http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/EXID5890/slideshows/090619105159Picture%2029.jpg

President Barack Obama, left receives grilling tips from Chef Bobby Flay on the South Lawn of the White House, June 19, 2009. AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari


http://www.examiner.com/ExaminerSlideshow.html?entryid=328235&slide=9

The guy's obviously very full of himself; that can't be denied.

Hey, that's Bobby Flay! He makes some GOOD food. I've used a few of his recipes. I'm ashamed to say that I just love some ribs now and again (forgive me, Mother Earth).

I am a Bobby Flay fan as well.

Talked with some farmer friends tonight, Midwesterners (God I was tired of talking to Washington people, no offense to any PNWers who may be here). I sort of dreaded the subject of politics coming up, because I thought sure they would defend Obama. Not at all - "opportunity squandered" "he is no FDR that is for sure" "he crushed the unions" "WTF with bailing out Wall Street?" "no promised infrastructure investments that mean anything" "letting the right wingers back off the mat" "kissing up to the Republicans" etc. etc. etc.

The honeymoon is over. Michigan is hurting. All over the state companies are laying off people, because thousands of businesses are dependent one way or another on the auto industry. People in Michigan did not fail to notice that Obama told the workers in the auto industry that they would have to make sacrifices while he shoveled billions into the pockets of the fat cats on Wall Street. "Sacrifices???" 12 families an hour are leaving Detroit. Home prices have gone from an average $120,000 to $10,000. There are homes in Detroit selling for $1. Tens of thousands of homes are vacant. Tens of thousands are homeless. It is having a ripple effect throughout the entire Midwest. The public school system is ion free fall and about to collapse.

The promise of health care is a bitter joke now. The auto industry got into trouble because of health care costs and because of the credit crunch. Those are the two groups destroying the country - the health care industry and investment banking - and those are the two that Obama is helping while he lets everyone else slide into abject poverty and desperation.

There is a firestorm of backlash building against Obama's right wing administration. The public has moved way beyond the Democratic party in all areas now. Obama is still liked out there, but that is ephemeral and transient and conditional, and support could go into free fall at any moment. People are expressing emptiness, shock, disappointment, and desperation.

Bad enough to be dying of thirst in the dessert. But then when someone says "this way to water" - with that reassuring smile on their face -and you trudge miles and miles only to discover it was a trick...

Obama completely owns the mess now: the wars, the assaults on the Constitution, the depression - more so than Bush, because Obama made explicit and implicit promises that he is now breaking, and the public is going to be much less forgiving of that than they were of Bush's idiocy, and any support or admiration for Bush is long gone now.

The people thought they were voting out the Bush policies. They are now seeing that the Obama policies are the same. That cannot end well.

except that I hope that all ends well. I hope that we peacefully create huge change in this country through huge marches and constant emails, letters, and phonecalls to our representatives. There's certainly a whole lot of work to be done in my neighborhood in terms of getting people on board. They are suffering, but have been conditioned to support the current system.

The more radical and militant we are, the faster it can happen and the less likely it will be that there will be violence. The slower and more cautious and moderate we are, the more the pressure builds and if that continues violence becomes an inevitable outcome eventually, no matter what we want.

Non-violence is not passivity or moderation. It takes more militancy, more discipline, more determination, and more courage.

the faster it can happen.

So, we basically agree - numerous, vocal and persistent would get an objective achieved.