The disappointment of Obama

A friend said today, 

"I voted for Obama…made the calls ..walked the walk..sent the money…Now..I can’t stand to hear his voice or look at him ..He was a stealth Reagan Republican. I pray he is challenged in the primary. We are so screwed …It is a win win for the oligarchs…With electronic voting they have all their bases covered.."

And another said:

"Why, if we hadn't elected Obama we might have had a president who refused to roll back taxes on the wealthy, who refused to establish a windfall profits tax on oil companies, who refused to investigate activities carried out by telecom companies who illegally helped the government tap our phones, and who continued to tap phones without a warrant, who would have turned his back on Miranda, who would refuse to investigate any of the Bush Admin. lies, incompetence, corruption or torture, who would support anti-democratic, murderous coup regimes in Central America, who might refuse to restore Habeas Corpus, who would have left Guantanamo open indefinitely and maintain that its inmates had no rights at all, who might have continued extraordinary rendition and torture, who might have fought to keep Dick Cheney's remarks to Plame investigators secret, who would have done nothing of substance to rein in Wall St., who would have continued to issue signing statements, who might have continued to delay investigations of CIA torture and even investigate those who protest that torture, who would have traded away the Public Option even while saying he was in favor of it, who would have expanded the war in Afghanistan, who would have opened "vast expanses" of Atlantic seaboard, Gulf of Mexico and Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, who would have 'put politics before science' and at first minimized the BP oil spill and then might have claimed that there was practically no oil left and that "the microbes ate it!", who might have continually filed briefs in favor of large corporate polluters, who might have even been in favor of whale hunting, who might have used cluster bombs on civilians in Yemen, who might have refused to investigate Bush's political firings of US Attorneys, why we might even have a president who would appoint a bunch of right wing psychopaths to the Commission of Fiscal Responsibility and try to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and middle class while allowing Wall St. Banks, the filthy rich and military corporations to continue plundering our economy, or who might try to institute policies which would effectively shut down the Internet.

But wait…no. That's what Obama actually did do."

And another:

"I want help for the poor. Funding for programs that helps people who need it, and that group is growing every day. I want legislation to regulate big business like banks, GE, BP, pharmaceuticals and others that get away with doing pretty much what they want, then when they screw up get bailout money from government, then proceed to pay huge bonuses to their employees. I want our service people home. I want funding for education instead of education being the first on the chopping block. I want the elderly to not have to chose between food and medicine. I want the rich to pay and the Repubs to stop the BS stating they pay for jobs. They have been saying that forever, and all of our jobs have gone overseas. I want women to have the right to chose and have access to birth control. I want women to have equal pay for equal jobs. The list goes on. I thought these were things that the democratic party wanted as well. I don't see Obama standing up for these things, and this is discouraging."

And another:

"Remember when teachers, public employees, AmeriCorps, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in TARP money, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes? Yeah, me neither."

And one more:

"Whatever happened to "transparency" in government?  Whatever happened to candidates keeping their campaign promises?  Whatever happened to those easily verifiable paper ballots?  Whatever happened to Congress Members and the White House actually representing the will of the MAJORITY of their constituents not just the majority of Big Business or special interest?"

I don't buy the argument that because the President, or Members of
Congress "sees things and hears things" which are unavailable to
American Citizens, we should meekly follow, support and comply.  If
that was indeed the case, then we need to reexamine transparency in
government quickly.  "Insider" excuses have gotten a lot of Countries
in a whole lot of trouble as their masses were lead to believe they
didn't' need to know why, but simply trust their leadership.  Those
countries ended up with a dictator and a fascist form of government.  I
refuse to be a "Good German" and blindly follow anyone just because
they are in a "leadership" position and "knows things" I don't know...
even President Obama who I worked for to be elected and voted for. What
a HUGE disappointment he has been."

Things look bad for Obama among progressives. It looks to us like Bush's third term. I don't understand why rabid Republicans hate Obama so much. He's the perfect Republican. He's no socialist. He's a corporatist. The election of 2012 really IS a win-win for the oligarchs. 


On April 5, The Raw Story ran a report called "President Obama's Top 5 Broken Campaign Promises" by Stephen Webster. The story points out that right now less than half the electorate want to see Obama re-elected and that disaffected liberals are multiplying rapidly. Here are the five broken promises. The comments are mine. So is disappointment number 6.


1) Health Care
Health care, you may recall, was to be paid for by the money saved by the expiration of Bush's tax cuts. which mostly benefited the wealthy anyway, and was to include a public option so that the mandate to buy health coverage wouldn't lead us all like lambs to the slaughter at the hands of for-profit BIG INSURANCE. Well, Obama let it be known through back channels early in the wrangling that the public option was negotiable. In fact, it was a bargaining chip. And he caved on extending the Bush tax cuts. He was too willing to compromise too early in the game. He gave away the store.


2) Close Guantanamo
Obama promised to close Guantanamo within his first year in office. Instead, we are still holding prisoners with no charges under indefinite detention. And now we're using Gitmo for military tribunals, showing a shocking lack of faith in our Article 3 cours. We'll be trying 9/11 suspects there in military tribunals instead of New York where the crimes occurred. And there's no end in sight for the prison.


3) Support Labor
Remember when Obama said that when unions needed his support, he'd put on comfortable shoes and walk the picket lines with them? Does he even know about Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and all the other states where labor is under attack? Maybe he doesn't have any comfortable shoes.


4) Reform the Patriot Act
Obama failed to reform the Patriot Act. The act had a sunset clause, but he extended it even further in time than the Republicans asked, and he extended its reach dramatically when he declared that the president has the right to order any American citizen suspected of terrorism assassinated. No charges, no trial necessary. This statement goes way further than the executive power grabs of Bush 43.


5) End the wars
Obama promised to end the wars. Instead, he introduced a surge in Afghanistan, began bombing Pakistan, and started a new war in Libya.

6) Proper treatment of prisoners within the law
The torture and isolation of Bradley Manning, who has not been convicted of anything, is obscene. I expected such behavior from the Bush administration, but I cannot believe that this is happening under Obama. So far nothing ties Manning to Wikileaks, yet he is already being punished for something that wouldn't be a crime in the first place. And the punishment is forced nudity, solitary confinement, and so much more. Many human rights groups have judged that it equals torture.

Why don't the Republicans love him?
Oh, I forgot. He's black. Don't you just love how that drives them crazy?

And now here we are with the Republicans trying to roll back all the gains of the twentieth century. And Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the EPA, and PBS are fighting for their lives. And the R's don't believe in global warming, belief in which is critical for our survival, and I don't feel safe knowing Obama is there to fight for us. He'll fold. He'll cave. And you won't be able to tell him from one of them. 

That hopey changey thing would have worked out really well for us if only we had gotten it.