In 2008 this country was in a crisis, and we came together and worked tirelessly to bring in leadership to steer us through treacherous, scary times. Today, we are at a crossroads in the road to recovery from that crisis and as we head toward the election of 2012, our commitment to our choice in leadership is even more crucial. It's been a long road, and not an easy one, but the core values that brought us together to bring about change and our commitment to a humane and inclusive America must not waver. Mine will not and I want you with me.
I reflect on a time when I was hanging out on the beach in Miami with my two beautiful daughters on my birthday, when I got a call asking if I would fly to Ohio immediately. It was a small plane. A really, really small plane. It began to rain. In fact, it began to rain very hard. I am not at all scary about flying. I couldn't believe any plane would take off in that weather. But, we did.
My office knows not to schedule anything in during my birthday -- it's when I re-charge the battery and hang with the kids. For twenty years no one has ever been able to change my vacation plans. This year would be different. This year we would make history. This year would change our lives forever. So, I hopped on this little plane by myself and flew to Ohio to campaign for Barack Obama. I hit three cities in Ohio that day and it was one of the many, many trips I took in support of our president.
In 2008, we did everything we possibly could to get Barack elected... We knocked on doors, made thousands of phone calls, went on TV and used Facebook (wasn't on twitter yet), and on the website I founded, GlobalGrind.com and spent from dusk to dawn talking to people in our neighborhoods. Nothing was going to stop us. Nothing. We were on mission that was much bigger than any of us and even bigger than the candidate himself. This was the people's campaign. A chance to show the world and more importantly show ourselves just how great our country could be.
I decided to write this blog, cause I have never, not once, not for a moment during the past two and a half years lost that feeling I felt in 2008. I might have disagreed at times, thought a different approach might work better, questioned a decision or two, but NEVER did I question the brilliance, commitment, integrity and vision of President Barack Obama.
I didn't fight him when he reformed healthcare for the first time in close to a century. I didn't fight him when he took our country off of the Grand Canyon's ledge when we faced the worst economic disaster since the great depression, losing 700,000 jobs a month. I didn't fight him when he gave one of the most beautiful speeches I have ever heard in Cairo reaching out to the Muslim world in pursuit of changing the perception of our country. I didn't fight him when he ended combat operations in Iraq and is now beginning to draw down troops in Afghanistan. I didn't fight him when he signed the START Treaty with Russia. I certainly didn't fight him when he repealed Don't Ask Don't Tell and decided to no longer prosecute cases under Defense of Marriage Act. I didn't fight him when he reformed the grossly unjust crack/powder laws and put together a forum to address the spread of youth violence. I didn't fight him when he refused to let the Republicans dismantle Planned Parenthood and the National Public Radio. I didn't fight him when he removed Bush era restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research. I didn't fight him when he signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act restoring basic protections against pay discrimination for women. I didn't fight him when he saved the auto industry and made a profit for the American people along the way. I didn't fight him when he made significant reforms on Wall Street, maybe not all we wanted, but definitely more than we have ever had before.
And as difficult as it is for me to say as a practicing non-violent yogi, I didn't fight his decision to complete the mission to remove Osama bin Laden. I could continue, but you get the point. The accomplishments are remarkable. The work that still needs to get done is also remarkable. Conservatives fall in line and progressives fall in love -- well, guess what -- it's time we fall in line, because the alternatives are the Alice In Wonderland of crazy politics, and even crazier economics.
There has come a point, as we enter the 2012 election cycle, where a lot of people in this country, if they hear a little bit of criticism about the president, they begin to think that their vote doesn't count. They have to all be inspired or they won't vote at all. So, our job, as the people who are paying attention to the political discourse in this country to engage them... cause they aren't going to say, "Oh, I'll take the President cause I don't want the alternative." They just might not say anything and stay home on election day. We can't afford what happened in the mid-term elections to happen to us again. It just cannot happen. We need a Democratic House of Representatives, a Democratic Senate and a Democratic president. Any variation of that combination puts a lot of things at risk that we genuinely care about (hint: Medicare, Medicaid, Planned Parenthood, Pell Grants, Environmental Protection, Food Safety, etc., etc.]. The president said the political battlefield is the budget, and that is without question. If they start taking money out of the education budget and put it back into that war machine and into the investment banks, and the oil companies, instead of vice-versa, we are sunk. The middle class is sunk. And there is no way I can let that happen.
Of course I wanted Obama to frame the debate about the recovery package, about financial oversight, about gay marriage, and so much more -- but listen to me carefully: America is on the move -- and every progressive action has a reactionary counter-reaction. This is nothing new, and nothing to be scared of. Because demographics, fairness and the competition of ideas, in our great country, always favor progress. Obama is playing the long game, the game with the greatest rewards. It's time we gave him our full-hearted support.
It is time for us to be bound by the work that we do together to build a future for our children. We must not forget the unprecedented turnout of youth voters in NC, VA, OH, PA and in other key swing states and across the country in general, that we are called once again to transform history by turning out the largest youth vote in American history for Barack Obama. That special feeling that we all had in 2008 is still with us, it is still there, it has never gone away. We might want to bitch and moan a few times or yell and scream at the television, and that is okay. But, let us not forget that we have never seen a President who cares and fights this hard for every American, regardless of color, class, race, sexual orientation or creed. We have never seen a President as progressive as this. We have never seen a President who has accomplished more in his first two and a half years as him. Don't let anyone or anything break your spirit!
Join me and millions of others who know that more change and progress will depend on our every step, breath and vote. That is why I will work day and night until November 7, 2012 to get Barack Obama re-elected. Our work is not done! This is no time to cop out. The present and future are in our hands, hearts, minds and mobilization. Let's get to it. Let's continue to change America and the world. Let's re-elect President Barack Obama.
Follow Russell Simmons on Twitter: www.twitter.com/unclerush
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While I respect and admire your accomplishments as a business man, I'm not with you when you say, ".. but NEVER did I question the brilliance, commitment, integrity and vision of President Barack Obama."
I have come to question it. I worked as hard as you did to get him elected but the level of energy and enthusiasm I gave to the campaign is now felt in equal measures of disappointment. Instead of change we can believe in, my mantra now is, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
I'm going to look into Van Jones' Rebuild the Dream http://www.rebuildthedream.com/ and Russ Feingold's Progressives United http://www.progressivesunited.org/ and support true progressive representatives like Alan Grayson and Keith Ellison, but I don't anticipate giving anymore of my time or money to the electoral ambitions of Barack Obama. I have no passion to work for the lesser of two evils.
did you fight him when he appointed jeffrey immelt, former ge ceo, whose company paid no taxes last year and who is personally responsible for moving 25000 jobs overseas, as chair of his council on jobs and competitiveness?
did you fight him when he appointed william daley, former jpmorgan chase executive, as his chief of staff?
did you fight him when he continued bush's bailouts?
did you fight him when he signed a four-year extension to the patriot act?
did you fight him when he tripled our troop levels in afghanistan (the draw-down will reduce the number of troops there to twice what it was when he took office)?
did you mock him when he claimed that major combat operations had ended in iraq (as bush was when he made the same claim in march 2003), despite the fact that americans are still dying there?
did you fight him when he failed to close guantanamo?
did you fight him when he began illegally bombing libya, yemen, somalia, and pakistan?
it appears that you need to be better informed before you begin making prescriptions on whom one should support and whom one should oppose. your unwavering defense of the president makes your claimed commitment to nonviolence laughable. obama is a more offensive corporatist war-mongering neocon than bush. that's *real* change, bro.
It is about keeping this guy and his ilk out of any political office.
Everything this guy touches is messed up.
The Federal Banking system is a mess.
Loaning money to Banks because "they are too big to fail" is a mess.
Dissing Israel in favor of any other nation in the world is a mess.
Allowing the wholesale, unrestricted, invasion of the U.S. by illegal aliens is a mess.
Favoring government jobs toward people of color by doubling the size of the government is a mess.
Lacking the guts to put a cap on government spending is a mess.
Spending without limits is a mess.
Get this guy out of office ASAP. 2012 will not come fast enough.
You want to claim that his guy is not motivated by ethnicity then you are a fool.
The reason he is in office is because he appealed to the black and "minorities" who want a handout.
Thanks Russell. I agree with you 1000%.
THANK YOU MR. PRESIDENT
JKR
"Stop The Moanin' And Get To Work!"
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Who are you talking to, bro? the people who by your CDs?
Well, they don't come here.
Try the BET site.
Restore America Now!
Ron Paul 2012!
Restore America Now!
Instead we got an incrementalist who has done nothing to address the underlying structural problems that are killing our country, and our world. The big combines - big pharma, big insurance, big oil, Wall Street, big banks - are alive and well, and remain untouched. Their lobbyists dominate and direct the unfolding of policy. His policy directors, particularly in terms of economic management, are the very people who brought us the problems we now face.
I admire Ronald Reagan, not because I agree with him, but because he was willing to articulate a bold vision to change the direction of the country, and then implement it, even in the face of a democrat controlled congress. He was a chief executive - a true leader.
We need a progressive Ronald Reagan. We thought Obama was that man. We were wrong.
And that's exactly what he didn't do. The president, to be truly effective, has to be the salesman in chief as well as the commander in chief. For some reason, he stopped selling his vision and his agenda once he was elected, and turned back into a college professor.
You want what I got, then you'd better work for it.
You want a piece of pie, then make your own.
I don't owe you pie because the government wants to be fair and make it so that
everyone has pie.
I've watched in amazement as the president so many of us worked so hard to elect has faced an on-slaught of opposing forces so strong that his continued grace and optimism is staggering. Most "hope-defeating" of all is that the forces opposing him (and therefore our country at large) have come from within - primarily the GOP/TP and secondarily many of the extreme progressives who fail to understand he must govern the entire country, not just the left.
Imagine what he/we might have accomplished had EVERYONE invested half the energy supportng him (and therefore AMERICA) as they have in demonizing him...
It's no accident that no one has emerged from either party who seems a more viable presidential candidate. The polarization and bitter partisanship have made the whole experience seem more a huge burden that any rational person would seek to avoid. I am grateful we have this humble, passionate, intelligent (if imperfect) man willing to hang in there with us for another term. And I am willing to work my a$$ off to help keep him there.
Thanks for a timely article.
In two and a half years Obama has done a good job.
Bush lied us into Iraq, Obama will complete the withdrawl in a couple of months
Bush lost focus on capturing Bin Ladin, Obama did a perfect job
Bush lost focus on diminishing Alqueda, Obama diminished themto a street gang.
Bush lost 2.5 million jobs, Obama is imperfect but has created 1.5 million in two and a half years.
For 60 years or more America tried to get universal healthcre and both Republicans and Democrats failed, Obama succeeded
Bush met a large Democrat budget surplus and squandered it away in tax breaks for his friends and wars that killed 6-800,000 innocent Iraqis, Obama despite the obstruction of Republicans has stabilised the massive Republican deficit.
Obama succeeded in reducing nuclear weapons after 40 years.
Obama has us bombing Libya,Somalia,Yemen and Pakistan. We need a declarationo f war declared by congress to do this and Obama doesn't have one.
Obama did capture Bin Laden i applaud him on that but we need to send a apology ti Pakistan for violating there sovereignty.
What the Heck is Themto?
Those 1.5million jobs most were temporary. alot are gone also and unemployment is still higher under Bush and is raising.
Universal health care is unconstitutional under the 9th and 10th amendments.
Stabilized it???the debt is rising!!!!
Good job on Obama for the nuclear weapon reducing i support that to.