There is a meme developing (or raging full blown) in the comment threads of many diaries on this site, and in not one, not two, but three diaries currently on the rec list as of the time I wrote this.
It goes something like this: If you criticize Obama, you hate him. To be a good democrat, you have to support him.
No. I . Do. Not.
UPDATE x 2: Update 1 is at the bottom, a minor ( or major ) spelling whoopsie. I've hopefully corrected it.
Update 2 is this: It really may be too much to hope for, but a lot of responses seem to have either not read past the title, or cherry picked statements out of the body of the diary and ignored the context and argument that I (attempted) to present. Please, please comment. Disagree, hell flame meh. But at least read it, it ain't that long.
Ty.
I do not support Barack Obama. I do not work for him. I do not owe him my allegiance, my servitude, my unquestioning loyalty. I do not worship him. He is not my king, my pope, or my savior.
What I support are a series of policies and positions that I believe are right and good and just. These policies and positions align most closely politically with what would be termed "liberal" so I consider myself a liberal. The political party in our dual-party system that most closely reflects my own beliefs is the Democratic party, so I consider myself a democrat.
Barack Obama was the Democratic party's candidate in the last election. That alone entitles him to my vote.
It does not entitle him to my unwavering support.
Barack Obama EARNS my support in-so-far as he is the executor of the policies that I believe in. That far and no farther.
For example, I believe that gay people in America should have the right to marry the person that they love, as long as they are both consenting adults. If Barack Obama works towards bringing that policy into effect, he has my support. If he actively opposes that policy, he loses my support, at least to a degree. And if he does nothing, or only makes speeches about that policy but takes no concrete action on it, it is my right and I believe my duty to ask why not, and to prod him to do so.
I of course understand that Barack Obama inherited a very dysfunctional national government from the previous administration(s). I am aware of the magnitude of the difficulties he faces. On a human level, I sympathize. I do not however accept that as an excuse for mediocre performance or lack of effort. Being President of the United States of America entails a level of difficulty that few people can endure, much less master. If he wasn't up to the task, he shouldn't have run for the office.
Since he has taken office, he has made good on a number of campaign promises, and has thus effectively executed some of the policies that I expected him to. He passed a stimulus bill aimed at halting the god-awful economic mess that was left by Bush. He passed health-care reform, perhaps the most important domestic legislation in 50 years. These were policies I agreed with, and I supported his efforts. But in several areas of each - the size and scope of the stimulus for instance, the lack of a push for single-payer/public option/even the popular medicare-for-all proposal in the HRC bill, he fell short of my expectations. It is my right and my duty to say so, and to continue to push for those oversights to be corrected in the future.
The current crisis in the Gulf was certainly not his fault in any way, shape, or form, and I don't believe any sane person has suggested that it was. Barack Obama was not responsible for the Deepwater Horizon disaster. What he IS responsible for is how he's handled it. And in my opinion, he has handled it very ineffectively.
Any casual observer of American politics and the American economy must, I believe, quickly come to the conclusion that large companies in ANY industry are dominated almost entirely by self-interest. The desire to maintain and increase profit is the overriding directive. All other concerns are secondary. In other words, Republicans may believe that the market self-regulates, and that all ills are corrected by market forces. I do not. I believe that, without government intervention, most business would happily pollute the environment, abuse their workers, endanger their consumers, and flout any law, all in the name of profit. I'll go farther - I believe that industry, without government regulation, would happily see 8 year olds working textile looms, like my great-grandfather did. I believe coal miners would be forced to spend their pathetically meager earnings in the company store. I believe Big Business would happily have black men in chains picking cotton, if not for government intervention.
I do not trust Big Business.
And yet, when faced with an incredibly costly disaster of their own making, Barack Obama turned the show over to BP. Yes, he said BP would be responsible for costs. But he made BP the face of this disaster.
And they lied to us.
Time and time again they lied to us. 1000 barrels a day. 5000 barrels a day. Oh fine we have to turn the camera on? 15000 barrels a day. 20000 barrels a day. 30000 barrels a day. 500000 barrels a day. 60000 barrels a day. They lied to us. I know that the latest, updated figures have come from the government and not BP. But what has NOT come from the government is the acknowledgement we were lied to. Obama has been silent on that.
There are no plumes. No one has found plumes. It depends on what the definition of "plumes" is. from BP.
And Obama has been silent on that.
Soldiers turn away our free press, and say it's under BP's orders. And Obama is silent. Clean up workers are told not to wear respirators because it looks bad, and Obama is silent. People who volunteered to help fall ill, and Obama is silent. Booms are laid down as photo ops, offers of international aid are turned down or ignored, images of dead wildlife are suppressed. And Obama is silent.
And here we are, in this warming world, confronted with the utter destruction of one of our nations's most precious regions, a disaster of our own making, as hundreds of livelihoods, whole ecologies and economies, American institutions are destroyed for decades, or centuries. And what do we get from Obama, on the night he addresses the nation?
A campaign speech.
A diary currently on the rec list asks, what did i want him to say?
Where do I begin?
I wanted him to say "My fellow Americans, I am here-by taking charge of this operation. No longer will BP control the clean-up, the press, the flow of information, the images, the equipment our selfless volunteers are allowed to wear. I am in charge now, and things will get better."
I wanted him to say "The greedy bastards who caused this mess no longer have a job. I here-by nationalize all assets of British Petroleum that exist within the purview of the United States of America. All proceeds from these holdings will go to the clean-up and recovery of the Gulf of Mexico."
I wanted him to say "I am devoting X amount of federal funding to saving the endangered species that this spill threatens with utter annihilation and extinction. If we have to map their damn DNA and recreate them in the future, then we will do so. But this abomination of our own making will not wipe one species from the face of the earth."
I wanted him to say "The age of oil is over. There is no no higher priority for the United States of America than to end our dependence on fossil fuels. By the year 2016, as my second term ends, we will no longer need oil or coal to power us."
I wanted vision. I wanted facts. I wanted tangible, concrete things - numbers, strategies, specific plans.
All i got were words.
So no, I do not support Barack Obama. He, in this area more than any so far, is failing to execute the policies and positions that I expect him to execute. I have not given up hope, but that hope is not that he will save me - it is that he will live up to my expectations.
But no, I do not hate Barack Obama. I do not know him, and I am not in the habit of hating people I do not know. Nor am I in the habit of loving them. I imagine, when I think of him, that he is a very nice man. A loving father. A brilliant mind. I imagine that he and Michelle have fascinating conversations about a book they read, or an international incident that the rest of us are not privy to. I imagine him as strong, but kind. Thoughtful, but forceful.
But these are fantasies, fed to me by television and my own desires. I do not know the man. As such, I cannot say that I care about him on a personal level, more than I care about any other stranger. But the positions I hold, the policies I believe in - these are dear to me because they are born of my own understanding and intellect, not television and wishes.
I do not support Barack Obama. I do not stand shoulder to shoulder with him. If I have his back, it is only because he and I are traveling the same path, and because with my help, he leads. If he steps off of the path, it is my duty to push him back on it.
If he decides to leave the path entirely, I will not follow.
UPDATED: Because I'm a piss poor speller. Apologies.