A note to Democrats and those who voted Obama
By Robin Lehman
Congratulations on your victory. I’m glad that Mitt Romney is not our president. But for me Barack Obama would have been my third choice after Dr. Jill Stein and Rocky Anderson. Having the lesser of two corporate shills as president gives me no pleasure.
Having a warmonger Democrat who kills innocents because of an obsessive paranoia gives me no pleasure. Having an earth-raping Democrat as president instead of a Republican is somehow okay? Having our rights to habeas corpus stripped away and being spied on by drones is okay if it’s a Democrat? Torture and illegal wars are okay if it’s a Democrat? Secret international deals to send yet more jobs overseas to slave labor countries like China through the Pacific Rim agreement (NAFTA on steroids some call it) is okay if a Democrat does it to us instead of a Republican? A war on half of our population through the drug war is okay if Democrats do it? Having destroyed the economies of our southern neighbors, it’s somehow okay to then imprison them and treat them as dirt? This is but a small list of Obama’s “accomplishments” as president.
But to you Republicans and those of you who don’t vote, I hope you will understand that it is people like me, the Occupy movement, the 99 percent (or are we the 47 percent? ) who are proud of our role in moving the president to the left. We will continue to force him to move to a more cooperative and just society. Barack Obama is no Socialist. I’m a socialist and I would not vote for him. I don’t like Barack Obama! So what I’m saying is that the president is not divisive, the congress is not divisive. It’s us, you and me, who are divided. Realize that Barack had a margin of victory much larger than George W. in 2004 when he claimed a conservative mandate. This mandate is clear. Obama must maintain Social Security through raising the cap on individual contributions and expand Medicare to cover all our citizens from the time of birth to their death.
We want an economy that rewards work, not money. We believe that having billionaires in our society while 60 million people live in poverty is immoral. The president doesn’t believe this. The president, in his economic beliefs, is much closer to you Republicans than he is to me, a Socialist.
But, lastly, there are things we agree on, like voting. The polls show and in reading comments by tea partiers we all want money out of politics. Another area where both, you and we, agree is that the present two-party system is obsolete and undemocratic. Instant run-off elections would allow for the Green party and the Libertarians and others to be heard without “throwing away” our votes. And if voting becomes more honest and inclusive then perhaps more people will vote and we can regain some of our democracy. And in regaining our democracy, perhaps we can make our country a better place for all of us.
Lehman lives in Warren.
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