COMMENTS

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35 Responses to COMMENTS

  1. Bryce Barnes says:

    This is an excellent resource!!! Well done. I still have a lot of reading to do, but very well done!

  2. John says:

    Do you really want Obama to follow a MORE PROGRESSIVE agenda? Really?

  3. Sorry to see this project abandoned.

  4. NYVegan says:

    Remarkably well done, but allow me to offer some marketing tips:
    1) Placement/Promotion: You need some serious search engine optimization (SEO). It took me a long time to find this site, and no one I’ve spoken with knew it existed until I mentioned it. Also, please consider sharing it with sympathetic progressive groups, if you haven’t.
    2) Product: You need a one-page executive summary, perhaps based on the outline. The average American reads about one book / month. This is an incredible resource, but the Obama-bots won’t bother to read a 52-page .pdf in small print with wide margins, or one very long page in html. Even those who do read it will be challenged to recall more than a few points in the heat of a conversation.
    Additionally, it would help to know something about who you are (or, perhaps, who you aren’t). An argument’s merit should have nothing to do with the motives of the arguer, the credentials of the arguer, or the popularity of the argument. But in the age of Swiftboating, unelected presidents, illegal wars, revolving corporate/government doors, and corporate “people”, thoughtful people can’t be blamed for shifting their stance from skeptic to cynic to disbeliever. Without releasing details, you could put minds at ease with a disclaimer of who you are not, and who has not funded you. This is a two-edged sword, as everything you put in the public domain about yourselves will be used against you by those who want to attack the messenger rather than the message.
    Just some thoughts.
    Please keep up the great work.

  5. T. Bankhead says:

    This is SO important. Great work! Could you please add Obama’s support of Monsanto under the ENVIRONMENT tab? Obama is the poster child for seeding bio-diverse Africa with GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms), under the guise of ending hunger with the “New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition”. By all accounts that I have read, the farmers in Africa don’t want this investment from what amounts to the BioTech Cartel’s (Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Cargill, etc…) corporate take-over and destruction of Africa’s vast bio-diversity. Oxfam, The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Food First, and many others have criticized the program, expecting it to only deepen poverty and worsen the environmental degradation of our planet. A healthy, sustainable solution that the people who live and farm in Africa actually WANT is what is needed – NOT a corporate take-over of “food” production by the world’s largest industrial chemical companies. Monsanto is NOT a charity. They are a for-profit company beholden to share-holders to make revenue. This is such an obvious pay-out to corporate America, and an inexcusable one, since the money to spread Monsanto’s patented GMO seed in Africa is being “given” under the guise of aid for Africa, yet for some unknown and baffling reason, this HUGE issue is getting no press whatsoever. People are up in arms over the Monsanto Protection rider that Obama signed in, meanwhile, he has already partnered up with Monsanto/DuPont/Syngento et al, to make farmers reliant on GMO seed and cripple bio-diversity. And, by the way, OBAMA EATS ORGANIC! They have an organic garden for the White House kitchen. I am so upset over Obama’s terrible environmental record. Please add this important issue to your index. Obama might as well be on the BioTech Cartel’s payroll, at this point. He looks after their interests, a lot more than yours and mine.

  6. Thomas says:

    Great work! Please add information on Obama’s education policies and his Race to the Top program though. This is one of the areas where Obama has been extremely conservative, so I would greatly appreciate if you could add this information to your page. Thanks.

  7. Steve says:

    In addition to all of these points, you should include a list of Republicans Obama uses as his advisers. This is again relevant as he has just chosen Chuck Hagel as his Defense Secretary appointee and pro-drone, pro-torture Bush warhawk John Brennan as his CIA appointee. His Sec. of State pick (Kerry) is also almost certainly a ploy to give Republicans that Massachusetts Senate seat so that the Dems can continue to claim that, whoops, they don’t have enough votes to pass anything Progressive, so they have to keep “compromising” with the Right to get anything done. But at least Hagel isn’t literally a Bush retread like Gates was when Obama appointed him. And then there’s La Hood, and Judd Gregg, and Michelle Leonhart, and Ben Bernanke, and Michael Taylor, and whoever the next Treasury Secretary will be, and this doesn’t even mention how Conservative the “Democrats” are in his favor. Emanuel, Hillary, Geithner, Summers, his “mentor in the Senate” Joe Lieberman, his liaison to the Health Insurance Companies Liz Fowler, etc. Or his favorite pundits (Michael Smerconish and David Brooks) or his favorite CEOs at GE and JP Morgan or his apparent favorite media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, who he is now changing the FCC rules in order to accommodate. It is definitely not astonishing that the complicit media doesn’t see how screamingly, embarrassingly Conservative Obama is, but it is fairly astonishing to see how few voters see this.

  8. Robert Whittle says:

    Neither Obama or Bush were conservative. That is the problem.

  9. Troville says:

    This is indeed an invaluable reference guide comprehensively illustrating the right-wing agenda of “America’s most liberal president.” Whoever put it together has done a valuable service to those of us who still hope that we can reach some of the Obamabots.

  10. Hugo Chavez says:

    Keep fighting the good fight.

  11. CLIFTON BUCK-KAUFFMAN says:

    Please consider including the coups in Honduras and recently in Paraguay, both supported by the USA, and both deposing democratically elected presidents.

    How about the continued militarization of the local police departments across the nation?

    How about the latest “executive orders” further diminishing the rights, formerly guaranteed by the “Bill of Rights”, codifying the citizens rights to be protected from the various depredations of the government?

    How about pointing out the descent into a classic fascist paradigm our nation has undergone?

    What a fabulous resource you have created already! Thank you.

  12. I’m not disappointed in Obama, it was obvious in 2007 that he was the “good cop” to the Republican “bad cop.”

    If you’re offered the “choice” between lethal injection and the electric chair, neither is the only reasonable answer.

    None of the above is an honorable choice when offered two flavors of evil.
    http://www.oilempire.us/2012.html

    It astounds me that most people still think the Presidential Selection is real. It’s similar to televised wrestling, a bruising contest that is rigged in advance.

    I’m sympathetic to the “progressive agenda” but I’m not a “progressive” since “progressive” seems to be a euphemism for liberals who don’t want to understand the military industrial complex runs the country. The last President who seriously challenged their power was Kennedy and we all know what happened to him.

    An addition for your site, if it’s not on there already — Obama’s first job after Columbia University was for Business International Corporation, a think tank that was exposed by the New York Times in 1977 as a CIA proprietary (ie. several years before Obama went to work for them). You have to have the three letter agencies support you if you’re going to be “President” of the Empire. It looks like they will keep Obama in the White House for another term.

    • GreenGenes says:

      Voting for Jill Stein can have practical impact.
      In many states, passing a threshold (often between !%-5%) will create ballot access that local candidates can run on in the next election cycle.

      5% nationally will mean millions of dollars in public funds for both Jill Stein and the Green Party.

      Know your state and national election laws. Voting for Stein will create practical resources for both national and local campaigns.

  13. Kevin Morgan says:

    Great resource. Thank you for putting this together and making a coherent case that Obama is destroying the progressive agenda.

  14. It’s an excellent summary of the Bush-Obama assault on law, but I think the title is unfortunate. There was nothing “conservative” about these policies in the Bush years, just as there is nothing “progressive” about them now. These policies are authoritarian extremism, and should be rejected equally by conservatives and progressives.

    • Ilari Kaila says:

      This has come up before, and was a topic of conversation before we launched the site; I completely understand where you’re coming from. Part of the problem is that the terms “left” and “right” have ceased to have almost any meaning. Regardless of what conservatism is supposed to stand for, military adventures and generous defense spending, aggressive terrorism policies, mass surveillance, corporate welfare, etc. etc., are associated by most people with so-called “conservatives” and with the GOP. (What comes to mind from the word “neocon”?) Paradoxically, these policies imply a huge government that interferes very directly in our lives. On the other hand, the Democratic party is still associated with the term “left,” and with contrasting values — and both characterizations are becoming equally absurd. Still, within the very specific parameters of current American political discourse, it is not unusual to use this descrpition. If you type the title of this website into Google, you’ll find many commentators using similar language to make their point.

      On the other hand, “conservative” can also be defined as “tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions” (as per Merriam-Webster), i.e., someone who fights on behalf of the status quo. This certainly describes Obama to a tee, in stark contrast to his rhetoric.

      I understand that this may irritate Ron Paul conservatives and others — but at least it’s a sexy title!

      • Ed says:

        How about “Obama the Neo-con”? So who is the independent candidate that we’re going to run against the Demopublicans? Bernie Sanders won’t do it. Dennis Kucinich won’t do it. Jesse Ventura won’t do it. We need to either get a progressive to run with Ron Paul on an independent ticket, or if he runs on his own, run our own ticket on the left.

        • JohnGary says:

          Jessie Ventura a progressive? You obviously are not from Minnesota. Mostly he’s a mishmash. You would get tired of his voice in a few weeks. Much like Donald Trump.

  15. 01.05.12 Hola. We have linked to your site on our Blog page as part of our comment under the video titled “Elephant With Two Heads”:
    http://www.pinkbarrio.com/blog/

    Gracias/Thanks.

  16. Drinkmore Waterforbesthealth says:

    Kudos on your site, I have a lot of respect for what you’ve done and the way you’ve presented the info, so I wanted to point this out (and if this was a crappy page, I wouldn’t bother trying to contribute) — He’s a pretty serious drug warrior who broke campaign promises on that as well, and has ignored repeated complaints from the marijuana legalization community. This fits with the other police-state stuff. http://blog.norml.org/2010/09/15/incarceration-nation-marijuana-arrests-for-year-2009-near-record-high/

    • ilari says:

      You are absolutely right; the mindless war on drugs is one of the most important topics that we have so far neglected to cover. Hoping to add that soon!

  17. Karl Moore says:

    Thank you for this excellent compendium of ‘what he said/what he did’. I just have 1 compliant and that is, I can’t see or scroll down the contents column. It stops at 5.2.

  18. Solis says:

    [288f] is dead, here’s a live link: http://www.cnas.org/node/6092

    This site is amazing, thanks for putting it together.

  19. A.J. says:

    This is downright scary. It’s the first time I’ve ever actually considered the conspiracy theory that he’s a neocon and the repubs are faking opposition. Hard to believe the amount of hypocrisy this man has spewed.

    • GreenGenes says:

      Straight out of Orwell 1984. Note the need and use of creating an “enemy” in order for the state to solidify it’s power over the public to assure consent of the masses.

  20. chimchiminy says:

    thank you for this incredible website. as disheartening as it is to read, it’s critical this information gets out there. i’ve often had to piece-mail these articles to people, with mixed results. now i can just point them to you! ever thought about being featured on commondreams.org? keep up the good work.

  21. steve lerman says:

    Here’s another dead link:
    [70b] CBS News / AP, 05/26/2011: “Senate moves Patriot Act toward extension”
    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/05/26/ap/congress/main20066418.shtml

    Here’s a live link:
    http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20065885-503544.html?tag=mncol;lst;3

  22. steve lerman says:

    Reference 46 reads as follows:
    [46] Open Society Institute, 10/14/2010: “Confinement Conditions at a U.S. Screening Facility on Bagram Air Base”
    http://www.soros.org/initiatives/mena/articles_publications/publications/confinement-conditions-20101014/confinement-conditions-20101014.pdf
    The link is dead and should be changed to:
    http://www.soros.org/resources/articles_publications/publications/confinement-conditions-20101014

    Thanks for put this valuable document together.

  23. Jean Bails says:

    Can I direct “friends” on Face Book to your site with a link or does that violate copyright?

  24. Shane Graber says:

    What a phenomenal site! This makes it so easy to show so-called liberals exactly why this is no progressive president. (Why Republicans don’t like him is a mystery.) I have only one minor technical problem. I can’t scroll through the list of topics on the left side of the page.

    Thanks so much for your well-researched work.

    Best,
    Shane

  25. Daniel Gordon says:

    Thank you so much for creating this page. I’ve been waiting for someone to do something like this for a while now. I’ve been trying to do something similar, but it is nowhere near as comprehensive as yours. This is an important contribution to the national and international political discourse, and is invaluable when trying to persuade others of Obama’s true political orientations. Perhaps this page will be what finally wakes up some of the more stubborn supporters, and perhaps it will even manage to convince some right-wingers. Please continue to update this. Although it might not be completely and strictly germane, you might want to include sections about Obama’s relations with his “base” (aides calling his supporters “whining,” “sanctimonious,” and the infamous “fucking retarded”) and that explode certain myths, e.g., “It’s too hard to pass progressive legislation. All the Republicans are filibustering me.”

    Thanks again for all your hard work.

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