Fuck Obama

[Jeff]

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Republicans of all stripes voiced this battle cry -- “Drill, baby, drill” -- to argue for offshore oil drilling as gas prices spiked to record levels. Then-candidate Barack Obama opposed it, however. (“Offshore drilling would not lower gas prices today,” he said. “It would not lower gas prices tomorrow. It would not lower gas prices this year. It would not lower gas prices five years from now. In fact, President Bush’s own Energy Department says we won’t see a drop of oil from [offshore drilling] until 2017.”) But now in what appears to be a Nixon-goes-to-China moment -- as well as a significant departure from the campaign -- President Obama will announce at 11:05 am ET new plans to drill for oil and natural gas off American coasts, the L.A. Times reports. But he will rule out drilling off the West Coast and the coasts above Delaware. “Obama's plans will include opening new areas of coastal Virginia and other parts of the mid-Atlantic region, Alaska and the eastern Gulf of Mexico for drilling. But officials say the president will block drilling in Alaska's Bristol Bay.”

The announcement is stunning for those of us who paid close attention to the presidential race. And it will be yet another test for Obama’s Democratic base -- in this case, environmentalists. As the New York Times writes, “But while Mr. Obama has staked out middle ground on other environmental matters -- supporting nuclear power, for example -- the sheer breadth of the offshore drilling decision will take some of his supporters aback.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/ ... 53091.aspx


Obama:

“When you actually look at the [health insurance] bill itself, it incorporates all sorts of Republican ideas. I mean a lot of commentators have said this is sort of similar to the bill that Mitt Romney, the Republican Governor and now presidential candidate, passed in Massachusetts. A lot of the ideas in terms of the exchange, just being able to pool and improve the purchasing power of individuals in the insurance market, that originated from the Heritage Foundation."

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/healt ... omneycare/

[Simulist]

That son of a bitch...

Some idiot on television just said something like, "Well, at least we don't have Sarah Palin in there!"

What?!? It wouldn't matter if we did. At all.

[brekin]

"This is not a decision that I've made lightly,"

[chump]

Obama gives key agriculture post to Monsanto man

Gary Ruskin | Green Change | 03.27.2010

Today, President Obama announced that he will recess appoint Islam A. Siddiqui to the position of Chief Agricultural Negotiator, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Siddiqui is a pesticide lobbyist and Vice President for Science and Regulatory Affairs at CropLife America, an agribusiness lobbying group that represents Monsanto.

Following is a letter sent by 98 organizations to U.S. Senators in opposition to Siddiqui's appointment, and a fact sheet about him.

Dear Senator:

The following 98 organizations are writing you to express our opposition to the nomination of Islam Siddiqui as Chief Agriculture Negotiator at the office of the United States Trade Representative. Our organizations— representing family farmers, farmworkers, fishers and sustainable agriculture, environmental, consumer, anti-hunger and other advocacy groups—urge you to reject Dr. Siddiqui’s appointment when it comes up for a floor vote, despite the Senate Finance Committee's favorable report of his nomination on December 23, 2009.

Siddiqui’s record at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and his role as a former registered lobbyist for CropLife America (whose members include Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont and Dow), has revealed him to consistently favor agribusinesses’ interests over the interests of consumers, the environment and public health (see attached fact sheet). We believe Siddiqui’s nomination severely weakens the Obama Administration’s credibility in promoting healthier and more sustainable local food systems here at home. His appointment would also send an unfortunate signal to the rest of the world that the United States plans to continue down the failed path of high-input and energy-intensive industrial agriculture by promoting toxic pesticides, inappropriate seed
biotechnologies and unfair trade agreements on nations that do not want and can least afford them.

The United States urgently needs a trade negotiator who understands that current trade agreements work neither for farmers nor the world’s hungry. With farmers here and abroad struggling to respond to water scarcity and increasingly volatile growing conditions, we need a resilient and restorative model of agriculture that adapts to and mitigates climate change and that moves us towards energy-efficient farming.

The most comprehensive analysis of global agriculture to date, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) states unequivocally that “business as usual is not an option.” We need a new, sustainable model of biodiverse, ecologically-based agriculture that regenerates soil health, sequesters carbon, feeds communities, protects farmworkers and puts profits back in the hands of family farmers and rural communities. Siddiqui’s track record shows that he favors none of these solutions.

We call on the Senate to reject Islam Siddiqui’s nomination and reorient trade policy to serve the interests of family farmers, farmworkers, consumers and the planet.

Sincerely,

[List of 98 organizations and more at link]

[sunny]

My disgust with Obama has reached Bushian levels. Once again, progressive citizens are being treated as if we do not exist. Our concerns are only half-assed addressed even at election time, when most of the so-called promises come in codespeak and platitudes anyway, and when it turns out he was lying through his smiling teeth during the campaign he doesn't feel a need to explain, apologize, nothing, he just goes out of his way to obsequiously reassure the puke party of his willingness to do what he's told.

[NeonLX]

Personally, I'd much prefer to have a self-professed "conservative", or "right-winger" in the Whitehouse at this point. If nothing else, it would pre-empt all of this faux revolution teabaggery crap. And when the curtain does come down on the economy (methinks sooner, rather than later), I'd rather have one of the 'wingers in office left holding the bag--though it really won't make much of a difference beyond allowing me to feel a bit of self-gratification from it.

On edit: When I say "faux revolution", I mean "coporate-sanctioned revolution".

The U.S. got sold a real bill of goods with this Obama character.

[chiggerbit]

I've been thinking along those very same lines, Neon. I figure I can do one of four things:

~Rejoin the Democratic party and caucus for newbies (throw the incumbent bums out logic), but stick to the Dem party;

~Don't vote at all;

~Vote third party;

~Or join the Republican party and try to participate in changing that party, which would force the Democratic party back to the left where it belongs, if there were enough of us willing to try this.


I figure the first choice is as good as throwing away my vote. The second and third choices only give me the power of one--it takes away a vote from the Democratic party, is all. But the fourth choice is likely the one I'm going with. It takes a vote away from the Dem party (power of one vote), and gives the vote to a party that has a good chance of winning (as good as getting two votes.) For instance, let's say there are two hundred voters, evenly divided, 100/100, and I'm one of the 100 on left side. I become disillusioned. I can refuse to vote, and then totals become 99/100, a difference of one. Or I can vote for the other side, and the totals become 99/101, see, a difference of two.

[Nordic]

I've been thinking along those very same lines, Neon. I figure I can do one of four things:

~Rejoin the Democratic party and caucus for newbies (throw the incumbent bums out logic), but stick to the Dem party;

~Don't vote at all;

~Vote third party;

~Or join the Republican party and try to participate in changing that party, which would force the Democratic party back to the left where it belongs, if there were enough of us willing to try this.


I figure the first choice is as good as throwing away my vote. The second and third choices only give me the power of one--it takes away a vote from the Democratic party, is all. But the fourth choice is likely the one I'm going with. It takes a vote away from the Dem party (power of one vote), and gives the vote to a party that has a good chance of winning (as good as getting two votes.) For instance, let's say there are two hundred voters, evenly divided, 100/100, and I'm one of the 100 on left side. I become disillusioned. I can refuse to vote, and then totals become 99/100, a difference of one. Or I can vote for the other side, and the totals become 99/101, see, a difference of two.

To me that logic makes no freaking sense at all.

Ignore both the Dems and the Repubs. Ignore them.

Build something new to replace them.

That's the only thing that makes any sense.

Why give them any energy at all? Just getting angry about them is to give them energy. Give them none, zero.

All your energy should go into something new.

[Simulist]

I think that's exactly right, Nordic.

Does my vote even count at all, when all is said and done? Who really knows?!? I'm going with probably not. And it's not like we don't have the technology to have audit trails for votes — you know, like if they really did matter — so that people could clearly see that their individual votes counted.

A simple deposit in a bank can be traced exactly, right down to the penny (and is, because MONEY COUNTS!), but The Vote — which is supposedly the most important thing American citizens can do — cannot be audited. Not in the final analysis. And don't tell me that's because the vote is supposed to be private; a secret random number could easily be assigned to each vote that only the voter has access to, and the voter could then follow its audit trail all the way up to the final vote count.

But that's if individual votes really mattered.

What really matters is the ILLUSION that "the people" have a real choice. And even if The Vote really counted, the "choice" is not an honest one. At all.

Nordic is right: give your attention to something that you can actually DO something about. The pretend-democracy of American political pageantry is not one of those things.

[chiggerbit]

Build something new to replace them.

You mean like forming a Kucinich for President third party?

[Nordic]

Build something new to replace them.

You mean like forming a Kucinich for President third party?

If that's what floats your boat.

I would suggest something from totally outside of the Washington establishment. Grassroots.

I like Kucinich, but he's been in Congress forever, and he's already had the perception of having "lost" several bids for the presidency.

What you want is someone who hasn't lost yet.

[chiggerbit]

I was being sarcastic.

[chump]

Voting is a charade. Every 8 years we get promises of "hope" and "change"; and what we get is act 1, act 2, act 3... of the same play! Thoses electronic voting machines are the telltale sign of a regime that will no longer leave anything to chance.

Even though I knew better, I voted for at the last minute for Obama in the last election because I could just envision Colorado being the swing state, and that my vote might've been the difference between Obama and McCain.

I knew that Obama was a puppet because of the way he burst onto the scene; the way he continued to propagandize 9/11 the same way that Bush did, and the way he had voted to fund the war as a senator. I knew it then, but was hoping, holding onto the remote possibility that Obama may be sincere, and that he could use the pulpit of the presidency to end the war, legitimize our banking system, and health care, and so on. But, they compared him to Kennedy, implying that he could be killed, and sure enough, after a year, I can't see how he is different from Bush. He has expanded the war in Afghanistan. The war in Iraq is still being funded (and many more as well), and civil liberties are still being diminished under the threat of a contrived "War On Terror". Oh yeah he did manage to forcibly hand health care over to the conglomerates. Now, he'll stick a fork Social Security.

My vote didn't matter. McCain never had a chance; neither did Gore. Bush Sr. only lost because he was supposed to. He had a hand picked successor in Clinton. In actuality, we have suffered a continuation of the same corrupt leadership throughout my lifetime. Despite all the fanfare, elections are just for show.

If I ever do vote again, it will never, ever be for a Democrat or Republican. They are completely compromised by running under that banner, and are merely a puppet of a corrupt system. Our "leaders" are a disgrace.

[norton ash]

Bring back the Wobblies, renew the IWW. Get Springsteen, Steve Earle, John Sayles, and a whole passel of movie stars on board. Michael Moore and Kucinich, sure. Nader. Cynthia McKinney. Even Ron Paul. Make it a big fucking populist tent. Be Johnny Cash-Christian if you like.

Get across what's the matter with Kansas, why working and poor people have insisted on fucking themselves for 30 years.

(Pouring another drink.)

[justdrew]

Bring back the Wobblies, renew the IWW. Get Springsteen, Steve Earle, John Sayles, and a whole passel of movie stars on board. Michael Moore and Kucinich, sure. Nader. Cynthia McKinney. Even Ron Paul. Make it a big fucking populist tent. Be Johnny Cash-Christian if you like.

Get across what's the matter with Kansas, why working and poor people have insisted on fucking themselves for 30 years.

(Pouring another drink.)

the IWW has been back for awhile now...

http://www.iww.org/