Don’t participate in the gloom and doom

By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.
TriceEdneyWire.com Columnist

When you have all the major newspapers, nearly every radio and television pundit, even a few misguided Black people predicting gloom and doom around the economy instead of offering ways to fix problems that President Barack Obama inherited, is there any wonder so many people are in a state of panic over the economy! Even people who didn’t have much before the economic crisis act like they just began experiencing hardship. They forget the really rough times some of us came through and still made it. Why do so many of us put ourselves through unnecessary depressing thoughts?

These so-called loyal Americans who predict gloom and doom seem to have lost their love for America and have as their primary goal to see the President fail. There was a time when people respected the President—especially during bad times because they wanted things to get better. Surely the gloom and doom predictors have considered that if the President fails, the country also fails. As soon as President Obama was inaugurated, Rush Limbaugh said he wants the President to fail. Senator Mitch McConnell never stopped saying his number one goal is preventing the President from succeeding. Michelle Bachmann is campaigning on making the President a one-term President.

Many people sit around watching the news and making themselves sick over what they are hearing and reading. Many friends aren’t handling challenges our country is facing any better than the Far Right. They are among those who yell and scream at the President to fix the mess they haven’t fixed for years—even when they were the majority. It would be helpful if all the critics stopped blocking the President every time he tried to straighten out the mess.

While critics are talking, the President is working to undo the damage they have done to the country. Congress has responsibility for helping us through this critical period. Where are they? It seems easier to blame the President for everything, while giving him credit for nothing. Facts don’t seem to matter. The talk about President Obama spending so much, when the record says President George W. Bush spent $5.07 trillion on new programs; President Obama has spent just $1.44 trillion. The critics know the President didn’t ask to raise the debt ceiling because of new policies he created, but was about policies accumulated in recent decades with much of the debt coming from Republicans. They know if you repeat something often, even rational people begin to believe it. Why was the debt ceiling such a big issue? Isn’t the reason obvious? President Obama is leader of the world and some just can’t get over it!

Forget what you don’t have. Find the good in life and be grateful. Do what you can to help people in greater need than you are. Thank God for a brilliant, kind, patient, President who holds no grudges and never gives up working for the good of our nation and the world. Turn off the news sometime and take a break from the constant barrage of negative talk. Don’t play into the hand of those who never see the good in what the President does. The Tea Party isn’t the only culprit demonizing the President. It is the Republican leaders who insist upon decreasing spending for the least of these, but leaving in place tax cuts for the wealthy. It’s some Democrats who say nothing in defense of the President as he struggles to clean up the mess left by others. Let’s stop participating in the gloom and doom.

This article was originally published in the August 22, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper