I recently started a Facebook group called "Progressives Pissed at Obama!" in hope that a few folks would jump on board. A few hundred would be better, a few thousand would be tremendous. What the president fails to get, what his entire party fails to get is that there are hundreds of thousands, most likely millions of voters out here in the hinterland that elected him for his rhetoric last election, and after watching him and the Democrats that were swept back into power in both houses in 2008 not get anything of significance accomplished in the first two years, and even less now that the Tea Party is running the House, we are seriously pissed off.
Remember single-payer health care (the system that most of the rest of the developed world successfully operates)? Remember closing Guantanamo Bay? Remember all the talk about bringing the troops home & getting us out of Iraq and Afghanistan? Remember the rhetoric about taxing the rich? Remember fighting to change our environmental regulations so climate change could finally be addressed? WHERE have all those ideas gone? Down the same drain as the bailout money. Into the pockets of the CEOs and executives of the banking, insurance, pharmaceutical, auto and oil industries. And where do our taxes go? With all the cuts the GOP is ramming down our throats, our taxes pay mostly for bullets and bombs. Fuck education, social programs and roads. THIS is the change we voted for?
Meanwhile GE, Exxon/Mobile and the major corporations pay NO taxes? And a GE executive advises Obama? And the Secretary of the Treasury calls Goldman-Sachs for advice on the economy? And not ONE of the banking execs that drove the country to the financial brink is even being prosecuted? When I start looking at it this way, capitalism seems to suck. Hard.
When are we going to wake up as a people? The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats act like they are going to create change as they lie to us; the GOP actually convinces us that we should argue against our own best interests even as they cut our throats. I know teachers who support the Tea Party, for Christ's sake! I know people who are sick who want to get rid of Medicare! And I know people who are poor who hate the idea of socialism. The GOP is doing a damn good job at its propaganda. The Democrats aren't really any better. Obama touts nuclear power as "green." Let's watch the fallout from Japan and see what happens in 20 years when all the cancers start appearing to see how that works out. The Democrats were actually considering rolling back the EPA standards on clean air and water that the GOP was writing into its proposals during the latest battle over the budget until the environmental lobby put its foot down. The government almost shut down over abortion! Really??? Really???? And that was a smokescreen. Planned Parenthood doesn't use government money to perform abortions. It was all a scam to defund PP entirely. NPR, Public TV, PP. Cut them all. Meanwhile fund the Pentagon war machine without question.
We elected Obama thinking things were going to change. They did. How can I vote for him again? If the GOP puts up Sarah Palin, Huckabee or Trump, I guess I'll have to. But I won't be hopeful any more. Not by a long shot.
