The Obama administration would like us to believe that we have to reelect Democratic incumbents because their opponents represent unacceptably horrible alternatives. I must admit that I agree about the prospect of witches, Nazi re-enactors, people who apologize to BP Oil, and the rest who would continue the process of the further deterioration of the middle class as being totally unacceptable. However this is where my dilemma arises. President Obama would like us to believe that he represents "the good guys". Sadly I am no longer sure that this is true.
For the first two years of his administration president Obama has bent himself into a pretzel trying to reach what he would like us to believe is bipartisan support. But I'm no longer certain that this is in fact the true agenda. When one is confronted by two individuals who are doing a masterful good cop/bad cop is easy to be seduced by the drama. The idea is to somehow suspend reality and begin to believe that the good cop truly understands and is working towards our own best interests. During the campaign Obama did a really good good cop. However his performance postelection will not win him any Academy Awards. When faced with crucial opportunities to take a stand he was nowhere to be heard or seen. The Democratic Party would like us to believe that for the first time in recorded history they were able to pass truly significant health-care reform. However, the bill mandates that approximately 33,000,000 people have to go out and purchase health insurance without putting any limitations on the cost. If anybody out there is listening I would like to volunteer to be the next business with a government mandate that 33 million people have to purchase my product. When faced with the opportunity of passing a drug re-importation bill that would have meant real savings that amendment went down without any real fight. As a man with Jewish heritage I have been enraged and embarrassed by Joe Lieberman. But I must admit in this context I appreciate his honesty. He doesn't mind showing people that he's a whore. A few years ago he was vehemently in favor of the extension of Medicare benefits. Last year he single-handedly defeated the public option. Once again the president was nowhere to be found. I could go on with many other similar issues such as don't ask don't tell, the closing of Gitmo, and many other flagrant abuses of the Constitution.
The Obama administration would like us to believe that they are the ones fighting for the common man. It is very difficult to believe this in the face of the reality that the very people that caused our economic collapse are in charge of his economic policies. It is very difficult to believe this in the face of Wall Street again getting ready to dispense record-setting bonuses while over 9.5% of the population is unemployed and so many households are facing foreclosure. Is it possible that the "good cop" has gotten us exactly what he and the big business interests behind him really wanted all along?
It is my belief that Obama won the election not just because he was an eloquent speaker or that for the first time in recent memory he looked like a man who looked forward to having sex with his own wife. I believe that he won because of an amazing confluence of incredibly negative factors. The American people were beginning to wake up to the reality of the devastation of the Bush administration and the Republican Party was asking us to have an illiterate hockey mom be one heartbeat away from the presidency. Obama was able to energize our youth and also seniors like myself who had become jaded over the years.
As a human being and also a psychologist I have learned that people don't change because it's a good idea. More often than not people change when they can no longer tolerate their pain. It has been demonstrated that if you put a frog in a pot of warm water it will allow itself to be cooked to death. It is beginning to appear to me that the reelection of the status quo will really keep us frogs on top of a stove with a mild to moderate flame. Perhaps it would be better to allow the opposition to have their way. On the surface it would appear like a tragedy. But beneath the surface it would turn the flame way up and perhaps more frogs would then be motivated to jump out of the water before their demise.
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