Republicans Need to be Careful What They Say

Article by John on September 8th, 2009 at 7:47 am

It is nice to see mainstream media calling out a Republican politician on the faux criticism of President Obama’s speech today to school children. David Sirota is quite outraged by this and the Van Jones fiasco as we all should be.

The Wall Street Journal (a paper btw I stopped reading in the 1990′s because of its horrible coverage of a White House indiscretion) says this about David Sirota today:

Mr. Sirota is speaking for many on the movement left who believe they helped to elect Mr. Obama and therefore deserve seats at the inner table of power. They are increasingly frustrated because they are discovering that Mr. Obama will happily employ “movement progressives,” but only so long as their real views and motivations aren’t widely known or understood. How bitter it must be to discover that the Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck, who drove the debate about Mr. Jones, counts for more at this White House than Mr. Sirota.

And David Sirota goes on to say this about the Wall Street Journal editorial:

The Journal is absolutely, and unfortunately, correct -- right now, today’s White House officials answer more to Glenn Beck, Blue Dogs and Republicans than it does to progressive members of Congress and the progressive base of the Democratic Party that got them into the White House in the first place. You can see that in the negotiations over health care and climate change. You can see that in the plans to escalate the war in Afghanistan at the urging of people like Karl Rove, and the refusal to stop Wall Street bailouts and push real Wall Street reform. You can see that even in who the president opts to give exclusive interviews to. You can, in short, see it everywhere.

While I disagree with Mr. Sirota’s assertion that the progressive base played such a pivotal role in the President’s election, I do agree with David’s criticism of the current administration.  The President should have stood up for Van Jones rather than cut him loose.  He should have not revised his lesson plan for the school children and explained better to the public his intentions.

President Obama, you must stop trying to appease the political terrorists on the Right and start governing from the gut.  You need to take a lesson from dubya.  Don’t listen to anyone but what that voice in your head is telling you (not to be confused with dubya’s little voice).  Don’t do damage control, rather stand up for your values.  Let others criticize you and learn from that but do not cave into them as a result.  Mr. President, you know VERY well how to say the right words.  Now is the time you must practice what you preach.  Be bold.

“Hell is full of good intentions…” Bernard of Clairvaux

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3 comments to Republicans Need to be Careful What They Say

• John democracyforvancouver.org

  September 8, 2009 at 9:37 am · Reply to this comment

  There are still some Republicans worthy of respect and forgiveness. But mostly I agree with this letter and wish our President would heed the advice.

  Pass Along this Open Letter to the Republican Party

  An Open Letter to the Republican Party
  Sam Mossler

  Dear Republican Party,

  Sometimes when I am trying very hard to make a point and I feel that is is being missed I will, being human, go to great lengths to insure that my point is made. Often, in going to these great lengths I ultimately lose sight of the point I was trying to make and am focused instead on being sure that it is noted that I am making a point. Acknowledging that this is a common propensity ‘mongst mouth-breathers I am almost moved to forgive you for the last nine months. I, unlike many, relish the opportunity to forgive. I savor the forgiveness process. It would be far more comfortable for me, being who I am, to say:

  “Well, they have a right to disagree. The dissonant cacophony of differing views is, as it always has been, the stirring composition played by our proud American orchestra for the last two hundred and thirty three years. These Republicans, who have always entranced me with their endlessly complex moral paradoxes, like pushing to have their Judeo-Christian symbology included in public works but failing to absorb the message of the sermon on the mount, may hold views that I find both confusing and objectionable. But, dagnammit, it is their right. And I enjoy a healthy debate, so God love ‘em. And, hey, we all have the same desired outcome in mind, despite our different theories regarding how to reach it, right? Right? I mean, ultimately we, republican, democrat, and otherwise, only seek to continue building a civilization that is more enlightened and closer to our conception of God than the civilizations that have come before us. So God love the Republican and his Free Market Poop on Your Neighbor But Praise Jesus approach to social evolution. It may not be a logical plan, or one that I agree with but thank you for your input. I love you.”

  This, in so many words, was the mantra that has gotten me through to this point. It has allowed a love, sometimes conflicted but always sincere, for my conservative countrymen. And it has felt very good, this love, and has allowed to me to feel like a citizen of my own country for good or for better. But, Republicans, I feel that I have not been afforded the same respect. That, in fact, is putting it very lightly. Where you used to calmly illustrate your objections to social programs and produce charts that show how gdp’s thrive when the market is bullish or bearish or what-have-you, suggest that our quaint leftist notions were naive and unrealistic, and chuckle over lunch at our idealistic foibles, you now have taken far more malevolent tacts. You have offered the American people a series of enormously flawed public figures and when we failed to glom onto your ham handed, under read, under educated, under curious, under everything deer hunters, dense pundits, flim flam men, and former CEOs …when we rejected them you proceeded to damage, maliciously, a beautiful momentum. Something that, for a change, seemed pure and reasonable. Something that might have allowed us to rise above China and India, close on our heels, and show them that American right-wiseness wins out over the exploitation of a country’s most vital national resource: people. But, failing to muster any honest data to counter this momentum and failing to produce any non-troglodyte to champion your ambiguous cause, you have created a topsy turvy world wherein suddenly altruism is socialism, ambition, when not profitable, is unpatriotic aggression, beauty is ugly, god is dead, and Obama is Hitler.

  You are responsible, Republican party, though you may claim to be merely an old man behind a curtain. You are responsible for smothering our soul, for stifling our progress, delimiting human evolution, and cock blocking democracy. There is no forgiving you. Because you have moved from being ideological adversaries to destructive, malicious, mean spirited assholes. You have taken a collective national commitment to progress and sent it right off a cliff with empty promises of some goddamn tea party. And you’ve duped the dumbest twenty percent of America into thinking that they are fighting for a brighter tomorrow when, in reality, they are fighting to remain in shackles, sick, fat, and stupid, just as, it seems, you would like them to be. And sadly, twenty percent seems to be enough because dumb people yell the loudest.

  So, Republican Party, as you have abandoned the guidelines of polite debate and constructed a club house from discarded outhouses. As you have completely dismissed any urge for honesty or sincere investigation or reading or thinking or considering. As you have shrunken your vocabulary to that of a WWF announcer. As you have ended any intellectual curiosity I had about your views or any delusions I had that you are in possession of any measure of humanity whatsoever. As your brainless, brainwashed identity has become too submerged in the muck of pure idiocy to even bother debating you anymore, I heretofore cast you off to the frozen foods aisle of the Super Wal-Mart in my mind. You are dead to me. Fuck off.

  Yours Truly,

  Sam Mossler

• Rove Lies: Obama Is Encouraging Students To Write To Him Personally For ‘Political Utility’ | linkthe.com

  September 8, 2009 at 2:22 pm · Reply to this comment

  [...] Republicans Need to be Careful What They Say (democracyforvancouver.org) [...]

• Steve Zemke majorityrules.org

  September 9, 2009 at 11:08 am · Reply to this comment

  Electing Obama was just one step in changing what was wrong. To be effective progressives must be active for the long term. The campaign did not end with Obama’s election. The campaign goes on year after year. You need to be engaged for the long term.

  If you are not communicating your concerns on a regular basis to your elected officials, your concerns are easily drowned out by those who are.