THE DEMOCRATIC BASE IS ANEMIC IN THEIR ENTHUSIASM AND SUPPORT, (continued)

MY REACTION AFTER A VERY STINGING CRITICISM COMING FROM WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY GIBBS

Other issues that don’t score very well with us Progressives are the War in Afghanistan and the DODT and DOMA. There are some who want to continue this military engagement in Afghanistan and the motivation and reasons are now murky, at best unclear. We all thought that we went into Afghanistan to depose the Taliban who had sided with Al Qaida to facilitate the training and approved of their terrorist activities by giving them a safe environment in which to establish camps and conduct from their country the terrorist attacks of September 11.

Once the Taliban was gone from power after our invasion and war in that country and after the Bush administration bungled his capture by allowing Osama Bin Laden to escape…there was no other reason to remain occupying that country. During the Bush years, because their efforts and treasure was squandered in an unnecessary war in Iraq, the Afghanistan front suffered and we were losing ground there. We propped up a very corrupt and incompetent government (Karsai) and we have now seen an increase in troops and we are actually not making any progress but have seen casualties and reversals taken place since President Obama pledged more troops to that conflict. We progressives see this as just a continuation of the Bush war.

The dismal failure of the Obama administration to close Guantanamo and bring those terrorist to justice the way we do in America: by following the spirit and letter of the law has brought us additional disappointment.

We have also seen a horrid, racist and unconstitutional law signed and approved by a great number of racist Americans who are making the illegal aliens escape goats and is designed to awaken the fears and racist feelings some Americans have…yes, that is what we are talking about when we say “SHOW MEYOUR PAPERS” law in Arizona.

Clearly we need some kind of Immigration reform and we are not going to get one because it is far too divisive and much too beneficial to business to have so much cheap labor that it causes American wages to go down. They like it and wish it could be this way forever…it is good for profits.

Then there is still the DON’T ASK DON’T TELL crap still causing the military to expel perfectly capable and brave Americans from the military. It matters not that they serve honorably and valiantly but the fact that theirs is a gay sexual orientation bothers some homophobes within the military and that is why it will be put on the back burner.

The same could be said for DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) that was passed during the Bush years. This is a very contentious and discriminatory measure designed to humiliate and discriminate against gay people. The ultra-right wing and religious fanatics eat it up because they want to define marriage for the rest of us according to their erroneous interpretations of the Scriptures.

Sadly, we as a nation are still awarding contracts to unscrupulous and dishonest contractors like Halliburton and Cheney is still laughing all the way to the bank. We have not stopped this practice and I think we should at least try to put those contracts out for fair bidding if not eliminate some of them altogether and have our armed forces do what these contractors are supposed to be doing for four times less of what it would be if the military was doing it as it was intended in the first place.

Again, let me assure you that all these criticisms have been offered by other people and that at the end of the day, they amount to a hill of beans because the Obama administration is going to continue to do what they think is right and we progressive-liberals will end up voting Democratic anyhow because we don’t ever want to return to the Bush era.

THE DEMOCRATIC BASE IS ANEMIC IN THEIR ENTHUSIASM AND SUPPORT

MY REACTION AFTER A VERY STINGING CRITICISM COMING FROM WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY GIBBS

We voted and we were energized. We went to the polls with the HOPE and enthusiasm that was unequal in any other time in American history. We were hurting from the recently arrived banking and Wall Street crisis. But we had HOPE. We had hope because the Democrats and then candidate Obama told us that he stood for CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN.

There were very few dry eyes that election night when Obama was declared the winner of the elections. Even fewer dry eyes the day of his Inauguration as the 44^th President of our great nation. We breathed a sigh of relief; there was a light at the end of the tunnel albeit very dim and very distant, but we had HOPE.

It is now August of 2010 and there are a lot of disappointed folks out there. There are those who never did nor would ever support our President simply because he is black. There are others who would do anything, including hurting our country so that President Obama and the Democrats accomplish very little. These are people who have an allegiance to the Republican Party that is far stronger than their love for their country…damn the US if it means Obama gets a few programs passed.

Then there are the ever pesky Fundamentalist-Evangelicals…they are never happy with anything short of a theocracy. They showed their ability to mobilize great numbers of voters way back in the 2000 elections as they were used church and van buses to take people to the polls.

This religious meddling only grew to the point that there has been a blurring of the lines in the separation of church and state and these religious nuts think nothing of pressuring their congregations to donate great amounts of money to political candidates and to homophobic endeavors.

Almost immediately after taking office President Obama was willing to work on a bipartisan basis with those on the other side of the aisle…Republicans would not, they did not even make an effort to do that and instead stood steadfast on a position of saying NO to everything Obama and the Democrats proposed. Never mind that what he was doing was trying to rescue the country from economic disaster. Never mind that at the very least what these Republicans could have done was to cooperate and help out to clean and fix the mess they left America with.

And after taking office President Obama and the Democratic Congress embarked on a not too ambitious Health Care reform that from the very outset put away the idea of UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE and mostly ignored the PUBLIC OPTION which was favored by an overwhelming percentage of Americans.

One of my first clues that I was perceiving as erroneous was that this Healthcare legislation did not bring in any relief or alterations to the cost of medications and drugs. It was because the White House had already reached some kind of agreement to not touch them. I thought this was erroneous because one of the biggest drains of public treasure is the cost of drugs which can be reigned in with alternatives like cheaper generics or the ability to negotiate bulk purchases from manufacturers or buy them from other countries that are not screwing their users.

It would have been so terribly simple to accomplish what was needed: To simply extend MEDICARE to include everyone. No arguments, no objections, it was something the American people understood well and liked. SOCIALISM? Well it is sort of but most industrialized, advanced nations have some kind of program that gives their citizens medical care at a very low cost and surprisingly they get a lot more bang for their dollar. Canada is a good example, and why not admit it, Canada’s system is 100 times better than what we have here in America. Just ask and most Canadians and they would tell you that although there are some flaws in the system they would not exchange it for ours.

So when Gibbs said that we would not be happy unless we have something like what they have in Canada, yes he is right and fuck him and anybody who thinks differently because even if you call it SOCIALISM what they have up there is far better than what we have down here and they are not paying as much as we do…and you know what? Their life expectancy in Canada is an average of three years longer.

But Mr. Gibbs thinks that we should be impressed with the things Obama has accomplished so far. Some things we are and some things we think could have been better or more. But don’t ask us to be enthusiastic because we are not.