Day: July 21, 2013

Republican Factions And Hatred Of President Barack Obama

The Republican Party is creating a history they will not be proud of, when the history books are written on the times we live in!

Yes, every President has opposition from the party out of power in the White House!

But the level of hate against Barack Obama is beyond all sane limits!

One faction, the establishment Wall Street Republicans, hate Obama for the gall that he has, expecting that after years of lack of regulation of Wall Street and the oil companies, and years of massive tax cuts for the top two percent, that he dares to promote regulation, and higher taxation of the wealthy!

Another faction, the Tea Party radicals, are out to return America to the 19th century, condemning everything the New Deal of FDR and the Great Society of LBJ have done to promote equity, fairness, and justice in America in the past century, and they see Barack Obama as the inheritor of those highly popular and successful programs! Instead, they want to put labor, women, minorities, and the poor back to the times that existed in the Gilded Age and early 20th century, a time of laissez faire capitalism and Social Darwinism. And much of the Tea Party Movement resembles the old South of the Confederacy, longing for a return to the pre Civil War mentality, as well! And therefore, the average middle class person is being exploited by the right wing groups led by the Koch Brothers and other corporate interests, who see a way to manipulate public opinion for their own selfish, greedy desires to dominate and increase their acquisition of wealth at the expense of 98 percent of the population!

And then, there are the Christian conservatives, who want to control our private lives and impose a theocracy on America, denying the Founding Fathers’ promotion of separation of church and state. In so doing, they wish to cause more control over our lives, while rejecting economic regulation and pushing social regulations, and they see Obama as a threat to their agenda!

The fact that we have been experiencing the effects of the Great Recession has allowed these groups to exploit the situation, and allow them to make it seem as if Barack Obama has created these conditions, when these groups are simply acting demagogic in their desire for control, and advancement of their own agendas, against the interests of the American people at large!

The Presidential “Bully Pulpit” From TR To Obama: Our Greatest Moments!

Theodore Roosevelt, the first President of the 20th century, came up with the term “Bully Pulpit” to describe his efforts to draw attention to emerging national issues that needed our attention, with him leading the charge from the White House, and the Presidency was never the same after that!

TR led the struggle against monopoly capitalism; for conservation of natural resources; for improvement of labor conditions; and for government regulation of our food and drugs–all as important national goals. He appealed to our “better angels” in his campaigns on these issues.

Franklin D. Roosevelt led from the “Bully Pulpit” on the need for government activism to deal with the Great Depression, and in getting us ready for the challenge of international Fascism’s threat to the democracies by Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan.

John F. Kennedy led us from his “Bully Pulpit” on the need to deal with civil rights as a moral crusade, and also the significance of learning to coexist in the world, so as to avoid an ultimate war that no one could win during the Cold War era.

Lyndon B. Johnson led from his “Bully Pulpit” on the issue of civil rights, and also on the reality of poverty in America and the need to take serious action on these issues.

And now Barack Obama has used the “Bully Pulpit” to address the issues of gay rights and the role of race in our society, and what he has done is draw attention and stature to issues that have long been ignored or overlooked as too controversial to deal with on the White House level, but he has the courage and principle that TR, FDR, JFK, and LBJ had before him!

So Barack Obama, with all of the positives and negatives that we find in any President, will be long remembered for challenging our better nature with his leadership on gay rights and race. And it is good already that New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks and 2008 Republican Presidential nominee, Senator John McCain, have endorsed his message on race as recently as the time when this author is writing this entry!