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The Washington Post is reporting that when he met with President Obama a couple weeks ago, Bernie Sanders told him that he would fight to reject the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) in the Democratic party platform. President Obama's response was quoted as, "I won't allow it."
Is this supposed to be some kind of new winning campaign slogan, "I Won't Allow It?"
Seriously, folks, at what point did "Yes, We Can" transition to "I WON'T ALLOW IT?"
Well, we'll tell you exactly when that happened in a moment.
But first, if on the other hand, you are still interested in standing on some kind of principle, why not request our new Bernie Forever cap, which you can find on this page?
And most importantly keep encouraging everyone you know to continue to speak out against the TPP.
OK, so we're going to take a little trip in our wayback machine here, actually not so far way back really.
The year is 2009, it is the 11th day of January, 9 days before Barack Obama would even be inaugurated for this first term as president. We are in a television studio and George Stephanopoulos is asking him if he will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate torture and illegal wiretapping by the outgoing Bush administration.
The response?
"We need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards."
The reason Stephanopoulos was even asking the question was because President elect Obama had invited the American people to come to his incoming transitional website and tell him what issues were most important to them. And that was the number ONE question.
Why do we remember all of this so well?
Because WE made that the number one question.
WE did that!
Yes, that's right, our resource wrote the server forwarding code to pipe all those submissions by real people into the Obama website, partnering with Bob Fertik with democrats.com who drafted the actual question, and to help mobilize their base as well.
And right then and there, on Jan 11, 2009, we knew we were all screwed like a pooch. No later than that day "Yes, We Can" was heard by all with ears to hear as nothing but a cynical and disingenuous campaign slogan. The truth is, it was never anything more than that.
In just the same exact way that the Democratic party is now refusing to take a position on the TPP, Barack Obama even before he set foot in the White House refused to take a position on war crimes. And there were no prosecutions of these crimes, not even an investigation, because as president he personally would not ALLOW it.
They speak now of a "diversity of views" on the TPP. Was there a diversity of views in the Democratic party on war crimes too?
In just the same exact way, single payer was never seriously considered as an option for health care reform, not even a vote on a limp so-called "public option" was permitted in the end, because President Obama would not allow it.
And now President Obama dictates that he will not allow opposition to the TPP in the Democratic party platform?
It just so happens we've got some bad news for the president. It's not his Democratic party anymore. He's not running for office this November and there will be another nominee. Indeed, under his "leadership" of not "allowing" what the people really want he has converted about the biggest congressional majorities the Democrats ever had into about the smallest minorities.
Some people are worried about repudiating the president??
If the loss of both chambers of Congress by such lopsided counts was not a repudiation, we don't know what is. He's very lucky that the 2012 Republican nominee was such a smarmy creep, the last person who could complain about the health care bill, and further fortunate that Pakistan already had Bin Laden in custody in a restricted compound so he could be shot as a campaigning trophy like a fish in a barrel. Otherwise President Obama would have lost his own reelection.
And now the new presumptive Democratic nominee has a choice, a "hard choice" to borrow a coined phrase. She can embrace a REPUBLICAN policy agenda, because that's what the TPP is, or she can be the next president of the United States.
She can honor her stated opposition to the TPP by restating it in HER OWN platform, or she can kiss all the battleground states in the Rust Belt goodbye, and go down for this president . . . again . . . like so many former members of Congress before her.
Whose party is it, his . . . or now hers?
Obama don't allow no TPP opposin' round here.
Obama don't allow no TPP opposin' round here.
We don't care what Obama don't allow, gonna oppose TPP anyhow.
Was Clinton's opposition to the TPP ever sincere, or was it just expedient?
Whose Democratic party is it really? If it's just the other party of the corporate special interests, pushing behind the scenes for lame duck session TPP passage, we frankly fear the worst in November.
And believe us when we tell you, that is NOT the result we want, which is what compels us to keep speaking out now.
And after you submit the action page, feel free to request one of our "Expressway To Trade Hell TPP" bumper stickers, or any of our other progressive policy change message items.
Of you can get one directly from this page for a contribution of any amount.
(Article changed on July 4, 2016 at 15:14)
The Pen is a real person, and the creator of UTalk, a revolutionary new internet radio interface, to make advocacy messages as facile and easy as possible. With this goal in mind we pioneered one click action pages in the political realm, now (more...)
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