I remember a moon lit night in early November of 2008. There were crowds of young and old, white and black and all the shades in between. The people cheered until the downtown Chicago streets reverberated with their enthusiasm. Jesse Jackson cried, and when the cameras panned over his face, collectively, the nation breathed a sigh of relief. We had done what no one in the USA had expected was possible, certainly not in the fifties to the eighties, and certainly not in the nineties, but now in 2008, it was done. The United States of America had elected a black person to assume the nation's highest office.
And the people cheering had one unifying factor - a well spoken, intelligent man, who spoke to Progressives about Progressive issues, who had just torn the nation away from eight years of Republican rule and he did it with:
A SIXTY TWO PERCENT MANDATE
Expectations were high, and most of us who had been around the block a few times certainly understood that Barack Obama couldn't suddenly turn the problems into solutions overnight.
We eagerly awaited the inauguration. And while watching our 44th President take the oath of office and deliver his address to the nation, we heard these words:
"That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost, jobs shed, businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly, our schools fail too many -- and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet."
"The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works -- whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government."
"Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched. But this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control. The nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity, on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart -- not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good." (Applause.)
"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers -- (applause) -- our Founding Fathers, faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man -- a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience sake." (Applause.)
President Obama went on to end his speech with these words, an important reminder from days past:
"At the moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words to be read to the people:
"Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive... that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet ."
Everything that the President needed to do was in that speech. Note one word that did not come up, the word that the WH spokesperson stated last Thursday as being the most important guiding principle of the Administration: Compromise.
No on the day that he was elected, President Obama acted Presidential. He laid it out:
1) The nation faces a terrorist threat from outside
2) The economy is weak, because of GREED and IRRESPONSIBILITY
3) He says that: "Homes have been lost, jobs shed, businesses shuttered." So we have an expectation that something will be done about this.
4) In terms of health care reform, his emphasized point is this one: "Our health care is too costly"
But somewhere along the way, President Obama has neglected this fine outline of what needed to be done. Where his speech implies that Greed and Irresponsibility would be put in check by regulations, where it says that the people are suffering a great loss of homes, and jobs, and their businesses too, an expectation is put in place that his policies will protect those interests. Yes, somewhere along the line, in the last thirty months, he decided that colluding with the forces that We The People had tried to place in the dustbin of history was more important.
That compromise with a group of people whose members number less than 18% is more important than holding to the ideals he had run on., That making the progressive base happy was less important than upsetting the Tea Party members, the Republicans, Big Pharma and Big Insurers, Monsanto, and Wall Street and MIC interests.
I will end on this note, his other rather buried statement that is exceptionally important:
"The nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous."
It is time for President Obama to understand what he has done to this nation by forgetting the excellent concepts he had put forth in this speech. He still has another eighteen months in office. Maybe someone who reads this has the ability to wake him up.Otherwise, the People themselves, armed with the same manner of weapons that they used to obliterate first Old School Candidate Hillary Clinton, and then John McCain, will continue to use Facebook, Twitter and other social networks to continue the message now raging at "Primary Obama." (Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/357529270668/ )
And no one who understands Obama's betrayal can blame them.
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