Who is barack Obama?

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

Who is Barack Obama?

Hello, Rosemary. I was just sitting here contemplating our earlier discussion. You know how much I respect your opinion, so I'm up in the middle of the night contemplating what you had to say about Obama, and my reaction to his policies. Since you're generally so in touch with the mood of the people, as an after thought, I decided to run this response as this week's column - that gives me an excuse for being so long-winded.  You said:

"E, I don't think the President is trying so much to be a kiss-up to the Republican Party as he is trying to show that he cannot help it if the Republicans have decided they would rather be unprofessional and not fit to hold the offices they hold in Congress. Think about it. If he came down to their level, what would his credibility really look like? He's still trying to show that he's the President for everyone, no matter if some want to be ignorant. A lot of times people mistake kindness for weakness. NO, I am not looking at him through rose-colored glasses. I'm being realistic. He has a hard road to navigate, and his choices are bad and worst ."

Much of what you say is true, Rosemary, but that doesn't explain why he's circumventing not only the U.S. Constitution, but international law to give the Bush/Cheney regime a pass on their war crimes. He's betraying a serious case of American arrogance by declaring that we need to look forward, and not backwards. He's a constitutional scholar. He knows full well that's not his call. He swore to uphold the Constitution, and through extension, the rule of law.

So as much as I like the president personally, I can't ignore such a serious circumvention of the law, and blatant assault on American ideals. So I'm speaking out because I have a responsibility to speak out. It's not just government's role to uphold our values, that's the responsibility of each and every American citizen. We cannot just sit back and expect justice to prevail - we must raise hell to see to it that it does. And we must always give principle priority over politics.  If it were not for malcontents speaking out on principle, President Obama would be in a cotton field instead of the White House.

The man that I though I voted for, and supported so passionately, would be the very first to recognize that his failure to adhere to the rule of law in this matter diminishes America. He'd understand that his failure to act creates a class of people who are above the law, and sets an ominous precedent that will allow future demagogues to act with impunity against both the American people, and the people of the world. Who's to say that the next group of tyrants won't start by rounding up 'suspicious' Muslims, then Black Muslims, then Black people? Why shouldn't they - we've set a precedent saying they can do it with impunity.  Obama is supposed to be protecting us from that slippery slope, but instead, his proposed course of action is to look the other way for political expediency.  That's not a change I can believe in.

So some things are more important than worrying about providing political ammunition to the opposition. I'm more concerned about becoming so loyal to one man or ideology that we allow ourselves to be caught flat-footed like so many others throughout the course of history. I wonder how many families were destroyed by financial ruin after blindly opposing healthcare reform during the Clinton administration, for example, who put ideology and blind loyalty before common sense when some politician told them that healthcare reform constituted socialism?  Thousands I would guess. So if the Democrats were on their game, instead of anxiously caving in to the insurance industry, they would have gathered up some of these people and featured them in political commercials during this current debate.

Because yet again, the Republican leadership is using that very same tactic to manipulate their base. Yet again, they're manipulating the people who have blind faith in their leadership to promote the status quo. And once again, they're actively exploiting the concerns of their base over being displaced by minorities and having 'socialism' disrupt the lives that they've come to know - even though many of them can't even define socialism.

But while many of us on the 'left' like to make fun of these people as dim-witted (as I just did), I actively correspond with many people on the right, and they're far from ignorant.  The fact is, many of them are quite intelligent. It's just that they feel such a vested interest in refusing to accept the glaring reality before their eyes, that it's causing them to cling to a group who is blatantly acting against their best interest. And if we're not aggressively vigilant, the very same thing can happen to us.

Now don't get me wrong, I doubt very much that President Obama is a demagogue. I think he's a good man, and potentially, a great president, who's simply taking a course of action that I disagree with.  But then, the Republican base feels the same way about that people they support. But we can render this issue moot with a simple rule of thumb: We must never forget that we're dealing with politicians. We must always remember that their very profession centers around the manipulation of smoke and mirrors, which makes it incumbent upon us to always hold their feet to the fire - liberal and conservative alike.

We must never allow ourselves to become so blinded by what a politician is supposed to represent, that we ignore what his actions say he actually represents. History has taught us that we must ALWAYS judge ALL politicians on what they DO, not what they say - and that includes Barack Obama.

So just call me cynical, but I need a very important question answered: If we're willing to exhaust our treasury and sacrifice the lives of our youth to chase Osama Bin Laden for allegedly killing just under three thousand Americans, how does that square with president Obama casually waving off the fact that Bush and Cheney killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children as inconvenient to address?

I have a problem with that kind of 'justice', as every American should, because it was done in our name. So as much as I like President Obama, simple logic tells me if he doesn't have a problem with such a glaring injustice, I have to consider him a part of that injustice - an injustice that will never allow America to be completely safe.

This attitude that we have, and that President Obama seems to share, that the United States can walk away from the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people as simply 'collateral damage' is nothing short of American hubris. And I cannot be comfortable with any president that's willing to embrace such a philosophy, because as long as the lives of Iraqis are deemed unimportant, so is mine.

America needs to wake up. While we're demonizing the people of Asia and the Middle East, we need to recognize that we wouldn't even have a conflict with these people if we weren't meddling in their part of the world. They're not over here - we're over there.  How can I break into my neighboor's house, wipe out his family, and have my pockets filled with his possessions, then claim I was acting in self-defense?  There isn't a court in America that would accept such a defense.

So America doesn't have to spend trillions of dollars to protect our security. That money could be spent on educating our children, providing affordable healthcare, and revitalizing our infrastructure. All we have to do is 'just say no' to the military/industrial complex, and stop meddling in the affairs of others.

Thus, when I look at President Obama, even in spite of how much I admire him, I have to ask myself, "doesn't he know these things?" If he doesn't, we have a problem with his intellectual acuity; but if he does, we have a much more severe problem - why is he continuing to play a game that's causing the death and suffering of so many people around the world?

So Rosemary, when I speak of President Obama caving in to the Republican party, I'm not just talking about on the single issue of healthcare, I'm talking about caving in to the status quo - which is much more serious, and goes directly to the issue of his overall character. During the campaign he promised change. That leaves me asking, where, and when?

So yes, many progressives in this country are mad as hell, and not just over a frivolous partisan issue. They feel lied to. They know that Obama's not dumb. He knew exactly what message he was sending when he campaigned on change, and so do we - so we're going to hold him to it.

So while I reserve the right to criticize President Obama, it's not because I've turned on him, but because I'm pulling for him. I'm pulling for his integrity. I'm pulling for his intellectual honesty, and I'm pulling for his sense of global humanity to overwhelm political expedience.  In short, I'm pulling for the fact that he's one of those great men that just may need to be dragged up Mt. Rushmore.

Tell Gaddis I said hi.



Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

Healthcare: What’s So Wrong with Having Government Protection?

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE Healthcare: What's So Wrong with Having Government Protection? Those in congress who are protecting the insurance industry from government intrusion are doing a great job - of protecting their campaign contributions. They've managed to so complicate the healthcare debate that many Americans have been completely blinded to what should be clearly obvious. There's only one issue in this debate - whether or not we want to entrust the healthcare of our families to an entity whose only goal is to provide service, or one that's in the business solely to make as much profit as humanly possible. In order to see through the smoke and mirrors of this debate we need ask ourselves only a few very basic questions. First, do we really believe that the insurance industry is giving politicians $1.3 million a day just so they can protect our well being? Second, how have the insurance companies become so rich that they can afford to give away that kind of money? Third, if they're doing such a good job of looking after our interest, why do they fear that a public option will lead to a government takeover of the industry? And finally, what's so bad about government-protected healthcare anyway? The government protects us with the police department, the fire department, the military, social security, and medicare. So why do we allow these things to be run by government? What do they have in common? The answer is very simple - they are all services that are much too essential to our well being to entrust to those whose single motive, and sole reason for being, is to make a profit. Can you imagine what it would be like having to negotiate with the police department after having a child kidnaped. Imagine the police telling you, "I sorry but your daughter just turned eighteen, so she's no longer covered under your kidnaping policy." That's exactly what's happening to Americans on a daily basis regarding their family's healthcare. The fact is, the so-called insurance industry is not an industry at all. An industry produces products. The insurance business produces nothing. It is made up of Wall Street speculators who take your money with the promise that they'll protect you from financial ruin. Then if something unforseen does happen, they spend much of that money trying to find loopholes to get out of honoring their agreement. Their entire business model is based on the proposition that they can get more money out of you than they'll have to pay back. So they're not in the business of providing you with a service. On the contrary - they're in the business of taking your money, while providing you with as little service as possible. That's how they make a profit. Now, with his healthcare reform, it is President Obama's contention that too many Americans are being denied services, and as a result, they're dying or losing everything they own just so these speculators can make money. He wants to bring that to an end. In response, the politicians who the insurance companies are paying to deceive you, are screaming bloody murder - and since they don't have truth on their side, they've taken to lying to the American people. If your representative is among them, instead of representing your interest, he's being paid by the insurance companies to lobby against you. He's trying to convince you that it's a bad thing for you to have the choice of a public option that would protect you and your family from loss of coverage if you're laid off your job, or having your insurance cancelled if a member of your family contracts a disease that the private insurance companies deem so expensive to treat that it cuts into their profits. In short, he's placing his seat in congress before the welfare of your family. These politicians will often claim that a public option would place a government bureaucrat between you and your doctor. But the fact is, the healthcare plan that the president is proposing for you is the exact same plan that your representative and every member of congress enjoys, and I've never once heard a member of congress complain about their health-care. In addition, they always conveniently fail to mention that with your current health-care you have a businessman, who's out to make a profit, between you and your doctor. You're rarely aware of what goes on between your doctor and your current insurance company, because your doctor simply won't prescribe a treatment that he knows the insurance company won't cover. But how many times have you gone to the pharmacy and had a generic drug suggested because your insurance won't cover the drug that the doctor originally prescribed, and wanted you to have? In addition, we mustn't forget that the infamous AIG is also an insurance company. It was suppose to be insuring Wall Street against investment losses, and you see what happened there - AIG was so greedy for profits and paid so little attention to the precarious condition of its customers, that when Wall Street collapsed and AIG's customers came to it to cover the losses that they'd paid billions of dollars to insure, AIG simply said, "Sorry, we can't help you." Thus, if the crooks on Wall Street can't trust the insurance companies, the average American family doesn't have a chance. And remember, even though AIG was founded, appropriately enough, in Shanghai, China, and was doing business and spreading its money all over the world, when it found itself in trouble it ran back to the United States to pick into your pocket, in order to get back on it's feet. And that's not the worst of it. Once the American taxpayer did agree to help them to get back on their feet, they took much of our hard-earned tax money (while we were losing our homes and jobs) and used it to wine and dine company bigwigs at plush resorts, and pass out multi-million dollar bonuses to the very people who ran the company in the ground. Now, these are the people that many of your representatives want to protect from a government takeover - never mind what's in the best interest of your family. And it is these very same people who have already robbed you of your tax dollars, that your representative want to see standing between you and your doctor, with calculator in hand. Of course he does, because the government is not going to contribute to his campaign. So if your representative comes to you during this break and tries to feed you this nonsense, you should respond with just one sentence - "You're out of here in the very next election." You'd be entirely justified, since his support of the insurance lobby is irrefutable evidence that what he sees as his vested interest, is far removed from your own. Eric L. Wattree wattree.blogspot.com Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

Sphere: Related Content