As most of you may have guessed, I'm a strong supporter of President Obama. I wear my "bot" slurs proudly. I rarely find it necessary to say "Of course I don't agree with all the things he does..." because mostly I agree with and understand a lot of things that seem counter-intuitive to many.
I wasn't attracted to his candidacy because of his positions on issues as much as I was attracted to what I saw and heard about his concerns for the country, for the future of the America I love, as flawed as it is.
If you've read his books you get a sense of an overlying vision for what might bring out the best in all of us. His speeches touch on the same themes again and again regardless of the issue of the day. I think his biggest concern about us as a nation is the success of the Republican's propaganda machine in selling the notion that government is basically bad. For Republicans, government is a war machine and nothing else. They'd happily trade 3 branches of government for one Allied Command. The allies TBD.
For Obama an effective and efficient government is the only thing that stands between the American people and a future fiefdom. His consistent theme is that we can do together what we can't do separately, we can move ahead into the 21st Century only if we're united, only if we're committed to standing together, having each other's backs in the hard times. That comes up when he's discussing Health Care, the civil rights of GLBT's and immigrants, education, jobs, worker's rights, financial regulation.....
Yeah, every damn thing.
The most pernicious outcome of the Republican War On Government is the level of distrust across the political spectrum. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there are people here who simply can't support President Obama, no matter what he's doing, just because he's now the President, and Presidents are simply not trustworthy. Our modern Republican presidents have made that an undeniable fact, and even Clinton ended up going along with Conservatives on DADT, deregulation, outsourcing.
I read an interesting analysis of Clinton's health care debacle yesterday. He did it the Progressive way - dissing corporations, no negotiating with the health care industries, no gradual phase-in for reform. He lost hugely, badly enough to scuttle the rest of his agenda. FDR, despite the rumors that he was a tough guy who took no shit from no one, only got his agenda through Congress by negotiating, horse-trading, often giving away things he strongly supported personally because he couldn't get Big Business support without those compromises and conciliatory efforts. Sorta reminded me of President Obama, actually.
When the health care segment of the economy is the only one growing, is it REALLY progressive and smart to ignore those companies and try to wipe them out? Really? If we had no health care industry to speak of Single-payer would be the obvious choice. Since we have an existing health care system, why not co-opt it, gradually reform it, and eventually make use of it to deliver a single-payer system.
No matter how passionate you are about hating corporations they're here, and they're part of the equation. Outlawing them may be emotionally satisfying, but who's going to employ those people? Who's going to pay those pensions? Who's going to provide those services and goods? I'm astonished at the inability of our various revolutionaries to understand that bringing Wall Street to it's knees will mostly hurt the millions of Americans who can least afford to lose their retirement accounts, their kid's college funds, their nest eggs against a cold and ugly future. The rich? Their money leaves the country and they move to safer places. I starve, live in a cardboard box, eat dirt. And keep this in mind: the new 1% is always worse than the 1% they replace (see: Soviet Union).
Obama understands this. He may have a sense that we'd be a better, stronger, healthier nation without mega-corporations and Wall Street quarterly earnings reports but he's not silly enough to believe he has a magic wand that will remove them and still leave us with a functioning economy.
He understands that in a country this size you take what you have and analyze it for ways to make it more workable for the largest number of citizens. Then you make those changes over time, so people have a chance to see that government can work very well, that change doesn't mean death and destruction and the end of everything you value.
Obama's saying he can cut X number of dollars out of the Military budget because he's had a task force working on that for years, and the Generals are part of the equation. They tell him which weapons program is a complete bust, that this jet crashes when you go into a dive, that that weapons system has been on the drawing board for 20 years and we've never seen a prototype despite billions spent, that that company has never come up with anything in the time frame promised for the budget allotted. Why haven't they been cut yet? Because until a Democrat proves he has Commander in Chief chops, any cuts to military spending give the Republicans propaganda they use very well.
Before he could promise those cuts he had to completely undermine the Republicans are strong on defense meme, and by God he's done it. Now it's just possible that people will hear that wasteful spending doesn't make us stronger. Two years ago they would only have heard that the black guy in the Oval Office is about to unleash a holocaust of terror attacks by making our country weak.
President Obama understands better than most of us that the Republican Party has written the narrative for 45 years and no Democrat until now has come up with an effective way to turn their real agenda against them. We ought to be cheering in the streets about that alone, but I still read on this site that Obama's a corporate sell-out, a closet Republican, a drone-loving brown-people-hating killer of Mr. Rogers and other American citizens.
I know it's unpopular but I'm really okay with targeting people who are coordinating the next 9/11, the first dirty bomb in downtown wherever, an effort to bomb government buildings in 20 cities simultaneously - whatever. I'm inclined to think the the President might actually have more inside information on the terrorist networks (that really, really, truly do exist in this world) than are available to bloggers and pundits.
I'm not a fan of the national security complex and I wish Homeland Security could be eliminated. There is no security anymore, there will be further attacks, and that's reality. The terrorists only have to succeed once, those opposing them have to succeed every single time. Our blindness about terrorism as an existing reality didn't serve us well in 2001 and won't serve us any better today or tomorrow.
IMNSHO any American citizen who is involved in terrorist activities is fair game. I include those terrorists who bomb and/or burn Planned Parenthood clinics, those who plot to kill libruls in church, those who get good wood planning to overthrow Obummer while exercising second amendment remedies. Traitors to everything this country stands for don't really deserve my concern over their rights. They abdicated those rights.
I'm not blind to government overreach or the dangers of a national security state. Nixon scared the crap out of me and my family. We're pretty sure the FBI had/has extensive files on us.
My dad was targeted by the Birchers in the late '60's and early '70's, ended up leaving the ministry because he was not willing to back down. Imagine, a minister who preaches that sex education is necessary, that "Less Than a Mega-death" was intrinsically immoral, that we are responsible for stopping a war of aggression started by our government, that we could end hunger and poverty in this country by cutting the Defense Budget by 25% and channeling that money to people who need it.
A post on my history
I'm scared to death of the next Republican puppet the Cheney cabal succeeds in elevating to the presidency. That doesn't mean I have to live in constant of fear of what this President is doing, at least not until I've done the research about what he's actually doing. And my research tells me there's not a whole lot to worry about. (Most of my research is outside the liberal blogosphere these days because there are some quasi-liberals out there who have no problem with bending reality to fit their positions. I prefer direct source material or an analyst I've learned to trust.)
There's a vision for the future that this president is trying to make into a reality. It's a vision of citizens who have learned that government can be a tremendous asset for them if it's in the right hands. He talks frequently about fairness and a level playing field. He talks about pulling together to pay our fair share in taxes (meaning the rich are expected to share in the sacrifices and the poor aren't clobbered by some silly notion of across the board equality). He talks about an economy that works for everyone. He supports unions because he knows they're the last bastion and the best hope for all workers in this country.
It's a vision that includes a robust FEMA and EPA, and all those other acronyms that keep workers safe, banks stable, Wall Street accountable, etc. It includes sensible regulation of the financial sector while allowing for some risks, the risks we need in order to invent a better solution for moving power through the grid than a simple burial underground might offer. Is there such a thing? Is it possible? No one will know without that willingness to go out on a limb and see if it's possible, and that takes money.
It includes affordable health care for all, utilizing the system we already have and altering it to do what it ought to have been doing already. We're not Switzerland or Sweden. We're more like 50 Switzerlands or Swedens under one big roof, and that means our solutions have to be uniquely American.
It includes a truly free press, a sane election process, protections for the weak, the sick, the people who suffer because we've built inequalities into our system regardless of our good intentions. It includes accepting that there will always be those among us who can't make it, even on a level playing field, and that our values don't allow us to throw them to the dogs.
Here's the bottom line. I'm a recovering alcoholic, 37 years sober. The thing I learned above all the other things I learned in AA was that until you can accept life on life's terms you're going to be perpetually angry, filled with self-pity, and incapable of helping yourself.
Life on life's terms translates into the political realm for me. We have an economy that's built around Wall Street, big banks, and big corporations. We can't suddenly become an economy built on small businesses, small banks, and other methods of raising capital for businesses. That will take time, effort, and steady leadership.
I suspect that's part of Obama's vision because I think he accepts the fact that mega-corporations don't need us anymore. They've got huge markets opening up elsewhere, and cheap labor to draw on. They're here now, they could be gone tomorrow. We need smaller businesses employing Americans, and new larger businesses willing to settle for smaller profits in return for loyal, well-paid workers who do the job well. We need patriots who are willing to forgo peacock leather seats in their corporate jets because they want to build things in the country that gave them their start.
Cheney et al belong in Dubai. They don't have the capacity to think outside of their own desires for more money and more power. They're not the only people running businesses in America, and they don't personify every CEO. Obama knows this, and he works with the people who can be moved into a new future for this country, regardless of what we think about their past behavior.
We live in a country that is built around for-profit healthcare. That won't and can't change overnight. It can be changed over time, with steady leadership and a clear blueprint.
We live in a country with a media controlled by a very few wealthy individuals. That can't be changed overnight but we can make use of alternate sources, always being careful to vet those sources, and to use the internet for backup facts. My solution to wretched cable news channels was to cancel cable. It takes time to find things on the internet but it's worth my time to do that. Maybe if enough people follow my lead there will be a change from the media. I don't know if that's possible. Maybe if enough media companies start losing more than they can afford to lose we'll end up with a new media that does the job.
We live in a country where dedicated activists can take control of smaller government venues and push their agenda on all of us. The Republicans have excelled at this for decades. Until we hone our ability to do the same we're at the mercy of the TX State Board of Education when it comes to textbooks for our children. We're stuck with City Councils that give tax breaks to polluters as long as they bring jobs to our community. We're stuck with State Legislatures that spend all their time preventing abortions and ending birth control, busting unions, and cutting government workers from the budget while citizens are left to their own devices when they get outsourced, ill, or old.
We are the change we've been waiting for, folks. It's time to build that bench in your hometown and state. It's time to educate the masses yearning to see a doctor. It's time to own school boards, and town councils and statehouses. It's time to stop fighting about non-essentials and start fighting for the future.
I Vote For Democrats! I have met the enemy. I know who would just as soon see my disabled ass in a coffin. I know who thinks I'm a worthless slacker living on the dole. My disabled ass is doing everything possible to make sure they don't win in November, or 2016, or 2020, or 2024. Beyond that I might have to leave it to my kids. And you.