I on the World

I recently received a survey from the Democratic National Committee, asking for my opinion on how the President and the Party were doing.  To coin an old saying, be careful what you ask for.  This was my response.:

Really want to know what we think?  Okay, here’s what we think.  People, who had such high hopes for a new president, for real change in Washington, for actual solutions to some of our problems, are now scratching their heads and wondering how they could have been so bamboozled, how new and fresh could turn so quickly into business as usual.  Don’t get me wrong, a McCain/Palin White House would have been a total disaster.  But even knowing that isn’t good enough.

Perhaps it’s true that the qualities one needs to become president are not the same as the qualities one needs to be president, but holding nothing more than popularity contests every four years is how we keep digging ourselves deeper and deeper into ruin.  Mr. Obama comes across as aloof, weak, naïve, and in over his head.  He has surrounded himself with the same garbage that’s long been wrong with Washington – Emanuel, Rubin, Bernanke, Summers, Geithner, to name just a few and, across the board, he is taking some very bad advice.  The result?  Instead of fixing the problems left behind by the Cheney/Bush regime, he’s compounding them.  Change we can believe in, eh?  When?  Where?

Campaign promises should be kept.  Or they should not be made.  Health care reform is a joke.  The economy, from most people’s perspective, is still on the brink of collapse.  Financial reform is even more laughable than health reform.  And I just can’t wait to see what an energy bill would look like!  Even with the kind of majorities in both houses that Republicans can only dream about – you can’t get anything meaningful done.

The only thing folks in Washington seem to care about is making sure their own pockets are lined.  If our government doesn’t give a damn about making the lives of ordinary Americans better, then everyone in Washington should just get the hell out.  How about Congressional term limits?  And true campaign finance reform?  As I’m sure you know, both are amazingly simple to do.  If the DNC really cared about this country instead of just getting more Democrats elected to office, you’d insist on it.  That is, if you aren’t just as corrupt and incompetent as the other side.

And while you’re at it, get us the hell out of Iraq.  Get us the hell out of Afghanistan.  Enough good men and women are already dead.  Enough money has already been squandered.  And then there’s foreign aid, a wonderful thing, to be sure – but don’t you think it should be dispensed only after a country first takes care of its own homeless and starving and sick?

Al Qaeda isn’t going to destroy America.  It won’t have to.  We’re doing a first-rate job of it all by ourselves.  And China – the next world super-power – is waiting in the wings, just watching it happen. . .and maybe giving it a little nudge now and again.

We want universal health care.  We want financial reform that will curb greed and never allow anything like this decade’s debacle to happen again.  We want a serious jobs bill.  We want clean energy now – not after every lake and bay and gulf and ocean has been destroyed.  In other words, fix what you were elected to fix, or a lot of us will be looking elsewhere in 2010 and 2012.

I believed. Yes, I did.  I believed Mr. Obama would bring change to Washington.  But other than turning the White House black, he didn’t.  He made a lot of promises.  He didn’t keep them.  He said no more business as usual.  Then he stacked his administration with the same old Washington entrenched – Emanuel, Gates, Geithner, Holder, Panetta, Summers. . .the list is endless.

Then there was the bought-and-paid-for Congress, heralding the “landmark” health care reform bill – except there wasn’t any reform in it.  And now we have the “landmark” financial reform bill – except, again, there isn’t any reform in it.  And I can’t wait for the “landmark” energy reform bill – can you?  Health insurance companies are still raking in the dough.  Banks are still screwing the people.  And the oil companies, well, they’ll just keep on destroying the planet in the name of greed.

Does all this mean the president is weak?  Of course it does.  Does it mean he’s scared?  Probably.  Does it mean he’s naïve?  Undoubtedly.  It also means he will not be elected to a second term.  Certainly not by me, and millions of others just like me.  You know the old saying — fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.

Word to the wise — Republicans, find a moderate.  None of your teabag extremists will do, so get smart, find a moderate for 2012.

Okay, I admit it.  I donated to, campaigned in favor of, and voted for Barack Obama, and I’m not exactly thrilled about it so far.

He promised transparency.  I guess that meant he was going to have the windows at the White House washed on a regular basis.  He promised an end to lobbyists in the White House.  I guess he meant that lovely white house you can see when you’re heading down I-95 past Emporia, Virginia.  He promised the dog he would get for his kids would be a shelter mutt.  I guess he meant some other kids.  He promised to close Guantanamo.  I guess he meant after he found another galaxy that would take all the detainees.  He promised to reverse Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.  I guess he meant in the Irish military.  He promised to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.  I guess he must have been talking about some other defense project.  He promised to end the war in Iraq.  I guess he meant just before he comes up for reelection.  He promised a whole new focus on clean energy.  I guess he meant after drilling the remaining life out of the planet.  He promised there would be no place for torture in America.  I guess he meant after he exonerated everyone who had anything to do with it.  He promised health care reform.  I guess he meant health care revision, where the people get screwed and the insurance companies get richer.  And most of all, he promised change – change in the way Washington works.  Oops!  I just blinked.  Did I miss it?  Granted, there are limitations to what one person can do, but I don’t know whether I’d want to vote for him again.

The problem is, I look across at the republicans, and I see. . .nothing.  No ideas, no solutions, no leadership.  I see the token black head of the RNC, who is only marginally less than incompetent.  I see the House leader and his runner-up (John Boner and Eric Can’t-er) who are so devoid of character and substance that I wonder how they keep getting elected.  I see the Senate leader and his sidekick (Mitch McCon-ell and John Kil) whose only mission in life seems to be putting an uppity president in his place by just saying no.  And I see intellectual midgets like Palin and Bachmann urging a group of undereducated, under-informed, unintelligent teabags into the kind of hatred and violence I thought had died with the Sixties.

Show me a leader who cares more about the people of this country than lining his own pockets.  Show me a leader who speaks for all Americans, not just Wall Street or Main Street or Rich Street or White Street.  Show me a leader who can take us from the brink of disaster to redemption – because that’s exactly where we are.  Show me a leader who understands that.  I’ll vote for him.

In Washington, that is.

Except, of course, when the Republicans are in the majority.  Then the majority rules.  They rule very poorly for the American people, and very well for their special interests.  But they rule.

The Democrats, on the other hand, can’t rule at all.  As the minority, when threatened with the nuclear option, they caved.  As the majority, when it’s clear the Republicans are simply being obstructionists, they caved.

When the only thing a politician thinks about is reelection rather than representation, there is no governing.

All in all, a dismal failure for the American people.

The Democrats can call what they’re trying to do health care reform but it isn’t health care reform.  It’s health care insurance and pharmaceutical appeasement.  It’s let’s pass something because we campaigned on passing something, and maybe the people won’t realize what we’re passing is appeasement, not reform.  The problem is, it isn’t fooling very many anymore.  Not a lot of change to believe in.

Yes, I voted for Obama.  Yes, I believed that change was coming to Washington.  Yes, I was a fool.

I’m a 71-year-old straight woman who thinks that the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell military policy has been a 17-year-old abomination.  Obama campaigned on repealing it in his first year in office.  He didn’t.  In his State of the Union address, he promised to repeal it in his second year in office.  He won’t.  Not when he can send his military brass up to Capitol Hill to suggest that it has to be studied for yet another year.  What’s to study?  Do we really need to study the homophobes in the military for another year to figure out that the reason they’re homophobes is because they are in doubt about their own sexuality?  I don’t think so.

We’re losing too many valuable people when our military is already stretched to the breaking point.  The nonsense has to stop.  Congress can take care of it on its own.  For the sake of what’s right, let’s hope they do.  For the sake of what’s just, let’s hope they have more balls than Obama.

Whatever you might think of the recent SCOTUS ruling on campaign contributions, one thing is abysmally clear — the collapse of America is coming closer and closer.  Why, you ask?  Because, without a true functioning government — and in this country, that means a government that is of the people, by the people, and for the people — there is no bottom to corpocracy, to greed, to corruption, to disaster.

And the sad truth is, it’s so easy to fix.  And the people who shudder at the very mention of campaign finance reform are, sadly, those who thrive on corpocracy, greed and corruption.  And, tragically, many of them are your senators and congresspeople.  They like the special interests.  They like the special attention they receive.  They like the money that pours into their coffers.  They didn’t seek public office to give a hoot about their constituents — they sought public office to enrich themselves on the backs of their constituents,  to make career changes that would, one way or another, set them up for life.  The worst of the worst at it get caught out and kicked out.  The rest get away with it.  Are there some good ones in the bunch?  I’m sure there are, and I can probably name them.  But they’re too few to make any real difference.

Don’t agree?  Okay, let’s put it to the test.  A couple of years ago, I suggested a simple, winning solution to my own congressman.  I suggested that a designated sum of money be transferred from every taxpayer’s tax return to a national, interest-bearing election account, and then proportionally allotted to every legitimate candidate for national office every two years.  That’s it.  No other contributions accepted.  At any time.  For any reason.

Just think what that would do to clean up the dirt that is the American government today.  Our senators and congresspeople would be beholden to no one but their constituents.  They could admit that global warming does indeed exist.  They could hasten the planet on the path to real sustainability.  They could tell health insurance companies where they could take their business if they didn’t treat their people right.  They could suggest to pharmaceutical companies that gouging their constituents was not okay.  They could tell big banks and Wall Street that their heydays were over.  They could perhaps then honestly claim the moral integrity to lead the world.  What a novel concept!

Oh yes, and what did my congressperson do in response to my suggestion?  He ignored it.

Just what does it say about a Democratic majority elected to change government barely a year ago, when a Republican in the bright blue state of Massachusetts can get elected to the US Senate by campaigning on the need for change?

It says that a lot of people had better start taking some long hard looks in the mirror.  It says “change” is more than a word, more than a concept.  It says winning isn’t the end, it’s the beginning.  It says govern or get out.

. . .the only problem is — what we have is a joke.  A big, sad, expensive joke on the American people.  Oh, they’ll try to sell it all right, as hard as they can.  They’ll try to tell you about all the money it will save and all the people it will help.  They’ll pat themselves on the back and wax eloquent like the carnival barkers they really are, shilling for the carnival owners — the health care industry.  But don’t be fooled.

Remember all the parrots, reciting that wonderful-sounding phrase “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”?  Well, now we get what they really meant — “Don’t let the good be the enemy of taking whatever we can get, and selling it to the American people as though it was something.”

Maybe it’s time that this country went the way of ancient Greece and ancient Rome and all the others who imploded from their own greed and corruption and selfishness and stupidity.

I’m constantly amused by those who think they are somehow demeaning Democrats by insisting that they represent the Democrat Party.  Have you heard them?  The southern dimwits, I call them, because they all seem to come from that part of the country.  Now I suppose you could say that they represent the undereducated class of Americans.  But what they really represent, sadly, is the new face of the Republic Party.