The Obligations of Dissent

Dissent is more than the constitutional right we enjoy exercising when the government is run by a bunch of war-mongering, torturing, murdering, traitorous, criminal thugs.

Dissent is the painful obligation we must fulfill when the government is run by the president of our dreams, the ultimate refutation of 28 years of wingnut freakazoid government destruction, the 21st Century's Lincoln and FDR rolled into one.

President Obama has already accomplished great things in the five weeks since he was inaugurated, exceeding most expectations and all predictions. Congress is squarely behind him, the GOP is imploding, his national approval ratings are approaching George Washington territory.

Now is the time to hold his feet to the fire.

On too many critical issues, President Obama is failing to act progressively:

• Another 18 months in Iraq and 50,000 troops indefinitely, instead of immediate withdrawal of all troops.
• More troops to that graveyard of empires Afghanistan, when everyone who knows the place insists that only removing troops and spending billions on reconstruction has a chance in hell of working.
• Refusing to prosecute the bush maladministration war criminals, which is a blatant violation of international treaties that will end with President Obama, not former president bush, facing trial in the Hague.
• Putting the economic crisis and the future of the world into the hands of Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, two corporate shills who actually worked to create the disaster President Obama expects them to solve.
• Keeping both coal and nuclear power in the nation's future energy mix, thus dooming any effort to achieve genuine renewable energy.
• Failing to reject the un-constitutional non-judicial trials of "detainees" and accepting the Smirky/Darth state secrets defense.
• Planning an incrementalist, corporatist approach to universal healthcare that is doomed to failure instead of solving the problem quickly by expanding Medicare to all.

Yes, some of this is merely the back-burner-ing of issues that President Obama will take up later, and some of it may be early moves in the 11-dimensional chess we all hope President Obama is playing.

But as liberals it is our patriotic duty to keep demanding action. To not take President Obama at his word that he's "got this." To ensure we never become the leader-worshipping lemmings who made it so easy for Smirky/Darth to shred the Constitution and drag the nation to catastrophe.

Our reach must exceed our grasp. We must always set goals beyond our current capability, or we will never achieve goals that are within our capability. We must insist this president work toward that perfect liberal world, or we will never escape the conservative quicksand that traps us.

The more President Obama achieves, the more we must demand he strive for more.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....