From: Media Free Times - PeaceMaker Virtual Free University Think Tank (t.m.)(inc.) [mediafreetimes@gmail.com]

Sent: Monday, May 10, 2010 1:53 PM

To: mediafreetimes@gmail.com

Subject: Re: Fw: Obama in Context - An Admirable First Year

On Sat, Apr 3, 2010 at 11:22 PM, p~j~ wrote:


 
----- Original Message -----
 From: "p~ j ~"

To: "Lloyd Stephens" 
 Sent: Saturday, 
April 03, 2010 10:01 PM
 Subject: Obama in Context - An Admirable First Year
 

 
 > Thanks Lloyd,  This was definitely 
worth the read.  I will forward it.
 
> Phil

> ----- Original Message -----
 
> From: "Lloyd Stephens" 
 > To: 
 > Sent: Friday, April 
02, 2010 1:49 PM
 > Subject: Fwd: Obama in context
 .
 . Phil,

 This is the article that I told you about at 
the track.
 Lloyd
 
 . Frank Schaeffer is a New York Times best-selling 
author.

. Obama Will Triumph -- So Will America
 
. By Frank Schaeffer
 .
 . Before he'd  served 
even one year, President Obama lost the support of the easily-distracted left 
and engendered the white-hot rage of the hate-filled right. 
But some of us, from all walks of life and ideological backgrounds -- including 
this white, straight,  57-year-
old, 
former religious right-wing agitator, now progressive writer

 
and this  unlikely Obama supporter -- are 
sticking with our President.
 . Why?

 . Because he is succeeding.
 
.
 . We faithful Obama supporters still trust our initial impression of 
him as a great, good and uniquely qualified man to lead us.
 Obama's steady 
supporters will be proved right.  Obama's 
critics
will be remembered as easily-panicked and prematurely-discouraged 
at best and shriveled hate mongers at worst.
The Context of the Obama  
Presidency
Not since the days of the rise of fascism in Europe, the 
Second World War and the Depression has any president faced more 
adversity. Not since the Civil War has any president led a more Bitterly-divided 
country. Not since the introduction of racial integration has any president faced 
a more consistently short- sighted and willfully ignorant 
opposition - from both the right
and left.
As the President's poll numbers 
have fallen, so has his support from some on the left that were hailing him as 
a Messiah not long ago, all those lefty websites and commentators 
that were falling  all over themselves during 
the 2008 election on behalf of our first black president. The left's lack of faith 
has become a self-fulfilling "prophecy"--
snipe at the President 
and then watch the poll numbers fall and
then pretend you didn't have anything 
to do with it. Here is what Obama faced when he took office -- none of which was

 
his fault: # An ideologically-divided country to the point that America was
 
really two countries.

 # Two wars, one that was mishandled from the start, 
the other thatwas unnecessary and immoral. # The worst 
economic crisis since the Great Depression.

 # America's standing in the 
world at the lowest point in history.

 
 # A country that had been misled into accepting the use 
of tortureof prisoners of war.
 # A health care system in free fall.

 
An educational system in free fall.


 # A global environmental crisis 
of history-altering proportions
 nothing
 # An impasse between culture warriors 
from the right and left.

 # A huge financial 
deficit inherited from the terminally irresponsible Bush administration And those 
were  only some of the problems sitting  
on the President's desk.

 
"Help"  from the Right?

 
What did the Republicans and the religious right, libertarians and
half-baked 
conspiracy theorists -- that is what the Republicans were 
reduced to by the time Obama took office -- do to  
"help" our new president  succeed?
 
They claimed that he wasn't a real American, didn't have an American
 birth certificate, 
wasn't  born here, was secretly a Muslim, 
was a white-hating "racist", was secretly  
a communist, was actually the Anti-Christ  
and was a reincarnation of  Hitler 
and wanted "death panels" to kill the
 
 elderly! They not-so-subtly called for his assassination 
through the not-so-subtle
 use of vile signs held at their rallies and even 
a bumper sticker quoting
 Psalm 109:8. They organized "tea parties" 
to sound off against imagined insults and all government 
in general and gathered to howl at the moon.
 They were led by insurance industry 
lobbyists and deranged . financed> "commentators" from Glenn Beck 
to Rush Limbaugh.  The utterly discredited Roman Catholic 
bishops teamed up with the utterly discredited evangelical leaders to denounce 
a president who was trying to  actually 
do something about the poor, the environment, to diminish 
the number of abortions through compassionate programs to help women and to  
care for the sick.  And in Congress 
the Republican leadership knew only one word: "No!"In 
other words, the reactionary white, rube, uneducated, crazy America far right, 
combined with the educated but obtuse neoconservative war mongers,religious right 
shills for big business, libertarian Fed Reserve-hating 
gold bug, gun-loving crazies, child-molesting acquiescent "bishops", 
frontier loons and evangelical gay-hating flakes found one thing to briefly unite
 
them:  their desire to stop an uppity black 
man from succeeding at all costs.
"Help" from 
the Left? What did the left do to help their newly elected president? Some of 
them excoriated the President because they disagreed with the bad choices he 
was being forced to make regarding a war in Afghanistan that he'd inherited fromthe 
worst president in modern history. Others stood up and bravely proclaimed that 
the President's economic policies had "failed" 
before the President even instituted them!  Others 
said that since all gay rights battles had not been fully won within virtually 
minutes of the President taking office, they'd been "betrayed"!
 
than any other president's has been. Never mind that he signed a  
new hate crimeslaw... > Those that had stood in transfixed legions weeping 
with beatific emotion on election night turned into an 
angry mob saying how "disappointed" they were that they'd not all immediately 
been tranported to heaven the moment Obama stepped into 
the White House.  Where  
was the "change"? Contrary to their expectations, they were still 
mere  mortals! And the legion of young new 
supporters was too busy texting to pay attention
 for 
longer than a nanosecond.  "Governing"?  
What the hell does that word,uh, like mean?" The President's critics 
left and right all had one thing in common:
 impatience laced 
with little-to-no sense of history thrown in for good  
measure. Then of course there were the white, snide
know-it-all commentators/talking 
heads who just couldn't imagine that
 maybe, just maybe, 
they weren't as smart as they thought they were and certainly not as smart as 
their president.  He hadn't consulted them, 
had he?  So he must be wrong.
 
The Obama critics' ideological ideas defined their idea 
of reality rather
 than reality defining their ideas -- say, about what is 
possible in one year in office after the hand that the President had been dealt 
by fate, or to be exact by the American idiot nation that 
voted Bush into office -- twice! Meanwhile back in the reality-based community...  
in just 12 short months, President Obama:
 
 # Continued to draw down the misbegotten war in Iraq . 
good enough for  his critics>.

 
# Thoughtfully and decisively picked the best of several bad choices 
regarding the war in Afghanistan critics> # Gave a major precedent-setting 
speech supporting gay rights . wasn't good enough for his  
critics > # Restored America's image around the globe . for
 his critics>
 
# Banned torture of prisoners held by America . enough
 for his critics>
 
# Stopped the free fall of the American economy . enough for his critics>. 
# Put the USA squarely back in the bilateral international 
community . that wasn't good enough for his  critics>.
 
# Put the USA squarely into the middle of the international effort to 
halt global warming .
 # Stood up for educational reform . critics>.
 
# Won a Nobel Peace Prize . # Moved the trial of terrorists back into the American 
judicial system of checks and balances .
 # Did what 
had to be done to start the slow, torturous and almost
impossible process of 
health care reform that 7 presidents had failed to even begin .
 
. # Responded to hatred from the right and left with measured good humor and
 
patience # Stopped the free fall of job losses . his
 critics>.
 
 # Showed immense personal courage in the face of an armed 
and dangerous far right opposition that included the sort of disgusting people 
that show up at public meetings carrying loaded weapons and carrying Timothy McVeigh- 
inspired signs about the "blood of tyrants" needing to "water the 
tree of liberty". .
 # Showed that he could not only make the tough military 
choices butexplain and defend them brilliantly . critics>.Other 
than those  "disappointing" accomplishments 
-- IN ONE YEAR --
President Obama "failed"!  
Other than that he didn't "live up to expectations"!
 
Who actually has  failed...are the Americans 
that can't see the beginning  of a miracle 
of national rebirth right under their jaded noses.
  Who failed  
are the smart-ass ideologues of the left and right who beganrooting for 
this President to fail so that they could be proved right in their dire and morbid 
predictions. Who failed are the movers and shakers behind 
our obscenely dumb news cycles
 that have  turned 
"news" into just more stupid entertainment for an entertainment-besotted, 
infantile country.
 Here's the good news:  
President Obama is succeeding without the help of his lefty "supporters" 
or hate-filled Republican detractors.
 The Future Looks Good
 
 After Obama has served two full terms ,  
after his wisdom in moving deliberately and cautiously and with great subtlety 
on all fronts -- with a canny and calculating eye to the possible -- succeeds 
will>,
 after the economy 
is booming and new industries are burgeoning . will be>,  
after the doomsayers are all proved not just wrong but
 silly...
 
..let the record show that not all Americans were panicked into thinking the 
sky was falling.
 Just because we didn't get everything we wanted in the first 
short and fraught year Obama was in office, not all of us gave up.  
Some of us stayed
 
the course. And we will be proved right. please pass this on and hang in there.  
Pass it on anyway to ensure
 . that his "report card" gets 
the attention it deserves.>
 
 . ----- 
End forwarded message -----

 
 
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