To begin with, while Bush 1 may have birthed it, NAFTA was ratified by a Democratic Congress and signed into law during Bill Clinton's administration; it was implemented in 1994.
Obama came into office with the wind at his back. More people voted for him, a black man in good old raclst America, than ever voted for any other presidential candidate in the history of the US. 10 million more voters turned out for Obama than the other guy, because of his ability to persuade that he was going to change the system, end the corporatocracy, lobbyism in government -- He was going to be the People's president, not a corporate tool.
That's 'Titanium' political capital, and Obama came into office oozing it. So much that the GOP was in a puddle in the gutter outside of the US Capitol. Is that really a vague memory? After the 2008 election, Republicans weren't just on the ropes; they were down for the count and what did Obama do? He issued them a pardon. With a Democratic Congress, FILIBUSTER-proof Senate (tentative yet, with 2 senators, Kennedy and Byrd, at death's door), Obama slammed on the brakes on the momentum of his election no sooner than he won the election, did a 180-degree turn on his promises and slowed everything down. To "work in a bipartisan manner with Republicans", after Republicans had already announced they were going to block everything Democrats tried to do.
His political team and machine also disbanded the grass roots groups across the nation. 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.
And after more than a year of making secret deals with BigInsurance, PhRma, Hospitals, the AMA, insisting SinglePayer and a PublicOption couldn't get the votes, he pushed his insurance windfall legislation through by reconciliation.
Obama's 'most ardent supporters' need to get better informed; cultivating some real Democratic convictions wouldn't hurt either. Because whether it's taking SinglePayerUniversalHealthcare, a PublicOption, investigations and prosecutions of BushCheney, etc., off the table, putting SocialSecurity and Medicare and Medicaid on the table, or continuing the BushCheney policies and going BushCheney one better (by asserting that presidents have the right to kill American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and 'indefinite preventive detention', the right to imprison anyone indefinitely because he thinks they might commit a crime), or using JoeLieberman to hide behind, to duck out on his campaign pledge of transparency, and gut the FOIA, no real Democrat could continue to support Obama or any politicians purporting to be Democrats doing this.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
0 comments:
Post a Comment