Stephen Daugherty made good points in his diary You're Not Going To Like This, But Listen Anyways. Update X1. But lets look at what was promised and what has actually happened.
On the day of his inauguration President Obama ordered Gitmo closed by the endi of the year. Little has happened. No one expects Gitmo to be closed by the end of the year and worse no one knows when Gitmo will be closed. What do President Obama's orders mean? Well looking at the Gitmo closure order one might say dam little.
Next consider the economic stimulus package. The issue most people were concerned about with the stimulus pacakge was and remains to be rising and high unemployment. No only has unemployment not been reduced, but unemployment continues to rise and is now above 10%. Yes the rate of the increase in unemployment has slowed. However, the promises made were that unemployment would not reach 10% and that a decline would start. Unemployment is an election loser. Never mind that republican policies caused the problem and that republican policies will cause the problem to become much worse, the republicans will run claiming democrats and our policies failed to solve the problem. President Obama will have a difficult time arguing this, since he continues to argue the stimulus was just right.
Next consider the automotive industry. We spent serious money propping up GM and for what? Many dealers are still closing. Detroit remains a serious mess. A few workers remain employed. Yes, the US needs manufacturing industry, but the GM bailout did little towards that end and received much attention.
Next, consider the financial industry. AIG remains one fucked up company and the US owns 80% of AIG. Yet they and other bailed out financial institutions are paying out big bonuses. AIG executives should be fired for fucking up big time, not given bonuses. And then there are the banks who were given bailouts so they could provide businesses with money. Instead of providing loans to companies, Bank Profits Appear Out of Thin Air. People look at this and wonder. Worse Geitner is not working hard to force banks to shrink in size or for proper regulation similar or better yet stronger than what FDR passed.
What needs to be said about health care. Lieberman, Landreau, Lincoln, and Nelso are fucking up the Senate and remain powerful. Health care without a strong public option is worse than useless. Without health care reform with a strong public option the deficit will sky rocket. Yet all these folks and the republicans claim the opposite.
Now lets move on to foriegn policy. Al-qaeda continues to screw up Pakistan and support Taliban inroads in Afghanistan. The Karzai government is corrupt. Even Iraq is having difficulties with out an election law, with Sunnis becoming concerned the Shiites are using the Iraqi military and police to stage attacks, and the Kurds still pressing for more autonomy. Turn to China who refuse to allow their currency to rise to its propper value against the dollar. North Korea and Iran still struggling to make atomic bombs. Finally there is Israel slowly pushing Palestinians off the West Bank through the use of walls and increasing settlement sizes.
Yes the Peace Prize is great. Yes the Cairo speech was fantastic. But what really has been accomplished. Very little has been accomplished. Conditions look frightful.
Put all this together and what we have appears to many US citizens to be a failure on the part of democrats. Never mind that the failure was caused by republicans and would be much worse if republicans were in power.
So what to do. First, fight hard to put even more democrats in congress. In the Senate democrats need a 70 seat majority. Sixty seats just doesn't cut it. To achieve this, every single republican seat up for election in 2010 must be contested hard. The democrat seats, even of those who we question must be supported. More seats are needed in the House, but not nearly as many as in the Senate.
We need to continue to push President Obama to adopt a stronger economic team and better policies. President Obama needs to change dramatically how to deal with the middle east and the rest of the world. So much work, so little time.
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