On the Contrary

I am sitting here on my front porch overlooking the vineyard listening to some smooth jazz on satellite radio and wondering if the nation has lost all direction as I simmer in my own juices of discontent.  I have said for sometime that health care reform was dead since the single payer option has never been on the table, and a public option also now appears to be off the table.  What the hell are Obama and the Democrats thinking about?  Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, and Ed Shultz have chronicled this lunacy that the Democrats have created.  Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

Last night on Keith Olbermann, Howard Dean put his finger right on it when he said, the Democrats are making the big mistake they did when the Republicans were in power, losing their nerve and trying to be more like them.   Remember that this pack of gutless wonders (except for a very few) voted for the Iraq war, the War Powers Act, and I could go on ad nausea.  They finally get elected by a landslide to carry out a progressive agenda and what do they do?  Well let’s just start with the Stimulus Bill.  Trying to get Republican support they watered it down and made it much less effective and then they got no Republican votes.  Lean anything boys and girls?  The climate bill has not even got close to the Senate and we are seeing the same effect.

The health care bill may have been a lost cause from the start because once again the Democrats cannot stand up for what they believe.  They invited forty something speakers to talk about the direction of the health care bill and not one was a supporter of a public option or a single payer system.  Apparently it was rigged from the start.  The panel that is going to tell us what we get in the Senate is loaded with half of the committee Republicans who are controlling the agenda.  Did they win the last election?  I guarantee you after all the compromises are made, not one of them will vote for it.  WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE THINKING?

Maybe my wife is right: Political party is not a discriminator, you all are scum.   What I can’t get over is that we came out and supported a clear platform and we won.  Then the Democrats caved on every issue.  President Obama is the biggest disappointment of all.  I am sorry Mr. President, but you came out and said that without a public option you would veto the health care bill.  Now you are wavering on it.  Et tu Brute?

You want to know where your support is Mr. President?  Where is that grass roots organization you built?  They are like me, seething with anger at your betrayal.  Oh, I know, you are just being practical.  You will “being practical” kill the Democratic Party, your support, and any hope for change.  This isn’t just some progressive rant.  This is a total failure by you to keep your promises.  We don’t need to win every battle, but we want every battle to be fought.  So far as I can tell on the big issues that will change the direction of this country, you have compromised away change.  Oh yeah, I can hear the equivocating by Gibbs now.  We are not morons.  We know when we are being patronized.  Where it counts, you have failed to stand up and fight when it was important to fight and that is all we asked.  Maybe you need someone on your staff who isn’t in the Washington bubble that can look you in the eye and say, “You are f*#king up Mr. President.”  Compromise and bipartisanship are not an end in itself.  Policies that work are what is important.

Here is what we know Mr. President.  The Republicans aren’t just wrong, they are dead wrong.  Worse, so-called responsible leaders of the present day Republican Party are sowing the seeds of violence and civil insurrection.  They are bringing out the fruitcakes who think it is okay to wear a semi-automatic rifle on their shoulder to your rallies.  They think it is the democratic process when you stop free speech by intimidation.  We are such a screwed up country that we think citizens should have that right.  The Republican Party is an extremist party that will destroy the greatness of this nation if you don’t finally stand on your two feet and fight back.

We elected you to bring about change and if you think that compromising with failure is change, then we elected the wrong guy.  Stop being diplomatic and call a liar a liar.  When you see despicable behavior identify it and challenge it.  Stand up for what you promised us as a candidate.  Attack back for God’s sake.  Quit giving their arguments credence when they have none in some wasted effort to be gracious.  Otherwise I will be one of many that just may not vote next time.  Why bother?  Yes I am very, very angry right now.  You are aiding and abetting the Republicans and their failed philosophy that is responsible for putting this nation on its knees.  The country’s very soul is at stake and you are letting it be stolen by a failed ideology.  Maybe we should have elected Hillary.  At least she has some fight in her.

Next blog I will try to be more rational, but right now my feeling of betrayal is just too overbearing.  I don’t mind losing a good fight, but we have capitulated from the beginning.  It is time to quit turning the other cheek Mr. President.

There are three things (other than torture, See Securely in the Bubble) that I think President Obama must wade into if he really wants to set a new moral and ethical tone for this nation.  President Obama has set out goals for change in America, but he has been hesitant to take a stand on the specifics of these programs.  A case in point is the Stimulus Package where he would say that out of political necessity, he let Congress fill in the details.  Sadly allowing Congress to shape this plan watered it down with way too many tax cuts instead of real spending on infrastructure and he ended up with zero Republican votes.  One could argue that this is the only way you can make things happen in Washington, but if political expediency gets you a watered down version of change, is it really change?

Sooner or later President Obama has to draw a line in the sand and we are all waiting eagerly for him to do it.  It is sad to say, but true, that he could take a lesson from his predecessor, President Bush.  President Bush was not afraid to say exactly what he wanted done and then he got Congress through his bullying to go along.  Sadly on most of this stuff he was wrong, but the lesson on getting things done should be evident.  There are three issues on President Obama’s plate that if he does not take a stand, he will fail us morally and ethically.  They are health care, equal rights for gays and lesbians, and government administration of student loans.  Each is a no-brainer yet each is adrift in Congress in a sea of special interests.

First let’s take health care.  Can anyone believe that we are discussing a revamping of health care and no one who supports a single payer system has been allowed at the table to present that option?  This is morally and ethically depraved.  I will not rehash why the only way forward is a single payer system (See Health Care Wars and Scare Tactics and Reinventing the Wheel – Universal Health Care)), but to allow a Congress that is bought and paid for by the health insurance companies to stymie real change is only another futile game of kick the can down the road.  So where is your moral courage Mr. President?  Where is your demand that whatever comes to your desk will have a single payer option in it?  Sixty percent of our citizens, doctors, nurses, and other health care providers want to see a single payer option so where is your outrage?  If Congress is left to their own means, health care insurers will be protected and history will look back on this as another failed attempt to get serious about change.

Then there are the gay and lesbian issues.  Say what you want Mr. President, this issue boils down to equal rights for all our citizens.  Good, brave Americans are being kicked out of the military because of the misguided Clinton compromise of don’t ask-don’t tell.  Lives are being seriously disrupted and damaged and you could prevent this, and yet you do nothing even though you promised to protect these people.  Is it not time you looked the military in the eye and said grow up?  On the marriage issue, we have this idea that states should decide who can marry whom.  We had this same problem in the civil-rights era and finally the federal government had to standup for the rights of our black citizens when states used the “states rights” argument to deprive many of our citizens of their rights.  When are you finally going to stand up for the rights of our gay and lesbian citizens?  While you dither with what is the most politically expedient thing to do and pacify the generals, real people are being seriously hurt.  People have a right to their religious beliefs, but these beliefs cannot be used to deny others their rights.  It is time you took a stand.  You could issue an executive oder delaying any further actions against gays in the military until you can get the appropriate Congressional action.  All it takes is a little courage.  You don’t have to be reasonable.  Simply look the nation in the eye and say this is wrong and I am ending it.

Finally there is the issue of student loans that have been administered by the private sector (banks) where the government guarantees the loans, buys the loans back, takes all the risk, and the banks have been raking in a fortune in fees.  These fees, in the billions of dollars, could have been turned into thousands of additional aid for students to go to college.  Talk about corporate welfare.  So this no-brainer screams for the government to deal out the loans directly, save the money in fees and put thousands of deserving kids into college instead of corporate welfare for the banks.  President Obama has taken a sort-of stand on this one, but the banking lobby is once again doing its work in Congress and this may also be stymied.  So Mr. President why don’t you stand up and shame the banks?  Point out that they are stealing from our kids and their future?  Is it inconvenient during saving the banks with massive bail outs to force a little tough love?  Most of us would welcome it.

Bottom line Mr. President is that we elected someone to lead.  We know Congress is bought and paid for and they need adult supervision.  So when is it you are finally going to give us some instead of some halfway measure that gets us nowhere?  It is time to take the reins.  It is time to be the leader we voted for.