The Unsuitablog

I really don’t want to say “I was right”, this being about things that really matter, but considering how much I and, I am sure, you know about the way the Culture of Maximum Harm operates, it comes as no surprise at all that just three months into his presidency, Barack Obama is showing every sign of being crushed between the cogs of The Machine.

Here’s what I wrote back in November:

I’m going to make a prediction, and you can hold me to this: within a year of taking office, Barack Obama will seem like just another President of the United States. I feel sorry for him because — having an instinct for these things — I think he really does want to make change happen, at least in a social context, yet he has but one choice: toe the line or face the consequences…the President operates within a context of continuing to expand Industrial Civilization. The President has no choice but to work with the system. The President will do the bidding of the system because he represents the system, in all its toxic glory.

That is why Barack Obama will become a greenwasher — it’s his job, whether he likes it or not.

Notice the italicised phrase above – it seems even I was being too optimistic:

Barack Obama may be forced to delay signing up to a new international agreement on climate change in Copenhagen at the end of the year because of the scale of opposition in the US Congress, it emerged today.

Senior figures in the Obama administration have been warning Labour counterparts that the president may need at least another six months to win domestic support for any proposal.

Such a delay could derail the securing of a tough global agreement in time for countries and markets to adopt it before the Kyoto treaty runs out in 2012.

American officials would prefer to have the approval of Congress for any international agreement and fear that if the US signed up without it there would be a serious domestic backlash.

He still talks the talk: of the 80% cut by 2050 (abjectly useless, based on current predictions of atmospheric carbon growth); of a Cap and Trade scheme (using money to mask a lack of real reductions) and of a “New Kyoto” (as though the old one had any impact). Talking the talk of the machine, and walking the walk like a puppy on a lead.

How apt that his first “action” upon entering the White House was to discuss getting a family pet. Time to take a look in the mirror, Mr Obama, and see who is behind you.