My blog post of January 18, 2009 may have identified the high point of the Obama administration: his inauguration. I’m fifty-one years old, so I should be immune to disillusionment, but the social safety net, one of the twentieth century’s greatest American achievements, is being dismantled by that same politician who re-ignited my idealism and hope for America’s future. President Obama’s willingness to negotiate away Social Security and Medicare in order to maintain the lowest effective tax rate for the rich in fifty years and provide subsidies to the richest corporations in the history of the world sets a new high-water mark for disillusionment and disgust. At my age, I should be cynical enough to know better, but I can’t help but feel like that young man who, when Bob Dylan showed up in 1966 with an electric guitar and a rock and roll band, yelled “Judas!”
It’s an admittedly extreme reaction, but it’s been a lifetime in the making. This morning, a friend sent me a YouTube link to Mario Cuomo’s keynote address from the 1984 Democratic National Convention. The speech is both remarkable and disappointing because it not only speaks for its own time, it speaks for today, perhaps even more loudly. Governor Cuomo’s addressed all of his remarks to the then current president, Republican Ronald Reagan. Ironically, this speech resonates even more deeply with our current Democratic President.
The text:
Thank you very much.
On behalf of the great Empire State and the whole family of New York, let me thank you for the great privilege of being able to address this convention. Please allow me to skip the stories and the poetry and the temptation to deal in nice but vague rhetoric. Let me instead use this valuable opportunity to deal immediately with the questions that should determine this election and that we all know are vital to the American people.
Ten days ago, President Reagan admitted that although some people in this country seemed to be doing well nowadays, others were unhappy, even worried, about themselves, their families, and their futures. The President said that he didn’t understand that fear. He said, “Why, this country is a shining city on a hill.” And the President is right. In many ways we are a shining city on a hill.
But the hard truth is that not everyone is sharing in this city’s splendor and glory. A shining city is perhaps all the President sees from the portico of the White House and the veranda of his ranch, where everyone seems to be doing well. But there’s another city; there’s another part to the shining the city; the part where some people can’t pay their mortgages, and most young people can’t afford one; where students can’t afford the education they need, and middle-class parents watch the dreams they hold for their children evaporate.
© 2011, Fred Bubbers. All rights reserved.
Republicans, however, are doubling down on their strategy to make things even worse by insisting on massive spending cuts. Nothing will stand in their way, not the beleaguered mid-west desperately in need of assistance after floods and tornadoes, not the full faith and credit of the United States. Disaster relief and the debt ceiling are both being held hostage to their fiscal irresponsibility. Their solution to either cut taxes or outlaw abortion. (I’ll save the second one for another time). Once again, we hear the same complete nonsense from Republicans that we’ve been hearing for generations. Speaker of the House, and master of the non-sequitur, 
advocate for nuclear power, stated that the BP oil spill last summer was a greater catastrophe than what is currently happening in Japan. Although it’s true that the oil spill wrecked an entire ecosystem and has had a devastating effect on the economy of the gulf states, it’s far too early to compare catastrophes. The ultimate damage inflicted by the out-of-control reactors in Japan, like the ultimate impact of the oil-spill, will not be fully known for years or even decades.
