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What will he do-- if the Republicans are NOT willing to work as they did at the end of that lame duck session. Okay, snark.
Look, I know Obama is probably the hardest working POTUS this country has had since Jimmy Carter. And for his educational background, the most progressive.
Taking his educational background in mind, that is why he's been able to get anything done with the GO-PIGS.
What people just keep on forgetting is that the Senate majority that Democrats have held was on a razor's edge, always.
I remember when Lieberman (boo, hiss!) was elected not even as a Democrat but agreed to caucus giving the choice of committees to the Democrats for the first time in many years. It seemed that day would never come!
A lot of what has come from the investigations in the Bush years, to prove the case many of us needed to have made in those years, was done. But only at a heavy cost.
And I remember when the GOPhers prayed that the Democratic Senator with the brain problem would die so they'd get that majority back again. And when they stonewalled Al Franken from being seated after he defeated Bush's lapdog, Norm Coleman.
It's been this way a long time. We also can't discount what the Democratic House of Representatives did when they had the majority and the issues they brought up that would have never seen the light of day under GOP rule.
Does anyone seriously believe that there is no difference? If so, I think that is because they've been taken in by the not-liberal media offering false choices and then many who have gone off the handle about what Obama didn't do.
And that misconception on the part of the left cost us the majority in the House of Representatives as well as Senate seats and many state houses. Mission accomplished, they reported enough to make everyone nauseous. Good people who had our backs were defeated and those left will be under the heel of the GOPIGS. By refusing to hold our noses for those who basically had our values in a sea of GOPiggery, we neutered them. The GOPigs did this to us with their media. We fell for it. Well, some of us did.
Then it turns out that he did do almost everything that he said he would, draw down the war, support the labor movement, reinforce environmental standards, bring civil rights back to the table and promote American jobs and a green economy. Even Michelle has stood up for organic food and good nutrition for children.
All of those things have been done under the harshest, foulest, most contemptuous media atmosphere I've ever seen in my lifetime. Hatred and inciting violence that borders on sedition.
My heart has been broken by many things that have been done but this country is in the grip of a media system that for over a generation has lied repeatedly and taken away our language to resist.
For making stump speeches showing the cost of the wars and how it was all owed to China, how it was, on a city by city basis, devastating their governments ability to help their own people and keep their economy strong, Obama was attacked. For meeting with unions and appointing pro-labor people and creating the consumer protection office he was attacked more viciously. For pushing financial reform even more so.
If Obama hadn't been effective in pursuing progressive goals, would the Koch/ GOP/ US CoC, etc. put so much money into fighting his goals this year, even creating the Tea Party? They knew that he was a danger to the oligarchy. But trying to work with those who own almost everything isn't agreeing with them. It's trying to make the best deal we can.
There is part of his agenda that Obama must have realized would never be fulfilled without strong public support. Because when a president in coming into office, he gets information that none of us are privy to. I believe he realized the day of the oligarchs is upon us. I remember when Putin said that they would have to work with the oligarchs around the world.
Does that mean they wanted that state of affairs? No, they were confronted with the harsh realities of who owns what. Most of us never look up that far, and many Americans thought that when they'd left the ballot booth in 2008 they'd saved the world.
Our votes are called polls, perhaps, for a reason. Although someone else may have a better definition. They are our opinion poll but they don't necessarily have the force of law, except what the system gives them. Many people sat back and thought that the world would be great if they'd just stand back and let Obama do the work. I'm not saying that most of us could have done much more as we have a living to make in this world.
I'm sure we have many people here who are politically active off this computer. But I know many people in real life who thought their vote was all they needed to do and that would be the end of it. These things are the focal point of many things in our lives, but they are not all of our life.
Okay, off I went again, still I think Obama can get something done. He said during the campaign that Americans would have to be prepared for a lot of sacrifices and hard work. McCain didn't say that. The GOP doesn't stand for anything like that because they put trillions of dollars on the national credit card. Rant over.
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