The Hide Ratings on My Tip Jar are from my original diary title: Barack Obama is Our Ahmadinejad.
It's frustrating, isn't it?
You think that you are taking part in a political process, in a democratic system, but it turns out that there is a Supreme Council standing behind the president, dictating policy and that he is simply a figurehead.
Barack Obama admitted it himself this week:
He doesn't have the power to deliver meaning health care change.
He's the president.
And he doesn't have the power.
Who has the power? I dunno. Sen. Baucus, allegedly from Montana, delivered one Congressional health care proposal this week. It turned out to be proposal already presented to the public by corporate lobbyists -- except it was more punitive to the people at large!
That's reform for ya!
What do we do when our elected leaders actually do not have the power to make changes supported by the electorate?
Oh, yeah ...
Iran's got 'em some of them Ayatollahs.
And we've got ours:
CEOs, directors and executives of the nation's largest, supposedly public-owned companies, who with their lobbyist paramilitaries control the economic policy of our government, regardless of which party is "in power." Funny term, that.
In Iran, the protests started out because people did not believe that their votes for president were counted fairly.
But it turned into a protest against the Ayatollahs and the system of power that stands behind their democracy.
It's not about Ahmadinejad and Mousavi in Iran.
It's about Khamenei and his shadowy cabal of clerics who really run the country.
In the same way, it's not about Barack Obama here in the U.S.
As he tells us -- he can't change the system! He's just here to party. Book him for another appearance on the Colbert report. Like his hero Reagan, it turns out that Mr. Hope and Change is just another pleasant face made available for idolatry, while real hope and change disappears in a puff of smoke.
So, we can complain about Mr. Obama, or compliment him.
But how do we topple our Supreme Council of Leaders, our turbanned Ayatollahs in their gated villas far away from the streets and towns where the rest of us live?
How do we wrench control of our government back from Wall St. CEOs and industry groups and healthcare lobbyists and the rest of them?
Somebody let me know.