[img]583|left|||no_popup[/img]I’ve been a steadfast Obama supporter since the day he arrived on the political scene. It hasn’t been easy.
Even as a candidate, he reversed his position on FISA after it was revealed that the Bush administration had been illegally spying on the American people. Once elected, instead of allowing his attorney general the free hand to hold Bush and Cheney accountable for the war crimes committed in Iraq as prescribed both by law, and his oath of office, he sent the message to his attorney general and the American people that we shouldn’t “look back” on the murder of close to a million people.
Instead of giving us the change he promised during the campaign, he has allowed the Republican Party to frame a false political debate that has given them free rein to hold the American people hostage and keep us in absolute misery. While all this is going on, the only word coming out of his mouth is “compromise.”
Fellow Obama supporters contend the President only can do so much. But what he can do is use the bully pulpit of the Presidency to educate the people, which he is failing miserably to do. The entire GOP agenda is based on flat-out lies, the blatant corruption of facts, and a deviation from reality so severe even a child could see it if someone would just take the time to explain it. Why isn’t Obama doing that?
President Obama should have a staff right next door to the Oval Office that’s dedicated to nothing but poking holes in Republican lies. If the White House had such a staff, John Boehner, Eric Canter, and the rest of the GOP demagogues would be afraid to tell the lies that they’re telling, because they’d know that every time they did, the entire news cycle the next day would be dedicated to pointing it out.
How much time would it take to demonstrate to the American people that it’s not the rich who create jobs?
The Poor Create Jobs
It’s the poor and middle class who create jobs by buying goods and services. It doesn’t matter how big a tax break you give the rich, they are not going to hire anyone to produce goods unless they have someone to sell them to. Is Gucci going to hire people to produce his handbags if he’s forced to sell them in a homeless shelter? No one in the homeless shelter can afford them. That is what the GOP is turning America into, a vast homeless shelter.
The American people need to be educated to the fact that the GOP, in collusion with corporations, and I now suspect, the United States government, is purposely keeping unemployment high to bring down the standard of living of the American middle class.
In the new global economy, American corporations are forced to compete with countries who pay their workers less per week than many Americans spend on lunch per day. Thus, the standard of living of the American middle class has become a liability. So the continued high unemployment rate, in spite of record corporate profits, is nothing but a ploy to get the people accustomed to expecting less for their labor. That’s also why the GOP is engaged in a concerted effort to destroy labor unions.
Not just labor is under attack. Every facet of American life is being assaulted.
Look at the Airwaves
It started with the abolishment of the Fairness Doctrine. That allowed corporations to turn the public airways into a propaganda conduit. Corporations are now allowed to lie to us with impunity and deprive us of all reliable sources of information in the news. The entertainment division of the same corporate media is telling us what and how we should think, act, and what is and is not acceptable. It is turning us into unthinking Stepford children. Thank God for the internet, but I assure you, they soon will be zeroing in on it much more aggressively.
In addition, our schools are being corporatized. If we don’t do something about that soon, corporations will be programming our children instead of educating them. We’re currently knee-deep in a class war. Our educational system is being used to solidify and reinforce a new class system. Poor and middle-class children will have one of two options, either accept whatever crumbs the corporations decide to throw at them or become cannon fodder for the military-industrial complex.
Have you noticed the children of the rich are no longer even expected to fight for this country? Why should they care about the endless wars we are engaging in? No one they love is dying. It is just dollars and cents to them.
There is something one man can do. The President of the United States can educate America and save the people from utter disaster. The one thing that holds this entire conspiracy together is ignorance. Without it, the conspiracy will tumble down. Mr. President, compromise is the last thing we need. We need firm and aggressive leadership.
Eric L. Wattree is a writer, poet and musician, born in Los Angeles. A columnist for the Los Angeles Sentinel, the Black Star News, a staff writer for Veterans Today, he is a contributing writer to Your Black World, the Huffington Post, ePluribus Media and other online sites and publications. He also is the author of “A Message From the Hood.”
Mr. Wattree may be contacted at wattree.blogspot.com or Ewattree@Gmail.com
Religious bigotry: It’s not that I hate everyone who doesn’t look, think, and act like me – it’s just that God does.
