This diary is a cost free call to action. If you've seen "The Seeker: The Dark is Rising" You know that it's an improbable film (fantasy) about a seventh son of a seventh son who learns that he is an immortal warrior whose fate it is to save the world from the rising darkness. For now, I'll ignore the misogynistic plot differences of seventh son vs. seventh daughter films to make this seemingly unrelated point: President Obama's economic plan is WORKING. Unfortunately, he's getting very little support for the things he's done right from some would be allies. He's also getting very little recognition from the traditional media, which has chosen to prop Sarah Palin and the teapublican party. The TM has seemingly devoted more time to regurgitating the half truths and flat out lies of the President's staunchest and least reputable critics than reporting his successes.
In order to win, the baggers, in particular, have to convince the angry mobs that: "The Dark Is Rising" (and you can take that any way you want to).
For the sake of regaining political power, the teapublican Party also has to convince the American public that the country is headed down an irreversible wrong course without their stewardship. Americans must forget and forgive the fact that Republicans drove the train we're on. They must deny/ignore the fact that President Obama and his team are fast and furiously laying new tracks to redirect the train and put us back on the right course!
The teapublican party has to convince the American public that we are in mortal danger and that the New Southern Strategy is the only thing that will save them from the uppity usurper(s). What they DON'T want Americans to know is:
The Economy is turning around and headed in the right direction:
A Bloomberg national poll in March found that Americans, by an almost 2-to-1 margin, believe the economy has gotten worse rather than better during the past year. The Market begs to differ. While President Obama's overall job approval rating has fallen to a new low of 44%, according to a CBS News Poll, down five points from late March, the judgment of the financial indexes has turned resoundingly positive. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is up more than 74% from its recessionary low in March 2009. Corporate bonds have been rallying for a year. Commodity prices have surged. International currency markets have been bullish on the dollar for months, raising it by almost 10% since Nov. 25 against a basket of six major currencies. Housing prices have stabilized. Mortgage rates are low. "We've had a phenomenal run in asset classes across the board," says Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist for Miller Tabak + Co., an institutional trading firm in New York. "If Obama was a Republican, we would hear a never-ending drumbeat of news stories about markets voting in favor of the President."
The bold emphasis is my own.
teapublicans don't want the American Public to know that the loss of jobs' trend has been completely reversed from the Republican led years:
They don't want the American Public to know:
That higher education will become more affordable - yes, even for the children of teapublicans.
That like, love, or hate the plan, U.S. taxpayers stand to make a profit of 8 billion dollars from the Citi- bailout.
That the Fed posted a record 52 billion dollar record profit (which could potentially be offset in the future, but it's still unclear of whether the offset will happen). 46.1 billion of that profit was moved to the treasury.
That HCR, the bill teapublicans hate so much despite the fact that it's PAID FOR and benefits them:
will cost us 938 billion over ten years, which is a far cheaper fix than the 2.1 trillion we were spending ANNUALLY, getting less for it each year. Health care costs were projected to head in the direction of more than 4 trillion annually without a fix - potentially killing our economy and leading to even more uninsured as more employers are unable to pay premiums.
requires insurance companies to spend 80% - 85% of money taken in through premiums on actual CARE, not administrative costs which include paying exorbitant 'bonuses' to administrators. Damned socialists!
will require insurance companies to give rebates to policy holders who spend less than 85% of their premiums in care costs.
will now allow an ANNUAL physical for Medicare patients, at no cost, instead of the ONE free physical - all others paid out of pocket.
will allow children through age 26 to remain on their parents' insurance plans.
will require members of both houses and their staffers to purchase insurance from the same exchanges as the American public - which means when WE get screwed, so will they and they'll be more motivated to fight for our families as they fight for their own.
will provide for long term care for those who need long term care or are the providers for those who require care.
will eliminate the 1/2 million people a year who declare bankruptcy because of excessive health care costs, in addition to the 5,000 a year who lose their homes for the same reason.
THIS is the crowd teapublicans are counting on:
Donald Bowles should be a winner, too. The self-employed Oklahoma City man and his wife can't afford insurance on an income that's usually below $30,000 a year, often much lower. They seldom go to a doctor. When they do, it's often a free clinic.
Bowles, 51, doesn't want the government's help. He'd rather take his chances and fend for himself. "I won't take Medicaid, and I will not pay the fine. They'll give me good health benefits in prison, I believe," he quips. "If you can't provide for yourself, why should everyone else provide for you?"
None of this crowd, to my knowledge, has yet demanded that the elected GOPers who are leading them down a thorny rose strewn path and who are encouraging their fear of their neighbors, their country, their government REFUSE the 'hand outs'. They're not checking or asking that their 'fear-filled' leaders refuse the benefits they say are destroying this country. Members of congress and the their staffers' health care costs are paid by those who work and have no insurance of their own (80 percent or greater of uninsured are working). Why not demand that they pay their costs from their own pockets? How many members of congress receive benefits from the 'insolvent' Social Security system they rail against? Does that matter to teapublicans?
What Americans should know by now is that the dark IS rising... on the teapublican side. The people who are great at campaigning, but lousy at leading, cannot win this next election cycle. They will remain unapologetic for their New Southern Strategy and attempts to set race relations back for the sake of winning. They will return us to a time of platitudes without action. They will work to reverse those policies that are moving us forward. President Obama has yet to receive the credit he deserves - and from those who live by fear, bigotry, hatred, and anger, he never will. It's 2008 all over again. The traditional media joins the teapublicans in pushing the meme that President will destroy us. They're printing and focusing on teapublican talking points. 'Networks' like CNN have decided to join them.
If he is not the 'dark rising', is President Obama the Seeker, whose improbable mission it is to stop the dark rising? If you asked him, I could only guess that he would refuse to consider himself the 'seeker' or 'savior' or anything else that suggests that we would not survive without him. That's teapublican territory. I think he would remind us that WE are the ones we have been waiting for. They will continue to spread hate and fear. We have only one simple task. SPREAD THE TRUTH! It's like sunlight. It disinfects those things that grow in the dark.
Twitter * MySpace * Facebook Whatever your social media, I ask to you please consider using it, DAILY! Instead of being reactive countering every lie or distortion the traditional media/teapublicans share, we can be proactive by posting and sourcing a truth a day (or as many as you can post in whatever time you have). There are thousands of us, who can potentially reach thousands, if not milliions more, each day. Facebook is now more widely accessed than google. "Obamabots" like myself know that we have a history of circumventing a hostile biased media. We've done it before, we can do it again!
The media and teapublicans underestimated us in 2008. Let's show them that they're underestimating us again in 2010.