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In-House Narrative on the conception and development of The Act
The Act traveled a very winding road in its creation. As has already been pointed out, we didn't know what we had until about late August 2011, even then, we weren't sure what was exactly the document we had created.
It has its beginnings way back when the lack of correctly assigning responsibility and blame for the existing political conditions, the misdirection of anger. The overblown expectations and thus demands for The President to fix the whole enchilada, while in passing, it was occasionally 'mentioned' that.... daaaa.... Repugnicans, yeah, they were obstructing, but THAT IT WAS UP TO OBAMA TO TAKE CARE OF EVERYTHING, we think this started almost as soon as Obama was inaugurated. This became intolerable and we talked, and talked, and talked about it; as you may remember of our email exchanges in these subjects over a period of many months. During this time, many or our comrades and friends bailed out on us 'Obama unconditional supporters', the label itself was so offensive to Juanita and me because we are not 'unconditional', but we were insisting in fairness, insisting that all the factors, players, their actions or inaction be taken into account and considered prior to rendering opinions or judgments in assigning responsibilities / blame; specially ourselves (You know that story of course)
During and after the Health Care 'debate', as it was made clear to anyone paying attention, that while admitting that our side continued to start negotiations from the weakest of positions by introducing proposals based on what our side thought 'the regressive' would agree on. It was so infuriatingly frustrating, but also gave room to entertain the possibility that another strategic scenario was at play on what the President was doing.
Juanita and I, during our daily strategic phonecons, we started to ponder on the possibility that The President had his own agenda, we glimpsed it through a pattern we started to discern, it looked like the Prez was engaged in exposing the opposition's intransigence, like if he finally came to terms with the fact that it was impossible to make substantial gains without neutralizing the (GOP) Teaparty. During and after the Debt Ceiling Brouhaha, our hypotheses were reaffirmed in our minds. We couldn't tell if it was incidental or by design, but the President was actually kicking Repugnican ass, yes, he 'lost' several battles, but in the view of the people, he was getting, gasp! Sympathy and some empathy; and the Teaparty / GOP took a good whack in adverse public opinion.
We wanted to write pieces to implant the idea of the possibility of an scenario where it was likely a logical possibility that he was on a conscious fight to literally show the people who the real villains were, but in any event, in our minds it didn't make a difference if it was incidental or by design, the fact of the matter was, that what was happening in front of our eyes, was the stark reality of what actually mattered in the 'debate / negotiations'; total antagonism from the GOP in any and all issues – The Debt Ceiling was both scary and entertaining to us, at some point, the President was proposing even larger cuts to Medicare than the Repugnicans, notably when 'where-is-the-A-in-Bainer?' Bohenner proposed 2 trillion in cuts, Obama upped the ante by saying 'why 2 trillion?', l'et's make it three', then he went to propose 'heck, let's go big, make it 4 trillion' – It was so funny the way 'orange-guy' reversed his position (If it had been a vehicle, the rubber-burning smoke would've been some sight to behold) – He set up both 'where-is-the-A-in-Bainer?' Bohenner and Cantor to make them literally walk out of negotiations. He knew that the crazies, the people and himself, all understood that he was playing them and that there was nothing they'd do about it because they had effectively boxed themselves in locked-in positions and there was only one way that they could have to react – WOW! What an advantage when you know before hand what the opposition's cards are and how they will irremediably play them. Furthermore, for weeks and weeks now, it was patently obvious that any measure that the President was in favor, the GOP would be against, even when it was their own proposals, they would flip-flop and be fiercely against them. Funny to watch them attack their own ideas, delectable when imagining what was going through their minds.
We were outraged how the GOP was getting a ‘pass’ from our side, like… Well you know what to expect from them, but the President should lead, be stronger, fight harder, etc., and where was the people? Where were we who knew and had agreed that we would help him carry out our Agenda? We all remember that movie. Aghhhh!
For some time now, Juanita and I had come to conclude that while the President was playing Chess, the GOP was playing Chinese Checkers. Also, it appeared that he was employing 'Po' Strategies and there were some similarities with 'Sun Wu' Strategies as well (Very popular now days, from Military Academies, Political Campaigns and even Business and Sports' overall plans for action.)
So, the project to publish a piece 'hinting' at the possible alternate scenario we detected, gave us the title of the first proposal for a document titled “Professorial” Mr. President B. Obama is losing battles to win the war!
In the piece we wanted to point out that it would take for the people take responsibility and take part in the fight with positive action instead of just bitching; ‘Obama has done nothing’ was the mantra repeated over and over in spite that the statement was factually incorrect. While we knew that our President was not living up to our complete expectations, neither were the people who allegedly were his supporters.
Having concluded that we couldn’t get anything done expecting Washington to act in benefit of the people, we felt that what was needed was a way for the people to skirt the political clog with actions that were so independent from them that there would be nothing they’d do to stop it (The People’s Initiatives)
In very late July and early August, we communicated / proposed to sister Dorinda our project, and on August 7th, 8th, she encouraged us to go ahead and develop the document, then placed it for consideration to our comadres and compadres.
Priority/Please respond if you wish receiving this Opinion that invites Dialogue (Partial Draft) "Professorial" Mr. President B. Obama losing battles to win the war.
Sent By:
dorinda moreno On: Aug 08/08/11 10:59 PM
To: Sadie Williams; "Robert Robinson" <rgrbob@earthlink.net>; "Tony Perez" <ganasperez@yahoo.com>; Georgia Bowen-quinones; canizar@verizon.net; palast@gregpalast.net; "Sharon Kyle" <smkyle1@yahoo.com>; "Hilda Zacarias" <hildazacarias@yahoo.com>; "Solomon Baldenegro" <salomonrb@msn.com>
Cc: Aurora Grajeda
Yes, it had its humble beginnings as an opinion piece. As it continued to be developed by Juanita and I, pretty soon it became apparent that there was a whole lot more that could be said, and the document grew larger and larger to the point that we proposed to 'split it' into a Three Part Document which were:
“Professorial” Mr. President B. Obama, is losing battles to win the war.
PART I of III: “PROJECTION OF UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS”
“Professorial” Mr. President B. Obama, is losing battles to win the war.
PART II of III: “WHAT AND WHICH ARE OUR GAINS?”
How President Obama has utilized and benefited by not letting opportunities in crises go to waste.
(Previous subtitle: To seek for the better ways on how to utilize and benefit from them.)
“Professorial” Mr. President B. Obama, is losing battles to win the war.
PART III of III: “THE POWER OF ONE”
What we can do to not let these crises go to waste, hence winning the Political / Domestic War.
As Part III was being written, it became apparent that it was turning into a very 'hefty' document, with and average of 9 pages per Part, Juanita and I came to the 'conclusion' that it'd be extremely unrealistic to expect many people to read the whole document to get a full sense of what it was all about, also, Part III had to include arguments from Part I and II, which made it kind of repetitive. Hence we felt it'd be more advantageous to 'Merge' the Three Parts into one; we shared with sis Dorinda our thoughts and she agreed. Again, she encouraged us to go ahead and offered observations and suggestions including the over-all-focus and the title for the proposal.
On the first week of September, we had what we called:
PROGRESSIVE GRASSROOTS AGENDA
A SIMPLE BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY WHICH ALSO CREATES JOBS
CONTENTS
1.Introduction / Overview
2.Objectives
.Focus Points
By this time, both Juanita and I knew that we had something good going on, as a matter of fact, it was revolutionary in its effects, with or without government participation, but also realized that it needed a 'Professional Touch' Which we couldn't do due to our limitations in expertise in many areas/issues that our document touched on. Once again we turned to Dorinda for help in getting someone in our group that would 'convert' our Proposal into a real, professional-looking Business Proposal Presentation.
Both Saddie and Robert had expressed interest in helping. Saddie was ready to evaluate it from a business perspective once it was finished, but what was needed at that moment was a complete and comprehensive edition of it. Robert was contacted and asked to assist, after asking and receiving answers from me on overall questions in goals, strategies, objectives, etc., he said two things “OK, you got my attention, send me what you got” And “I'm brutal when editing, so, Egos need to be put out of the way”, I replied to him saying “Go ahead and hack away as long as the contexts, concepts, models, goals and strategies remain”
Our gratitude and admiration for Robert wouldn't have been greater because he turned in a superbly written proposal in an awesomely easy to read and comprehend form, and the fact that he was vacationing in Maui at the time, his dedication was so... Inspiringly invigorating. I sent him the "Final Draft" on the evening of September 16th and he said 'he goes nonstop' once he starts something and that it would be completed on September 20th; it was and we had in our hands 'The Act” In its Final Edition (Robert's term all the way (By also reading the "Final Draft", you'll see by comparison the outstanding work that Robert did))
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
Community Stimulus Act Utilizing Community Banks to Support Local Business Enterprises and Infrastructure Development
From the beginning we understood that a Spanish translation was mandatory due to that the Latino Communities, who had overwhelmingly supported Prez Obama, was being turned against him primarily on the issues of Immigration and Jobs – So, Aurora did a translation which was presented to the group for review and editions a week or so later.
As Walter Cronkite used to say: “And that is the way it was”
Aurora and Juanita
