Progressive Case Against Obama

Here is the left-leaning Salon blog network -- and they're bashing Obama.

Many conservatives think that far left liberals hate Obama because he's not liberal enough. This is only partially true. Many "progressives" and socialists despise Obama for his undeclared, unaffordable, immoral warmongering. They reject Obama for his allegiance to Wall Street and oligarchy.

The mainstream media paints a picture of Obama as being a populist, a "man of The People", a "champion of the poor and minorities". Nothing could be further from the truth.

For example, the latest Obama TV commercial "Your First Time" with Lena Dunham compares voting for Obama to losing your virginity.

For many Democrats, women are just vaginas in need of contraception, abortion, and deflowering. They even make demeaning, sexist remarks like "Vote with Your Lady Parts". This is the Democrat War on Women.

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Barack Obama is the president who hired as his lead economic advisor Larry Summers, a man famous for arguing that women are genetically predisposed to being bad at math. Unsurprisingly, Anita Dunn, a White House adviser, later called the Obama White House a “hostile work environment” for women, in large part because of the boys club of Rahm Emanuel and Larry Summers. 

-- Mark Stoller, "The Progressive Case Against Obama", Salon (Oct. 27, 2012)

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You should examine some of the progressive and far left critiques of Obama. Sometimes it is far more scathing than Hannity, Rush, Glenn Beck, or other conservative pundits.

The rank and file followers of the DNC are not informed about Obama's many broken promises and failed programs. The progressives are keeping vigilant watch and are exposing more than Fox News does in many cases.

Here is "The Progressive Case Against Obama" by Mark Stoller. Mark Stoller, you are a Great American.

A few more excerpts to whet your appetite:

* There are many good arguments against Obama, even if the Republicans cannot seem to muster any. The civil liberties/antiwar case was made eloquently a few weeks ago by libertarian Conor Friedersdorf, who wrote a well-cited blog post on why he could not, in good conscience, vote for Obama. While his arguments have tremendous merit, there is an equally powerful case against Obama on the grounds of economic and social equity.

* So why oppose Obama? Simply, it is the shape of the society Obama is crafting that I oppose, and I intend to hold him responsible, such as I can, for his actions in creating it....Not, what did Obama try to do, in his heart of hearts? But what kind of America has he actually delivered?

* The bailouts and the associated Federal Reserve actions were not primarily shifts of funds to bankers; they were a guarantee that property rights for a certain class of creditors were immune from challenge or market forces. The foreclosure crisis, with its rampant criminality, predatory lending, and document forgeries, represents the flip side. Property rights for debtors simply increasingly exist solely at the pleasure of the powerful. The lack of prosecution of Wall Street executives, the ability of banks to borrow at 0 percent from the Federal Reserve while most of us face credit card rates of 15-30 percent, and the bailouts are all part of the re-creation of the American system of law around Obama’s oligarchy.

* Look at the broken promises from the 2008 Democratic platform: a higher minimum wage, a ban on the replacement of striking workers, seven days of paid sick leave, a more diverse media ownership structure, renegotiation of NAFTA, letting bankruptcy judges write down mortgage debt, a ban on illegal wiretaps, an end to national security letters, stopping the war on whistle-blowers, passing the Employee Free Choice Act, restoring habeas corpus, and labor protections in the FAA bill. Each of these pledges would have tilted bargaining leverage to debtors, to labor, or to political dissidents.

* Under Bush, economic inequality was bad, as 65 cents of every dollar of income growth went to the top 1 percent. Under Obama, however, that number is 93 cents out of every dollar. That’s right, under Barack Obama there is more economic inequality than under George W. Bush. 

* Many will claim that Obama was stymied by a Republican Congress. But the primary policy framework Obama put in place – the bailouts, took place during the transition and the immediate months after the election, when Obama had enormous leverage over the Bush administration and then a dominant Democratic Party in Congress.

* The rest of Obama’s policy framework looks very different when you wake up from the dream state pushed by cable news. Obama’s history of personal use of illegal narcotics, combined with his escalation of the war on medical marijuana (despite declining support for the drug war in the Democratic caucus), shows both a personal hypocrisy and destructive cynicism that we should decry in anyone, let alone an important policymaker who helps keep a half a million people in jail for participating in a legitimate economy outlawed by the drug warrior industry.