The Grant Park Dream Has Died
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by Paul A. Moore
What a difference four months make. On November 4, 2008, tears "tears flowed like a mighty river" from half a million pairs of eyes in Chicago's Grant Park, where Barack Obama made his victory speech. Today, "Obama has no intention of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq and ending that war," "there will be no genuine single payer national health care system under this president," and Obama invites "voucher and charter school boosters to the White House." The dream has turned into a hoax.
The Grant Park Dream Has Died
by Paul A. Moore
“There will be no genuine single payer national health care system under this president.”
It was the night of November 4, 2008 and each of the half-million human beings in Grant Park in Chicago represented thousands more around the world. The dreams rushed up in a violent torrent. The tears flowed like a mighty river.
It had been so long since dreaming made sense.
There had been the Reagan Revolution and the enshrinement of greed, rapaciousness, and materialism as the state religion. There had been the beginnings in 1991 of the long war to gain control of the planet’s oil supplies. There had been the period of the most "Republican" Democrat ever to occupy the White House, a man so vapid and devoid of character that he sought nothing of his office beyond his own sexual gratification. There had been the eight years of the most utter hopelessness and despair as the United States of America moved as close to fascism and the end of constitutional government as it has ever been.
Today, the dreams of Grant Park were assaulted.
Today, a U.S. soldier in Iraq used his weapon to kill five of his comrades and wound three more. The fratricide occurred at a Camp Victory clinic that treats military personnel for stress. President Obama released a statement that "his heart goes out to all the families" but it is clear now that he has no intention of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq and ending that war.
Today, Barack Obama's national security advisor Gen. James Jones, rejected Afghan President Hamid Karzai's demand the U.S. halt all aerial attacks in that country. Gen. Jones said, "we can't fight with one hand tied behind our back." With both hands free a U.S. air strike in Afghanistan's Farah province killed as many as 130 civilians. Afghan doctors report treating at least 14 victims of severe burns. White phosphorus munitions produce severe burns so human rights organizations will investigate.
“It is clear now that Obama has no intention of ending the Democratic Party's ‘good war’ in Afghanistan and the deadly drone attacks on Pakistan.”
President Obama met with his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts on the day of the Farah raid and commented that his "heart went out to the victims" but it is clear now that he has no intention of ending the Democratic Party's "good war" in Afghanistan and the deadly drone attacks on Pakistan. It's just a matter of better management. Gen. McKiernan is fired and now Lt. Gen. McChrystal will bring the art of deception he used so effectively after the death of Pat Tillman to the war.
Today, the Advanced Medical Technology Association; the medical device manufacturers, the hospital owners, the HMO's, the insurance industry, and the drug makers offered the President a $2 trillion IOU to leave them in control of health care in the U.S.. President Obama acknowledged that the American people "desperately need health care reform in 2009" but he took the vampire's kiss. There will be no genuine single payer national health care system under this president.
Today, it was reported that "President Barack Obama wants to see 5,000 failing schools close and reopen with new principals and teachers over the next five years." Failing schools is the race neutral way of saying public inner-city schools. Replacing the principals and teachers identifies them as the reason the schools are failing.
“President Obama had voucher and charter school boosters to the White House the other day for advice on educational policy.”
Today, there was no comment from the White House on yesterday's Mother's Day protest in Chicago, the hometown of both the President and his Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. The mother's have lost their school age children to gun violence. "We can't eat. We can't sleep. We're angry. We're sad. We don't understand our purpose for life. Our children were our purpose for life," protesting mother Pam Bosley said. Insight into the reason these mother's have taken their private grief to the public is provided by the Chicago Sun-Times.A total of 508 Chicago school kids were shot from September 2007 through December 2008, according to data compiled by the school system and released to the Chicago Sun-Times.
That's almost 32 children shot each month.
Most of these kids, thankfully, did not die.
But the damage is tremendous nonetheless.
There is the physical damage, which is awful enough. But the psychological damage can last much longer -- both for the victim and their classmates. Many kids in the most violent neighborhoods of Chicago are paralyzed by fear, and it's hard to blame them.
They are thinking rationally.
In 130 schools, at least one student has been shot since September 2007.
In 15 schools, at least 10 students have been shot.
In 12 other schools, at least 5 students have been shot.
School officials compiled this data to look for patterns that might help them get a handle on the problem. It was collected under former schools CEO Arne Duncan. New schools CEO Ron Huberman is reviewing and verifying the data.
None of these children was shot in school, it's important to note.
President Obama had voucher and charter school boosters to the White House the other day for advice on educational policy. The nation was treated to the incredible spectacle former Speaker Newt Gingrich posing as an enemy of racism and a proponent of civil rights for his concern over the "achievement gap." There was no mention of the infant mortality gap, or the life expectancy gap, or the household assets gap, or the employment gap, or the incarceration gap, or the quality of healthcare gap, or any of the other gaps that might shatter the illusion that Newt Gingrich gives a damn about people of color.
And speaking of gaps, today the leaders of historically Black colleges vowed to fight the elimination of a program they called a financial lifeline in a time of economic distress. President Obama's budget left an $85 million gap in a fund that Black institutions received in the last two years of the Bush Administration.
Today, the dreams of Grant Park stand as a cruel hoax.
Paul A. Moore is a teacher, Miami Carol City High School, Miami, Florida. He can be contacted at WWWKings@aol.com.
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Thank you to share your point of view about the
How interesting and amazing your post is! It is useful and helpful for me that I like it very much,and I am looking forward to hearing from your next. !!!It is better than watch some Hollywood dvd movies
So sad
What a story! It's so sad. Thanks for the post, anyway.
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I was sad too when I heard
I was sad too when I heard the news. There has been a long history, the name will stay in many people' heart.
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Crack Pipe Dreams for a Delusional Nation
With all due respect, if you had been a consistent reader of BAR you would have realized that the only tears to be shed were the tears of bitter betrayal. There were many of us, unfortunately in the minority, who conjured up nightmares not dreams. Bloggers spent month after month, week after week doing their best to peel back the Obama oaky doak to no avail. We now see how far that got us?! We were confronted with hostility if not downright hatred, certainly ridicule from the faux liberal Whites and the Black Management Class. You don't raise damn near a Billion dollars to run for President to all of a sudden morph into a "movement" leader. Everyone knows politics is all about influence peddling and your $20 donation just doesn't measure up to a corporate flim flam man's $20K donation. Only critical thinking capacities on recess could conclude otherwise.
By the way, I'm wondering if those tears Jesse is shedding were due to the fact that Dexter King has just texted him dashing his hopes to be a co-producer for the splashy Dreamworks production of MLK, Jr.s bio. What a debacle that "dream" has become. Sibling rivalries and dollar signs. In the immortal words of Mr. T, "I pity the fool." The Grant Park Dream didn't just die, it was dead on arrival just like the zombie banks.
http://www.accessatlanta.com/movies/content/movies/stories/2009/05/19/ml...
And to go a level deeper I suggest to anyone a thorough read of Arthur Silber's blog about the mindset of those who desire to be President:
"Reflect for just a moment about what it is they want to win so desperately. Each of these three persons [McCain, Obama and Clinton] wants to be the most powerful ruler in the world. Given the nature of the weapons that will be at their disposal, they want to be the most powerful ruler in all of history, with the power to fundamentally transform human history and perhaps even to end it in significant part. Even if you believed that you acted righteously, with justice and truth on your side (let us set aside for the moment how one can believe that the power to murder millions of innocent people can ever be thought to be right or just, although I do not believe such considerations should ever be set aside), would you want power of that kind? If you would, I hope never to meet you. For any person who actively seeks the power of life and death over just one other human being, let alone millions of people, is deeply, irrevocably damaged in psychological terms. If we use the term "normal" to designate those goals and motives that can generally be described as supportive of individual life and happiness, no one who wants to be president of the United States is remotely close to normal. When you consider the years of relentless, soul-destroying ambition that are required to approach the office of president, together with the indefensible compromises, the endless lies, and the constant exercise of power over others in less extreme forms, anyone who deeply desires to be president verges on a constant state of insanity.
Yet one of these terrifyingly deranged people will, in fact, be the next president. Many Americans are excited, even thrilled, about the prospect, which tells you a rather important fact about most Americans, actually many important facts. I have numerous reasons for dreaming of a stateless world. There are others, but these are among the most critical of them."
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/
Insightful post, Lou
It's good to run into another fan of Silber's work as well. He completed my political education. Until I discovered Once Upon a Time and The Sacred Moment, I never had an answer for why Democrats refuse to stand up for Democratic principles, and join in the MSM mockery of those few brave souls like Dennis Kucinich who do. I passed the Clinton years uneasily defending him from those who would slandr him just because he was a "liberal," while watching him give the "Conservatives" every thing they wanted, from deep-sixing universal health care, to punting on ending discrimination against homosexuals in the military, to NAFTA, massive financial and media deregulation, and a healrhy dose of interventionalist imperialism.
With Obama, it would be "Deja Vu all over again," except Arthur laid the awful truth of the Democratic party bare for any one who was willing to see. It was painful to have the myth of political opposition ripped from me, but it was a relief to finally have a coherent political narrative that actually explained the political reality all Americans and millions of the world's inhabitants have been subject to for over a century now. I think I actually first discovered this site from his blogroll, in the middle of the longest presidential campaign in history.
Being regarded as "mostly sane" by Arthur Silber is a high endorsement indeed. I am very thankful for the timely analysis both he and BAR provide those of us who want to know what is really happening. It's good to see I am not alone.
So true Lou
Excellent post as usual my brother. To me, Jesse seems to be crying over the fact that it was not him who had become president. His contorted face reveals deep-seated pain as you might see in a child that has lost its favorite toy! That's no face of happiness. Those are the tears frequently produced by actors who are compelled to cry in a scene. They imagine painful moments in their past or what would be very painful in the future, such as the death of a child. As you know, Jesse has always been an actor. The corporate media was quick to pounce on this deception. It was labeled, " a powerful expression of emotional pain by one who is seeing the culmination of his work on behalf of our fellow citizens"! Suddenly, we became fellow citizens, Lou! Everyone was on cloud nine as the "K - Street anointed one" ascended the stage. Unfortunately, my brother, I changed channels right at that moment.