Get News & Views Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
The Faces of Those Obama is Betraying
President Barack Obama lost a vote the hard way this past week. My Uncle Paul died. It might not have been Obama’s vote to lose if my uncle had just lived a few days longer — long enough to see Obama turn his back on Social Security.
I have to admit I’ve been a little busy this week, what with all the chaos that accompanies losing someone you love. And my uncle was the perfect guy. I kid you not. There was a little something for everybody in that guy.
Paul Judge was the child of Irish immigrants and my mom’s younger brother. He served on the USS Midway as an enlisted seaman, went on to Boston College undergrad and then to Harvard grad school. Paul loved his country, believed in her vigilant defense and once educated, went to work at the Pentagon. After his retirement he settled into the life he’d built for himself as a world class-husband, father, grandfather and, you guessed it, uncle.
And Paul Judge was politically engaged. He had strong opinions about equal rights for all regardless of race, religion, national origin, gender or sexual orientation. He believed that a government that was strong enough to protect the free world was only worthwhile if it protected folks back home. He believed that social welfare programs were worth paying for because the children of the poor needed education and opportunity to rise out of poverty much the way he himself had.
Lastly, Paul liked people. He would especially have liked a gentleman who lives on the fourth floor of the shelter where I work. Tall and skinny, the man I’ll call Edgar went to work at a scrapyard the year he quit school to help provide for his family. Edgar was 15; it was 1955.
I asked Edgar to come to my office — I work in a homeless shelter that provides emergency, transitional and permanent housing — so that I could ask him a few questions about his life. He lives in our permanent housing program which caters mostly to very poor elderly folks in the area. While we house a number of families, the vast majority of our permanent residents are older folks who worked all their lives but whose benefits aren’t enough to provide decent housing.
Edgar can’t remember not working. He does remember his favorite job. When he was about 24 he got a job working for U.S. Steel in Kansas City, Mo. It was a union job and the pay was the best he can ever remember getting. Eventually the plant was closed and with his limited education he never had a job that good again.
Now at age 71, Edgar receives a Social Security check each month for $573 and $200 a month in food stamps. His Medicare benefit allows him to get many of his prescription drugs for a low co-pay of about $3 per scrip and because of the generosity of folks in the area he can live here at our shelter for about $180 a month. The going rate for a one-room efficiency not connected to our homeless shelter is $500 a month: an amount he could never afford.
Perhaps now you can understand why a man who spent his entire life working, serving his country, paying his taxes and being a vital part of our national defense might have walked away from a president who has suddenly turned his back on a man who likewise spent the last 55 years struggling to do the thankless menial tasks that keep our nation running. Uncle Paul would never have approved of President Obama bailing on Edgar.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, in his article “Hands off Social Security,” summed up the frustration so many on the Left feel with President Obama’s abandonment of his ideals: “Let us be clear, Social Security has not contributed one nickel to our deficit or our national debt … I am especially disturbed that President Obama is considering cuts in Social Security after he campaigned against cuts in 2008.”
President Obama has forgotten who got him elected in 2008 — people like Uncle Paul. And while there’s no winning Paul’s vote back, by being untrue to his word he’s losing the rest of our votes the old-fashioned way.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
75 Comments so far
Show AllI don't think Obama has "forgotten" the demographic stack of voters who got him elected in 2008. The fact that his entire campaign and all its major themes and promises were carefully aimed at specific subsets of that electorate AND that they were ALL lies demonstrates his extreme, I would say fanatically neo-liberal, upper-middle-class contempt for the vast majority of those voters--most of whom are working-class.
He is arrogantly basking in that contempt even now, reassured by his equally deluded advisors, and is depending upon the majority of those voters to surrender to ignorance, lazy-mindedness, corporatist/militarist propaganda, apathy and fear of Rethuglicans, Tea Baggers, and Muslim terrorists to help him win re-election.
I think he thinks his assassination of Osama Bin Laden is his decisive selling point and that he can regularly serve up neo-lib propaganda fests like the phony "debt ceiling debate" to keep Democratic voters who aren't already economically devastated distracted from noticing those in their own families and neighborhoods who are.
He's heedless of the many millions of Americans he's betrayed regarding the unnecessary TARP, TALF and QE bailouts for a still unregulated Wall Street, or worsening long-term unemployment, accelerating home foreclosures and accelerating offshoring of jobs. As a demonstrably hard-core ideological neo-liberal he views the "normalization" of the public's acceptance of these anti-democratic, plutocracy consolidating betrayals as a key unstated policy goal.
His only enthusiastic base is upper-middle-class pwogwessives who reap substantial wealth from party patronage and/or "free trade" dividends generated by foreign labor. His secondary and increasingly less enthusiastic base is lazy-minded current and retro liberals of all classes who sadly cling to their own or their parents' nostalgia for a Democratic Party that ceased to exist in 1980.
The only thing that might get him re-elected at this point is FEAR of the GOP/Bagger banana republicans. But Obama is such a neo-liberal, neo-con praised banana republican himself that many voters may either sit home or vote for Democrats in Congress as a counterbalance to a likely Republican president, but not the failed Dimcrap currently in the White House.
Either way, a new working-class national populist progressive movement and/or Labor Progress Party needs to be organized: One that unites America's labor unions into an independent national labor movement that no longer donates to or campaigns for neo-liberal Democrats, but funds and fields its own candidates to run against neo-liberal Democrats as well as neo-liberal Republicans and Tea Partiers.
This movement and/or Party needs to develop its own mass media to circumvent the treacherous corporatist/militarist mass media. It needs a shared protester bailout fund, a legal fund for court battles, an online media and educational materials strategy, and grass roots fundraising as well as funding from affluent liberals and progressives increasingly alienated from the failed Democratic Party.
If the unions can organize on a large enough scale, I think they should then reach out to members of the Black and Progressive Caucuses in the Democratic Party to leave the Party and join our movement.
Then there could be a national progressive leadership summit to reach out to all progressive, socialist, left-libertarian and apolitical organizations that help working-class communities and people to include them into the movement as well.
The United States is increasingly a more ethnically and culturally diverse nation and an increasingly poorer one. There are roughly 80 million Americans--mostly poor and minority voters--who routinely do not vote in U.S. general elections because both dominant political parties abandoned them long ago. That is a decisive electorate to reach out to. A coalition that includes all of the above potential movement members could not only profoundly affect American politics and economics for the better, but restrain America's worst offshore behaviors as well.
"I think he thinks his assassination of Osama Bin Laden is his decisive selling point and that he can regularly serve up neo-lib propaganda fests like the phony "debt ceiling debate" to keep Democratic voters who aren't already economically devastated distracted from noticing those in their own families and neighborhoods who are."
Frankly, I wonder about Bin Laden, a CIA asset for the mujahadden in the Afgan/Soviet war. Obama promised a picture of his dead body. Never happened as it was conveniently dumped into the sea.
Maybe I have my tinfoil hat on, or maybe Osama Bin Laden (remember who helped finance Harken Oil? The Bin Laden family) and Ken Lay are sipping margaritas together in Peru too.
P.S. Nobody saw Kenny Boy's body either.
The leader(s) of such a movement would undoubtedly be assassinated/ imprisoned.
METAL: I think you're a fine thinker, and one who posts well constructed arguments, while often backing them up with factual context. So maybe it's just a matter of semantics, as possibly no two people will agree these days as to what the terms "liberal" or "progressive" actually mean; but I do NOT see eye to eye with you on this particular line:
"His only enthusiastic base is upper-middle-class pwogwessives who reap substantial wealth from party patronage and/or "free trade" dividends generated by foreign labor."
There's a contradiction in at least your use of terms here. It's almost axiomatic that those with money wish to conserve it. And guess what that pretty much makes them? Ding! Ding! Ding! "If you guessed conservative as your answer, you're smokin right on!" Let's hear a round of applause from our studio audience (spoken in a Frank Zappa voice.)
I realize that a few fellows in this forum are angry about the jobless "recovery," and take their angst out on those who have it a little better. But it's not progressives who back Obama, my friend. It may well be neocons, or neoliberals, and maybe even some very blinded by the (not exactly light of truth) liberals... but NOT progressives.
If someone backs war, and thinks Obama's health care "reform" was in any way way, shape, or form a positive development, if they think Obama's approach to education "reform" is a plus... they are NOT progressive, even if they should self-identify as such.
The media is mostly right wing. In order to not make that stance 100% clear, it has to have a token liberal here or there. When contrasted with a Next Gingrich or Grover Norquist, a media spokesperson slightly to the left of these amoral sociopaths may be labeled a progressive, but does the designation make it so? Is Obama a democrat in the sense of your father's Democratic party?
Other than that, your post is right on. A progressive summit is overdue, and WERE progressives able to part with their money, a media outlet that would act as a central unifying station, would also be more than timely.
I mentioned further up this thread the idea of disgruntled citizens showing up at the voting booths with ballots of their own in a mass protest. Maybe the new coalition of all those disenfranchised by any number of blatanty sold-out policies (as the Obama Junta follows in the demarcated footsteps of his diabolical predecessor) should identify itself as The Party OF OTHER... other than what's going on insofar as the following:
1. The continued funding, planning, making of war
2. The continued rape of the ecosystem (via coal, off shore oil drilling, nuclear power)
3. The continued giveaway to banksters
4. The continued giveaway of tax breaks to the rich
5. The continued de-regulation frenzy that is further jeopardizing the quality of our food, air, water, roadways, medications, etc.
6. The continued privatization of public education
7. The continued buying of elections
8. The continued revolving door between would-be regulators and those that immediately thereafter position themselves inside the industries that require that same regulation
9. The continued surveillance of American citizens and evisceration of basic, long-held civil liberties
10. The continued lack of accountability on the part of big industry, government officials, and the MIC
11. The continued control of media
12. The steps being taken to steal our Social Security & Medicare benefits
ETC.
Anyone who sees all this CRAP and wants OTHER might be ready to join the coalition of OTHER...
My only disagreement with the author is when she says that Obama abandoned his "ideals". I have to conclude that he never had any. If he really had ideals then he should be physically ill over the betrayals that he has doled out with shameless "audacity". What we ended up with was an exceedingly ambitious man who wanted to be president after compiling a less than impressive record as a local and state politico. He hired himself a very slick team of advertisers and political spin doctors and took advantage of the fact that so many of the electorate was profoundly sick of the damage that Bush/Cheney had wrought. He also took scads of corporate money (nearly 2 million from Goldman Sachs alone). The result? Look back at his 2008 speeches and then see how he has turned out to be nearly the opposite of his words and promises. He betrayed the "public option" while still campaigning for it. He installed the arrogant and reprehensible Rahm Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff and then surrounded himself with Wall Street gangsters. He has prosecuted illegal wars and sold out the people who put him in office. The only thing that I can thank him for is that he finally drove home to me that I can never vote for another Demo for president again. A man of integrity like Bernie Sanders could never get the nomination, not with the corporate whores of the DLC in charge.
Welcome to the Corporate States of America, fellow citizens! I recently saw some episodes of the 80s TV show "Max Headroom" and was disheartened to see how prescient it seemed. It looks like it might be a good idea for me to get some tips on what it will take to live in my car. I imagine that the oligarchs that own and run this country will not stop until everything is privatized and there is a huge and permanent underclass that has given up on any hope for a representative government.
I agree. Obama never had any ideals.
In January of 2009 late one dark and dreary night when few were up and about. twenty five lower level employees of Wall Street were seen pulling a very large Wooden Horse into Washington DC. The wino's who witnessed it, thought it must be a gift horse and thinking there may be crates of wine inside climbed up to the top and openned the trap door. Sure enough if was a gift from Wall Street alright. But not a gift for the people, it was a gift for themselves. And now you know the rest of the story.
I agree with you too. The man ran a scam.
President Obama is trying to be both the black Herbert Hoover and the black J. Edgar Hoover at one and the same time.
No*Differance... Leaders are led by that which gives & keeps them in power... Thus power is their lord & master... Only when peace grants authority, shall mankind fully embrace it's humanity...
Unite the C.H.A.O.S.
couple of sentences in essay ...
"He (Paul, author's uncle) served on the USS Midway as an enlisted seaman..."
"Paul loved his country, believed in her vigilant defense and once educated, went to work at the Pentagon."
isn't same "vigilant defense" and "Pentagon", eating all the money that can be used for SS and Medicare ?? remember day before Sept 11, 2001, Rumsfeld announced that 2.3 Trillion are unaccounted for from Pentagon budget !! So, isn't Paul and people like Paul working for Defense apparatus takes away from people like Edgar ??
"President Obama has forgotten who got him elected in 2008 "
He just knows who's going to get him re-elected
Sad but true.
It sure won't be me. I was always Leary of him in 2008 because he was so good at double speak, but I bought into that lesser of two evils paradigm just one last time and voted for him. That won't happen again. If a miracle doesn't happen where a new progressive third party forms in time to run a candidate against him, or even more miraculously, a real Democrat doesn't challenge him, I will write in Liz Warren/Bernie Sanders. After he appointed Alan Simpson to co chair his Fiscal Reform Commission last summer I predicted at Huff-post that he would cave on repeal of the Bush tax cuts and then also cave on his promise to protect Medicare and Social Security. Remember he also appointed Max Baucus to chair Health Care Reform. Guess who received almost a million dollars in 2008 from the Health Insurance Industry? I don't understand how so many people still trust him.
God bless Uncle Paul.
And yes, regardless of where someone worked, they worked a regular job and those working people are being shafted while stockholders of major corps are being untaxed and handed another silver platter. Obetrayer can go pound sand U.H.A.
Of course he is a tool, as almost all politicians are. A liar, a cheat and a thief. There quite simply is no more democracy and has not been for a very, very long time. The entire government is broken and must be replaced. The only question is: What are we willing to do about it?
Sitting here tapping on our computers doesn't get the job done. It merely allows us to vent our anger and frustration. I have had to leave the country in an effort to live a decent life. One-room, cockroach & rat infested flop-house hotels in San Diego, CA. start at around $750 per month. I live now for $125 per month rent. I worked my whole life for this. Now they want to take this away.
We need to stop arguing about what to cut, etc. What we need is an entire new government. How about a new concept? 'Of the people, by the people, for the people'...
Did Pat Lamarche win a Casino yet?
PROPOSED LEGISLATION THAT WOULD PRESERVE SOCIAL SECURITY INTO PERPETUITY
By John Bachar
The analysis of Social Security (SS), not to be found anywhere else, for the 16 year period, 1993 through 2008, has been done. The central result is that easy structural changes can be made to the SS taxation system by an act of Congress that will easily provide for sufficient annual contributions and Trust Fund assets growth to take care of the retirement needs of the increasingly aging population into perpetuity, as well as the replacement of the existing 73-year old regressive SS taxation system (only salaries/wages are taxed below a certain amount called the “cap”) by a progressive one (i.e., the taxation of all income, not merely salaries/wages, at a rate that increases with increasing income), and without reducing retirement benefits nor increasing the retirement age. Please click on:
1. Complete analytical version (November 2010) http://www.absentlinks.com/uploads/6/6/4/2/6642350/four_analytical_papers_on_preserving_and_strengthening_social_security_by_john_bachar.pdf
2. Comprehensive updated version without analytical tables (July 2010)
http://www.absentlinks.com/uploads/6/6/4/2/6642350/july_2011_comprehensive_version_social_security_exposing_the_destructive_fixes_and_showing_how_to_preserve_it_into_perpetuity.pdf
3. Comprehensive updated version with analytical tables (July 2010)
http://www.absentlinks.com/uploads/6/6/4/2/6642350/july_2011_with_tables_social_security_exposing_the_destructive_fixes_and_showing_how_to_preserve_it_intp_perpetuity.pdf
4. Brief version
http://www.absentlinks.com/uploads/6/6/4/2/6642350/social_security_taxation_system_revision_from_regressive_to_progress_on_all_income_november_2010.pdf
John M. Bachar, Jr.
Emeritus Professor of Mathematics
California State University Long Beach (CSULB)
Bio
I am a Mathematician with a 50+ year record of research and university teaching (to summarize; Ph.D. UCLA, 1969; M.S. Northwestern University, 1955; 36 years teaching at CSULB; dozens of research conferences; director of research conferences; research papers). In addition to the world of pure mathematics in academia, I have analyzed and written about dozens of issues that are in the Public Interest, with particular emphasis on the inherent mathematical content of such issues.
Vote Green Party, but don't expect significant change unless you're willing to completely change your way of life. We must refuse to work for, buy from, or otherwise support the corrupt corporations and the politicians they own. General strike, broad boycott, tax resistance, and nonviolent noncompliance will get their attention. Then we can dedicate our efforts to building sustainable communities of resistance and creating a functional democracy from the grassroots.
It's said, "you get what you pay for", yet in reality one most often gets exactly what they fall for...
Mr. Obama ran on the words, "Change You Can Believe In"...
NOT + Change You Can Trust +
Anyone who was not cognitive of that REALITY, got exactly what they fell for...
And yet his election was the right thing to do @ that moment, as it has created the opportunity for true change... while preventing a complete backslide into the abyss of deception and crimes against the people & planet...
Of course there is work to be done, for just as your situation did not develop over night, neither will it simply heal itself...
Unite the C.H.A.O.S.
Well, if "you get what you pay for" then that goes for Edgar too. In 50 years of employment Edgar, in fact, did not pay very much if his income into Social Security.
First, let me say that I know and understand the harsh dynamic here and appreciate the sentiment; however, I am sorry, but something is seriously with the facts here. With Social Security you get in proportion what you pay in and I can not believe “Edgar” is anything but a fictional “composite character” and this raises serious issues of journalistic ethics.
Here is what we are asked to believe: Edgar first went to work at 15 years old and “he can’t remember not working.” He is now 71 years old and his total monthly Social Security in come is a meager $573.00 per month. This is so low that it qualifies him for food stamps. Even if we presume he started collecting Social security nearly a decade ago at 65 that still means he worked steadily for 50 years. Fifty years of employment and $573.00 per month in SS? Come on!
If those facts are true then there is only one way his SS income can be so low: he spent most of is working life paid under the table and not paying into SS.
Sorry, but I am a legal advocate for many retired and disabled people who have worked not even half that long but get $1,000 in Social Security. Since this is hardship enough in any major city in America there should be no need for this kind of incredulous journalism.
As a P.S. let me also say: as I scroll through the comments I am absolutely amazed that no one has made any attempt to vet the alleged facts. No one has even asked: How can these purported facts be true? Again, the only way they can be true is if Edgars is an under-the-table tax dodger. Perhaps, if all the Edgars in America paid full FICA they might not be in such hot water?