Date: Tuesday, July 27, 2010
From: Jud L.
Group: USA.CAN

Ok, 2nd attempt. Some reactions to recent messages. 1. As mentioned before, I was pleased and surprised to see this forum reappear. I was beginning to feel a little lonely--a local e-list of Obama folks had gotten quieter and quieter, and finally went completely dark. 2. It seems to me that the left is going off one way, and the right is going...well, crazy. I'm concerned that the left is willing to let the bad guys win because the good guys are not pure enough, not perfect enough. 3. As a pragmatic idealist, I am still delighted with our President. I think we too easily lose sight of how much he has accomplished in spite of the incredible turmoil and difficulties he is facing. And the Administration is still quite young. 4. I agree that we each have to find our own way to participate, whether it be coffee parties, OFA, working for a local Congressional campaign, or just giving money. We each have our own strengths, weaknesses, financial abilities, and other obligations. 5. But we need to keep our eyes on the ball. If we lose the mid-terms, we are in for dark times. Speaker Boehner! Eric Cantor. Mitch McConnell. Truly scary. 6. The stakes are high, the risks are great. Get involved. Stay involved.

Yes We Can, Yes We Will! Jud Lawrie, Raleigh NC

--- On Tue, Jul 27, 2010, in msg270528, Jud Lawrie wrote ---

I just posted a long message which disappeared when I tried to unwisely to change an option above. I am sending this as a test before I bother trying to recompose it. BTW, all these options seem unnecessarily confusing.

The begiinning of the message was my delight and surprise to see this forum reappear after such a long absence.

Jud Lawrie Raleigh

--- On Tue, Jul 27, 2010, in msg270522, Dave Robinson wrote ---

I don't put Obama on a pedestal either. I was afraid of this on Inauguration Day...people treating Obama like he was some sort of messiah. Politics is alot more shades of gray, rather than black and white. The biggest threat to our country comes from the right-wing....thats who the good people everywhere need to stand up to.

I enjoy working with OFA, but am also an active member of my local Coffee Party. Their first convention is on September 24th in my hometown: Louisville, KY !

Another very good group is MoveOn.org. I know FoxNews hates MoveOn, but actually they are a very intelligent and reliable group of activists who believe in things like campaign-finance reform and climate- change action! They played an important role in supporting health-care reform. this year Check out MoveOn.org!

Dave

--- On Mon, Jul 26, 2010, in msg270520, JaneAnne Jeffries Johnson wrote ---

I'm definitely an Obama supporter. I believe that my political action, however, needs to be according to my personal plan. That is not to say I do not sign petitions, call my Senators and Representative, and participate with all groups to the best of my ability and time. I do all that. One thing I cannot do is contribute money because I am no longer working and my children and grandchildren, who are self-employed, have much less work than they did two years ago. If I send money to anybody right now, except for $5 here and there, it has to be my family. I like the actions of the Coffee Party. I believe it is a home for independents much more so than OFA. So that's where I will stay for now, but I will also take part in OFA actions when I can. I am grateful for what's left of the Obama groups.

JaneAnne *

--- On Mon, Jul 26, 2010, in msg270518, Ma Renrut wrote ---

I appreciate the dialogue going back and forth about how best to move forward. Personally, I'm still a very strong supporter of POTUS - despite the fact that he's made decisions I don't like. I don't like FISA, the Patriot Act, the appointment of Tim Geithner, and deciding not to speak out about BP until the damage was horrendous.

Then there are things he hasn't done that I don't like: Guantanamo's not closed, our service men and women are not yet home from Iraq, we haven't repealed DADT, and he didn't fight for health care reform the way I wanted him to.

But none of that is a deal breaker for me. I still believe that Obama is a good man who wants to do right by and for his country. I believe that he will tell us the truth when we ask him a question. And I believe that there are some decisions he will make that we will never make sense out of because we won't have (nor should we) all the information he has. But I haven't had a single second of regret over working to get him elected. I haven't even questioned it - not once. Not only was the alternative too hideous to contemplate, but he was and still remains, the clear and obvious choice to lead our country into its next defining period.

I keep remembering his words during the campaign, when he said that he would always listen to us, and that we needed to change Washington so that our voices could be heard. He said we might not always like what he had to say, but he would always tell us the truth. I keep hearing the word "us". Not "me", not "you", not "them" - but "US". That means each and every one of us - and Obama IS changing Washington by finding ways to best represent the majority's interest by way of the greater good.

Yes, I could choose to focus my energies on what hasn't been done. Or I can focus them on what has been accomplished and continue to press forward in that vein. Let's not forget the conditions Obama stepped into when he assumed office. And yet, on his first full day in office, he signed executive orders mandating the closure of Guantánamo Bay prison camp in one year, prohibiting extreme interrogation practices and revisiting military tribunals for suspected terrorists.. On his next day of office, he signed the Lily Lidbetter bill into law giving equal rights to women and people of color. In his 2nd week of office, Obama signed into law the stimulus bill that gave 95% of Americans a tax break, and money to all states for unemployment and repairs to roads, bridges, schools, etc. What followed in his first 100 days of office are marked by the boldest intervention of government into the affairs of business since the Truman era. (Think banks and finance)

Remember those days? When everyone said he was taking too much on his plate? Well, for all the frustrations that many people feel, Obama has already accomplished more in his 18 months in office than Bush did in 8 years. That's not an opinion - that's a fact, and easily proven with a short Google query.

Nonetheless, the restlessness growing among us is real and palpable. So where does that leave us? Many are working as JaneAnne is, in the Coffee Party. Others are working with OFA. Still others are working with Democracy Now, Moveon.org, and other organizations. I have chosen to work with most of them. Why must we choose one over the other? Why can't we work together?

One thing the Republicans have on us is a united fury. They don't have a platform, they don't have any ideas, and they don't have any good candidates, but lordy, lordy, they've got anger. And it wraps them up in one great big snuggle. We on the other hand, are so busy nitpicking with each other, intellectualizing a comment here, a comment there, and dissecting the president's every step, that we've compartmentalized ourselves to the point where we're in danger of becoming a moot point. We're not just angry with the Republicans or the President - we're angry with each other, too, because we spend a lot of time arguing about what the priorities really are and how we should be going about dealing with them. You're wrong and I'm right.

The Republicans don't do that. They just say "no" and get home in time for dinner.

WE'RE our own worst enemy.

This continued, systematic effort to dilute our greatest resource - the US in this grassroots movement - will be the death of us.

So join up with whatever cause you like. But please ask yourself whether your support of that organization is truly going to champion the issues who want to see brought to the forefront, whether they will elect the person who want to see in office, and whether they have enough clout / money / volunteers / know-how to make it happen this November. If they don't, what are you doing there?

Yesterday, HuffPo published a great essay by Michelle Klaus that clearly articulates my own sentiments about why disenchanted Obama supporters gave up too soon, and why they need to come back into the fold. The article follows below.

Sincerely,

Marla Turner, Las Vegas NV

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-kraus/a-love-affair-gone-wrong_b_658539.html

This is the saga of a love affair gone awry between the liberals and their true love, President Obama. One only has to gaze at the furor in Obama's eyes on television to glimpse the depth of emotions, while listening to the liberals wail. Liberals wanted him to be their perfect spouse, and forgot that good relationships take hard work from all parties (no pun intended). As the honeymoon crashed and burned, liberals began abandoning their beloved. There is no forgiveness in their hearts, or room for mistakes. Patience has vanished.

Oh woe is me; it's bad enough that Obama is getting battered from the right, but now his latte friends that loved and cherished him are turning away. He has ceased to be the "cool" kid that shoots hoops; rather he is the clumsy nerd that no one picks or wants for their team. It's like watching rats dive overboard, and leaving no life vest for their best buddy. And so it goes according to plan from the opposition that is wreaking havoc, distrust and suspicion. They knew this would happen because we liberals are so predictable. When the going gets tough, we don't want marriage counseling. Ick! We pick up our toys in a huff and expel a harrumph. Yes, it's a harrumph because we're having a tantrum. Is this any way to treat your beloved? Obama told us it would take a partnership, and we've forgotten. We're mad and watched him skin his knees. No lollipops for these folks. Sadly, the traps were so predictable that Carl and Frank must be dancing a jig together right now.

Just look at the result of the duplicity of bombastic right wing blogger, Andrew Breitbart. He tinkered with a video of Shirley Sherrod, and drove it into the liberals' weak spot -- racism. Breitbart admittedly isn't the brightest bulb, but he had expert coaching and the fallout is a bad dream. Duh, that was a no- brainer. It was like dangling a young, zaftig thing in front of former President Clinton, and waiting for him to take the bait. We (liberals) should be mad as hell at the opposition, not Obama or his administration that fell over one another. As Ari Shapiro on NPR's "All Things Considered" finds, "there has been a pattern of conservative activists blurring the line between journalism and advocacy, and doing it with striking success." I'd go further, and call it what it is: pathetic, hate mongering journalism, libel, slander and all those bad things. Shirley should sue Breitbart, and if she wants to -- go back to work (please). We should stop tripping over ourselves, stop over analyzing and get over it. Anderson Cooper, we all embrace you, but enough is enough. Move on, there's so much work to be done in rebuilding this relationship between the Obama and the liberals.

And you know what? The opposition plan just keeps giving us indigestion that is constipating the Congress' ability to get things done. This is the right graphic word to describe the impasse and filibusters that are filling those grand halls. Yep, and we all know that these folks in Congress are not exactly rabble-rousers. But now Harry has kicked climate legislation to the curb because he cannot gather the votes to pass it. We keep fighting among ourselves. And it took four weeks just to get unemployment benefits extended to millions of out of work Americans during a Recession. It's like pushing a rock uphill. Dave Johnson has got it correct in his piece "Republican Plan Working So Far" -- "Block everything Congress does, then run against Democrats as ineffective."

Surprisingly, the opposition seems to understand the 24/7 news cycle, and social media that we invented much better than we do. They use Sarah Palinesque techniques (Breitbart), and opportunistic surrogates. Then they make a good batter by mixing in race, unemployment, environmental disaster, chicanery by the right wing bloggers -- and we have a formula for success which is unprecedented in this country. Our message machine must get much more sophisticated with rapid responses. We goofed on the Sherrod fiasco and now are buried in the avalanche. We know that these are difficult times, and we need to figure out how to weather the storm while the opposition continues to manipulate our greatest hopes, wishes and dreams. I say save this love affair. Relationships are a lot of work -- particularly when there is constant, insidious interference from nasty in-laws. Just remember the picture of Hillary standing by Bill through it all. It takes guts. No one promised a rose garden.

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