If you go to a mechanic to get your car repaired and he charges you a wad of money but doesn't truly fix anything, how many people would go back to the same garage the next time the vehicle develops a problem? Would you return to the same doctor who put in an expensive pacemaker when all you actually requested AND needed was your left knee scoped?
So, why is it that voters keep re-electing candidates who wantonly break campaign promises and sell the interests of their supporters down the river?
I have a very serious question to pose to those readers who self-define themselves as a progressive: Come Election Day 2012, will you remember what has transpired in the past two years?
Here's what President Obama has saddled us with to date (it will probably be far worse by then):
So, why is it that voters keep re-electing candidates who wantonly break campaign promises and sell the interests of their supporters down the river?
I have a very serious question to pose to those readers who self-define themselves as a progressive: Come Election Day 2012, will you remember what has transpired in the past two years?
Here's what President Obama has saddled us with to date (it will probably be far worse by then):
- A deficit-sinking Stimulus Package that was supposed to create long-term jobs and get the economy moving again. His strategy certainly was a shot in the arm for Wall Street, but it has had almost NO positive effect on Main St.
- A new Health Care Policy that includes no public option and forces citizens to purchase insurance from for-profit insurance corporations WITHOUT any meaningful mandates to curb costs.
- Two ongoing wars and threats to start others. The war efforts by themselves are most responsible for our growing deficit.
- A tax package that yet again extends massive tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and may well prove to be the undoing of our Social Security system. This nearly $1 trillion giveaway has now set the stage for drastic cuts in federal funding for needed basic services.
Of course, the list is much longer than this. We could also include his mealy-mouthed support/non-support of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," opposition to meaningful assistance to those facing illegal home foreclosures, increased spying on American citizens, and countless more insanities.
In every instance cited above, candidate Barack Obama campaigned to support the opposite of what he ended up pursuing once elected. He has gone back on so many campaign pledges that it's hard to keep count.
Will you remember this in two years?
If history provides a yardstick, the answer is a resounding NO. Most of you will line up like sheep being led to the slaughterhouse. You will fall hook, line and sinker for all the new and rosy campaign promises. You'll say that Mr. Obama needs another 4 years to put his "progressive agenda" into action. And you will trot out the time-honored argument of last resort, "We must re-elect the Democrat or a Republican will move into the Oval Office."
That argument won't sway me at all; in truth, a pseudo-Republican occupies the White House right now!
In every instance cited above, candidate Barack Obama campaigned to support the opposite of what he ended up pursuing once elected. He has gone back on so many campaign pledges that it's hard to keep count.
Will you remember this in two years?
If history provides a yardstick, the answer is a resounding NO. Most of you will line up like sheep being led to the slaughterhouse. You will fall hook, line and sinker for all the new and rosy campaign promises. You'll say that Mr. Obama needs another 4 years to put his "progressive agenda" into action. And you will trot out the time-honored argument of last resort, "We must re-elect the Democrat or a Republican will move into the Oval Office."
That argument won't sway me at all; in truth, a pseudo-Republican occupies the White House right now!
your rhetoric continues the problem. you keep blaming the GOP. do you think the GOP represents the will of those voters? it doesn't -- they have exactly the same problem you do! and your rhetoric gets in the way of you seeing that.
ReplyDeleteeg, the GOP was very much opposed to the healthcare, but democrats passed it anyway. so you can't blame the GOP for that.
also, during the wall street bailout at the end of bush's term, there was a small group of republicans who opposed it, while the leadership of the republicans and most of the democrats supported it. presidential candidates from both parties supported it, despite the fact that the public opposed it by 90% or more. ie, either party could have opposed the bailout and won more votes.
there used to be a substantial fiscal conservative portion of the GOP (which is why i used to vote for them.) however, they seem to have all been purged in the mid-1990s. now the GOP is all religious conservatives and neocons, neither of whom i agree with.
but as long as you (and many others, on both sides of the aisle) continue to believe that the "other" party is the problem, you'll never discover or be able to form alliances with the rest of the public voters who normally identify with the "other" party who actually agree with you. divide and conquer. all you need to do is read your immediately predeeding post:
"When we see only what we want to see and not what is, we set the stage for disharmony. We struggle against the current."
--sgl
SGL,
ReplyDeleteDid you READ this post? The blame was not laid on the GOP; it was laid squarely on the Democrats.
I'll take it a step further and lay blame at the feet of BOTH parties. The biggest problem I see facing all of us involves how to uproot both of them. Until we get a hardcore coalition of citizens from all across the nation elected for the sole purpose of spending the entire term really fixing the problem - true campaign finance reform, a total ban on all corporate, PAC, and other influences, and maybe even re-examining the make up of the Congress at a fundamental level, nothing any of us say or do will really amount to much in the way of putting power into the hands of the people.
ReplyDeleteyes, i read the post. my reply was based not just on this post, but your post earlier in the day "The Ever Present Charade", and the general tone of prior posts.
ReplyDeleteneither party represents either the mainstream, or even the usual voters for their party. both parties now represent wall street and large corporations.
but, it seems to me, you still think "the GOP" is the enemy that the democrats must fight, and seem to think that the people that vote for the GOP are therefore your enemy too.
and i've seen much the same thing from the republican side -- thinking "the democrats" are the problem, not realizing they don't represent the typical democratic voter.
i voted in the 2008 primaries (for the first time) solely to support ron paul, which put me on a number of republican email lists. during the wall street bailout, i watched a minority of the republicans that where trying to stop it called it the "democratic" wall street bailout! hello! republican pres bush, and his treasury secretary hank paulson, with support of republican leadership in congress, trying to ram thru the bailout. the majority of democrats also went along with it, and only a minority of republicans opposed it. yet, the emails called it the "democratic" wall street bailout! they weren't re-writing history, the were re-writing the present -- it hadn't even gotten old enough to be history!
if the disaffected voters of the democratic and republican parties got together, they might have a chance to make a difference. otherwise, the divide and conquer strategy will continue to work, and the middle class voters of both parties will never realize that there others with similar views but they labelled themselves with a different party label.
--sgl
SGL,
ReplyDeleteI don't think you've been reading my posts closely enough. I am no fan whatsoever of the Dems. Haven't voted for one of 'em for a major office in nearly 20 years!! From 1994 - 2008, I was active with the Socialist and then Green Party.
In fact, I think the Dems are far worse than the GOP. They clothe themselves in progressive rhetoric and then deliver the exact opposite. Some of the worst legislation has come, not at the hands of the two Bushes or Reagan, but under the tutelage of 2 Democratic presidents, Clinton & Obama.