Bernie Sanders Changed My Mind!

I really, really wanted to give President Obama the benefit of the doubt.  I really, really wanted to believe that this whole thing came around because the GOP refused to budge on unemployment relief and other progressive agenda items.

I’ve changed my mind.  History tells us that President Obama is an enabler.  He, by his nature, always seeks common ground.  He so desperately wants the GOP to sign on to a deal that he will give them ANY deal… just so long as he can be seen in the vast middle as the person who can work with both sides.

But to do that while totally alienating your base?  That’s foolish.

This next week will be critical.  Will House and Senate Democrats lay face down and bite the pillow in the name of unlubricated bipartisanship?  As one who has used the “hostage scenario” to defend the President, I’ve come around to seeing it the other way.  If you give the hostage taker what he wants and don’t get the hostage back, then you embolden the criminal to repeat the crime.  We give them a break on the estate tax, an extension on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, then who knows what they’ll demand the next time?

The person who changed my mind?  My new hero.  Senator Bernie Sanders.  In his marathon speech on the floor of the Senate yesterday, he laid out chapter and verse why it is MADNESS to continue a tax break to millionaires and billionaires, busting the deficit wide open while telling veterans and people on Social Security that the country can’t afford to give them a cost of living increase.

Much of the blame for this belongs to the Democrats.  They should have dealt with this before the election.  Three months ago.  Last summer.  With their vacillation and waffling during the health care debate, combined with Obama’s caving on the key points of the reform, what else is the GOP supposed to do but try to bankrupt the treasury and shovel cash to the people who put them in power?  Everyone knows the GOP does not have the interest of the average person at heart.  They want to please the fat cats and the corporations.

Polls show 33 percent want tax cuts extended for the wealthy.  In the vain hope of recapturing the middle, President Obama is caving to the overwhelming pressure of a third of the electorate, ignoring the 2/3 of us who want a sane fiscal policy.  Then, in 2012, who will get the blame for the horrible shape of the economy?  Not the Republicans!  They will blame Obama for the mess, just like they blame him for the fecund stench still emanating from the Oval Office from 8 years of Bush excess.

Like my Daddy always said, “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  Fool me THREE times?  Maybe we SHOULD consider a primary challenger.”

I have no doubt Obama believes he’s doing the right thing for America.  He truly seems to believe that what America wants is a deal — any deal, no matter how crappy, as long as both parties sign on to it.

That is not what we want.  We want the Obama who campaigned against the very things he now waffles on.  The Obama who would END the war in Iraq, not leave troops there to act as referees in the ongoing civil war.  The Obama who would DECIMATE the Taliban, not send more Americans over there with the end result of STRENGTHENING the Taliban and INCREASING their numbers.  The Obama who would stand up for Main Street over Wall Street.  The Obama who would, with a stroke of a pen, end the discrimination against the LGBT community by ending DADT.

I’m really sorry to be writing this.  I thought Barack Obama would be a transcendental presence in Washington.  But you gotta STAND for something, Barry!  You gotta FIGHT for things that you want, especially when the corner bully is bound and determined to steal your lunch money, your milk money, your shoes and the shirt off of your back.  When the one extreme is “Give the people who don’t need it everything they want and fuck the poor,” and the other extreme is “Take from the rich to make life easier for the poor,” where’s the middle ground?  “Give the wealthiest Americans SOMETHING and give LESS to the people who DO need it?”

Madness.

Democrats.  Stand your ground.  Call the bluff.  Don’t pass this bill.  And when the Lame Duck session ends and the GOP takes over the House and narrows the gap in the Senate, STAND IN THEIR WAY!  President Obama?  VETO EVERYTHING the House passes and the Senate signs.  Show them what REAL obstruction is.

Then, in 2012, use the new rules to tell YOUR story… how it was the GOP who said “no tax break for the middle class.”  How it was the GOP who said “no cost of living increase for the veterans or Social Security recipients.”  How it was the GOP who said, “Fuck the unemployed!”

STAND YOUR GROUND!  Then TELL YOUR STORY.

Maybe we can save this presidency.  Probably not.  And if it becomes clear that it can’t be saved, I hope President Obama does NOT do what President Carter did… cling to a corroding base of support, keeping a real progressive from getting the nomination, ensuring the election goes to a reactionary once considered a clown, a boob, a B-movie actor.  Only this time, it won’t be Reagan.  It’ll be Gingrich or Palin.

Does anyone seriously think this nation can survive THAT?

Related articles

• Stewart Mocks Obama, Democrats For Saying GOP Took Them Hostage (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Hannity Asks: Does Obama Use Tougher Language On The GOP Than Terrorists? (mediaite.com)
• Tax Cuts Deal: Sympathy for the President (politicsdaily.com)
• Earl Ofari Hutchinson: Progressives and Liberal Democrats Blowing Hot Air Obama’s on Tax Cut Deal (huffingtonpost.com)
• Obama: Letting Middle-Class Tax Cuts Lapse ‘Unacceptable to Me’ (politicsdaily.com)
• Bernie Sanders yields after nearly 8.5-hour one-man Senate filibuster against Obama-GOP tax deal (sfgate.com)
• Letters: A Tax Deal, and a President, Under Fire (nytimes.com)
• Obama-GOP Tax Cut Bill Turning Into ‘Christmas Tree’ Tinseled With Gifts For Lobbyists, Lawmakers (huffingtonpost.com)
• Sherrod Brown: An Open Letter To President Obama (crooksandliars.com)
• GOP: Power players or ‘hostage takers’? (cnn.com)

The Finest Government Money Can Buy!

Thanks to the “Citizens United” Ruling, Wall Street bankers and other rich piggies have the finest government money can buy!  And they didn’t even have to reveal themselves as donors, so they can continue to go to their customers and say “it wasn’t US who helped Congress steal your tax cut and give it to the richest 2 percent!”

I could barely get to sleep last night because of all the champagne corks popping and oinking going on up on Wall Street!

The next two years will consist of little else than Congress doing its best to redistribute wealth… from YOUR pocket to the pockets of the rich bastards who bought the election.  If you’re a progressive who didn’t vote?  Shame on you.  This is ultimately YOUR fault.  If you are a conservative who voted, and you voted for these despoilers of the middle class?  Congratulations.  You carried water for the people who will drown you in it.  You carried your own cross up Calvary so they can nail you to it and sell your blood to the highest bidder.  But at least they’ll wear FLAG PINS while doing it!

The next two years will be stonewalling, investigations into Obama’s birth certificate, investigations into Obama apointees, investigations, investigations, investigations followed by the ultimate goal… IMPEACHMENT!  No time spent on healing the economy, which they drove into the ditch when they last had the car keys.  No time spent on improving the lives of the middle class (not when there’s the upper 2% of millionaires to cater to, and how can THEY get your money when YOU have it?)  No time spent on solving the deficit (extending the Bush tax cuts for the millionaires will add $700 billion to the deficit.  But the GOP only cares about deficits when they’re NOT the majority party.)  Two years of further rape of the economy to pay back the Wall Street puppetmasters who put them there.  Government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations.

The single bright side I can see this morning — the Sarah Palin-approved and backed candidates, who trounced the more traditional (and therefore, electable) Republicans in the primaries — all had their asses handed to them.  Christine O’Donnell, who beat “sure thing” Mike Castle who would this morning be “Senator-elect Mike Castle”?  She lost.  Sharon Angle who beat the more electable Sue Lowden (who had huge leads over Harry Reid in the polls)?  She lost.  Joe Miller, who unseated the absolutely electable Lisa Murkowski with Palin’s backing)?  Came in second to Murkowski’s write in bid.   There will be talk today and in the days to come how Sarah Palin, single handedly, cost the GOP control of the Senate.

But that’s for later.

Today, we find ourselves confronted with the dawn of the new era of “Greed is Good.”  Limbaugh and his fellow travelers will be rolling in their own filth today, laughing at YOU, conservative American!  Laughing at YOU (although they’d never do it in public) for being so dense as to vote against your own self interests.

Your bed is made, America.  Have a nice little lie down.  See how it feels.

Related articles

• Did the Tea Party Cost Republicans the Senate? (cbsnews.com)
• Mitchell Bard: Three Good Things for Progressives to Take from the Midterm Election Results (huffingtonpost.com)
• Murkowski appears to have lead in Alaska (cnn.com)
• “That’s an earthquake,” Sarah Palin Says of Projected GOP House Control (blogs.abcnews.com)
• Palin A Loser (talkingpointsmemo.com)
• Delaware Election Results: Chris Coons Defeats Christine O’Donnell In 2010 Senate Race (huffingtonpost.com)
• How Obama Saved Capitalism and Lost the Midterms (opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com)
• The secret big-money takeover of America (blogs.berkeley.edu)