Can Obama win in 2012? By Alan L. Maki

Once people feel they have been betrayed by a politician they don't go back.

If Obama remains in the race it simply means fewer people will be voting. Had people believed Obama and the Democrats were real opposition to the Republicans they would have turned out in droves for the 2010 Election.

In fact, you can talk to people anyplace--- where they are being robbed at the gas pumps, having their pockets picked at the local supermarket, walking down the cracked, crumbling and uneven sidewalks, at work, in community centers or the local union hall, sitting in their cold, unheated living rooms because they can't afford to heat their homes and pay the mortgage or in the state park camping--- no matter where you go these days, you are not going to find "happy campers."

If there are those who don't believe, just do your own survey by going to your local supermarket and stand at the meat cooler near the hamburger and say to someone: "Pretty soon we aren't going to afford to eat any more; these prices are ridiculous." Say this to ten people; let me know what they say. Then go to the fruits where the bananas are and say, "Look at the prices; can you afford these things?" Again, let me know what the first ten people say. Then take your voter survey out to the gas station and say to a few people, "When is this robbery at the pumps going to end?" Let me know how people respond.

Let's be clear-minded here and not influenced by the Democratic Party hacks who are working the social networking sites posing as real people using 40 or 50 phony names bullying, badgering and intimidating people with this crap like, "If you don't support Obama you are going to be saluting Donald Trump."

Most people never voted for Obama in the first place; they voted against the Republicans because their livelihoods were already deteriorating and they were war-weary and just plain fed-up. Does anyone really believe that people are happier today because their standard of living has improved? Are people any less war-weary? If you want to know the answer, just ask people:

"How is Obama's war economy working for you?"

Obama doesn't dare ask voters this question; his die-hard supporters and Democratic Party hacks just loathe this question being asked.

Yet, this question is the most honest and forthright question that can be asked of anyone in this country because the answers tell us exactly what people are thinking.

The fight between the Democrats and Republicans for votes will be for a share of fewer voters. The Republicans are relying on this although the Republicans have moved so far to the right many of their own people are not turning out to vote, either.

Also, Obama by his own admission, is no liberal.

I am not nit-picking terms here. It is important we understand where everyone is coming from ideologically because it pretty much tells us what we can expect from people and the organizations and movements they "lead."

Obama is a neo-liberal which makes him as reactionary as reactionary can be.

By his own admission, Obama is ideologically a "pragmatist" very typical of the Wall Street crowd, as is the labor leadership in this country; and, unfortunately, much of the leadership of the peace, civil rights, environmental and women's movements are ideological pragmatists making it virtually impossible for even the littlest of reforms to be won.

In my opinion the entire results of this election in 2012 will be determined by what the liberal-minded voters do; Obama has lost the majority of progressive and left voters for sure and he seems to pretty much have lost the liberal voters who are the most important block in this country when it comes to voting and building movements for progressive change which at this point includes the need to build an alternative party reflecting the aspirations of people who want a United States of America that is for peace, social and economic justice.

This is the very best time for liberals, progressive and the left to begin building a new party that offers a real alternative to Wall Street's two parties because we really don't have to worry about being called "spoilers" even though that tag shouldn't bother us because we have the right to vote for the kind of country we want; but, as things presently stand, it is those who continue to support Obama who are the real spoilers because they cling to Obama--- a loser.

While it is always possible in life for what appears to be impossible to happen, all common sense should tell us a President with three wars hanging around his neck as his major "accomplishments" with rapidly rising prices for food, gas, home heating fuels and electricity coupled with huge unemployment, massive home foreclosures and evictions and the freezing and reductions of wages and benefits is not going to be getting voted in again. Politically the odds of Obama getting elected again are virtually nil.

Unless you believe Obama can win without liberals, progressives and left voters turning out to vote for him on Election Day, Obama can't win. In fact, the election isn't even going to be close; Obama will be trounced and trampled at the polls.

Even if Obama can win on Election Day he deserves to have every liberal, progressive and leftist working to defeat him because he does not represent or reflect the kind of country we want.

Here is my choice for 2012:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=82015215170

Cynthia McKinney and Cindy Sheehan might not be able to win on Election Day 2012; but, neither can Barack Obama... I will, however, be voting for the kind of country I want as a left-wing working class voter. And this is my right. I am not going to be badgered, bullied and intimidated into voting for a rotten Wall Street war-monger. I didn't tell Nixon to take his Vietnam war and shove it up his ass only to be bullied into voting for another warmonger--- Barack Obama.

This is the way to mix it up with politics and street heat...

"Angry that Congress appears ready to take away autonomy granted to the city in the last several years, Mayor Vincent Gray and six Council members, including the chairman, were among 41 people arrested Monday outside the Capitol while protesting the changes."

DC mayor arrested protesting budget restrictions
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110412/ap_on_re_us/us_budget_dc_anger
AP – Mayor Vincent Gray is searched by Capitol Hill police after being arrested on Monday, April 11, 2011, …

By JESSICA GRESKO, Associated Press
WASHINGTON – Leaders in D.C., including the mayor, took to the streets to protest congressional control of the nation's capital, blocking traffic and getting arrested over a federal budget deal expected to impose renewed restrictions on the city.
Angry that Congress appears ready to take away autonomy granted to the city in the last several years, Mayor Vincent Gray and six Council members, including the chairman, were among 41 people arrested Monday outside the Capitol while protesting the changes. Seven hours later, they were released from jail.
D.C. has a city government, but its budget and laws are subject to Congressional review. Congress has had control over the city since it was founded. District officials say Washington was used as a pawn in last week's budget bargaining, with new restrictions part of the price of a deal.
On Tuesday, Gray called on civic associations, religious groups and other organizations to make their voices heard. He made an analogy to the protests in Egypt and Libya, where he said citizens' voices led to change.
"Why are we the sacrificial lamb?" Gray asked.
The district restrictions that were part of the budget deal reached Friday were "completely unacceptable," Gray said.
"We needed to make a statement," Gray said after his release from jail.
The city will likely be unable to spend its own tax dollars on abortions for low-income women. It may also be banned from spending city money on needle exchange programs believed vital to curbing the spread of HIV in the district, where the disease is considered an epidemic. Also back: a school voucher program favored by Republicans.
Washington had enjoyed more freedom in the past four years when both the House and Senate were controlled by Democrats, the party traditionally more friendly to pleas of autonomy from the heavily Democratic city.
When Republicans took control of the House in January, the city readied for changes. Still, city leaders said they are outraged that Washington appears to have been used as a bargaining chip.
"If this isn't taxation without representation, I don't know what is," the mayor said before being arrested.
He and Council members, dressed in business attire, sat down in the street outside a Senate office building. U.S. Capitol Police arrested them, cuffing their hands behind them with plastic loops, and loaded them into police wagons to cheers from the crowd.
They were cited for blocking the street with an unlawful assembly, a misdemeanor that can be resolved by paying a $50 fine.
Gray said after he was released that he was proud to be part of the demonstration and would continue to fight the restrictions, but wasn't specific.
Gray became the second D.C. mayor to go to jail while advocating for home rule. Sharon Pratt Kelly was arrested during a statehood protest in August 1993. Gray also was a council member before becoming mayor, so he is familiar with the home-rule fight.
Ilir Zherka, the executive director of D.C. Vote, a nonpartisan group that lobbies for more independence for the district, said his group doesn't intend to let the budget pass this week without a fight.
"We're not going to accept that they decided to throw the District of Columbia under the bus," Zherka said.
But while the news is considered a setback for the capital city and its 600,000 residents, the restrictions wouldn't be new.
The city's ability to spend money on abortions for low-income women has seesawed over the last two decades. When Democrats have controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency, in 1993 and 1994 and again in 2009 and 2010, the city has been able to spend its own money to pay for abortions for women on Medicaid. When Republicans have controlled at least one branch of government that ability has been taken away.
The fact that Congress will likely re-impose the ban on abortion funding wasn't a shock to Tiffany Reed, the president of D.C. Abortion Fund, a non-profit organization that makes grants to poor women to pay for abortions, which can cost $300 to $500 or more. Reed said her group, which helped pay for more than 300 abortions a year, had expected the ban to be re-imposed, but she was angry Congress had stepped in again to local affairs just as the lifting of the ban was beginning to take effect.
"It gives me a lot of rage quite frankly," she said. "I'm really disappointed in our pro-choice president that he allowed this to happen."
As for a possible reintroduction of a ban on city money for needle exchanges, it would be a step back. Congress prohibited the city from using its own money for the programs for two decades beginning in the late 1980s.
Other groups stepped in to provide the service with private dollars, but it is a widely held belief that the city's inability to pay for needle exchange led to an increase in the number of residents contracting HIV.
Approximately 3 percent of city residents are currently living with HIV or AIDS, a level considered by health officials to be epidemic.
When the ban was lifted in 2007, the city invested money in community programs that collected 300,000 used syringes in the last year. People who work at the city's three needle exchange programs say they aren't sure how they will cope if the city is again unable to provide money.
"It would be nothing short of disastrous," said Cyndee Clay, executive director of HIPS, an organization that works with sex workers and drug users and is currently exchanging about 8,000 needles a month. "I don't understand why they're doing this to us."
Eleanor Holmes Norton, the city's representative in Congress, said she has not yet seen the actual language in the budget but has been told the abortion rider and school vouchers are in. Norton, a Democrat who is not allowed to vote on the House floor, said she doesn't believe needle exchange is part of the deal, but she said she won't be sure until she sees final language.
"We got bargained away," Norton said of the budget deal. "I don't know for what."
___
Associated Press writer Ben Nuckols contributed to this report.

Resolution Calling for Re-ordering of Priorities

Resolution Calling for Re-ordering of Priorities:



Whereas Minnesota is faced with a $5.028 billion budget shortfall; and,



Whereas past budget cuts have resulted in painful reductions in essential services and future cuts would further erode the quality of life for and, in fact, endanger the lives of many citizens; and,



Whereas many cities and communities in Minnesota are laying off police, firefighters, teachers and other essential employees; and,



Whereas past budgets have been balanced by cutting social services, under investment in essential infrastructure, and other measures that push the crisis onto local governments and the poor; and,



Whereas Minnesota taxpayers even during these times of economic crisis and fiscal austerity are poised to pay the equivalent of the entire state biennial budget, more than $35 billion over the next two years, for their share of the Defense Budget of the Federal government; and,



Whereas Minnesota taxpayers alone have already spent more than $27.5 billion, and will spend $8.4 billion more over the next two years for the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and,



Whereas 58 cents of every dollar of federal discretionary spending is devoted to military purposes; and,



Whereas military spending priorities at the national level negatively impact budgets and quality of life at all levels of government and society; and,



Whereas our nation desperately needs to better balance its approach to security to go beyond military defense and include the economic, social, and environmental needs of our communities, state, and nation;



Therefore be it resolved that we, the Legislature of the State of Minnesota call on Senators Klobuchar and Franken, and Representatives Walz, Kline, Paulsen, McCollum, Ellison, Bachmann, Peterson and Cravaack as well as Congressional leadership and President Barack Obama, to shift federal funding priorities from war and the interests of the few, to meeting the essential needs of us all.



Approved [date]



By Jack Nelson-Palmeyer and Bill Hilty