A DEMOCRATIC MANIFESTO:
Launching a Democratic Primary Challenge to Barack Obama
Someone has to say it: The Emperor's Clothes are not those of the Democratic Party! Yes, We Can has become Yes, We Caved! The Audacity of Hope has become The Dismay of Despair. For those and similar reasons, this American announces his launching of a Democratic Party primary challenge to incumbent Barack Obama.
Perhaps Barack Obama has indeed tried his best in the Presidency -" but his best is just not good enough for us Democrats, or indeed for the Nation as a whole. After eight years of Bush the Second, including two very costly and unwinnable wars; major financial and economic disasters; the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita debacles; tax breaks for the rich and super-rich while many millions more fall below the poverty line; the sanctioning of torture and endless violations of our civil and constitutional rights; and the further degradation of our natural environment to benefit mega-corporations, in 2008 America clearly said: Enough -"more than enough! It's time to elect a Democratic President and Congress, and start over. How well has that worked for us, over the past two years?
We're still in both of those two costly and unwinnable wars, and whether or not we are even making progress, however that may be defined, is dubious. While it is claimed that we no longer have a combat role in Iraq, we have tens of thousands of troops there. In
Afghanistan, at best we are fighting a holding action, while our supposed-ally Pakistan is secretly helping the opposition. Our Commander-in-Chief procrastinates while breaking his word that he would put an end to these attempts to impose our will on other nations.
The BP oil spill disaster was handled no better than were Katrina and Rita; we were told little of the real truth about how extensive it was, while obvious steps which might well have mitigated its effects were either ignored or taken far too late. On top of all this, Barack Obama had the temerity to try to get oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, and even off the Alaskan Coast, renewed in the literal wake of the BP disaster. It was only the outrage of the nation which caused such plans leading to more disasters to be dropped.
The irony of much of the first two Obama years is that the opposition, from the Tea Party to remaining other Republicans, are smirking at Barack Obama's capitulations to them. No Democrat should ever have been willing to pay the price of another two years (and likely permanency, as a result) of those dastardly Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest of us, in order to get an extension of unemployment compensation; undoubtedly Republicans would have yielded to the need for another year or more of unemployment benefits had Barack Obama stuck to some semblance of Democratic principles. Well, look, to quote one of his favorite expressions, he did not stick to those principles; rather, he caved in.
But, then, it is not just the big issues on which Barack Obama has failed us Democrats. Recalling that old song, Little Things Mean A Lot, we have been deluged with so many little-and-not-so-little cases where Barack Obama and his staff could have made the right decisions, but instead failed to do so. Take communication with the public, for example. Having written letters, sent faxes and now emails, and made phone calls to every White House beginning with Richard Nixon's, I can state unequivocally that this present one has the worst communication record of any I've seen -" and it's not just this President, either. I've sent communications to Vice President Biden, Treasury Secretary Geithner, former Chief Economist Larry Summers, present consumer watchdog Elizabeth Warren, and other top Obama staffers -" and nobody answers, ever. It almost seems a conspiracy.
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