Mr. Obama You Do Not Know what You Do.
There are a lot of us who believed that "change you can believe in" actually meant what it clearly says. I, for one, am intensely disappointed. More than disappointed, devastated. Mr. Obama, you need to step back from the fete the thunderous accolades and rethink what you are doing, why you are where you are. As you said in your own inaugural address, "it is time put aside childish things."
Some of the childish things you need to put away are the lack of seriousness with which you address this country’s trust in government. You have violated that trust and the consequences will be serious. To be blunt Mr. Obama you are fucking up royally. You are selling us who endured the last eight years of a deliberate attempt to sell this country to the highest bidder with only the hope that a change would come. I walked the streets of Orlando Florida knocking on doors trying to get people to vote for you, something I have never done for any candidate before. I had, not particularly high, but realistic, expectations of what you would do. I watch CSPAN way too much and I understand the limitations that a president faces with an egregious and self aggrandizing congress.
My own newly elected representative, Kosmas, has already betrayed my belief that in electing someone other than Tom Feeney some measure of ethics would be elevated. My disappointment is heavy on my heart.
But that does not preclude you from doing the right thing when it is totally within your power. The way you are dealing with the current economic crisis and the bankers who brought all of this down on our heads is reprehensible. Everything that you are approving that your Secretary of the Treasury is doing is undermining any trust in government that resided among those of us who had hope. Go ahead, go to Europe and get the accolades for ending torture and closing Guantanamo Bay. This just brings us back to some semblance of what we were before Bush trashed our principles. This does not advance anything. Welcome to the baseline. Ok, we are where we were eight years ago ethically. Big whoop. This is not a step forward, this is a reassertion that being an American means something, if what beyond not torturing people, is not clear. Big
whoop. You think that is some kind of achievement? Pretty weak damn achievement, to reassert that what was true since World War II was true is not much of an achievement. It just shows how low the bar is now set. Jeesh!
Mr. Obama you need to understand a little thing called legitimacy. Governments tend to take legitimacy for granted.... Until it is gone.... And then ..... You are taking legitimacy for granted. You are thinking that you can do whatever you want in collusion with the most moneyed people in this culture and then go dancing.... It ain’t gonna work. I can go to my southern white trash white boy wannabee roots when I want to.
A lot of us out here work hard and raise our kids without a lot of help from anyone and still try to believe. But you, Mr. Obama, are squandering our beliefs and our support. The big bankers have got to go. You have got to go into all the toxic, excuse me, "legacy assets" and find the fraud and deception, and clean it up and put in place oversight that WILL NOT let this happen again. If you do not, then you will not win reelection. Period. Those of us who supported you last time will not support you again. Period. You can use your PR people to scream that the Republicans are as bad as we think they are all you want but you will not have our support. You do not understand that betrayal is the worst thing you can do.
We know what Republicans want, to make rich people richer, to create an oligarchy. But we did not think that is what you were going to do. If you keep on the track you are on, then that is going to be the result. Period. Go dancing. Fine. Dance with Geithner, dance with Summers. It’s the dance of doom.
If you can tell I am really pissed off congratulations. I feel totally betrayed.
And betrayal is the worst that can happen. American had promise. Goddammitt. Real promise. God dammitt. And after the last eight years of trying to destroy that promise you offered hope. Damn you. Nothing hurts worse than hope dead. And hope is dead. It certainly ain’t change I can believe in.
Put the big banks into receivership. Examine the "legacy assets" whatever you call them. Prosecute the fraud! Dammitt!
You want us to keep believing, just on words, not actions. It ain’t gonna happen.
I saw Bill Black on Moyers and all it did was confirm what I already knew. I watch CSPAN and the bogus questions from conger$$. I read Krugman, Baseline Scenario, etc.... Damn you, Obama, you who took my support for granted. There are people who deserve to go down and you are too chicken-shit to put them down. Damn you!
You want a polity, a population that supports collective action but you deliberately deny the basis upon which that polity can believe in legitimacy. Damn you! You know what you are doing and you deserve what you are going to get, a one term presidency, the right wing nut cases taking over and then the end. As an anthropologist I know how long state level societies tend to last, about 200 years, and you, Mr. Obama, are going to ensure that this one is not going to go much beyond the trend line. And all because you would not take on the goddamn big money ass holes. Chicken-shit! Have a nice dance, it won’t last long.