The State of the Union - The Liberal Rebuttal

By Shawn Johnson

http://www.libvoice1776.blogspot.com/

The Liberal Voice on Facebook

Ok, after the State of the Union, I normally rewrite the President's speech to say what he really meant to say.  After his speech last evening, I have to say that Obama the campaigner is back.  He blasted Republicans up one side and down another.  I am very happy with the tone of his speech.  He left no doubt as to which party the blame should be levied on for the inaction in Washington. 

That being said, since Teabaggers get to trot Herman Cain out to give his rebuttal by throwing feces at a dart board made of Godfather's Pizza, I have decided to give the liberal rebuttal to President Obama's address.

So here it goes....

Tonight you heard the President finally take a step to the left.  He attacked the banks, oil companies, Mitt Romney (without mentioning his name), and gave the middle class kudos for picking up the slack left by the rich.  The President no doubt believes that this will silence his critics on the left.  We will forget about the last three years and press on as though nothing has happened.  We will fight for him as hard this year as we did in 2008.

Well, I for one am not buying it.  I am at best a skeptical optimist.  The Republicans are so far to the right that they actually think that the President was making a liberal speech, but they have no idea that he was actually just a little to the left of center.  I am expecting his speech to get pretty sound approval numbers. 

Mr. Obama has failed in several areas, however.  First, he made not one statement with regards to the poor and disenfranchised in America.  Travelling the same road as the other Democrats, the focus is on the middle class.  Why is it important to talk about the poor?  Because they make up about 15% of the population now.  That is a larger percentage than African Americans in the United States.  And, those are the poor at or below the poverty line.  That does not count the multitude of middle class and working poor that are one health issue or one great financial loss in their life away from being impoverished themselves.  The President, like millions of Americans, have decided to ignore the poor.  Democrats realize that most poor people actually consider themselves middle class.  So by doing for the middle class, they believe that it will suffice the poor.  So, why should we help the poor?  Because children make up the largest group that is impoverished.  Because helping the poor is the right thing to do, and we have the ability to do so.  Because if our children, our parents, and our friends were poor and starving, we would do everything in our power to make sure that they did not endure one more minute of suffering.

Now, the President rightly took aim at the unfair tax code, but while doing so, left the door open to future cuts in Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid.  The President indicated that he is willing to compromise with the Republicans on cutting benefits to these programs which are so vital to the poor and middle class.  He should have looked straight at the Republicans and said,

I will never agree to cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. These programs are paid for by the very people they benefit. I will slash every bit of spending Republicans like, before I take one dime away from the beneficiaries of these programs. 

He didn't do that though.  Instead he used code words like, "entitlement reform."  This is nothing more than saying that he will cave, if necessary to secure middle class tax cuts and tax increases on the wealthy.  He will allow the Republicans to realize their dream of destroying the middle class safety net.  Once the ball gets rolling downhill, you can forget about ever turning back. 

Secondly, those running for president and Republicans in Congress love to bring up the falsehood that 47% of Americans don't pay any taxes at all.  This is simply not true.  The President said nothing to defend those that pay Social Security taxes, Medicare taxes, sales tax, property tax, and a host of other taxes they really can't afford.  They pay these taxes while making next to nothing, and they do it proudly because they know when they turn sixty-five, at least some of the money they paid in will be there to take care of them.  Medicare and Social Security are regressive taxes as well, meaning that the middle class share the greatest burden of paying these taxes.  If we want a fairer tax, I propose taxing Mitt Romney more than the 13.9% he paid last year.  Now, I will agree that the Buffet Rule is sound tax planning to start out, but it doesn't go far enough.  We eventually must repeal all of the Bush tax cuts.  We certainly don't need to pass another payroll tax cut which drains money from the Social Security fund. 

Also, the President eluded to having a fairer tax system so our military could be stronger.  I want to know how much more money it is going to take to make it "stronger."  With a Pentagon budget of $800 Billion each year, and enough nuclear capability to blow up Jupiter, I have to ask, how much stronger does it really need to be?  Shouldn't we all agree that the ability to anihilate an entire planet is plenty strong enough?  

The President spent a lot of time praising what the military did to kill Osama Bin Laden and beat Al Qaeda overseas.  Why didn't he mention the great successes we have had right here in this country stopping terrorist attacks with sound police and FBI work?  Why didn't the President use those examples to show how we can be "safe" without attacking other nations?  How can the President say that our military has caused more nations to like us?  How can the President say that "all options are on the table" in regards to Iran?  Are they really?  Are we really going to attack Iran and create another quagmire we can't possibly win with already taxed soldiers? 

The President should have told the truth.  We keep other countries in line by buying them off, like Pakistan and Egypt.  We prop up dictators that are friendly to our business interests and destroy ones that are not.  Our military decisions come from the directives of our corporate owners in this country, and it is wrong. 

And, how can we sit here and justify the blinded defense of everything Israel does?  We aren't empowered by our relationship with Israel, as the President suggested.  We are hindered by it.  We are hindered by our relationship with a ridiculous foreign leader like Benjamin Netanyahu, who has done nothing to curb or stop Israel's oppressive policies towards the Palestinians.  Israel refuses to curb its dividing rhetoric, and they continue to insite violence and destruction in the region.  We should treat Israel no different than any of our other allies.  If you suggested right now to Congress that we defend France against attacks from their neighbors, about forty percent would be against the idea regardless of the reason.  I can tell you of which side of the aisle they would be seated.    

Why isn't the President talking about reducing the size of our military?  He could use a statement like, "The era of big military is over!"  Mr. Obama should be sending a signal to the rest of the world that we are not your policeman.  Instead, he is doubling down on the empire we have created in order to feed the military-industrial complex that repugnantly permeates our society and makes us a less moral nation. 

Why didn't the President call on Congress to execute his executive order to shut down Guantanamo Bay?  Why didn't the President defend the merits of the American justice system, and defend the right to a fair trial?  Why hasn't the President made indefinite detention without trial illegal for anyone, no matter how bad they are?  The President has actively continued Bush era military tactics that go against the fabric of our Constitution.  We cannot call this a nation of liberty and justice for all when it clearly does not apply to "all."

With regards to energy, the President continues to push the idea of drilling more in the United States.  He believes that he can regulate our way into making it safe.  We are drilling more now, and it is only a matter of time until we have the next spill that destroys our ecosystem.  We needed the President to talk about permanently eliminating the use of fossil fuels for energy.  We needed the President to warn us about the dangers of nuclear power and use the events of the past three years as a mandate to shut down nuclear development.  The President did a wonderful thing by shutting down the Canadian Pipeline.  Why didn't he talk about it?  Why didn't he talk about moving us toward energy independence through less harmful and damaging means like solar and wind?  The President was wrong about drilling before the Gulf spill, and he is wrong now.  Our energy package should not include archaic forms of energy like oil, period. 

Lastly, the President should have laid out in front of the Supreme Court members in attendance the damage they caused with their ruling in the Citizens United Case.  He was right to attack them when the ruling was made, and he would have been right to say, "I told you so."  The President did mention money in politics, but he failed to acknowledge that he was one of the largest beneficiaries of Goldman Sacchs.  It is hard to trust the fox in the hen house. 

Overall, the President has made some progress in moving the country slightly in the right direction, but it isn't nearly enough.  The wealth gap in this country continues to increase, and we continue to lose our civil liberties every single day.  I sympathize with him that he cannot do it alone, and he is up against an unfair Congress.  They don't care what happens to this country and he does.  They are "hostage-takers" as he has stated in the past.  They won't care about America until they control it, and even then, they only care about the very wealthy. 

I would like to finish tonight by saying how proud I am of the Occupy Wall Street movement.  You had no big funding organization behind you, like the Tea Party.  You had no leadership that spoke for you.  You had no help from those in Washington.  You just got sick and tired enought to take to the streets.  You enacted your democratic right to protest.  In under a year, you completely changed the debate in this country.  The debate is now where it should have been for the last thirty years.  It is on wealth inequality and fairness for the middle class and the poor.  Keep up the good fight, and maybe Obama's inaugural address next January will be the type of speech that moves the country back to the liberal foundation that created the middle class.  Hopefully he keeps channeling Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Johnson.  We must never stop and never surrender. 

Thank you, and good night!



      

Dangers of Hero Worship

By Shawn Johnson

http://www.libvoice1776.blogspot.com/

https://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/liberalvoice1776

As you have probably heard by now Penn State University long-time head coach, Joe Paterno passed away today.  There are very mixed feelings about the former coach, and I personally believe that he should be loathed, rather than celebrated, for the horrific cover up of child molestation committed by Jerry Sandusky.  The only reason there are mixed feelings about his passing is because he has been a great football coach, and in the United States sports, and even more so, money in sports really reigns king. 

Joe Paterno meant winning to Penn State for over thirty years, which in turn meant millions of dollars floating Penn State's way each and every year.  People from the organization are praising and revering this terrible bastard in a way they would not had he just been your average CEO.  They are placing football above morality and human decency.  There are many things that are forgivable in life.  Covering up child rape is not one of them.

Praising someone like Paterno engages you in the dangerous world of hero worship.  Dismissing and making excuses for a great athlete or coach because you perceive them to be in life how they are on the field, is childish behavior, and furthermore, it is dangerous behavior.  How far are you willing to go?

Now, hero worship is not limited to football or even sports by any means.  Hero worship resides in politics, work, religion, and almost every walk of life.  People who are great at what they do, fool you into believing that the part of them you do not see is exactly like the part that you do see.

Why is hero worship dangerous, you ask?  Because, it allows us to justify the morally wrong.  For example, it is morally wrong to take a gun and shoot someone in the head.  But, if you put the shooter in uniform and call him a soldier, then he is a "hero."  Reality becomes distorted.

Students, alumni, and officials at Penn State are making non-stop excuses for Joe Paterno's actions.  They are deflecting criticism and actively spitting in the face of Sandusky's victims.  They cannot understand why the rest of the country does not see the Joe Paterno that they see.  Their vision is so clouded that they actually thought going to the Penn State game wearing the same color to support the victims was a positive thing.  How about boycotting the game?  Did that ever cross your mind?

The university, the NCAA, and the Big Ten are criminally negligible in engaging in the same hero worship that the Penn State student body has actively participated in.  There are no penalties for Penn State.  Nobody is outraged.  They are only "saddened."

Let's explore hero worship with regards to the Democratic Party and the President.  Liberals have been guilty of dangerous hero worship towards the Democrats which have caused us to lose focus.  We treat the President like he is our boyfriend instead of our President.  Liberals have not held Obama accountable for continuing many of the hated policies of the Bush Administration.  Liberals have not held Obama accountable for cozying up to big business.  Liberals have made excuses for the President's failure to increase taxes on the top one percent, while providing help for those who are now homeless due to no fault of their own. 

I have no problem with liberals praising the President for the few liberal accomplishments he has, but let's not lose focus simply because he is a Democrat.  The Democrats are asking for our vote in the upcoming election.  That vote should come with some stipulations.  Remember, these men and women are not heroes.  They are human.  They are every bit as human as Joe Paterno.

Liberals cannot afford to trust the Democrats again.  We fell asleep at the wheel for three years.  We thought that just having Barack Obama in the White House would be the answer to our problems.  Obama had us fighting in about six different countries when he received the Nobel Peace Prize.  Giving him a Nobel Peace Prize meant that you had to completely dismiss the fact that he is not a peaceful president.

As liberals, we can learn so much from the Penn State scandal.  We can learn that most people, even "heroes," are only as good and moral as they are forced to be.  It is the reason we have laws in the first place.  We have allowed the Democratic Party to take millions of dollars from corporate donors, like Goldman Sacchs, without ever demanding that they hold Goldman Sacchs accountable for their crimes.  The Democrats let us down and got away with letting us down.  They shouldn't be allowed to do it again.

Now, what the Democrats have done does not equate with the Sandusky scandal, and I am not trying to make that comparison.  I am merely suggesting that we saw a hero in Obama rather than a man.  Men are flawed, heroes are not.  At some point we are going to have to face the fact that we are turning a blind eye to the injustices committed by this administration.  We are going to have to stop doing it.  Yes, I know the Republicans are worse.  That really isn't a valid excuse either. 

This Tuesday, the President will give a vanilla State of the Union laying out very moderate, mediocre plan for his last year in office before reelection.  After the speech, polls will show an eighty to ninety percent approval rating of the speech.  They won't show those numbers because of content, rather they will show those numbers because of the speaker.  Liberal voices will fall in line like they always do, and we will have more of the same over the course of this year.  The poor, working class, and middle class will continue to be shitted on, while the rich will continue to prosper.  Hero worship will once again be the death of justice in the United States.

    

Would He Be Satisfied?

By: Shawn Johnson
http://www.libvoice1776.blogspot.com/

https://www.facebook.com/liberalvoice1776

In 1964 President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, legally making all people equal in the United States of America.  The events that led up to this historic legislation were put into motion due to years of oppression of African-Americans in the United States.  Our leaders in Congress and the White House passed this act knowing full well the backlash they would receive from people who didn't share their sense of right and wrong.  Conscience made them act.  The reaction was so big that it actually restructured the Democratic and Republican parties. 

This tremendous act of governmental courage was due in no small part to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who lifted up the oppressed and the poor with a message of hope and peace.  Dr. King, a champion of liberals everywhere, transcended liberalism and became an American icon.  For centuries to come, children will learn about this great man in schools, on television, through books, and from their elders.  Stories will be passed down.  Minority athletes, artists, doctors, politicians, and many other professionals will praise this man over the next two months. 

From now until the end of February, we will learn a little about Dr. King.  The History Channel, LINK TV, PBS and probably a few major networks will run specials, so those of us not alive when King was, can appreciate who he was and what he accomplished.  To say that Martin Luther King Jr. is my idol is selling him short.  To me, if any mortal man enters the realm of the divine, it is King.  This is a very difficult thing for an atheist to say by the way.  I don't believe in human gods, or any gods for that matter, and Dr. King was not without flaws.  But, the speeches that he gave, and the courage that he put forth, and his ultimate message were perfect.  In the face of ultimate adversity, this man chose to fight with his voice rather than his fists.  He chose to forgive those who trespassed against him.  He chose self-sacrifice for the betterment of mankind. 

Now, we as a nation not only have a right, but we have an obligation to honor this man.  Not only over the next month or so, but every single day we live.  But, there is a segment of this population, mostly in the mainstream media, who believes and purports that his dream is realized.  They say things like, "Can you imagine how pleased Dr. King would be, knowing how far we have come as a country? There is an African-American in the White House. Segregation has been lifted in the schools. People from all walks of life work together, go to church together, and even marry outside their race."

I have their answer.  The answer is, while Dr. King would appreciate the fact that we are not medievil bigots we were in the 1960's, he would certainly not be pleased.  If he were alive today, he would be outraged.  He would be verbally tearing apart our government and our corporate media for its unfettered support of illegal wars.  He would be speaking out against those who still oppress homosexuals, women, African-Americans, and every other minority group in this country.  He would march with OWS in a New York minute.

Dr. King would be pleased?  Are you kidding me?  "Oh, Dr. King would be so happy with us that we don't take fire hoses to Negroes anymore! Oh, I would be loved by Dr. King because I have a friend who's colored."  The best one I heard may be from Donald Trump though, saying, "I have always had a great relationship with the Blacks."  His relationship with them was so great, he never had to ask if they appreciate being called, "the Blacks."

Oh, we are such a great country, aren't we?  We're a Christian nation, don't ya know?  We treat others as we would want to be treated!

Please!  Dr. King is rolling over in his grave watching the racist garbage that permeates this country while being passed off as "normal" behavior.  When African-American communities continue to be the poorest in the nation, when the factories that employed hundreds of thousands of minorities are moved overseas, and when the biggest banks took over $7,000,000,000,000 (I put the zeroes there for effect) without any intent of ever paying it back, and you think Dr. King would be like the Russian guy in the 1980's commercials saying, "What a country!"

How do I know that Dr. King would be pissed right now?  Because those that stood with him, that are now demonized by the media and right wing in this country, are outraged as well.  Do you think for one minute that Dr. King, if alive today, would have a shred of credibility with the white community?  He would get about the same treatment from the right wing media that is afforded to Barack Obama, Jesse Jackson, Tavis Smiley, Professor Cornel West, Al Sharpton, Oprah Winfrey, or Andrew Young.  Let's face it; this country reveres Dr. King, because he is no longer alive.  That is not to say all Americans would see it that way, but enough to make a huge difference. 

The other men and women who marched alongside King are told that the problems they were fighting in the 1960's no longer exist.  This is racism in its purest form.  Denying racism is the new racism.  Do you think for one minute that Dr. King would have nothing to say about this?

When he died, MLK had a 25% approval rating amongst the public.  We are simply a country that always has nice things to say about the dead.  This is not an admirable quality.  We need to tell the truth, regardless of feelings.  Most of what MLK stood for is still abhorred by the right wing in this country.  How can they even pretend to honor someone that they never agreed with and still do not agree with to this day.  They don't admire his courage, and they think he was simply a troublemaker that ruined their glorious country.  When they say, "I want my country back!"  They are referring to the 1950's before Dr. King ruined everything with his directive of peaceful protest.

Dr. King would be on the opposite side of right wing voters on an array of issues.  Welfare, immigration, war, torture, woman's right to choose, gay rights, gun rights, democratic socialism, and you name it, King would certainly be chastised as a liberal, socialist, communist, and pretty much every label he was given by the right in the 1960's.  The things that he would be called today would all be code for the word they can't say anymore. 

So please, the next time you right wingers feel the urge to hate liberals with all of your heart, next January make sure that you are working on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  And, yes I am talking to you, Glenn Beck.  Stop patronizing the clinically insane audience that tunes into your radio show every day.  You people have nothing in common with Dr. King or the Civil Rights Movement.   When someone like Sarah Palin looks at a crowd of all white supporters and says, "This is the real America," I am not confused for one second as to what she means, just as I am not confused about Mike Huckabee's meaning when he says, "Obama just isn't one of us."  And, we won't even get into Newt Gingrich's assault on the poor black community. 

Make no mistake; Dr. King would be incensed that this type of blatant racism is coming from those who wish to lead us.  The votes these bigots receive are nothing more than mounting approval for their racism.     

As for the rest of you, who believe in King's message and what he stood for, start honoring him!  Stand up for someone less fortunate than you.  Bring a coat to a cold and tired homeless person.  Tell a poor immigrant that your country is his country.  Donate your time to help kids in poor neighborhoods.  Get your head out of your ass with the President of the United States, and protest until he stops feeding the military industrial complex.  Stop voting for idiots who promise to balance budgets with lower taxes and increased military spending (Mitt Romney).  Mostly, reject racism, homophobia, and social injustice whenever you come across it.  Speak out against it.  Fight for something that may not personally affect you.  Like King once said, "Tolerating injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."



There is a reason that we honor great people.  It is so we never let their sacrifices die in vain.  It is not only to educate the populace, but it is also to create more great people.  The country needs leaders right now.  The only question is, will these leaders ever show up?