Yes I did like that President Obama was more forceful in his “state of the union speech”. Sure he has been victimized by Republicans and the nut job birthers. But if President Obama kept his eye on the goal of the Progressive agenda from the start of his administration instead of how best he could kiss Joe Liebermann’s ass, I believe Republicans would not have been so successful with their filibusters! Obama practically trained the Tea Party and the GOP on how best to succeed. Remember we actually had a super majority in the Senate back when Obama took office!
What Obama Needs To Learn To Receive This Progressive’s Vote
I am fed up with making excuses for Barrack Obama. Again I understand he was confronted with nut jobs from the Tea Party accusing him on not being an American. The problem with Obama is that he did not call these nuts out as insane from day one! That only reinforced their zany behavior.
The progressive agenda needs an FDR not a Rogerian Facilitator!
Obama has never understood that to have “change you can believe in” you have to become the “campaigner – in – chief” to change values! This is what Republicans feared most about Obama, that he is a great orator! His recent state of the union speech proved it. Yes he is a great orator so why did we have to wait till three years into his presidency to hear him become forceful?
But there is more. To be a successful as President and create “change we can believe in” President Obama needs to learn something very important!
That lesson is:
The passage of bold legislation in Congress is the function of a massive public outcry from a populist movement that can be from the ground up or pushed by a President who uses the bully pulpit! Presidents are in effect the “Pontifex Maximus” of the nation. They “define” the issues! When a President stands by and only operates to create a Congressional consensus change occurs instead at the “initiative” of corporate funding. We need a liberal Pontifex Maximus, a modern leader like FDR not a Rogerian Facilitator!
The issue facing our nation today and the Democratic Party is:
Republicans will naturally attend to the wishes of their corporate sponsors! We know that! But Democrats are “confining” their liberalism to becoming actors! Democrats are “playing liberal” inside the moneyed confines of the CORPORATE SANDBOX!
Doubt me? The time has come for us to challenge certain assumptions out in the open! This challenge to underlying assumptions must be lead by a President who has guts and is not afraid to use the bully pulpit.
What are these assumptions that Americans accept without question?
- Corporations have the right to move their assets abroad! We should not “just” reward corporations that keep jobs in America we need to penalize those CUT AND RUN CAPITALISTS who ship our wealth abroad. This wealth is not their God given right! It was produced in America and is subject to this society’s permission before it can be shipped abroad.
- Free Enterprise means “freedom”. This is yet another example of what I term “trickle down identity“! “Free Enterprise” does not always mean our freedom! That we want to reward innovation is true. Being rich is not a sin. But being rich by an UNPATRIOTIC means cannot be tolerated any longer in this 21st century! Nor can the “innovation” of slave labor and an unsafe work environment be rewarded by a value oriented society.
- Compensation is always fair. ”If you are rich you entirely earned it”. No not always. We tolerate the wild compensation packages of some. That is why a progressive income tax is just a value oriented society’s way of saying “reality is calling”! Further some of the super-rich’s only claim to wealth is that it was be inherited. Those who inherit huge wealth, in effect inherit ”perpetual unearned incomes from the work of their dead ancestors“! They then believe that they have an “entitlement”! Yes an “entitlement” to increase their unearned dividend check at the expense of your “pay check”! They call this “freedom”!
- The Inheritance Tax On The Rich Is A Death Tax! No in this great land of self determination of self made individuals that conservatives term “American Exceptionalism”, we don’t want the children of the rich to be crippled by a nanny trust! After all this is a land of equal opportunity where anyone can, if left to themselves with gosh darn doggedness, rise to be rich! That is what defines “American Exceptionalism“! To cripple the children of the rich with a “nanny trust” is to lack faith in American Exceptionalism and our ever glorious free market system to reward ruggard individualism, persistence, initiative and innovation! Therefore let the funds from great estates be taxed to provide “equal opportunity” via reduced costs of higher education to all. Don’t call it a “Death Tax” but rather call it an “AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM PRESERVATION TAX”!
- Liberals Want A Welfare State! No we progressives want a “Social Contract State” that “values” real persons over corporations and challenges all of the assumptions above!
- Rage is only justified for the mindless viewers of FoxNews! We hear it constantly since Obama became President. When real single payer universal health care wasn’t being undermined by Obama and Lieberman we had the rage from the Tea Party at town hall meetings! Republicans seem to believe they have a “right to rage” and that their primary should be won by the candidate who satisfies this need to rage! We liberals are fed up! Perhaps owning a gun is a good idea in an age when Halliburton can have private militias!
- The news media has a liberal biases! Wrong we have the corporate news-media not the liberal news media. Check out the posts under “Conservative news media biases” that I have on this blog. One in particular drives me nuts. The way the corporate news media destroyed Howard Dean’s candidacy by labeling him a nut just because he gave an enthusiastic yell to his followers. The result was the corporate news media pushed the lackluster John Kerry to win the primary. I remember Rick Santorum giving a similar yell but the corporate news media did not attack him!. You can also check mediamatters.org for numerous instances of anti-liberal news media biases!
Could I vote for Obama? I still have some problems with President Obama. I liked that he was forceful in the state of the union speech but:
- President Obama still spoke about compromising on social security if millionaires paid more taxes. Listen to Senator Bernie Sanders in the first video above.
- He still seems to believe job training is the answer when even our white collar technical jobs are going to China and other nations. Yes he did address this issue some what. But I only heard about ‘carrots” for the CUT AND RUN CORPORATIONS that will return. I did not hear about punishments for those Cut and Run Capitalists who don’t want to invest in the nation that gave them their birth, profits and protection! Barrack Obama must end this age of licentious permissiveness and force these effete snobs of privilege to be just stewards of this nation’s capital. Instead terms like “tariff increase” are not part of Barrack Obama’s vocabulary! But then again we don’t want to anger big campaign contributors!
- He still seems to believe we have achieved financial reform. But where is the prohibition against usury? Sure now they have to tell you that you are being screwed. But how about ending usury – period.
- Obama wants to investigate the banks so we can “turn the page“! Gee I heard that line when he passed up investigating the Bush administration for their role in the financial meltdown and our involvement in Iraq. It’s 2012 not 2009 and I am frankly tired of making excuses for Barrack Obama.
- I did not hear any call for a constitutional amendment to achieve the separation of corporation and state!
- Even if he did all the above he still needs to become “campaigner – in – chief” for “change we can believe in“! He can do that by making forceful speeches all over this nation, day in and day out. If we have a rise in “middle class consciousness” then the effect will be to have legislation that brings “change we can believe in”!
Why? Because at least he would have tried and he would have made in roads into some of the core Republican talking points that a latter president could benefit from.
I will say this again! American love action figures! To be an initiator of change the American electorate demands TESTOSTERONE! The message is not internalized unless the “messenger” exhibits testosterone because Americans have a self image as being action oriented and despise wimps! If you doubt this ask why “liberals” now term themselves as “progressives”! The former term was neutered of testosterone by Republicans and by liberal masochism. But that is for another post.
“Barrack Obama OR Change We Can Believe In”!
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- President Obama’s Best State Of The Union Speech (mykeystrokes.com)
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