Taking Mamma For a Ride
By David Glenn Cox
I do hope that Martha Coakley wins the special election in Massachusetts, but strangely I do so with mixed emotions. I would never lean toward a Republican candidate, never have and never will. As I say that, I cannot begin to express my disillusionment with the current administration.
I feel as though I have been taken for a ride. When I was a kid of about eleven we rented a house in Chicago Heights, Illinois. It was in an Italian working-class neighborhood and all in all a pretty nice place. One Saturday morning my parents left me alone while they went shopping. As I lounged in the den watching TV, all was well, until I looked up and found an elderly woman standing in the doorway.
“Whatta you doing in-a my house?” she yelled in a thick Italian accent. “You get a outta my house, you!” I panicked and ran upstairs and locked myself in my room. Finally when I saw her leave I ran downstairs and locked all the doors. She went up and down the street banging on the neighbors' doors. “They’s a people a living in my house! Those a people are a living in my house!”
Soon the police came and took her away. I told my parents all about it when they returned and my father called the landlord. Apparently it was her house, but she had grown too old to care for it or herself so one sunny day her children said, “Mamma, I’m going to take you for a ride in my nice new car! You're going to love it, Mamma, it has leather seats and air conditioning.” Only they failed to tell Mamma that the ride was going to end at the nursing home or that they were going to rent her home to defray the cost of the nursing home.
What I remember most was that this woman was frantic and that her anger was not directed at me, per se. But try to imagine coming home and finding someone living in your house. That’s why she went to her neighbors, she wanted their help to oust the interlopers, but deep down inside it must have slowly dawned on her that she’d been abused by those that she had trusted the most.
I feel certain that her children loved her, but in that love they thought they knew better than she what was best for her. Then rather than just coming out and saying it, they chose to deceive the old woman, and because of that she felt she couldn’t trust them anymore.
Harry Truman said, “Washington is a very easy city for you to forget where you came from and why you got there in the first place. When you get to be President, there are all those things, the honors, the twenty-one gun salutes, all those things. You have to remember it isn't for you. It's for the Presidency.”
Why you got here and how you got here, I voted for Barack Obama in the primary and the general election but since his election it’s as if John McCain won the election and we get this same story on every issue.
Obama Blasts Banks Over Financial Reform - MSNBC
Obama Urges Banks to Accept New Sense of Responsibility - Guardian UK
Obama to Banks: 'Rebuild our economy' - CNN.com
Obama Presses Biggest Banks to Lend More - New York Times
Bonus Comeback: Bailout, Lobbying Boost Bank Pay - AP
Bailout Bonuses For Investment Bank Execs - CBS.com
Wall Street Banks in $70bn Staff Payout - Guardian UK
Obama wags his finger and wags his tongue and in the end the bankers do whatever they wanted to do in the first place.
During the discussions about the GM/Chrysler bankruptcy, Democratic senators and house members pleaded with the White House not to allow the bankruptcy because of the resulting job losses. Bankruptcy would allow the automakers to dump toxic properties onto the public and also allow them to escape tax liability owed to the public. Unions and vendors negotiated new deals with a gun to their heads because the bankruptcy voided all contracts.
It was Republicans and conservative Democrats that opposed a bailout of GM and Chrysler, leaving bankruptcy as the only option, the option that the White House had favored from the beginning.
U.S. to Steer GM Toward Bankruptcy -Washington Post
Why a GM Bankruptcy Would Be a Disaster -Business Week
GM's Expected Bankruptcy Filing Monday Likely Will Trigger String of Michigan Auto Supplier Bankruptcies -Michigan Live
GM Bankruptcy May Spell Relief, Not Upset, for Stocks - Market Watch
Why the Market doesn't Care about GM - CNN Money
“GM finally filed for bankruptcy and stocks soared. Even though its woes could add to unemployment, some think economic damage will be minimal.”
Obama’s Support of Union Card Checks Part of Broad Campaign – National Legal and Policy Center
Obama Tells Unions that Card Check Will Pass This Year – Hot Air.com
Left Relieved by Obama’s Words on Card Check – Las Vegas Sun
Obama Card Check Support Waning – Accuracy in Media
Was Card Check Just A "Red Herring?" -- CBS News.com
Obama Says ‘Card-Check’ Labor Bill Unlikely to Pass – Bloomberg
Oh, fiddle dee dee, it didn’t pass. Gosh, but we tried real hard, though, didn’t we?
Candidate Obama – “I happen to be a proponent of single payer health care”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpAyan1fXCEObama: Public Option Should be Part of Reform –MSNBC.com
President Obama's Healthcare Reform 'Public Option' Explained – Laist.com
Obama to Endorse Public Plan in Speech – Wall Street Journal
Obama, Senate Dems Consider Public Healthcare Option With A Trigger- Huffington Post
Sebelius: Public Healthcare Option “Not the Essential Element” – Huffington Post
President Obama said the following in his healthcare speech to Congress:
“There are those on the left who believe that the only way to fix the system is through a single-payer system like Canada's -- (applause) -- where we would severely restrict the private insurance market and have the government provide coverage for everybody. On the right, there are those who argue that we should end employer-based systems and leave individuals to buy health insurance on their own.”
Once again the White House supports the right wing solution, not just in application but in payment plans as well.
Despite Campaign Rhetoric, Obama Pivots on Taxing Healthcare – Washington Post
Does this not take on an eerie sense of deja vue? Strong promises, a solid beginning followed by a total capitulation to the right wing and conservative Democrats. So who is this man, Barack Obama? A progressive without skills or a panderer without scruples?
Throughout the first year, with every disappointment has come a cynical assessment that the left has nowhere to go.
Rahm Emanuel: Don’t Worry about the Left – Wall Street Journal
“Turn off MSNBC. Tune out Howard Dean and Keith Olbermann. The White House has its liberal wing in hand on health care," says White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
“There are no liberals left to get” in the Senate, Emanuel said in an interview, shrugging off some noise from the likes of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) that a few liberals might bolt over the compromises made with conservative Democrats.”
But as the special election draws near in the Bay State, Obama says that he needs a progressive like Martha Coakley to work by his side as an ally.
The pundits have already begun the autopsy and the wake: it was a badly run campaign, voters are in a bad mood over the economy, every reason except the most obvious one. Coakley is in trouble because of Obama, not because of Coakley. It doesn’t matter how nice the ride; what matters is where they are taking us.
“Mamma, I’m going to take you for a ride in my nice new car! You're going to love it, Mamma, it has leather seats and air conditioning.”
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