One of the virtues of being on the liberal side of politics is that total obedience isn't required. There are no hidden agendas. Ideology doesn't lead to unreason. In a political climate where it feels as if the inmates are running the asylum -- as in the current Republican threat to default on America's debt -- the prevailing sanity of President Obama is something that others and I have taken for granted.
We cannot afford that luxury any more, I'm afraid.
For many reasons, this is the moment when loyalty is going to count the most. That's a hard sentence to write. Liberal politics is based on a non-regimented, all-inclusive approach to democracy. Freedom of thought is paramount. But certain harsh realities must be faced. For thirty years and more, the progressive tradition has been severely undermined, dating back to Nixon's "Southern strategy" (coddle the racists) and Ronald Reagan's smiling reactionary agenda (AIDS victims deserve what they get), through the first President Bush's Willie Horton strategy (another boost for racism) and the second President Bush's deceptive "compassionate conservatism."
It was such a relief to return to humane, non-ideological governance when President Obama won in 2008 that we underestimated the debasing effect that two generations of right-wing indoctrination has had. Each increment of this debasement seemed fairly tolerable, even bizarrely quixotic. A pledge never to raise taxes until the end of time? Blatant favoritism toward Christian groups, however intolerant their dogmas? Stuffing the foreign service with neo-cons, the Justice Department with graduates of Jerry Falwell's law school? These aberrations go unnoticed outside Washington, perhaps, but bit-by-bit the damage has been corrosive.
When Lincoln was assassinated, an anguished Walt Whitman wrote "O Captain! My Captain!" whose theme was that the ship of state had reached a great victory -- the end of the Civil War -- just as the captain lay dead on the deck. We all know that this victory was unfulfilled, followed by a reactionary period that destined America to a hundred more years of virulent racism. Without being melodramatic, I think the work of undoing decades of reactionary policies has barely begun.
Which is to say that all of us who have taken advantage of our liberal heritage to question and criticize President Obama need to step back and consider the radical nature of the opposition, from the Supreme Court down to the local precinct. The current debt ceiling crisis is proof that sensible, sane responses are not going to be automatic anymore. Paul Krugman calls the current Republican tactic outright extortion. The leaders of the Republican Party are so terrified of losing their seats in Congress that they have collapsed in the face of the ultra right and its worst ideologues.
If you suppose that the average citizen remembers that the right wing are the very ones who got us into this forlorn tangle of wars abroad, financial collapse, out-of-control spending, and massive bonuses for the rich, you have not felt the power that fear exerts. Since 9/11, playing upon fear has been wildly successful for the right wing -- it re-elected a catastrophic president -- and now outrage has been added to the mix thanks to the romping recklessness of Wall Street, which paid not the slightest penalty for bringing on the recession.
If ever there was a time to stand behind the captain, this is it. Not because pluralism and free expression are wrong. They aren't and never will be. But like Churchill calling upon a coalition cabinet in the depth of the war years, it's paramount that we see the greater danger for what it is. Attention was drawn to the cover of a recent issue of the Economist, which showed a tall President Obama towering over a squabbling handful of pygmy Republican rivals for the presidency. The headline read, "He Could Still Lose." We need to remember that if that were to happen, it wouldn't be because President Obama made too many mistakes or failed to pass a sufficiently liberal agenda. The reason would be that all of us forgot the 30-year reign of reactionary administrations (minus the Clinton years) and the power of debased politics to keep coming back, again and again.
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Thanks D!
THIS combined w/ the fact that most folks (no matter where they fit from liberal to neocon) just WILL NOT keep up with intelligent NEWS SOURCES,
thus tv mediocre debate rules our country--along with LOBBYISTS & their fatcat pal$.
IF Dems//PROGRESSIVES do not get organized & strong in their base & QUIT WAVERING every time we loose momentum, GEE we might have a shot at backing up those in DC that actually will vote/work on issues that fight for good causes, etc.
WAKE UP & tell this to all ur Progressive friends--or we'll slowly go back to a decade of Repub$ bankrupting us so then they can say "oh, NOW we HAVE to cut social programs, education, etc."
BE SMART. CONNECT & ORGANIZE for your candidates or throw in the towel right now.
People are lamenting about the high hopes they had for him and how he has let them down but the truth is, he is one man who is at the helm of a democracy. He hasn't had time to implement all that he set out to do because he was too busy cleaning up a 30 year old mess that was left by his republican predecessors.
Oh captain my captain, rise up and hear the bells. 2012, will give him a chance to really reach the potential that we all know he has!
Is it possible that Republicans/ Conservatives / and The Tea Party have conspired to continue the ruinous policy of President Bush all in the name of preventing President Obama from winning a second term???? Of course it is, but at what cost to all Americans and the United States of America? That all in the name of party politics, but are we all so naïve or gullible as to think that ( I mustn’t say this too loudly) Race is not part of their twisted mentalities, instead of being proud of the fact that we as American citizens have elected a man, a good man with a black father and a white mother to be the president of our United States, but instead to waste years not to improve our nation, but to make our President the cause of Mr. Bush’s and the Republican’s failed and disastrous eight year disintegration of what was a prosperous United States!
If my remarks seem to be filled with anger over such manufactured untruths (lies)
let me ask the citizens of our country who voted for Mr. Bush, if they have come out the ether yet? If you all have, is it not time to stop the insanity perpetuated by those who were elected to serve the people and “not” themselves?
I am prepared to answer any of those who are angered by my truthful remarks!
George Christophe
With the stimulous money Obama spent, he could have distributed $3000 to each man, woman and child, either in increments or all at once. I can't help but think that would have done considerably more good.
It's a little too soon to be rewriting the Bush history just yet. Too many of us haven't recovered despite the pizza money Bush paid us.
What Obama did with the "stimulus" was almost exactly what Bush did. First, he asked for way too little to do any good. Second, he wasted about 60% of it on either unemployment or tax cuts which have little or not "stimulus" effect.
The problem with Obama is he IS doing just what Bush did. With the same predictable results.
You also got an additional $400 Making Work Pay tax credit in 2010 on your 2009 tax return. There were also energy saving tax credits addressing longer term planning toward energy independence.
It's not as flashy and politically effective as a $300 check in the mail, but it was more strategic and more likely to have escaped the notice most people.
In order for our country to get back on track we need to take the power out of Washington and give it back to the States, which would make the backwards two party system more of a local issue, where people can better work out their differences.We are not all the same and a handful of lawmakers should not be deciding every faucet of our lives. Laws regulating any part of the Economy ultimately turn out to be set in place to benefit the "insiders" which leads to Super Corporations. People like Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, who believe in what Thomas Jefferson had in mind for this country (He was a Democratic-Republican), should be what we strive for in our leaders.
A Government of the People by the People and for the People;
I’m disillusioned to see what depths the Republicans will go to in their attempt to bring down President Obama and in their twisted little minds may end up causing severe harm to this country! The corruption is evident in their hypocritical greed, bought and sold by the corporations, who are trying to undermine our democracy by the insidious efforts of an army of lobbyists offering untold amounts of money to the greedy and dishonest politicians. All this in the name of the /Conservative/ Republican/ and mustn’t forget the Tea Party fringe who really belong in an asylum! What would Lincoln say to all this false
rhetoric that is driving the grand ole party into the ground, or would you call it self-immolation? Just what have they accomplished since President Obama, a truly good man was elected except to ridicule and treat the President of our country and the leader of the free world with crude disrespect and insult him at every chance they could. All those disloyal members of the House and Senate and their sickening speech-making will have to look at themselves and face the truth of what they really are, corrupt by self interest that have dishonored our country for money!
George Christophe