( – promoted by buhdydharma )
What are we gonna do when we don’t get true health care reform/out of Iraq and Afghanistan/torture investigations/financial reform/job creation/restored civil liberties/audit of the Fed/repeal of the Patriot Act? I voted for Obama, admittedly getting a bit caught up in the whole spectacle. But the reasons I disliked Bush and his cohorts, are the same reasons I am exasperated with Obama and his cohorts. We aren’t getting any change. Spare change maybe, but not change “you can believe in”. As it’s going, Obama will go down in history as the most dishonest President we’ve ever had. Much like Bush trying to make colonizing through occupation and torture legal, Obama has transformed the “chicken in every pot” political promising propaganda to a whole new level.
I’ve thought since shortly after the election we wouldn’t get torture investigations. We won’t “leave” Iraq by 2011. We won’t get out of Afghanistan and in fact will escalate there and in Pakistan. We won’t get single payer, which turned out to be a major understatement. We won’t get financial reform as evidenced by the casinos open for business bonuses and financial gains made by the banks and Wall Street. We won’t “recover” from this financial catastrophe because there is no plan for creating the millions of jobs that have been lost.
Why have I been thinking that? I’m like a jack of all trades, master of none. I’m not an expert in geopolitics, realpolitik, or the machinations of the political system in the halls of Congress and the Senate. But I’ve read stuff man. Lots of stuff. Stuff written by the experts. Isn’t that how one learns? Certainly contrarian views from the MSM and the Obamabots, but stuff that I believe speaks the truth. Stuff from Antiwar.com, Counterpunch, Common Dreams, Real News Network, Truthdig, Salon, Asia Times, and on and on.
Progressives complain about the MSM and the lack of true reporting. Well, there is true reporting going on and it is coming from people who have spent the better parts of lives studying, analyzing and living the issues. These are people that take honest looks at the serious issues regardless of what political party or administration is in charge. They are consistent and look at the facts, not the promises from the speechmaker.
Back in April, when the diaries and essays about torture investigations were peaking, I said many times, “aint gonna happen”. The reason to me was simple and because of what I’ve read. What Bush and company did, except for the scale and temerity to try and make it legal, was no different from the overall practices of every administration since WWII. Just looking at a picture of the five living Presidents after Obama was inaugurated, standing together, joking, smiling, was enough to realize there was no way Obama would go after Bush. Hell, HW has done more bad shit in his life than his son could have ever hoped for. So it was obvious from the start, to go after Bush and Cheney would mean opening a Pandora’s Box on past U.S. Presidents and administrations who have all done the same type of things.
The same thing with Iraq. I can only surmise that those who believe we will actually be out of Iraq by 2011, are ostriches, foolish, or somehow think that keeping 50,000 troops and unknown numbers of contractors there for decades meets the deal. The same with Afghanistan. Isn’t it obvious by now why we are in those countries? Plain and simple, it is not because of terrorists. The GWOT was created as a cover to go in and take over the countries. 9/11 of course, was the reason a GWOT could be declared. Talking about how we can crush the Taliban and al Qaeda is ignoring why we are there. Saying that we need to get out now because we can’t “win”, is all well and good. But it still ignores the fact that we are there under false pretenses. The discussions should be centered around the real reasons we are occupying two countries and whether these foreign policies of hegemony, resource hunting, corporate profits, and world power protection should be changed.
Then of course, health care reform. Now there’s an issue I haven’t had to read a lot about. My instincts took over early on and told me the money pouring in to the politicians and parties at 1.3 million per day was the game changer. No way were our politicians going to bite the hand that feeds them. In fact, they turned the tables on us and are actually handing the insurance and pharmaceutical industries a profitable future.
I think it’s time to stop giving Obama and the democrats ANY benefit of doubt. There is no reason I can see that we should believe they will in anyway change the juggernaut that has taken over this country. It doesn’t matter whether you think Obama is a good person. A person should be judged by his/her actions and so far the actions simply don’t measure up to not only the promises, but the needs of the citizens of this country and the world, who are significantly affected by our actions.
What are we gonna do? The government plans years and decades out for all kinds of possible scenarios. It’s time for citizens to plan as well, plan for what we will do after the Obama administration and the current Congress and Senate delegations make it perfectly clear what we’re up against. Not that they haven’t already.
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citizens. Without that, no chance. Somehow the divide has to be bridged between the common citizens on the right and left, while bringing in the center. A classic war maneuver during revolutionary times. 🙂 The best way to do that would be a third party. One that could develop and convey an agenda that most people could agree with. I know there are those working on it, but somehow there has to be more. It’s amazing to me how many websites I can visit that seem to be on our side here. All over the world. How to harness all that into a cohesive entity.
During the many years I have been doing my research I have learned that the answers always come after the question has been asked. 😉
any of those things to happen, I won’t be at all surprised at the consequences, either. “Consequences”, she says! “And what might they be?”, he asks. Well, losing seats in the House and Senate in 2010, for starters and possibly losing the majority in both by 2012. As for Obama, does it really matter if he’s re-elected? Most likely, he will be but anything can happen and I won’t be disappointed. I got over being disappointed and disillusioned about politics a long time ago.
As to what are we going to do, your guess is as good as mine. I suppose we will continue down the same path of disintegration of the “American Dream” whatever that was.
Sorry if I sound a little pessimistic but I have a funeral to got to in the AM and a wake tomorrow evening. The weather is suppose to be crappy to add to the mood.
well presented.
As far as answers… I don’t know. Continue to build solidarity for starters. It seems to me that the next couple of months, between HCR and Afghanistan, well… we’ll see.
posed as a musical question:
Just keep talking.
It’s all we’ve got left.
The message is simple.
“…government of the people,for the people,by the people.”
that the United States, like evil empires that have come before it, will only get worse, until finally, it will die off, or be taken over by some other empire, or will simply fall apart.
We can’t assume that Democracy is going to work, ever, here, or that things will change for the better, or that somehow the tide will turn and there will be a peaceful revolution of some kind.
Probably ain’t gonna happen.
So what we need to do is figure out a way to take care of ourselves, and take care of each other.
How? Hell if I know.
Obviously money is power in this country. And how do people who aren’t in the “in crowd” of the gangster cabal manage to get any real money and thus any power?
I don’t know.
I’m at the point where I don’t care any more, and I don’t have any expectations, certainly not any hope, yet at the same time I have to keep my eyes open and watch what is going on and share what I see and what I learn with others.
If people don’t want to read what I have to say, whatever, fine. There’s certainly no shortage of stupid and delusional idiots out there, just look at Dailiykos. I really don’t want to write for them, fuck ’em.
Buddhism is very helpful.
Right now I’m experiencing my own extreme financial crisis, and trying to raise a family at the same time. I’m flying lower to the ground than I ever thought I would, and I can’t say how things are gonna go. Sadly there’s where my energies mostly are spent, trying to keep the plane from crashing. And yes it DOES piss me off to no end to see the rich just milking this whole “crisis” for billions and pocketing it for themselves while everybody I know, including myself, is in serious trouble.
I’m really starting to hate rich people, which is not an emotion I enjoy experiencing.
Maybe there are some brave souls out there, people with the kind of Elliot Ness bravery that we hardly ever see, like those judges in Colombia that kept getting whacked by the drug cartels, people who do fight the bad guys in spite of the odds. Maybe those guys will come out of the woodwork and maybe they’ll actually win in the long run. But I don’t see it happening and we certainly have no power, unless we have personal fortunes we can throw at his, to make something like this happen.
So take care of yourselves. Do what you have to do.
… a future without jobs, healthcare, or habeas corpus. And that’s if crop failures and a rise in sea level don’t destroy society as we know it first.
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Great idea to ponder.
I visualize people all over the country asking their neighbors that, and getting busy on it.
it will get a lot worst before it gets better.
” You have to be the change you want to see in the world.” Ghandi said this a life time ago, but it is still true today.
We have to change our ways and our world will change! We have to starve the beast, meaning don’t contribute to any of them ever again. The last election showed it doesn’t matter who gets elected we’re getting screwed either way!
Cut up your credit cards, don’t keep too much money in the bank. They use our money to slowly starve us. Create your own communities, barter for what you need. Nothing will change over night, but if you start now you’re in a better position when the sky finally falls.
We are on our own!
Is spot on.
sense of disillusionment afoot. The “change” Obama brings may be that Americans who were the most tenaciously confident our country can rebound from anything will lose even that fragile foothold.
life God gave me. These are the cards we’ve been dealt. I’ll play them the best I know how. Comfort some along the journey, and remember that the merry go round goes round and round. I’ll learn the lessons being shown. I’ll send off the positive vibes necessary to combat evil. But in short, I’m gonna live the life God gave me. Play the best I know how with the hand i’ve been dealt. Comfort some along the journey, and remember the merry go round goes round and round…….
I almost wrote undergod — anyway I feel very much the same as you do. Certainly nothing surprised me about the new Obama administration other than the fact he didn’t really include any leftists in his cabinet. I thought he’d put one in just for show. But he was pretty straightforward about who he actually worked for.
I remember my father was raving about Obama and I hadn’t really looked closely at the guy — I heard him on Charley Rose and thought that the guy was saying absolutely nothing but saying it very well. That interview disturbed me — I preferred Hilary since I felt she was the only pol running that actually had personal political power and could be a relatively independent voice. But the left was enamored with Obama and he made favorable noises. I voted for him — what else was I to do — at the time it felt like a vote for change. But I knew that since the guy had not had time to establish his own power that he was owned. It is not supposition but it is a matter of understanding basic politics something the vast majority on the left refuse to do. They mainly live in some weird fantasy world created by high school civics classes. How the system is supposed to work is interesting but largely irrelevant to what actually happens and that is forbidden knowledge in this country.
So what to do? I’ve said many times before that we need to build alternative institutions to support who we are or we will get nowhere. Blogging is very important at this stage in history but it must lead to action. We are circling around the basic issues by being distracted by each new outrage. Don’t bother with it. Let’s get to work. It’s a long hard slog but the only work worth doing is to build a political and economic movement that is self-sufficient.
it looks like we’re talking to eachother on the rec list…
I don’t do Christmas, but I do leave cards of appreciation, randomly, throughout the year. Next time I will leave a ‘favor’ to be redeemed later. Thank you.
Now to the handmade paper. Dryer lint! Really? LOL
I’ll google it.
… how many victories we win and how many defeats we suffer?
Evidently, under the current political landscape, we cannot do as much as we must do for the long term success of our nation, and therefore the current political landscape must be changed. If we fail to do so, whatever wins we might gain against the opposition of the Republicans and the Hedge Fund Democrats that hold the White House and a majority of both chambers of Congress will be cold solace … and if we succeed, whatever losses we suffer, and whatever their short and medium term costs, will be overcome.
So I do not see how its a question of short term reactions to short term wins and losses – given the long term challenge, the long term pro-active task is set.
We have to organize a movement organized around a progressive change coalition in any event, since nothing else is capable of achieving the structural reforms that are required for survival as a nation.
If we fail from having tried and fallen short, at least we would have tried. If we fail from having waited to have our future handed to us by the status quo that created the problems we need to solve, we will have nobody but ourselves to blame.
challenge and if that doesn’t work people should vote third party or write in, even if it means the dems lose a term or two, because clearly the party is so corrupt now, it makes no difference if they win. The party has to be purged of corporatists, and that includes the one at the top, Barak Obama. I hope Grayson or Dean primaries Obama!