Does Obama lack the courage of his convictions?

Submitted by Eternity on Wed, 08/19/2009 - 17:12.

Max Eternity - In this MSNBC video (found here) Arianna Huffington converses with Keith Oberman; where in a rare move, she places most of the blame for the healthcare fiasco squarely on President Obama's shoulders.  Thus far, however polite, this is some the stongest language that Huffington has used to date when critiquing Obama's policies.  Too, Huffington's choice of words might come as a bit of a surprise, because she was, through the channels of her media empire, The Huffingon Post, a central figure in rallying the progressive vote; helping then senator Obama get elected to the Presidency.  And while Huffington will surely remain a strong supper of the President, something has definitely changed.  Still, in her criticisms, she is not the only towering figure on the left who has a thing or to to say about the presidents mixed-signals and slipping support. Today, in a piece published on the Common Dreams website, Robert Kutner offers this statement within his overall scathing commentary, on Obama's questionable maneuvers:

"This president recoils from confrontation, even with those who are out to destroy him. He has had ample opportunities to put himself on the side of popular economic grievances and to connect America's economic troubles to the forces that Roosevelt called economic royalists. But Obama, whose propensity for consensus is hard-wired, keeps passing up those opportunities.

Even now, he won't make clear that the private insurance industry is the problem. Recent administration statements on the "public" insurance option have been classics of mixed messaging. Obama's economic team is far too cozy with Wall Street, fanning populist suspicions."  Read more.

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No set Obama Plan

The problem is that there is no set Obama Plan...it is still in the planning stages.  Obama is listening and learning and analyzing the optons...he has not yet came out with a formal plan.  This is why it is necessary for the public to call their reps and let them know what we want in a health care reform.  Do we want just a glorified private insurance run health program or do we want a public option that is independant of the insurance companies?  What I would like to see is a government paid for option instead of the insurance company paid for opton.  Let both compete.  We can have both and let people decide which one they want to choose.  That would be the American way, in my humble opiniion. 

Call your reps, write your reps, email your reps, email the White House.  Let your leaders know what kind of health care reform you want them to support. 

Congress.org

http://www.ohiodailyblog.com/content/kucinich-blasts-health-care-reform-bill-continues-advocating-single-payer

You can find your reps here at congress.org   Just type in your zip code including the last four digits or put in your address and you will find your reps.  You can send an email easily this way.

 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

This is the link to the White House website.  Send an email to voice your opinion.  Let our government hear our voices.

My mistake

I meant to post the link to congress.org and another link got pasted by mistakes.  Sorry.

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/officials/congress/?lvl=C&azip=44109&state=OH

Here is the link I meant to post.

 

Letter I sent today to President Obama and my reps

I support the single payer health care reform option that was written by
Senator Conyers and Representative Kucinich.  It is the only one that does
not favor the current insurance run health care that is currently
available to us in the United States of America.  Let the people decide if
they want to continue to support the status quo of the current insurance
run health care system or the new single payer public option known as
HR676. 

The people voted for President Obama because he promised them change. 
Let's see the change.  It is time to stop listening to the other party and
time to start keeping the campaign promises that were made.  We, the
people, are counting on you to do what is right...provide health care for
all. 

 

good letter

I tried to watch the MSNBC video that Max included with his video and just could not stand to see what I knew would happen with the organized efforts of the Palin/republican/insurance industry emotional terrorism. That is what it is.  I had to listen to the use of that word for the last 8 years, and now I can say that is clearly applies to them. 

I just got off the phone with my elderly, blind, widowed mother. She has been a Democrat her whole life. Church going, pro-choice, pro gay marriage, live and let live, never missed an election, loves Obama. In a quivering voice, she talked about the "granny death penalty" as "wrong" and as "Nazi". She is really smart. She knows the tactics, knows history, and if she is afraid, there are a lot of elderly not sleeping well. How dare they do this, and how dare we not stand up to it.

Debbie

 

I agree with your statement

I agree with your statement Debbie, "How dare they do this, and how dare we not stand up to it."

I hope you can reassure your dear mother that this is not true and will not happen here in America. 

We need to write and call and let our leaders know what we want.  That is the only way they will know.

 

Emotional Terrorism should have criminal consequences

Being bullied to death, should this be a crime? 

Maybe it's not first-degree murder, but it is in my opinion, a definable aspect of homocide.

Language is a powerful tool.  The Bush-Palin crowd knows this, which is why Bush named his imperialistic, fascist Patriot Act just that, The Patriot Act, instead of calling it what it really is, The Silencing the Public through Covert Domestic Terrorism and Psych-Ops Act. In other words, COINTELPRO on a bucket of steriord...'cause that's all it is.

But back now to the subject of language.

I get paid for my language, as a writer to a national arts magazine.  So, I fully understand the power of words.  Words equal money--having also a direct effect on what people see when they look in the mirror.

Therefore, in language is abused, say in the same way sex is abused (as in rape) shouldn't it be considered a crime?

It is in Canada and other places, which is why, for instance, hate media smucks like Limbaugh and Oreilly are prohibited from syndication.

I'm not sure how the courts define, in lawyer language, verbal-emotional abuse, but whatever they call it, it is not tolerated.  It is not considered a deserving aspect of civil society.

I'm with them on that, and I have to agree with Debbie when whe calls the kind of scare tactics that the Palin-Bush-Rove crowd has been using to molest the healthcare debate, emotional terrorism.  Because that's exactly what it is.

Bullying--emotional terrorism--is evil, and it causes harm.  We prosecute for sexual harassment, why don't we prosecute for mental abuse and emotional terrorism; politically motivated or otherwise?

Here's a link to just one of many stories about a person, in this case a child, who was emotionally terrorized to death.  And below is a bit of commentary from Dr. Mercola, who if you haven't heard of him, you definitely need to get hip to his site.  Dr. Mercola says that emotional trauma is public enemy #1 when it comes to health.  And let me just say, Mercola is not a psychiatrist, he's a nutritionist--physician.

He says:

"Any traumatic experience has the potential to linger in your mind for a lifetime. Once there, these memories can cause you to withdraw from others, feel helpless, have flashbacks … in other words they can completely control and overtake your life.

Call it

post-traumatic stress disorder, extreme stress, or simply human nature. It really doesn’t matter. What matters is that you realize sooner rather than later that you need to work at healing your emotional scars just as you need to work at healing your physical body.

And perhaps even more so.

You see, you can have the perfect diet, the perfect exercise schedule and an ideal life; but if you have lingering unresolved emotional conflicts, you can still become very sick."

The entire article can be found here.

Okay...there it is.  And too, to look at this is a very straight-forward way, ask yourself.  If one of your neighbors poisoned the neighborhood water supply with a arscenic (not all at once, but slowly over a couple of years) and it caused people to get sick, but not necessarily die right away, would that be a crime?

Yes, it would and is.

Sure, the people drank the water willingly, but not because they intended to get poisoned; because they needed the water to survive.  They may have put the glass to their lips, but someone else, the person who put the poison in the water, is the responsible party; to be held accountable by law.

And just a final word about sexual harassment, you don't have to be physically touched to be sexually harassed.  It can, and often is, all verbal--emotional--mental.  And, it's a serious crime.  Why, because it causes harm, just as mind-twisting, non-sexual harassment does too.