with a half-million job-holders losing their positions each month, and an economy that could well grind to a disastrous near-halt as more businesses go belly-up. Billions of dollars are passed out here and there to financial institutions to stabilize the capitalist System, but there is no effective oversight in place to verify where all that largesse is going. We know that precious little of it is filtering down to ordinary American homeowners trying to pay their mortgages, workers laid off, small-business owners forced into bankruptcy, etc.
4. ACCOUNTABILITY "OFF THE TABLE"
And, most galling of all for hard-pressed American citizens watching their stock portolios and IRAs and pensions shrink daily, there is rarely any accountability for those who got us into the various disasters:
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