An American President

The New York Times editorial this morning called it "sardonic resignation." That hits it about right. I was thinking about disbelief, calm rationality in the face of what the President, kindly, called "silliness," and a determined dignity.

One question that comes to mind is this one: how could such huge numbers of Americans (nearly 75 percent, reportedly, of Republicans) be led to believe the "birther" absurdity, all factual evidence to the contrary? The only explanation that could seem to account for it is the familiar, ugly one: racism. Those riding their political ambitions on the notion that Obama was not born in this country were quite clearly playing on the fear and hatred of otherness, the scurrilous intimation that he is not, and was never "one of us." A curious irony, since he has proved himself time and again to be one of the best of us: smart, clear-headed, generous to a fault, patient, calm in adversity, good-humored, loyal, the father of a wonderful family.

Shame on those who have fomented hatred for their political goals. Shame on Republican leaders who have rejected countless opportunities to speak out forcefully and defuse this non-issue. Shame on those in the United States Congress and in the state houses of shamefully numerous states to legislate this issue into something it has never been--legitimate.

Will it now be put to rest? Clearly not. Those impervious to facts or rational argument before the President's unveiling of the "long form" of his birth certificate are unlikely to be persuaded by any further facts of rational argument. The whispers--no longer whispers, thanks in part to the loud and ugly voice of Donald Trump--will persist, questioning the authenticity of the document and the reasons for what such voices consider to be too tardy a response to their impertinent demands.

And meanwhile, we trust, Obama will continue, despite all the roadblocks, to work with what others consider to be excessive patience on the issues that really matter to this country.

A START-UP

We're still a start-up operation here at "Vote Obama 2012." We're not quite sure what we're going to look like or sound like, but it's our full intention to be around until November, 2012, when we see Barack Obama safely re-elected to a second term in office.

And we're looking for volunteers. We welcome people who can write with passion and conviction. We need people more skilled than myself in gathering useful material from the Internet and reposting it. Above all, we need people who share the vision of a country defined by the qualities we purport to value: equality of opportunity, justice, freedom of religion, tolerance, peaceful cooperation with other nations ...

Our support for Obama is not uncritical or merely worshipful. We understand that there are promises unkept, that there is much left to do. Our intention in promoting his re-election with strong national support is to allow him the opportunity to be the best that he can be--better than he has been able to be in the poisonously partisan political environment he has had to contend with in the course of his first term.

With a strong national show of support for a democratic vision and a second term in which to work, this President is capable of bringing about the change he envisioned--and that we envisioned along with him.

"Vote Obama 2012" is about helping to generate that strong democratic support.

TAXES

I much liked this New York Times op-ed piece by David Stockman, and today's column by Paul Krugman. I believe, with them, that we need to restore the rates that were in force before the Bush tax cuts--not just for the wealthy, but for the rest of us, too. It's all very well to talk about the need for deficit reduction, but no amount of magic will make that happen until we can agree to our fair share of sacrifice.

The President is fighting an uphill battle on this one. The economic plan he put out reflects the political reality of an electorate that has been persuaded to believe that black is white and up is down, and that free lunches abound. To get anything achieved, he needs to count on good, solid support from his own base. It's time to let him hear that he has the support he needs.

HERE'S A FINE REASON...

... to vote for the President.

This First Lady has done a terrific job. Engaged, a sane perspective on family and health, a leader in her own right. Compassionate. Smart. Glad she landed safely yesterday!

INTENTION

In response to some doubts, questions and misapprehensions, please note that I started this blog with no cut-and-dried intention other than to support the re-election of Barack Obama in 2012.

That said, I do want to avoid the harsh polemics that I find on other left-leaning blogs: this one is not about airing disappointments and frustrations--many of which I share to a greater or lesser degree, but find unproductive. As I see it, there are many excellent reasons to support Obama, along with many terrible reasons to desert him. It's the former that I'd prefer to put out in these pages, as we move toward the 2012 election, in well-reasoned, readable prose.

There is a huge difference between Obama's vision and that of his political opponents, whose current, obstructive power we have good reason to deplore. I'd like this blog to give voice to those many people I talk to--and hear from--who think the President is fighting the good fight in the best way possible in today's poisonously, even hatefully, negative political arena.

AND I'm hoping for help from anyone who gets what I'm trying to do.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

My post today on "Making a Difference" is here, at The Buddha Diaries. It's about the right to a basic education. It seems to me that the issues I raise are basic Democratic values. Please click on over. Thanks.

PLEASE NOTE: I'm still looking for writing partners on this blog. I don't want to be its only voice. Please contact me if you'd be interested in writing an occasional piece in support of Obama's re-election.

AT DINNER

I was sitting at dinner in a college cafeteria yesterday evening in the company of two smart women who take the time to inform themselves about our national problems and priorities. Like most others with whom I sit down and talk, they were as dismayed as I by the venom directed at Obama from both left and right. I say "venom," because that's how disagreement seem most frequently expressed these days. What I see on television and read online bears little resemblance to what I hear when I sit down and talk with people. There are so many who share my view that anger and impatience to little to serve the causes we support; and who marvel at the level-headedness and quiet perseverance of the man in the Oval Office.

I conclude from my personal, anecdotal experience that there is a strong groundswell of support for the President that does not get heard in the cacophony of opinionated rant. I choose to believe that, come election time, good sense and fairness will win out over irrationality and greed.

NOT GOING TO HAPPEN

I was cheered by the President's speech on the economy yesterday. I do not have the knowledge to provide my own analysis of the economic policies he sketched out, but his critics on the left can no longer complain about a lack of clarity on the social issues. Obama's unambiguous dismissal of the Ryan budget plan made clear his differences with Republican ideologues, who make no bones about their intention to dismantle virtually every government program that serves the poor, the elderly, the sick and the disabled--and shift the savings over into the hands of the already rich and comfortable.

Two commitments stood out in the speech: that the President will not allow Medicare to be converted into a voucher program that will enrich the insurance companies on the backs of the elderly; and that he will not permit any further extension of the disastrous Bush Tax cuts.

The Republican redistribution of wealth into the hands of the already wealthy must be halted. I see--and hear--not a single voice on the right that strays from the cut-the-spending AND cut-taxes party line. Decades of experience have now made it abundantly clear that cutting taxes does not raise revenues; and that spending cuts serve only to threaten recovery from recession. Obama succeeded in quietly eviscerating these tired Republican mantras. I thought his speech was a superb and persuasive reminder that our greatness, as a nation, is not the result of small-mindedness and parsimony, but rather of our breadth of vision, our expansive view of an always better future, and our generosity.

RIGHT TO BE HARD

Paul Krugman is right to be hard on Obama in his column this morning. I, too, want to hear stronger opposition from the White House and the Democrats to the current Republican push to the far right on the economy. Because I want more from him, however, does not mean that I must withdraw my support. All the more reason, indeed, to redouble it.

THE BUDGET DEAL

I personally deplore the concessions made by Democrats and the President in yesterday's budget deal. While I applaud the retention of funding for important programs like Planned Parenthood and the EPA, I deplore the cuts in other vital areas affecting, mostly, the most vulnerable in our society. I deplore the fact that the revenue side of the equation was not even part of the discussion, while the very wealthy and the corporations continue to be spared the burden of a proportionate share of taxes. I am persuaded by the arguments of economists like Paul Krugman of the New York Times that drastic cuts like those conceded in yesterday's agreement will serve only to further slow the already sluggish economic recovery.

And yet... it is the American electorate that is responsible for having naively handed so much power to the far right-wing zealots who apparently hold their own party and the US Congress hostage to their implacable and unreasonable demands. It required the ultimate threat of a government shutdown and its dire economic consequences to persuade these people to relinquish their demand that not one hundred but one hundred and fifty percent (and growing) of their radically right-wing policy and economic goals be met--that is, if the agreement survives the waiting period.

What will it take to awaken the vast middle class conservative part of the electorate to their own interests? Will the Paul Ryan "budget plan" gain traction and support amongst these people, when it so clearly benefits the already wealthy and further deprives the poor and needy? The Republicans are quick to rail against what they call a "redistribution of wealth" from the top down, but they're perfectly happy to redistribute it from the bottom up.

Obama is nowhere near achieving the results on the economic front that I had hoped for when I voted for him in 2008. He has, however, succeeded in turning the economy around, be it ever so slowly, against the powerful tide of financial industry and Republican political resistance. Would he have done better to have chosen a different administrative team? He has been roundly criticized from the left for choosing advisors from the same industry that brought us close to ruin. Again, I myself would have opted for more radical choices, and more radical policies.

But would a more radical ("socialist"?) approach have made for greater, speedier headway, given the political and historical circumstance? This is America, after all. This is America post-tax revolt, post-Reagan, post-trickle down economics. People have been willingly deceived for decades by the "fairy dust" that Krugman writes about; we believe we can enjoy a perpetual free lunch, that we can have all the services to which we have become accustomed without paying for them with our taxes. It's a mind-set that has proved resistant to reason and argument.

Oh, and then there are the trillions owed to pay for George W. Bush's unfunded wars and his simultaneous tax cuts for the wealthy.

That's the circumstance. You'd think America would be ready for significant change. Not so. Despite Obama's milder and more gradualist approach, conservatives successfully used the "socialist" slur to arouse old, knee-jerk fears among the voters in last year's elections. Had he applied some truly socialist mojo, might he not have put even slow progress at risk? I don't know. But I still plan to vote for him in 2012. Even distressingly slow progress, as I see it, is a whole lot better than regression.

Obamacare!

We need to reframe that word. Opponents have succeeded in giving it a negative spin, but I see it as a major achievement that deserves celebrating.

Okay, I wanted the "public option." I wanted "Medicare for all." I did not get what I wanted. Still, Obama succeeded where there has been nothing but failure for the past half century. Where the Clintons failed. We have a much needed national health care system. Of course it needs improving. Of course it needs to cover the needs of all Americans, and there are those who are still left out in the cold.

To those who say it was not skillfully handled, that the process could have been a smoother one, that better communication would have made it so, I say: perhaps. There were ugly bumps along the way. But the opposition was implacable, and well-funded. And the thing got done.

I write this, of course, in the context of yesterday's unveiling of the Republican alternative, a thinly disguised and deeply misguided plan to kill not only the Obama health care plan but even Medicare itself--a system that enjoys the enthusiastic support of countless millions who reap its benefits, and many more who still count on it being there for them. Instead, we are offered the prospect of a plan that envisions the health care of Americans as a profit-making industry, a cash cow for the insurance companies at the expense of the rest of us.

To which I say, Long live Obamacare!

When I hear Obama's opponents speak, I hear nothing but concern for their small base of political supporters and their own political hides. It's my belief that this man really does care about the well-being of his fellow-citizens, and works his tail off for us.

Yes!

We have grabbed this url and blog title with the intention of supporting the Barack Obama campaign for re-election to the Oval Office in 2012. We do this with the conviction that he is not simply better than the alternatives, but that he is the right man to lead us toward a viable future for the country.

It is now our responsibility t0 create an alternative to the deluded belief in American exceptionalism which has led us into a misguided foreign policy and disastrous wars; to the misplaced faith in the infallibility of the market economy and deregulation; and to the long period of neglect of education and other vital social services. The bankruptcy of these beliefs and the policies they justify is now apparent in the multiple crises the country now faces. The stubborn, bipartisan impasse that has stalled all progress toward solutions is further evidence that we need a man in the Oval Office who has a demonstrated capacity to listen, to make decisions without haste and in view of all available facts, and to persist calmly despite all obstacles.

We do not agree with every action and pronouncement of Obama or his administration. We have, indeed, many disagreements. But we can disagree on issues without immediately throwing support and trust to the winds. Nor do we wish to idolize the man. He needs our thoughtful criticism. But we see in Obama a man who is clear in his perceptions and fair in judgment. We see in him a man who understands the use of power in a way that allows for changing forces in the world; he shares the strength of the proverbial reed, whose nature is to prevail over shifting winds by responding to them, rather than the proverbial oak, uprooted by its own unbending stubbornness.

We also see in Obama a man who sees beyond current contingencies, beyond the chattering marketplace of bias and opinion, beyond the press of immediate necessities. If we want the change we voted for when we elected him, we'll vote for him again in 2012. Given the chaos in which we have embroiled ourselves as a nation, it will take a lot longer than a single four-year term to get there. We need Obama for a second term.