Capitalism: A Love Story

Say what you will about Michael Moore, but after watching Capitalism: A Love Story tonight, I am once again reminded of why I am devoted to the public interest of this country. We all know who Michael Moore is. He's known for his films and those on the right see him as an utter insult to the America, however...and I am obviously bias as I'm just as progressive as Mr. Moore, but in all honesty...how can you possibly disagree with what is portrayed in this film? Yes, I am a person, like many others who have benefited from capitalism. There is no disputing that. But we also live in a democracy, which I believe supersedes any capitalist ideology in existence today. "I refuse to live in a country like this...but I'm not leaving," is by far the greatest line ever in the film! Why? Because remember 8 years ago and then 4 years ago...when both times we had to deal with George Dub being "elected" then "re-elected?" All of us liberals declared an end to our United States citizenship, threatening to jump the border into Canada because we "refuse to live in a country like this..." We're still here.

We're about a week and a half away from reaching our one year anniversary of American's like myself, coming together to change the direction of this country. We were sick and tired of the corruption, chaos and madness that took place for 8 solid years under the Bush administration and we demanded an alternative to the destruction we had all been witnessing. Not to give all the credit to President Obama, but while we're still relatively fucked right now...things I'd say are better than they were one year ago today. Am I wrong about that? Financially, things are still pretty bad, millions of people continue to lose their homes to foreclosure, hard working American's continue to lose their jobs every single day and households who are receiving income are seeing the majority of it go to pay of extremely high debt. Moreover, we have two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the threat of prolonging one of those battles and possibly engaging in further battles with Iran and Pakistan. In addition we are reaching the end of a third month of the health care debate. Ok...so things aren't so great.

I'm utterly disgusted with the arguments the talking heads on the right and left have in regards to Obama's performance in the last 10 months. When are they finally going to realize that they are in fact contradicting their support of Bush when they point out Obama's inability to turn things around? So things were bad right?!?! Where were these talking heads 4 to 8 years ago, when all the bad things began to take place?

I know Obama is pissing a lot of us off. Here we have health reform and the public option being handed to us and there is Obama...freakin courting Olympia Snowe! It's frustrating and I pray to God that he's got some strategy behind this because a lot of us still believe in him. While the rest expect him to fail, we still expect him to be the President we elected him to be. That said, those of us that did all we can in 2008 to get Obama elected, to help protect the greater good of this country, we cannot led up. We need to step it up and make sure that we are not screwed over by this President the way we were with Bush.

Capitalism: A Love Story, was a just a reminder of what we can do if we work together. As easily as we elected a President and Congress, as easily we can remove you. But let's be smart about this...hopefully things will begin to turn around in the coming months...if not? Ten words. R-E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N

Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize

I understand we are all frustrated about the POTUS, with not seeing immediate results to correcting a lot of what was brought upon us during the Bush years. With that said, I still think that we need to support him, while holding him accountable. Today's win of the Nobel Peace Prize is really quite spectacular! Think about it. Unlike our previous administration, our POTUS is finally doing or attempting to do something we have yearned for but have not seen in a very long time and that is diplomacy and a sense of international community. Some of us may feel like he has not done anything so far to deserve this prestigious award, but obviously the rest of the world feels differently. It just seems that the world has embraced his ideology for peace and a sense of community and that right there is a major win for America, not just Obama. I am a huge proponent of ending the war in Afghanistan and I see this Nobel Peace Prize win from the committee as not just an award for Obama but as a symbol and perhaps a silent call to the President that "the world is watching" and is looking to him to stay the course and move towards peace and maybe an end to a 9 year war.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/09/obama-wins-nobel-peace-pr_n_314907.html

Will Sen. Grassley ever fight for the rights of the people he represents?

Months after the health care discussion began, Sen. Grassley still does not seem to understand how to compromise. The word "no" seems to be the only word which seems to exist in his vocab. For someone that has been in the discussion from the beginning, making agreements and participating in discussions and then to finaly go against what he previously agreed upon, is just plain awful. Sen. Grassley, this isn't a game, this is our lives your messing with. You're seriously politicizing this whole debate. When will you finally wake up and realize that what you're doing is making the situation worse and prolonging relief for all of us?

For someone like me, who really does belief in equal rights for everyone, including the notion that health care is a right not a privledge, I'm disheartened at how this debate has turned into the battle of our lives. Who could possibly disagree with the notion that all Americans should have access to high quality health care? Sen. Grassley that's who! And not just him, but also every other highly ranked Republican in Congress, in addition to all the right wing pundits on the radio and the television. Listen, I know its all about limiting government interference and decrease our deficit, but seriously? Why haven't they been more committed before? For over 50 years, we've pushed this idea fiscal responsibility and small government yet its never worked and instead, our country has spiraled out of control. People want health care reform all over the country, and as we continue to live in a nation attempting to pursue a democracy, it is the wishes of the American people that should be taken into consideration, not have Congress listen to corporate lobbyists who happen to be making billions off all of us. How can anyone support that?

There is a reason that the Dems won last Novemeber. They won because things have obviously not been going well the last 8yrs under the Republican party's leadership. Dems need to step it up! We have a lot of work to do and we need to make it happen, otherwise...November 2010 will come real quickly and the legacy of the Democratic party will be, leaders appointed to represent the people, who can't deliver.

Sen. Grassley, for a man who I once respected, you have become a major disappointment. How can you possibly live with yourself, as you influence your party to rob the American people of their right and entitlementto affordable, quality healthcare?

Anyway, I'm venting. I saw Sen. Grassley on the senate floor this afternoon regarding his new argument towards the new state public option "opt out" discussion now floating around and I was seriously overcome with anger at the thought that this is the Republican leadership right now. Its quite sad and frightening, all at the same time. I'm hoping forthe best, however, its hard to think positive when our Dems are scared to rul and th Repubs are being, well...Repubs
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It's been 10 months...

and already President Obama is losing support from both sides of the aisle. Of course, it's to be expected from the Republicans...we always knew their whole platform from the beginning was to see him and his administration fail. But what is more surprising to me however, is how quickly Obama supporters have jumped ship. I understand that we elected President Obama for a reason; an opportunity to leave behind the Bush days and move forward onto a path for better days. But just 10 months into his presidency, many of the staunch supporters from a year ago, have already turned their backs on our president and furthermore, from what I read and hear...many are more critical of Obama then they ever were towards George W. Bush...the worst American President EVER!

Bottom line. The GOP is not going to change. The Right will undoubtedly continue to not support the President and that is a fact. We have seen it for the last 10 months and unless there is this weird, much needed awakening of the Right and they begin to think about moving forward rather than politicizing everything they will continue to hate on Obama and his decisions, even despite Obama's continued effort for bipartisanship. That's the Right...now the Left? That's another story. The Left needs to push the President and put Congress to serve us for the reasons we elected them for. The problem is we have not done that. We are not holding them accountable for anything, instead...we are giving up and already looking to not re-elect them in 2010. Yes, we need to hold that threat up, however we also have to advocate. How is it we were able to mobilize millions of people during election season a year ago, but we can't mobilize people now for the health care debate or the war in Afghanistan? Yes, Obama did make promises when he was on the campaign trail and when he was inaugurated, but we also made a commitment ourselves. The commmitment was, "we would take back America and prevent it from spiraling out of control."

We can't blame Obama without blaming ourselves a little bit. We all had this belief that somehow on January 21, 2009...all our problems were going to be resolved. We were convinced that Obama was going to cure all our ills within the first 100 days, but come on people...let's be realistic. If anything, what the President has done is actually show us how bad things really are. Think about it, things were bad under GWB, but with our new President, Obama has uncovered the realities that truly existed...things are truly worse than what we had actually expected and we can't expect everything to be solved in just 10 months.

1) Healthcare -- We are up against a lot of people in an effort to pass health care reform. I hate to say this, but the US has moved on to be a corporatist state. Its an ideological tendency, embedded into many serving us in Congress and we face a major risk of not getting anything out of health care this year because so many of those serving us in Congress are in bed with corporations who have taken over our country. Until we break away from this ideological perspective, the idea of privatization, we're not going to get anything done when helping our people and our communities. Corporations make too many of our decisions and we need to put an end to this.

2) Afghanistan -- We need to get the hell out of dodge. It was great to see Obama announce to the world this year that we would be exiting Iraq soon. But when will the same announcment be made for Afghanistan? We won't. Whoever is advising the President, he's being told that we have to stay and defeat the Taliban. Increasing troop levels in a highly dangerous region, sounds a lot like Vietnam to me. I understand where Obama is coming from and his belief that we need to go in and end this thing, but it's not a winnable war and I wish he'd finally understand that. But rather than putting it all on the President, what we need is an effective anti-war movement. We have become so consumed with our daily lives that we do not realize how important this debate is and maybe we do realize its importance, but we choose to ignore it as we've become comfortable with the status quo. As a people against the war in Afghanistan, we need to step it up and become the democracy of people we are meant to be.

To reach a path we're meant to be on as a country, I'd say we're on the right track. American's realized that the GOP were not doing anything during the last 8 years, hence Obama's election and the Democrats taking Congress. However we shouldn't have ended it there. The same passion and conviction we had as voters a year ago, we should be organizing our efforts towards pushing our representatives to vote in ways that will help our country and it's citizens. I'm tired of feeling as if these radical righties are representative of the nation as a whole. The majority of the country still supports the President and we need to show that support by not ditching him in the gravest of times, but by countering those who are wishing on the failure of our country.