If not Obama, then who?

Buhdydharma has asked some good questions.  Who is our friend if not President Obama?  If President Obama isn’t going to work for us, who do we turn to?

My response coming up…

These questions are, in and of themselves, the Rosetta Stone of American politics.  We already have quite a long list of promises that candidate Barack Obama made that he has already waffled, dismissed, or, totally done the opposite on as President.

April 2008.  Candidate Obama states:

Asked what he could reasonably accomplish for the gay community as president, Obama said he can “reasonably see” repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy as well as signing legislation to ban workplace discrimination against gays. He said he’d like transgendered people to be covered by the law, but thinks it would be tough to get such legislation through Congress.

Obama also said he’s interested in ensuring that same-sex couples in civil unions get federal benefits.

January 2009.  President-Elect Obama states:

In a response to a question on the Web site Change.gov asking whether Obama would get rid of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said: “You don’t hear politicians give a one-word answer much. But it’s ‘Yes.'”

The gay and lesbian community has now seen a total reversal by President Obama.

The Obama Administration, in its brief in the case last month, said a lower court acted properly in upholding the gay ban. “Applying the strong deference traditionally afforded to the Legislative and Executive Branches in the area of military affairs, the court of appeals properly upheld the statute,” argued Elena Kagan, who as Solicitor General represents the Administration before the Supreme Court. The bar on gays serving openly is “rationally related to the government’s legitimate interest in military discipline and cohesion,” her 12-page filing added.

The endorsement of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” by the Administration marks the latest rightward tack by Obama. The President denounced many of George W. Bush’s national-security policies during the campaign, but in office has adopted more conservative positions, including endorsing military commissions to try purported terrorists, and declining to release a second batch of photographs depicting alleged U.S. maltreatment of Iraqi detainees. His stance on “Don’t ask, don’t tell” may be more surprising, because Obama aides have made clear the President wants the ban lifted eventually.

So, if the gay and lesbian community cannot find an ally in President Obama, the Democratic President who promised that he would work to repeal the law, who can they find an ally in?  Good question.  But, it is obvious that the answer doesn’t lie with the Democratic or Republican Parties.

The gay and lesbian community are finding out what the religious right figured out during President Bush’s term; you get lip service, a few scraps, but, [the Party] simply will not work on the issues at hand or they lose the ability to trumpet those issues during election time, and, turn that into votes.  Let’s not even look at DOMA and DADT, the Left’s abortion, though, and look at Constitutional issues.

Bringing back military tribunals?  President Obama halted the military tribunals in January, only to state months later he would bring them back.  Transparency?  Not with President Obama despite making that a key issue during the election.  The list goes on.  

Again, as buhdydharma asks, if not President Obama, then who?  Yet, to answer that question means we must realize what our government evolved into; a government bought by corporations, paid for by corporations, to work for the corporations.

I saw this coming when I posted this essay on Obama’s economic transition team.

I mean… come on… wtf!  Out of 17 people, you have 10 that have ZERO business being involved with trying to straighten out the economic mess we are in, 3 who seem to no qualification whatsoever other than being a politician, and CEO/Chair persons of big business who have lapped up Bush’s tax cuts/breaks for the wealthy AND big corporations!

Where are the Harvard economic scholars?  Where is Paul Krugman?  Where are new faces that have a clue?

Keep in mind everyone, this is ONLY the ECONOMIC team!  

I can’t WAIT to see who comes in on the DEFENSE team!  Should we expect to see?  Gen. Tommy Franks?  Paul Wolfowitz?  Henry Kissinger?

What about the LEGAL team?  Will Yoo be back as well?  Janet Reno?

All I can say is that this economic team better be there to answer ONE question and ONE question only, “TELL ME HOW YOU ALL SCREWED UP SO I CAN GET OTHERS TO FIX IT”, cause if this is the team that is to FIX the problem, “change” is soooo screwed.

How has that Geithner and Summers pick by Obama been for “change”?  But, if not President Obama, then who?  And that Judicial team I wondered about if those were his economic picks?  How’s Eric Holder doing on those investigations?  I talked about that here.  

With all we know, what we don’t know is even worse.

You think Obama and Biden will let that out?  Think again.

The problem here is self-perpetuating — let one crook off and another ultimately takes his place.  We saw it with Nixon to Reagan — Reagan to Bush Sr. — Bush Sr. to Bush Jr. — with many of the same actors coming back, time and time again.

Yet, to expose it to the public, you risk the entire establishment falling.

Bush and Cheney know this.  They know they will never be brought to justice in the United States.  Not because they don’t deserve it, but, simply, because every President who did bad things has walked, lest, the entire establishment falls.

Don’t fear Obama.  He should run a good Presidency.  Fear what comes AFTER Obama.  It can, and will be, worse — or didn’t we see Nixon’s break-in go to Bush Jr.’s torturing people?

Next?  All of us are going to be the enemy to the state…

But, if not President Obama, then who?  Because I don’t see President Obama winning a second term in 2012.

He’s losing support from his own base and he just started.  If you lose the more progressives of “the Left”, and, the far right surely isn’t going to vote for you, that just leaves “the middle” of both sides.  Face it, you aren’t going to please both sides of the middle.  And, popularity now isn’t going to continue as he continues his tack towards the right, which still won’t be enough to the right to satisfy Republicans when he runs in 2012 as a DEMOCRAT.

Now, does that mean come 2012 things will change if simply don’t vote for Obama?  Hardly.  It is totally clear that a candidate cannot get the endorsements, the money, the media coverage, unless they pander to the corporation.

So, where does that leave us?

In an answer?  Screwed.  As I posted here:

The nation has already lived through 8 years of a President who promised one thing and did the exact opposite in every regard, so, you’ll forgive us “jackasses” who aren’t waiting this time to be told, ” now, you can bend over and take it like a good citizen because you were stupid enough to believe me”.

When Bush got selected by the Supreme Court in 2000 to be President, my wife said, “well, the country has gotten what it deserved for voting for him — an oil crook who is going to ruin everything.”  She was right, and, she didn’t even have to wait to see if he’d do it before she called it.  She didn’t even need to see the writing on the wall when he stocked his first administration with oil cronies and idiots.  So, why should we wait now when the appointments by Obama are largely disappointing?

I posted here about the two real battles we have to fight if, IF, we are going to pressure Democratic politicians to actually act like it and get the corporate owned media to do more than be stenographers for right-wing talking points.  Do I believe those are the answer?  NO.  It is merely what we can do today.

The answer is this problem is a third Party.  Not the unorganized hogwash we’ve seen in the past. The best out of that was Ross Perot who took 18% of the vote in the 1990’s.  In fact, when have we gotten a viable candidate that wasn’t bought off?

Republican billionaires are financing the GOP.  They are financing the media attacks.  They are funding the candidates.  They are putting their money out to buy the media that doesn’t parrot their talking points.  What do liberal billionaires do?  When have liberal millionaire’s stuck their money into the pot to buy up media outlets to counter the GOP?  The GOP attacks “Hollywood elites” because they are mostly liberals, and, they are rich liberal’s.

The GOP, in its current form, is going to have a hard time “climbing out” of a hole they continually dig deeper, but, that doesn’t change the fact that Democratic politicians continually screw over the left in favor of the corporations that fund their campaigns for votes.

If not President Obama, then who?  How do you change the landscape?  You simply make a viable challenge to the establishment.  That takes money.  That takes organization.  That takes getting media outlets to get your message out the way you want it.

Corporations do not vote.  The people vote.  What we’ve seen is a choreographed kabuki dance where a Democrat and a Conservative tell the people what they want to hear while doing whatever the corporations want done.  In order to stop this kabuki dance, we the people must have a viable candidate that is funded, who is organized, and who has the ability to counter the incessant chatter by the corporate media.

When we get that, then you’ll know the who.  Until then, I can only tell you how.