Reform Bush Tax Cuts? Obama Says "No, I Won't"---Again

Valid estimates indicate there are enough of these in private hands for every American currently alive. This might be one of the unstated reasons for Obama's constant "No we can't".

Writing in Huffington Post, Clarence B Jones, (Scholar in Residence, Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University) has sounded one of the first lamenting calls for a democratic challenger to President Barack Obama from a Black American perspective.  Frank Rich writing in the New York times, speculates Obama is a victim of Stockholm Syndrome.  Robert Kuttner, also writing in Huffpo, describes the coming disaster for the Democratic party and the US economy if Obama holds to his current course of circling with the Republican sharks. My hope is that Obama decides it's easier to get wealthy as a 'politician' by following the Sarah Palin route and like wise quits his elective office in mid stream. 

The following are the final paragraphs of Dr. Jones's article:

It is not easy to consider challenging the first African-American to be elected as President of the United States. But, regrettably, I believe that the time has come to do this.

It is time for Progressives to stop "whining" and arguing among themselves about whether President Obama will or will not do this or that. Obama is no different than any other President, nominated by his national party. He was elected with the hard work and 24/7 commitment of persons who believed and enlisted in his campaign for "Hope" and "Change."

You don't have to be a rocket scientist nor have a PhD in political science and sociology to see clearly that Obama has abandoned much of the base that elected him. He has done this because he no longer respects, fears or believes those persons who elected him have any alternative, but to accept what he does, whether they like it or not.   (The way Obama treats his base supporters is very similar to the way Rahm Emannuel treated dems in the House.)

It is time for those persons who constituted the "Movement" that enabled Senator Barack Obama to be elected to "break their silence"; to indicate that they no longer will sit on their hands, and only let off verbal steam and ineffective sound and fury, and "hope" for the best.

The answer is blowin' in the wind

The pursuit of the war in Afghanistan in support of a certifiably corrupt Afghan government and the apparent willingness to retreat from his campaign commitment of no further tax cuts for the rich, his equivocal and foot dragging leadership to end DADT, his TARP for Wall Street, but, equivocal insufficient attention to the unemployment and housing foreclosures of Main Street, suggest that the template of the 1968 challenge to the reelection of President Lyndon Johnson now must be thoughtfully considered for Obama in 2012.

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I just did a search of this blog to see how many times I've written about P.O. since his election.  In this current year it's been twice, and one of those was directed more at Rahm Emmanuel.  I haven't written much about P.O.  I suspect that's true because rather than being angry or disappointed, I actually feel contempt for him and his administration. I don't feel as if he betrayed me as a progressive because deep down I never really trusted he would follow through on any of his rhetoric. I hold him in contempt as the quintessential example of the inbuilt corporate corruption in American politics.  PO's administration has demonstrated this beyond any doubt.  The US does not have a two party system.  It has a one party system with two faces.

Two full years into PO's administration we still have virtually every single failed Bush/Cheney policy in place and now that will include extending the Bush tax cuts for the remainder of PO's term of office. The rich will get even richer and very little of it will trickle down to the estimated 18% of Americans who can't find full time work. The budget deficit will increase by another 80 billion strictly from the tax cuts for the richest two percent of Americans. 

In the meantime the percentage of Americans qualifying for SNAP (food stamps)has increased significantly for every year since 2007.  Based on August numbers, this represents some 43 million Americans.  August alone showed a one month increase of over 500,000 participants from July.  The current total represents around 13% of the American population.  If nothing changes, by the end of PO's first term, 25% of the US population will be on food stamps--and that will include a significant portion of Tea Party members who will be unable to comprehend that trickle down economics does not and never has worked. It is, as Papa Bush truthfully described it:  "Voodoo economics".  PO knows this just as well as Papa Bush did.  So why is he continuing this debacle of a monetary/tax policy?

I might just as well ask why he is continuing with any number of Bush policies, but I won't get any other answer than the pathetic excuse of 'bi partisanship' when there is no bi partisanship to be had and there never was any to be had.

Right before PO was elected I had some serious doubts as whether he could be effective at all.  I kept thinking back to the 60's and 70's and the list of progressives who were the paramount movers and shakers at that time.  They all wound up dead or neutralized in some way.  In their places we got puppets of right wing economic interests--especially in politics and religion.  The last televised statement from John Paul I contained this strongly worded statement:

"Believe me, we who live in opulence, while so many are dying because they have nothing, will have to answer to Jesus as to why we have not carried out his instruction, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself'. We, the clergy of our church and our congregations, who substitute gold and pomp and ceremony in place of Christ's instruction, who judge our masquerade of singing his praises to be more precious than human life, will have the most to explain....

......"It is the inalienable right of man to own property. But it is the right of no man to accumulate wealth beyond the necessary while other men starve to death because they have nothing."


It sure does seem as if there are some messages which are so antithetical to some people that the message must be neutralized and the messengers silenced.  PO has been both neutralized and silenced.  I don't find that too surprising.  Strangely enough, I also find it hopeful.  Light is being shined on some very dark places and that is always a very good thing.