I am on my annual football bender. So I continue with the polls until Monday...or i get bored with football and decide to write something...Happy 2010!
Barack Obama is president of the whole United States, not just president of The People Who Agree With Him.
So, how can it be that anyone who questions Obama or disagrees with Obama must be, by definition, a "racist"?
Were we "racists" when we vehemently disagreed with President George W. Bush (for doing the very same things we object to Obama's doing now)?
I spent eight years disagreeing with GWBush.
Did that make me a racist?
But when Obama DOES THE SAME THINGS we criticized Bush for doing, all of a sudden that criticism makes us "racists"?
When GWBush engaged in WARRANTLESS wiretapping, we objected.
When Obama voted in favor of extending WARRANTLESS wiretapping, we objected.
When GWBush incarcerated prisoners at Guantanamo where they rotted away for years with no possibility of knowing what crime they were charged with and no ability to have a fair hearing before an impartial judge, we objected.
When Barack Obama NOW incarcerates prisoners at Bagram prison in Afghanistan where they will rot for years with no possibility of knowing what crime they are charged with and no ability to have a fair hearing before an impartial judge, we object.
When GWBush refused to make public the names of the people who came to the White House to help him write legislation favorable to them, we objected.
When Barack Obama now refuses to make public the names of the people who come to the White House to help him write legislation favorable to them, we object.
When GWBush transferred wealth from the middle class to the very wealthy and favored the corporations over the people, we objected.
When Barack Obama transfers wealth from the middle class to the very wealthy and favors the corporations over the people, we object.
When GWBush gave tax dollars to religious groups but changed the law so those religious groups can now hire or DENY people employment based on their religion, we objected.
When Barack Obama gives tax dollars to religious groups but allows those religious groups to hire or DENY people employment based on their religion, we object.
However, in the minds of insane people such as Maureen Dowd. Keith Olbermann, Joan Walsh. Eugene Robinson. President Jimmy Carter. Randi Rhodes and a host of others, our current objections are "proof" we are "racists."
If Obama is president of the entire United States but NO ONE can criticize him without being labeled as a "racist" by the Obama gang, then ALL CRITICISM OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES HAS BEEN OUTLAWED as surely as if we still had the infamous SEDITION Act of the early days of this country.
The Sedition Act has been revived for critics of Obama.
The new Sedition Act is enforced -- and will be enforced -- by labeling ANY criticism of Obama as RACISM.
As I sit down tonight it looks as if the Tea Parties were a success. Especially when compared to the lame A New Way Forward events, which fizzled out like stale Coke. Again, let me repeat: the issue with the Condescension Class on the Left is an ongoing refusal to see the central fact- Obama stands opposed to the goals of A New Way Forward. Until they understand that Obama is "working for the man" the Right will be able to seize the high ground. Like it or not. By ignoring the truth about Obama for going on years now the "left" has boxed itself in. The White House was "locked down" briefly. A p.r. win - if nothing else. Most rallies where directed at Obama, though they were to be "non- partisan." It is hard to asses the ongoing effectiveness of the Tea Party movement. What is worth stating - and quite clear now - is that the energy surrounding Obama just 90 days ago has faded abruptly. BHO, by tentatively staking out the alleged middle - betraying his promise of real change - and by coddling the bankers has blown yet another chance at change. Had he taken major steps to reign in the worst banks early on the Left who believed the worst banks should have been nationalized - myself included - would have a true rallying point. Obama demurred and now the Maddow/Huffington Left has been reduced to obnoxious snarking just 2 months after peaking.
Important points:
1. The anger today was focused on Obama.
(I interject my rewrite here: I should have said - "Obama stands to lose the most. Naturally anger will be directed at the man in power now." Also - BHO has promoted an agenda of spending that even made some of the most cynical Americans blanch. In other words - blow back against government spending has been given a large target in the last 2 months. Both Zombie and Jeannie pointed out in comments that I was off in the rather blunt #1 assessment. Tea Parties are clearly not a solely an anti-Obama phenomenon. They are, however, in many ways fueled by Obama's bailout plans and startlingly large budget blueprint. )
This can't be stated enough: with breathtaking speed a chunk of the population has galvanized against the person who is now in the White House. This may not be fair - but it will continue. 2. The GOP stands to benefit here, especially if the economy continues to creak. 3. Those of us who are anti-Obama liberals (I borrow Cannonfire's term - and suggest a read of this post.) must take care to avoid association with the loopiest elements of the Tea Party folks. I have great sympathy for what occurred today because I see it as blow back against both Obama and Bush.
The simplest way to stay clear headed and not allow the worst elements of the Right to re-emerge, while at the same time standing against Obama's fecklessness in the face of bankster criminality is to remember: Obama, like Bush, is a working for the elite class doing the looting.
Obama, unlike McCain, was the natural inheritor of George W Bush's mantle. Both men personify the problem.
The precision of M.M. is breathtaking. Season One opens during the 1960 presidential campaign. I am told the only fudging in the production design was in using IBM Selectric typewriters which would not show up until the mid sixties...there was not enough of the previous generation typewriters still around to fill the ad agency's office....
Oh my and don't start me on the acting... hmmm hmmm good... not a weak link anywhere.
Now I have a riff/post on why the lead character's name, "Don Draper", will soon enter the American lexicon as a short hand for an entire genre of American Maleness - the true antecedent to this tv character played by Jon Hamm is Jay Gatsby.
Okay enough! An Itunes gift card later I am working through season one with the same joy I felt upon my first read of Love In the Time of Cholera - too happy to stop and too happy to keep going for long without a pace about to work off the skittering pleasure of being alive...
-The crisis we are going through is fraud...by top elites...and that's what we have...
-BILL MOYERS: To hear you say this is unusual because you supported Barack Obama, during the campaign. But you're seeming disillusioned now.
WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well, certainly in the financial sphere, I am. I think, first, the policies are substantively bad. Second, I think they completely lack integrity. Third, they violate the rule of law. This is being done just like Secretary Paulson did it. In violation of the law. We adopted a law after the Savings and Loan crisis, called the Prompt Corrective Action Law. And it requires them to close these institutions. And they're refusing to obey the law.
-The Bush administration and now the Obama administration kept secret from us what was being done with AIG. AIG was being used secretly to bail out favored banks like UBS and like Goldman Sachs.
-BILL MOYERS: Yeah. Are you saying that Timothy Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury, and others in the administration, with the banks, are engaged in a cover up to keep us from knowing what went wrong?
WILLIAM K. BLACK: Absolutely.
I do hope you will watch the entire show here. BushBama is alive and well.
BHO's budget takes an unexpected sharp left turn. (Though, I don't buy it yet. Seems they started as far left as they could go, without immediate destruction of the markets, to give themselves plenty of space to march back to the middle. Don't blame them. This is good politics.) Still, in many ways Obama is very much the natural successor to Bush 2. Even Keith Olbermann - Barry's loudest salad tossin sycophant - recently did a tentative piece on President Limosine Liberal Love Doll's support of Bush's polices.
With that, here is Rentarainbow's list of GWB policies continued and embraced by BHO. Fake Limo Liberal Obama Pod people - beware: your head may explode at any moment. Please be polite. Read this list away from children, the elderly and normal, thinking people.
Why does Obama support Bush's policies?
by Rentarainbow ----------------------------------------------
To date, we know Obama has RETAINED and supports these Bush policies:
(1) warrantless wiretapping of American citizens
(2) legal immunity for the telecoms giants that spied on us without warrants
(3) still prohibits federal funding of embryonic stem cell research
(4) is continuing the rendition of "enemy" prisoners to foreign countries (where they can be tortured)
(5) has decided prisoners in America's Bagram military prison (in Afghanistan) have NO rights that he must respect
(6) uses the ruse of "state secrets" to terminate trials against those who are accused of torturing prisoners
(7) plans to destroy Social Security while calling it "reforming" Social Security
(8) nominates tax cheats and lobbyists to run government agencies
(9) refuses to allow prisoners in American jails to use DNA evidence to prove their innocence (even if they pay for the tests)
(10) uses fear to get his way by rushing legislation through Congress
(11) without Congressional authorization, Obama has ordered the bombing of a country we are NOT at war with (Pakistan)
(12) is stonewalling media requests for access to court records in the ongoing Guantanamo detainee litigation.
- - - - (Save this list and add to it as the days and weeks go by.)
Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.
Mark Twain
Note: Barry needs to stop being so negative. He whines here and here. Leave negativity to the bloggers. Whining does not become a President during a recession and/or a couple a three wars.
Note: I am a little surprised at how much I already loath Obama. Seriously. I am. I was thinking I'd adjust a bit after the election. Lighten up. Eat some crow - not spend time cooking crow pot pies to feed Pods - But he really is a gross narcissist with a greedy, nasty wife.
(Don't you just know she'd slap the help if she could get away with it.)
Ha! Who knew?....I was thinking power might midwife a decent bloke under the Chicago Pol. Not so much, not so far. He is a vaguely cooler, smoking version of W. and like W he's prone to taking vacations every 3 months. It looks more and more like we were all correct about him. Wow.
Some Music. A protest Song From Down Under - Xavier Rudd. G.B.A.
Some of the lyrics...
Yes you have the funds and size and power to make some change What you have will break their smiles so many people so many ways each Child who walks their line should be free to run their race it's such a shame that all this shit exists here on this earth, this magical place
