I had a dream about President Obama’s second inaugural address. It went something like this:
I hear your grief, peoples of the world, over what I have been doing. So I am going to stop doing it.
As members of the international community neither we nor you should continue along the hurtful paths of our past. The world is smaller, making its problems bigger. When any one of us oversteps the boundaries of helpful international behavior our hurtful footprints are felt world-wide. It is in all of our interests and for generations yet born to enter a new dawn of international friendship, cooperation, and peace. To that end I am:
– discontinuing all drone strikes, all unprovoked military interventions, and all military bases not on American soil;
– inviting you to join with me in creating a Global Goodwill Network under the auspices of the UN to seek ways to make our smaller world a more peaceful and habitable one for all its inhabitants;
– signing and will get ratified America’s membership on the International Criminal Court;
– seeking ways to ensure that America’s business transactions with the rest of the world will be fair ones and that exploitative globalization by multinational corporations headquartered in the U.S. ceases;
– insisting that in return for continued U.S. support of both sides there absolutely must be a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and
– proposing The Councils of the Continents, with each having the primary responsibility for restoring goodwill in their own territories.
For those who join us we shall establish cooperative partnerships. For those who choose not to do so, we shall keep inviting you.”
Then I woke up to face a nightmarish reality.