While I was out with close friends at 7 this morning playing golf in the rain cleaned air at Santa Ana, the President of the United States absolutely grin screwed his EPA Secretary Lisa Jackson by saying, to hell with your tough clean air rules. He thinks he needs to keep the oil and gas boys and the US Chamber of Commerce happy in hopes they will vote for him. Obama reverted to the weak clean air regs of the bush administration. Actually, he is the weak one and this will set him on a futile course to reelection.
This is the "Hope" so many of us worked for? I could go through a litany of wrong things Obama has done when it comes to protecting public lands, waters and landscapes. But why bother. He is just a tool I have decided. People get angry with me for saying I may not vote for him again. But explain to me how he is different that his predecessor.
10 comments:
From my vantage point Obama will not be re-elected. The left wing of the party has abondoned him. Every where you look they are damming him. His second term seems to be doomed.
I wonder which GOP candidate will profit by Obama's slide.
It's hard to find the differences between Obama and Bush since Obama has carried forth many of Bush's policies, and Obama's alliances with key wall street minds suggest he's listening to the wrong people. I'm mad as hell with his wimpiness, but I'd hate to see any of the current repugs as president.
Hillary Clinton in 2012, the perfect solution
Some of the major environmental groups, of the inside the beltway, insider type, have gone along with the Obama anti environment agenda.
There's a pretty good argument going around that we, the people, are better off with a Republican president. A Democratic president neutralizes opposition from the Left, as Obama has neutered groups like MoveOn.org. People who would be in the streets, organizing, writing letters, sit on their hands. The example usually mentioned is when unions and other interest groups quickly put an end to George W Bush's plans to privatize Social Security at the start of his 2nd term. (Remember his political capital that he intended to spend?)
Also, Democrats in congress sit and say nothing while a New Democrat like Obama sells us out to the corporations. With a Republican president they'd be more likely to muster up the courage to utter the random squeak of protest. Remember it was Clinton who, despite strong opposition across a broad spectrum of the Left, ended welfare as we know it and pushed through NAFTA and GATT, which have had devastating effects on the world's working class.
Obama has tried several times now to get Social Security privatization on the table, backing off only when some populist rhetoric is needed to boost his ratings, and now, his re-election chances.
It's only rhetoric. When the final vote comes to end Social Security in Obama's 2nd term, we can expect hand wringing excuses from our Democratic congressional delegation for why they voted for it, of the type we got when this trio of duds (Ben Ray Lujan is excluded from this group) voted for the debt ceiling deal Obama made with the Republicans, about which they then boasted that they got 95 percent of what they wanted.
There must be developed, and there are being developed, alternatives to oppose corporate power besides the now fully corporatist Democratic party. Such as a third party, strengthening unions and other oppositional groups, and developing an alternative media, one not owned by corporations. We must also work to keep the internet free. Obama's FCC is gradually moving us toward a corporate owned internet, which will lock out any independent voices.
http://www.savetheinternet.com/
Don't just sit on the sidelines and throw rocks. Suggest an alternative candidate who has a realistic chance of winning a nomination and then beating a republican candidate. Without Obama it will be all GOP, Congress, Senate, POTUS. Have we forgotten his fight for universal health care? His fights to extend unemployment benefits? And his fights for social programs that make a difference to those in need?
I believe that reversing the EPA smog rules at this time are part of the overall economic recovery approach of the Obama administration, necessary as part of a total jobs creation proposal. If the economy was doing very well and people were fully employed, you would not see this action. However, facts are facts, and even the Left understands that these rules (said to cost about $90B) will double energy costs to employers and consumers, acting as one more drag on economic recovery. This administration has supported alternative energy development, providing tax incentives and support for alternative energy for 2 1/2 years. Still, unemployment persists and the economy is stalled. This President has to do everything he possibly can to encourage job growth. Jim, your charge that he is doing it "to keep the oil and gas boys and the US Chamber of Commerce happy in hopes they will vote for him" sounds about as factual as something I expect Fox news would spout. And Bubba, your statement that "Obama has tried several times now to get Social Security privatization on the table" is so false, I wonder why such wild charges are made unless the Left again wants to shoot itself in the foot and defeat a progressive President because he has to make compromises they don't like. I'm a member of the Sierra Club and a supporter of environmental protections, but this President is charged with steering us toward economic recovery and top priorities shift according to threat levels and available resources such as who controls the legislative agenda. I understand what the President is doing, he sees the alleviation of the pain and misery of unemployed families as more important than immediate implementation of new regulations to reduce emissions at power plants. Bashing this President as someone who "screws" the environmental movement only serves as to strengthen the Koch brothers, Murdoch, and radical right-wing by discouraging young and Democratic voters in 2012. The Republicans smugly smile each time the environmental movement drives a wedge issue between this President and his supporters. Democrats are continually defeated for their failure to understand tactics and strategy of the political game.
This retreat on Climate Change and renewable energy efforts is more than understanding politics and tactics...it is about the very future of our public health and livability on the planet. It is the most important thing we can work on but because it will bring corporate bottom lines down it is always expedient to put it off. Some of my friends accuse me of being a one issue person. I am not. It is just that I try and focus on the most important long term issues. Ending our nations history of constant warfare and keeping natural resources in balance are the jobs we must tackle first.
Vivki, Obama's hostility to Social security has been reported in many places. Here's two.
Mark Salter in Real Clear Politics:
"The president who now boasts of his courage in supporting deep discretionary spending cuts and serious cost-saving reforms of Social Security and Medicare -- ardently opposed by his base -- if only Republicans would agree to some tax increases, is the same commander in chief who devised a troop-withdrawal plan for Afghanistan that appears timed to improve his re-election prospects rather than the prospects that our mission in Afghanistan will end in success."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/07/13/gop_ceded_fiscal_high_ground_to_obama_on_grand_bargain_110552.html
Alexander Cockburn in Counterpunch:
"By 2008, before his victory, he was already reassuring the Establishment he was set to “reform” Social Security and Medicare – i.e., to hand these entitlement programs over to Wall St and the insurance industry."
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/08/05/ready-to-vote-for-mitt-romney/
Recall that he stacked his so-called debt reduction commission with Social Security privatizers, including its co-chairs Republican Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles.
Rodger, about Obama's "fight" to extend unemployment benefits. That was when he agreed to extend the "Bush era tax cuts" for the rich for another two years, which cuts are largely responsible for the current deficits. In exchange, unemployment benefits were extended for a few months. Some fight. He never fought for universal health care. He made sure that wasn't on the table. What he did fight for was this huge gift to the insurance companies we ended up with. As for suggesting a candidate who can win, if you read all my comment I suggested several ways to bring power to we, the people. We don't need to hand our power over to a knight in shining armor.
We need to have more power than the corporations, and their employees in the congress and the White House. Their need for ever more profits (many of them are recording record profits while our standard of living is in decline) is also why, as Jim pointed out, we are headed toward environmental disaster.
Alas. Jim seems to be the only one of us who is looking past the next balance sheet and the next election.
You do stimulate some debate though, which is where it must start. And yes Rodger, we, I, do need to do more than throw stones. I agree.
Obama has been like a third term for Bush. So much hope we had, what a huge group of activists built up willing and able to make real change in this country, and he has wasted his chance and disenchanted all those new young faces. They will not be back this time.
Watched the debate, I am a Democrat but am leaning towards Romney. Obana is out, Romney seems like a good choise for Democrats.
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