General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Where's the Democratic Party's "vision for the future"?? [View all]Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)I voted for Obama twice, and twice now he has won overwhelming victories.
No President in my lifetime has had a more powerful mandate.
In his first term he used that mandate to fight, not for me, but for insurance companies profits. He fought his ass off for them. He fought to make sure BP was allowed to decide for themselves when the Gulf was clean enough. He fought to make sure no bankers faced justice or even lost their mega-bonus checks. He fought to add more free trade agreements. Off the top of my head I cannot think of anything he didn't cave on. Monsanto, Goldman, BP, his administration was an open door for the people pillaging this country. Bailouts for bankers and bullshit for everyone else.
But I voted for him again, thinking THIS time -- not having to face reelection -- we would see the real Obama. And I'll admit it, I was swayed by all the campaign rhetoric. He asked if we wanted to all be in this together, or all in this alone. I voted for together.
I expected him to come out of the gate with a PLAN.
I expected him to go on national TV with that plan and his mandate, and sell it to the American people. Instead all I have seen is cute pictures of him posing with kids, and proposals that might as well have been written by the Heritage foundation and the Kock brothers.
* Where's the proposal to END these FTAs and bring the jobs back home? We tried it and, as predicted, it was a disaster. End it.
* Where's the proposal to tax capital gains as income? Without that any tax hike on the mega-wealthy is a joke
* Where's the proposal for single payer? Obamacare is nothing more than welfare for insurance companies. End that nonsense. Allow anyone to purchase Medicare and medicaide. Or better yet, just make it free. We actually can afford it.
* Where's the proposal for REAL infrastructure spending? Our country's infrastructure is falling apart, it needs to be fixed, so fix it.
* Where's the proposal for eliminating the cap on social security?
* Where's the proposal for LOWERING the retirement age? We don't need seniors working, we need them not working.
* Where's the proposal for free eductation? Why not, right? We can afford it from one to twelve, but somehow a couple more is impossible.
* Where's the proposal to simply end the damn wars and bring our men and women home? Instead, we are looking to pick a new fight -- this time with Iran.
* Where's the proposal to actually end poverty and homelessness. None of this nickle and dime stuff, we can do this if we want to.
I don't want to hear how impossible all this is. Everyone knows the GOP is off its rocker, put that stuff out there, sell it to the people, and if you do it right the GOP will either pass it or get obliterated in the midterms.
We have to decide what kind of country we want. We CAN decide these things. And none of it is impossible. It's not even that difficult or expensive. No, expensive is what we are doing now... which is to say: nothing new. And that's where it has to start. Change can only happen if we change. We cannot comtinue doing the same things, panding to the same few people, and hoping that somehow things will magically get better. That the fine folks at Goldman Sachs will decide they have enough.
I want Obama and the Democrat party to lead. If not, fuck em, if they want to govern like the GOP they can vanish with the GOP.
Nuff said.