Saturday, February 19, 2011

The Obama White House is really dissapointing progressives.

Is the bailout of Wall Street bankers really grating your progressive soul? Is the tame rhetoric and failure to support progressive causes really irritating to you? It sure is to me. There are many things the Obama White House has done that I don't like, but it really irritates me that they bailed out the Wall Street bankers who caused this current Great Depression and are not doing a damned thing to reign them in now that they appear to be back in control of the economy. But I really don't begrudge the White House their actions to bail out the Wall Street banks in 2008.

If the Wall Street bankers had not gotten the bailout we would currently be deep into Great Depression II. The Wall Street bankers are assholes who deserve nothing better than to choose which will they line up in front of as they face firing squads, but the money they move keeps our world-wide economies working. If they had not started moving money again the entire world would have been in deep shit. So they got a bailout, got protected, got richer, and the rest of us are only in mildly deep shit. Hell of a trade-off, but it was done in the right direction.

And yep. The working class - as well as most of the middle class - got the shaft. Just not as badly as it could have been.

No, I am not a salesman trying to sell someone a product. I just think that anyone who tells you that things would have worked better if the Wall Street bankers had gotten what they deserve is lying to you. The salesmen want the Wall Street Bailout to go away and for the Wall Street banker to get what they deserve. Sorry! It ain't going to happen. There was no better outcome than we got, and it is amazing that we got as good as we did get.

The Obama White House is getting what it can realistically get. They are not shooting for the fences because the price of losing is too damned high. They are not perfect, though.

They have a real tin ear for how what they say and do will be portrayed by the media and they are unwilling to (swinging for the fences) support the progressive causes. Nor are they willing to try to change the public perceptions. I don't think they believe they have that level of bully pulpit. They may be right, but again it goes back to the fact that the guy who has it all to lose is not ready to risk it all to win.

That's where I think those of us who supported Obama's election are sitting right now.

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