If you too voted with unprecedented hope and excitement for President Obama and celebrated with thousands of people ecstatic with victory and love in the streets the night of his historic victory, then perhaps you are also somewhat dismayed right now… Hope and aspiration and optimism and faith puffed up like the plumes of a mighty bird of salvation now sodden and deflated.
It’s hard to place a finger on any one thing but I can place my hand on three big issues which dish out a daily feast of disillusionment. Watered-down health care reform, public option dead in the water before it’s first swimming lesson and within this the blue dog democrats, the Joe Liebermans, the Republicans who stall in a cloud of histrionics, refusing to compromise, the giveaways to big pharma and big insurance; the wars, the warring, the military budget in our country, the military occupations, the dead soldiers, the dead innocents; financial reform, which is not reformed at all, but just the same, an inside job from the treasury straight to Wall Street with the people left holding the bill and wondering what the fuck just happened.
Who to trust? Where does one go to find hope now? I am not sure, but I keep reading and if faith in any sort of corporate media was shattered long ago, my faith in grassroots organizing and the still free internet is something. Perhaps if enough people speak out…There is no shortage of ideas…and there is a growing frustration and anger as people power continues to be co-opted by corporate power, lobbyists, those with more money. And as Darcy Burner says, these issues are too important to give up on, despite the feelings of powerlessness and disillusionment. If we give up we will be trampled like buffalo, like Indians.
Great recent articles fomented this rant:
“Joe Lieberman’s Healthcare Bill Is Worse Than Nothing. Kill It.”
by Darcy Burner
The war we can’t win
by A.J. Bacevich
Colbert conservatism and the military budget
by David Sirota
“Obama’s Big Sellout”
by Matt Taibbi
“The Status Quo’s Favorite Canard: ‘It’s About Being a Candidate As Opposed to Being President’”
by David Sirota
