Progressive Dems issue warning to Obama.

Progressive Dems Threaten Obama over Inclusion of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid in Debt Talks

by Gabriella Schwarz

The liberal advocacy group Progressive Change Campaign Committee delivered 200,000 pledges to President Obama's campaign headquarters Friday, demanding he hold their line in debt ceiling negotiations or lose their support.

The group wants a potential agreement to include tax increases on higher income earners instead of cuts to entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicaid, the committee's co-founder Adam Green said Friday. Members of the group said they will not contribute to or volunteer for the president's reelection campaign unless their conditions are met.

Green said they delivered the pledges, signed by those who supported Obama's candidacy in the 2008 election, to Obama's campaign headquarters in Chicago Friday morning.

"Democrats need to support the will of the American people," Green said in a conference call with reporters. "Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid must be off the table."

"Our position is the middle class has sacrificed enough," Green added.

He said the signatories donated $17 million and 2.4 million volunteer hours to then-Sen. Obama's election effort in the 2008 election.

Obama, Progressives, and the White Nationalist Backlash


Bill Fletcher, Jr. 

Task for progressives in 2012:
Monkey-wrenching the white united front



It has been striking that many progressives have said so little about
 race, racism, and the discourse of right-wing populism in the context
 of the upcoming elections.




In the context of the criticisms that many of us have of the Obama
 administration for what it has not accomplished, for its advance of a 
corporate agenda, and for the unacceptable compromises it has made 
with the Republicans, there is something that I have seen few
 progressives address. 

To borrow from a comment offered by television commentator Tavis
 Smiley, the 2012 elections are likely to be the most racist that most
 of us have seen in our lifetimes. Given this, what are the
 implications?

 It has been striking that many progressives, particularly those who 
have not only written off President Obama but also written off all
 those who offered critical support to the Obama campaign in 2008, have 
said so little about race, racism, and the discourse of right-wing
 populism in the context of the upcoming elections.



We have witnessed the first Black president of the United States
 questioned about his citizenship and birthplace, yet I have seen
 precious little from many friends on the left side of the aisle
(particularly those so critical of Obama) responding to this. If you 
put your ear to the ground, however, you hear the murmurings of Black 
Americans furious that Obama was put in a place where he had to file a 
petition in order to obtain his Hawaii birth certificate.

 The murmurings do not stop there. When Donald Trump and other
 opportunists started asking questions about how it was that Obama got 
into Columbia University and Harvard Law School (i.e., was he REALLY 
qualified to have gotten into those schools?), for most of us enough
 was enough. Because this was no longer about Obama and it had very
 little to do with criticisms of Obama and his policies.



The white nationalist backlash is using Obama as the target but they 
are attempting to create a white united front to, in their minds, take 
back the United States. Part of this agenda means delegitimizing the 
democratically elected President, but it also goes towards tampering
 with election laws and voting processes in state after state.

 In case you have not noticed, in many states where there is a
 Republican majority in control, efforts are underway to restrict
 voting, whether by further limiting ex-felons from voting, to 
eliminating same-day voter registration, to the demand for picture
 identifications at the time of voting, to the shortening of periods of 
early voting.
 
The objective is to reduce the potential anti-Republican electorate. 
This is being done by demagogically and inaccurately crowing about 
alleged voter fraud. But this happens through the Right racializing 
alleged voter fraud.

How Do We Respond to Obama?

By Bill Fletcher, Jr.
April 21, 2011

April2011http://www.blackcommentator.com/423/423_ml_bring_obama_home.php

Rather than dwell on the question of whether we can

bring Obama home, whether he ever was home, etc., I

want to refocus on this question of how to respond to

him, particularly as we start to think about 2012.

First, what do we now say about 2008? Contrary to those

who have thrown up their hands and feel betrayed by

what the Obama administration has not done, I start in

a different place. I continue to assert that Obama was

knowable in 2008. He was a charismatic, smart candidate

who made the right call on the Iraq War and stepped out

on the issue when it was necessary. He was also, as I

said at the time, someone who could appear to be

different things to different people. The problem was

that too many of his supporters saw what they wanted to

see rather than what existed.

What existed? Well, from the beginning he was a

corporate candidate. We knew that. The question was not

whether he was one but the extent to which his views

could be shifted in order to take progressive, non-

corporate stands. Second, he was a candidate who was

going to avoid race as you or I would avoid a plague

ship. He went out of his way to prove that he was not

an `angry black man' and that race was not going to be

an issue that he would harp on. Third, he was clear

that he wanted to change the image of the USA around

the world, but it was not clear to what extent he

wanted to change the substance of the relationship of

the USA to the rest of the world.