Barack Obama: The Pros and Cons
pros:
Strongest president we've had on renewable energy policy since Jimmy Carter - Renewable Energy is truly the new, new deal.
Pushing high speed rail projects nation wide - the solution to our transportation needs lies in giving up on the huge waste that a personal vehicle represents and building a solid high speed rail transport system that rivals even jet travel. Electric trains serving the inner city needs moving us at speeds greater than one hundred miles per hour. Neighborhoods designed around people instead of the car.
Calling citizens to public service - At least this administration is asking us to do something besides keep shopping... which is not working for us so much these days.
Appointeed Van Jones to be Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the Council on Environmental Quality. - Van jones has been a dynamic force bring together the envronmental and social justice movements.
Released torture memos - Paving the way for prosecution of the members of the Bush administration that can be proved culpable for war crimes.
Giving up presidential power in a statement to the effect that the president does not have the authority to create new classes of people in order to circumvent the Geneva conventions on torture such as the term "enemy combatant".
Taking a firmer stance toward Israel - concerning the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Cons:
How Much Has Changed? Obama Administration Deals Series of Anti-Environmental Blows
Obama's Guantanamo Appeasement Plan
Obama Rejects Truth Panel
Backing down on pot - and continuing to allow DEA raids on legal California (and other states) pot dispensaries. It's easier to say who isn't behind legalizing pot. Right now we should be considering the proposals on the table in several states to save the state budget by legalizing and taxing marijuana. it would also solve many of Mexico's current problems of violence related to the drug trade... the key words here being "trade" people. Drugs themselves don't usually foster violence. The profit that can be derived however is a different story.
Bailout handling - doesn't have enough oversight or clear vision. Represents the largest theft of wealth form the entire world in the history of the world. President Obama should have appointed Paul Krugman to Timothy Geithner's post. Even better would be to assign that job to an economist and an ecologist since the economy and the environment are tied together like Siamese twins.
Continuing to escalate the War in Afghanistan - Much money could be saved if we seriously consider stripping out the bloated "defense" budget. Many of these very corporations are the very culprits at the heart of everything that is wrong with America today.
Pushing Nuclear power for carbon mitigation - This is a false hope. Nuke plants only pollute slightly less in terms of carbon dioxide but leaves us with a stockpile of spent fuel rods that either can be used for bombs or more fuel rods. Transporting this material is best avoided due to the obvious risks of terrorism, negligent mishandling, accidents, etc. that could possibly happen en-route to either a storage facility or a re-processing facility. Harm reduction in the case of nuclear waste is best handled by developing a safe on site remediation such as glassification which embeds the spent nuclear fuel in large, extremely hard glass logs which could then be stored safely on say the banks of the Mississippi river for the necessary billion years.
