- Think we need systemic change in our economy; two names should suffice to put the truth to the lie that our financial system will not be turned to the interests of the people over the profit-driven interests of the financial corporations: Geithner and Summers, both tools of the industry they are supposed to oversee.
- Central and South America� ��"beware. Thee president's tepid response to the Honduran coup de etat should be warning enough that this nation will not sit idly by while socially responsible trends work against the needs of the multinational corporations that set policy in this hemisphere. Rest assured, the empire, though increasingly in dept and faltering, is still intact.
- Rendition? It hasn't been rendered untenable. Guantanamo? Throw habeas corpus out the window. Some will never get a jury room. (And our president once taught constitutional law, once a sign for hope.) The Military Commissions and Patriot Acts. We'll tinker around the edges. Get use to them.
- Hope the continued privatization of our schools and our military will end along with the lack of oversight and greater expense they leave us? Forget about it.
- Ending of the expense ridden Medicare Advantage component of Medicare? Nope. The corporations have their hooks in what once was private and will not let go� ��"and don't believe our elected officials will stop them.
- How about a simple solution to the supposed Social Security crisis� ��"having those making over 106,000 a year continue to pay into Social Security to keep it solvent and a perpetually sustainable hedge against poverty for the elderly. You must be kidding. Too simple.
- Ending the promised corporate control of our elections and making illegal donations by the corporations to political campaigns. Oops, I forgot. Corporations are living breathing beings, just like you and I. They have human rights, you know, and besides, they are quite sensitive.
Many other items can be added to this list, and it is not meant to suggest that President Obama has not made some good moves. The point is that Obama is a part of a system that needs changed. In short, those who expected a major shift in America's domestic and foreign policy been hope-a-doped.
Even though the worst president to grace the office, George W. Bush fought for� ��"and got--what he wanted, even it meant destroying our nation and the evisceration of the middle class. If only Obama had such pluck. We might then have a leader who fights for the changes necessary to create real democracy, changes where the needs of citizens are central to the debate, where we are the stakeholders, not the moneyed interests who drive a stake into the heart of real reform for short term interests. We might have a leader who ends the militarism that shakes down the system stealing our nation's wealth. War-mongering is a profitable business, and shareholder's needs are insatiable. Where is our agent for change to take this on? We might have a leader reining in unmitigated capitalism with strong rules and oversight. A year after the meltdown, it appears we'll get window-dressing if we are lucky. We might see a leader who fights tooth and nail for real environmental legislation, not one written and guided by the industries that are inimical to change. We needed a leader to fight for single-payer health care, not some corporate driven solution doomed to fail.
Are these hopes unfair? Surely, one man, even the president, cannot do this alone. It cannot be his entire fault. And I agree. But by his works will you will know him, and the actions of this president thus far align themselves with the moneyed-interests intent on the status quo. Obama's lack of fight, lack of conviction on core needs is inexcusable. We need real change if this nation is to once again bend toward the arc of history portending social and economic justice, and not just for the top five percent. We need the hopes of the mass of people to be at center of change. So let's make it official. For those who believed the president needed a honeymoon, end it now.
We must demand systemic change like was instituted during the Great Depression, not chump change we have been given. We must not allow the few to dictate and write policy decisions that exclude who should be at the center of our limping democracy� ��"the people. And we will not, and should not, be satisfied until we get our way. So Mr. President, the choice is yours: Gravitas and greatness or mediocrity and obscurity. We won't be hope-a-doped any longer. It's action with results we demand. And that demand will be given by a populace growing restless with the domination of corporations at the center of the political system.
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