To say there has been some debate about the effectiveness of our President within progressive circles is somewhat of an understatement. What is not up for debate, however, is the fact that we have seen some great accomplishments in his two years as President.
It is equally undeniable that Barack Obama has compromised far more than he should with a Republican Party that has had no idea of what "good faith negotiations" are since before Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House.
Therein lies the problem.
If you turn back the clocks to 2008, the Republican Party was so damaged by the Bush/Cheney presidency that there were a few people calling for the party to change its name to distance itself from the miserable failure of the Bush presidency.
Oh, how quickly things have changed.
While he has accomplished many things, he has failed to accomplish some other things because of either an unwillingness or an inability to fight.
And to paraphrase General George S. Patton, Mr. President, apparently you don't know any more about real fighting than you do about fornicating.
Mr. President, you'd better learn pretty quickly, because the time for you to fight is right now.
A year and a half ago, on June 19, 2009, Bill Maher absolutely, positively nailed it.
He's your president, not your boyfriend.
Last week in this space, I criticized President Obama for not fighting corporate influence enough, and it made some liberals very angry. My phone rang off the hook, my email filled up, and Nancy Pelosi got so mad her face moved.
Look, folks, I like Obama too; I'm just saying, let's not make it a religion. As far as you folks on the Right that think that we're now somehow in league --- we're not in league! I was criticizing Obama for not being hard enough on the corporate douchebags you live to defend. I don't wanna be on your team. Pick another kid.
So I stand by my words, but there is another side to the story. And that is, that every time Obama tries to take on a Progressive cause, there's a major political party standing in his way --- the Democrats.
Now, people talk a lot about a third political party in America. We don't need a third party; we need a first party. You go to the polls and your choices are the guy who voted for the first Wall Street bailout, or the guy who voted for the next ten.
This week we're hearing that a public option for health care is unlikedly because it doesn't have the support of enough Democrats. Even Ted Kennedy's plan, Ted Kennedy, yeah, leaves 37 million uninsured.
This is because we don't have a Left and a Right party in this country anymore. We have a center-Right party and a crazy party. And over the last thirty-odd years, Democrats have moved to the Right, and the Right has moved into a mental hospital.
So what we have is one perfectly good party for hedge fund managers, credit card companies, banks, defense contractors, big agriculture and the pharmaceutical lobby --- that's the Democrats.
And they sit across the aisle from a small group of religious lunatics, flat-earthers, and Civil War re-enacters who mostly communicate by AM radio and call themselves the Republicans. And who actually worry that Obama is a Socialist. Socialist? He's not even a Liberal. I know he's not, because he's on TV. And while I see Democrats on television, I don't see actual Liberals. And if occasionally you do get to hear Ralph Nader or Noam Chomsky or Dennis Kucinich, they're treated like buffoons.
OK, these are not 3 of the world's more charismatic men, but then nobody's going to confuse Newt Gingrich with Zach Efron, and I have to look at his fat face on TV more often than that free credit report song.
Shouldn't there be one party that unambiguously supports cutting the military party? A party that is straight up in favor of gun control, gay marriage, higher taxes on the rich, universal healthcare, legalizing pot and steep direct taxing of polluters?
These aren't radical ideas. A majority of Americans are either already for them, or would be if they were properly argued and defended. And what we need is an actual Progressive party to represent the millions of Americans who aren't being served by the Democrats. Because, bottom line, Democrats are the new Republicans.
It's like when some Chinese company buys the name of a great old American brand and slaps it one some cheap crap. You buy it out of reflex and its only later that you think "Wow, I didn't even know Woolworth's made dildos."
We need you to fight back against these Republicans, because they sure as hell aren't going to give you an inch until you prove that you're willing to draw blood. Remember, Mr. President, which party is the enemy in this war against the middle class.
Again, paraphrasing Patton:
I don't want to get any messages saying, "I am holding my position." We are not holding a Goddamned thing. Let the Republicans do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy's balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all of the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go through him like crap through a goose; like shit through a tin horn! ... We'll win this war, but we'll win it only by fighting and by showing the Republicans that we've got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We're not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we're going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. ... War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours.
If you can't fight our enemies here at home...
how can we expect you to fight the enemies we've got outside our borders?
You've got to get your shit together, Mr. President. And if your conscience won't permit you to conduct this operation, we'll find somebody who can.