Defending Obama Versus The Left

If one were to read the left leaning blogs written by “progressives”, whether they be Democrats or non-affiliated entities, a conclusion might be that President Obama has betrayed his principles and the promises of the 2008 campaign. Clearly there is palpable, and lately very vocal, discontent with the country’s first African American president. Talks of mounting a left wing led primary challenge in the 2012 election cycle has surfaced and could be getting some legs.

One of the complaints is that Mr. Obama does not seem to be fighting for his beliefs and the Democratic agenda. There was great outcry, for example, when he did not pursue the “public option” in the Health reform bill. There seems an even more vocal outcry over his recently announced entente with the leaders of the Republican Party over the extension of the Bush tax cuts.

I too had been seeing red over this perceived abandonment of his principles and promises and Mr. Obama’s seeming unwillingness to “fight”.

Yet today I decided to take a closer, and yes, a more dispassionate, look at the president’s performance and one theme, in my view, is emerging: while candidate Barack Obama on the campaign trail promised to “fight” for health care for all Americans and to abolish the “tax cuts” for the rich, as President Obama he has seen a remodeled view of what his role is and that is to keep the American people “safe”, or that if some harm must come that such harm is buffered as best as possible.

Why do I say this?

Let’s take health care as an example. What exactly did he come away with in that bruising battle of 2009? Well, the following:
• People can longer be denied insurance due to a pre-existing condition
• Younger Americans can avail of their parent’s health care policies until age 26
• Patients suffering serious illness can no longer be dropped from coverage by the insurance companies
• Americans not provided health care benefits by their employers can purchase reasonably priced policies

So, looking at the glass from a half full rather than a half empty perspective, what the President accomplished and accepted was a health care bill that met key elements of his 2008 campaign promise, which is to take care of the most vulnerable and under served segments of American society. The bill that he was willing to take in his pocket would, at the very least, eliminate the most egregious cases of suffering endured by a large segment of the American population. Part of his mission was accomplished. As president he worked out the best deal he could for the American people. The public option is a fight for another day.

In the fight for the elimination of tax cuts for the wealthy, a similar scenario has emerged. He knows his campaign promise was to eliminate the cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000.00 a year, but he also realizes that in the present atmosphere, and after the power shift created by the 2010 by elections, he had a slim chance of getting such a bill passed. In the meantime there was this specter of millions of unemployed Americans heading into the Christmas season who would lose their unemployment benefits come January 1st. The effect would have been devastating for many families with millions of children also adversely affected.

So, while he may be seething is his progressive heart of hearts at the prospect of millionaires and billionaires continuing to enjoy what is in effect the largesse and generosity of the American people via the existing tax code, he kept his focus on what is most important: the welfare and well being of a large segment of the American public.

It also was, perhaps tacitly, an acceptance on his part that hey, maybe there is some merit to the Republicans ideas about creating jobs. His mission, foremost, is not to validate his own ideas but to take care of the people he serves.

By his actions as well, i.e. acceptance of the Republicans demands, he is really fulfilling a campaign promise that we also fell in love with: the end of gridlock in Washington and jointly working for the American people. Yes, it is not in clear and dramatic proportions, but it is a start.

My advice, therefore, to the left, and to all the moderates and Republicans like myself who fell in love in 2008 with the candidate that was Barack Obama, is that we look not at that inspirational speaker who fired up our imagination, but rather at President Barack Obama, the man in the oval office who has responsibility for the welfare of all Americans. If we do, it is likely that we might cut him some slack.

And I have a feeling that the superb politician that he is, Mr. Obama knows this and also understands that when the time comes to face the electorate again he can frame his accomplishments as a case of having a glass half full. And sometimes that’s the best we can truly expect, and accept.

Let's Have a Serious Conversation

Forget “JASIG”, Legalize the Communist Party .



Reading thru a headline item in the Philippine Star reporting on the arrival of Luis Jalandoni, I run into an acronym that seemed unusual: JASIG. Upon further scrutiny I found that this stood for Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees. Apparently, this is the umbrella protocol under which Jalandoni, chairman of the outlawed National Democratic Front, and his wife, Ma. Consuelo Ledesma, are able to make a “private” visit to the Philippines to celebrate the Christmas holidays.

(Those of us old enough might probably recall that Jalandoni was once a priest who engaged in a version of "liberation theology" and got into trouble .Ledesma as well was an activist nun who was jailed for a year by Marcos. They both defrocked and entered a relationship that led to marriage - the wedding officiated no less than by Jaime Cardinal Sin.)
The Star article also reported that a “meeting” between the NDF, led by Jalandoni, Ledesma and Communist Party of the Philippines head Jose Ma. Sison on one hand, and presumably Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Director Carla Munsayac Villarta and her team on the other, is scheduled to take place in Oslo come February 2011.

Why engage in "peace talks" thousands of miles away? President Aquino and his administration should take this opportunity to launch the country into a giant leap forward by completely decriminalizing the Communist Party and let Sison, Jalandoni and Ledesma live freely in the Philippines and do their avowed work of uplifting the lot of the Filipino masses, particularly the workers and farmers. Who can argue against their altruistic goals? The one caveat is that this trio of revolutionaries, their supporters, backers and friends must abandon any armed struggle to achieve their goals. No warfare, no terrorism, no extortion, no executions. Not too distant history, and some present examples (Cuba and North Korea), offer clear evidence that this form of government is an outright failure so why even go there? And if Sison and Jalandoni do have genuine followers in the hills and jungles, they must come in, surrender their arms and pledge allegiance to the duly constituted government. ( I say “genuine” because it is also a long understood reality that many so called “NPAs” roaming the countryside are no more than petty criminals extorting “:fees” and “taxes” from a hapless population)

Why am I suggesting the unshackling of the Communist Party? Because, for one, the current “advocates” for the workers and farmers have failed ( miserably) in the task of freeing them from their current and long standing bondage. It is now a quarter of a century since we booted the dictator Marcos from his oppressive and torture ridden reign, more than half a century after WWII, and over a hundred years since we dislodged our Spanish colonizers, and our poor are still where they have always been: at the bottom of the strata and sinking even deeper.

Politicians, including presidents like Joseph Estrada, for example, professed a “maka-pobre” platform yet did zilch for the workers and farm hands and instead devoted his efforts and time, it has been seriously charged, to further enrich himself and his friends. The entire Philippine political structure, it seems, is there to protect the interests of the economic and social elite and to perpetuate and prolong their dominance over all aspects of Philippine society. The laws provide protection for businesses, and the government entities ensure that such protection is vigorously enforced, most often to the detriment of the working class and even the general public.

This dynamic needs to be drastically altered. And it is just not possible to effect any change under our present structure. Entities that are supposed to advocate for the workers and farm hands, such as labor unions, have failed to substantively improve the lot of their constituencies. Legalizing the Communist Party, and giving people like Sison, Jalandoni and Ledesma free reign to spread the doctrine of working class empowerment would, it is hoped, elevate the conversation from the current platitudes verbalized in the political zarzuela to one that fully addresses the true plight of the country’s chronic poor.

Let me assure the reader that I am not a communist and neither are the millions of Filipinos who are sick and tired of the endless political circuses that emerge every couple of years wherein the focus it seems evolves around the glamorous lives of dimpled, meticulously coifed celebrity-candidates. We need a serious conversation to take place and so far we seem to not have been capable of it. Perhaps these resurrected, aging rebels from the 1960’s can inject a sense of seriousness, and yes, urgency, to our country’s plight. And I believe that our citizenry is mature and savvy enough to effectively sieve progressive ideas regardless the source; that we can separate the chaff of destructive Marxism from the true grain of reform.

We can and must unshackle our workers; we can and we must cast off the heavy yoke of oppression that has weighed down and stooped our farm hands; we can and must march on to become a true democracy; we can and must bring to life the Filipino that our great national hero Jose Rizal so fondly and rightly envisioned. And we need all segments to engage in this mission, old communists included. ldq44@aol.com