This entry was posted on 9/25/2011 5:41 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
Before I say a word, I want you to take three minutes out of your life and watch this clip, because it shows more eloquently than I could ever say, the truth for anyone who doubts this president is on fire.
Now, in case some of you are just too damned impatient to sit through a 3-min clip, then read a few of these words:
“With patient and firm determination, I’m going to press on for jobs. I’m going to press on for equality. I’m going to press on for the sake of our children. I’m going to press on for the sake of all those families who are struggling right now. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I’m going to press on. I expect all of you to march with me, and press on. Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes, shake it off, stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying, we are going to press on, we’ve got work to do.”
TAKE OFF YOUR BEDROOM SLIPPERS, PUT ON YOUR MARCHING SHOES, SHAKE IT OFF, STOP COMPLAINING...WE ARE GOING TO PRESS ON, WE'VE GOT WORK TO DO.
Them's fightin' words, bubba.
And that ain't all.
In this speech before the Congressional Black Caucus, Obama's call to arms rang with the cadence and rhythms of an old-time preacher-man, and believe me, he was not preaching to the choir. Liberals have long complained that Obama was catering too much, going too far to compromise, giving too much to the Righ-Wing lunatics that have taken over the Republican asylum.
After giving some examples of "bad kind of crazy," such as Republicans demanding that the poor and Middle Class pay more taxes while the rich go free (sometimes, literally--G.E. paid NO income tax last year)--Obama spoke for a minute on what he called "the good kind of crazy":
“Throughout our history, change has often come slowly. Progress often takes time,” he said. “It’s never easy. And I never promised easy. Easy has never been promised to us. But we have had faith. We’ve had that good kind of crazy that says, ‘You can’t stop marching.’”
I NEVER PROMISED EASY.
This is true. If you go over speech after speech the president has given, both before he was elected, and since, particularly when speaking to his supporters, he has repeated often the refrain that we inherited a tsunami of economic ruin from his predecessor, and it will take time to dig our way out of it. He's also always been honest with his supporters--from back in the day when the biggest dragon to slay was Hillary Clinton's primary-fight juggernaut--that it would not be easy for any of us.
And Lord knows he was right on that score.
This is not the first speech the president has given of late that leaves scorch marks on the ears of his listeners. He signaled the New Obama at the speech he gave to a joint session of Congress on the American Jobs Act, in which he repeated the refrain, "Pass this Jobs Bill" 16 times, and the word "jobs" some 45 times.
In this speech, he called upon Congress to set aside petty partisan political differences--what he called, "the political circus," and come together for the greater good:
"As we stand at this crossroads of history, the eyes of all people in all nations are once again upon us – watching to see what we do with this moment; waiting for us to lead.
"Those of us gathered here tonight have been called to govern in extraordinary times. It is a tremendous burden, but also a great privilege – one that has been entrusted to few generations of Americans. For in our hands lies the ability to shape our world for good or for ill.
"I know that it is easy to lose sight of this truth – to become cynical and doubtful; consumed with the petty and the trivial.
"But in my life, I have also learned that hope is found in unlikely places; that inspiration often comes not from those with the most power or celebrity, but from the dreams and aspirations of Americans who are anything but ordinary."
Almost immediately, Obama supporters--both loyal standbys and disgruntled former fans--knew that this speech was not just flowery words, but a departure from his previous tone and method, as pointed out by Jonathan Capeheart in the Washington Post:
"[H]e sold it hard. The refrain, “Pass this jobs bill,” went from being a repeated line in a speech to a hammer over the head of Congress."
And he didn't just stop with the speech. The very next day, the president hit the ground running, going straight to areas not only hardest-hit by Bush's Great Recession--but were represented by some of his most powerful rivals in the Republican House and Senate.
As Jonathan Cohn points out in the New Republic, it's not just that the president is hitting economically vulnerable areas sensitive to Republican manipulations, and it's not just that he keeps repeating, "Pass this Jobs Bill" at every stop, and repeating key elements of the speech he gave to Congress--it's also that when he talks about such things as putting on your "marching shoes," he is reaching out over the heads of most casual listeners and straight into the hearts of his supporters, reminding them that he cannot do this alone.
He needs our help, and he needs the help of all Americans who think this plan is a good one, and it turns out, a whopping majority do.--74% to 21% according to some polls, and even 56% in the most Conservative-run polling.
As Cohn says, we can do our part to help:
"The only hope for getting something through Congress -- or making an effective political statement, if the Republicans block action – is to apply pressure."
This is all well and good, Liberals say, but what took him so long? Liberals have done a great deal of moaning and groaning over the fact that the president has not sounded this tone sooner.
As usual, they are not looking at the Big Picture. I could explain it, but I'll let Jonathan Capeheart of the Washington Post have another shot:
"[H]e did try to follow through on his promise to do things differently. He tried hard to work with congressional Republicans. As a gesture of good faith, Obama far too often made concessions to the GOP before getting to the negotiating table. Moves that enraged his base, especially when he got nothing in return. As many have noted, he tried over and over again to be the reasonable guy at the table, the adult in the room. And it got him — and the country — nowhere."
So WHY DO IT AT ALL? howl the Liberal faction of the Democratic Party.
Because he HAD to. President Obama is not the president of the Democratic Party, as much as Michael Moore and others like him want him to be--they often complain that he didn't do what George W. Bush OF ALL PEOPLE did when he came into office.
Remember that, Libs? How he came in after the U.S. Supreme Court selected him president and behaved as if he had some kind of sweeping mandate to impose Right-Wing Rule on the country? Remember how he used executive orders to erase and/or ignore parts of laws that he didn't like--more than any other president? Remember how he used it to ram through the tax cuts for the wealthy that have added more than a trillion bucks to the national debt? Remember how he immediately overturned anything of Clinton's he didn't like--such as birth control being included in women's health care in Third World countries we were helping?
Let's not even START on how he finessed two wars, among other delights.
I felt like a prisoner of war during those years, like some kind of hostage being held in an unfriendly country. I was horrified at every single thing that administration did. I felt helpless and hopeless and filled with rage--and it was the very boneheadedness of the Bush administration and their flat-out refusal to admit that there was anything whatsoever going wrong with their Big Glorious War in Iraq that ushered in the Democratic takeover of the House and Senate in 2006.
Remember THAT?
So. Now you think President Obama should behave in just that way. Imagine how HALF THE COUNTRY would feel if he did?
He HAD TO TRY.
No one could have anticipated that the Republican Party would set as their primary agenda, spending four years doing everything in their power to get rid of Barack Obama. They have shown, time and again, that they do not care about this country or what happens to her people--all they care about is Stopping Obama.
Now, he could have whined and complained every time he was in front of the cameras about how mean the Republicans were being, or as Cohn pointed out, he could do his damndest to at least try to find some kind of middle ground.
SOMEBODY had to be the adult!
These great battles are being played out in a country-wide tableau--not just on Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann but everywhere.
And the American people are watching. If they did not GET IT before as to just what the GOP Teapublicans were trying to do, it came through loud and clear during the debt ceiling fight. It made no difference whether you had heard the term before or had a clue as to what the hell it meant, but one thing did reverberate from that crises: THE REPUBLICANS WERE WILLING TO ALLOW EVEN THE MILITARY GO WITHOUT PAY IN ORDER TO MAKE THEIR PARTISAN POLITICAL POINT.
This provided the president just the public scenario he needed--not just to permit himself to show the anger he's tried to keep in check for more than two years--but to go over the heads of Congress and straight to the hearts of the American people with his message--and they are listening.
Cohn says:
"After the Democrats lost control of the House in the 2010 midterm elections, emboldened Republicans blocked Obama at every turn, even on measures the GOP once supported. The heart-stopping fight to raise the debt ceiling — and the inability of Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to garner support in his caucus for the “grand bargain” he was cobbling together with the president — marked the end of Obama 1.0."
In spite of what some pundits would have you believe, what you see in Obama now is not a cynical ploy to rev up his disgruntled base. If he has proven one thing time and again, he has proven that he is president of ALL the people, and he knows that these obstructionist tactics of the Right-Wing lunatics who've taken over the Republican asylum are hurting EVERYONE in this country, not just HIM.
Plenty of Tea-Baggers, for example, depend upon Social Security and Medicare and/or Veterans benefits to survive. They can bark at him and howl at the moon all they want to, but if the candidates they support take over this government, the security they count on will disappear, and the corporations really will take over the country.
You have to understand--this isn't just a fight to re-elect President Obama. This isn't about reaching out to his "base" and garnering more votes.
This is a struggle--a life-and-death STRUGGLE--for the soul of America.
Again and again in his speeches, from the beginning of his presidency, Obama has said that these hateful policies that bleed the poor at the behest of the rich "are not who we are as Americans."
Again and again, he has pointed out that although America is a land known for rugged individualism--it is also a country known for working together, collectively, to achieve great things, not just for this country and her people, but for the whole world.
It was Americans who rebuilt Europe after World War II, through the Marshall Plan.
It was Americans who stopped the genocide in the Balkans.
I could go on and on but I hope you see my point here--we come together for glorious things like putting a man on the moon or whipping the Nazis--but we also come together as a great nation to hold one another up and to see to it that our poor and struggling are not kicked to the curb as they are in so many Third World countries.
That's not who we are.
The Republican debates, on the other hand, have drawn a clear picture of the Tea Bagger America they support, and it is an ugly place.
And I'm not talking about the candidates who are running--a field of crazies if I ever saw one--I am talking about the crowds who support them. There are three well-known examples, but just in case you live in a cave and have somehow missed this glaring evidence of the kind of soul America would have under a President Perry or a President Bachmann, here are three--a new one practically every week:
At the first Republican debate, the moderators pointed out that under Governor Rick Perry's reign in the state of Texas, some 234 inmates have been put to death--more than ALL THE OTHER STATES COMBINED. While Perry preened, the crowd cheered wildly. Never mind that the Innocence Project has overseen the release of dozens of Death Row inmates across the country who were wrongly convicted, or even that Perry himself not only oversaw the execution of a man who was almost assuredly innocent, but then hurried to squelch and cover up the resulting investigation into the wrongful death. To the Tea Bagger crowd at the debates, Perry was a hero.
A week later, a debate moderator asked the potential Republican candidate, Ron Paul, if he would allow a 30-year old man in a coma to die if he was without health insurance. Before Mr. Paul could even respond, the crowd began to cheer, and a couple of loud voices cried out, "Yeah!" and "Let him die!"
What was not mentioned at that point, since apparently the debate moderator, Wolf Blitzer, didn't know, was that Ron Paul's own former campaign manager had died of cancer without health insurance, while still in his 40's, leaving his wife and children destitute. The Paul campaign had had a fund-raiser for the man, to help with the staggering medical bills.
But the real topper came in the last Republican debate, in which a video was shown of an American soldier who was, at the time, deployed to Iraq, who admitted on-camera that he was gay, and asked if HE should be kicked out of the military for that, even as he served his country in combat in a foreign land.
As candidate Rick Santorum rambled through his incoherent response, the crowd BOOED THE SOLDIER and then, cheered the nonsensical remarks of Mr. Santorum, which included statements along the line that "sex doesn't belong in the military"--a fact which should come as a surprise to the men and women service members who are married to one another.
These are the same people, by the way, who trashed the honorable record of Senator John Kerry in the 2004 campaign and viciously attacked ANYONE who even so much as QUESTIONED the Bushian justifications for the Iraq war because they were not "supporting the troops."
So...we're only supposed to support those troops who we approve of?
As Ana Marie Cox points out in the U.K. Guardian, these disturbing--and disgusting--examples of the Teapublican crowd mentality reveal something far deeper and darker about this struggle for the soul of America:
"What the hell is happening out there? Polls show that Republican voters aren't that excited about their candidates. Then is the exuberance that would be applied to an individual campaign spilling out into indiscriminate exclamations over policy? If so, how come we can't get more vocalising on behalf of the party's less ugly philosophies: three cheers for reducing the corporate income tax! When I say "state", you say "rights!"
[...]
"But what should concern the GOP is how their audiences' reactions distort platforms and campaigns. A 2007 study showed that cheering influenced positively – and measurably – a viewing audience's perception of a candidate's performance. If the campaigns proceed and profit from these unruly, even uncivilised outbreaks, the party will get pulled further and further from the core of its appeal to moderates, which used to be that Republicans are the people who will let you be."
Yes, the GOP SHOULD be concerned by those things, but they are not.
They pandered to the Tea Bagger vote in 2010 and now, they seem to have allowed a small handful of freshmen House members--the lowest politicians on the totem pole in normal times--take over the entire government, signing pledges to unelected Right-Wing pontificators that they honor ahead of their own oaths to uphold the Constitution of the United States--and ahead of their own constituents. (Believe me, none of these guys won by landslides, and most will only serve one term.)
So, because of this cockeyed insanity on the part of the party in opposition to the President, the entire country is being held hostage to the most extremist of views on things which affect all of us.
The president had to show the country that he was willing to do whatever it took to do his job, keep the government running, and work with the crazies--and in return, they took this country to the very brink of economic catastrophe.
THIS woke people up. THIS made them realize that this is not what government is supposed to be. Over and over again, polling showed that the American people wanted even their elected Right-Wingers to compromise in order to keep government functioning, and over and over again, the wishes of the majority of the American people were IGNORED in favor of the insanity that now reigns in the Republican party.
THIS is when the president stepped up. THIS is when he said, "ENOUGH."
THIS is when he got his mojo back.
He is fighting for all of us, you see, not just his Party "base." He is fighting for the soul of this nation. He knows we are better than this. We are not the kind of people to allow a young man to die just to prove a partisan political point, or to boo a soldier who is fighting for his country in a foreign land. We are not the kind of people to slavishly sacrifice the Better Good of millions of people in order to satisfy the greed a few hundred of the wealthiest Americans.
As Paul Begala wrote so eloquently in Newsweek/The Daily Beast, there are many things about the United States government that perform splendidly, that we all rely on each and every day.
So, the president knows that he is fighting for all of us--and it's working.
"According to a CNN poll released on Wednesday, a plurality of Americans approve of the President’s jobs plan. Two thirds believe we should cut taxes for the middle class and rebuild America’s roads and bridges. Three quarters believe we need to put our teachers and first responders back to work. More Americans trust the President to handle the economy than Congressional Republicans by a margin of 9 points."
So the American people are solidly behind their president--even as Republicans dig themselves in deeper, refusing even to sign on to disaster relief until huge cuts are made in programs that are popular to Democrats--and threatening, for the third time this year, to shut the government down over their recalcitrance.
The American people know this is not right. They know that only a small sliver of the populace supports these draconian tactics. They know the president has bent over backwards to work with these people, to no avail.
And they know that he is fighting for them. And so should we be, too. The man needs SOMEBODY to have his back against the constant, relentless onslaught of criticism from the opposition party:
"I’m going to press on for the sake of all those families who are struggling right now. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I’m going to press on. I expect all of you to march with me, and press on. Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes, shake it off, stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying, we are going to press on, we’ve got work to do.”
THIS is the struggle for the soul of the American people. Who are we, as a nation and as a people? Who do we want to represent us on the world stage? Who do we want to know is working for us, each and every day, from the White House?
At this point, it makes little difference who the Republicans nominate. They have already demonstrated their character and beliefs. They will let people suffer and die and will boo men and women in uniform if it means they can protect the rich and give religious zealots the final say in how our country is governed.
This is not who we are. Barack Obama knows that. He's got his mojo back, and so do we, my friends. So do we.
