March 06, 2012 05:03 AM UTC

Vote "Uncommitted" at caucus to support Progressive values

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• by: DKOColo

Many Democrats are disappointed with the Obama administration’s failure to consistently defend Americans against the destructionist tactics of the extreme right-wing over the last three years. While we acknowledge the many gains that have taken place in spite of the most obstructionist Congress in history, we still have a long way to go. While we strongly support the re-election of the President, we will not allow the issues most important to most Americans to be relegated to the back of the of the Democratic Party bus.

Too often we’ve seen the administration’s leadership falter, beginning with the first moments of the President’s term, when he named an anti-progressive chief of staff to lead his agenda. We shed no tears that Rahm Emanuel has gone, but too many of those strong-arm and financially motivated issues continue to linger.

Still open is Guantanamo Bay, a tribute to torture and policies that have even caused the indictment of the prior President and Vice-President in some countries while no meaningful investigation and action on our own soil has been ordered. American troops are still dying in Afghanistan.

The attack on working families and their children continues. Across the country, local jurisdictions and states have publicly rejected the Secure Communities (SCOMM) program and have told the federal government that they do not want SCOMM to destroy their communities, break families apart, and encourage discriminatory police practices such as racial profiling. The Bush Administration’s No Child Left Behind law and its push toward the privatization of public education exacerbated under programs such as Race to the Top, continues punish families, rather than addressing the socioeconomic root causes of struggling schools and the need to better fund education. We can’t continue these actions and still say we include everyone in the tent.

There are still far too many involved in the Administration related to the financial collapse preceding the election of the President, and we hope that Tim Geitner makes good on his plans to no longer serve as Secretary of the Treasury in a second Obama term. We hope some of the other economic advisors are asked to join him. Eric Holder has done little to inspire confidence in investigating the banking collapse that his former law firm blessed when they gave the OK to a banking-run system that has wrecked home ownership records throughout the country. More prosecutions took place during the Savings and Loan Crisis of the 1980s and 1990s than have taken place at the Justice Department for obvious criminal acts that almost created a new Great Depression.

Hardly a sound was whispered when Treasury and Justice failed to take Standard and Poor’s to task for their favorable treatment of poor-quality mortgage backed securities, while at the same time allowing S&P to hold the country’s debt rating seemingly for ransom in the palm of their hand. Not good enough.

The banking industry has taken far too much from the 99%, which was so well demonstrated through the Occupy Wall Street and related movements, and have given back virtually nothing. The historical “housing settlement” that offers a pittance to those improperly foreclosed upon still does virtually nothing to provide fair treatment to our citizens negatively impacted when that industry stuffed itself with profits. While finally appointing a director to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the President refused to act decisively and sooner with the spine behind the backbone of the CFPB, Elizabeth Warren. We wish her well and success in her effort to become a member of the US Senate as a person with true progressive values.

We have thus far turned our back on landowners and citizens who receive water from underground resources, and failed to put an honest effort into stopping the expansion of fracking, and other failures that are within the control of the administration in the EPA have been left without attention. Further, the administration has shown a keen lack of judgment in the protection of our food supply by appointing Monsanto executives to the FDA.

The campaign arm of the Obama Administration, “Organizing for America” must look to recalibrate its purpose from one hoping to create an army of lemmings, to one tasked with moving towards a constitutional amendment to abolish the effects of Citizens United and work to remove money from politics, not further entrench it through a self-sustaining system that instead circumvents the Democratic Party altogether.

These are just a few issues that cause us to pause.

We encourage Democrats attending the Colorado caucuses on March 6 to register their disappointment with the administration by casting a vote for “uncommitted,” by listing their issues, and by bringing them forth to county assemblies. We urge them to follow through at county assemblies and work to become uncommitted delegates to the national convention.

Make no mistake: we support the re-election of Barack Obama as President of the United States. We also support election of more true progressives, which we believe really are the core of the American public.

We still believe that the Democratic Party is a place for democratically-supported dissent and airing of grievances, and we expect the titular head of the party to listen to the voices of its most dedicated activists.

Andrea Mérida and Dennis Obduskey

Co-chairs, Progressive Democrats of Colorado