Hello, Rosemary.
I was just sitting here contemplating our earlier discussion.
You know how much I respect your opinion. So I'm up in the middle of the night contemplating what you had to say about Obama, and my reaction to his policies.
Since you're generally so in touch with the mood of the people, as an afterthought, I decided to run this response as this week's column. That gives me an excuse for being so long-winded. You said:
“E, I don't think the President is trying so much to be a kiss-up to the Republican Party as he is trying to show that he cannot help it if the Republicans have decided they would rather be unprofessional and not fit to hold the offices they hold in Congress.
“Think about it. If he came down to their level, what would his credibility really look like? He's still trying to show that he's the President for everyone, no matter if some want to be ignorant. A lot of times people mistake kindness for weakness. No, I am not looking at him through rose-colored glasses. I'm being realistic. He has a hard road to navigate, and his choices are bad and worst .”
Much of what you say is true, Rosemary.
But that doesn't explain why he's circumventing not only the U.S. Constitution but international law to give the Bush/Cheney regime a pass on their war crimes.
This Amounts to an Assault
He's betraying a serious case of American arrogance by declaring that we need to look forward, not backwards. He's a constitutional scholar. He knows that's not his call. He swore to uphold the Constitution, and through extension, the rule of law.
Much as I like the President personally, I can't ignore such a serious circumvention of the law and blatant assault on American ideals.
I'm speaking out because I have a responsibility to speak out. It's not just government's role to uphold our values. That's the responsibility of every American citizen.
We cannot just sit back and expect justice to prevail. We must raise hell to see to it that it does. And we must always give principle priority over politics.
If it were not for malcontents speaking out on principle, President Obama would be in a cotton field instead of the White House.
The man I thought I voted for, and supported so passionately, would be the first to recognize that his failure to adhere to the rule of law in this matter diminishes America. He'd understand his failure to act creates a class of people who are above the law, and sets an ominous precedent that will allow future demagogues to act with impunity against both the American people, and the people of the world.
Who's to say the next group of tyrants won't start by rounding up “suspicious” Muslims, then Black Muslims, then Black people?
We Are at Risk
Why shouldn't they? We've set a precedent, saying they can do it with impunity. Obama is supposed to be protecting us from the slippery slope. Instead, his proposed course is to look the other way for political expediency. That's not a change I can believe in.
Some things are more important than worrying about providing political ammunition to the opposition. I'm more concerned about becoming so loyal to one man or ideology that we allow ourselves to be caught flat-footed, like many others throughout history.
I wonder how many families were destroyed by financial ruin after blindly opposing healthcare reform during the Clinton administration, for example; who put ideology and blind loyalty before common sense when some politician told them that healthcare reform constituted socialism?
Thousands, I would guess. If the Democrats had been on their game, instead of anxiously caving in to the insurance industry, they would have gathered up some of these people and featured them in political commercials during this current debate.
Yet again, the Republican leadership is using that same tactic to manipulate their base. Yet again, they're manipulating the people who have blind faith in their leadership to promote the status quo. Once again, they're actively exploiting the concerns of their base over being displaced by minorities and having “socialism” disrupt the lives that they've come to know — even though many of them can't define socialism.
While many of us on the “Left” like to make fun of these people as dim-witted (as I just did), I actively correspond with many people on the right. They're far from ignorant.
Many are quite intelligent. It's just that they feel such a vested interest in refusing to accept the glaring reality before their eyes that it's causing them to cling to a group who is blatantly acting against their best interest. If we're not aggressively vigilant, the very same thing can happen to us.
Don't get me wrong, I doubt President Obama is a demagogue. I think he's a good man, potentially a great President who's taking a course I disagree with.
The Republican base feels the same way about people they support. We can render this issue moot with a simple rule of thumb: Never forget we're dealing with politicians. We must remember their profession centers around the manipulation of smoke and mirrors. This makes it incumbent upon us to hold their feet to the fire, liberals and conservatives.
We must never allow ourselves to become so blinded by what a politician is supposed to represent, that we ignore what his actions say he actually represents. History has taught us that we must always judge politicians on what they do, not what they say. That includes Barack Obama.
Call me cynical, but I need a very important question answered: If we're willing to exhaust our treasury and sacrifice the lives of our youth to chase Osama Bin Laden for allegedly killing just under three thousand Americans, how does that square with President Obama casually waving off the fact that Bush and Cheney killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children as inconvenient to address?
I have a problem with that kind of “justice.” Every American should because it was done in our name. As much as I like President Obama, logic tells me if he doesn't have a problem with such a glaring injustice, I have to consider him a part of that injustice, an injustice that never will allow America to be completely safe.
This attitude that we have, and that President Obama seems to share, that the United States can walk away from the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people as simply “collateral damage,” is nothing short of American hubris.
I cannot be comfortable with any President who is willing to embrace such a philosophy. As long as the lives of Iraqis are deemed unimportant, so is mine.
America needs to wake up. While we're demonizing the people of Asia and the Middle East, we need to recognize that we wouldn't even have a conflict with these people if we weren't meddling in their part of the world.
They're not over here.
We're over there.
How can I break into my neighbor's house, wipe out his family and have my pockets filled with his possessions, then claim I was acting in self-defense?
There isn't a court in a America would accept such a defense.
America doesn't have to spend trillions of dollars to protect our security. That money could be spent educating our children, providing affordable healthcare and revitalizing our infrastructure. All we have to do is “just say no” to the military/industrial complex, and stop meddling in the affairs of others.
When I look at President Obama, in spite of how much I admire him, I have to ask, “Doesn't he know these things?”
If he doesn't, we have a problem with intellectual acuity. If he does, we have a more severe problem. Why is he continuing to play a game that's causing the death and suffering of so many people around the world?
Rosemary, when I speak of President Obama caving in to the Republican party, I'm not just talking about healthcare.
I'm talking about caving in to the status quo. That is more serious, going directly to his overall character. During the campaign he promised change. That leaves me asking: Where? When?
Many progressives are mad as hell, and not just over a frivolous partisan issue. They feel lied to. They know Obama's not dumb. He knew exactly what message he was sending when he campaigned on change. So do we. We’re going to hold him to it.
Tell Gaddis I said hi.
Eric L. Wattree is a writer, poet, and musician, born in Los Angeles (Watts). He’s a columnist for the Los Angeles Sentinel, the Black Star News, and a contributing writer to Your Black World, the Huffington Post, ePluribus Media, and several other online sites and publications. He's also the author of “A Message From the Hood.”
Mr. Wattree may be contacted at wattree@verizon.net
You may learn more abut Mr. Wattree at wattree.blogspot.com
Religious bigotry: It’s not that I hate everybody who doesn’t look, think and act like me. It’s just that God does.
