Monday, April 26, 2010

I know it was you, Fredo.

I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!--Michael Corleone, The Godfather II

I'm a Christian who believes in Social Justice. I'm left of center politically. I'm suspicious of religious people who drape the flag around the Cross. I hate warrantless wiretapping, waterboarding and defending dictators to fatten the coffers of Wall Street. I believe that a civilized nation should provide health care to its people, refrain from making war on nations that haven't attacked it, and do its best to relieve the suffering of the poor. I take seriously the notion that the federal government has been formed "to create a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." I voted for Barack Obama. Considering the alternative, I would vote the same way again.

Still, these days, the hair is standing up on my neck. Universal health care morphed into welfare for insurance companies. Reforming the financial system is going the same way. Instead of regulating the banking industry, Obama seems committed to gutting the reforms passed the House last year and offering watered-down fake reform that will not only let the barbarians at the gate back in, but sit them down at the table and offer them a lovely Chardonnay as they plot to ravage what's left of the middle class. And if you like corporate welfare in health and finance, you better start buying energy stocks, because Climate Reform is coming, along with endorsements from the largest energy companies in the Fortune 500.

And that doesn't even begin to acknowledge that the Obama Administration has, for the most part, kept the worst violations of the Bush-era demolition of civil liberties in place. That extraordinary rendition programs are still in place. That Guantanamo still houses prisoners held without charge or trial and that reports of torture and murder there are still dribbling out. That prisoners are still being tortured in secret Afghan prisons.

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove in their wildest imaginations could never have pulled this off. In one stunning Nixon-goes-to-China-moment after another, Barack Obama continues to sell us out. The only reason he hangs on to any liberal support at all is that his opponents are even worse. As long as the Republican Party is sipping tea with the likes of Glenn Beck, Obama will get the votes of the left. But he won't get our hearts anymore.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

But Social Security wasn't very good when it first passed in the 1930's. Medicare was half of what it is today in 1964. Can't we allow Obama some baby steps and still hold out some hope? Man, I hope so!