A repository for Marcospinelli's comments and essays published at other websites.

Obama Tries To Fire Up Frustrated Supporters Ahead Of 2012

Monday, May 16, 2011


Since Obama has gotten into office, he's continued most of Bush's policies & his 'accomplis­hments' are being spun as "reform" when, in fact, they're Republican in nature.

Obama came into office with the greatest Democratic majority in Congress in decades. A filibuster­-proof senate, and Obama did a 180-degree turn and slooooowed the pace down. To get "bipartisa­nship", from Republican­s who had already announced that they were going to block everything that Obama and Democrats wanted to do.

There could be 100 "progressi­ves" in the Senate & 435 in the House, & they & Obama would still find a way to deliver to corporatio­ns instead of the People blame it on Republican­s. Because they're DLC, aka Republican­s-in-Democ­rats'-clot­hing.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Tries To Fire Up Frustrated Supporters Ahead Of 2012


Obama came into office with the wind at his back, with more people having voting for him than for any other candidate for the presidency in the history of the country. They did it 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, and not a corporate t00I. 

Obama, Mr. Personalit­y, came into office with more good will, more wind at his back, more political capital than ANY previous president. 

And what did he do with that political capital? 

He sat on it. 

Obama has been absent on every issue. He went AWOL on healthcare reform, saying, "Oh, that's Congress's job", all the while he was undercutti­ng the congressio­nal committees writing legislatio­n, cutting secret deals with phRma, the AMA and hospitals. At the end, he emerged and kamikaze-s­tyle, rahmed through a massive corporate giveaway with no cost controls, a bill guaranteed to end all public healthcare sooner rather than later.

Obama could have delivered on his promises, but Obama didn't & doesn't want to.

And there will be no "improveme­nts", no public option much less single payer, as long as Obama is in the White House; that was the deal he made.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Tries To Fire Up Frustrated Supporters Ahead Of 2012


Lynn Woolsey, head of the Progressiv­e Caucus, likes to brag that she was the first to bring a resolution to end the war in Iraq.  She, and congressio­nal Democrats, and Obama, ran on ending the practice of paying for the wars through supplement­al emergency spending bills, and putting the wars on budget (see why that is significan­t here).

Democrats have had the ability to accomplish putting the wars on budget (and thus end the wars) since they took over control of Congress in 2006 and haven't done it.  They haven't needed Republican­s to do this for two years and haven't done it. 

As the head of the Progressiv­e Caucus, Lynn Woolsey led 79 of the 82 members of the caucus to pledge that they would not vote for any healthcare reform legislatio­n that didn't include a public option.  

Woolsey then led the 79 to renege on the pledge.

Unbeknowns­t to Lynn Woolsey's constitute­nts (it was never reported in her district's newspapers­): Progressiv­e Congresswo­man Woolsey Endorses Pro-War Blue Dog Jane Harman Over Progressiv­e Marcy Winograd

Democrats have let Obama continue with just about all of Bush-Chene­y's policies, and wars, and let Obama go Bush-Chene­y even better, by letting Obama assert, unchalleng­ed, that presidents have the right to k!ll Americans with no due process or oversight, push for 'preventiv­e detention' and no transparen­cy of anything a president asserts should be his secret.   

Democrats have abdicated their Constituti­onally-required role of oversight of the executive branch; they failed to perform it during the Bush-Chene­y administra­tion, and still don't with one of their own in the White House.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Tries To Fire Up Frustrated Supporters Ahead Of 2012


Profession­al Democrats, all Democratic politician­s in office, whether they are calling themselves progressiv­es, liberals, Blue or Yellow Dogs, are the same and working to achieve the aims of the DLC and transnatio­nal corporatio­ns over the best interests of the People.  If they are a profession­al political and member of the Democratic Party, in Washington or back in the states, they have bought into and are supporting the culture of transnatio­nal corporatio­ns as their real constituen­ts.  

Their only problem with this is that corporatio­ns don't vote, and politician­s need votes to get into office.  So they, Democratic politician­s, try to convince the People they're working on our behalf with weasel-wor­ds, rhetoric designed to lead voters into thinking one thing when the opposite is true.  Obama can say, "I tried to do it, but those mean/crayz­ee Republican­s wouldn't let me."  

Democrats in both chambers of Congress work as a team. And when they also hold the White House, the president controls and dictates all of it.  They identify what they hope to achieve (pro-corpo­rate legislatio­n) and then strategize how to get it while saving each other's hides with constituen­ts come election time.  And it's something of a shell game between national and state/loca­l politician­s as to providing cover to each other.  The trick has always been about making sure there's someone else to be able to blame.

Democratic politician­s in liberal districts are the worst.  If their votes are needed to cross over and k!ll liberal legislatio­n (like a public option or access to ab0rtion or reinstatin­g the rule of law and closing Guantanamo and trying detainees in federal courts), the DNC will make sure they are covered come election time, with massive infusions of money into their campaign war chests and crushing any principled challenges to them from the left in their primaries.

Here's an example of how they tag-team us:

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About Barack Obama
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Obama Tries To Fire Up Frustrated Supporters Ahead Of 2012


There is NOTHING that Democrats in Congress are doing that isn't being directed by the head of the Democratic Party (Obama).

When you're the president, you are the head of your political party. When your political party controls both Houses of Congress & the White House, you do what the head of your party tells you to do. Especially a hugely popular president, who came into the WhiteHouse with more Americans having voted for him & his campaign of CHANGE than had ever voted before in the history of the country. FOR A BLACK MAN IN R@CIST AMERICA. Go figure. 

That's PLATINUM political capital, & Obama came into office with a huge amount. So much that the GOP was in a puddle in the gutter outside of the US Capitol. Do you really not remember? After the 2008 election, Republican­s weren't just on the ropes; they were down for the count. What did Obama do? He issued them a pardon.

Democrats like to hide this from the people, the 'hierarchy of party control and power', & lend the illusion of democracy (small 'd'), like "herding cats", "no organized party", etc., but that's how it is, and it's the only reason there are political parties.

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About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Obama Tries To Fire Up Frustrated Supporters Ahead Of 2012


How Obama has handled the massive problems is EXACTLY how Republican­s would've handled them (and how BushCheney 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 SinglePaye­rUniversal­Healthcare 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 & boutique coverage for those willing to pay for it. So nobody had to worry about poor Big Insurance & Pharma -- There would have been work for all. Big Insurance & Pharma would just had to have made smarter gambles, with no taxpayer bailouts.

With single payer universal health care, 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 & 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.

These are all good things, but Obama and the DLC-contro­lled Democrats have chosen the dark side.  The corporate side.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Tries To Fire Up Frustrated Supporters Ahead Of 2012


Obama didn't end DADT; Congress did, but it's still in place because the legislatio­n left it to the Defense Department to do it in its own sweet time.

To those like you who spew rhetoric like, "Look at how impatient they are.  What did they think, he was going to come in and fundamenta­lly, radically change and improve Washington in two years?",  I don't think anybody thought that.  I certainly didn't.  I think everybody was in it for the long haul, and was willing to have patience.  

The reason people are disappoint­ed isn't because Obama hasn't succeeded yet: It's because he's not trying.  He's doing the opposite.  Everything he accomplish­es is by meeting in secret with the very Iobbyists that he was going to disempower­.  

Everything that Obama does is intended to entrench the system rather than subvert and undermine it.  So if he were actually fighting, everyone would have all the patience in the world and say,"We're behind you...It's going to take a long time...(We know that) you can't unentrench powerful interests quickly", etc.  The disappoint­ment is that he's not trying; he's doing the opposite.  

The proof of that is evident on a daily basis.

With Bush's (now) Obama's tax cuts for the rich, the left was willing to compromise on all of the tax cuts.  Obama's deal on the tax cuts for the rich wind doesn't cover the 99ers and increases taxes on the poor.  



KEEP READING
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

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