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...versus "shut up and let Obama do it!" is an interesting dichotomy. If we are the change we have been waiting for, then action (whether through donations made or withheld, words of praise or criticism, etc.) are fundamentally necessary. And if we are just to shut up and put our trust in a man, then we aren't the change we've been waiting for but are instead just the Democratic version of the Republican cult of personality that surrounded Reagan and GW Bush.
Obama came to office at a moment when the Republican ideology had been thoroughly discredited. In many ways, the moment was not that different from what FDR encountered when he came to office in the midst of the Great Depression. FDR took advantage of the moment and pushed through an aggressive progressive agenda and did it in many cases where there Republicans in congress offered not a single vote in support of New Deal legislation.
Bi-partisanship is great when you can get it, but bi-partisanship in and of itself should never be the goal to the exclusion of what actually needs to be done.
Obama had a chance to effect fundamental change. Obama is blowing that chance if in fact he has not blown it already. In every way, he is revealing himself to be a servant of large corporate interests first and foremost. I had hoped for better, but I did not expect it.
David Sirota, if we are to be the change we have been waiting for, it will be people like you who refuse to play the part of sycophant in the current cult of personality that help to bring that change about. I'm not saying that I always agree with you for certainly I do not. But I am saying keep up the work that you are doing. Do not be shouted down. Continue to tell the truth as you see it and make people think even if thinking makes them uncomfortable. Change is never easy.
