As a radical leftist, I feel your pain regarding disappointment in Obama

I am a Kucinich kinda guy -
single payer
bring the boys home NOW
equal rights - support gay marriage
banking bailouts are beat
end the drug war
prosecute criminals, especially those that have violated human rights

That being said - I voted for Obama - not Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader.

I voted for Obama in NYS, a state that McCain could never claim.
I voted for Obama, even though I knew my electoral vote would go to him and I could freely vote for a radical leftist, without fear of tipping the election to McCain.

I voted for Obama. I knew he wasn't a radical leftist. I knew he wasn't a socialist.

Obama ran on hope. Well I still have faith.
Faith has been defined as the substance of all things hoped for, the evidence of all things yet unseen. HEB 11-1.

In 2012 we will have a choice - re-elect Obama, or support a radical leftist (or support the GOP, I guess). That is the system we have.

So while I am a leftist, a radical leftist, I still see Obama as our best shot. We won't ever get a radical leftist elected, and the GOP will always be a little worse then the worst Dem.

I still have my ideals and leftist beliefs. I still advocate them.

So I am a radical leftist Obama cheerleader. Feel free to ask me anything.

to swing back a little. My support in 2012 for any office is up for grabs and has to be earned. I'm not inclined to have any desire to vote for those that oppose restoration of constitutional government whether by design or compromise to return to office in any capacity.

He is a true Constitutionalist who believes in the rule of law and the simple precepts of freedom and justice on which this country was supposedly founded. The radicals are the ones who claim these values are negotiable for some higher "realistic" or "security" end.

...er, susceptible to accusations of, anyhow ;)

PATIENT. They fight the long fight. Many here on DU seem to not have any patience or a long view. If Obama did as they seem to want there would no longer be a Dem majority in 2011. We can vote for someone better in 2012 (if such a one exists) but if we want to accomplish anything progressive we have to support or President. If he actually DOES things we don't like let HIM know it with a vengeance. But please don't rant about what he is "going to do". We just don't know. IMO.

The roots of the 'Modern' Republican Party were planned long ago. The Southern Strategy, the Evangelical Right, Shift and Shaft taxation. The GOP thinks terms and decades, not months.

patience is a virtue

They can choose to get some of their agenda taken up and passed.

OR they can choose to have NONE of their agenda taken up and passed.

They'll never get all or even most of their agenda taken up and passed. Simply cannot happen.

It's the same choice for radical rightists, too. Fortunately, right now, they want absolute purity and getting any of their agenda before the public be damned.

I'm hoping radical leftists don't go the purity route. It'll mean losing even some of their agenda.

:popcorn:

I'll have something to be pleased with.

How does any of what you named there make you a radical leftist?

Single payer health care... What? You mean like socialized medicine?!? The same sorta thing the entire industrialized world already has, except us? How radical.

End a war and bring people home afterwards? Shit, wasn't Mission Accomplished (TM) back in... what... 2004? I thought it was over back then. Now here we are in 2009, after our crazy "surgin'" period and the war's pretty much been done a while (I can't even see it on Fox anymore), and the boys still ain't home? That's just nutty hippie shit to say they've gotta come home after the war is done. Very radical concepts you're a'puttin out there, hoss.

Equal rights? You mean that the sixties weren't enough? That everyone should have the same rights regardless of... well... just about anything you can name? Is there no END to your radicalism? Have you no SHAME?!

Banking bailouts weren't the right thing? You mean that giving more money to people who fucked up our economy so they can, well, continue profitting (and fucking up the economy) while the rest of us poor schlubs who don't have people handing us buckets of ducats hand over fist are getting the brunt of all of this noise... well, are you saying that isn't right? I am aghast at the level of leftism that exists in that very idea.

And then you go on to suggest that we redefine criminal to be people who actually commit crimes, and then have the temerity to prosecute them? Scandalous!!!

Why you're just a regular Abbie Hoffman, aren't you?


You know, someone's going to have to explain to me what a 'radical leftist' really is, because for the life of me, what you consider 'radical left' seems like good old fashioned common sense to me.

was mission accomplished.

Thank you for noticing that I am only a liberal.

But in our corporate world, that is a radical concept.

Thank you and God Bless!

of coming into being.

They go against everything that those who run the US value.

And while we were all listening very very closely, the President said quite clearly and eloquently.....

:toast:

Using the Constitution for toilet paper?

I would rather have Obama trashing the Constitution and being cheered by the GOP. The alternative, having the GOP trash the Constitution and having the DLC cheer them on.. well, I've done that for a while and didn't like it.

Have faith my friend, and keep fighting the good fight. Peace and low stress.

They wanted dramatic change

You only other choice is having NONE of your agenda moved forward.

Which is better, some or none?

This board is full of it. I read some of their posts and shake my head.

Agree or disagree but to dismiss as histrionic a phrase that is not had not only been used while Bush was in office but k&r if it were an OP is a tad disingenuous.

I think comparing Bush to Obama is disingenuous and histrionic.

Bush did trash our constitution. I don't think Obama is trashing our constitution.

And, I may add, that I consider anyone that demands party loyalty a "purist".

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 1789.

"Were parties here divided merely by a greediness for office,...to take a part with either would be unworthy of a reasonable or moral man." --Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1795.

“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." --John Quincy Adams

Worse than the primaries. LITERALLY.

Do you have any economic faith in Obama?

But it won't be a return to the salad days of immediately post WWII.

It will, like everything else, be a compromise. Some will be good compromises, others will be, like some he's made of late, Faustian bargains.

In a blind poll of positions, I would support Kucinich but DK does not have the personality for POTUS.

POTUS Obama is the only political candidate that I have ever given cash in 37 years of voting.

I voted Obama in the primary and general election in CA and would today and agree he is our best shot of climbing out of our national mess.

I expected to be disappointed in some ways but not as disappointed as I am now.

POTUS Obama could lose my support in two ways:

1) Covert escalation of war or war scale out of our control eg WWIII.
2) A economic plan that now favors corporations that fails and is not then re-adjusted more in line with FDR's New Deal and financial regulations. IMO health care reform is an important part of the economic plan and does not stand alone.

I am not sure what I would do politically in those cases as the GOP sux.

What are your deal breakers?

Center-left, maybe left-center.
None of them are calling for Socialism, Communism, Anarchy or Revolution.

Radicals call for a fundamental change to our Constitutional Democratic Republic. Bush/Cheney are radical right. Fidel Castro was a radical left.

People trying to subvert our system into a Corporate State are radical.

that the US is not already a corporate state.

We have the illusion of democracy, but the reality is far from that and much closer to an actual, defined and labeled, fascist state.

If you think that is hyperbole, look at our laws favoring corporations over individuals, etc. We are only missing the uniforms.

I think he's doing a good job and made a lot of progress so far. Am I disappointed in some things? sure, but I also realize no president is going to agree with my views 100%

:eyes:

"I still stand with Obama lock step
I know he will be better then whatever the GOP puts up in 2012.
I know he is smarter then me - if he wants wars, drug wars, single payer off limits.. whatever - I can only hope that he knows what he is doing..

All I want is re-election. And to be a little less evil then the GOP." http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5696457&mesg_id=5702839


I don't think so.

less evil and re-elected sounds good to me..

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In fact there is really no such thing as a radical leftist, only revolutionary socialists/communists, left anarchists, and social democrats (the most far right of the left contingent). These are all REAL STRATEGIES and REAL MOVEMENTS not just pronounced "beliefs".

A "radical leftist" would be a revolutionary socialist/communist. Revolutionary socialists/communists do not believe that economic equality and justice could ever possibly be bestowed upon the people by an elected politician. They believe that it can only come about through mass uprisings/strikes/demands made by the average working people. What power can an elected official truly have? How could an elected official ever stand up to the military industrial complex? If they could it would be because the masses would organize to fight for their choice. Thus, it would still be change caused by the revolt of the masses.

Elections are only used by (some) revolutionary socialists as an intervention, as an organizing tool--even when a socialist is on the ballot.

You are a social democrat who hopes the center of the Democratic party can get something done. You are not a radical leftist.