What has President Obama done?
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Now that list is dense and I only knew, maybe a third of what is mentioned here and I have to thank MSNBC pundit Rachel Maddow for this list. She made that list approximately six months ago. So he did all of this in 18 months and yet we lose enthusiasm and his popularity falters. He passed Healthcare Reform; something that Clinton couldn’t do, Carter couldn’t do, Ford couldn’t do; Johnson, Eisenhower and Coolidge couldn’t do. He did it and all anyone focuses on is that he didn’t get everything THEY wanted. He passes Wall Street reform designed to rein in the excesses of the Bush era and fundamentally change the way this country does business and yet he gets no credit.
“I am so disappointed and disillusioned at this point that I have no idea what I’ll be doing in 2012.“
This is to be expected from the Conservative pundits, TEA Party folks and JustSayNO Republicans whose job and purpose in life is to tear down the fabric of a Progressive Agenda. They rally, they broadcast, they interview and little by little they tear the fabric of the man who is President. That is what they are supposed to do. They keep in mind that he represents and ideal that they are diametrically opposed to and that, by working concert, they can weaken his ability to lead the government the way we voted him in to do. The Conservative Mafia have learned how to work in tandem very well so its to be expected that once their institutional think tanks tell them what to say in order to promote the Conservative Conspiracy. And the Rupert Murdocks of the world have lined up their media outlets so that the “conservative grassroots movement” employees can lay a foundation of vigor for those masses who have been duped. This is expected of them.
“I’m not going to defend Obama any more. We are all disappointed in him to some degree.”
Unfortunately, its expected of the Progressives to HELP them as well. Its the problem that comes from believing in the power of government. Progressives believe if you put the right person in the right place, that the job is done and that this person can change the world from that perch. They forget that the government is The People. All of The People. Progressives forget that a faith in the government is a faith in one’s self. The Conservatives don’t forget this. They know every vote matters and the way to get that vote to happen is to engage the voter.
Progressives choose to engage the government; the Courts, the Congress and the President and forget about the Citizen. Progressive share their discontent with the pace of change while playing down the fact that change is taking place. When they do this, perhaps the intent is rally fellow Progressives and Independents to their thought process, but all they end up doing is generating disillusion and apathy. Instead of supporting their Chosen, Progressives (in the name of holding Obama accountable) empower the actions of the Conservatives, making their representatives in Congress scared and leaving Obama to stand alone.
“I was not happy about the “buck-dancing” Barack did around the Henry Louis Gates issue. I lost a lot of respect for him behind his cowardly change in position on that issue.”
Obama is accountable as well. He talks as if he will decisively change the way Congress does business as if that act is one man job. His acts of hubris in his speeches and interviews are monumental and comes across as if the changes everyone expected of him could be done by him alone. But the Progressives feed into that as well. We the People expected him to walk on water and then wondered why he nearly drowned.
A new paradigm is necessary from now until 2016; the Trickle-Up Theory. It works in both the commercial and political ways of life. Commercially if Congress and the President had invested in the people and not the banks(trickling up and not down), the people would have turned that money right around and spent it right back into the national economy. Politically, the Progressives can get the House back as well as hold onto the Presidency and the Senate, by engaging the People through Grassroots Empowerment activities. And these movements should focus on the issues and not the man or woman in office. And perhaps no man or woman should be leader. This media seeks the leader and as long as they do, the Progressives should give them ideas instead.
Obama is alone because the Progressives helped him get on a pedestal and then kicked it out from under him. But the Progressives did it; not some assassins or corporate conspiracy types or right-wing dumbasses. Progressives did it. Which means they can change it. So in this current midst of confusing ideals as Obama strikes a compromising deal on the Bush era tax cuts while Progressive Democrats in the Congress vow to fight him over it, its hard to know where the right side is. The right side is the ideal. If the Dems in Congress are staking a claim, the time is NOW for Progressive Citizens to back them up with vigorous grassroots actions. The President wants to get things done and when it looks like he is all alone in the fight the he takes incremental action because the backing is not there for the big fight.
So what’s next? Are the Progressives going to continue to bitch and moan about the fights they are not fighting for? Or will they trickle up the support necessary to REALLY make things happen?
What about you? Are you a Progressive? And if you are, are you going to step up?
If Obama was white, would this even be a debate? If Bill Clinton, who a whole lot of folks referred to as the first Black president, had caved to the Republicans, laid down and let them call the shots, gave tax cuts to millionaires and let middle class Americans pay a disproportionate percentage of higher taxes, Black folks would be up in arms, calling him all sorts of racist crackers and typical politician. Because Obama is Black, we want to say, “Ahhh, give him a chance, he’s only been in office two years, there’s only so much he can do.” His skin color doesn’t give him a free pass with me. PERIOD. He has to do what he promised to have my respect and he promised that he would repeal the Bush tax cuts for the rich. He didn’t. He didn’t even put up a fight, he didn’t even TRY to do what’s right. That gets no respect from me.
Personally, I don’t see it as an issue of race… at least not yet.
President Obama has some character issues that are directly related to his own hubris. He does say he will do things that require the actions of a team of folks beyond his inner circle. And I do take issue with those problems. He also doesn’t have the communication skills to show how his promises positively affect the American way of life the way that Clinton did. For example he loses the ideology debate on the positive affects of his Healthcare plan because adversaries define it for him. And the Progressive Left are so busy being pissed off because of the things that aren’t in the plan, he’s having to defend it on his own.
So, again, Obama stands alone.
Clinton gave up on Healthcare. He had too. Like so many before him. And regarding the tax cuts, Clinton didn’t have the Democrats in Congress bailing out on him the way that Obama does now. And those Democrats are bailing because they don’t have the grassroots support that the Republicans do.
Now there are a handful of Democrats vowing the fight this tax cut for millionaires. And you know the millionaires are funding their Tea Party employees in this fight on their behalf. Its going to be up to the grassroots efforts of the Progressive Movement to make this an issue worthy of the debate. The Progressives have the argument. Will they galvanize their efforts, rally the people and take a stand that support the representatives who have the most in common with their ideals? Or will they take an all or nothing stance, continue to ego-trip and let the ideological ignorance of the Tea Party win?
Obama is human, like Bush and Clinton. And like them he makes mistakes. But its not about them. We are grown folks, responsible for our own battles. Picking leaders is only a first step. Are we ready for the next?
Because you know that the Tea Party is.
I think that the President has done a phenomally job given the situation he found himself facing. No wonder his hair a few months ago had begun to turn white. There is no other job on this earth that can cause that kind of change in a man’s physical apperance. And to think that there are people(and especially BLACK) people who want to turn their back on him? Shame,shame,shame!
http://www.BeachBody.com/MrOHenry