Well, I've seen chunks of two debates, so I'm no expert... but I had to post something.
I'll be voting in three weeks. Yes, for Obama. Yes, I'll be voting (D) in Idaho where all of our four electoral votes will be otherwise.
Honestly, I'm not a fan of either candidate, especially after watching Obama come off like a preprogrammed rhetoric machine. It was disappointing.
I'd like to make a few points. And yes, I am going to criticize the last four years of decisions. This is not to demonize or even point a finger at the president or any other individual member of our government.
We are (technically) a democracy. Though a strong case could be made that the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court definitively put the mechanisms of our electorate in the hands of business rather than the voting public, I'm going to lean towards the absolute sense of democracy in that we still have the right to participate in our government.
Here goes.
"Decisions and Strategies That I Think The Obama Administration Messed Up."
1. The Bank Bailout
I get it, alright? The only thing holding up our massive debt ceiling and therefore the commerce of the entire industrialized world is the financial solidity *scoff* of our banking and credit system. But I don't care. We should have bought out 70% - 80% of the 401-K plans and other retirement plans held in place by those banks and made the entirety of that sum a federally controlled institution. If the banks could get by on that, then fine, otherwise, TS.
The trillion plus dollars spent on banking should have instead have ben put towards a massive infrastructural overhaul of our roads, bridges, dams, power grid, waterways, levees, breakwaters, etc. That would have created jobs, bunches of them. Not just for laborers and tradesmen, but for engineers, architects, project managers, HR personnel, accountants, commercial drivers, etc.
A massive austerity project that instituted rationing similar to WWII should have been put in place, complete with community organized 'victory gardens' gasoline rationing, micro scale recycling and full blown recycling drives. And while I'm at it, yes, large chunks of that money should have been pumped into the social programs network.
Personally I'd rather see 10 even 20 percent of our workforce on assistance rather than watch the executives of the very banking industries that caused the crash take multi million dollar severance packages and resign... only to watch their former companies swallow the public funds and go bankrupt anyway.
I don't see this sort of socialist answer to a massive, global debt crisis as a permanent means to market and social regulation. Just as an emergency measure. Worked in WWII, might just work a second time. It would have been better than paying off our traitors.
2. Making The Bush Era Tax Cuts A Selling Point In The Election
What the hell? It's a pittance. So the top one percent get to continue to pay about what, 1 and a half percent less on their income taxes? So what? It's a drop in the fiscal budget. Meaningless in terms of our economic outlook. It should never have become an issue. Frankly, I blame the Occupy folk for chanting about it so much and achieving so very, very little in terms of... well... anything. Let the rich (a relative term when applied only to people who make 300K a year) pay a tiny bit less. It's a non issue. You want to bite into a meaty part of their assets and actually put some tax money into the federal coffers? Raise the Capital Gains tax rate from 15% to 20% (or more) and close the 'future loss buffer' loopholes that drop the capital gains rates even lower to 'safeguard investments from future volatility'.
3. Why Obamacare Is a Really Shitty Plan
Obamacare should have been pulled just as soon as mandating citizens to buy into FOR PROFIT insurance providers was written into the bill. That's just corporate welfare. It won't do the people any good. On the other hand the insurance companies and the oddball derivatives that finance institutions create around the payout leverages from bundled insurance plans will rake all of our extra spending in.
Three word solution: Single Payer Option. Works in Canada, why not give that a go? At the very least the bill should have died before it was allowed to rise off the table and destroy the village, no matter how many torches and pitchforks we might bring to the party.
4. Gay Marriage
This is a non issue. The US Constitution does not afford any religious institution the power to intercede in the rights of US citizens. Instead of staying mum and wavering back and forth out of fear of the religious right for three years the Obama administration should have quietly and calmly supported gay marriage as an inalienable right from his first day in office. After that, all of the attacks and bullshit that would be flung (and has been) at the White House should have been nonchalantly waved off.
Once the right wing voices reached their inevitable frothing at the mouth tone as would be expected he should have resolutely, and frankly pointed out our recent history of social progress, using himself as a key example.
Obama is a mixed race man born in 1961. The Federal dismantling of the anti-miscegenation laws present in much of the southern US did not occur until 1962. At the time of that particular debate over legalized bigotry, people quoted their Bibles and stamped their feet in religious indignation. In one simple move Obama could have pointed out that his very existence as a human being would not have been permissible under those laws had he not been born outside of the south. Such intolerance is not a part of our foundational values. No matter how long it takes for followers of various faiths to catch up with the promise of equality set forward in the Constitution, or more specifically the first Amendment of the Bill of rights, our nation will continue to progress towards equality.
In other words, suck it you bigoted assholes.
Sure, I'm a whack job. I'm so far left I'm not even in the peripheral vision of today's partisan politics.
So what.
There are two kinds of answers in politics, the right answer and the smart answer. Nobody can agree on the right answer, and the smart answer is nearly always too difficult to understand or too radical to gain any momentum.
Oh well, I'm still voting this November. It can't hurt.
