Michael Moore Is Right About Obama
Documentary film maker Michael Moore arrives for the gala screening of 'The Men Who Stare at Goats' during the Toronto International Film Festival, 09/11/09. (photo: AP)
Reader Supported News | Perspective
s I watched Michael Moore on Larry King last night, I thought back to my previous article titled "Blaming Obama Is Easy and Irresponsible."
I took a lot of flak, and was accused of being an apologist for the Obama administration, but Michael Moore said it better than I did. People on the left are right to be disappointed that Obama has not always done what we elected him to do. In my last article I addressed the things he has done, and there is no doubt that he is a better president than John McCain would have been. However, Michael Moore is right, we have to stand up and tell Obama what we want him to do.
Mr. Moore is also right that the White House seems to be paralyzed by fear. They are afraid of how Fox News and the right will react to everything they do. It is time for Obama to fight back for what he believes is right, and stop worrying about the political fallout.
For that to work though, people have to be ready to have his back. If we continue to allow the Tea Party movement to control the dialogue, the White House will continue to attempt to appease them. That is a flawed strategy since nothing will please the "party of no" who decided on day one of the Obama administration that saying no to everything will guarantee his failure.
Obama is an intellectual, not an ideologue. Sometimes it's easier for an ideologue to rally their base. They make decisions based on an agenda they share with people who share their ideology. Progressives and Liberals have more in common with Obama than they have against him. The problem comes when Obama the intellectual attempts to create policy that will be supported by everyone, not just his base.
Obama and the left do not see eye-to-eye on the war in Afghanistan. What many in the anti-war movement knew before the election was that Obama never promised to end the war in Afghanistan. The sound bites on CNN showed Obama talking about Iraq, a war he is trying to end. I was in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, and in every stump speech Obama said that we took our eyes off the prize in Afghanistan. Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards all called for escalation in Afghanistan during their campaigns.
Deep down though, as Michael Moore said, Obama's heart is in the right place. WikiLeaks has provided the anti-war movement with an opportunity to appeal to the intellect of Obama and convince him that ending the war is the right thing to do.
I am also frustrated by many of Obama's policies, but it is not time to become paralyzed by fear. It is our responsibility to continue to organize and participate in the process. If we sit on the sidelines this November, things will only get worse.
More clips of Larry King's interview with Michael Moore:
Part 1 - Orwellian Moment
Part 2 (Above)
Part 3 - BP Boycott
Part 4 - Boycott Arizona
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it is a co-founder of Truthout, and the Political Director for Reader Supported News.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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Comments
"I took a lot of flack" should read "I took a lot of flak" = an idiom originating in WWII, allied fliers relating heavy anti-aircraft fire, specifically from the German word for the type of artillery designed for the purpose: Flak, F(lieger) a(bwehr) k(anone), as in Flak 88 and Flak 105
Properly speaking, a flack is an agent, as in publicist, bearing a negative connotation.
The meaning hasn't changed. Flak refers to anti-aircraft fire and fits the meaning. Flack is something you see on Entourage.
I think it's nice to get things right.
When Obama fights, we'll have his back. So far, he just runs and he seems devoid of principles and values.
The lot of you have been fooled, yet again (did it start with Reagan?) by an empty suit, Wall St. marketing campaign.
Nearly two years have passed and time has told. Told what? That the Establishment's money controls the policy and politicians of *both* parties.
Please, American citizens, see past the TV-isms and DON'T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN.
And Rice didn't bother acting on the PDB stating that Bin Laden was determined to strike inside America. Again SHE did NOTHING. The right fancy themselves as our saviors. They are not.
They are WAR MONGERS, they love war and if we do not fight and vote in November, they will take back government and we are all doomed. So you may be dissappointed in Obama, but you invite disaster, if you don't vote.
I was originally going to vote for Obama. He lost my vote, though, when he went into a Senate Session along with McCain to push the Bush Billionaire Bankers' Bail-Out. With "NO CREDIBILITY" indelibly stamped on the law, he was not only one of those who allowed himself to be stampeded into passing it, he led the stampede!
I tried to warn others, but it didn't work. And I voted third-party. I will *NOT* vote for a candidate who will not represent me.
You can't give in to the Republicans. They've kicked out everyone who's got any sense of bipartisanship. Only the fascists are left any more. And we all know what happens when you appease a fascist.
"That is a flawed strategy since nothing will please the "party of no" who decided on day one of the Obama administration that saying no to everything will guarantee his failure."
The Republicans and the conservative noise machine did not wait until "day one" before beginning their campaign to destroy the Obama presidency at any cost. I distinctly recall listening to Rush refer to the upcoming "Obama Depression" in Nov. of '08, three months before inauguration day; Rush's "I hope he fails" dates back to about the same time. The attack has been relentless, vicious, and cynical. In response, the left needs to be equally relentless, but not vicious, and we should guard against cynicism. If we push back with the truth, we'll win . . . eventually.
Alan Pierpoint
Obama, by contrast with his little d emocrats in both houses are a bunch of woozes!. They did not learn their lesson and cowed and buckled under the Republican Noise Machine.
I don't know what's worse... The Right for stealing it all at all cost; or the "Left" for not doing jack?
We can argue about legitimate immigration issues until we are overwhelmed with poorly educated, incapable residents unable to to provide the intelligence of citizens. At some point, every nation needs to recognize the contribution of uncontrolled population growth to every environmental problem on earth. Moore clearly doesn't have much perspective regarding such practical concerns.
Snuck out of poverty into wealth?? WT* does that even mean?
"We can argue about legitimate immigration issues until we are overwhelmed with poorly educated, incapable residents unable to to provide the intelligence of citizens."
News flash. We're there. And it ain't the immigrants...
That commitment IS ideological. It is also "pragmatic" as it reduces opposition from powerful economic interests and raising lots of campaign contributions to perpetuate his group's ride in the catbird seat.
Obama is the suave face for this technocratic, corporatist, neo-liberal elite. He is especially good at seducing the traditional Democratic and liberal base at VERY little cost to the real players in his coalition.
I understand the value of a corporate spokesmodel. I almost went with T-Mobile simply because I am in love with Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Or my IMAGE of her. Same, same.
Then the corporate kleptomaniacs' stranglehold on the nation will never be broken by ameliorationist politicing around the edges. Trotsky was right nearly a century ago when he said "it must get worse before it can get better".
No, Fletch, the longer you believe you can make any difference whatsoever by backing the capos our rulers allow us the "democratic" privilege of voting for, the worse the nightmare will become.
What's needed, as some in earlier years understood, is first analysis and then mass organization.
And as George Lakoff keeps telling us, we have to stop letting the right wing frame all the issues. For starters, I would like us to stop calling them the GOP. They are old but not grand and we don't have to help perpetuate the myth.
Talking back to the "right wing" (corporate owned) media, however, seems to be a requirement of this new century... that is if we don't wan't what used to be called public dialog downgraded from 5th grade to 2nd or 3rd grade level.
I cannot believe the number of people who are so illogical as to cry about the deficit and wail against the expiration of the tax cut for the top 2% of income earners in the USA starting at 1/4 million dollars per family and rising into the multi millions of dollars. If this country is so stupid we deserve to relive the past.
If you are satisfied that so and so is better than so and so, then the GOP and Democratic Parties can both indefinitely continue to move to the right, and you can always find a reason to back the Democrat, no matter what they do and stand for.
If you look at history, you will see that all of the really good things that we have in this country such as civil liberties, civil rights, equal rights for women, social security, and the end of wars such as Vietnam have come about not because of condescending saviors but because of mass political movements.
Amen - Read Howard Zinn and see the documentary "You Can't be Neutral on a Moving Train".
Now mind you I voted for Kucinich like many others, but once we lost we wrote many e-mails to Obama begging for a cabinet spot. I continue to pressure Obama daily with my opinion through e-mail.
The first vote I ever cast was for Jessie Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition, and I was in strong protest for the election of Ronald Wilson Reagan when it was apparent Mondale had zero chance. I cast my vote with my heart at that point and it went to Jessie. I am a direct relative of Zachary Taylor and James Madison. Baby steps are better than reversion.
Of course that's no reason to be passive. So yes, I'll be out organizing this fall -- but not for Obama.
Obama has done more than most of us remember. He barely got into the oval office when he signed the Lilly Ledbetter law. Remember the Supreme Court denied her equal right.
I also think that people with pre-existing conditions will appreciate that they can not be denied health insurance now, and young people can stay on their parent's insurance till they reac 26 years. That is also a big help for many.
I think you should look up all the Obama and the Administration HAS DONE.
The problem is that democrats don't know or don't remember, and by into all the right wing crap.
Progressives would do well to divorce themselves from Obama and the Democratic Party. Any support will merely encourage the status quo or even worse...do you hear those air raid sirens in Iran yet???
Sit-in? March? Tell me where. I'm there.
Even if the news doesn't cover it we have got to get out and make noise.
The density of commercials made the Moore segment hard to watch.
He warned thinking Americans that what would happen and he was 100% correct.
Unseating the War Party duopoly by electing independents is the country's only hope, imho and I'm not holding my breath, as it almost certainly won't happen. Not with most of the public asleep as always and the "voting machines" in place.
Props to Cynthia McKinney, Ventura, Nadar and the rest.
Enjoy the ride, folks.
An intellectual would fight for those issues. No, instead he has surrounded himself with Wallstreeters and corporate types that are moving along the same agenda of the Bush and Clinton administrations .
Republicans or Democrats, makes no difference. Elections have become window dressing for a process controlled by corporate elites.
To hell with their phony 'Left-Right', both with the same paymasters, paradigm to eternally divide & conquer us.
WE can, and will, do better.
I'm sitting here picking my nose, sitting in the rocking chair, thinking like the exasperated pay-toilet octogenarian user, who added his graffiti to the wall saying 'Here I sit brokenhearted, paid a dime and only passed gas'.
Nels,81-year-old flatulence in Maine
Galindez and Moore do not know where Obama's heart is, but BP, AIG, and Goldman-Sachs do. They purchased it, and the Supreme Court has blessed this type of transaction. That goes for his image-honed intellect, too.
No one advocates paralysis, but if advice to "participate in the process" means "convincing" Obama that ending the war is right, The Man Himself stated there was nothing his administration did not know in the WikiLeak release. What we know already should have convinced Attila The Hun to end the war.
He'd make a splendid president. The reason is simple, He is one of us!
I wonder if Obama and the (little d)emocrats think the same of their jobs? Evidently not.
We fought for too long and too hard to put them in office so they just sit and allow the Tea Party and the Party of NO to control the debate - and everything else? -
Mr. Obama, and little d emocrats... it is your turn to step up to the plate and -DELIVER.
The Party of NO/Tea Party, who wants their guns, god and, no gays, no immigrants, no taxes, no laws, no, no, no, except another 8 years of Bush!!!!
Those are our options?
It seems the consensus prefer Anarchism.
And thanks to the little-d emocrats, we might just get that.
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