I am dismayed by the criticism Obama has been getting recently.
On the one hand you have the Republicans doing exactly the thing one would expect the Republicans to do: Trying to downplay Obama's positive outlook, trying to hammer fear and hate into the American people, trying desperately to get national focus off the historic first black President and back onto them, trying desperately to quash any kind of positive forward momentum the Democrat-run Senate and House might have on getting bills passed that would be good for the people.
They're just trying to keep this economic crisis going and milk it - politically and financially - for all its worth.
I understand that, it's just the Republican way. Thank God there's only about 20% of them left in America.
And no one is buying it when they or their constituents spew the same five or six talking points ad-infinitum. We hear the same song day in and day out: Bush kept further terrorist attacks from happening on American soil after 9-11. This is an argument that never fails to make me laugh. It's the mother of all straw-man arguments. Because C followed A it must be because B was involved. It's like saying that just because a jury of 12 didn't convict O.J. Simpson of murdering his ex-wife and her friend, he definitely didn't do it.
But I finally understand conservatives. They have an enlarged limbic system that presses on their temporal and frontal lobes making it impossible for them to get things like subtlety or change their mind once it's made up, I don't fault them for being born that way. I get it.
But what I don't get is why so-called liberals are getting down on Obama.
Yes he promised us changes. Yes he promised us that he would work towards creating a better health care system, eliminating the "don't ask don't tell" laws from our military, that he would work towards election and other governmental reforms.
But you miss the key words here: "Work" and "Towards."
That doesn't mean things are going to change right away.
And it doesn't necessarily mean these things will ever change.
And even if the changes are made it's going to happen in degrees, not all at once.
And it certainly doesn't mean that any of this is going to come easy, or just fall in our laps.
No one understands the toughness of this uphill battle more than the guy who is on the frontline, trying to bring about all this change, Mr. Obama himself. He has to deal with it every day.
To all those whining about change not coming fast enough: What are you doing about it?
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
moveovermommy
medical anthropology
Marcela in English
Scott Christian
Little Angeleno
Christin Taylor
Salon.com
Comments
"They're just trying to keep this economic crisis going and milk it - politically and financially - for all its worth."
And that's the sad part. When they are not in power, they want the country to fail in order to get it back. That goes against every thing I was taught this country was founded on. Of course I've found out through my years on earth that there are many things about this country that were built on lies.
Buffy and aphra - I am reading this interesting book called A Nation Of Victims. It was published in '92 but it still rings true today.
Blue - isn't it amazing that someone like Rush or Hannity or even a Senate leader can come out and say something like, "Partisaship is us beating the Dems over the head until they agree with us and go our way," and crowds of people still follow them? Thank got the Teabaggers represent a very small minority.
Scupper - you know it's interesting. When Katrina hit New Orleans I put together a day-long music festival to raise money for the victims. I got radio time, had fliers all over town, township employees let me have a bandstand and sound equipment for free, a vendor came and sold his wares and gave me all his after-purchase profits, and we had raffles that local merchants had given us free items for. It was in a park on a beautiful Saturday where you would have thought there would have been foot traffic if not the traffic of people who knew about it. How much did we raise? $600. In a community of about 700-900,000 people that was pretty dismal amount. I didn't even see one person from my place of employment show up. Just goes to show you the true generosity of the people of Bloomington-Normal, a town that is more conservative than liberal, and also kind of illustrates (sadly) the conservative mindset.
At this point I am equally sick of the Democratic and liberal ones who are screaming about Obama's "betrayal" and "promises broken".
Bull*hit! I knew that jokers would abandon him (or any Democratic party candidate who got elected) for not jumping on their limited set of interests to the detriment of everything else. They couldn't even give the man a year to clean up eight years of damage!
And those "conservative" Democrats who keep throwing up roadblocks? Republicans in sheep's clothing and liars.
Good post. Rated.
I am willing to wait on every other issue but not this one. I have four decades of experience working in the trenches for liberal causes and with the poorer elements of our society. The poorest are the ones most vulnerable to our corrupt, greedy and ineffective health care system which is a disaster. Everyone with any knowledge agrees. More than half of personal bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. Hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens die each year due to not getting proper care. Our system is in a crisis-nearly 50 million don't have health care. For those who don't see this as a crisis causing countless people misery and many their lives I say what is your rational reasoning for telling me to sit down and wait and wait and wait. Health care reform has been promised since WWII and the last time we had the numbers was when Hillary tried to change the system and that was 16 years ago. Now, you want me to wait for another 4 or 8 years while people I work with suffer and some die? I throw it back on you people-if not now for health care reform then when?
MoveOn and other groups who are pressuring to get health care reform done by turning up the heat on Feinstein and Nelson and Lieberman and Landrieu and others have my full support. I will not wait on this issue and for those who preach to me about "quick fixes" I say to you how can you agree to doing nothing? I challenge you to spend one week with me and my clients and then tell me that I need to be patient. If Obama who I supported ardently through all his battles to get elected does not get a reform bill signed this year I am done with the man and the entire Democratic party.
At this very moment, health care providers (the insurance companies and Big Pharma) are spending almost 1.5 million dollars a day lobbying and trying everything they can to defeat anything that will be of benefit to everyday Americans. The Pro Reform lobbyists are horribly outnumbered. Every poll shows around 70% want change in that area, but we may lose out again because Congress will be influenced by the powerful lobbies.
The deck is stacked and it's not in our favor.
I could go on, but I won't. It's draining. The thing is, ALL of these problems and many more were there when Obama was inaugurated. None of them were created by him.
There isn't a President that anyone can name that fulfilled all of his campaign promises, much less in his first six months.
You have to tackle the biggest problems first. It's still the economy, unemployment, banks that got bailed out, but continue to screw the very people that bailed them out and two wars.
Are there other issues that need to be dealt with? Of course, but if you don't take care of the big ones first, the little ones simply won't matter. So what do I do about it? One I vote, two I try to stay abreast of the issues and write or email my congressman/woman to let them know how I feel, I sign petitions and I protest when I can. Does it do any good? Hard to tell, Obama's only been president for six months!
It's just not gonna happen. It might happen, if as Michael Rodgers said, we can fix bigger things like the economy.
I read in your post that you had a group of Obama supporters, worked tirelessly to promote him in your area and that it was one of a few districts in your state that went blue. I applaud that. Why don't you keep that group together, use the forward momentum you gained by campaigning to rally your community to contact their represetatives and senators, tell them what it is you need. Invite a congressman, Senator, or even Obama himself to spend a day with you and your patients. That's who should be seeing these things, not me. Use the same chutzpah you had in campaigning for Obama to campaign for healthcare reform.
Don't waste your time and energy threatening to bail on the man because he can't change a system that is broken and nigh on to irreparable. Don't wast your time and energy negatively pursuing the Libermans to do your bidding. What the move-on folks are doing is completely the wrong way. To frame their argument in such a negative way will only polarize those six who stand against the reform bill. The way to pursuade them will be to frame the argument in a positive light.
I mean seriously you're threatening to bail on Obama after only 6 months? I understand your frustration, I really do. My family had a series of health issues in the 90s that nearly broke us financially, but even I realize that the issue of healthcare reform is not something that is either going to get fixed quickly or easily. So you either go out there and do something about it, akin to whatever tactics you used to help get Obama elected, or you sit there and whine about it. And right now, all I see you doing, ailing patients or not, is whining.
I caution you about making judgments about people you don't even know. I have seen things in this life that you can't even imagine. You may be insulated by those suffering in this system. Perhaps, if you met Rick-a quadriplegic friend of mine who is in pain, severe pain 24/7 and fights to stay alive in a heroic battle each day and has had his services cut nearly in half which means he must care for himself nearly two full days a week now you might be a bit more open to my point of view. He has been victimized by this god awful system and he is only one of millions. I am not whining about anything. Never have and never will. I am a regular guy who was simply thrilled by Obama's election and promises. Yes, I realize the economy is in crisis, tell me about it, I lost half my billable hours several months ago. But health care can't wait, even he says that. It is simple, the insurance or other lobbyists are spending 1.5 million per day to defeat this legislation. My solo voice may be like fighting the ocean but it is all I have. If Obama doesn't use his popularity and twist some arms then he will have caved into the lobbyists on his major promise. I will put up my record of being involved in all aspects of society and my community with anyones. For you to judge otherwise is insulting and supremely featherbrained. How dare you call me a whiner? Is that how you handle those who disagree with you? Sad...
And don't preach to me about people who have been cut short on health benefits. My father, a veteran, had a series of surgeries during the 90s that crippled our family financially. And since then the level of medical care he has recieved through Veteran Services has been atrocious. No he isn't a parapalegic but he does deserve care on the same level as your parapalegic friend.
If anything I'm trying to light a fire under your ass. Yes you're on here with your words, that's wonderful. But what happened to the group of people you campaigned with? What happened to the second part of Obama's speech where he intoned that he cannot fight the tide alone, that he needs people like you and me to do legwork and campaign for the changes you want. He's doing what he can but he can only do so much. I for one do not want to see Obama take on strong-arm tactics and force Lieberman and co. to see it his way, and even he did, he doesn't have the politcal capital to take that kind of approach. If anything it might end up costing him in the end.