Today, I am grieving.
I am grieving the loss of the dream that I carried from January, 2008 until just the past few weeks.
Today is the first day I am willing to admit, to myself or anyone else, that the dream has died. I'm a big believer in redemption, so I'm still not denying the possibility that it could somehow be revived before the 2012 Dem primaries, but it sure feels dead today.
Today is the first day that the thought of supporting a primary opponent to Barack Obama was even allowed to enter my consciousness to be considered as a possibility.
It was such an uplifting dream.
And I had waited -- So. Damned. Long. -- for that 40-year-old dream to be resuscitated. For my atrophied, battered, disillusioned, cynical political soul to have something to believe in, instead of just settling for whatever crumbs it could find to subsist on, whatever gray presence was least stultifying among the choices on the national scene, whatever few creative ideas or interesting words could be found among the same-old, age-old repetitive promises and speeches that appeared to be saying something, when they were really saying nothing at all.
The hell of it is that he really could have done it. The tragic truth that is killing me right now is that he really could have done what he said he would do.
Barack Obama, more than any other human being who has lived on this planet during my lifetime, held in his hand the ability to make that dream a reality -- for this country and for this world. He had the vision, he had the ideas, and he had the support of billions of people. BILLIONS of people. How many individuals in the history of the world have ever had billions of people cheering them on, believing in them, contributing money and time and sweat and passion, saying "Yes, we will join with you to do this thing you're trying to do"?
I don't know if he never meant it, or if he meant it but he and his team didn't pivot fast enough or nimbly enough when Election Day passed and he discovered that not only had he inherited the world's biggest shitpile, but the shitpile was in flames. I don't know if someone sat him down in the Oval Office and made it really clear that if he did what he said he would do, he would be killed (the Malloy Theory). I don't know if it's because he didn't have good PR on the stimulus and that undermined his support and made everything harder.
I don't know.
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What I do know is that it has all added up. Not prosecuting torture. Not protecting privacy rights. Trading away any negotiating room on health care by refusing to acknowledge single-payer. Less-than-fierce advocacy for LGBT rights. Demonizing the left. Drill baby drill.
All of those things tarnished the dream. Those things, and many others.
But there were two things that finally did it in for me. Two small things, really, compared to the big picture and compared to some of the core issues listed above.
One, understandably, was education. Understandably, because I am a teacher. My horror at the Obama education policy has only been growing stronger since the beginning of this adminstration. Recent articles and comments have pushed me to the tipping point on that issue.
But the final straw, the one that broke the camel's back, was his response to the Simpson outrage, in combination with his own remarks in the weekly address. What I realized in reading about this issue and about Obama's history is that in the guise of "saving Social Security," protecting us against it being dismantled, he is going to allow a reduction in SS benefits, in service to the ideal of "cutting the deficit." Maybe I'm reading the signs wrong, but I doubt it.
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The reason this is such a big deal is that the alleged contribution of Social Security to the deficit is a Republican lie, and he is endorsing that lie. It is shameful that anyone would consider raising the retirement age on people who do physical labor. In a civilized society, that thought would not even be considered.
But at least if Social Security really were contributing to the deficit, there would be some excuse -- a poor excuse, but an excuse nonetheless -- for considering changes in benefits. The argument about whether to "tinker" with Social Security could be framed as an argument between competing principles.
But Social Security has no effect on the deficit. Social Security is self-supporting. And it will remain self-supporting for decades. The contributions that support it are extremely regressive, but they are sufficient to support the program.
The only reason Social Security has any impact on the deficit is that Social Security funds have been raided to fund other federal government spending, and now we've reached the point that those funds need to be paid back. That will require raising taxes on rich people, and they don't want us to do that. So they want to reduce the amount of money that needs to be paid back to Social Security. In order to do that, they have to change the benefits structure.
They want to steal funds that were paid for by the middle class, in order to fund the extension of tax cuts for the richest few percent of the the population. And they are basing it on a lie. The Barack Obama I voted for, donated to, worked for, and believed in would not have tried to feed us a Republican lie to justify directly robbing the poor to pay the rich.
I have tolerated a lot, because I know nobody is perfect, and I knew that realistically, nobody could live up to the expectations I had for this guy.
But this. This is not disappointment. This is not failing to live up to promises. This is not even betrayal of a core constituency.
This is abandonment of the foundation that the dream was built on. This is the full-on destruction of any reason to prefer this guy to any of the others who populated the 40 years before 2008. This is the negation of everything he stood for: Intelligence. Integrity. Main Street. Change. Honesty. Transparency. Using the best ideas of both parties to solve the real problems faced by our country (not imaginary problems used as an excuse to implement the worst ideas of the opposing party).
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I didn't expect a progressive. But I didn't expect this. It's still hard to believe. Denial is the first stage of grief. I don't look forward to the day when I reach acceptance.
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UPDATE:
Things I'm NOT saying (and don't believe)
- Obama needs to be primaried.
- Obama hasn't accomplished anything good as President.
- There is no hope for the Democratic Party.
- I am throwing in the towel on trying to accomplish anything in politics.
- Obama = Republicans.
- I will not vote for Obama.
Some reasons I think Obama will allow SS benefits to be cut:
- Change in his campaign website shortly before election.
Saul Friedman (h/t 2laneIA)
As I've said, Obama has taken no position on this, but he said in his radio speech, he's "committed to working with anyone, Democrat or Republican, who wants to strengthen Social Security." It would be easy for a Republican or the commission to claim that Social Security would be "strengthened" by raising the retirement age and saving the benefits which now go to those under 70. Besides, when have Republicans worked with Obama, except to cut spending? Today's extremist Republicans have never supported Social Security-probably because it's a government program that works.
That's why my alarm bells rang when a search in Google brought me a story in Slate, by Peter Bray, about the Obama campaign and Social Security, way back there on Sept 19, 2008. It said, "This week the Obama campaign modified his position on a sensitive issue, Social Security. Compare the current 'Seniors & Social Security' page with the previous version. Now, tell me, why, oh why, would the Obama campaign delete the following sentence: '[Obama] does not believe it is fair to hardworking seniors to raise the retirement age....The new page includes some reassuring language about 'work[ing] with members of Congress from both parties to strengthen Social Security and prevent privatization while protecting middle class families from tax increases and benefit cuts.' Still for those who pay attention to such things, what the new page leaves out is as important as what it puts in."
- His comments in recent Saturday address.
Obama understands what's happening (7+ / 0-)
Obama doesn't seem to understand what is happening.
What he's hoping is that you won't understand what's happening.
The set up started last week with the Saturday address, assuring the country that he, unlike the terrible horrible Republicans, would never let your Social Security be privatized. Instead, he told us, he'd just make a few changes to shore it up.
That's the set up. Pres. Obama will just tweak your Social Security program. The other guys would do a lot worse things to it.
by joanneleon on Wed Aug 25, 2010 at 07:06:01 PM PDT