Hermit
Archon
Posts: 4287
Reputation: 8.93
Rate Hermit
Prime example of a practically perfect person
 
|
 |
Dismal Obama Poll. How do you rate him?
« on: 2009-09-02 21:06:24 » |
 |
I recently completed a poll at http://surveyg2.pollingpoint.com.
I thought it asked some interesting questions. This is too complex of a poll to establish using CoV facilities, and as you will see, I'm not sure that a simplistic "check the box" poll can provide meaningful answers, so I have added a score and rearranged the "No Opinion" option to put it in the centre to make it easier to track manually.
| Strongly approve | Somewhat approve | No opinion | Somewhat disapprove | Strongly disapprove | | Terrorism | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | | The war in Iraq | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | | Immigration | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | | Health care | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | | Social security | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | | Gay rights | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | | The environment | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | | The economy | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | | Education | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
This yields a score of 45 to 9. It might be interesting to see how others on the list perceive Obama.
Given the complex question, let me show how and why I score him as I did. These are not the answers I gave in the poll, which I include in parenthesis, because the poll does not allow me to specify why I have chosen as I do and thus my disapproval, which might otherwise end up looking very much like that of a Republican supporter, be mischaracterized.. I include my reasoning on why I voted as I did in the poll in parenthesis)
A better way of asking these questions might have been a 5 point scale asking, "Compared to what I would like to see done about x, Obama is," "Much too progressive", "Too progressive" "Exactly on target", "Too regressive", "Much too regressive," which would probably garner much better answers. I would naturally respond that he is much too regressive in every possible way, that he represents the over 50s far more than he does the under 50s, even though the under 50s are now in the majority in everything except turning out to vote.
Here are my expanded opinions.
Terrorism: Somewhat disapprove, 2 (Somewhat approve)
Obama's approach has been vastly more effective at obtaining critical international assistance, and has created somewhat fewer people who loath the USA sufficiently to want to do something about it than the Bush maladministration (which is a very low bar). It would be vastly more effective if he ended the futile wars on the Pushtun in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Islam generally (the extremely religious, especially the repeatedly shown to be dangerous Abrahamic and Hindu religions, should be laughed at, not persecuted). (Signals that I think Obama is better than Bush but that still better options are available)
The war in Iraq: Strongly disapprove, 1 (Somewhat approve)
We should have begun a strong withdrawal on the first day Obama took office. Instead, there are almost as many American forces and mercenaries in Iraq as at the peak of the Bush occupation. (Shows I prefer the noises made by the Obama administration, but that they have a long way to go).
Immigration: Somewhat disapprove, 2 (No opinion)
So far as I can see, nothing has changed on immigration since Obama took office. I do think that the system desperately requires not an overhaul but a total rethink, particularly in the light that the US population is already 1 to 2 times greater than sustainable, and the current immigration wave is long on breeders and short on skills, particularly medical skills. (Shows that any change is not visible)
Health care: Strongly disapprove, 1 (Somewhat approve)
The USA, still the worlds dominant economy, spending double per capita on medical expenses ranks on a par with Serbia for quality of care, with Croatia for infant mortality and with Mongolia for mecical access (based on number of doctors per unit of population). Some Americans, primarily politicians with single-payer government funded medical insurance and multi-millionaires consider this acceptable. So far as I can see, only a single-payer, universal access system, combined with a dramatic increase in the number of doctors and decrease in the ability of the medical and pharmaceutical industry to maintain their rapacious profits through influencing politicians is going to fix this. Obama's proposals, written by the medical industry as they are, are the equivalent of farting against thunder. (I am trying to suggest that Obama is on the correct track, but desperately needs to do a whole lot more).
Refer also these recent related threads: An industry that causes half of all bankruptcies, In Sickness and In Pelf , http://www.churchofvirus.org/bbs/index.php?board=69;action=display;threadid=42954, The height of Choetspa and How to Solve a Shortage of Doctors in Just 12 Months. Affordably.
Social security: Strongly disapprove, 1 (Somewhat approve)
As anyone following the We're Fucked - The Coming Economic Crisis thread knows, 34 million Americans are on food stamps (10% of the population), 18% of incomes depend on the government and 7 million people will run out of unemployment insurance by Christmas (add their families and you have 13 million folks becoming destitute). There is no hope that this is going to improve anytime soon, and Obama has continued to support Bush's unconstitutional religiously based charitable programs rather than address the massive problems at their root or even to implement effective alleviation programs. Meanwhile we spend far more on policing and incarceration than we can afford, money which if spent on social security and treatment programs would reduce crime and its costs as well as the need to pay for the incarceration of 3 times as many prisoners per capita than any other country. (I am trying to suggest that Social Security is a good idea, but that much more needs to be done).
Gay rights: Strongly Disapprove, 1 (Somewhat disapprove)
As noted in What Change? Obama Administration more prejudiced against gays than Bush the Obama administration is doing worse than the Bush administration at equalizing the abhorrent situation of the LGBT community in the USA. (Again I have chosen "somewhat disapprove" to attempt to prevent confusion between my "'Strongly Disapprove' because you are not doing nearly enough" and a moron's Republican's "'Strongly Disapprove' because my babble tells me gays should be stoned to death." (Somewhat disapprove only to signal that I want more movement in the direction of establishing equality for members of minority sexual orientations, and not that I disapprove because I imagine that making the environment more hostile for the LBGT gendered than it was under Cheney-Bush is somehow desirable.)
The environment: Strongly Disapprove, 1 (Somewhat disapprove)
As repeatedly observed on the "Science & Technology" board, many environmental factors have already entered critical phases where, if serious attention and challenging change and development programs are not instituted, we will likely be out of the cheap energy required to perpetuate the current energy dependent civilization and population before we have developed alternatives. This will be a disaster beyond rectification. Meanwhile the Obama administration is offering us more of the same, printing and spending money we do not have to promote further development of the current systems which have contributed to and are dependent on the cheap energy regime and do not reestablish American farming, which the Reagan administration reduced from 60% to 2% of the economy, and production capacity which the Clinton-Bush era has left at its lowest level of capacity in the history of the republic. (Somewhat disapprove to prevent my voice from being classed as one of the Climate Chaos deniers.)
The economy: Strongly Disapprove, 1 (Strongly disapprove)
Bernake has stolen $24 Trillion from the public and given it to the bankers and financiers. It is gone. It is not coming back. To pay it back, if we could pay it back over 20 years, would take at least $48 Trillion. But the economy will not sustain that, as our agriculture and manufacturing base is gone, our water supplies failing, our infrastructure collapsing, and we are utterly dependent on cheap oil, cheap fertilizer from natural gas, and cheap manufactured goods from the far east delivered to a transportation network which is also utterly dependent on cheap energy, with the certain knowledge that our largest creditor, China, will require more oil than the USA by 2014 and that even in the estimation of the optimists appointed by Bush to the IAEA, the world will require more oil than can be pumped by 2018-2022 which will rapidly drive the cost of energy into the unaffordable. The magnitude of this all but inevitable situation will be devastating and large numbers of Americans, and larger numbers of others, will die in consequence. (Given these likely consequences, and the fact that nobody but an idiot could possibly imagine that the Global Village Idiot, Bush's, Useful Idiot, Bernake, has changed his spots due to the Democraps having replaced Repugnicans, I reported my actual position on this. )
Education: Strongly Disapprove, 1 (Strongly disapprove)
The previous half century has destroyed American education. Education is not respected, not least because the educated have become specialists with no comprehension of interdependencies, areas outside their field or the dangers implicit in the inherent complexity of interdependent systems. The education system's successful hypnosis of Americans, replacement of history with exceptionalism and the total denial of the effects of class competition has left the general population completely unable to comprehend why the system is breaking down or how thoroughly they are screwed. The Bush administration may have added the final straw when they added layers of job and institute threatening tests which ensure that most schooling is dedicated to attaining good scores on tests which have absolutely nothing to do with comprehension - or success in life - and are highly unlikely to improve America's position as 32nd in educational outcomes practically guaranteeing that the USA will become ever more uncompetitive in an increasingly competitive world. This might not be an entirely bad thing, except that being remarkably well equipped with offensive weapons, the USA is likely to make sure that its misery - and possible extinction - will likely be shared by everyone else. How does one spell megafail? (Again I gave my actual opinion, "Strongly Disapprove" as the Obama administration seems not to have done one thing to distinguish itself from the Bush administration, indeed, I am beginning to see the Obama administration as being equivalent to Bush's third term. Which lead to an interesting co-incidence. See reply #59 at "Obama - Put to the test fails dismally.")
Which gives Obama a score of 11/45 from me, under 25%, and a dismal failure. Given the fact that the Cheney-Bush administration was the least successful in American history and served not only as the starting point but also as the basis for comparison for Obama, it is difficult to comprehend what is driving him at this point. I can see myself being forced to abandon my razor of never attributing to conspiracy that which can be explained by stupidity, cupidity or malice, as it becomes ever more apparent that the best explanation may well be that the interests of the Military-Industrial-Media Machine are now indistinguishable from the Likud on the Potomac and it really doesn't matter who the President is any more than it matters which party has power - the fundamental agendas and outcomes are largely indistinguishable.
|
Author
Logged
