Bill Maher makes some good points about Obama and the Democratic Party:
"If he doesn't act boldly, then he's probably going to lose the midterm elections. If he can't shove some progressive legislation down their throats now, then I don't know when it's going to ever happen."
"The track record so far is not good. He is not putting it on the line and standing up to the energy companies, the health care industry, the Banks."
What Bill Maher did not mention, was that Obama has not changed the U.S. Foreign Policy one iota. Way back in 2003-2004, Presidential candidates Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, Al Sharpton, Carol Mosley Braun were already talking about getting out of Iraq then. A clear majority of the American public from both political Parties wanted the Iraq Occupation to be all over with way back in 2005. In 2006, Nancy Pelosi would complain that they couldn't cut off the War funding, because a Bush veto stood in the way. Yet here we still are years later.
Is it really necessary then for this Occupation to be carried out through 2011 and beyond? Who is this really serving? Not the Iraqis -- they have wanted us out of there for over 6 years, (and also never wanted to be Invaded and Bombed in the first place). The same tired old justifications used to extend the War until 2011, are the same ones we heard throughout 2004, 2005, 2006 (by the crowd who claimed it would be a "cakewalk" when we went in), and are the same ones that will be used to keep U.S. Troops, Military Bases, and crooked Oil contracts in place in Iraq until 2014, 2016, 2020,...2025?, and beyond.
Meanwhile our Country is bankrupt.
To fund our permanent war economy, we have been flooding the world with U.S. Dollars -- destroying the value of the Dollar in the process. Our Military spending is also unsustainable without heavy borrowing from Foreign Nations (China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Japan). But as the Dollar becomes continually devalued from monetizing debt, the incentive for Foreign Nations to keep on just lending us money, to be repayed in diminished Dollars, becomes adverse to them. The result of this now is that our major trading partners have been meeting to begin discussions on replacing the Dollar as the world’s reserve currency. If that happens, the Dollar will then dramatically plummet in value, the cost of imports, including oil, and food will skyrocket, interest rates will climb and jobs will hemorrhage at a rate that will make the last few months look like boom times.
Obama must stop throwing away all our money overseas on these failed and corrupt concepts of "permanent Warfare", "preventive War", the IMF (Bankers again) and Nation building. We have a Nation right here in our own backyards that desperately needs to be rebuilt, starting with funding a proper Health Care system. Terrorism has been with mankind forever, and it will always be with mankind as a tactic that will exist. The idea that we can "win a War on Terror" is absurd on its face.
It is time for Obama to stand up to the energy companies, the health care industry, the Banks, and the War Establishment.
As Bill Maher says, if not now, then when? After the 2010 Elections? It may be too late by then. The time to act is now, by any parlimentary or executive means available. The results of that change can then be finally visible, and Obama will have made it impossible for the Country to return to the GOP for answers.