|
So I called Congressman John Hall's office (D-Orleans) after he voted -- again -- to approve funding for the Bush/Obama wars, and I am told that he had no choice but to support the war on terror. Then I call Congressman Hall's office right after Chairman Simpson's remarks about Social Security and the tits, and ask if the the Congressman (D-Friend of Jackson Browne) would assure me that he would support no cuts in SS benefits or any increase in the retirement age for SS, and they tell me that he has no opinion yet. Then I see the Congressman on TV, on stage at Madison Square Garden, guitar in hands, helping to honor that great man of peace, Pete Seeger, and I call Congressman Hall's office and I ask him if he discussed with Mr. Seeger the Congressman's vote to extend the Patriot Act, and the aide tells me that he doesn't know, but it is an interesting question. So I called again, and asked if Republican Sue Kelly had in fact remained in this office by some mistake, and the lady just laughed!
Then on my TV I see the Democratic candidate for Governor here in New York, Mario Cuomo's son no-less, appearing before a local group promising to bring fire and brimstone down on teachers, firemen, and policemen, as he loves to fight with the Unions. I see him next in the local Weekly Rag appearing with GOP mega-fundraiser and dirty land developer Jonah Mandelbaum promising to work closely with business, and to keep up the pressure on those damn unions that are making life so tough on the taxpayers. I then see that Mr. Cuomo has been endorsed for Governor by the former NY GOP chairman, and hear Mr. Cuomo say that he will probably work better with Republicans than with "some Democrats" (read hear crazy liberals).
I voted in good conscience for Barack Obama not because I was confident that he was the most qualified or experienced candidate the Part had, he clearly wasn't, but because people here and the candidate himself billed him as "Community Organizer", which based on my personal experience -- I am a director of a large public library serving a very large and very poor community -- with "Community Organizers" was that they were tough, not afraid of a fight, and hard-core Progressives who know that the other side is not to be compromised with, but fought tooth-and-nail. Instead, I feel me, and lots of folks I know agree with me, got a classic "bait and switch" in a man who campaigned quoting MLK and FDR, but now governs like a cross between Bill Clinton and Ike. Not necessarily a terrible thing, but clearly not what I had counted on to clean up the mess we now face.
I post this -- my first post on DU in well over five years -- because I keep seeing from the folks who seem in perpetual "rapid reaction" to any questions or concerns about Obama polices that "80%" of Dems or Liberals or whatever still support the President. I want people here to know that while I wouldn't tell a pollster that I have an unfavorable feeling for the President, or the Dems in general, I also have strong reservations about the direction the party is going, and am not all together sanguine for the first time in my life that the Democratic Party really even cares for the issues of importance to those of us working with people in need here on the ground.
I said I haven't posted here in fiver years or more, mainly because I was so tired of the ongoing demands from the "early pragmatists" as it were who said we need to expand the big tent, and send our money to pseudo-democrats like Mary Landrieu and Kent Conrad, because "we had to remember the Supreme Court and the key votes they would back us on", and while I remained concerned that the Party was moving so far to the right that it would soon leave folks like me -- and a lot of really poor and sick and old people too boot -- behind, I decided that would leave the wars of words to smarter and more politically hip folks with their fingers on the pulse. I haves till "lurked" as i find the articles posted to be first-rate, and I have learned an awful lot from folks like Will Pitt, madfloridian, the Magistrate and many others.
But here I am these many years on, facing the worst voting choices of my life. For Congress I get to choose between a woman who calls herself a "Patriot Mommy" -- whatever the hell that means -- and a man who is friends with some of the most Progressive voices of our times and who appeared repeatedly on stage in the 80's with the likes of Little Steven, the Boss, Odetta, and Messrs Browne and Seeger to fight social injustice and the spread of word about peace on earth, but still can't see the futility of spending billions on war while we have no money to rebuild our Nation, and continued to support the Ptriot Act. For Governor I get to choose between a billionaire bigot who thinks the poor need to take "hygiene lessons" at converted prisons, or a man who is the son of one of the state's most famed Democratic leaders, but who think the teacher's unions are a bigger foe than the GOP and its corrupt corporate allies.
And I have a Democratic President who seem to thrive in a climate where his closest advisors share with his GOP opponents a common contempt for the Democratic Party base, where long-standing Party causes like the environment, labor, and education are abandoned or ignored as convenient, and where the presentation of the Nobel Prize presents an opportunity to talk-up the failed war making policies of the previous disgraced Administration. And all the while, war criminals sleep at peace, and war profiteers continue to rake in their ill gotten gains because this White House and this Democratically controlled Congress see no value in investigating evil done in all our names.
Whats a Democrat, a Liberal to do? Well, I will be in DC on October 30. I will be the guy in the "Don't Tread on Me" hat with the IWW and "Reelect Roosevelt" buttons on it. I wear the hat in honor of those who died and suffered back in the first war for freedom. I wear the buttons to honor those who fought in subsequent wars of freedom, and so that observant tea-baggers will see I am certainly not one of fucking them! Its a shame that the most inspiring voices of the progressive cause now consist of two TV comedians, and my old pal Bernie Sanders (actually not my pal, it just seems I have been voting for him forever and he alone never lets me down!).
Just wanted to get all of that off of my chest, and wish us all good luck in the months and years ahead, as we really, really will be needing it, regardless of what happens this november, or in November 2012, or any time soon!
Displaced
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
