Barack Obama says,

It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption. Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online.

Unacceptable? Why ever should it be? What’s wrong with being 15th in the world? Why is broadband internet a badge of progress and enlightenment? Is a country better because pornography, frivolous text messages, pirated software, and YouTube videos are flying over its wires faster?

American children need to spend less, not more time, in front of computers. For that matter, American adults need to spend less time in front of computers. Heck, I need to spend less time in front of this computer!

This man is not the Messiah. I’m nervous about the fact that many Americans think he is. Disappointed followers of false Messiahs have a tendency to become violent.

Combine the Bush administration’s legacy of shame and bankruptcy, America’s fascination with its own military (see A. Bacevich), and a soon-to-be inaugurated professedly messianic leader, and you have the ingredients for an aggressive and self-righteous nation, willing to harm others in order to preserve its covetous, greedy lifestyle.

Many young people voted for Obama because they thought he would end the war in Iraq. I’m wondering: where are these people, and why aren’t they absolutely outraged that their Messiah has tapped Bush’s Secretary of Defense to stay on in his new administration? This is “change we can believe in”?

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