Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

A vote for Nader is a vote for the GOP.

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Not anymore than a vote for Pat Buchanan, or Harry Browne or  Howard Philips was.  

FWIW, even Obama doesn't share your 'purism' -- He supports voting third parties, even when it risks Democratic turnout.

Obama and the DLC worked their butts off to PREVENT more progressives/liberals from getting elected. Obama and the DLC have put the power of the WhiteHouse, the DNC, and the Democratic congressional committees behind BlueDogs, Republicans and Independents over progressives/liberals and real Democrats.  Some, but not all, examples: 

BlueDog BlancheLincoln over progressive Democrat Lt. Governor BillHalter. 

Republican-turned-Independent ArlenSpecter over progressive Democrat JoeSestak. 

Republican-turned-Independent LincolnChaffee over Democrat FrankCaprio (which, in turn, was an effective endorsement of the Republican JohnLoughlin over Democrat DavidCicilline for the congressional seat Democrat PatrickKennedy retired from, and all of the other seats up for grab in RhodeIsland). 

Republican-turned-Independent CharlieCrist over liberal Democrat KendrickMeek. 

Republicans, with the smallest minority, have managed to thwart Democrats, who've had the greatest majority in decades.  You would think that with Republicans controlling the House, Democrats would've turned the tables and thwarted Republicans' continuing legislation like Bush's tax cuts for the rich?  Are Democrats just stupld?

Obama never pressured BenNelson (or BlancheLincoln, or any BlueDog). The Democratic leadership could've taken away committee chairs (BlancheLincoln's, too) of members in their caucus that filibustered a PublicOption for healthcare. They didn't.

The DNC could've taken away reelection funds. They didn't. 

Reid could've actually forced Republicans and turncoat Democratic senators to filibuster. He didn't (and doesn't).

The ProgressiveCaucus could have kept their pledge about not voting for a bill that didn't include a robust PublicOption. They didn't. 

Obama DID unleash the attack dogs to go after HowardDean when Dean said it was a lousy bill. Dean was then forced to get back into line. Obama went after Kucinich, the last remaining holdout on the ProgressiveCaucus, for threatening to vote no on the healthcare bill, and we all know how that ended. 

There is nothing that Lieberman (or Nelson or Lincoln) is doing that Obama hasn't ordered. Obama and the DLC-Democrats want Lieberman there, doing what he's doing, which is to take the heat off of Democrats.  

And the proof of this is that (since you mention Nelson), when Obama needed Nelson re: StupakAmendment, he 'bought' his support.  That's what Obama could've done for Nelson's or Lincoln's vote at any time, on any legislation.  

There could be 100 "progressives" in the Senate and 435 in the House, and they and Obama would still find a way to deliver to corporations instead of the People and blame it on Republicans. Because they're DLC, aka Republicans-in-Democrats'-clothing.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

I have coffee coming out of my nose from reading your comment about the S&L crisis being bigger than this.

Ratigan & Spitzer:  TARP's Only a Tiny Piece of Subsidies to Banks
 

On Dylan Ratigan, Eliot Spitzer and Larry McDonald explain how banks paying back TARP monies doesn't begin to cover what's been stolen.


The Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world.

Then there's the millions more foreclosures in the pipeline -  15 million families are about to face foreclosure.

That's not even the half of it.. Or 1% of what's coming down the pike at us.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

To begin with, Nader isn't running in 2012.

A vote for Obama is a vote against my interests.  A vote for Obama is a vote against the 99%, the people's interests (forget 'best interests'; just the people's plain old interests at this point after 30 years of compromising away our positions), i.e., populist policies, real Democratic Party platform policies.  

Your stubbornness, your insistence on supporting Obama and allowing his retreat to these "compromise" positions, is insuring the continued crushing of the poor and middle classes in America.  

What do you think Obama is going to say that his mandate is should he win?  For example, why aren't Obama, Reid, Pelosi and Democrats talking about the Progressive Caucus's budget and plan to balance the budget (reduces the deficit by $5.1 trillion)?  It beats Obama's, Reid's AND Republicans' plans.

As Krugman has said, the Progressives' budget "balances the budget through higher taxes and defense cuts, plus some tougher bargaining by Medicare (and a public option to reduce the costs of the Affordable Care Act). The proposed tax hikes would fall on higher incomes, raising the cap on payroll taxes (takes care of Social Security's solvency forever)... and unlike the Ryan plan, it actually makes sense."
 
But Obama takes solutions that work for the People, the vast majority of Americans, off the table.  Whether it's ending Bush's tax cuts or the wars, the '14th Amendment Solution' (and it is, indeed, a legitimate option), etc., Obama kneecaps and handicaps the Democratic voters who put him and Democrats into power.  

That's Obama's style, taking solutions that work for the People off the table and out of consideration when we're discussing how we want to proceed.  That's what he did during the healthcare debate -- He took single payer off the table before negotiations ever began.  Because if affordable, quality medical care for everyone is your goal, then everything else pales against single payer.  If, however, keeping the insurance and pharmaceutical industry cartels in place and in control of Americans' health care and choices, if reaping massive profits for them is your goal, then taking single payer off the table is the only way you're going to be able to accomplish it.

If Republicans are going to turn down anything Obama and Democrats put forth, why then aren't Obama and Democrats fighting for the BEST plan out there?
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

The most BS argument to date:  "The cuts and the pain must be shared by all".

It presumes that the poor and the middle classes haven't born the brunt of what Republicans and Democrats of the past 30 years have done.  

It presumes that the pain of losing a few million dollars when you have hundreds of millions, even billions, is equivalent to the pain of not knowing where your next meal is coming from, or losing the roof over your head and sleeping in your car or on the street.

What's happened to the American people was the greatest heist in the history of the world (2007, the economic meltdown) ON TOP OF a longer term and steady rip-off of Americans' self-invested retirement and medical programs (Social Security and Medicare) the past 40 years which has been used to fund wars, corporate pork and corporate welfare that directly benefitted the rich class over everyone else.   

Where are the investigations, prosecutions and restitution?

The middle class has been crushed.  The middle and poor classes are bearing the entire brunt of a full-on virtual crime spree by transnational corporations, Wall Street and the banks' criminal money-making schemes.

Half of the population makes under $30,000, and their taxes were raised while the top tier got a break!
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

Obama's and the DLC-controlled Democrats insist that what they're doing is "good compromising".

It's not a good compromise when it's going in the wrong direction.  Not when the finances are coming from my pocket and going into yours.  That's the direction it's been going for years, decades, and that pocket has been tapped out.  It's empty.  Your pockets, on the other hand, are DEEP and STUFFED.

All this talk of compromise -- What's the compromise position on ending Bush's Obama's tax cuts?  Do Obama's 'most ardent supporters' know that Obama offered in these negotiations to make those tax cuts permanent?

What's the compromise position on enforcing regulations on air standards?  Not enforcing them?

What's the compromise position on a woman's right to choose?  Make it impossible for her to actually obtain an abortion?

What's the compromise position on Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and veterans' care and SCHIP, etc.?   Empty out the trust funds to pay bond holders and war profiteers so that there's nothing left for those who paid into into the trust funds?

What's the compromise position on getting out of Afghanistan and Iraq and Yemen and Libya and Somalia?  Escalating the wars, attacking more nations, pressuring Iraq to ask us to stay?

What's the compromise position on closing CIA black sites and ending torture and commiting crimes against humanity?   Prison Ships, Ghost Prisoners and Obama's Interrogation Program?  Ending habeas corpus and a president indefinitely detaining anyone he believes might be thinking about committing a crime, American citizens included, and killing them with no due process, no oversight?

There is no 'center' on most issues.  We're 'centered-out'.   The left has done more than 30 years of compromising.  You either believe in Social Security and Medicare and a woman's right to choose and gays' right to marry and clean safe food and water, and a safe workplace, and living wages, etc., or you don't.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

All that Obama is doing is trying to save unregulated capitalism and the lock that the 1% has on the other 99%.

With Obama's deal to preserve Bush's tax cuts for the rich (making it Obama's tax cuts for the rich), 99ers were cut off.  Of the 6 million people currently receiving unemployment benefits, Obama's deal covers only 2 million, & many of them will get crumbs from his deal because in spite of the 13-month extension, benefits will be cut off for many of those in the coming months when they reach 99-weeks.  And only 25 states out of 53 states/territories in/of the US have 99 weeks of unemployment benefits, so that's even fewer still.

David Cay Johnston on Democracy Now! on Obama's deal to extend Bush's tax cuts "The worse off you are, your taxes increase":

"The bottom roughly 45 million families in America or households in America—and there are a little over 100 million households—they’re going to actually see their taxes go up.  Republicans got an extraordinarily good deal, that raises, I think, basic questions about the negotiating skills of the President."

The payroll tax 'holiday' in the deal sets SocialSecurity up for its end.  That's what Bush and GroverNorquist planned and why Bush believes he'll be vindicated as a great conservative in history: For ending the GreatSociety programs, by having bankrupted the nation so there's no way to pay out those benefits.  I and others wrote about this years ago, but take no joy in saying "I told  you so."

Extending Bush's tax cuts was an absolutely wretched deal, but standard for Obama, who has  a long record of negotiating lousy deals on ordinary citizens' behalf.  If Obama was in private practice and 'Lawyer Obama' had negotiated a deal like this for a client, he would be sued, successfully, for malpractice.

The purpose of the deal was so that Democratic political operatives could say, "Obama helped the unemployed"; most readers won't know the actual facts of how Obama sold out the American people.  Again.  Obama and Democrats have no jobs plan either.  Both parties are thinning the herd.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

Your link doesn't support your assertions.

Obama’s Torture Loopholes - He doesn't mean what you think he means.  


Between the torture, the secret prisons and secret wars, drones killing civilians worldwide, Obama's is as criminal an administration as Bush's.  And it's all being done in our names, in case you wonder the next time there's an attack in the US.



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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

Nader again?  

Nader didn't do anything to Gore that HarryBrowne, PatBuchanan, HowardPhillips, et al (other party candidates) didn't also do, yet you don't hear them being blamed.  Gore and Bush weren't owed other party's voters, and studies have shown that Nader pulled more votes from Bush than from Gore.

You presume that Nader voters would've voted for Gore (or voted at all) when studies and exit polling have indicated that's not the case.  

You blame Nader voters when, had Nader not even run, had he not be in the race, Bush still would've won.  Because Republicans had gamed that election more ways than we're ever going to know about.  You might as well blame Pat Buchanan with the same vigor and vitriole.

AlGore won.  Gore got more votes in Florida.  Any way it was counted (and the biggest point that people seem to forget is that there were 179,000 perfectly readable ballots that never got counted), Gore got more votes than Bush.
 
Whatever the means necessary to get BushCheney into the WhiteHouse would've happened.  Had Nader been in the race, had he not in the race, whatever.  Had Nader not run, the outcome would've been the same.  The powers that be were not going to let Gore win, no matter what, and gamed it innumerable ways.

If the means for getting BushCheney into the WhiteHouse required a close election and Nader not been running, some other means would've been used.

For pity's sake, the CIA was working on GOP absentee ballots in the weeks leading up to election day in Florida.  That was the most amazing revelation from the televised court hearings in the post-election days in Florida --  'CharlesKane' testified to altering absentee ballots in the MartinCounty's Registrar's office in the two week period prior to election day (it's against the law and should render the ballots null and void).  When Kane was sworn in, he had to identify himself and give his occupation and employer. Retired CIA.  The judge asked him why he was altering the absentee ballots, and he answered "I go where I'm told."  Verbatim quote.  The judge didn't follow up.  There was next to no news coverage of this, and none by the networks.

Have you forgotten JebBush's vote purging scheme?

Have people really forgotten all the different ways that that election was gamed by the GOP?  And that's just in Florida.  And just the ways that we learned about because of legal proceedings in the post-election days.

There was a coup d'etat in America in 2000.  A bIoodless coup, but a coup nonetheless.  

And Democrats suppressed investigations, and then screwed over the CongressionalBlackCaucus's attempts to expose that stolen election.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

What do you think OWS is?  

And Obama has sicc'ed the FBI to infiltrate and spy on it (not to mention having the CIA support cities' efforts to shut it down).

The mainstream media parrots what the White House dictates -- Liberals have very few media outlets to speak from.  The few radio markets where Clear Channel allowed liberal programs have been changed just in time for this election season to even more conservative radio -- In liberal markets, it's next to impossible to get anything but Limbaugh or Hannity on the car's radio.

MSNBC has become a microphone for one race in the 2012 election alone.  I've seen absolutely NO DEMOCRATIC primary candidates, for Congress anywhere on cable shows.  MSNBC went dark on the Kaptur-Kucinich race, for example.  In my local congressional race, the corporate media is in the tank for the corporate Democrat, and not the nationally known liberal -  Only the corporate Dem has gotten front section coverage.  It's a scandal what we're not getting, and what Democratic voters aren't realizing.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

Have you got links for your (preposterous) assertions?
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

The main problem is that "profit" isn't the right measure to use in this context. Profit is a deceptive measure when used with insurance, because the amount of money that flows through insurance companies is vastly disproportionate to the work they do or the value they add, just by the nature of the business.

To put it more simply: private insurance companies' "costs" are probably about half of all the healthcare spending in America, since that's the proportion they cover. And their revenues are somewhat higher than that (currently about 4.3% higher, according to Yahoo business).

But it's not as if they're actually doing half the work in America's healthcare system; they're just collecting premiums and paying bills, plus a lot of administration and advertising. If I had a business that consisted of people giving me $100 bills and me paying them back $96, it would be silly to describe that as a very low-profit industry.

A better measurement is not profit, but might be return on invested capital (ROIC).

ROIC measures how much money it takes to set up and run an insurance company, versus how much profit it brings in. Unfortunately it's not so easy to find good ROIC figures. The closest equivalent Yahoo business has is return on equity (ROE), but that can vary according to whether firms are financed through equity or debt.

Still, across the entire industry this hopefully evens out a bit, and what it shows is that ROE in health insurance is about 16.1%, roughly the same as for the healthcare industry as a whole, and a good deal higher than the average ROE in most sectors of the economy.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

Single payer is the only solution to ever-spiraling healthcare costs.  There's one other element to this, which is that the government needs to be freed of the restrictions preventing it from bargaining with Big PhRma about drug costs.  Neither will happen under Obama, Democrats or Republicans.  

Profit is defined many different ways, and how corporations define profit can be quite imaginative.

Do you remember Jim Garner's battle with Universal over his profits from The Rockford Files.  The Rockford Files was one of the studios most successful television series and most lucrative syndicated series of that time, yet Garner never saw a dime due to Universal's creative bookkeeping and their original deal with Garner (profits from the net instead of the gross).  On paper, The Rockford Files never made it into the black, but in actuality, Universal skimmed profits by paying itself over and over again by recharging the Rockford Files' production company for items already bought and paid for.

Kaiser-Permanente might be considered an good example of what I'm talking about here.  Subscribers pay to receive medical treatment and KP takes the money and uses it (in addition to treating the subscriber) to invest in things like real estate, property, building medical facilities, etc.  That becomes a tangible asset that doesn't belong to the subscriber but to KP's 'partners' - Every physician who works at KP (provided they get past a 2 year probationary period) is offered a partnership, and once they're partners they get year-end bonuses that are mainly based on the company's performance that year.  Thus, subscribers/patients are putting the money up and they're not reaping the whole benefit of their money, just as insured patients are putting up their money which insurance companies then take and invest in medically-related companies and reap obscene profits, creatively cook the books while limiting treatment to the subscribers.

KEEP READING
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

What Obama did was entrench, institutionalize, the insurance industry as the 'for-profit'-gatekeepers to Americans getting medical care.  For all time.  And an expensive gatekeeper at that; much more expensive than the government (and less efficient, too).

The important thing is administrative costs.  The amount of money taken out of every dollar the subscriber pays into the plan.  Medicare takes about 5%.  Private insurance companies take anywhere between 23% to 30% (and it's can be as high as 39%).  

Either the private insurance companies are grossly inefficient or they're extremely profitable for the people who run them.  Net profit, after all, is what's left after all the bloated salaries of the upper management team is taken out.  

What's wrong with that is that CEOs are making 400-500 times as much as the line workers and they're not doing it because they're incredibly savvy, efficient, inspiring leaders; they're doing it because they run in a rarified circle of like-minded people that mutually justify their obscene compensation packages.

KEEP READING
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

Like 'progressive' Marcy Kaptur, anti-choice and big defense spending/pro-war Democrat?  

Like Elizabeth Warren who just this past week pledged her allegiance to AIPAC (and by extension, pro-war with Iran)?

Until you get it, until you wake up and realize the extent of the corruption, that our government is steeped in it, you make it possible for your worst nightmare (Republican policies) to happen -- Only it's being accomplished by Democratic politicians.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

You think Democrats are going to save us from a rightwing Supreme Court?

Think again.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

Unless and until there is drastic and uncompromising change to our campaign financing system, until corporations are no longer 'persons' and are prohibited from participating in elections and politics, all efforts to reform government are useless. But that is NOT going to happen under Obama or the DLC-controlled Democratic Party. It's not even on their 'To Do' list.


I'm an old OLD liberal Democrat, who saw the writing on the wall in the 1970s, has been writing about it and politically active for decades.  Reform isn't on the agenda of either party, and Republicans don't have to bother trying to keep progressives out of office -- Obama and the DNC worked their butts off to prevent it, too.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

Response here.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

Not only that, Obama (and before him, Bill Clinton/Iran-Contra, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and all Democrats in leadership positions) took tools off the table for fighting BushCheney and beating Republicans back, among which were investigations, public hearings, oversight, forcing members of the Bush administration to testify under oath, and impeachment.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

You are wrong on the mid terms. The GOPer's won, because the corporate owned funded and directed tea partiers controlled the message of fear and hate. Tea Partier people standing up at townhall meetings with printed out scripts, shouting down elected leaders and fellow citizens, to ensure the truth about healthcare couldn't be heard or discussed in a civil manner. Old white people on healthcare plans that are government plans screaming keep your hands off my medicare. Politicians lying about death pannels. Making sure they came to rallies and townhalls with guns. Why the guns? Because, less people will show up for fear of someone losing control during heated arguments.

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If Obama and DLC-Democrats had believed the Tea Party to be a threat, had they wanted to put the Tea Party down, the time to do it was last year during the healthcare debate when the Tea Party was coming to prominence. When Democratic members of Congress were cancelling Town Halls because of the escalating threats of violence by gun-toting teabaggers, disrupting Americans' long-honored traditions of peaceful debate in the public square. Instead of taking to the bully pulpit, instead of increasing security on government properties hosting these events, Obama disappeared from the healthcare debate to cut secret deals with Big Insurance, PhRma, hospitals, the AMA, etc., and then he lied about it, all the while that the Tea Party grew and bullied at Town Halls.

What Obama also did during the same Town Hall time period? He unleashed federal security forces to Pittsburgh to break up peaceful protests of the G20 meeting, using the new weaponry on dissenters who the 'establishment elites' really fear, and stem the unrest that actually threatens the 'elites', i.e., the American people taking back their government. -http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2009/sep/25/sonic-cannon-g20-pittsburgh

Obama had no problem quelling dissent or inspiring our better angels when he wanted or needed to.

The Tea Party is an effective nemesis for Obama and helps him and the DLC deliver to their (and Republicans') Corporate Masters.  The Tea Party is a paper tiger, a scapegoat, and not the real problem.  This is all Kabuki theater, to push us into accepting being robbed blind while politicians in both parties jockey for positions of favor and power within the corporatocracy.

The Tea Party serves this end it several ways. Chiefly though it lets both parties keep a legislative agenda to the right of center. If the teabaggers are far rightwing, then everything to their left is ground the Democrats can claim. And that's a lot of corporate-money ground.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

And why would overhauling campaign finance reform be on Obama's and Democrats' agenda?

Obama got more corporate money than any other candidate in history.  Democrats, too.

I'm afraid that you're making presumptions about the character of people who you don't know.  You presume things about them, their intentions, based on limited information that has been put through filters to make them into a product which is sold to you like any other product on a supermarket shelf.

The proof of this is their actions.  Is there anything that Obama and the DLC-controlled Congress has done that resembles Democratic policies or ideology?

Obama and Democrats today (and Democrats for the past couple of decades, or since the DLC took over control of the DemocraticParty) are promoting Republican policies.  You forget that Democratic politicians voted along with Republicans to support GeorgeWBush's policies.  Democrats all but disappeared during the Bush administration (BarbaraBoxer wrote mystery novels while collecting a salary from the Senate; PatrickLeahy got to act in a movie about his favorite comic book hero, Batman, while collecting his salary from the Senate). 

Democrats should have been working to obstruct Bush and block Republicans every way they could, but they actually argued on behalf of Bush.  How many times did we hear Democrats defend Bush's nominations on everything from cabinet posts to judges, citing "executive branch rights", "A president deserves to have whomever he wants on his cabinet" or "on the SupremeCourt"?  Out of Democrats' mouths!  

Democrats did it and had as their talking points to quiet dissent among the base of the DemocraticParty, "The pendulum will swing back and Democrats will be in power and get these rights, and make it all right again".

But when Democrats got back into power, they didn't do that.  They aren't doing that.  Democrats in Congress have refused to perform their Constitutionally required responsibility of overseeing the executive branch, both during Bush (after 2006) and now under Obama.  Between HenryWaxman, JoeLieberman, PatrickLeahy, JayRockefeller, Democrats have been co-conspirators with Republicans.

And why wouldn't Democrats change, do anything differently when there are apologists, people like Obama's 'most ardent supporters', who keep his and their numbers high, who keep reelecting them no matter what their treachery.  "Because the Republicans are worse" -- That's some mantra.   It's no different than Bushies voting for Republicans because 0samaB!nLaden's picture gets flashed at them all over the media the weekend before elections.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

So you have given up on single-payer and/or don't believe it is a goal?

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There's no doubt it's not the goal of Obama or the DLC-controlled Democratic party.

As far as giving up on single payer, nothing, not single payer, not reform of any kind, is possible. Unless and until there is drastic and uncompromising change to our campaign financing system, until corporations are no longer 'persons' and are prohibited from participating in elections and politics, all efforts to reform government are useless. But that is NOT going to happen under Obama or the DLC-controlled Democratic Party. It's not even on their 'To Do' list.

It's not anything that they campaigned on, and it's been off the table since HAVA passed after the 2000 election theft.  That's how it works in DC.  It's why there won't be any move to meaningful healthcare reform, no public option, for another generation.  That's what Obama's 'healthcare reform' legislation did -- It got real and meaningful healthcare reform off the table.  

KEEP READING
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

After reading some of your posts cheerleading Obama, it's clear to me that you don't have any idea about legislation, policy or strategies, and only support Obama because he's on the team (Democratic Party) that you've been raised to root for.  

Tragically, you don't know that the 'team' has been taken over by the same corporate interests controlling the opposition team (Republicans), has adopted the ends (policies, legislation) but altered the means to get there ("health care insurance, for all a few more") in order to trick the 'fans' (you) into believing it's the same old 'D' product (pro-populist).  It's not.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

you got a source for that "journalism" you quoted.

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Click on the hyperlink.

If you think the answer is to vote for a Democrat who governs as a Republican, I don't think you're going to persuade those of us who are real democrats to vote against our best interests.  again.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

By the way, bj, did you know that Nancy Pelosi voted for NDAA?

Is your position that giving a president the legal power to indefinitely detain and kill Americans with no due process and no oversight is a good thing and that you support this as Democratic policy?
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

Come out as a DEMOCRAT, bj.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

What you got is insurance, not affordable quality medical treatment, which is what Obama and Democrats were put into office to achieve.

Obama's healthcare legislation is Republican healthcare legislation.  It is the Heritage foundation's plan.

There is no mechanism for lowering the costs of treatment. Obama put a fox in charge of this chicken coop (former WellPoint executive Liz Fowler) to write and enforce the regulations.  Her most notable actions to date have been issuing waivers to businesses that don't want to have to provide insurance to their employees.

Obama's healthcare legislation prohibits the very thing that was the top issue in the 2008 election:  The government being able to negotiate lower drug prices or reimportation.

Obama's healthcare legislation is Bush's Medicare Reform Act of 2003 (which was a $700 billion + giveaway to Big Insurance & PhRma), Part 2.  

Not only doesn't Obama's healthcare legislation accomplish what Obama and Democrats were put into power to get (affordable quality medical treatment for everyone, lower drug prices), it is, in fact, a giant leap toward ending all public healthcare (Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, CHAMPUS, veterans care, etc.).  
Obama's healthcare legislation puts more people into Medicaid, which the states are required to co-pay along with the federal government. The states are already going bankrupt, and moving toward eliminating Medicaid services as a result. States' options are limited, especially those states with constitutional requirements to balance their budgets.  So while people may find themselves covered by Medicaid, if you're thinking that should all else fail you've got Medicaid as your safety net, guess again:  Medicaid won't cover c/hit.  

Having insurance (which is all that Obama's legislation does, and not even for everyone, just for a few million more) doesn't mean getting necessary medical care or that you will be able to afford medical care.  All that Obama's healthcare legislation does is require money to go from here (my pockets/taxpayers' pockets) to there (into insurance companies' pockets).

There is no limitation on insurance companies' charging and increasing co-pays and deductibles and eliminating services. There is no requirement for insurance companies to have to provide services not paid for.

Insurance companies have already figured out the way around the restrictions in the bill.  The con game in the legislation -- Medical loss ratio.  The amount of money insurers must spend on healthcare, and how it will enable insurance companies to continue to price gauge and keep obscene profits instead of delivering affordable and quality medical care to policy-holders.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

What do you think you're voting for when you put Obama back into the White House?  

And if it's populist policies, what makes you think that's what Obama supports?

Before the 2010 midterms, Obama broadcast that he would be doing more of the same, more caving,, to Republicans, more Republican-like legislation, even if Democrats remained the majority and in control of both Houses of Congress:

Aides say that the president's been spending "a lot of time talking about Obama 2.0," brainstorming with administration officials about the best way to revamp the strategies & goals of the White House.

And despite the predictions that Democrats may relinquish a large degree of legislating power, including perhaps control of the House & even Senate, Obama isn't thinking of the next two years as a period that'll be marked with the same obstructive nature from the GOP.

"It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, [Republicans] feel more responsible, either because they didn't do as well as they anticipated, & so the strategy of just saying no to everything & sitting on the sidelines & throwing bombs didn't work for them," Obama says. "Or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals & work with me in a serious way."

Dick Durbin says Obama's post-election agenda "will have to be limited & focused on the things that are achievable and high priorities for the American people." Tom Daschle says Obama has to reach out more: "The keyword is inclusion. He's got to find ways to be inclusive."

Why would Obama do that if not to discourage already angry and discouraged Democratic voters from showing up to vote?

Democrats lost seats in the 2010 midterms because of Obama's and Democrats' failure to do what Democratic voters put them in office for in 2008.  It was BlueDogs who lost seats in huge numbers, and lost Democrats control over the House and lowered the total in the Senate -- Progressives only lost 3 seats.  

Since the midterm elections, Obama's tried to spin this as some mandate for more Republican-like legislation.  

Do you honestly believe that the message of the midterms was to cut spending when the vast majority of Americans want no cuts to Medicare or SocialSecurity and want the wars to end now, BushObama tax cuts to be repealed and taxes raised on corporations and the rich?  Yet that's exactly what Obama and Republicans and the Democrats in the House and Senate who voted for this 'Super Congress' (including NancyPelosi) are trying to sell.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

You want to put a Democrat who governs as a Republican in the White House.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

Our troops are NOT out of Iraq.


Then there's this.  And this.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

What do you possibly envision Obama doing should he get a second term?  

What do you believe he will see he has a mandate to do?  

Enact Simpson-Bowles?  Privatize Social Security?  Cut Social Security and Medicare benefits?  Attack Iran (or let Israel do it)?  Step up drone attacks worldwide?  Install more drones over US cities?  Deregulate industries?  Expand nuclear power plant building?  Approve more offshore oil and gas drilling?  Approve Keystone when it returns after the 2012 elections?  Support SOPA/PIPA when it returns?
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

There is a vast difference between Obama and Romney. You don't have to look very much further than the Supreme Court to see that. Do you want another Robert/Scalia clone, or do you want another Sotomayor or Kagan?  

==========================

And when all else fails, they scream, "The Supreme Court will be lost!"

The Supreme Court is lost already.  Please remember that Scalia and Thomas made it through a Democratically-controlled Judiciary Committee and Senate.  And Democrats voted to confirm Alito (58-42) and Roberts (78-22), 

And Obama's appointments are really nothing to defend.  Elena Kagan is the Goldman-Sacks seat, not to mention that she was the 5th vote in rolling back Miranda a couple of weeks ago.

And Sotomayor was with the Scalia-Thomas-Alito faction that boycotted the SOTU - Sotomayor was in Guam, addressing a group of students and swearing in new members of the Guam Bar Association, a first for a US Supreme Court Justice (are you kidding, Sonia, missing the most public showing of US democracy and the 3 branches of government by leaving the US for a 5 day trip to Guam?).

If who gets to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg was such a worry, don't you think she would step down now while it's assured a Democratic president would be choosing?
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

We've been doing it your way, the DLC's way, for over 20 years and the government and the Democratic Party keeps moving farther to the right.  That's because your way is to cave, to lie to the American people and put Republicans-in-Democrats'-clothing into office. At the rate this is going, Republicans won't have to bother getting elected, or certainly not in any great numbers because Democrats are doing their work for them.  Republicans won't bother having to overturn Roe, for example, for why bother outlawing abortion when Democrats have helped Republicans make it virtually impossible to obtain one?

If you and I are on the same side, as you insist, and want real Democratic policies, and going about getting them your way (protecting Obama, reelecting DLC Democrats) is getting Republican policies and NOT Democratic policies, when do you realize that maybe you don't know what you're talking about? 

When do you realize that you've become that classic definition for 'insan!ty' ("Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results")?

Do you ever realize it?
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

Democratic voters been voting for Republicans-in-Democrats'-clothing for 20 years now.  It's always imperative that "Republicans can't get the seat/White House", and "we'll work to purge these people from the party", or "next time we'll not vote for another DLCer; just let [today's DINO du jour] get in, to warm the seat".  I've been hearing this for more than 20 years, and the only change is for the worse.  

In politics, in life, there really is only now.   Each day that conditions remain the same or further declines (Obama has advanced BushCheney positions that should have you marching on Washington ), a sort of stare decisis sets in, making it more difficult (if not impossible ) to turn around.  We have become the proverbial boiled frogs; there's a generation that's been born and doesn't know about life pre-9/11 and 4th amendment protections.  

Putting Obama back in the White House is not the answer.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

Been there, done it.  

During the Bush years, Democrats said if the People wanted change, they had to put Democrats in the majority in Congress. So in 2006, we did.

Nothing changed. 

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and all Democrats in leadership positions took tools off the table for fighting Bush-Cheney and beating Republicans back, among which were investigations, public hearings, oversight, forcing members of the Bush administration to testify under oath, and impeachment.  

They said, "You have to give us more Democrats -- 60 in the Senate".

In 2008, we did.  We gave them 60 for the Democratic Caucus. And, we gave them the White House. 

Obama came into office with the wind at his back. More people voted for him, a black man in good old r@c!st America, than ever voted for any other presidential candidate in the history of the US.  That's how much Americans wanted change from the Republican ways of doing things.  Voters did it because of Obama's ability to persuade, that he was going to change the system, end the corporatocracy, lobbyism in government -- Obama was going to be the People's president, not a corporate tool. 

And no sooner did Obama get elected than he slammed the brakes on the momentum of his election and a filibuster-proof Senate (tentative yet, with 2 senators, Kennedy and Byrd, at death's door), Obama did a 180-degree turn on his promises and sloooooowed everything down. To "work in a bipartisan manner with Republicans", after Republicans had already announced they were going to block everything Democrats wanted to do, vote no on everything, in lockstep. 

Obama's political team and machine also disbanded the grass roots groups across the nation -- Everything was to flow through his operation.  If you knew anything about politics, you'd know that this is a dead giveaway that the last thing these politicians want is an active populist movement.

Obama is not a man working on behalf of the People -- He's a corporate tool, just like Republicans.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

How Obama has handled the massive problems is EXACTLY how Republicans would've handled them (and how Bush-Cheney was handling them).  Obama's not governing as he had promised or as a real Democrat would have.

The real shame, the real tragedy for all of us is that Obama could have been a transcendent president, good for both business and the People.  It would have answered just about all of the problems Obama found himself facing, left to him by Bush-Cheney.

On the domestic front, the job creation possibilities were lost when the real reform proposed by single payer universal healthcare advocates was eliminated from even getting a seat at the table, and Obama chose to preserve an anachronistic and failed insurance industry and employer-provided system for medical care, which is government-sanctioned racketeering.

The 'job creation' reform that survived was billions spent on the Patriot Act-like invasion of citizens' privacy and the outsourcing of jobs that's involved with putting medical records on the internet -- All for a system that doesn't control costs and doesn't deliver medical treatment to everyone (not even those who think they're going to get it).

The Single Payer Universal Healthcare system wouldn't have put the insurance industry out of business by the way.  It would've been a two-tiered system: Basic coverage for everyone and boutique coverage for those willing to pay for it. So nobody had to worry about poor Big Insurance and Pharma -- There would have been work for all. Big Insurance and Pharma would just had to have made smarter gambles, with no taxpayer bailouts.

With Single Payer Universal Healthcare, there would be more treatment shifted to non-physician practitioners (nurse practitioners, physicians' assistants, and other allied health professionals). Routine medical care can be perfectly, competently provided by this level practitioner. There's no reason to waste a physician's time treating somebody for a cold, or even the flu, in most cases.

It's true that if universal health coverage were to become an official reality, we'd need to expand training programs for both MDs and non-MD providers to insure there were enough to go around, but in the long run it would mean cheaper and more effective service, along with job creation.  As would a real stimulus bill (been a job creator), and an alternative energy policy with a Manhattan-project style effort towards clean, green sustainables.

Then there are the benefits from fixing US' infrastructure.

These are all good things, but Obama and Democrats have chosen the dark side.  The corporate side.
And nothing will be any different should he win reelection.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

In another Word document, one of the team spells out how automation can work so one person can be many personas:

Using the assigned social media accounts we can automate the posting of content that is relevant to the persona.  In this case there are specific social media strategy website RSS feeds we can subscribe to and then repost content on twitter with the appropriate hashtags.  In fact using hashtags and gaming some location based check-in services we can make it appear as if a persona was actually at a conference and introduce himself/herself to key individuals as part of the exercise, as one example.  There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to all fictitious personas

It goes far beyond the mere ability for a government stooge, corporation or PR firm to hire people to post on sites like this one. They're talking about creating  the illusion of consensus. And consensus is a powerful persuader. What has more effect, one guy saying BP isn't at fault, or 20 people saying it? For the weakminded, the number can make all the difference.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

You have to be in heavy denial or living under a rock (or watching American Idol) to say that.  

"Torture Is Ongoing Under Obama"

"Obama's Expanding Covert Wars"

"U.S. 'Secret War' Expands Globally Under Obama"

Obama has expanded not only the wars, but his war powers.  
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

We should have known when Obama flip-flopped on FISA.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

Treat the online support for Obama with suspicion:

[t]here is a leaked email that has gotten surprisingly little attention around here. It's the one where AaronBarr discusses his intention to post at DailyKos - presumably something negative about Anonymous, the hacking group. But that's not the email I'm talking about here.

HBGary people are talking about creating "personas", what we call sockpuppets. This isn't new. PR firms have been using fake "people" to promote products and other things for a while now, both online and even in bars and coffee houses.

But for a defense contractor with ties to the federal government, HuntonAndWilliams, DOD, NSA, and the CIA -  whose enemies are labor unions, progressive organizations,  journalists, and progressive bloggers,  a persona apparently goes far beyond creating a mere sockpuppet.

According to an embedded MSWord document found in one of the HBGary emails, it involves creating an army of sockpuppets, with sophisticated "persona management" software that allows a small team of only a few people to appear to be many, while keeping the personas from accidentally cross-contaminating each other. Then the team can actually automate some functions so one persona can appear to be an entire BrooksBrothers riot online.

KEEP READING
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

The election is still 8 months away, and much can happen, will happen, before I have to decide who to vote for.  In my decades of voting, I've never voted for a Republican, no matter what initial is after their name, and I can't see any circumstance where I would vote for Obama, incumbent Democrats, DLC-controlled Democrats.  When Obama supporters talk about voting for him/them because he and they are "the lesser evil", I ask "On what issue?"

When women can no longer get an abortion in 92% of the counties in the U.S., what difference does it make which party is in power to those who are past menopause or can afford to send our daughters to Paris for an abortion?

When Obama and Democrats practice Republican foreign policy (expanding wars and codifying neverending war in which to justify removing Americans' Constitutional rights, etc.), what difference does it make which party is in power?

When Tim Geithner, Henry Paulson or some other Wall Streeter would be the Treasury Secretary under either a Republican or Democratic president, what difference does it make which party is in power?

When neither party has on its agenda getting money out of politics, eliminating corporate personhood, publicly funding elections, etc., then both parties are protecting the status quo.

When both parties kick 'hot potato' issues that are wrecking the lives or ordinary people down the road or to the states or to the courts yet always manage to meet corporate lobbyists' demands, it really doesn't matter which party gets into power.

So to many who could never imagine voting for a Republican, when Ron Paul talks about ending the Federal Reserve and not interfering militarily, financially or covertly in the affairs of other nations should he get to the Oval Office, his position on abortion becomes irrelevant and Paul might seem the lesser of the evils.

Just sayin'.

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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

Those aren't your only choices, and if you're thinking as you are, then you're a zombie sheep.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

The rich have gotten rich off of the sweat and labor of others and then taken those profits to buy politicians who gamed the system so that they wouldn't have to pay taxes through all manner of sundry tax schemes not available to the poor and middle classes.  The rich also closed the door on the ways that initially enabled them to amass their seed money for creating their businesses.  That's the true nature of unregulated capitalism: It seeks to eliminate all competition.

Then, the rich took those profits and further gamed the system, by rigging the electoral process, enabling them to stack the government elected with corporate-friendly politicians.  Business interests over the People's interests.

Over the course of U.S. history, corporations have managed to game our political system, and done it so effectively that the two-party system competes to serve corporate interests while defending that service as, "What's good for GM (corporations) is good for America (We-the-People)".

Democrats (controlled by the DLC, and that's important to remember) and Republicans are corporate tools.  Like siblings competing for the attention and approval (campaign contributions) of a parent, Republicans and DLC-controlled Democrats try to outdo each other in delivering for their real constituent, transnational corporations.  The trick for them has been to make it seem as if they were really working on behalf of We-the-People.

Democratic voters have mistakenly believed that Obama and Democrats were for strong regulations on banks, Wall Street, investigations, prosecutions, restitution of what has been robbed from the middle class and poor for the past 30+ years, environmental clean-up, clean, sustainable renewable energy (and that isn't nuclear), putting an end to the wars and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, affordable, quality universal healthcare (which Obama's healthcare legislation is not), and more.

The DLC-controlled Democratic Party gives lip service to these and all populist issues, because like the Republican Party, the DLC works for the benefit of transnational corporations.

I am an old, old liberal Democrat.  A New Deal Democrat.  I've never voted for a Republican in my many years of voting nor will I.  I will never vote for any candidate who isn't both talking about economic justice and actively working for it, making it his first priority in all that he does, whether it's in reproductive rights, human rights, civil rights, gay rights, ending the wars now, prosecuting war criminals and banksters.  As it stands now, I can't see voting for any Democrat again.

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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

And you're a Republican and everyone knows it.

=======================

The key solution to our broken system (campaign finance and election reform and ending corporate 'personhood') isn't on Democrats' agenda and won't be.  

Any party that doesn't have that as their first order of business (particularly after the Citizens United decision and the overwhelming public support for reform) is d!rty, rotten and corrupt to the bone.

I'm an old, lifelong Democrat saying that.  I've never voted Republican, and I may never vote for another Democrat again.  But I think it may be too late for that, for this "noble experiment" (continuing the US as we've known it and as it was intended (a democratic republic) by the framers.  

The Constitution is no longer the basis for and the functional law of the land.  The Constitution is no longer much respected in Congress, the Executive Branch, the SupremeCourt nor in law or business. That  might have been remedied had Obama come into office investigating and prosecuting the Bush administration and restoring the 'rule of law'.  BushCheney exploited the inherent weaknesses in the Constitution:  The precarious balance of power between the three branches of government.  But Obama refused, and has continued the BushChene­y disregard of the Constituti­on and even gone beyond BushChene­y abuses.

As president, you've got to really want the US to work, to exist, to not exploit the loopholes in the Constitution that keep our three-branches of government precariously balancing the democracy.  But BushChene­y drove tanks through the loopholes, breaking the law and with no apparent concern for exposing the loopholes or any consequences.  

That fact alone casts suspicion on Obama's good intentions after his failure to investigate and prosecute and his continuing Bush's 'unitary executive' practices (and expanding them, with "indefinite preventive detention" of American citizens and the k!IIing of Americans with no due process or oversight).

There was a coup d'etat in this nation, a bloodless one, but a coup nonetheless.  And both parties are in on it.

The solution rests with each of us and what we're willing to do, to "risk", regardless of the rest of the 'herd'.  If you think that Republicans are worse, if you don't realize that Republicans and Democrats work together in a 'good cop/bad cop' dance to further the interests of transnational corporations, then it'll be more of the same until we're all squeezed dry and living like Haitians.  

If you think that Republicans are worse and you're going to continue voting for Democrats, why should Obama and Democrats do anything for you?  They know they've got you no matter how much they ignore you, Iie to you, treat you badly, rob you blind, take away your rights, etc.  

Dr. Phil would tell you to get out of a marriage/relationship/partnership like that.
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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

As an old OLD liberal Democrat, active within the Democratic Party for decades, I'm here to tell you that the Democratic Party is controlled by corporations just as the Republican Party is.

A vote for any registered Democrat is a vote for the status quo, more of the same, of Democratic politicians working in the interests of corporations over the people's interests.  Even progressive candidates get their orders from the party elites -- Progressive candidates may talk a good game, but if their votes are needed or wanted to pass pro-corporate legislation, they will abandon their alleged convictions and fall in lockstep with the party.  Remember Dennis Kucinich and the public option.  His vote wasn't even needed, but Obama wanted the issue crushed.

We're not limited to voting for just Democrats and Republicans. There are other alternatives besides sitting out the election or voting for Republicans. There are other candidates running as independents, from Green to Libertarian, in just about every race.  If for no other reason than to get the 5 percent that is necessary for getting a seat at the table, I think that may be enough for great numbers of Democratic voters this time around.

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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

Sheen's error is in presuming Obama to be a Democrat, and a liberal one at that.  He's not.  Obama's not even a centrist Democrat: "Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat."

Blue Dog Democrat = Might as well re-register as a Republican.

Real Democratic policies aren't that hard to sell to Americans.  When most Americans want Medicare and other government programs which they've benefitted from to continue and teabaggers shout "No government control of healthcare; Get your hands off my Medicare", the answer is EDUCATION.

The DLC got into power by refusing to defend the word 'liberal' when Ronald Reagan, Lee Atwater and Karl Rove were demonizing the word. Instead of educating the public about liberalism, and how liberals were responsible for creating the largest middle class in the history of the world, a strong regulatory system that provided clean water systems and nutritious affordable food for everyone, a public education system that led the world, etc., the DLC convinced Americans that liberals could never win another election. The DLC attributed to ideology what is more accurately explained by lousy campaigns outgunned by election dirty tricks and fraud.

When informed of the issues, most Americans agree with liberal policies. Neither they (nor I) would characterize themselves as far-anything or extreme, but mainstream. For example, nobody likes the idea of abortion, but most Americans do not want the government involved if they find themselves in the predicament of an unwanted pregnancy. And if you frame it as, "You like to kill babies?!?!", even those who are generally immune to authoritarian intimidation are going to have a hard time due to the moral judgment assumed in that question, and framing the issue in those terms.

If the Bush years taught us anything, it's that anyone can sell anything to Americans, if you're stolid and relentless in your sales pitch and tactics. It's not that Bush and Rove were geniuses and knew something that nobody else knew; Bush and Rove were just more ruthless doing what politicians had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans -- If you keep at it, escalate your attacks,  don't take 'no' for an answer and never back away, you will wear the opposition down.

But Obama only does that to progressives.

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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

"Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat"


Blue Dog = Might as well re-register as a Republican.

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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

Democratic voters (which Martin Sheen and I are or have been) have mistakenly believed that Obama and Democrats were for strong regulations on banks, Wall Street, investigations, prosecutions, restitution of what has been robbed from the middle class and poor for the past 30+ years, environmental clean-up, clean, sustainable renewable energy (and that isn't nuclear), putting an end to the wars and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, affordable, quality universal healthcare (which Obama's healthcare legislation is not), and more.

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Martin Sheen Has Harsh Words For Progressives Critical Of Obama

The DLC-controlled Democratic Party (Third Way, No Labels, et al) counts on voter ignorance and gives lip service to all populist issues.  Like the Republican Party, the DLC works for the benefit of transnational corporations.  Each party uses high-priced public relations firms, with spinmeisters crafting sophisticated propaganda campaigns to con voters into believing what isn't true. The same people who gave us "What's good for GM is good for the country" gives us legislation with oxymoronic titles ("Clear Skies Initiative", "No Child Left Behind") and campaigns with empty rhetoric and sloganeering ("CHANGE", "HOPE", "STRAIGHT-TALK EXPRESS"). All calculated to convince the left and the right within each party that their party's candidate shares their positions.

Democratic voters thought they were saying no to all that, corporate and lobbyist control when they chose Obama over Hillary (Hillary supporters are comprised of DLCers and those who don't know anything about the DLC and believe the Clintons are liberals).

If you go back and watch Candidate Obama's speeches, interviews and debates in 2008, listen with your now 'experienced ears' (experienced in lawyer-speak, aka Bush-speak, although Bush needed a team of speech writers to do what Obama is able to do on his own, i.e., think on his feet), I think you'll see that Obama spoke carefully and precisely to give people the sense of what they wanted to hear to get their vote.

Obama got into office by misleading Democratic voters. He ran to the left of Hillary Clinton.  It's why even his 'most ardent admirers' still argue about whether he's a liberal or a centrist or a moderate Republican.  He convinced centrists that he was a centrist.  He convinced liberals he was a liberal posing as a centrist.  [News Flash: The debate is over: "Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat"]

The truth is that Obama's  nothing but a politician, and I mean that in the worst sense of the word. In the 'used car salesman' sense.  It turns out that doing what's right for transnational corporations is what Obama is about, and trying to sell it as good for Americans is what he does afterwards. He's the epitome of the 1950s Republican, "What's good for GM is good for America."  He did a snow job on everybody.

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Coca-Cola Taste Test: High Fructose Corn Syrup vs. Sugar

You don't have to go to Mexico to get it -- Just your local Jewish neighborhood and get Kosher for Passover Coca-Cola. It's the real thing. You can stock up on most of your other favorite soft drinks, too, made with sugar instead of corn syrup during Passover.
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Coca-Cola Taste Test: High Fructose Corn Syrup vs. Sugar

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