Nov 04 2009
“Barack said ‘Yes WE can’, not Yes I can.”
Hundreds gathered yesterday in Chicago to mark the one year anniversary since the historic election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. However, the anniversary event was not organized to lavish praise on our President, but to push him to act on the promises of his campaign.
“We need an America where we not only bail out the banks, but bail out the people on the bottom. People need good jobs and need to live in their homes without being foreclosed on,” USAction President William McNary said. “This is an America that should work for all of us.”
Last year’s election gave us a glimpse of the power of an organized, passionate grassroots base fighting for progressive change. But as the health care fight has shown this is an elusive power that the progressive community must make sustainable to move legislation on the Hill.
Too many look to President Obama for this sweeping change, but Obama himself has echoed FDR’s famous “go out and make me do it” sentiment. So in the end it is on us, the people, or as President McNary says in the video below,
“Barack said ‘Yes WE can, not yes I can’. We’ve come far but we’ve got far to go.”
As the economy sheds more jobs, as more families lose homes, and as the legislative slate ahead of us gets more - not less - challenging, progressives all over the country have to be prepared to fight the powers that be for the change we seek in our country.
Please–Barack Obama has consistently and persistently ignored the voices and demands of the people who put him in office–or perhaps, more accurately, the people who voted for him. It looks more and more like the people calling the shots, the ones who put him in office–are the big monied corporations. An honorable man does not have to be forced to keep his word and an honorable leader does not renege on promises he made to serve the citizens of his country. Yes, we have to take action but first we need to realize we were duped and deceived by a presidential platform that was nothing more than marketing. Barack Obama has placed himself squarely on the side of the “powers that be.” We have been betrayed.