Let me apologize in advance for a bit of chicanery and “trickeration” I used to draw you to this article. We journalists who strive to actually treat readers like adults and cover news and proffer editorials on the issues of the day have to adapt to the zeitgeist we live in. There is a reason that the mainstream media act the part of juveniles with their banal and outlandish lead ins and headlines. While I will never revert to the idiocy of CNN, Huffington Post or Fox News with words like “BOOM” or “Throwing Shade” in the titles of the posts I posit, I do acknowledge that catchy titles are vital in order to draw the attention of readers.

The preceding paragraph, of using style and flash to attract an audience, actually fits very nicely into topic I’m presenting before you. Politicians are doing the same thing our mainstream media is doing, they offer canned speeches and teleprompter driven conversations and we the people eat it up instead of asking questions. See, not too long ago I was the very political idol worshiper that I now spend my time trying to convince others to stop being. I have no shame in admitting that I too was a political hack who was a blind follower of all things Barack Obama. This was before reality mugged me right in my mug and woke me up to the deception of our political system. Now that I have been jarred awake from my herd like devotion to Democrats and refuse to adhere to any political ideology other than the politics of humanity, I keep running into current devotees of Obama who are so far into the Obama illusion that I have a hard time holding a reasonable dialogue with them.

So this article is devoted to Obama fans, it is my hope that you listen to the words I’m writing with an open mind instead of being closed to anything that does not fall in line with your thinking. Moreover, know that my condemnation of Obama is not an attack on you by extension. Obama is just another human being, if I condemn his actions that should not be a cause for friction between us as a people. We take politics too personal and defend politicians on all sides with a tenacity befitting a junkyard dog even as these politicians don’t think twice about us. Do you think Obama or Trump spend their time getting pissed off when people attack their base? Of course not, they are too busy sipping expensive champagne and eating truffles at their chalets to give a second thought about us. Parenthetically, you should be offended that anyone calls you their base, do I have to remind you what base means and where the base belongs on a pyramid? I am perplexed when I think about it, as the powerful insult us and make our lives miserable, some of us ready to declare holy war defending political snakes we have never even met as we take any aspersion thrown at our political heroes as a personal affront!

But let me get let me get to the heart of this article. I am going to ask one question and one question of my friends who consider themselves Obama voters and backers. Was Obama responsible for the economic crash of 2008 and the Great Recession of 2009/2010 that followed? Now I know there are “liberals” and Obama supporters who nearly popped a vein in their temple shaking their head in disbelief that I dare to ask that question. Let me revert to my former Obama loyalist days and answer this question I just asked the way I used to answer it when I used to defend Obama’s handling of the economy all the way up until 2014.

Of course Obama was not responsible for the economic crash of 2008! How could he be! He was just running for president, he did not even take office until January 20th of 2009. Moreover, the Great Recession that took place during his first couple of years was not his fault either. How could it be! He was dealing with an economy that Bush broke. This was my canned political response to everyone and anyone who dared to question Obama’s economic stewardship. As I was parroting DNC talking points, I nonetheless thought myself the political sage and dismissed anyone who did not follow the Obama orthodoxy as an uninformed truther or an ignorant tea partier.

Now let me respond to my old political hack self and in the process challenge my Obama loyalists with this next question. If Obama was not responsible for the Great Recession of 2009 because he was handed an economy and a country in shambles when he took office on January 20th, applying that logic means you should be directing your outrage for the current state of our nation at Obama. I mean Trump only took office on January 20th, surely you are not telling me that our country went to the crapper only since January 20th of 2017! The things we are all outraged about, the economic inequality, the continued immoral wars over seas, the ways that our own government spies on us in ways that makes the East German Stasi look like cub scouts—all these things were taking place during the Obama administration.

So then why are progressives up in arms over Trump when he has only been in office for less than two months while continuing to ignore the endless ways that Obama outBushed the horrors of George Bush. Think this is hyperbole? Bush started two immoral wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, for which the “left” was rightly outraged over. Well Obama said “I see your illegal wars and I’ll raise you four” as he continued the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and started a few more for kicks in Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and the endless nations he kept droning around the world. For those who believe the lie that Obama ended the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that is a lie straight from Lucifer’s lips. Wars are not counted based on boots on the ground, wars exist when there are bodies in the street. To that end, our military-financial complex laden government has been inducing dead bodies around the planet by way of missiles, bombs and drones that is Hague tribunal worthy.

To be honest, I could go on listing the Obama deception for another 20 pages. I mean do I need to recount the ways Obama sent trillions to the same crooks who bled our economy and our nation by way of bailouts and monetary policies (QE, ZIRP) while giving the middle finger to home owners and those of us who are not fortunate enough to be counted as part of the aristocratic 1%? Or how about the fact that Obama actually set the precedent of illegally assassinating combatants and American citizens alike with nary a court hearing or Habeas Corpus. But wait there’s more, how about Obama expanded the state spying initiated by Bush as our government is literally vacuuming every data that is sent over the internet and cell towers and storing them in vast databases. That means the right to secrecy is dead, speak a little too much against power and they can look at any one of our data, online transactions, conversations either in real time or retrospectively and find damming information that can be used against us. We basically live in the Republic of Korea with city lights and better amenities.

So all these outrages the progressives chose to ignore and now all the sudden Trump’s imbecilic Tweets are cause enough to take action? I mean the outrage over Trump can’t really be based on policy for he has not been in office long enough to actually implement too many policies. The policies that Trump has enacted he has done so through executive orders, and for that we have Obama to thank as well for it was Obama who legislated from the White House through executive orders and provided the justification for Trump to do the same. So then the outrage is mostly over the fatuity of Trump and is not really based on substance. People tell me all the time “Teddy why are you focused on Obama when Trump is the one in power”. To which I point back to the justification too many, including myself, used when Obama first got elected. If we kept blaming Bush for almost the entirety of Obama’s administration, isn’t it par for the course to blame Obama now for at least the first couple of months of this carnival barker Trump’s administration?

The problem is that too many let political affinity and loyalty to politicians get in the way of common sense and logic. We truly are a nation of personality of cults; we keep idolizing before the feet of duplicitous politicians and double-dealing pundits. Instead of being loyal to the truth, too many take an oath of fidelity to their favorite political idol. This is why our nation is going to hell in a hand basket; we are too fractured by ideologies, identities, personalities to see that all of us are actually outraged over the very same things. And this is why the system keeps on giving us empty suit politicians like Obama and Trump who read from teleprompters or Tweet the most moronic things in order to keep our eyes averted from the root of injustice. If the talk is about the “style and grace” of Obama or how he sang Al Green’s song or being outraged over Trump’s mangled Tweets, we are not addressing the policies that is taking from all of us right? And this is how the system wins when a people are too distracted by sensationalism and emotion to properly analyze the way forward.

Just yesterday, Wikileaks revealed through Vault 7 things that, in any other country, would lead to a no-confidence vote against our entire government and an overthrow of parliament. Not in this country, here the mainstream media is barely touching this story and is instead covering the insane Russian story trying to gin up yet another war for there is money to be had in bombs going boom! This is the corrosive nature of our politics and our “free press”; some are willing to risk the end of humanity by way of a nuclear war with Russia in order to garner more visitors to their website or to distract us from realizing the brokenness of our government.

Sadly, we feed into this madness and rarely do we hold our politicians accountable. Nobody was held accountable for the horrors of 9/11, nobody was held accountable for the genocide committed in Iraq by our military-financial complex, nobody was held accountable for the 5,000+ of our men and women who died in that war of extortion or the tens of thousands of veterans who have committed suicide, nobody was held accountable for the biggest larceny in the history of mankind in 2008. Nobody is accountable for anything. We are letting lawless politicians in DC rule through totalitarianism masked by the pretense of a two party political system when in reality both parties are part and parcel of the globalist corporate agenda.

Well I am doing my part to hold Obama accountable the same way I am still holding Bush accountable for the war of lies and the cover up of 9/11. To my “liberal” and “progressive” friends, I say to you simply, you can’t have it both ways. Either Obama was not responsible for the Great Recession because it was Bush’s fault, in which case Trump is not responsible for the way our nation is being torn asunder because it’s Obama’s fault. Or the inverse, the recession of 2009 was not Bush’s fault and the economic crash was Obama’s fault back then and but that makes him blameless for what is going on now. Either the previous administration is responsible when a new president is elected or the new president is responsible the minute he is elected, but picking and choosing when to assign accountability makes one lose all credibility.

But in reality the truth is this, we keep focusing on politics when we should be focusing on policies. When it comes to policies nothing has changed for Bush was a continuation of Clinton, Obama the continuation of Bush, and now Trump is the continuation of Obama. These things are all interconnected; politics is meant as a show to keep us misdirected and perpetually avert our eyes from the true source of power and injustice. So maybe we should stop gazing at the navel of political idols and instead understand that politics is being used against us to keep us in the dark and keep us constantly at war with each other. Until a critical mass of people unite and put aside politics and defend our common interest, we will keep getting the government we deserve.

From a false hope peddler to a now small-handed orange buffoon, the hits keep coming along and we just keep getting bowled over. Perhaps it is time for us to stop bickering so that we can finally hold all politicians accountable without regard to political affiliation. Instead of being loyal to ideologies, let us instead be loyal to ideas. Instead of being offended by divergent voices, let us embrace our differences and realize that we can be about oneness while appreciating what makes us unique. Most importantly, let us stop worshiping at the feet of political puppets and realize the change will come from us—the people—or it won’t come at all. Instead of kowtowing to politicians, let us hold all of them accountable. This is me holding Obama accountable #Occountable

This deceptive democracy and illegitimate government needs cyclical change to perpetuate confusion and misdirect anger.

Just remember that the tears of the Dahkota people were flowing during DAPL under Obama’s watch while too many were being diverted by politics. What happens to the Dahkota people will eventually happen to all of us if we don’t wake up and unite together!

If you agree with this article and believe that politicians from Obama to Trump need to be held accountable irrespective of their party affiliation, complexion, or their identification, use social media and send this to the world and hold the feet of politicians, pundits and plutocrats alike to the fire using #Occountable

Tags: Barack Obama, Dahkota Tribe, Dakota Access Pipeline, DAPL, Democrats, Donald Trump, Economic Crash, Ethiopians for Obama, Ghion Journal, GOP, Great Recession, Michelle Obama, Mitt Romney, Obama, Occountability, Pence, Republicans, Teddy Fikre