“I want a Public Option,” President Obama says.
“Fuck you, if you wanted it you should have done something about it, punk,” Congress replies.
Funny how perhaps the most popular Dem Pres since Kennedy can’t get what he wants on what was supposed to be THE signature legislation of his administration. Why it is almost as if he didn’t even try!
Drat! Perhaps he is not a savior after all. Perhaps he doesn’t play chess, let alone 11th dimensional chess. Perhaps, despite the guarantees by the fan boyz and girlz who have insisted that he has “GOT THIS” he doesn’t got it at all, or perhaps, he just doesn’t get it. He sure didn’t get what he…and all his supporters who were SO sure that Obama would fix everything if we just laid off of him and gave him time….said he wanted.
Maybe if had actually, ya know, FOUGHT for what he said he wanted….
So let the Spin Begin! Let the excuses flow like wine in the corporate boardrooms as the Insurance Corporations celebrate. Let a thousand rationalizations and justifications bloom in the Halls of Naranjistan….as the American people take it up the ass and the Ruling Class giggles at the naivete of the poor suckers who actually trusted that glossy photos, snappy slogans and cynical promises of Hope would be enough to win the day against their entrenched corruption. As Obama stood on the sidelines of this battle for something, ya know….pretty FUCKING important. The health of the American People. And a vital battle for the end of the Corporate Rule of America.
He’s Got this, alright. He’s got it right where it hurts….
US
Of course as the Dems continue their decade long tradition of capitulation, corruption and bald faced bribery in the guise of ‘campaign contributions,’ we have no idea what the fuck we just got. Because they also continued their tradition of selling out and caving to their Corporate Masters in the backroom, out of the spotlight. But surprise you bastards, there ARE no backrooms anymore. EVERYONE sees what you just did. Though of course most people will but the okeydoke, fall for the spin, float blissfully on the river denial and Hope that this Change is for the better. Because Obama is president now, so everything is copacetic and y’all should just continue to STFU as you are getting assaulted, ok? We wouldn’t want to rock the boat….when it is sinking so well on its own.
After all, what choice do they have, when they are powerless in the face of corrupt DC politics? what choice did Obama have? We are helpless! we are powerless! And so is the guy who promised he would Change all of this, but that promise doesn’t count, because even though he promised us he would make a difference…he has no power to make a difference over Congress and the Lobbyists! He is just as helpless ….and thus blameless….as we are!!!
Sit down, STFU, eat your shit sandwich and like it.
But for Gods sake, don’t make a fuss! If we make a fuss the terrorists Republicans will win! If you pressure Obama to fight harder to fulfill his promise of Change…it might hurt his feelings!
If you flex your power as citizens through Internet access, people might think you are RUDE! If they think you are Loud and Rude they will ignore you!
And then where will we be?
If you pressure and criticize president Obama, YOU will be responsible for fucking up HCR. You will make people not like President Obama! YOU will cost us the next election if YOU actually point out that this emperor too has no clothes! So yeah, STFU…at least til we can come up with some good rationalizations of how this was all part of Obama’s master Plan.
There is only one problem.
We are NOT helpless.
We are not powerless.
We do not have to eat shit and like it.
We have the people, the smarts, the tools, and the voices to YELL LOUDER and make ourselves heard. IF we want to. IF there are not some among us who try to destroy Netroots Activism and People Power. IF we realize that the actual issues are FAR more important than whether we are loyal enough to Obama, or if we are “too harsh” in our criticisms as we apply the political pressure from the Left that can be the difference maker in future battles.
A Clue for those who put protecting the President from criticism above actually fighting for victory on the actual issues: get some fucking perspective.
It is hard and takes a long time to build a movement. It is easy and quick to destroy it, as the movement towards Citizen Activism has been destroyed by a few people at Daily Kos…..people who think that being Loud means you will be ignored…despite all evidence to the contrary, who think that POLITICS is about the feelings of one man. People who are willing to settle for a shit sandwich instead of real change…if that means someone might say something…mean…about their hero.
It is easy to destroy a movement. it is easy to stop change. It is easy to capitulate, in the name of some faux civility and comity and in the name of “protecting a president from his citizens. We have just watched it happening, as Activism has been chased off of Daily Kos in favor of pictures of the Presidents dog.
And this is the result. A few people who put being polite to the President above health care, above Afghanistan…above everything, have destroyed what could be one of the greatest forums for citizen activism in the history of politics. And in the process, they HELPED Congress punk Obama, by silencing the hundreds of thousands of phone calls that COULD have been made. IF they didn;t attack, smear and hound the folks who were willing to stand up and Yell Louder for the Change that they SAY they want…but are unwilling to work for.
STFU, you say, Obama has Got This.
Well now you can see EXACTLY where that leads.
No, the Obamabots are not SOLELY to blame for this debacle, but they sure as hell contributed to it by neutering the activist tool that Daily Kos could be. IF the actual issues were more important to them than “supporting” a president that just got punked because he….like them…is too afraid or too whatever to Stand Up And Fight.
Because we are NOT helpless, not unless we allow ourselves to be, not in point of fact UNLESS we STFU and don;t make our voices heard.
And whether that was what they intended ot not…that is EXACTLY what the Obama “supporters” accomplished in chasing off or beating down all of the actists on Daily Kos.
Good job guys. I can’t WAIT to hear how you spin this into a victory for Obama! I have always enjoyed creative writing.
Please click over and sign the Firedoglake petition: Obama Fail
And one from BoldProgressives
96 comments
Skip to comment form
Author
as these ‘supporters” seem to be saw this shit coming the whole way.
That is EXACTLY why we were working so hard and Yelling so Loud to prevent it.
Until we got shouted own.
By people who seem to think that protecting Obama is FAR more important than actually GETTING SHIT DONE.
They’re even telling themselves (in the first comment) that Kos’ post this morning was “snark”.
These people are even more delusional than wingnuts were. Unless they are wingnuts who have had 9 years of practice at delusion.
It’s not a matter of how loud we yell, it’s a question of what we do. They’ve got lots of earmuffs. But their nether regions are less protected. So many of them are re-elected without a primary challenge. They hate primary challenges, “waste of resources, grumble, grumble, grumble.”
That’s why I’m proposing the modest tactic of the Full Court Press: run candidates with a single, broad progressive agenda in 435 Democratic primaries. (https://www.docudharma.com/diary/17796/full-court-press-what-the-openleft-brouhaha-was-about) Don’t necessarily run to win, lots of groups do this targeted winning stuff, and look where we are. Just get on the ballot. A few candidates here and there, no big deal. 435 candidates, national impact.
Who? I dunno.
But unless we want 7 more years of this bullshit, we need to get on it.
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.c…
is that Joe Lieberman is happy about this compromise, so it must be plenty patriotic.
The left was fucked either way at dkos…
No matter how shitty this bill turns out to be there will be many posters who claim a victory for Obama whether it hurts people or not. But we all already knew that.
What I began to realize a few weeks ago is that even if this bill sucks so fucking much that it is obvious to even the Obama/party loyalists then it would still be our fault. Not for just the most common “it’s your fault for criticising the president and knocking him down” (amongst other things that would require a delusion that Obama actually gives a fuck what Dkos says) but also for another reason. How many times at Dkos have you seen loyalists claim that it will be the fault of the “citizen” for not trying hard enough or being responsible for electing the current oafish crop of dems we have? The much ballyhooed “make him do it” fraudulent rhetoric.
I came to realize that this blame would immediately be transferred to the left contingent upon a destructive HCR defeat. It sounds paradoxical but I promise you it
will happen.
Once the loyalists finally realize how fucked up this loss is they will blame the left for A) Complaining about how much this bill sucks and how it is reform in name only. B) For undercutting the president by criticising him and thus contributing to this defeat…and also C)For whining about the failure of people WE elected.
This allows them to NEVER accept responsibility for doing NOTHING to break up Obamas pathetic continual compromise and capitulation on HCR. It allows them to always kick around the left of the party, the people they love to hate but always come crawling back to when it is election time, time for action, or time to donate.
in the Copenhagen conference, if they do not come to blows, Obama will do what he does best: strut, bow and look suave and debonaire in front of foreign leaders, their spouses, and selected journalists; thus proving to all and sundry that the world LOVES America so.
Of course this doesn’t translate into succor for the Americans, but what the heck, it’s the playing of 33-dimensional Hopscotch.
But America is also the land of “unbegrenzte Möglichkeiten” for me, that is, the country with limitless possibilities. One of those is voting for the persons that best represents your interests. In Germany, the SPD ruled for some years, and people felt that the SPD had not fulfilled its promises, consequently, it suffered electoral defeats.
Meanwhile, the Linke (Left) grew and so, the panorama changes. There’s nothing under the sun ordering that the Democratic Party should be the one in power, if it consists of such people.
Obama FOR SURE will be a one term president.
The bad news, the next President will be a Republican, unless we defeat Obama in the primaries.
Kucinich 2012.
g.
If this place ever wants to go anywhere, we need to quit doing that.
I know, I jump into the conversations, too.
I have no idea how to break away from being a stepchild of DK.
But I really think it needs to happen.
…at Black Agenda Report:
You can read it here .
I know I was angry this morning, I swear, but it faded or morphed or something. heh.
What do you guys want? Buhdy? others?
Theres been some really energized discussion around here in the past 2 or 3 days. I think the bottom line is … to each his/her own. But…
(A) do you want to take it back? dKos, the Go To Blog for progressive activism? or (B) give it up and create anew elsewhere?
I honestly think that there a a lot of people, at DK and also just floating out there somewhere, who today… feel the way this person wrote in this diary at narangilla. Sad, defeated, frustrated, duped, ashamed… and rudderless.
The “bots”, the pack that has swarmed the place and tried to silence… us … is a minority. A vocal one of course, but… I think that could be dealt with, in positive constructive ways, IF you want (A) above.
This Essay … if you were to post this now at DK, buhdy, it’d go straight to the top, and it would serve only to fan the flame wars and further divide people, and of course, flush the bots out of their caves. Like a moth to a flame. The people like renee and theres a lot of them, would … I dont know… shy away from it. People like me, before I took teh red pill, lol.
I have more to say but I have to think about it. Maybe Im just mostly full of shit.
doing nothing (which is on top of his salary). So they work their asses off to get elected, and then kick back.
That in a nut shell was the election of 2008. I waited and waited and waited for Obama to set off the spark.
NOTHING NADA
Clearly it cannot be about personalities. It must be issues only. And the people cannot be compromised because it is their government. True Democrats identify with, fight with, and connect with the people in an uncompromising way, because it’s a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Democrats are really Republicans if they don’t see government as actively serving the people in a critical time of need. Who are they then that get elected and ignore their promises, who take orders from the Generals and Lobbyists? Who do they represent?
How can there ever be compromise on what the rest of the developed world takes for granted as a human right ?. Churchill supported universal healthcare 65 years ago!
And as I sit here typing with bombs and mortars going off every 3 seconds shaking the house from Camp Pendleton, 10 miles away, I wonder if there is not a better way to use the people’s blood and money?
WHERE IS THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE? I really do believe that a large majority of the Democratic Party is actually left of the president. And probably a majority of independents tooooooo.
F*****g Unbelieveable!!!!!!!!
the netroots if we let them by not fighting back.