<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><a href="http://rsnorg.org/opinion2/277-75/14409-top-ten-wish-list-for-president-obama">http://rsnorg.org/opinion2/277-75/14409-top-ten-wish-list-for-president-obama</a><div><br></div><div><br>
<h1 class="txttitle">Top Ten Wish List For President Obama</h1><p class="txtauthor">Juan Cole, Informed Comment</p><p class="date">07 November 12</p><div> <br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><p><img src="http://rsnorg.org/images/stories/alphabet/rsn-P.jpg" border="0">resident
Obama's reelection should mean more to progressives than simply dodging
the bullet of a Romney presidency indebted to the Tea Party. Democratic
politics has to be more than relief, while playing Russian Roulette,
that this time we got the empty chamber. Progressives are a significant
wing of the Democratic Party, and if we continue to be ignored, the
party will ultimately falter.</p><p class="indent">Clearly, Obama does not have progressive instincts,
and prefers to rule from the center. This impulse is wrong-headed, since
the center didn't man his campaign offices or make phone calls for him.
Ruling from the center means taking his base for granted while reaching
out to relatively conservative constituencies. This tactic is why we
don't have a single-payer health insurance plan. It is why Wall Street
reform has consisted of half-measures. It is why we are imposing a
financial blockade on Iran that could easily spiral into a war. When it
comes to the arch-conservatives, for the most part, Obama has never
learned to just say 'no.'</p><p class="indent">It does not help that Obama will face virtually the
same, obstructionist Tea Party House of Representatives that stymied him
for the past two years. Instead of going to them and asking how he
could make them happy, he has to threaten to make an all-out push to
turn them out of office in 2014 if they continue to say 'no' to
everything.</p><p class="indent">Progressives will have to push Obama to the left if we are to get what we want. This situation is nothing new– <a href="http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2010/11/fdr-wasnt-fdr-until-his-hand-was-forced.html" target="_blank">FDR's
New Deal would not have amounted to much if workers hadn't engaged in
widespread wildcat strikes and if people had not resorted to civil
disobedience</a>.</p><p class="indent">As for positive accomplishments, here are a few we should pressure him and Congress on:</p>
<ol>
<li>We need the <a href="http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/29/3891045/obama-romney-disagree-over-tax.html" target="_blank">tax break for wind energy to be continued</a>.
Uncertainty here is deadly to the industry. And it is facing
competition from cheap fracked natural gas (which is itself an
environmental disaster every which way from Sunday). Wind energy could
easily provide a quarter of all the electricity the US produces
annually, and it is a way of slowing the rapidly rising average
temperature of earth's surface. Obama should deploy Republicans from
high-wind states such as Iowa and Colorado to help make his case. It is
to Obama's credit that green energy doubled in the US from 3% to 6%
during his first term. But 6% is almost nothing, with Portugal, Germany,
Scotland and others being far more ambitious. Scotland wants to be 100%
green by 2020. Obama should emulate John F. Kennedy, Jr., and give a
major address committing the the nation to try to go green in 8 years,
just as Kennedy pledged to put us on the moon.</li>
<br>
<li>The Citizens United and other such rulings of the Supreme Court that
allow dark money to dominate our elections needs to be undone by
legislation. Corporations are not people, and Superpacs shouldn't be
buying our elections. Obama should start the work on a constitutional
amendment that would permit actual campaign finance reform so that our
elections look more like those of Western Europe and less like those of
Pakistan.</li>
<br>
<li>Banking regulation still needs to be strengthened. There is nothing
really in place that would prevent a repeat of the 2008 meltdown.
Moreover, relief for homeowners under threat of losing their mortgages
unfairly or arbitrarily needs to be pushed for again.</li>
<br>
<li>Obama needs to show leadership in pushing back against Koch Brother
attempts to destroy public sector unions. Moreover, he needs to create a
legal framework for the protection of the right to unionize in the
private sector, a right that has been gutted by corporations such as
Walmart. It was the unions that gave Mr. Obama Ohio, and if they are
undermined during the next four years, they won't be there to deliver
the state again.</li>
<br>
<li>He needs to have the Department of Justice look into the Koch Brother-backed <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-weiler/the-last-refuge-of-scound_b_2079941.html?utm_hp_ref=politics" target="_blank">legislation in two dozen states restricting the franchise</a>
by requiring a paid-for state i.d., which is a kind of poll tax. In
many states, this legislation violates the 1965 Voting Rights act. We
can't let a couple of sour billionaires undo the achievements of Rev.
Martin Luther King, Jr., achievements for which he gave his life.</li>
<br>
<li>That use of the Department of Justice would perhaps make its workers
and its head, Eric Holder, too busy to go around kicking down the doors
of medical marijuana clinics and confiscating their computers, records
and cash, in states where the state has legalized marijuana. Obama was
elected the first time by the youth, and had promised to cease Federal
harassment of pot clinics, but reneged and proved much worse than Bush
on this issue. Holder should stop denying the clear <a href="http://www.asuherald.com/opinion/benefits-of-medicinal-marijuana-proven-1.2777169#.UJobUmfhfpw" target="_blank">medical uses and benefits of pot</a>. In Colorado and Washington states, the same people who voted for him have legalized recreational marijuana. Moreover, the <a href="http://www.eastbayexpress.com/LegalizationNation/archives/2010/10/12/rand-study-prop-19-would-defund-local-pot-dealers" target="_blank">RAND Corp. concludes that legalization would defund the Mexican cartels</a>.
If the the Democratic Party continues on this Draconian path, it should
not be surprised when it begins losing elections because a substantial
younger constituency deserts it for the Green Party.</li>
<br>
<li>Obama put off further consideration of the PATRIOT Act until 2014. Several of its remaining provisions have been tagged by <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/03/16-3" target="_blank">Senators Wyden and Udall as unconstitutional and pernicious because of the way law enforcement is interpreting them "secretly."</a>
These unconstitutional provisions must be repealed altogether.
Moreover, Obama needs to come clean about the extent of Federal
violations of fourth amendment rights, warrantless surveillance of
citizens, and the data mining of our emails and possibly their storage
by the National Security Agency. As a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/us/politics/16cole.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0" target="_blank">victim of illegal White House/ CIA surveillance myself</a>,
I am furious that Obama has continued Bush-era abuses, and moreover
that the Democratic Party has not so much as bothered to launch an
investigation of my case.</li>
<br>
<li>The Bush tax cuts for the wealthy have to be allowed to lapse.</li>
<br>
<li>Obama must give up the fiction that a Department of Justice review
of assassination targets is the same thing as a court trial that ends in
an execution. The separation of powers is there in the constitution
because King George III used to use the executive to declare people
"outlaws" and have them killed on a whim, too. Maybe Obama and the
national security state think they have invented something new. They
haven't. Targeted assassination by executive fiat has been around for a
long time, and the Founding Fathers wanted it prohibited.</li>
<br>
<li>Obamacare has to be tweaked in the direction of a single payer system.</li>
</ol><div><br></div></div></body></html>