He failed to hold those who tortured other human beings in the name of the United States accountable. He failed to hold accountable, or even expose to the public light of scorn, those responsible for the economic meltdown in our country. On healthcare reform, he refused to consider a single payer system, not even allowing advocates to be represented in most official forums. This was a system he previously claimed he believed in and one that OMB had twice declared as feasible and affordable during the Clinton years. In Iraq he merely adhered to Bush’s timetable for reducing troops in the country, while in Afghanistan, he listened only to advice from the military and put more soldiers than ever into the battle to support a notably corrupt government. Additionally, Obama has allowed the military/industrial complex to pursue wars on the ground in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Columbia.  And those are just the ones we know about.

Until the lame duck session of Congress, Obama’s successes were few, and even those were usually tainted. For instance, while healthcare reform brought some welcome changes to the insurance industry, they did so with the gift to that same industry of millions of new subscribers being forced by federal law to buy insurance from them.  There is hardly a sweeter present that could be offered to any industry!  The 9/11 responders health care legislation was passed, as was some needed reforms for veterans benefits, but these issues were so broadly supported that, frankly, Pee Wee Herman could have pushed them through.  The only possible exception, a victory that could attributed to Obama, appeared to be the passage of the repeal of the onerous Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy of discrimination in the military.  And, frankly, it was the passage of that bill that finally began to bring into focus the dilemma our country faces as the plutocratic system of government becomes more firmly entrenched.  It is this system, government controlled by the richest people in the land, that actually exonerates Obama to some extent because it is clear that his power is granted or taken away as the plutocrats see fit.

Saying the word “plutocracy” to most people provokes reactions of conspiracy theories and dark movies.  However, if you mention to almost anyone that it takes millions of dollars to win a national political race, there is a reaction of “Yeah, so what’s your point?”  And that is the point. While money has always been influential, over the past 3 decades we have been moving inexorably toward a system where money is not just influential, but where money — and the relatively few people who control most of it — rules.

In 2010, the Supreme Court weighed in with a decision that absolutely flabbergasted progressives and liberals.  They declared that corporations have the “right” of free speech under the Constitution, just like individuals, and therefore can spend unlimited amounts of money to publicize their views. This was a radical interpretation of a legal device that was created primarily for business ownership, legal liability and taxation purposes. Yet, in keeping with 30 years of the march toward plutocratic control of the US government, it makes perfect sense. It takes the next step, albeit a huge step, toward outright ownership of the country’s government by the wealthiest people.

Now, none of that is earth-shattering news. In fact, most Americans would probably agree that the country is already run by the rich. The current situation is, in fact, very much like the old story about cooking a frog. As long as you turn the heat up gradually, the frog does not become frightened and eventually it allows itself to be completely cooked without ever making so much as a whimper. As an electorate, we are about half-cooked right now, since we already acknowledge the power of the rich yet cannot bring ourselves to jump out of the pot and vote out the lackeys who turn the screws, most of our current Senators and Congressmen.

Sure, there are exceptions. When Barney Frank rails against the machine, or Bernie Sanders actually filibusters and has something to say, there is a certain chill that goes down our collective spine. There is something about these increasingly rare displays of actual representative government that awakes a memory of a time when we sent people to Washington who were actually “one of us”. The reason these occurrences are rare is because this type of representative is becoming scarce. Since this type of person cannot be counted on to heel when commanded, they attract less and less funding until their seat is simply bought out. You can witness one “maverick” who learned that lesson well in the form of John McCain. Years ago he was not ashamed to buck the system when he felt a particular measure did not help his constituents.  However, he has since learned who his “true” constituency is and has reversed himself on a number of issues and taken patently ridiculous stands on others. And yet, like so many others, he has found those stands are not ridiculous when they open the floodgates of cash from large, grateful donors. And let’s face it, the hooting of the weak-kneed liberal press and the catcalls of a mostly powerless electorate is awfully hard to hear behind heavy drapes and oak doors.

The reason that the passage of the DADT repeal was such a clear indication of where we are is because it did not upset the one, primary applecart: money. What will be the cost of this bill to the wealthy? Nothing! You’ll notice there was absolutely no budging on the tax cuts for the wealthy, but DADT? A very cheap crumb to throw the President and his party, and give the GOP something to point to as a bi-partisan social victory and willingness to work with Obama. All at the cost of , well, zero. These social and moral issues really mean nothing to plutocrats. However, the issues are important in the sense that they can be used to effectively mobilize voters when necessary. Abortion, gay marriage, immigration. None of these issues will add to or subtract from a plutocrat’s bank account. However, if they suddenly need the masses to go to the polls, it is relatively simple to inject into the dialog something about baby-killers, job-taking immigrants or gay couples.  Citizens whose apathy would normally keep them at home on election day will suddenly be whipped into a frenzy of patriotism. It is so transparent and yet it works so well.

With the Supreme Court ruling, we seem to be reaching a crescendo of some sort. It will be interesting to see how far the plutocrat’s greed will take them. If plutocrats are students of history, and I think they are, they know that the French pushed too far and brought a revolution down upon themselves. In our own country, the Watts riots, now mostly forgotten, served to remind plutocrats that there does come a time when people feel they have nothing to lose. Following Watts, not surprisingly, we saw expansion of social programs like welfare so that the poor and the increasingly poor middle class would have something to lose. Programs that, while neutralizing their place in the economy, nevertheless would keep them from any sort of revolution. However, there seems to be so much momentum building up on the side of the plutocracy that I have to wonder if they won’t over-reach, if their greed won’t overcome their sense of history. It is a fascinating time in America.

Now we are faced with a Presidency and a Democratic Party that has squandered its popular mandates, bargained away its core principles and shown weakness at every turn.  They ran and were voted into office on such popular and morally defensible programs as universal healthcare, repealing tax cuts for the rich, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, holding accountable those responsible for the economic meltdown and stimulating the economy among others.  What successes they have had have been severely limited and, for awhile, I and many others have been willing to blame the obstructionism of the GOP and impale the whole lot of them on the stake of “pure politics”.  And the GOP has continued to push policies that contradict themselves and punish the middle class to the benefit of the upper two percent.  Yet, who’s winning this war of words?  The GOP, hands down, and now it’s time to apply Clinton’s 2002 analysis to 2010.

I do not have an explanation of why intelligent people who are pursuing popular and morally correct policies refuse to aggressively promote those items.  Nor do I have any rational reason why other people can, with a straight face, argue for programs that would punish the very people who voted for them.  But I do have to finally acknowledge that Bill Clinton had it absolutely correct: ”When people are insecure, they’d rather have somebody who is strong and wrong than someone who’s weak and right”.

With a dead-end war raging and the economy in the toilet, our country is definitely insecure.  The Democrats, even though demonstrably right on most issues, are inexplicably but undeniably weak.  The GOP, while incredibly wrong on so many things, are unflagging and strong in pursuit of their Orwellian ideals.  And the net result is just as Clinton explained: people prefer “strong and wrong”.  Can the Democrats ever figure this out, get united and stand up for what they believe?  I don’t have that answer, but I believe that they are rapidly running out of time.

Now, I’m all for good security, but most experts in this field agree that no amount of security, no matter how extreme, will prevent a determined terrorist.  And, we have to look at the examples of Greece and Israel and other countries that have also experienced terror attacks.  They do not engage in these personally invasive searches. No, groping men’s crotches and women’s breasts are not considered acceptable even in the name of security there.  Instead, they rely on police work, interviews, and good, solid intelligence.  In fact, these are exactly the techniques that might have, just might have, avoided some of the 9/11 attacks had our President and his advisers taken the security warning seriously, had police been notified of suspicious students in flight schools who seemed to have no interest in learning how to land and other warnings that were glossed over or ignored.  No system is perfect, but I would prefer to see the multi-millions being spent on TSA “grope-downs” directed instead toward police training and systems for coordinating our intelligence networks.  Until then, we have to score this one round for the terrorists.

I recall, painfully sometimes, the talk prior to the election about ending the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, providing health care to all Americans and ending the discriminatory Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy in our armed forces, among other things.   Today we have 50,000 troops still in Iraq, supposedly in a “non-combat” role which we have already discovered does not prevent them from being in combat and being killed.  In Afghanistan, there are more American troops on the ground than ever before and no realistic exit strategy.  The watered down Health Reform Act is beginning to take effect and, while many of its provisions are welcome, there will still be 20 million Americans without coverage when all the provisions are in force in 2014.  Finally, we have just recently seen a 9th Circuit Federal Judge declare DADT to be unconstitutional, yet President Obama and his administration sit on their collective hands, refusing to take Executive action.

As quick as I have been to criticize the President for transitioning from principled leader to pragmatic politician, I am not blind to the potential impact of having the opposite party win the Senate.  With the Republican party now pandering to its active and vocal far-right faction, and GOP choices like Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell lining up, the need to go to the polls and vote Progressive/Liberal/Democrat has never been more clear.  In order to avoid a Senate influenced to an even greater degree by the Beck’s, Hannity’s and Limbaugh’s of the world, Progressives must be active, vocal and — most importantly — turn out in large numbers to vote.  No time for apathy, disappointment or stubbornness this year.

To be clear, I will continue after the mid-terms to remind the President of his alleged principles and his failure to live up to them.  The most important thing for now, however, is to make sure the opportunity for progressive action remains by keeping a Democratic majority in both houses.  See you at the polls!

I think we Americans sometimes confuse the intent and direction of generals with the dedication and sacrifice of the troops in the field. Generals do not earn promotions nor places in history by heading up successful aid missions to Haiti or hurricane relief efforts; they make their reputations in only one place: managing combat operations. Wars are all about big profits for major corporations and advancement for military brass — they go hand in hand to further the “military-industrial complex” we were warned about so many years ago. Until the majority of Americans, as well as our administration and Congress, grasp the simple fact that American style democracy cannot be exported by military means, we cannot progress. Our still-fledgling democracy works well for us, but it is quite simply not a cookie-cutter to be hammered down on any country we choose willy-nilly. A simple study of the history of Afghanistan/Pakistan would have revealed to even the slowest of students that this so-called “mission” was and is destined for failure. Now, the spin doctors will work their magic to deliver the latest definition of what “success” will look like. My suggestion is to save time and simply read any history of the Vietnam conflict. That’s what success in Afghanistan will look like.

(Chorus) “Hi Gophiugre!”

I’ve been a, um, bleeding heart liberal, for, well, about 10 years.

(From back of the room) “We’re here for ya!  We’ve all been there!”

I don’t know exactly how it started because, you see, I was brought up in a very conservative atmosphere.  Some might say right-wing, even.  My father was a career Air Force pilot in the Strategic Air Command.  In the 50′s and 60′s, when I was a kid, their slogan was “Peace is our Profession”.  Maybe it still is, I don’t know.  As a kid I never saw the raw irony of that slogan, painted below a shield and an armored fist, as it appeared on every B-52 bomber that lifted off the runway daily carrying nuclear warheads.  “Peace is our Profession”.  

Anyway, to be brief, there was a short stint in college, time served as a paratrooper in Vietnam, and then the day-to-day experiences of marriage, children, divorce, work, etc.  And somehow, somewhere along that relatively unremarkable journey, it happened.

(From the back row, again) “No problem, dude!  You’re among friends!”

Yeah, well, thanks.  So now I have come to hold some very distinct beliefs about certain things.  And the older I get, the more unshakeable these beliefs become.   Sometimes I get frustrated because no one seems to “get it”.  Not the news media, not the politicians, no one who seems to have any voice in this world.  No one seems to want to discuss facts, no one wants to talk about truth or honesty or integrity or…

“We do man, let ‘er fly!”  (Who is that drunk in the back row?)

Well, having a father who was a soldier in World War II, and having served in the military myself, one of my first concerns is that we never put a soldier in harm’s way unless absolutely necessary.  I am not a pacifist (though that is an ideal worth pursuing) so I do believe in a vigorous defense if we are attacked.  I don’t believe, however, that countries are like chess pieces to be invaded and captured at will.  I think all of our citizens need to grasp the reality that when we train our soldiers for months in how to kill people, then send them somewhere, people are going to die.  Sometimes our soldiers die, sometimes other people die, but someone is going to die.  I think war has become an abstract idea for most US citizens.  It’s in the newspapers, online and on TV at night, but just like a “reality show”, it doesn’t actually seem real.  (Except, of course, to those who lose loved ones everyday in combat.)  I think US citizens should be required to watch actual combat video so they can visualize what it means to see another person, line that person’s head up in the sights of a rifle, pull the trigger, and watch their head explode!  Oh, too gross?  Well, welcome to war!  Oh, and that person is never, ever Osama bin Laden.  It’s just some other guy or girl, typically a young person with a mother and a father, brothers and sisters, and the same hopes and dreams that all young people carry in their hearts.  He or she just happens to be on the other side of the street — bang, bang, I shot you dead.  And then, there is the wedding party that is accidentally targeted, or perhaps there is one “bad” guy in a home with 15 other people — bang, bang, you’re all dead. 

You see, this is war.  And it’s always this way.  The politicians who send soldiers to war stay in Washington, except for quick, secret Thanksgiving or Christmas visits to the “troops”.  Many of these same politicians will argue poetically and passionately about the “sanctity of life”, and the “right to life”, but will in the blink of an eye send our soldiers to kill others and to die for something like ”weapons of mass destruction” that we all knew did not exist.  Yes, face it, based on all credible intelligence that was known to our leaders, there was no evidence.  But there was a country, a chess piece, to be captured.  And so it goes.

And this is only the first evidence of a BHL, because the bleeding heart knows no bounds! 

“Go man, you’re on a roll!”

 There are other weird things I believe such as how important it might be for all of our citizens to have access to health care.  I did not say access to health insurance, I said health care.  Many people don’t seem to think there is a difference.  The state I live in already has guaranteed access to health insurance.  Doesn’t that sound great?  Of course, since you are rated for pre-existing conditions, and denied coverage for those conditions for at least a year if you’ve had no prior insurance, then it becomes a question of “Can you afford the guaranteed insurance?”.   Ah, there’s the rub, as they say.  Now, our Congressional Budget Office has studied a single payer system in the past and found that it is workable for our country.  This is a system that would guarantee health care for every single citizen.  No, not a mandate that you must buy insurance from a private company, but a guarantee of care, or prescriptions, or whatever you need to stay healthy, and it’s paid for by the government.  Whoa!  That sounds so bizarre and unaffordable until you realize that ours is the only modern country in the world that doesn’t already do this.  Our citizens live shorter lives, more of our infants do not survive their first months of life, thousands of families declare bankruptcy each year due to medical bills, others simply lead lives full of sickness and poor health.  For you non-believers, let me reiterate: we are the only modern country in the world that allows these conditions to exist. 

What is wrong with us?  How can we allow an elected official to claim respect for life and yet send thousands to die?  How can our President accept the Nobel Peace Prize and try to justify war in the same breath?  How can scores of elected officials who enjoy government paid health care tell us the country can’t afford for anyone else to have it?  Hypocrisy reigns supreme in this new century, just as it has for decades.  And what can the BHL do?

“zzzzzzzzz” (The guy in the back row is now snoring.)

I guess all we can do is continue to speak truth to lies, common sense to idiocy, tolerance to bigotry and compassion to cruelty.  Ultimately, there may be no change in my lifetime, but I will die knowing that at least I tried.

“What? Who’s gonna die?” 

There is no 12-step program for ignorance.

Guantanamo?  Closer to being closed, but of course we have also discovered that secret prisons are still in existence and no one has been called to account for them.  Also, no one was ever held to be responsible for the torture programs our country pursued.  Better to “look forward”.

Wars?  More troops to Afghanistan and, worse, a huge committment to private contractors to carry out the killing for us.  Paid more than our volunteer soldiers, these Blackwater-type guns-for-hire allow the government to pursue political ambitions without public oversight.

Healthcare for all?  The current disappointment, now in the process of unfolding into the greatest gift to the insurance industry since Part D Medicare.  Obama, who mouthed approval for a single payer system six years ago in front of a union audience, now can’t be bothered.  Despite evidence from the CBO that it would work financially, and despite repeated polling showing the public in favor of such a plan, he defers to industry lobbyists again and again.

Obama has seized the fiddle of politics and is strumming a happy tune.  Too bad the public can’t dance — they’re still too busy trying to put out the fire!