If you're like me, you've suddenly found yourself in the ranks of the elite, the haughty, the obstinate, the intractable. All because you're unwilling to compromise.
"This country was founded on compromise. I couldn't go through the front door at this country's founding. And, you know, if we were really thinking about ideal positions, we wouldn't have a union." -- Compromiser in Chief Obama
Let's begin with the painfully historical inaccuracies of this statement. I'll grant you the founders were willing to negotiate over many things. But when it came to dealing with people who wanted to eviscerate everything they stood for, guess what, they were willing to fight, and not just against the English:
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom — go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!"
Samuel Adams, speech, Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776
Obama's next sentence is one of the most opprobrious statements I've ever heard him utter:
"I couldn't go through the front door at this country's founding. And, you know, if we were really thinking about ideal positions, we wouldn't have a union."
I confess, I'm not a historian, but I'm pretty sure abolition wasn't a result of a compromise between the North and South. I'm pretty sure all the people who died to register voters in the South during the civil rights movement weren't looking to compromise.
We are what we are as a nation day because there were people who were willing to stand up and say "For this, there will be no compromise. We won't stop fighting until we prevail." We didn't begin to approach the ideal of an egalitarian society until people fought to move us in that direction.
I know this president and many of his apologists like to stress the importance of compromising, of a little give and take in order to get things done. Some are even calling the president's most recent 'giveaway to the super-rich' (Mr. Trumpka, I salute you) a good deal for the working class.
A Good deal?!?! Are you seriously keeping a straight face when you post that in a diary? Have any of you who are lauding this 'compromise' been paying attention to all of the programs that are being decimated in communities throughout the country? Programs, I might add, that are most important in guaranteeing equal opportunity for the poor and working class.
Now maybe you live in a well-to-do community, where it's easy to replace the money that's no longer coming in from state and federal government. Where I'm living, schools are laying off employees, and the ones that are still employed haven't seen a raise in years, none of the county employees have. Kids that want to play sports now have to pay fees to participate. Too poor to pay? You don't get to play. 4-H summer program for kids from family farms? Sorry. Need help from a local agricultural extension agent? Travel to the capital.
I could keep going, literally. But the point I'm making should be clear enough. Unemployment benefits are important. But by not collecting taxes, especially from those who can afford it, we're decimating programs the working class depends on, like education. We're doing more harm in the long run to the middle class and the poor because we're letting Republicans and the Great Compromiser to starve them to death.
So am I sanctimonious purist for wanting to raise the taxes on the rich? For wanting to collect the requisite taxes to maintain things like education, Social Security, Medicare and the like? You're goddam right I am.
I volunteered for Obama. I donated to Obama. I voted for Obama. And all I've wanted in return is for him to at least fight for some of his campaign promises. Yet my 'repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.'
I been had, I been took, I been hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray, run amok!