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TechnoratiDear Mr. President, Try Harder and Do Better
Dear President Obama:
It has been long enough for you to demonstrate courage and wisdom in many areas. So far rhetoric has been your saving grace, but beyond that I remain hopeful but disappointed.
I suppose all elected officials - particularly at the federal level -- are by the very nature of those positions, incompetent in most areas they must address. One would hope they realize this and would surround themselves with experts in areas where they are not expert themselves. You have failed to do that in all too many instances.
Your education policy, an area about which I know quite a bit, is wrapped in popular but terribly unenlightened principles. Charter schools have a place, but not the one you have chosen for them. Standards will have exactly the opposite impact of what you hope for and is based on several myths. And individual performance pay for teachers will be both unsustainable and counterproductive - guaranteed.
Your pursuit of military answers in Afghanistan is terribly foolish. Further, listening to military leaders on the strategic level is misguided. Their expertise is on the operational level alone. Unfortunately, our nation has allowed them to evolve into strategic policy leaders - something our Constitution rightly left at your feet and not at theirs. Military leaders will answer every problem with military answers. As any student of history should recognize, this has more often than not been a disastrous development.
Your fiscal policy, admittedly in the midst of a crisis you did not create, while necessary in some regards, has largely ignored the middle and lower class workers of our nation. And any coddling of the financial-investment-insurance sectors is inexcusable. How could you not see this?
And then there is the Patriot Act and all that it has done to violate our traditional rights -- not to mention the evilness of Guantanamo and extraordinary rendition. Can you not bring yourself to right that ship at least? It seems to me you've broken your promise here.
The health care/insurance issue speaks for itself. Your leadership has been seriously lacking on this topic, and your hopes for bipartisanship are surprisingly naïve. There will be minimal progress at a time when there could have been huge progress had you inserted yourself forcefully. You did not - at least thus far. That's inexcusable.
Your failure to openly and strongly take on the stranglehold of corporate demagoguery has been a great disappointment and will have unnecessary consequences for your continuation in office. I still have my yard sign supporting your election, but while I may vote for you again, thus far it will not be with the same enthusiasm or with that sign in my yard again.
All that said, I continue to prefer your level of incompetence much more than that of your predecessors or your opponents. Please try harder.
Sincerely,
Robert Barkley, Jr.
31 Comments so far
Show AllMr. Barkley, you are indeed naive. " Please try harder". To quote Stephen King: " the trust of the innocent is the liars best tool"!
DEAR MR. BARKLEY, JR.,
STOP BEGGING THE PUPPET TO DO THE RIGHT THING...HIS PUPPET MASTERS ARE WHO YOU NEED TO BEG TO "DO THE RIGHT THING" OBAMA IS THE FRONT-MAN...JUST AS GEORGE BUSH WAS FOR 8 YEARS IN THE WHITE HOUSE.
Preserve some dignity for God sake.
"Robert Barkley Jr. is a counselor in Systemic Education Reform"????????
I think that must mean that he shows how you can succeed by NEVER seeing the obvious.
Or, if you can't avoid seeing the obvious, deny you see it.
Or, if you can't deny the obvious, deny the obvious.
Or....
"retired EXECUTIVE director of the OHIO Education Association" ????????
This would be why "Johnny" can't learn - apparently he will never become EXECUTIVE material if he did.
Dear Leader,
Please save us from this monstrously oppressive establishment you carefully calculated and decided to join, support, and stake your name, your career, and your life on.
Another Lost Follower
I prefer your level of incompetence much more than your predecessors or opponets. What the hell does that mean!! Sounds to me like Mr.Barkley jr. is still being conned. You have to hand it to Obama, this guy is really good!
camus13
Your mother has a few weeks to live and she is spending her time in the hospital trying to get the insurance company to foot the bills that she paid premiuns for.
Sadly she died.
Her son running for president uses this as one of he policy plans for being elected. A health insurance that people can use and not be abused.
Son wins election. Great, cheer, happy, change and hope will follow.
Time for the Health Bill and this president who told us many times about his mother's illness and her problems with the insurance company is ready to go. So...........in his mother's memory he holds SECRET MEETINGS with the insurance companies behind the well know closed doors and sells out his fellow country men and women and the memory of his mother.
Take that mom being relected with the donations from health insurance companies is much more important. So he lied a little on this one and just about every thing he said in the campaign so far.
Keep tuned and see if our Speaker in Chief can top this one.
BobB
It is interesting in deed to read these comments to my letter. Many assumptions have been made by those commenting -- and many are wrong.
For example, I may NOT vote for Obama again. It is certainly too early to even guess what my our options will be. But putting any current Repug back in is, well, repugnant.
The comment by ezeflyer is right on. Thanks for stating it so clearly.
Nonsense! Where was the blue party while all the carnage was wrought? Was it only repubs that voted for the war, oops wars? Who exactly voted for the Patriot Act, FISA, the Military Commissions Act, the increasing war budgets, the bailouts? When was Glass/Steagell passed or NAFTA? Now if only you can get 60 senators seated. What's that? You have them. Wake up.
What are the similarities between the reactionary left and right? They're both loud, insulting, negative, fear-mongering, ungrateful, impatient, radical conservative critics that want Obama to fail at any cost so they can set up their own dictatorship in the clouds.
Like the author, I am enormously relieved to be rid of Repugs and refuse to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I want to throw out the con Dems, not run off to a third party to let the Repugs in the back door.
Third parties, which are not immune to being taken over by Stalinist left wing cons as bad as Bushite right wing cons, ought to be joining the Dems or Indys, forming coalitions and helping to run con Dems out of the Party. Nader could be very effective as a Dem or Indy Congressperson for a long time instead of running for President every four years.
Another knee-slapper from ezeflyer, who writes, "...Third parties, which are not immune to being taken over by Stalinist left wing cons .... ought to be joining the Dems or Indys..."
- First of all, there's no such thing as "left wing cons," except in ezeflyer's befuddled brain. By definition, if you're a left-winger, you're not a "con(servative)". // Secondly, ***NO*** political party is categorically "immune" to being "taken over" by ANY sort of group -- not Republicans, Democrats, Bolsheviks, or any other party.
And even if the second coming of Stalin doesn't materialize, the Democrats are GUARANTEED to continue being dominated by militarists, corporate whores, cowards, & sell-outs. If you "threw out the con Dems," as ezeflyer claims he wants to do, you'd have to throw out everyone in the whole stinking party except (possibly) Kucinich and 3 or 4 others. The idea that everyone should stick with the Dems out of fear that a new Stalin could in theory be waiting somewhere in the future is ridiculous. The new Stalin is just as likely to come from one of the two big business-whore parties, as from a 3rd party. (In fact, if the next Stalin turns out to be a Republican, the Democrats will collaborate servilely with him/her -- just as they did with Bush Jr.)
Perhaps ezeflyer would like to tell us which part of the current Democrats should be considered the "baby"? It's easy enough to see which part is the "bathwater:" the trillions forked over to the banksters, the expansion of the AfPak War, continuation of the "War on Terror", the mammoth betrayal on health care, the protection of Bush admin torturers, the unchanged policies of rendition & assertion of "state secrets", the betrayal on unions' "card check," etc etc.
ezeflyer also makes the inane claim that "Nader could be very effective as a Dem or Indy Congressperson for a long time..."
- Actually, Nader is 75 years old. He can't be an effective ANYTHING for a long time, even if he wanted to be. And he certainly wouldn't choose to be a stinking Democrat, being too well aware of what they really are. The whole point of Ralph Nader is that he has principles which prevent him from selling out to corporatism.
Oh great, now the US has to be one of a very small number of countries that have only two viable parties because there might be another Stalin waiting in the wings from Peoria or someplace. LOL.
New Democratic Party-US is a great way to try to save the US from extreme right wing and right wing politics:
--No one issue tag like the Greens have.
--No poisoned word: "Socialist" in the name.
--No wishy washy. I as the voter don't really know where you are coming from "Independent" in the name.
--Immediate credibility and some level of real assistance from existence and viability of the New Democratic Party-Canada, now in control of two of the ten provinces and controlling 37 of 308 Parliament seats, with influence far beyond what is suggested by that number of seats.
--Unintentional but welcomed counterpoint to existing Democratic party in the US, which would be considered more and more as the "Old Democratic Party". How delightful, because new is usually better than old.
Tragically, that poor little baby drowned in the bathwater.
It's dead now. It's always sad when naïveté dies before its parents!
If you and the author wish to put Baby in a stroller and keep walking it around the block to make sure it gets the fresh air it needs, knock yourselves out.
But the reason passers-by keep giving you such dirty looks isn't because we're just awful, awful, rude and ignorant people.
It's because of the smell.
· Yr Obd't Servant
A succient and perfect analogy. YOS you rock...
Really, so what did those "loud, insulting, negative, fear-mongering, ungrateful, impatient, radicals" achieve?
Civil Rights, Womens's Rights, Gay Rights, Environmental consciousness, Government accountability, Consumer Rights, Union Rights for starter. What did go-along to get along defenders of the status quo get us? Triangulation strategy, and passive acceptance of shifting the politcal field to the Right ceding all oversight to corporate control. Bah.
Radical libs get things done democratically, by organizing. Radical cons, the Stalins, Pol Pots and Caescescu's of the left and the Hitlers, Mussolinis and Bushes of the right have more in common than not. We've seen them do their damage with the power they've centralized and/or the money they've concentrated. Conservatives are proven little dictators.
In many years in the military, I've found cons to be the more reckless, reactionary, stupid, sadistic and cowardly of troops. Most soldiers prefer a lib watching their backs than a con bucking for rank and power at other's expense.
Dear CommonDreams editorial staff -
Please try harder and do better. This is a steaming load of pro-Obama crap.
Oh God, I think I feel a massive stroke coming on after this one.
"I still have my yard sign supporting your election, but while I may vote for you again, thus far it will not be with the same enthusiasm or with that sign in my yard again."
Do you understand that all your yapping and itemizing of grievances for the record doesn't amount to anything more than a steaming mountain of crap. Your final statement NEGATES it all.
"I still have my yard sign supporting your election, but while I may vote for you again, thus far it will not be with the same enthusiasm or with that sign in my yard again."
___________________________________
Oh, please!
I know I'm hard on the endless outpouring of mush-and-milk Loving and Gentle Critiques that are the norm in moderate progressive (Democratic) circles, but this one is remarkably insipid.
Mister Barkley, sir? For the moment, you can call me "Mister Clue". Team Obama began with a two-term strategy; his so-called "first term" is his de facto campaign for the second term.
Trust me-- the sociopathic Unitary Executive and his minions are not going to wring their claws or shed a tear at the thought that you will SORROWFULLY vote again for Obama.
Sheesh. Next time-- whoops, I guess I mean the time after THAT-- try not using your forehead to pound in that yard sign; I suspect it had a deleterious effect upon your cognitive functions.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Obama and the slag heap of a government he has surrounded himself with are only concerned at this juncture about being reelected, nothing else. For Obama, hope and change really mean shit and death. We're all on our own.
Author is a fool?
Pretty good letter until you get to the paragraph with the yard sign. After stating so plainly how Obama has failed, the author states that he still has a yard sign promoting Obama and may vote for this failure again, just without as much enthusiasm. In this sense the author is a fool: the Democrats bank on the American public lowering their expectations and voting for the lesser of two evils; rather than vote for an independent candidate.
The Democrats undermine their own progressives and do everything possible to fight independent candidates and parties from getting on the ballot. It is part of their business.
Progressive 101: I had much the same reaction to the letter. Since Obama and the Democrats have only one goal in mind...to get themselves re-elected to the White House and Congress...they will read right past the complaints about Obama's failures, and right to the statement that the author may vote for him again, albeit with less "enthusiasm." Well, foolish one, that's all they want, your vote not your "enthusiasm" and, as long as you'll give your votes so lightly, they will take them and run and treat your complaints as inconsequential squeaks issuing from their back pockets...much like, I imagine, Israeli leaders smile among themselves when Obama tells them they must stop their settlements and leaves out the "or else" that represents the only possibility of influencing their behavior. But for all the obviousness of this, I sadly look for most progressives to vote again for Obama and perhaps a Democratic majority in Congress because these hip-pocket dwellers have not dared to say "or else" along with their demands.
While this letter makes valid points, its tone is way too respectful. Obama hasn't come close to deserving that level of respect. He should be impeached, for the same reasons Bush should've been. He's just a "new and improved" Bush -- one who talks prettier, while serving the same corporate constituency, & continuing the same basic policies.
Or Even HONORING his single-payer PROMISE!
The office of US president has evolved over time into something more ceremonial than substantive, and with the passing years is filled by individuals who behave more and more like ciphers, not leaders, much like the great majority of members of Congress are now little more than ciphers. I am encouraged when I see organizations on the left attempting to deal directly with the masters, those running the corporatocracy. It seems to be a waste of time to deal primarily with the ostensible leaders who could be easily dismissed and discarded if they disobeyed orders (e.g., using corporate media jackals to tear them to pieces).
Umm... Obama is working very hard and is accomplishing quite a lot. He is doing exactly as he set out to do. He isn't making any mistakes. He isn't failing at anything. And he will probably get re-elected. American people are that stupid.
Good point...the article leads one to believe that Obama is a slouch.
Obama and Company have been working overtime to ensure that the 1% keep getting more and more at an ever greater cost to the 99%.
gag me
"I remain hopeful but disappointed."
That's the thing about hope: hope springs eternal. You can hope all you want to, Mr. Barkley, but I have moved on.
I have seen enough of his "leadership style" to realize he is just another elitist, who puts the elites first, however unwise the choice may be. He has chosen to be deaf to the will of the people. If any President is campaigning hard to be a one-termer, Obama is that President.
Hope plus two bucks still buys a good cup of coffee.
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
(Emily Dickinson)
............
When hope treats of politicians, perhaps it should squawk.