I’m disillusioned by the people who are disillusioned by Obama, quite honestly, I am. Democrats eat their own. Democrats find singular issues and go, “well, I didn’t get everything I wanted”. I’m a firm believer in sticking by and sticking up for the people whom you’ve elected. If Obama was a Republican running, because Republicans are better at this, they’d be selling him as the guy who stopped 400,000 jobs a month from leaving the country. They’d be selling him as the guy who saved the auto-industry. If they had the beliefs, they’d be selling him as the guy who got rid of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’, who got Osama Bin Laden. You could be selling this as a very successful three years.

- George Clooney, spotted via emotional opportunity costs

Look, I love George Clooney, both as a storyteller and as a person who speaks strongly about politics, but I believe he’s dead wrong here.

Just because I cast a vote for someone does not mean I blindly support every action they take, or something even worse, the actions they refuse to take. I’m not mad at Obama because I “didn’t get everything I wanted”.

I’m mad at Obama for stacking his entire administration with the same crooked assholes who took every opportunity to recklessly gamble with home owner’s money; I’m pissed because for 3 years he bought into the Republican debt-driven, contract-your-way-to-growth, idea of austerity; which meant while he eased the hemorrhaging of jobs in this country, he was at the same time gutting out Government jobs; a job is a job for a family, whether they work at the Post Office or Home Depot.

It wasn’t until after OWS that Obama did a 180 and announced a task force with authority to investigate the criminal actions of investment bankers. I’m pissed because he said nothing for weeks during the Wisconsin Union protest.

I’m pissed because he made into Federal Law the exact authoritarian over-reach of power that Bush just simply assumed he already had… when I casted my vote for Obama, I wasn’t giving him permission to kill an American citizen via drone strike or assassination without the slightest hint of oversight.

I’m fucking pissed because Bradley Manning sat naked in solitary confinement for over a year without being so much as charged, and Obama said nothing.

Voting is not an act of conscious - speaking out about things I find morally reprehensible isn’t “eating my own”, it’s exactly how Democrats should be acting if they want to push Obama, or anyone else for that matter, in a direction they can feel good about as human beings.

OWS forced Obama to change his mind on austerity; and we have a long road still to go before we shut down our secret and not-so-secret prisons we have stationed in places like Egypt; we have a long way to go before we stip our Presidents of the right to single-handedly sentence an American to death.

And I want to be clear, my vote in 2012 for Obama will not be an endorsement of these actions, my vote better positions me to effectively pressure my Government to act the way I believe it should act. I have no dissolutions that Newt or any of these others clowns would budge to the left on these issues.

My time is much better spent writing letters to a Democratic President about the legality of water boarding or the importance of a court system that holds fraud liable no matter who carries it out, vs spending my time angry that a republican administration is hyping up godless-baby-killers, ending PBS, or filling Government departments like FEMA with old college roommates. 

I’m not pissed because I didn’t get my way, I’m pissed because I’m doing my job as an informed and involved voter / citizen. 

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  • The TideLongbeard

headunderwater:

Longbeard - The Tide

Like the sunrise over the Mt. Boney Peak within the Point Mugu State Park, just northeast of the city that this band hails from [LA], this track posses a warm glow and lush sound that could be bring memories of a falsetto singing brethren that hails from Wisconsin.

You can pick up their new album The Tide off bandcamp for name-your-own-price. I suggest it if you like music.

Hedge Fund Gamblers Earn the Same In One Hour As a Middle-Class Household Makes In Over 47 Years

The top 25 hedge fund earners took in $22.07 billion in 2010. Thanks to a generous tax loophole these billionaires will pay a top tax rate of 15 percent instead of 35 percent. Closing that loophole on just those 25 individuals – just 25 guys who wouldn’t miss a penny of it — would raise $4.4 billion, which is enough to rehire 126,000 laid-off teachers.

What’s amazing about our staggering income inequality is that it sparks so little anger among the general population. It’s going to take the kind of sustained protest that we’ve seen in Egypt and Wisconsin to force the Government’s hand - I say Government specifically because this is exactly what Government is intended for, it is a tool for doing together what cannot be accomplished alone, like any tool it can be taken advantage of. 

We are watching the crest of a 35 year long wave begin to break; dropping union numbers, stagnent wages, austerity cuts in education and public programs; a concentration of wealth - and by concentration, I mean a deliberate theft of Government influence, law and resources by the richest one-percent, for the richest one-percent. If there is any silver-lining here, it is that our current environment is unsustainable, something is going to give, hopefully is gives sooner than later. 

Source: alternet.org

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