World wide polls select President Obama as the world's favorite leader. He rides a tide of hope and enthusiasm, but, alas, little progress seems to be made on WARS, HEALTH CARE, ECONOMY, GLOBAL WARMING, or other issues important to citizens, and world humanity. The progressive implications of his campaign have not manifested significant changes, and the promise of change gradually dims. "No, we can't."

The President recently said that we stay in Afghanistan because some people there hate us. We are saddened to hear such a nice man be so obliged to invert the truth. Reverend Wright was right, he's a politician. President Obama and the elected government in general is the interface between the power elite and the people. Contrary to what we were taught in school, the power goes from the elite down, more than from the people up. Santayana might have said, "Those who remember the lessons of history, stay stuck in the old cliches." [cf letsprehend.com, a Manual of Human Ecology and Culture Design, Chapter 6 POLITICS.]

WAR seems to be continuing as usual, though clearly he campaigned against it. Let's infer that foreign policy, especially military policy, is not managed by the elected government, but rather by what Dwight Eisenhower named, the `Military Industrial Complex', the MICs. Kurt Vonegut, on his Charlie Rose interview a few years ago, stated that he had given Ike that phrase in his long friendly conversations. Recall that JFK brazenly took the role of Commander in Chief and halted support for the carefully planned and already operational invasion of Cuba, but it cost him his life.

President Cheney said a decade ago that to mount a serious war against terrorism another Pearl Harbor scale incident would be necessary. 9/11/2001 provided that incident, and a growing interest is shown about its origins and organization - a very uncomfortable concern. Opinion poles show popular opposition to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The common framing that the elected government results from the educational system, the social sciences as they are taught. The pupils learn to attend to the framing presented by the curriculum, not to their own shrinking integrity. Such `direction of attention' sacrifices the child's inner growth of objective observation and deeper understanding. The `well adjusted' students learn passivity and stupidity, the majority learn that learning is unpleasant and avoidable. To make matters worse, age grouping shifts loyalty from the adult community to the peer group. Thus maturity and identification with the culture is severely damaged, and the intellectual culture continues to degrade. [Judith Harris, THE NURTURE FALLACY]

I suspect that deep down inside, most citizens intuit that our wealth comes from our foreign investments, and that the MICs responsibility is to maintain this portion of our income. [See in letsprehend.com: ENHANCEMENT OF INVESTMENT, and Notes on the Crisis] Given modern technology and communications, this foundation is eroding, as we observe in Venezuela and many other places. Whether the MICs succeed in this preservation, the MICs provide profit and jobs and are a large component of American economy and life.

The U. S. ECONOMY and life style is so constructed that huge consumption is required. [Recent book: LIFE, INC] The resulting culture, expensive as it is, does not provide a healthy or enriching social or personal life. Shifts toward more ecological and sustainable modes are technically and economically easy, but barely on the political or ecological horizon. [see ECOBURB, Reconstruction of Organic Social Life ]

Current attention to HEALTH CARE illustrates how the management of our society works. Good political science is explaining these processes in detail, but for these notes, let's just make a few inferences. Obviously the financial interests such as the pharmaceutical, hospital, and other medical institutions all lobby to maintain and enhance their profits, the nature of the corporation demands it. This is an institutional problem, not a weakness or corruption of individuals. Granted some individuals can alleviate the profit imperative slightly, but only at the risk of their high professional positions that they have strived so hard to attain. Corporate values displace human values in a profit system. [INTERNALIZATION OF THE CORPORATE ETHIC, ICE] The people who manage this process can be quickly replaced. They are not evil people, just corporate robots. Notice George Solos, Bill Gates and many others have risen above the capitalist class to feudal positions.

The complex of our LOBBY system with its brilliant and skillful personnel exert their almost limitless resources to assure that the elected government conforms to these institutional imperatives. Rham Emmanuel explained on Charlie Rose, "Let no crisis go to waste!" We might infer from history of the New Deal and the rise of communist states that the present crisis is quite insufficient to move the inexorable evolution of our institutions. As our national management evolves, the lobbyists and related consultant firms and interests become ever more dominating. The mere elected government is increasingly helpless to resist this gigantic LOBBY LOBBY. Please don't be distracted by the media. Their job is to maintain and reinforce the common framing.

Thus, the feckless Barack Obama elegantly and brilliantly comforts the populace as the nation, humanity, and the supporting ecosystem continues to degrade.

But all is not lost. For an optimistic scenario, see YES, WE CAN - CONVERT TO SUSTAINABLE CULTURES.

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