Many progressive organizations headquartered in Washington are playing it cozy with Obama and the Democratic leaders of Congress. "We won, didn't we?" they ask, referring to last year's election and the momentous switch from the Bushites to the Obamacans.
Well, no -- not yet.
Yes, Obama's in the White House, and that's a vast improvement, but it's hardly "mission accomplished." Obama is only going to be as good as we push him to be.
Already, we've seen compromises and capitulations to the corporate powers and the right wing:
- A Wall Street bailout, of, by and for the banksters who crashed our economy.
- A health care reform plan that's now being reduced to mush in order to appease the insurance giants -- and with a kicker that diminishes the basic rights of women.
- A foot-dragging approach to undoing the Bush-Cheney lockdown on our fundamental freedoms.
For decades, we progressives have had to spend all of our energies just to stave off the worst of the worst. Now is no time "to go along to get along." More urgently than ever, we need the Lowdown's populist aggressiveness and grassroots agitation.
So we're asking for your helping hand.
I know that times are tough, but even a few dollars will help - so act now. Click the donate button, right there where the bucket is!
We'll send you a receipt for your tax-deductible contribution. I thank you for your generosity.
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The Hightower Lowdown
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Despite a constant racket from the forces of the far-out right (Fox television's yackety-yackers, just-say-no GOP know-nothings, tea-bag howlers, Sarah Palinistas, et al.), the great majority of Americans support a bold progressive agenda for our country, ranging from Medicare for all to the decentralization and re-regulation of Wall Street. Indeed, in the elections of 2006 and 2008, people voted for a fundamental break from Washington's 30-year push to enthrone a corporate kleptocracy.
