After some retrospection, I can now see that whenever I write something even mildly critical of President Barack Obama, the phone calls and e-mails come with protestations from his many sycophants. Back around August of 2007, I wrote an article critical of him constantly dropping into New York for fundraising purposes mainly, while ignoring our other issues -especially those raging in the communities of color. I suggested that he was using NYC as an ATM machine only to make campaign withdrawals. It was the first time I experienced the wrath of ”Barack’s army of black females”. They brook no criticism of him. They are probably the most loyal demographic of all his supporters.
It’s a shame that some folks (especially black ones) feel he is beyond critique. Their ridiculous rationale is that if I critique him, then I am only doing dirty work for the Republican Party; plus making it harder for him to be re-elected. I beg to disagree. Barack Obama is only human; he is not infallible. Sure there are many admirable qualities to this man, and I even get a sense of why black women love him so much: but that’s another column.
While he was applying for the job as President of the USA, candidate Barack Obama ran on a platform of “change”; after winning the election, President Barack Obama’s administration has been about “system maintenance” at best. It’s not TRULY about change is it? Whatever change we have seen taken place, has been gradual at best; and to me “gradualism” wasn’t the “small change” I voted for in Obama’s 2008 victorious election. Some of the changes needed in this country can be termed “radical”. And we need them now: especially in our economic and military policies.
One of the best things that has happened from Barack Obama’s victory is this: parents, teachers, educators, lecturers and professors all over this country, can finally stop lying to their Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native-American, mixed race, and white female students. You see, for years we would tell them that anyone and everyone can aspire to be president: that was a lie until Barack won. The 232-year exclusion from the formal presidency, of those other than Caucasian males, was systematic and deliberate. BO’s victory changed all that. Many of us will be forever thankful and grateful. However, that doesn’t mean that he gets a free pass when he messes up. Democracy is way bigger than Barack Obama (or any other man for that matter).
In my last column, I told you that it was wrong for our president to equate the overall treatment of Blacks, Hispanics, aboriginal Indians, and other non-white Americans, with the positive ways American society and American history have treated whites (especially Caucasian males) in general. He is egregiously wrong, and as a constitutional scholar he should know better. I had hoped that those in opposition to my column would have departed from emotional outbursts and cerebrally taken on the discourse, but they didn’t (as usual).
Obama’s inflated view of an American society that’s fair and inclusive to all creeds and races, needed to be challenged from way back when he gave his “back to the wall” Philadelphia “race” speech in 2008; but as per usual he got a “bligh”. This is one of the luckiest politicians I have ever seen. This is a man who tries to avoid race matters like it was an STD. This is a president whose most loyal constituents are suggesting that he will get around to addressing the needs of blacks in a second term. What if he doesn’t get a second term?
The rub here is this: why do most people think that blacks must always be patient when confronted with issues needing governmental intervention? The question seems to always become, if not now: when? In democracy one is supposed to reward their most loyal supporters after political victories. After all, participation in the political process has both incentives and rewards. So why is it that black people -the most loyal constituents of democrats- appear to be always on the outside looking in? And this takes place regardless of which party holds the White House.
Look folks, some of the many promises that candidate Obama made -but has failed to keep so far- will eventually come back to haunt him during his re-election battle. I say this with much regret. Contrary to popular belief, I still support Barack Obama. I would love it if when he is out of office, that we all look back and call his presidency a very successful one. As an educator, I can only give Barack Obama somewhere between “B” and “B+” as a grade for his efforts so far. He is still short of an “A” performance.
The fact that Republicans have offered nothing but moribund ideas -warmed over as leftovers from the Reagan administration- has probably helped Obama maintain some level of support from moderate and independent voters like me. This can be deceptive however since we have more than a year and a half to the next presidential election: and that (in terms of politics) is a very long time. As of now, I don’t see the same level of intensity, energy, enthusiasm and support for Barack Obama as he garnered last time out. Maybe it‘s because history has already been made? Or maybe it’s because he has disappointed too many with his implied mantra of “great expectations”? You tell me folks. Like those with enquiring minds: I do want to know
The Republicans have offered me no alternative as yet. Recycling dead ideas -like lowering taxes for the rich as a way of stimulating the economy- is not creative/innovative thinking as far as I am concerned. Too many studies have shown that the better way to stimulate job-growth is through government intervention (spending) when compared to tax incentives for the rich. Privatizing Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are “no-brainers” to me, since I don’t trust the “free market” -with its many privateers (Boeskys and Madoffs) – to handle those public needs.
And yet, when you recall candidate Obama, you find that he promised regular citizens the same health-care and health-insurance options that members of Congress have: it didn’t happen. It is true that he did succeed in getting a watered-down version of true health care reform, but it was mainly because he refused to go to bat for the “public option” amongst other real goodies. Then when he had an opportunity to block the renewal of Bush’s budget-busting tax cuts for the wealthy, Obama backed down like a weak center being pushed around in the paint.
Recently, our president submitted his long-term plans for fighting deficit-spending in the federal budget, and as with near all other presidents before him, the Pentagon (military) aspect of the budget is sacrosanct. As usual, we are willing to spend trillions on guns and bombs, instead of investing in homes/houses, schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, airports, factories, research and other good things like those. We always seem to prioritize the wrong stuff year in year out: so what has changed relative to federal budgetary plans?
Candidate Obama promised to close down the Guantanamo base in Cuba: we are still waiting for that. He promised to improve relations with said island (Cuba) and others in the Caribbean Basin: we are still waiting for that too. Similarly, we are still waiting for the resolution of Puerto Rico’s status; isn’t that in overtime? What about relations with members of the CARICOM/ OAS? And what about dealing with immigration issues within said organizations/countries? Where is the comprehensive immigration reform we were promised?
The Obama administration has failed to bring to trial, those accused in the “nine-eleven” crimes against humanity. After ten years don’t you think they all deserve their day in court? Are we a country that imprisons people indefinitely without trial? That’s just what we have done in the post-nine-eleven period. We have gone all around the world and imprisoned people against their will, based on suspicions (and other factors) while storing them in Guantanamo, Cuba. And while I am at it, may I inquire about internal wire-tapping (eavesdropping) of American citizens? Is that still taking place on the scale it was during the Bush administration? And how many “renditions” still take place all over the world? To those who don’t understand the term “renditions”, I will suggest viewing the movie of the same name (Reece Whiterspoon/ Meryl Streep).
Obama has failed to push an extensive and comprehensive “jobs-bill” through Congress. He has failed to offer any new ideas in economics: thus the rich keeps getting richer, while the poor gets poorer. He appears to be prioritizing the “deficit spending” issue, in what is ostensibly an attempt to appease “Tea-Party” folks on the right of the political spectrum. However, that couldn’t have come at a worse time in our economic history.
Any economist worth his or her salt, will tell you that in as severe a recession as this one, the government should spend -even borrowed money- to help generate economic growth/activity. Even when he does cut government spending, he does so with heating oil programs for the poor and needy. What a friggin shame: especially when he appears to have ruled out an immediate tax-surcharge on the well-to-do, the rich, and the super-wealthy citizens of this country.
Look Mr. Barack Obama: you don’t flip-flop when dealing with tax increases on the wealthy? Do you expect the poor (and lower middle-middle class) folks to eat the proverbial “cake”? Do we idly sit and stand by while social programs that form the safety-net for the poor and needy are cut to the bone?
Big corporations have gotten away with paying little or no taxes under Barack’s watch -albeit no different to when other presidents were in charge. Is this real change? I say no: I say it is short change. Look at the books for Exxon, GE, Bank of America, Chevron, Boeing, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Conoco -Philips and Carnival Cruise Airlines: they made billions in profits but paid zero in income taxes. Foreign corporations functioning here are even worse culprits. Ask senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont about all these corporations and he will tell you the stories of greed and corruption running rampant in the business world. These corporations -and many entities of their ilk- use high-priced lawyers to unduly influence Congress: that’s how the tax-codes get written. And it is within the tax codes where everyday folks get screwed royally.
Look, some folks may get angry at me for writing this, but in hard times like these, I say tax the darn church groups too. Scrutinize their books as any other entity. Too many churches (and their vanguard leadership/politburos) are getting away with murder at the expense of the rest of us.
Look at the books of billionaires like Warren Buffet and you will find that tax loopholes -which benefit the rich- are killing us. Almost two out of every five corporations pay no income taxes. The federal government has as much a deficit-spending problem as a cash flow problem. We can open sluice gates of funding streams with better taxation policy, and with aggressive tax-enforcement on rich individuals and rich individual-families. The same can be said if we go after the big national and multi-national corporations. Why must the IRS terrorize ordinary folks like me, when the big fish is in the kitchen waiting to be fried? It’s a shame. Really!
The wealthiest people in this country continue to enrichen themselves daily, while the Sly Stone (everyday) folks keep losing purchasing power. This has been going on for decades now, and there is no single governmental policy in place to stop the hemorrhaging for us regular folks. There was a time when a man could go out to a job, and with one paycheck, take care of his aged-parents, his wife, kids, dogs and other pets; that rarely happens anymore. If the woman isn’t working then things get real tight: real fast. Lord, how I feel for the many single mothers out there who have been trying to make ends meet, while irresponsible men who fathered the kids just keep on trucking and fucking!
In military and defense matters, the Obama administration has lined up with his predecessor. Obama escalated the Afghan war. He continues to blast “supposed” Islamic-militants to kingdom come, by using Drones to bomb select areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The fact is this: hundreds of innocent civilians have died because of these bombings. Plus it is an egregious violation of the sovereignty of those countries.
There seems to be no clear understanding from President Obama that there are those who have vested interests in war-making and turmoil, walking all around the Pentagon. These folks, plus their cronies who get the plush contracts to supply our military machines, need to be challenged: now. If we cut them off we will have a better world. They ferment strife and hostilities. They encourage (instead of discourage) violence, bloodshed and wars. They are the worst of the worst human beings. They are not heroes or sheroes: they are despicable.
It seems that only one president was courageous enough to at least admit to the existence of a “war-class” and its prevailing mentality. This president (General Dwight Eisenhower) warned us over a half-century ago about the military-industrial complex, and now we find ourselves militarily imbedded in about a quarter of all the world’s nations -trying to act as some kind of one-man police force.
And now we get to the inchoate foreign policy called: Libya. From here on in, are we going to involve ourselves in every nation’s civil unrest? Picture the American Civil War. Picture aircraft technology as being a given. Picture Jefferson Davis breaking off to form a rebel nation: and here comes France, Britain and other European nations, to bomb the hell out of the Union army, air force, navy and marines? Do you really get the picture? This is exactly what we are presently doing in Libya today. We have chosen up sides in an internal dispute.
Wasn’t this the role of the CIA when it was first formally established? Aren’t covert organizations like the CIA supposed to give us cover and deniability in relation to military adventures like this one? And why didn’t we intervene in Rwanda, or in the Sudan? Do we just arbitrarily choose up sides? Or was this always the case? And if so: is there any attempt at a moral rationalization for risking the lives of our military and “intelligence” employees? Oh! I’ve got it now: “If ever any of your forces are caught, killed or captured; the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your acquaintance” (from the television series “Mission Impossible”).
Here is something else to chew on while we are still at this: candidate Barack Obama once promised that if the rights of trade unions, public service employees and other workers were ever threatened, that he would be in the forefront of those defending said rights. He went as far as to say that if the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively for better contracts (working conditions etc.) was challenged, that he would put on his most comfortable shoes and be at the front of the protest marches. Then came Wisconsin: where was Barack Obama?
I know there are folks who will say that the president is doing one hell of a juggling act, in trying to appease everyone, get things done, and at the same time keep the peace with republicans; fine. I still feel that your core values and principles must never be compromised unless we talking about something as cataclysmic as nuclear war.
I must admit that I have never seen a presidency in which so many hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, civil insurrections, natural disasters, man-made disasters (recession, financial crises, deficits, Congress, BP oil spills, and the like) have taken place in less than thirty months: geeze! It’s as though the Gods in charge of the heavens, looked down to earth one day, and saw this mulatto in charge of the USA and said WTH: “we have to test this dude immediately”.
I must admit that in terms of his demeanor, the president has been as “cool as cucumber” overall. And that’s good. But whoever said that life was easy? Whoever said this job was for virgins, hot-heads and fools?
Maybe “change” was a word that tested well in focus groups, and as such it was played out during the campaign? In time we will all tell whether we got the “change” we expected from this president. Sure you can go up on the campaign’s website and find a list of worthwhile accomplishments so far: every administration can tout accomplishments. The problems come when expectations of your administration run higher than usual because you were perceived as something “extra-special”.
When US consumers pay close to five dollars a gallon for gasoline, they ask questions of any administration. And when the Saudi Arabian oil minister says there is currently a glut on the oil market, informed consumers (especially ones who studied economics) start asking another set of questions. Like, what‘s really going on here?
Look, I already wrote a letter to our president relative to the EPA. I am still hopeful that he responds with legislation that takes this entity off the republican hit list. I am also hopeful that this administration will one day focus on environmental issues too long on the back burner, and languishing there, just like issues facing too many black communities of this nation.
If our president really knows what time it is, then he has to get cracking on quite a few things long neglected. The first thing he has to do is get down to the nitty-gritty and find out what’s going on in “Black-America”.
He will be unpleasantly surprised.
Stay tuned-in folks.