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President Barack Obama addresses the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., on Thursday, Sept. 6, 2012.Photo by Associated Press /Chattanooga Times Free Press.
President Obama could have begun his address at the Democratic convention Thursday night with a well-justified report on all of his admirable achievements. There are plenty to support his re-election, including:
• Economic recovery, from the depths of deepest recession in 85 years and 8.8 million lost jobs, to 30 consecutive months of job growth and 4.5 million new private-sector jobs.
• Health care reform that paves the way, beginning in January 2014, to guaranteed, flat-rate, affordable, comprehensive insurance and health care for all comers, ending the fear of pre-existing conditions, unaffordable care and possibly premature death.
• Banking reform that had to overcome the vehement, relentless opposition of Wall Street lobbyists, who want another round at the speculative casino of derivative trading that brought us to the precipice of a global recession.
• An end, finally, to the absurd fakery of "don't ask, don't tell" -- a mockery of equal rights that took advantage of military service from valorous, patriotic gays, as long they were willing to hide part of their lives.
• A successful rescue and rebound of the automobile industry, saving more than a million jobs and keeping America manufacturing competitive in a most critical global market.
n Unassailable national security and foreign policy achievements, including the elimination of al-Qaida's top three leaders, termination of the Iraq war, and strengthening of international opposition to Iran's nuclear ambitions.
But Obama didn't boast about his significant achievements or his principled leadership. Nor did he dwell on the fact that his administration has been wrongly resisted at every turn by stone-cold ideological, excessively partisan and often racist opposition from Republicans and their rabid extremist supporters.
Instead, he emphasized a larger, more important point: The achievements of his administration, he said, simply reflect the values and support of Americans who embrace their citizenship in our democracy — the people who understand the "basic bargain at the heart of America's story — the promise that hard work will pay off, that responsibility will be rewarded, that everyone gets a fair shot and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules, from Main Street to Wall Street to Washington, D.C."
His administration's policies, he told his audiences, "is not about me; it's about you." Few presidential candidates would say so, but in fact, that is true. Obama's presence in office, and the goals he has sought, mirrors the values and the hope and promise of meaningful change that he campaigned on four years ago.
Like any other great challenge, that path is a journey, not a quickly achieved destination. The most meaningful of Obama's goals — improving education and making college more affordable, reversing the offshoring of jobs and nurturing innovation and domestic job creation, strengthening the middle class and workers' wages and protecting their earned entitlements and safety net programs, shoring up Medicare instead "voucherizing it," improving tax equity for ordinary citizens instead giving more tax cuts to the richest Americans, helping the poor advance out of poverty, protecting our environment and finite resources, and a balanced approach to deficit reduction — are simply not the core values of Republicans' agenda.
Ultimately, the argument for re-electing Obama is what he said: a clear choice of values. Democrats' core values aim to strengthen the broad middle class and protect earned entitlements and the country's safety net. Republicans use wildly exaggerated wedge issue positions (gun rights, gay rights, women's' reproductive rights) to distract voters from the party's core focus on more tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations, at the cost of shredding programs that help ordinary working families.
The great irony in this campaign is that President Obama, for all he has achieved in the past three-and-a-half years, still has to prove that his impressive record of progress toward a better future beats a vaguely articulated Republican agenda that, at its core, would take the country back to the last Bush administration's immense failures.
As an American citizen, a maturing socialist, and one desiring the care of our commons and the general betterment of all humanity, I cannot find even the shadow of a reason to vote for Barrack Obama. Surely his opponent and his party have all the attractiveness of a snarling, rabid pit bulldog and will, if elected (or successful in buying/stealing the election), DESTROY our country - without question.
But the experience of living through the emotional and political roller coaster provided to us by the 2008 election, the mind-spinning ups and downs, demands close examination of Mr. Obama's four years. Who among the throng listening to his speech the night of the election, with tears everywhere, were not thankful and palpably relieved that the pack of snarling, rabid pit bulls known as the Bush administration were soon to be sent back to their various gated communities under threat of citizen's arrest? Who among them did not have a bullet list of priorities in mind which they were sure, based upon his campaign rhetoric, would all be "checked off" during Mr. Obama's first term, making it easy for him to sweep into office in 2012 on an even higher wave of public approval? Restoring our stolen civil liberties, patching up our tattered Constitution, ending the utterly useless and morally indefensible wars in the Middle East, advancing environmental research and working to prevent what then was an impending collapse of our and the world's economies. A daunting road ahead but one which we all felt would be addressed with strong and innovative initiatives which, with the cache' of overwhelming public support, the Republicans could do little to resist.
Like an untied balloon released over America - all of that whistled around for a couple of months and then fell to the ground, limp and flat where it lies today.
As one of those generically excoriated by writer Robert Parry for even THINKING about not supporting Mr. Obama, I was glad to read Chris Floyds piece on this and I recommend it highly:
http://chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2272-bonfire-of-the-vanities-robert-parry-and-the-red-mist-of-partisanship.html
This will be a third-party year and the Socialist Party USA platform is, for me, the best expression of where we should be going.
http://www.socialistparty-usa.net/platform.html
Despite the great sport made of criticising Socialism among local capitalist apologists with their branded Fox News megaphones blaring, as has been said, some of us are still convinced that "change is gonna come" and Mr. Obama, sadly, is incapable of bringing it.
... and I think it would be good to see Russel Mokhiber's "Ten Reasons I'm Not With Barack" which was posted on CounterPunch.com on August 3,2012:
Part 1:
Ten Reasons I’m Not With Barack
by Russell Mokhiber
Just got an e-mail from Barack Obama.
“Russell – I have one question for you,” Barack writes.
“If you’re with me in this election, will you say it right now?”
I’m not with you, Barack.
And I’ll say it right now – I’m not with you, Barack.
Here are ten reasons.
Number ten: Single payer. As a young politician, you said you were for single payer national health insurance. Then when you became President, you were against it and worked to keep the insurance companies in the game. Result – 123 dead a day from lack of health insurance.
Number nine: Kill list. You said you were against detention without trial, but you are okay with killing without trial? And according to the New York Times, you personally pick the candidates for execution. Result: Shredded Constitution.
Number eight: Minimum wage. During the 2008 campaign, you promised to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour. When you became President, you didn’t lift a finger to do anything about it. Result: Unchecked poverty.
Number seven: Corporate crime. It’s been four years since the financial crisis crippled the American economy. And still, not a single prosecution of a high ranking Wall Street executive or major financial firm. Fraud played a major part in the meltdown. Yet, your Justice Department, led by corporate lawyers, hasn’t gotten the job done. Result: No justice.
Number six: Israel/Palestine. Instead of standing up to Romney and Netanyahu, you buckled. Or as Tom Friedman put it, you shut down the peace process. Result: No peace.
See Part 2 below:
PART 2:
Number five: Energy. Instead of pursuing a 25 year plan to get us off fossil fuels, you accepted the fossil fuel industry’s mantra of – we need it all – oil, coal, nuclear, alternatives. Result: Ongoing addiction.
Number four: Taxes. Instead of getting behind a Wall Street speculation tax and reversing our regressive tax structure, you surrendered to the top one percent. Result: Increasing poverty.
Number three: Money in politics. Instead of campaigning against the moneyed interests, you swim with them, in the cess pool of American politics. Result: Democracy in decline.
Number two: Military industrial complex. You push Republicans in the Congress to increase military spending. As a percentage of GDP, military spending under your administration has been higher than it was during any year of the George W. Bush administration. Result: ObamaBush.
Number one: Capitulation. You never had it. You folded from the get go. Or as your former Harvard Law Professor Roberto Unger put it – You “evoked a politics of hand holding – but no one changes the world without a struggle.” Result: Wasteland.
Last month, Unger said that you “must be defeated in the coming election.”
I agree.
Anything less sends the wrong message.
librul you and people like you are like my now deceased crazy aunt. She seemed rational most of the time however she toyed with suicide often knowing that the family would jump in and save her sorry ass. Sadly she died of old age.
And that is how the Socialist/Progressive/Obamist mind works. They will do whatever makes them feel superior and god like knowing full well that their actions are hellishly destructive. They depend on the sane majority to stop them from driving the country over the clift. But this time all signs point to the tipping point. The forces opposing national suicide are just not strong enough. You are a fool.
JonRoss:
I acknowledge your right to blind adherence to a world view which you find comforting. I find it disturbing that you could, by inference, refer to the current crop of Republican and teabagger crazies and unquestioning Democrats as a "sane majority". Also, I wish I had known your "crazy aunt", whose memory you seem so eager to desecrate, for it is clear to me that she possessed the lion's share of wisdom that was, sadly, withheld from you.
blah, blah, blah. Never have seen people who want to do nothing more than vent their spleens. This is not a comment section; this a place where lonely people with extreme views can anonymously spew venom at each other. Smart people should contact the TFP to get this shut down, and maybe some can move on with their lives. I'll do what I can to make that happen.
Tipper, Tipper - just what is a comment section for but venting one's spleen in the face of same? Are you saying that you seek contemplative and impartial entries here? LOL!!!!!!
Sadly I have to agree with librul. Life would not be any fun if one's spleen couldn't be vented from time to time. It's safer than taking it to the streets.
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