The great Barack Obama conundrum

[DEDixon 39]

Let us now check the liberal Whine-O'-Meter. Guantanamo is still open. Military tribunals have been (reluctantly) re-established. The Patriot Act still exists. Military spending has actually increased. You still have to hand over your tweezers at the airport. Obama had an astonishing, historic chance to overhaul Wall Street's most vile system of pigf--kery, and instead has allowed the fattest hogs to keep right on rigging the game and raping the Treasury at will.

On it goes. Talk of serious environmental legislation has completely vanished from Obama's speeches. Ditto major education reform. Health care reform, while still desperately needed, has been a modest success at best and far too easily beaten down by a hateful GOP as pathetic with ideas and integrity as it is impressive with self-loathing and brass knuckles.

What else you got? Obama only half-assedly backed the unions in the Wisconsin debacle. He only took a definitive stand against Mubarak when it was clear that U.S.-backed thug was going down hard. He finally took a step to kill DADT and DOMA, the latter of which wasn't really a step at all but more like the a decision not to take any more steps. Effective, but hardly the glorious, from-the-rooftops declaration of gay rights support most hoped for.

And then there's Libya. Obama's decision to involve the U.S. in yet another military operation threw everyone, right and left, for a loop. Because while he did nearly everything right -- full UN support, the U.S. only in a limited, supporting role, a truly insane dictator who really was massacring his own people, a rapid timetable for withdrawal -- the last thing Americans want is a third war, particularly from a guy who seemed like the closest thing we'd get to an anti-war activist in our lifetime.

Then again, the gap between the wealthy and the middle class is worsening. CEO pay has soared while most workers can barely hold on. Afghanistan is still an expensive mess. And who the hell is buying a Volt?

[mawilson 2,133]

The great Barack Obama conundrum

Aback a rambo?

Ah - conundrum, I thought you said anagram.

[Brother Hesekiel 2,236]

To Baracks' defense, Guantanamo was killed by the Regressives, a.k.a. Repubs. But other than that you are correct: Obama is a corporatist, a democrat by name only. A multi-millionaire who works for those who funded his campaign: the multi-national corporations.

Unfortunately, no matter who you would want to vote for: it makes no difference as long as we have corporate-funded elections. Clinton was a corporatist, so was Bush, so is the Clinton woman . . . they all are, with the exception of perhaps a handful of people. Kucinich (my favorite) and Sanders come to mind, but they don't stand a chance in heaven.

Thus, Obama is a really bad candidate and I wouldn't vote for him in a million years if you show me a better candidate to vote for.