General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAs A Lifelong Democrat... Are You Satisfied With The "Hope And Change" That Was Promised In 2008 ???
It ain't all his fault, but it feels like the fight fell flat.
So I say, NO!
What say you ???
| 56 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited | |
| I AM satisfied with the progress President Barack Obama has made over his time in office. | |
6 (11%) |
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| I AM NOT satisfied with the progress President Barack Obama has made over his time in office. | |
41 (73%) |
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| Unfair question... you have to understand all the difficult variables. | |
8 (14%) |
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| Benghazi/IRS... | |
0 (0%) |
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| Pass me the Federally unapproved bong, dude. | |
0 (0%) |
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| Obligitory other... | |
1 (2%) |
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| Thanks for the hearts... | |
0 (0%) |
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| 0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided. | |
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CaliforniaPeggy
(149,804 posts)And you're right: it's not all his fault.
But some of it is.
DesertFlower
(11,649 posts)kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)voters who keep putting people in office and supporting policies that hurt themselves and the rest of us.
mindwalker_i
(4,407 posts)and we just got them down for a nap 
WillyT
(72,631 posts)
Armstead
(47,803 posts)And in this situation, mediocre isn't what's needed....although it's certainly better than the gross possible alternatives, like President Mccain or President Mitty
WillyT
(72,631 posts)
I'm just tired of being in the triage unit.
I want to be in the hospital, and the research unit.
Ya know... trying to find the cure ???
mindwalker_i
(4,407 posts)Not a "compromiser." Fortunately Hillary will fix everything.
Or we can go back to watching TV.
Jamastiene
(38,187 posts)I was for Hillary in the 2008 primaries, but so much has come to light since then that I don't think she'd be that much different than Obama has been. I would probably have a mixed review of her too if she runs.
Nay
(12,051 posts)this whole mess.
LumosMaxima
(585 posts)RC
(25,592 posts)Chained CPI? Pushing the TPP. Not using the bully pulpit whe he should be. Caving to the Republicans too easily and too often.
Obama sure sounded good when campaigning the first time. He had the mandate, the backing of the people and even a Democratic Congress. And don't forget the Republicans he appointed to Cabinet, or allowing the left-overs from the bu$h to remain.
They are causing major problems, from the slow recovery, to continuing deregulation of our communications and Internet.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Great post.
NEOhiodemocrat
(912 posts)Great post RC
I was born under Reagan thanks to the generations before me not doing their jobs and keeping the country from veering rightward. The progress made since Bush1 was in office has been decent. By the time I was 12 the country was being run by conservative Christians and we have been moving in my direction since 2008. I was eligible to vote in 1999, I voted, we got bush instead, I voted again, we got more Bush. Barack Obama has been the first president I voted for who actually won and he got a fucked up situation to fix. There has never been a better president since I have been alive.
struggle4progress
(118,379 posts)Over half the voters in my state voted D, but two-thirds of the seats went to Rs cuz of gerrymandering
That affects me here, and since similar happened across the US, it affects DC too
Nobody gives a fuck whether you or I is satisfied: the only thing that gets results is hard work
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)not even close to accurate. For anything to be 'across the country' it has to span both coasts. So sick of the folks who insist the East is the entire nation.
struggle4progress
(118,379 posts)By SAM WANG
Published: February 2, 2013
... Normally we would expect more seats in Congress to go to the political party that receives more votes, but the last election confounded expectations. Democrats received 1.4 million more votes for the House of Representatives, yet Republicans won control of the House by a 234 to 201 margin ...
Through artful drawing of district boundaries, it is possible to put large groups of voters on the losing side of every election. The Republican State Leadership Committee, a Washington-based political group dedicated to electing state officeholders, recently issued a progress report on Redmap, its multiyear plan to influence redistricting. The $30 million strategy consists of two steps for tilting the playing field: take over state legislatures before the decennial Census, then redraw state and Congressional districts to lock in partisan advantages. The plan was highly successful ...
In North Carolina, where the two-party House vote was 51 percent Democratic, 49 percent Republican, the average simulated delegation was seven Democrats and six Republicans. The actual outcome? Four Democrats, nine Republicans ... If districts were drawn fairly, this lopsided discrepancy would hardly ever occur ...
Surprisingly absent from the guilty list is California, where 62 percent of the two-party vote went to Democrats and the average mock delegation of 38 Democrats and 15 Republicans exactly matched the newly elected delegation. Notably, California voters took redistricting out of legislators’ hands by creating the California Citizens Redistricting Commission ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/opinion/sunday/the-great-gerrymander-of-2012.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)really, have a heart, will you?
Rex
(65,616 posts)Yeah just waiting to see if this one turns into a 300 reply thread...
Thank you for the heart! I see you have one or two hearts there yourself! 
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)to change our politics and work with Republicans--he really was that damn naive.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)before that, the spectacle of Republican extremists going after Clinton, who actually thought they could work with these psychopaths never belonged in any position of power in this country. They simple were not fit for public office.
I hope you get that I could not disagree with you more. I guess I have more respect for the man's intelligence at least.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)the Republicans were constantly attacking practically everything about the Democratic Party.
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)It's turned me off to politics, if I'm honest. I don't read much about Washington politics as much anymore and I quit volunteering for politicians.
When the party calls for money, I tell them the truth: my money goes to charity now. Thanks anyway, and please remove my name from your list. I still vote Democratic in competitive races, and that's it as far as my relation to the party.
We had the political planets aligned after 2008, a situation that may not even happen more than once in a lifetime. And we squandered it. I don't think I'll ever get over that as long as I live.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)to end the draconian Bush era and their horrific policies, only to learn that nothing much was going to change. But on the bright side, we were naive back then, now we are informed and as someone infamous once said 'fool me once, er, don't fool me ... ' or whatever it was that he finally managed to spit out. No, we won't be fooled again and they are outraged that we are no longer the naive, 'believers' we used to be.
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)so we can both cry in our beer. 
WillyT
(72,631 posts)
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts) sabrina 1
(62,325 posts) Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)1. Ended the Iraq War.
2. Ended DADT.
3. Signed expansive hate crimes legislation into law.
4. Pushed to, and oversaw, the end of DOMA.
5. Signed the most extensive healthcare reform in American history.
6. Brokered a semi-peace deal with Iran.
7. Forced a radical and questionable government to turn over its chemical weapons without one American life lost.
8. Staved off a Great Depression.
9. Restored our country's honor abroad.
I can go on and on and on and on, but of course, those detractors will just say none of it was good enough or mattered.
Logical
(22,457 posts)HangOnKids
(4,291 posts)Only number 5 on your list even merits a WOO-HOO. The rest of the list is pom pom waving.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)Thank you!
I'm assuming to gay and lesbians who can now openly serve in the military, #2 was a pretty big fucking deal. Let's face it, there are a group of individuals who would not give Obama credit for anything. You'll constantly move the goalposts just to suit your own myopic view.
What's fascinating is that it's like some DUers think Obama should snap his fingers and get whatever he wants, forgetting he still has to work with a Republican-controlled House. Where's the jobs program? Ask them. You do know the President can't just pass a jobs program on his own, right?
Response to Drunken Irishman (Reply #45)
HangOnKids This message was self-deleted by its author.
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)And in the process he not only paid off his corporate buddies with the largest corporatist giveaway in American history, but he also obliterated out chances in 2010
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)doling out the credit DADT repeal, you do not always exclude the millions of Americans who fought against it from day one, in 1993, the thousands of in service gay men and women who faced punishment, discharge, dishonor for a decade, the many who took great risks with their own lives to push repeal, the arrested, the forgotten.
Because if you ask gay and lesbian people who got that repeal done, the answer is 'we did' followed by 'with a late, last minute assist from Obama and other Democrats, some of whom had initially voted for that bullshit'.
Going to be hard pressed to find folks who do not acknowledge that our own people were dragged away by cops, discharged aggressively and maligned in the press to fight that battle. Few would credit only a single politician. Barbara Boxer and Russ Feingold, the ONLY two Democrats to have voted against DADT in every vote and also for the repeal also get political props.
This was a decade long battle. Fair is fair. Obama played a great and important but far from solitary role in that play.
The listmakers always exclude the actual blood and sweat and sacrifices made. For a decade. It is a poor choice on their parts.
UTUSN
(70,788 posts)cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)but I never really bought into it anyway, so I'm not too disappointed. It just is what it is.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)I am actually rather amazed that despite the incredible obstacles he's faced--from the recession and two wars he inherited to the most intransigent Republican obstructionism I've ever witnessed--that some of the biggest things have been accomplished of any administration since Johnson's.
And in many ways, one might liken this administration in many ways to Johnson's (except for the obstructionism--Johnson had huge majorities). The Affordable Care Act and the civil rights advances in gay rights are very parallel to what Johnson did with Medicare and the Civil Rights Act. I can think of nothing in the Carter or Clinton administrations that even begins to match the magnitude of these two things alone. Indeed, nothing of real and lasting import, I'm afraid to say, really came out of those administrations, much as I liked both presidents.
Like Johnson, however, Obama has had failures and painful mistakes: Johnson in escalating the Vietnam War; Obama in failing to rein in the security apparatus sufficiently (though it has been reined in in many ways from the initial Bush policies). I saw a documentary on the 1960s recently that included footage of the daily WH protesters yelling "Hey Hey, LBJ, how many boys did you kill today!!" And it reminded me how absolutely hated Johnson was by the left. None of the rest of it mattered at the time, and perhaps rightly so. Obama's transgressions seem to pale compared to the errors of Vietnam and the toll in human life it took. But I see them both as somewhat tragic figures. Presidents end up owning both the things they have done and the things as well that simply occurred during their time in office. Obama certainly didn't create or cause income inequality, which has been in the works for decades, but because it has reached its peak under his administration, he will have to own some of that, too.
But in the end I think history will treat both Johnson and Obama as among the important presidents of the postwar era. And of course, his legacy is not yet completed. There are three more years ... and if he were to succeed in bringing Iran back into the circle of nations, it will be huge.
We carp, we complain: but this president brought us back from the brink of a Depression, fought to enact the first universal health care legislation in the nation's history (which, hopefully, when tweaked and improved over the next decade or so, will be seen as a true milestone), has accomplished real and lasting legislation in women's rights and gay rights, has been as forceful as is possible for the Executive branch (no hope for Congress here) in addressing environmental/climate issues, etc., and later this year, will have brought two wars to an end. And there is one thing that no one here can discount: he was the first black man to be elected president, and he did it twice. You cannot dismiss that, and you can't say that that has not brought hope, in some ways, to an awful lot of people in and of itself.
When Obama adopted the "Hope and Change" slogan in 2008 it was a call for a pivot from the Bush years. He did not know that the biggest recession in nearly 80 years was about to put a knife through the heart of all his plans. He did not yet know the degree of obstruction with which his agenda would be met. He did not know that the world would begin to roil with uprisings across northern Africa and the middle East that would change the entire geopolitical landscape. I don't think presidents ever get to accomplish what they thought they would. They are, sometimes tragically, at the mercy of events not of their making.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)and we were waiting, we WORKED for eight long years, to get some accountability for those crimes against humanity, that is what we most wanted, everything else was secondary to that, because so long as those crimes go unpunished, the perps keep on committing them, human beings are still being slaughtered, tortured, maimed, displaced, millions of them. And the evil doers, to quote an infamous 'unitary executive' are thriving, they are treated like elder statesmen and women, they are free to still influence the direction this country is headed in.
And after all the years we place our trust, most of us, in this president to begin to restore JUSTICE. And no sooner did we give him the WH than he told us 'we are going to move forward' from War Crimes, how do you do that? And from Wall St's massive crimes??? Not just 'move forward, but reward the criminals?
We the people now have to change OUR tactics. And this may be a pivotal time in this country's history. We've wasted a lot of time 'hoping' and 'believing' but not any more. And that is probably a good thing, that we won't be doing that anymore.
reusrename
(1,716 posts)Nazi war criminal from Ohio, John Demjanjuk, was convicted in 2011.
I understand that justice delayed is justice denied, but...
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)held accountable, worse, they were used to provide our government with information that no civilized nation should have wanted in the first place.
South American nations also give me hope. Although it took decades, many of them have finally brought their war criminals to justice.
It's selfish I suppose, but I really would like to see it in my lifetime, not fifty years from now. I also think that IF it were to happen, it would be the beginning of a new era for this country, a real step forward out of the mire we are currently wading in.
reusrename
(1,716 posts)And anyone with thoughts of terrorism against the US would be afraid.
He deserves the same fate as Saddam.
(I'm against capital punishment, except for war criminals.)
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)I am against the DP so I would settle for what would probably be a worse fate for the arrogant, the greedy, the destroyers of lives, life without everything they did it all for, money, power, influence. I would be happy to know they would spend the rest of their miserable lives thinking about all the innocent people they murdered, tortured and maimed and displaced from their rightful homes.
And if we had the courage to put all of them on trial, this country would be safe from terrorists, in fact, putting them on trial is a National Security requirement.
reusrename
(1,716 posts)
I only have the one exception. For my whole life I have been against it, that is until H.W. Bush pardoned all of the Iran/Contra conspirators. They are all out there right now wreaking their special brand of havoc; murdering, raping and pillaging all over the planet. The day Obama was sworn in one of them pulled off a coup d'etat in Honduras. And so I've amended my objection for that one special class of criminal.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)would be happy to see them reduced to sitting in a jail cell maybe visited regularly by some of their victims.
To think that Chelsea Manning is in jail for 35 years for trying to stop war crimes. It is beyond incredible. I hope he will be released and honored one day for his service to human rights, but it doesn't look good for justice here right now.
reusrename
(1,716 posts)Only I'm being realistic enough to accept that it cannot happen. This struggle that we are in, it's always been there, and if we don't annihilate ourselves it will most likely always continue. Our victories and failures are transient. And that's OK.
"And I believe it because somehow the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice." - Dr. King
I just want to help it bend a little faster by not giving these monsters a second chance. I feel as though it's a duty.
You know normally I feel exactly the opposite. I'm sad that I'll never be able to talk to Aileen Wuornos. You know I gave her a ride in my truck about a month before she was arrested. She was hitchhiking. And now she's gone. And I think about whether or not I would go visit her if she were still alive. She was not any threat to society once she was incarcerated.
These war criminals are a different story altogether. They will not stop and they will not police themselves, they don't even know why they should. Into the abyss with them.
Hope that cheers everyone up a little bit. This thread was getting a little too serious.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)TheMathieu
(456 posts)I didn't vote for the President in 08.
I was an angsty libertarian that just turned 20.
Warmed up to the President in 2011 because I opened my eyes and was impressed.
Voted for him and a straight D ticket in 2012.
William769
(55,150 posts)As a LGBT American he came through on many fronts for us and for that I am thankful.
reusrename
(1,716 posts)So far he's managed it very deftly.
Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)than what any candidate that even came close to winning the Democratic nomination during the past 30 to 40 years would have delivered
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)He talked a good game, but his vagueness disturbed me. He imitated a populist firebrand, but his speeches were vague and devoid of concrete statements.
I said at the time, "We desperately need an FDR, but I'm afraid we're going to end up with a Tony Blair."
The current Republican Party is made up of bullies, and bullies don't respect compromise. You have to show that you're willing to fight back and not take any shit from them. You have to show them that it's a new era, one in which they don't call the shots.
Like Bill Clinton, who also tried to make nice with the Republicans, Obama has ended up with a "kick me" sign on his back.
It doesn't help that everyone he has appointed has been at best a lukewarm centrist and at worst, a Republican.
Jamastiene
(38,187 posts)I can't give an up or down, yes or no answer to your question, because some things have improved. Others, not at all. So, my feelings are mixed in my review of the work he has done as President.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)“Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”
― Augustine of Hippo
wocaonimabi
(187 posts)
chillfactor
(7,588 posts)he has had to deal with republican obstruction and the most disrespect of any president in modern history
you so eager to defame him....would YOU have done any better in his shoes? I think not!
treestar
(82,383 posts)I did not think the form of government we have was going to change.
Good grief, people.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Yes there was a good amount of dicking around in 2009-10, when we had the majority. It was inexcusable, unfortunately there was more than enough cowardice in our party to spread the blame around. The ACA squeaked by, without a public option, certainly we could have done a LOT more.
I think Obama has done a fair job. But then I figure Democratic Presidents will underwhelm and disappoint me just as I assume GOP presidents will be way worse than I had feared.
Edited: I changed my vote to "AM satisfied", because remembering where we were in 2008 I think things have greatly improved, and he was dealt a crap hand coming in. It's not either/or, it could be better, but I think he's done a good job.
BainsBane
(53,135 posts)Including this:
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)but other than that it's been the pattern. I was too young to really have a grasp on what Carter was or wasn't doing, but I knew I didn't like Reagan.
Mr.Bill
(24,368 posts)Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iran, Yemen, and probably more. McCain would have put troops in harm's way in everyone of these places and maybe tens of thousands of American lives would have been lost. This is huge.
And would anyone like to consider what the Supreme court would look like if Obama was never elected?
Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)Apparently self-proclaimed liberals on DU are dissatisfied. Apparently Obama is too conservative. I wonder if self-proclaimed conservatives (folks on the opposite side of the political spectrum) are satisfied.
msongs
(67,498 posts)Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)They're probably dissatisfied with his Presidency, just like many of the self-proclaimed liberals here.
JI7
(89,289 posts)scientific polls and actual election results show what the real numbers are.
but people can take comfort in non scientific online polls if they want. it's what romney did and it must have felt good to think he was going to win pennsylvania and the presidency until he had to face the actual results.
the same happens with some on here. and when actual results show differently they start coming up with conspiracy theories.
cui bono
(19,926 posts)Could you guys pick a meme and stick to it? It gets confusing when you constantly change it.
Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)You guys? You think I'm coordinating with other DUers?
gwheezie
(3,580 posts)I figured the 1st black president or 1st female president was going to rile the hardcore loons up, we were going to have one or the other so frankly, I expected the rightwing to nuts. I'm surprised he's gotten this much done.
TroglodyteScholar
(5,477 posts)...should consider how they'd feel about a McCain or Romney presidency right now. And anyone claiming it would be no different is a fucking liar.
Am I 100% thrilled with this admin? Hell no. Am I satisfied? You bet your ass.
P.S. I think it's safe to say that the commitments this president made as a candidate are not the same as the expectations we've placed on him. Has he met all his commitments? No. Are we even more brutal with him because some of us mistook him for a liberal? Yes, and that's unfair because he never looked liberal to someone who wasn't trying to see him that way.
cui bono
(19,926 posts)would've been like. It is solely an assessment of Obama. He's not being graded on a curve along with his former opponents.
wocaonimabi
(187 posts)different either.
Don't be surprised to see a GOP Senate and House at the end of the year either because for many voters there is little difference between the parties, those who follow politics know the difference but the typical average voter is an uninformed dolt.
The buck stops at the desk of the POTUS, rightly or wrongly the POTUS gets the blame.
MADem
(135,425 posts)
bemildred
(90,061 posts)and how he has conducted himself, I agree. Why the hell should I be satisfied with THIS disastrous mess we have now?
Fearless
(18,421 posts)I'm glad that people recognize it and saddened that it is fairly accurate. He fell flat.
reformist2
(9,841 posts)I think he would have been a far more progressive prez had he had a cooperative congress.
What I am most disappointed by is his lack of forcefulness. He's had the right ideas, he just hasn't pounded the table as much as I would have liked.
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)hobbit709
(41,694 posts)
ProSense
(116,464 posts)some were hoping that Obama would lose in 2012, and the ACA would be repealed. It was not to be.
http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/04/16348268-obama-agenda-first-since-ike-to-win-51-back-to-back
Bottom line: Obamacare really is for the 99%
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023441345
STUDY: Average Obamacare Plans Are Cheaper Than Employer-Sponsored Ones
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024415004
My Buddy Al Has 'Obamacare'
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/11/1276736/-My-Buddy-Al-Has-Obamacare
After 100 years of attempts in this country, President Obama finally got health reform passed. After four years of fighting RW attempts to kill the law, it's here to stay.
cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)
TBF
(32,142 posts)so I will explain.
We have a government which has never really been a democracy or open for all despite the pretty words. Words that come to my mind are much different - European land grab, murder of indigenous peoples, slaves, 2/3 of a person, women and children are chattal, only white landowners vote, capitalism, economic inequality, entitlements, Trayvon Martin ... you get the idea.
I breathed a sigh of relief in January 2009 when Bush got on that helicopter and actually left DC.
No, it has not been a pretty clean-up and republicans have obstructed every minute since Obama took office. But I think he has been a decent administrator in that the country has been calm, he managed the the banking and auto bailouts, and there has been a bit of a recovery in some cities.
The real problems we have - the continued economic inequality, loss of jobs, continued violence towards minorities and women - those are things that are not going to be solved by executive order.
We need to be in the streets protesting, forming unions to fight back against the Walmarts of the world, and doing the work locally to toss out judges like the one in the Trayvon Martin case. In fact, I'd go further and suggest we do what we can to align ourselves with workers worldwide to fight global capitalists.
I know some folks want an easy fix. They want to elect Elizabeth Warren and have her do the heavy lifting. Unfortunately put in the same spot I don't think she'd do much differently (although we might get some better cabinet appointments - I'll grant you that). I think it is going to take continued work and advocating not only from us - but from many others in this country - to make the needed changes.
randome
(34,845 posts)Before you answer, make sure you hold this politician to the same 'ponies-and-unicorns' standard you hold for Obama.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]
BKH70041
(961 posts)If they don't, you get the blame.
That's the nature of the job.
All this "But the other side isn't blah, blah, blah....." means nothing. Absolutely fuckin' nothing. Some can't seem to wrap their tiny little heads around that, but it's the truth whether they want to recognize it or not.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)but Obama seems to be as good as any other Democratic president there's been lately, and is as liberal as most people in the Democratic Party. I'd love to see a left wing liberal as president, but I don't see that happening.
I'm getting tired of the relentless Obama bashing. I don't understand the dichotomy presented of "perfect" or "horrible." He's done a lot of good. I don't like drones or the TPP, and yes I wish he held different positions on those things, but I can still recognize the good he's done, though it's been difficult for him to do anything at all with the obstruction he's faced.
My husband and I each developed huge pre-existing conditions recently - his last year, and mine already this year. But we don't have to worry about losing our insurance. The ACA is really huge in a number of ways, and I'm particularly tired of hearing bashing of that. Would I prefer single payer? Yes of course. But that isn't going to happen right now, and this is a good step toward it. A few years ago I thought a national health system would never happen, but now I feel like it's on its way.
I will vote for Warren if she's in the primaries though. And I will give her campaign money.
bowens43
(16,064 posts)Obama is just another politician.
aquart
(69,014 posts)Will I be happy till the Kochs are taxed like the unhealthy parasites they are? No.
Or till we take all the money wasted on puny terrorism and use it against climate change, the most terrible enemy we have ever known? No.
Or he stuffs TPP and Keystone where the sun don't shine? No.
But over all, not bad.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)He ran on representing the 99 percent, but the record shows relentless, proactive, and aggressive effort on behalf of corporate interests rather than the interests of the people.
The comments trying to suggest that obstructionism is the real problem here are flatly, relentlessly contradicted by reality and this administration's own actions: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3202395. We constantly deal here at DU with a propaganda brigade that misrepresents the actual goals and behavior of this administration.
It's time to face reality: that the problem of corporate money in politics now infests and corrupts both parties. We have a *systemic* problem of corporate money driving policy and behavior of our politicians AGAINST THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4222551
They are not centrists. They are corporate fascists who have infiltrated and taken control of both political parties. They have trampled the Constitution, turned the United States of America into a surveillance state, militarized our police forces, and created a nascent police state. They persecute whistleblowers and criminalize dissent. They strangle investigative journalism and create a propaganda machine to take its place. They are subverting our democratic, representative government and our Constitution to serve the interests of the wealthy elite, and they are working to turn the rest of us into wage slaves. They are profiting from bloody, undeclared wars; surveillance systems; private prisons; exploitative control of our health care and education; subversion of democratic sovereignty through "trade policy"; and privatization of every resource we have.
They are a menace to our representative government, our Constitution, and our freedom. Pretending that they are part of the normal representative governmental process, merely "centrists," is to vastly euphemize the cancer they really are.
Pisces
(5,604 posts)With time and distance, Barrack Obama's Presidency will stand out in the history books and not because he
was the first AA President.
I think these same people who are disappointed would also be disappointed with Elizabeth Warren, or Bernie
Sanders. Unfortunately the Presidency is not a Dictatorship and he is not a King who can waive his scepter
around while his bidding is done.
I am happy to have voted for him 2 times!!
Capt. Obvious
(9,002 posts)
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Majorities in both Houses of Congress and an historic electoral mandate for change.
So,instead of the New Deal for the 21st Century, the new president, who had called himself "Left of Center" politically when speaking to academics, politicians, community leaders and the masses, instead chooses to follow most of the policies of his predecessor, from wars for profit to trickle-down economics to secret government and secret spying on America.
The result: The rich are getting richer. The poor are getting poorer. And the middle class is disappearing. And the secret wars have expanded around the globe. Worst of all: the power and influence of the secret government has grown.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Thank you for the best, most succinctly true post in the thread.
B Calm
(28,762 posts)
libtodeath
(2,888 posts)lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)What he promised was articulated in such nebulous, feel-good terms as to be meaningless. He delivered exactly what he promised.
*health reform
*out of Iraq and Afghanistan... you know, eventually.
I cannot express how much it vexes me to hear DU complain that we didn't get what was promised, when it was so apparent AT THE TIME that he wasn't promising anything at all.
Read the brochure more carefully next time. The closest thing I heard to a campaign promise was at roughly 12:30 on the topic of civil liberties. Oops.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)If I had to put a number on it, I'd say I'm about 80% satisfied...So I guess that's a 'yes' vote...
CFLDem
(2,083 posts)was one of the first things he did.
Granted I'm happy with the progress on the drug war and civil rights. I just wish he could take concrete action to fix this broken economy.
I AM NOT satisfied with the progress President Barack Obama has made over his time in office, however due to many different variables, it is somewhat unfair to expect much.
Basically, Barack Obama's tenure in office made me care less about politics because it made me feel hopeless and that there is an excuse for everything for not getting anything done. It is not entirely his fault, since I lay the majority of the blame on the Republicans and Corporatists (which sadly I may have to add Obama in that list).
My contention at the beginning of his Presidency that he needed to push and negotiate harder. Stating that, he still has accomplished quite a bit.
So in a way, he brought me to a state of ambivalence in regards to politics. Where, I can't feel too strongly on much issues otherwise I'd just be in a constant state of disappointment. This is tempered by the knowledge that if a Republican was in charge, things would be much worse, hence I step back and just care about other things more often than not.
In regards to Politics, what I care about now, more than anything else is the local and state races. Meaning Congressional seats and Senate seats, as well as making sure no disgusting Teahadist takes a seat on local government that would undermine the city and county infrastructure.
On Edit... I apologize. I still consider myself an Independent.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)You guys are stuck with Obama for another 1000 days. Must be rough.
I guess stopping a 2nd great depression, getting major healthcare reform, important financial reform, ending Iraq war, ending Afghanistan war (by time he leaves office), ending Bush tax cuts, ending DADT, end of DOMA and UE down from 10.2% to 6.7% just isn't enough.
Terrible, just terrible.
Hell Hath No Fury
(16,327 posts)I have been very disappointed, especially on the environment, drones, and privacy issues. 
