Obama, not working for the people, but as always working for the man, wie dat ook op een bepaalt moment mag zijn. Politici dienen altijd de macht, anders zouden ze niets kunnen doen.What Getting Dumped by My Girlfriend Taught Me About Being Dumped by Obama
Thursday 04 February 2010
by: Mike Elk, t r u t h o u t |
Op-Ed
It was a cold February night when I got together with Irene to watch Obama's first budget address to Congress. Irene was a drop-dead gorgeous woman whose beauty was matched only by her intellect. I had met her at a party a few days earlier, and already I was crazy about her. I was also crazy about Obama. I had worked on his campaign in the fall of 2008 as a community organizer in my native Western Pennsylvania. Obama was a community organizer who believed in listening to people and using the power of people's voices to shape history. I had such hopes for where our relationship would go in terms of changing this country.
On that cold February night, I was burning with excitement for both Irene and Obama. I didn't know if I was in love with Irene, but I was certainly in love with Obama.
But by the time the cherry blossoms were blooming in early April, Irene had dumped me, and I was starting to wonder if Obama was bailing on me, too. I was disappointed about things ending with Irene, but told myself not to worry, that there would be other woman.
Obama was another matter - you can't exactly go to a bar and pick up a new president.
Perhaps, I was blindly in love or, perhaps, I was suffering denial. Whatever it was, I ignored those early red flags - getting in bed with Wall Street, stacking his cabinet with Wall Street insiders and not returning the phone calls of the progressive advisers who had played such a big role in his campaign.
My heart first sunk during the fight over the cram-down provision, which would have allowed families to reduce their mortgage payments. It was something we fought hard for during the campaign. President Obama asked House Democrats to give up on cram-down provisions in order to make Republicans happy. He didn't even try to put up a fight.
But then, Obama would make a speech and I would fall in love with him all over again.
Obama gave his health care speech on the floor of the House, and he reminded me of the spark I felt for him when he said, "We did not come here to fear the future; we came here to shape it...." I felt our bond reconnected. We were doing what we had promised to do - fighting for the American people.
My memory of the campaign and my ideal of Obama made me want to cling to the hope of him being the man I had thought he would be. But each time I was elevated by his rhetoric, the pang of disillusionment brought me crashing back to the floor, knowing that his words were just the sweet lies lovers tell each other to get in bed.
He backed down from his promises to "shape the future"; he let the public option die without putting up a fight.
I felt the same rage against Obama that a lover feels toward a lover who lied to them about having an affair. Except Obama's lies were more hurtful than those of any lover, because I had never loved a woman as much as I had loved this president.
I drank heavily, I sleep around, I protested with former Obama staffers in front of the White House. I even hung around with Bernie Sanders in an attempt to start seeing other people, but he was just a senator from Vermont, not the dashing, young president I had longed for.
Finally, I remembered how I recovered from Irene.
The key, though, to being able to overcome the pain of any breakup is forgetting the other person and remembering that you have your own life, your own ambition, your own sense of self. To realize that, in the end, we only need ourselves.
The progressive movement has so much beauty, intelligence, creative, hard work and dedication.
The real beauty of the health care fight was how hard progressives fought for the public option. The public option was dead for a long time - the president and Rahm Emanuel didn't want it to go anywhere. And we put it on the table and kept it there for ten months. We fought a unified, well-disciplined fight where nobody broke ranks on giving up the public option for nearly a year.
I think we have to stop worrying so much about this president, accept him for who he is, and start focusing more on what we do as a movement independent of the president.
We in the blogosphere are sometimes guilty of what Chris Matthews described as "back seat bitching." We fail often to articulate the progressive vision of a movement based on dignity, respect and equality. Instead, we focus our effort on complaining, and we become reactive instead of proactive.
Ever been on a date where your date spends all the time complaining about their ex? ... Yeah. Get what I mean? It's not that attractive.
We allow Obama's new lover, Emanuel, to triangulate against the left in order to demonstrate their independence to the corporate lobbyists and political pundits that he is sleeping with now. We need to change the political dynamics of this country that creates two divided camps that allow the president to triangulate. We need to bring the teabaggers over to our side.
Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/what-getting-dumped-my-girlfriend-taught-me-about-being-dumped-obama56648
On that cold February night, I was burning with excitement for both Irene and Obama. I didn't know if I was in love with Irene, but I was certainly in love with Obama.
But by the time the cherry blossoms were blooming in early April, Irene had dumped me, and I was starting to wonder if Obama was bailing on me, too. I was disappointed about things ending with Irene, but told myself not to worry, that there would be other woman.
Obama was another matter - you can't exactly go to a bar and pick up a new president.
Perhaps, I was blindly in love or, perhaps, I was suffering denial. Whatever it was, I ignored those early red flags - getting in bed with Wall Street, stacking his cabinet with Wall Street insiders and not returning the phone calls of the progressive advisers who had played such a big role in his campaign.
My heart first sunk during the fight over the cram-down provision, which would have allowed families to reduce their mortgage payments. It was something we fought hard for during the campaign. President Obama asked House Democrats to give up on cram-down provisions in order to make Republicans happy. He didn't even try to put up a fight.
But then, Obama would make a speech and I would fall in love with him all over again.
Obama gave his health care speech on the floor of the House, and he reminded me of the spark I felt for him when he said, "We did not come here to fear the future; we came here to shape it...." I felt our bond reconnected. We were doing what we had promised to do - fighting for the American people.
My memory of the campaign and my ideal of Obama made me want to cling to the hope of him being the man I had thought he would be. But each time I was elevated by his rhetoric, the pang of disillusionment brought me crashing back to the floor, knowing that his words were just the sweet lies lovers tell each other to get in bed.
He backed down from his promises to "shape the future"; he let the public option die without putting up a fight.
I felt the same rage against Obama that a lover feels toward a lover who lied to them about having an affair. Except Obama's lies were more hurtful than those of any lover, because I had never loved a woman as much as I had loved this president.
I drank heavily, I sleep around, I protested with former Obama staffers in front of the White House. I even hung around with Bernie Sanders in an attempt to start seeing other people, but he was just a senator from Vermont, not the dashing, young president I had longed for.
Finally, I remembered how I recovered from Irene.
The key, though, to being able to overcome the pain of any breakup is forgetting the other person and remembering that you have your own life, your own ambition, your own sense of self. To realize that, in the end, we only need ourselves.
The progressive movement has so much beauty, intelligence, creative, hard work and dedication.
The real beauty of the health care fight was how hard progressives fought for the public option. The public option was dead for a long time - the president and Rahm Emanuel didn't want it to go anywhere. And we put it on the table and kept it there for ten months. We fought a unified, well-disciplined fight where nobody broke ranks on giving up the public option for nearly a year.
I think we have to stop worrying so much about this president, accept him for who he is, and start focusing more on what we do as a movement independent of the president.
We in the blogosphere are sometimes guilty of what Chris Matthews described as "back seat bitching." We fail often to articulate the progressive vision of a movement based on dignity, respect and equality. Instead, we focus our effort on complaining, and we become reactive instead of proactive.
Ever been on a date where your date spends all the time complaining about their ex? ... Yeah. Get what I mean? It's not that attractive.
We allow Obama's new lover, Emanuel, to triangulate against the left in order to demonstrate their independence to the corporate lobbyists and political pundits that he is sleeping with now. We need to change the political dynamics of this country that creates two divided camps that allow the president to triangulate. We need to bring the teabaggers over to our side.
Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/what-getting-dumped-my-girlfriend-taught-me-about-being-dumped-obama56648
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