Postscript

I worked actively in the Obama primary and general election campaigns. Even though I am retired and on a meager income, I donated money to help him get elected…more than once. So I am certainly an Obama supporter. And I think that most of the elected officials who belong to the Republican political party are dishonest, corrupt, racist fools. That was the mild, gentle version of what I think about them.

So what I am about to say is not coming from the opposition. It comes from a loyal Obama supporter.

Six months into his term as President of the United States we are now witnessing the early stages of Barack Obama’s failure. I forecast that we will now witness an accelerating downward spiral. The right wing fanatics have been circling, taking little nips of flesh. They now smell blood, and they are starting their advance to go in for the kill.

Barack Obama is intelligent, well educated, and a wonderfully articulate orator. His ideas were right on target: Implement single payer universal health care, end the wars, bring the troops home, stop spending so much money on the military, end all torture and close all the secret police jails. Shine the cleansing power of light on things.

So what went wrong?

From the very start of his administration Obama turned his back on his main supporters, i.e., the progressives, the liberals, and the left wing. From the get-go he took all these dedicated, well educated, thinking individuals completely for granted and for the most part even stopped listening to them.

He appointed the same old greedy, conservative political hacks to his economic team who brought America and the world into the worst financial meltdown since the great depression. He was not at all open and honest about how greedy and corrupt all of “Wall Street” had really become. After years of Republican fraud, neutering, and dismantling of the nation’s financial regulations (they called it deregulation), Obama’s suggested reforms which he and his team came up with were surprisingly weak and mild mannered. Rather than something bold, the recommended reforms were not any sort of a major strengthening and complete rebuilding from the foundation up.

The banks and large financial institutions were bailed out to the tune of billions of dollars, but the people who were thrown out of work and lost their homes were not given much help. In fact, as the situation deteriorated the taxes and other revenue going to the states kept going down, so the social safety nets like unemployment compensation were greatly reduced. Six months into his presidency the gluttonous crooks on Wall Street were already getting million dollar bonuses again, even while unemployment was increasing and more middle class people were losing their homes. Now it was no longer just the poor people who had taken out sub-prime mortgages. It had become the normal middle class people with 30 year fixed mortgages, but who had lost their jobs.

President Obama almost immediately caved in to the right wing and abandoned his commitment to single payer, universal health care. Instead of talking about Universal Health Care he and all of his team began referring exclusively to “health care reform” or “cost reduction.” As if this little bit of deception would fool the right wing. No mention was made of the human cost or of the 50 million people without any health insurance. Nobody in the administration was talking about the other vast numbers of people who were getting screwed-over by the health insurance companies. Obama was strangely quiet, haughty, and divorced from any of the rough and tumble negotiations and discussions about implementation of universal health care. In a PBS interview he said that “this was not his style.” By the time he went on national TV to talk about his health care “reforms” and “cost control” very few people believed him when he said that these proposals would not increase the national debt.

Of course the right wing fanatics and the Republicans were violently opposed to all of his proposals which would help average Americans. But the really shocking part is that in only six months as President he had already lost almost all credibility among his base of supporters. They simply thought he was lying about the financial consequences of his proposals. And the funny part is: These were not even his health care proposals. They were badly watered down compromises which had floated out of Congress.

Obama said that he had ended the Iraq war, but no troops came home. They just moved out of the cities and into the boondocks. Rather than ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and reducing the wasteful spending on the military, within six month of his inauguration as President the total number of people in the military was actually increased significantly. Keep in mind that Obama did not appoint a liberal or progressive as Secretary of Defense. He kept Bush II’s man in the job slot!! Of course the wars went on and the total spending on warfare did not decrease.

Keep in mind that all this backpedalling and obsequious behavior by Obama and the Democrats was taking place when the Democrats overwhelmingly controlled both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

So from this perspective six months into his administration what have we learned about Barack Obama? He badly underestimated the strength of his opponents. He had on his rosy colored glasses and unrealistically thought that these greedy right wing fanatics would play fair.

Obama does not have a strong backbone. He can’t even manage to quit smoking. Strength-of-character is not his strong point. At the very first hint of any sort of conflict he averts his eyes, begins the slave’s submissive shuffling of his feet, and starts talking about compromise or absurd concepts like “crossing the aisle.” He is not battle hardened from working his way up in business or the military. His knowledge of fighting tactics and what will work in warfare is nothing short of abysmal. Obama is not a warrior or Alexander the Great. He is just a smooth talking, skinny, effete, and moderately progressive lawyer.

These greedy, corrupt, racist, right-wing fanatics who are fighting him are dedicated to his downfall. No compromise was possible with Hitler or the Nazis in WWII, and only with all out combat could the forces of evil be defeated. Obama is a weak man and it is “not his style” to engage in combat.

When the going gets rough President Obama does not even stand up for what he and his supporters believe in. Fragile, weak people like him look pathetic when they go into battle. And they get destroyed.

How incredibly sad it is to see this destruction not only of him but the horrible damage that is being caused to the country. America used to be such a great country. What a pity this is to witness.

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