The Gap Between Promise and Delivery

Here is a bit from an interesting post by McCamy Taylor on The Daily Kos:

Here are some of the specifics we (Democrats like you and me) voted for in 2008:

Families and individuals should have the option of keeping the coverage they have or choosing from a wide array of health insurance plans, including many private health insurance options and a public plan

See. Right there in black and white. A public plan. A real Democrat fights for a public plan. So what does that make all the folks in DC who rejected a public plan?

We reject the notion of the presumptive Republican nominee that Social Security is a disgrace; we believe that it is indispensable. We will fulfill our obligation to strengthen Social Security and to make sure that it provides guaranteed benefits Americans can count on, now and in future generations. We will not privatize it.

Got that? Strengthen Social Security. Not cut it. Not adjust it. We (the Democratic Party) guaranteed that Americans would receive their benefits. You can’t get any clearer than that.

We will strengthen the ability of workers to organize unions and fight topass the Employee Free Choice Act.

Oh really? So why six did Democratic Senators including Lincoln, Feinstein, McCaskill, Spectre, Nelson and Carper fight against it? At one point (briefly) we had 60 votes in the U.S. Senate. Why wasn’t this bill rushed through then? Did these Democrats use their copy of the Party Platform for toilet paper?

The Democratic Party firmly believes that graduation from a quality public school and the opportunity to succeed in college must be the birthright of every child–not the privilege of the few.

I think I’m gonna cry. That sounded so good. But what did we get? They have stripped the funding from public schools, fired the teachers and cut back on college grants.

No surprise that people are cynical about politicians. They make their grandstanding "promises" in the party platform but once in power they forget the play book and wing it with some right wing craziness and label this as "hope" and "change you can believe in". Oh yeah.

Go read the whole post to get more of this indictment of how Obama ran a 2008 campaign of pretense and deception.

Hope springs eternal:

No single man or woman---no matter how high his or her office---is the Democratic Party. We are the Democratic Party. We have spoken and spoken again, and if no one in Washington wants to listen, then maybe we will just have to make them listen at the polls next spring.

I sure hope Taylor is right. Americans deserve better representation than Obama is giving. They need real change to counter the disasterous policies of the last 30 years.

If you want a picture of "real America" McCamy Taylor provides it in this post:

Fifty-three year old Rhonda was a high school history teacher. Her school district decided to cut costs by increasing class size and laying off teachers using their new “first hired first fired” policy. With just three years to go until she qualified for a pension and retirement health insurance, Rhonda thought that had she planned ahead for her future. Rhonda thought wrong.

Go read the gory details of the American dream up on the shoals being lashed by a right wing storm designed to move wealth from the "little people" to the "job creators" who after 30 years of being "incentivized" have yet to deliver on those promised "jobs". And in the meantime, they have pushed an agenda that has destroyed the American dream.