For the 'sensible' people, here’s the deal.

[snake in the grass]

With all the straw men being offered of late, enough to meet our energy requirements for the rest of the year if one were to ignite them, I thought I’d get out my lighter and do my part for king and country.

Now, put your seat belts on, because here we go.

While I didn’t share the level of euphoria some felt after Obama won in 2008, I was very happy that Bible Barbie was sent home to Wasilla, instead of D.C. That was a good thing. Obama was in my eyes a political neophyte with a preacher’s cadence, but anything would have been better than McFailin’; I would have voted for Ronald McDonald and I'm a Burger King man! I still believe that. The problem, however, lies in the fact that we are still on the road to a corporate state and the change that we got was only a change in the speed with which we are approaching it. In case it hasn’t occurred to you, that isn’t real change.

We all sat back and laughed as the GOP began to implode after the election. I took real pleasure in it for all the negative reasons. I hate conservatives passionately. There’s nothing, not one thing positive they have ever done for the people and I don’t mean just in the history of the U.S. I mean not ever in the history of our species.

Let’s leave party names behind us for a moment and just look at the line that divides us basically into two groups; those with empathy and compassion, who try to make things better for all and those without, who don’t – I prefer the terms ‘progressives’ and ‘regressives’ respectively. That’s the divide in a nutshell. The problem the so-called ‘radical’ left has with the Obama administration is that it is sometimes hard to distinguish the president’s policies from those of the other side. Oh, he talks a fine talk, for sure, but he doesn’t walk the walk.

I lived in Germany for 23 years and was shocked upon my return to see just how ignorant a large part of the population here is. And not just ignorant. Critical thinking skills have gone out the door, replaced by obedience to authority. The one thing regressives like to do is to point out the failings of the public school system and use that as a reason to cut its funding. This worsens the situation, which gives them further ‘justification’ for further cuts. Many of these primates publicly declare their desire to do away with the Department of Education altogether and they get support from the useful idiots who vote them into office. Robbed of an opportunity for a decent education, the children are the first victims of this cynicism, but our country as a whole suffers due to this celebration of ignorance. Thomas Jefferson believed an educated public was necessary for the survival of the republic, yet I see President Obama following in the footsteps of the regressives in that he attacks teachers’ unions and pushes the charter school fable. No, he doesn’t do it directly. He sings the praises of a good education in front of every microphone, but his actions speak a different story.

Women’s issues are another area the Democrats traditionally claimed for themselves. The ‘issues’ being for the most part the right of women to determine for themselves what happens to their bodies, without having some old fuckhead waving his finger at them, and the right to sit at the adult table, instead of being sent to the kids. It is beyond me how this is even being discussed in this day and age, but our patriarchal structures are still far too strong to afford women the simple and self-evident recognition that they are actual human beings. To not allow public funding of abortion for low income women is a vile slap in the face of all women, even those who say they would never get one. One never knows. Around 31% of the abortions performed yearly in the U.S. are done on Catholic women, second only to Protestants. See what I mean?

Homophobia is another gift the patriarchal system has given us. What could be worse for a ‘real’ man than to be like a woman? I know that’s not what male homosexuality is, but it’s how it’s viewed by many in our society. The hypocrisy gets even better, when you consider how many ‘real’ men enjoy watching girl-on-girl action, then rant about the 'fucking queers', but that ties in to women’s issues again. Sex between two women isn’t really sex, you see. Either they just haven’t been fucked properly by a ‘real’ man, or as that luminary Elisabeth Hasselbeck recently claimed, because they are too old and ugly to get a man, so out of loneliness they go for another woman - shame on you, Barbara Walters, for giving that backwards stool sample a forum to spout such utter poison! And like with women, if LGBTQ-individuals aren’t finally given the full rights that every other citizen enjoys, there will be no peace. Obama could have at least suspended the DADT practice of discharging LGBTQ-members of the armed forces pending review. He could have done that with the stroke of his executive pen, but he didn’t. I was saddened to recently see that Lt. Dan Choi was discharged, an officer whom I, as a very heterosexual former http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11-Bravo#Infantry_Branch_.28IN.29">11 Bravo, would have followed without question. His discharge and the discharges of the men and women like him shows the bitter failure of President Obama’s stance on civil rights as far as the ‘radical’ left sees it. Meanwhile, moral waivers are being given to criminals, because the war machine needs more meat, while important translators, for example, are sent home because they dare love someone of the same gender. Bravo, Mr. President! I feel safer already!

Speaking of civil rights, what does our constitutional scholar of a president think on the matter? It’s so hard to tell, because, once again his words don’t match his actions. Rendition? Still happening. Torture? Still happening (you are naïve to believe that the Twister game they are playing with the goat herders in the Bagram Black Site is the Hasbro version). Warrantless wiretapping and the further narrowing of the definition of freedom? They’re being expanded and continued. Now he has given himself the right to kill U.S. citizens without a trial, just for being suspected of nefarious activities. If you were to repeat this list without attributing it to Obama, I’d swear I was listening to Dick Cheney's Christmas wish list; certainly not a Democrat.

Oh, and how could I forget the wars; the ones that are killing or maiming our soldiers, sucking our treasury dry, and creating more enemies on a daily basis, while there isn’t enough money to help people here at home? I know Obama isn’t an idiot like Dim Son was, but he evidently wasn’t paying attention in history class when Afghanistan was discussed. It’s not called the ‘Graveyard of Empires’ for nothing and we will get our asses pinched just like Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, the British Empire, and the Soviet Union. Rest assured, there is nothing for us to win there, but that pipeline will be a great thing for the oil multi-nationals. The cost is only an unimaginable sum of money and, more importantly, the lives of fellow citizens, people who are your neighbors or relatives.

The fellating of big business is really one of the most disgusting displays of cowardice Obama has given us. Whether it’s dealing with Wall Street, BP, or the health insurance industry, I’ve yet to see him take off his kneepads. Tim Geitner leads the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for the time being. Obama might as well put the fox in charge of the henhouse. BP is calling the shots in the Gulf of Mexico, while openly showing the administration the finger. Wall Street is coming for your Social Security and I have no faith that he won’t fold here either. The biggest dud, though, was the so-called health care reform; a giveaway to a parasitic industry, that profits from your death (let that one dissolve on your tongue a little, then savour it). Here President Obama could have really made a difference and joined the rest of the civilized world, considering nearly 70% of the population stood behind him on a public option, but he folded before he even reached the table. I’d love to play him in a game of poker. I really would. Where was the fight, except for his weak admission that he’d “like to see” a public option in the final bill, knowing full well that Baucus would deliver no such thing? We are told by 'sensible' members of the party that he achieved what was possible, but how will we ever know, when he didn’t fight? I’d have more respect for him if he would have fought and failed, than his buckling to financial interests over the lives of many who voted for him on this issue alone. I’m one of the 47 million without the possibility of getting affordable health insurance, so I, like them, have to sweat it out and hope nothing serious happens until the reform kicks in. Nothing is more enjoyable in life than living in fear. Thanks for nothing, Mr. President.

His crowning achievement, though, was the decision to stop investigating the war criminals living under us. This defies everything progressive, not to mention everything just, and is unforgiveable. That’s right. Unfuckingforgiveable - if you really give a damn. I don’t even think I have to say why, and if you fail to see that, you should have your moral compass checked out because something is definitely amiss. Covering for war criminals makes him complicit, makes him guilty. If you're getting red-faced now, that's just your conscience speaking to you. You should give it a listen.

I think we can all agree that if Dick Cheney were to go public with the announcement that the Bush Administration was one of the most successful implementations of progressive policies in the history of the U.S., we would all laugh at him. Am I right? So how does continuing the same catastrophic policies as the Bush Administration make Obama the new hope of the progressive movement?

It doesn’t - plain and simple.

And this is our beef with him. Not because we are dreamers, GOP operatives, or racists. The (D) is not enough. There has to be substance. Parties have come and gone throughout our history, so there is no reason to believe it will be otherwise now. We truly do live in interesting times, because the paradigm shift is coming, whether the 'sensible' under us want to believe it or not. The GOP imploded after 30 years of flirting with insanity and many of the moderate regressives have migrated to the Democratic Party to escape the taint. We saw the reverse when the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964, as many racist Dixiecrats switched to the GOP, because they just couldn’t stand the fact the ‘those people’ were finally recognized as human beings. Sadly our party is becoming the new haven for disillusioned Republicans, all at the cost of the very policies that defined us for a half a century. Policies that brought us from the dregs of the Great Depression to the moon in less than 40 years. Policies that enabled a middle class to develop and thrive. Policies that have been whittled away since Reagan started the whole supply-side stupidity. You know what trickledown economics really are? In reality they're table scrap economics. I don’t know about you, but I want my fair share of the pie and not what some asshole deems I deserve. That’s what makes us progressives and Obama's failures here, his squandering of a historic opportunity is what pisses us off.

For those who thrash anyone who has a legitimate complaint about Obama, I have only this to say: you can whine all you want, soil yourselves in fear at Palin 2012, and point your finger at us to blame, but we didn’t move. We are still here. If the leaders of the Democratic Party feel they don’t need us and our 'fucking retarded' ideas, fine. The vacuum developing on the Left needs to be filled and it will be, as nature abhors a vacuum. Bill Clinton said that during the primaries we fall in love, but during the election we fall in line. I say if our love continues to go unrequited, there is no reason to remain in that line.

No reason at all.

Think about it and a nice weekend to all.