I received an email from Obama for America asking me to organize for the man of steel in DC (a town he won't actively support for statehood).
This is what I wrote:
"Dear Jeremy Bird:
No. I will not organize for Mr. Obama. As president he's become a liability to his party and the progressive agenda. I watched the video and it was nothing more than the usual kind of bait-and-switch pablum that the Man of Steel fed to voters in 2008. His hop and change was all about marketing, and now voters may have buyers' remorse.
In so many ways, he deserves to lose; he doesn't fight and appears not to have any real values other than bi-partisanism, which is fine for the Republicans who see that as sign that Mr. Obama is weak and will always pre-emptively compromise to achieve some mythical consensus that doesn't exist.
GOP senate leader Mitch McConnell said that his 2011 legislative goal was to make sure that the president become a one-term commander in chief, and that seems to be working.
I've not seen a politician such as the president who has had so much going for himself yet has made a record of squandering it. Although, I applaud him for the healthcare act, it may have made more sense to concentrate on putting the millions of jobless Americans back to work, and thus build on that. If you believe in government, make it work for the people.
While his stimulus got the economy out of the ditch, it wasn't big enough and he didn't fight a bigger one. He should have fought for an aggressive WPA-style stimulus that would rebuild the country's infrastructure. He was told that stimulus needed to be bigger but listened to the Summers and Geithners, people who have had their hands on prior dubious decisions about the economy and other financial policies.
His record on civil liberties and propping up some of the Bush-Cheney national security policies is disgraceful for former constitutional law professor.
He claims credit for supporting financial reform, but wouldn't fight to have Elizabeth Warren as director of the consumer financial protection bureau. Yet, he goes before the same banksters and moneyed interests for campaign funds. Is there a connection between that and the fact that he received more money from Wall Street than any other candidate in 2008?
When he ran in 2008 I noticed that he had changed his position on acceptance of public campaign funding, support for Dodd/Feingold legislation re FISA, and his shifting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (supporting Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, which contravened stated US policy). That told me he was just another politicians albeit with a unique biography.
He cowardly dragged out his position on DADT and DOMA until the current election cycle, and still won't state that he thinks it's okay for same sex couples to marry while it is on record he previosuly taken that position years before.
His administration has deported more people --a fair amount noncriminals, mind you-- than the last previous one yet he goes before the Hispanic community and act as if all is right with the world.
And need I say that he barely acknowledges the pain and suffering of that most loyal class of Democratic voters: blacks.
After watching him relentless cave before the GOP, what does this man actually believe besides retaining office?
It has been said that he would rather do the right thing and not have another four years as president than doing wrong things and have another term. Well, he seems to be doing both and still may wind up losing because he refuses to be bold and experimental.
So, once again, I will not organize for a man who has unilaterally disarmed himself before an opposition party that doesn't care if he's the adult in the room."
Norman Kelley
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Comments
He's not a dictator, and he has to compromise, and he inherited a bad hand fundamentally, partly because the Republicans won't see that if they don't survive until 2012, beating up the President's a pointless exercise, if Democrats often don't seem to get the gravity of the impact of long run fiscal problems now becoming short run problems in the context of U.S. national security in our alliance committments, not just to Israel, but more fundamentally to Germany and Japan, in which a former KGB officer is in charge of Russia and can kill Chinese in such large numbers as to keep them on their team if it comes down to it unless we're smart. Don't take Russia lightly: nuclear weapons in the hands of a trained KGB officer.
The Republicans would have been wise to compromise more too. I would be the first to say that.
As to healthcare, the theory was that it was a structural issue that impedes employment, and I think he was right about that, having been only able to teach at multiple colleges part-time because of the healthcare benefits that were too generous to older faculty members to allow for new hires in the same proportion as was the case when they were young, which is unjust, short-sighted, and endangering our national survival now: Putin is a problem, and beating up on the Israelis plays into that if you think about the pressure the Arabs can already lay on with the oil, except that Israel is a nuclear armed state with paranoid tendencies for understandable reasons that are like playing with fire.
Given the impending retirement of the Boomers, President Obama had limits to what he could do, and it's not like they didn't spend a lot of money either. If unions hadn't in the public sector so focused on what was good for their existing members, that might have made a big difference too, since you can't do a WPA right now. It's not possible because of all the rules, and the President didn't create those rules, but has to live with them.
As to the most important feature of what may about to become a real risk, I ask you this: Would you trade Los Angeles for the Palestinians? Would you take a bullet for them? Would you take a bullet for them, for real?
I think the President needs your support, and Republicans support more than they have given, and the Palestinians need to compromise more too, like the Republicans on taxes, or there are going to be dead people all over the place in the Middle East as one real possibility.
-R-
I was an Obama supporter both in time and money last time. I will give more of both this time. The last thing this country needs next year is any one of the potential Republican candidates elected president. When President Obama is reelected, you can thank people like me.
While President Obama has done some things, I have to agree that the majority of his campaign planks have turned out to be rotten wood, replaced with much more conciliatory Hardi-plank. I have to also agree that Obama has failed to recognize that being reasonable with unreasonable people is not being reasonable. It's not a good plan.
I voted for Obama last cycle. I will probably vote for him again, but at this point, it's less about what I think he will do and more about what I am afraid the Republican Party leaders will attempt to do, after 8 years of Bush and Co. working to dismantle our civil liberties, increase police presence, destroy our military's ability to defend our own shores, gut our economy and what not, then this last election cycle of a Presidency that has pretty much 'proved' to the rabid dogs of the Tea Party that Obama is a 'weakling' president, what do you think they would do if they took office in 2013?
I can only think they'd be further emboldened to attempt to parlay this advantage into greater feats of daring do in the name of corporate fascism and money in their pockets. I know the leaders of the Republican Party do not represent the majority of the rank and file Republican Party members. By the same token, the leaders of the Democratic Party simply do not lead.
We are well and truly screwed at the moment and I am forced to perform voting as damage control at this point. I can only hope that somewhere along the way, Obama's spine will stiffen up and like Captain Kirk in The Search for Spock when he attempts to reach out and help the Klingon Kruge (Christopher Lloyd,) who seizes the opportunity to try to take Kirk with him, instead, decides that enough is enough and Kirk kicks him repeatedly in the face saying, "I have had *ENOUGH* of YOU!"
Maybe Obama should watch that movie and take a few notes. Also it would be nice if he'd just shitcan all his current economic advisors, you know, the same crew that helped engineer the banking debacle based on CDO's of junk bonds, mortgages and other such things that, on paper, you wouldn't wipe your butt with, and sold to folks with great ratings -- you know, from Moodys, Standard and Poor's, etc. These are the same guys, Geithner, Bernanke and a few others.
I'm not mad at Obama, just very disappointed that he didn't stick to his guns. You know, the first time Reagan ran for office I was just able to vote for the first time, I had just turned 18 about a month before the election day voting. I didn't vote for Reagan.
On his next election cycle, I did vote for Reagan. I didn't think he was some great Republican messiah like they seem to be making him today. I'd heard how my mother didn't like him when he was Governor of California. But, he did say what he wanted to do, and he stuck to his guns. Not out of anything more than that he believed in what he was saying. I respect that.
I would like to see Obama surprise me, and everyone else and act on his words through the belief that what he says is what he thinks is really the right thing to do. So far, I have seen conciliation in a Democratically powerful House and Senate. The time for being bipartisan is when you can first show those on the other side that you can negotiate from a position they can respect -- one of power.
In the meantime, I think this piece fairly expresses the exasperation many people feel after watching this hopeful candidate promising to do things and change the way things are -- act like another shill of the corporations and power mongers who seem to actually still be pulling most of the strings. I'd like to see that change he was talking about.
-r-
If any of those politicians (including the President) were as interested in doing their job and saving this country as they were in being re-elected, we wouldn't have these ridiculous games of Chicken going on, tarnishing our credit rating and reputation around the world, when there is so much important work to be done. Bush and Cheney may have gone against every moral fiber of my being, but they sure as hell wouldn't get pushed around like this. They knew they had the power, at least for their elected term, and they used every bit of it. President Obama simply gives his power away.
But now what? Can he suddenly change course and start stepping up, asserting himself, and demanding more? No way. It's like the high school teacher on the first day. You have to start out as an asshole, and then get nice. If you start out nice, you get stepped on - and there's no chance of regaining your hold. He's already lost it.
I only wish we could have seen Hillary take the ball back in 2009 to see what real conviction, strength and courage could look like in a President. As it is, now the first female President of the United States to go down in the history books may be the likes of Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachman. That would be tragic.
That will do you, your progressive agenda, America, and the rest of the world a heap of good.
We deserve what we are going to get...and you will have to live with the fact that you helped us get it.
about 'taking single payer off the table,' i will remind you that the republicans (from the beginning of the negotiations and throughout the voting) were solidly against **any** bill. the votes that president obama had to have and that speaker pelosi and majority leader reed had to negotiate to get were democrats. it was the bloc of conservative yellow dog democrats who told obama they would never vote for a single payer system and, in the end, voted for what actually passed only after major concessions were made.
i always wonder, when people claim that the president should have gotten more than he did out of a legislative negotiation, whether they have ever been involved in one personally; i have. the average citizen would think the process is simple and straightforward. maybe it should be, but it isn't.
On one hand, we have the Republicans who openly support endless destructive wars, giving all the money to greedy bankers and ruining the environment and on the other hand we have a President who also does all those things but the Democrats keep quiet in order to retain political power.
So in the end there's just a few, brave voices left to fight for the poor, end the wars and save the environment. And what's truly delicious is both the left and right claim those voices are the ones ruining everything! Hey folks, it's the voice in your head that's the problem and time will come when we're all going to hear it.
He's not black enough for the Black community, and too Black for the white community. He is a mixed race president, who is trying (perhaps unsuccessfully) to listen to everyone's point of view, and do to what he can with a Congress who are acting like second graders.
I hope you will write another post, this time focusing on the economic stalemate the partisan infighting has cost the country. Anybody got those figures? It's easy to point one finger, even if it's the middle finger, but the entire body in Washington (including the SC and all the aides) ALL play a role in the mess, and ALL have a role in fixing it.
He took unpopular positions,many of which I most strongly do not approve of. Like him or not, the man had a spine.
The guy who now occupies that office is spineless, and the only buck that stops there is what he can glad-hand from corporate sponsors.
He created the economic stalemate by his constant caving in to craven interests.
His signature achievement, healthcare was accompanied by millions of dollars in contributions by insurance companies and big pharma to have the bill written in a way that would benefit them most:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/health-care-reform/2009/07/health_care_continues_its_inte.html
Telling obama to go f*ck himself is extremely restrained, considering that he is also a war criminal, guilty of crime, genocide, lawless eavesdropping and a blatant disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law.
Calling those who support this fetid, feckless, fabricator an obamawhore is charitably kind. Those who refuse to be part of the solution are THE problem.
If you want a pity-party for poor obama, I know a certain bartender/stripclub manager for you to commiserate with.
He took unpopular positions,many of which I most strongly do not approve of. Like him or not, the man had a spine.
The guy who now occupies that office is spineless, and the only buck that stops there is what he can glad-hand from corporate sponsors.
He created the economic stalemate by his constant caving in to craven interests.
His signature achievement, healthcare was accompanied by millions of dollars in contributions by insurance companies and big pharma to have the bill written in a way that would benefit them most:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/health-care-reform/2009/07/health_care_continues_its_inte.html
Telling obama to go f*ck himself is extremely restrained, considering that he is also a war criminal, guilty of crime, genocide, lawless eavesdropping and a blatant disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law.
Calling those who support this fetid, feckless, fabricator an obamawhore is charitably kind. Those who refuse to be part of the solution are THE problem.
If you want a pity-party for poor obama, I know a certain bartender/stripclub manager for you to commiserate with.
When are you ideological baffoons going to get over yourselves? That includes you Kelley. I'm surprised by "Harry" since he normally makes sense, but most ideologues in this country no longer know that's who they are.
You're starting to piss me off Norman, and by now you should know better. I even make the effort to engage you and you haven't got the balls to respond.
Obama was Wall Street's preferred point man in the 2008 election, because he was the person who could shepherd most progressive voters into accepting plutocratic, authoritarian policies that George Bush failed to sell. (Stated with the benefit of hindsight; I wasn't smart enough to realize that when I cast my hope-filled vote.)
That was a post of understanding.
Thanks for saying it so beautifully.
Nor am I sold on Elizabeth Warren; she is certainly better than any of the other high profile people presented by the Mass Media; however she is also avoiding many issues and is almost certainly being set up to appear to be the champion of the consumer without actually doing more than she has to unless she is pressured from below.
The No. 1 reason that I couldn't volunteer for Obama's re-election campaign is that -- no exaggeration or hyperbole here -- I could not, with good conscience and a straight face, tell anyone why Obama DESERVES to be re-elected.
And that is Obama's fucking fault, not mine.
And I'm beyond sick and fucking tired of being told that it somehow IS my fault and not Obama's.