"OK, so your heart's broken," as the old song goes. So's mine. But we have to get over it--now--and start taking action for the November election.
Granted, we're far from where we thought we'd be when Barack Obama was elected and people danced in the streets. Change was on its way, spearheaded by Obama's soaring words and by the millions of ordinary Americans who got involved as never before to help carry him to victory. We thought we'd finally created the opening for a historic transformation.
Now, too many of us watch morosely from the sidelines, feeling disappointed, spurned, and betrayed, wondering if anything we can do will matter. We're angered by the gap between Obama's lofty campaign rhetoric and his reality of half-steps and compromises, and by his failure to fight passionately for his policies. We're angered that we dared to hope for more. We're angered at scorched-earth Republican obstructionism, a Supreme Court inviting corporations to buy our democracy at will, and a public all too receptive to blatant lies. In response, we decide not to let our hearts get broken again by taking the risk of working for change, at least not in the electoral arena. We feel this way even though most of us have done little since Obama took office to create the kind of sustained grassroots movements that could have actually pressed him and a resistant Senate to take stronger stands.
So how do we act in the upcoming election despite dashed hopes? How do we do this in a way that builds for the future?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-loeb/the-election-needs-you-br_b_710617.html(Paul Loeb is a DUer, by the way) :hi:
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