(An invitation: in a moment of sudden and inexplicable insanity, I signed up yesterday to Twitter. Let me know if you Twitter too. We could "follow" each other...!)
Okay, I do understand where they're coming from, this growing chorus of liberal critics of Obama. Like them, I'd wish for him to take many stances and promote many policies that have not yet been forthcoming. I want a public health care option. In fact, I'd rather go for a single payer system, nation-wide. I want equality for every citizen, no matter what their sexual orientation. Gay marriage? Of course! Gays in the military? Way past time. I'd like nothing better than to hear a strong voice in opposition to the power of multinational corporations, financial institutions and insurance companies, and I'm all for strict regulation of their activities. I don't trust any of them. I want an end to the depressing saga of the Middle East, and peace between Israel and the Palestinians. I want Guantanamo closed. I want us out of Iraq, right now, and I do not want us getting any further involved in Afghanistan--but I also want the Taliban and other extremists to be disempowered and neutralized. Oh, and yes, of course, while we're at it, I want to see an end to totalitarianism in states like Iran and North Korea.
All these things I want. But let's for God's sake not be childish. Let's not stamp our feet and pout because we're not getting everything we want this instant. We've gotten ourselves into a huge, stinking mess, and it has taken us collectively years--well, decades--to do it. Is it not a trifle disingenuous for us to expect this one man, Obama, to step up and wave a wand to get us out of it all at once?
Let's be honest. The problems that we face right now have been a long time in the making, and they result from choices we ourselves have made along the way. Was it not we voters (not me, of course!) who decided back in the 1970s that we did not like paying taxes, and elected Ronald Reagan to cut them for us (though even He, the Great One, remember, in fact did the opposite!) Have we not spent years protecting and insulating ourselves from the rest of the world--its disease, its poverty, its hunger and other deprivation? Have we not allowed the bigoted and the blindly religious to determine policies toward everyone the least bit different from ourselves? Have we not worshiped at the illusory altar of "strong leadership," while we ourselves do everything to subvert it? And, out in the world, have we not been at pains to promote the myth of "a strong America," as we stomp around in heavy military boots? Have we not listened without the benefit of critical judgment to those who shrieked hysterically about "socialized medicine"? Have we not bought in, endlessly, to those who would sell us snake oil, or promised us a free lunch? Have we not eagerly grabbed, ourselves, at easy profits, idolized false prophets, and celebrated empty notions of success? Have we not raised celebrity above substance, our own material comfort above that of others?
Did we not expose ourselves to the ridicule of the world by impeaching a president for a minor sexual indiscretion? And electing--and, incredibly, reelecting--another of inconsequential intelligence and clearly limited understanding to the most powerful office in the world? Did we not allow ourselves to be lied to, cheated, and led by our noses into an unnecessary and painfully costly war?
And now, as though in recognition of all this, we may have half-way repented, electing a man who sees things differently, who acts with forethought and circumspection, who wisely recognizes limits--both his own, and the country's--and is willing to listen to the opinions of others rather than spout his own agenda. (And Bill Maher wants "more Bush"!) We have elected this man, and now feel entitled to berate him for not providing an immediate resolution to all our problems.
What children we all are! How lacking in patience, foresight, and forbearance! How incapable of seeing anything beyond our own immediate needs. How gimme, gimme, gimme, now! I look around and I wonder, for God's sake, when do we all grow up?
Yet according to Peter Clothier, we"re childish. "Let’s not stamp our feet and pout because we're not getting everything we want this instant." For decades Democratic politicians have routinely, actively courted gay voters during elections only to turn around and knife us in the back once they get into office, using similar accusations of impatiens to cover their betrayal.
So no, Peter Clothier's accusation that we are impatient children stomping our feet, doesn't wash. The fact this condescending, malicious mischaracterization is coming from a straight, white male who takes the rights we seek for granted, makes it even more ludicrous. It is just more of the same tired anti-gay nonsense piled onto the heap that has been accumulating for decades.
Justice delayed is justice denied.
I can't tell you how disappointed I've been to discover that America's first black president is a fan of not only separate but equal but justice delayed.
So often people really didn't listen to Obama when he campaigned, he said the road would be long and it would all take time. Everyone wants their issue addressed NOW and everyone is how many millions of people. I am impressed by the focus that his administration shows and the "no drama" atmosphere. I thought his last press conference showed he is in charge and won't be pushed around.
He asked us all to work with him through his Presidency. That was the deal - not to sit back and whine when you didn't get yours when you thought it was your turn. It's a big tent and there are unexpected crises that have come along the way. There are people who literally cannot take care of roof over their head right now and that isn't his fault, but it is his responsibility to address it.
If you were a supporter, what have you done to help like you promised you would?
People need to grow up and realize that we have screwed ourselves (just like I screwed myself when I was in debt) and it is time for us all to grow up and start acting responsibly. If we don't, God help us all.
I do see lots of valid criticism leveled at how President Obama is making his decisions and at the fruits of those decisions. That's the duty of citizens of course.
I'm not really sure what some Americans want...... We just lived through the most gawd awful period in American history, with the dumbest person who ever sat in the WH, and his VP the most wicked criminal in the world.
There is not a corner of this country that Bush/Cheney did not mess up and mess up royally. It will take a decade or more to put everything right again. We just had a election and spoke loudly about the change we wanted.
Now, we have a President who is trying to bring about change and all you hear are gripes from one faction or another. We have a national party, the Republicans, who are hell bent on making sure he fails, not for anything do they care about the American people, just about retaining power that they don't have anymore,
And...remind me again why we need Repulbicans to pass Health Reform ???? Grow a spine Dems. Pass it with a 51% vote and to HE---LL with Republicans.
I understand the impatience. I'm old enuf now that gay marriage is probably beyond my reach. I have no foreign lover who I can't share life with. I'm a divorced Air Force vet who has no stake anymore in DADT or DOMA and no one who needs my medical oversight. But for nearly 20 years I've been a local activist writer on gay issues in our regional newspaper and I think I've made some difference. My roll in the national gay drama is winding down. So it's easy for me to say "be patient".
I didn't get all I wanted in life either. But each generation misses some good things that come to the next. Timing is everything and life won't give it all to you and you can't force it. To everything there is a season....... and I've had mine. I have been to the mountaintop of love. More than once!! Not everyone can say that. It is enuf.
I'll still write, but for YOU now.
MKL must be spinning in his grave.
JG.
The cold hard reality is that even if he was a fierce advocacte for all of ourissues it's a strong possibilty that they still would not be fixed or certainly not fixed ASAP. We are working this a extremly nasty group of Republicans that certainly do not care about the true welfare of this country as well as some Democrats that are only thinking about being re-elected. It amazes me that the man is actually able to come out fighting everyday with the hits he takes constantly.
Some of us do. Some just keep making excuses.
For god sakes we've elected a black man who's for separate but equal AND justice delayed? In some areas he's just a more articulate BUSH!!!!
When exactly do you think it's time to point out that we've been sold down the river?
If President Obama is moving more slowly than we'd like, a big reason is that he's got a lot of opposition that doesn't really care what the public thinks, and that opposition has a lot of clout in Washington. FDR didn't have to fight huge government bureaucracies, he had to create them from the ground up. And he had far more support from his fellow Democrats at the time than Mr. Obama does now.
This doesn't mean to say of course that the President is beyond criticism: like all politicians he needs people to push him in the right direction. But there's a difference between constructive criticism and being a crybaby, and unfortunately too many have chosen the latter.
Cup O' Joe
http://cupojoe.blogspot.com