I know I'm not supposed to say this, but... Obama, Between a Rock and a Hard Place.

[The Doctor.]

The reality of the Office is much different than the intentions that get one there. Think of the Presidents of the last 60 years that stood in the way of the ambition of the PTB and how conveniently or 'nearly' they met their fate.

Obama 'steps out of line' and there are a few thousand Shitheads that will go and have themselves convinced that he's the anti-Christ. Oh, wait... there already are, and they're just waiting for the green light.

He's the President who has been under as great a threat as Lincoln (for, ironically, almost the same reasons), and stands to pose the greatest threat to the same PTB that Kennedy did.

I challenge ANYONE to declare they'd act differently if their choice was 'Do the right thing and die' (family notwithstanding), or 'Do all the good you are allowed and live'.

I know damn well that I'd pick the former (Note to DU; I will NEVER commit suicide EVER), which is why I'll never be elected President in the US. (Or run, for that matter.)

If you all didn't notice, the ONE guy with all the best ideas (except on gun-control), was deliberately sidelined by the corporate media. They made sure that the 'real deals' never got a shot.

Get this through our thick heads- No one who will truly work for the good of the people will EVER be elected in this nation again unless we get rid of the machinations that suppress us. We cannot do that because a huge percentage of our countrymen are in the thrall of the bullshit machine.

We are in Deep Shit, and Obama is right there with us.

It's just that he makes a great scape-goat, what with his Kenyan credentials and all.

[dennis4868]

1. why are you not suppose to say what you said....

it's okay....don't be scared of the DUers who blame Obama for everything and not the broken congress, repubs and DINOs....it's okay, I am right behind you! I am proud of Obama as I ever was about anything ------------> www.whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com

[politicasista]

3. In addition to Obama, Good Dems that support him get trashed here too n/t

[Sherman A1]

47. and the Good Dems that criticize him also get trashed

but, ya know this is an internet message board and nothing more than that. Your opinion is no more valid than mine, nor is it any less so, it's just an opinion.

[The Doctor.]

5. Ackk! Blasphemy!

(JK)

He was never the messiah, no one claimed he was. I am disappointed, but I have not given up hope that he has a plan.

I have a plan, and he's had more education and time on this rock than I.

(And my plan rocks! Just have no backers.)

I'll be checking out that site shortly. Thanks.

:hi:

[akbacchus_BC]

2. What rock and a hard place president Obama had, he squandered

his political clout when he got elected. Same as Bush, the world rally around the US after 9/11! What did bush do, bomb Iraq!

[dennis4868]

6. He Never Squandered his Political Clout...

the repubs never were willing to work with Obama from day one and their plan was to always fillubuster everything....they wanted him to fail from day one (including many DINOs)....so he never really had political clout.....it was like Obama was a marathon runner with one leg and was still able to finish the race (www.whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com). With regard to Bush, the dems never treated him this way.....

[Avant Guardian]

36. When he started his one sided 'bipartisanship'

he became a man without a party

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[dennis4868]

8. Hahahaha!

[babylonsister]

11. He squandered it? Do tell us how, thanks. nt

[Avant Guardian]

38. He abandoned Democratic principles

...to impress 'centrists.'

He essentially became a one man third party, in a two party system. Problem is, there is no center in a two party system.

[elleng]

4. Yes.

The reality of the Office is much different than the intentions that get one there.

Thanks

[The Doctor.]

9. We're in a darker world, I'm afraid,

than Obama's detractors realize.

One has only to weigh his obvious past ambitions with his current actions to know how seriously we're fucked.

[babylonsister]

10. Yet he hasn't lost faith; I haven't either. nt

[The Doctor.]

17. Amen sister, Amen.

It's not over yet.

[babylonsister]

12. Rec'd fwiw. nt

[madamesilverspurs]

13. kicked and recced

[TheKentuckian]

14. Okay, we can accept that logic but it means the system is irretrievable and we are obligated

to bring it down by any means necessary and at virtually any cost.

Do all the good you are allowed? The system you describe is not interested in good deeds and will twist all such intentions to their own ends. No good is permitted, only a redistribution of pain and then only as long as none of the pain finds it's way to those able to absorb it and their most immediate minions that execute their bidding.

All the good you want as long as you can do it with a shrinking portion of the pie for the bottom 80% and increasing the flow of resource control to the top 20%.

In other words jack apple shit.

You can't curse the system you insist on working in as corrupt enough to kill any opposition but say it is functional enough to work within to effect beneficial change in this country.

[The Doctor.]

16. Your logic is correct.

The problem is that in taking overt action, we would play right into the hands of the PTB. They have millions of morons ready to set loose in fascist action.

After seeing how little real change Obama has been allowed to accomplish, I realize we're in deeper shit than I thought.

[bigmonkey]

20. There's a difference between "killing all" and "nearly stopping all".

Your logic only works in a binary world.

[TheKentuckian]

24. You are the one that essentially asserted that it is suicide to serve the people.

There aren't a lot of shades of gray once you accept that.

Come on now, how much room for options do you think there are within your basic premise?

[bigmonkey]

26. I can't find where I said that.

Have you got me confused with another poster?

[TheKentuckian]

33. Excuse me, that was the OP's position.

[pacalo]

15. I totally agree. It is because Obama is a good man that convinced me that the president

is not making the decisions. It is the corporations who are running the country. Like you said, the corporations will never allow anyone to be president whom they cannot control. I saw when Obama was senator during committee hearings that he was a people pleaser & that he was reluctant to ask hard questions.

The government has the Patriot Act, the Citizens United law, the media, & corporate money to defend itself against a citizens' revolt. The citizens have only a whittled-down constitution on their side. It took 8 years of the boy king's reign to build the impenetrable fort, yet things won't change unless the people stand up in great numbers to say they've had enough. It's not going to be easy.

[Solomon]

18. Been making your point for a while now.

One of the benefits of having Obama in there is to throw light on the fact that presidents don't have the power that people think that they have. I really believe that the turning point was Kennedy's death.

The only weaknesses that the secret government have are that they argue amongst themselves who has the purest blood, and they can't control masses of people that are on the same page. They turn us on each other and they kill off any person who has the ability to galvanize masses of people.

I've read that if a person becomes tremendously successful and famous, they are approached and given the proposition that you either join them and live, or die. Given the choice, most people join and there are lots of people involved who don't want to be involved and who don't agree on the agenda, but they are afraid. Some of them hope to fight the beast from within.

Electing someone president isn't going to do a damn thing to stop it. Look at what Kennedy said a ciouple of months before his death about the secret government. It would take masses of people acting on the same page. They encourage the kind of thinking among the masses that says a "messiah" or "leader" is necessary to fight them. That way all they have to do is either co-opt these "leaders", or bump them off. The "leader" takes all the blame and anger for not living up to the hopes of the clammoring masses.

[Karenina]

41. Hallo!

:hi:

[Armstead]

19. I agree but disagree

I agree that it is difficult for anyone to go up against all the forces arrayed against positive change, nothing is asccomplished overnight, etc,etc.

But I disagree that we are as helpless as you seem t or that Obama has not real room or any clout to move the iceburg.

We are unable to make more change in large part because we give up the battle before the troops are even assembled.

It is as if the General (Obama) and his officers (Democratic politicians and strategists) looks over the hill and sees the opposing forces assembling and say "Gosh they are so powerful. We can't even think of fighting. The best we can do is figure out how to make our retreat as painless as possible."

Meanwhile, they don't look behind them and realize that they actually have just as many -- if not more -- potential soldiers available to them. That mass includes people who are ready to fight and others who could be persuaded, if they were only given some inspiration and a reason to join up.

And so, the more we rationalize inaction the more lopsided the actual battle does become.

[The Doctor.]

29. I envy your romanticism.

I can't help but think it's a bit more complicated than that, but I can't tell you you're wrong either.

Perhaps when I'm less exhausted, I'll see the fatal flaws. Until then, thanks for simplifying things.

Cheers.

[Armstead]

35. It is deliberately chosen romanticism and idealism

Like many others, for many years I have had a constant inner struggle between a belief that we can (and do) improve over time and a contradictory feeling that it's all fundamentally rigged against decency and that we're headed for the Big Dumpster.

Depends on what day you ask which of those views is winning inside.

My honest view is that life is a complex and ever-changing tapestry of good and evil, light and dark, positive things happening and negative ones. I think that applies to the political system as well as on the social and "cosmic" level. Ultimately, it's basically neutral, and it's up to us individually to determine the framework we choose to see it.

Somewhere along the line, I chose to deliberately focus on the more optimistic side of that duality -- while realizing it is a choice that I have made. Sometimes the evidence supports that, sometimes it is contradictory to any sense of hope.

But at the end of the day, I think it's more useful to at least cultivate a sense of hope and work with that because that is all that will help to keep the bastards at bay -- regardless of what it all comes to in the larger scheme of things. (As a philosopher whose name I forget said, "In the long run we'll all be dead.")

[Bobbie Jo]

21. Good post. K&R

:kick:

[Top Cat]

22. Great post... K&R

[rug]

23. Oh, they'll kill him. That must be it.

[The Doctor.]

28. Weak, Small, Naïve.

Read the OP until it sinks in. Until then, you aren't really qualified to comment.

Thanks anyhow. Go back to your special camp.

[rug]

30. I did.

"I challenge ANYONE to declare they'd act differently if their choice was 'Do the right thing and die' (family notwithstanding), or 'Do all the good you are allowed and live'"

What is weak is when your "special camp" is reduced to defending this Administration's actions by suggesting he's doing it at gunpoint.

[The Doctor.]

39. It's more than that.

There are certain things that the PTB will simply make impossible for him as well.

On examination of the facts, with an understanding of Obama's background, the notion that we are truly a democracy of the people becomes fantastic. The president only has the power to do what he is allowed to do by the owners of this nation.

(Hint; We're not them.)

[Hutzpa]

25. Remind me again who that right guy was? n/t

[The Doctor.]

27. I liked Kucinich.

He would have given them the finger. And maybe would have had a strategy to survive.

[Drunken Irishman]

31. Or would not have been able to do anything...

Not a knock on Kucinich, more a knock on the process. A president is boxed into certain situations. An idealist like Kucinich, who has difficulty compromising and balancing policy, probably would have been shut out of the process altogether.

Then nothing gets done and, ultimately, they get their way anyway.

I believe Obama is bringing change. It might not be as dramatic as we'd all like - but that change, mostly coming from the inside, is happening. We are far better sound as a nation today than we were four years ago. I am confident in that.

Are we anywhere near our potential? No. But it's a start.

[polichick]

32. That would be more believable if he hadn't stacked his cabinet with...

...corporate tools from day one.

[The Doctor.]

40. I'm disappointed too.

[polichick]

42. For me it's more than disappointment - I'm pissed, and don't trust him...

He had the chance to at least choose cabinet members who would put the people first, and instead chose corporate tools.

That move alone shows what he's about - and, coming before his presidency even began, how could it not have been his own choice?

[hulka38]

34. The last refuge of the apologists. n/t

[dawg]

37. Then he shouldn't have run for president.

Our soldiers put their lives on the line every day for the things they believe in. How many thousands have died fighting the wars their president has led them to fight?

Our policemen & firemen run into deadly situations all the time. It's called courage.

I'll tell you what I would do. I'd have a vice-president who was practically a socialist, and one mean son-of-a-bitch. If anything happened to me, the retribution they would feel would be unbearable. dawggy doesn't mess around.

.
.
.

Okay, I edited this post a little to make it less harsh. But I don't believe the threat of assasination is any excuse for not doing the job you were elected to do. If I were president, and some evil cabal tried to pull my strings, I could not allow that to happen. Even if I had to recruit the mafia, the crips, the bloods, and the aryan nation - there would be bloody resistance to the idea that the American President could be controlled by undemocratic forces. That would not only be my choice, it would be my duty. And I strongly suspect Barack Obama, or even George W Bush, would feel the same way.

[Name removed]

43. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Fuddnik]

44. It's like NASCAR.

You have to line up your corporate sponsors first.

Then get "Property of JP Morgan Chase" tattooed on one ass cheek, and "BP" on the other.

Democrazy my ass. Corporate kleptocracy.

[Beacool]

45. Are you implying that Obama has to go along with TPTB to preserve his life????

"I challenge ANYONE to declare they'd act differently if their choice was 'Do the right thing and die' (family notwithstanding), or 'Do all the good you are allowed and live'."

Seriously???

Every president receives death threats and many a first lady does too. I'm sure Obama knew this before he ran for president. I don't think that he's being "scape-goated" more than any of the other presidents who preceded him. It comes with the job. Or do you think that 42 and 43 had smooth presidencies?

:shrug:

[Hippo_Tron]

46. Sorry, I dont' believe in conspiracy nonsense

Bill Hicks' joke is funny, but it's still a joke. JFK was a moderate President who was hardly any threat to any "powers that be".

The reason the President can't do anything is because half of America refuses to vote for their own economic interests. I think it was Bill Maher (although I could be wrong) who noted that Socialism never took root in America because Americans refuse to see themselves as an oppressed proletariat but as people who are just waiting their turn to be millionaires.

[pmorlan1]

48. Oh My

I wish people would stop making up mitigating scenarios that they then use to justify why Obama is governing the way he is. What is the evidence for these made up scenarios? Can we please stop projecting our own wishful thinking onto Obama and just figure out a way to get him to stop governing like a Republican?