To Unhappy Liberals:
I am here to lift the Left not to drag you down...but I am writing to say that you are not looking at the reality of politics and history when you lose faith in the administration of President Obama.
http://chipshirley.com/
So, first let me briefly burnish my credentials so that you might take me seriously...
When I was 12 years old my mother kept me and my younger sister and brother out of our white segregated elementary school in the suburbs of Atlanta one day, so that we could march behind the casket in the funeral procession of Martin Luther King Jr.. She (June Eddins Shirley) has passed on now, but for Audrey, Steve and I that was our most proud moment, tragic as it was.
When I was 37 years old and living in Boston MA, I volunteered for weeks during the New Hampshire Primary to the campaign of a true liberal, Tom Harkin, who was running against Bill Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. I will never forget watching the candidates debate on WMUR. I was just a few blocks from the TV station where we volunteers had greeted them on their arrival. I was in a bar, that despite being packed to the max' was freezing cold in the NH December weather. We watched the TV as Tom Harkin said 'I will never allow the Republicans to push through a free trade agreement with the totalitarian government of China and let them use slave labor to take our American jobs and our entire manufacturing base from us...'
And then Bill Clinton responded..."I'm with you there Tom".
Clinton won the election and signed that exact bill which was passed by almost all Republicans because they had him over a barrel with impeachment charges...
So, long story short, you could say that I was a disappointed Democrat before it was cool.
But I'm not disappointed now, and let me tell you why.
First, considering the fact that Alan Greenspan called Bill Clinton 'A great Republican president, economically speaking' it is fair to say that from 1980 when Reagan took office until 2008 when Obama took office we had 28 years of Republican economics, cutting taxes on the rich (Reagan never lowered taxes on the 30k and under crowd) and deregulating the financial industry and opening trade with totalitarian nations who have human rights and environmental standards similar to what ours were before the Civil War; in other words 're-inventing slavery'.
So now the Democratic party has held the White House and both Houses of Congress for...one year and seven months.
I swear to God I have a list as long or longer than anyone's as to what I want to see happen that hasn't, but please, let us keep it real.
When Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected after the great stock market crash of 1929, he had far greater majorities in congress than does president Obama, and it still took him twelve long years to enact the changes necessary to our financial regulation systems and to raise taxation of the uber-wealthy (people making tens of millions per year for decades...I'm not referring to athletes and movie stars who do that for a lucky year or two). Also, Republican president Eisenhower had a congress cooperative to building a nationwide interstate expressway system and to JFK and LBJ all enjoyed far greater majorities in congress.
...So what I'm really saying is this....
President Obama and the Democratic congress are just getting started, and they need more power and a greater majority to have a chance of turning the tide and getting our nation back on track.
Please don't give up now, 'Shoulders to the wheel'.
http://chipshirley.com/