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After Obama was elected, many liberals, Democrats and progressives found themselves in the same situation as Dorothy, the lion, tinman and straw man when they wandered onto the poppy field of Oz, soporifically cursed by the wicked witch of the west, even with the gleaming Emerald City in plain sight.
Dorothy, beginning to fall into a cursed sleep
Remember the scene?
They stopped being activists, stopped working for a better world.
Some stopped earlier, when the 2006 elections gave the Nancy Pelosi a majority in the house.
By now, it's clear that even with control of the house, senate and Whitehouse, it wasn't enough.
It's clear that the elections don't matter very much. The bills that WERE passed are now at risk of being overturned, sabotaged by weak or sell-out, fox-in-the-henhouse type appointees, or failure to fund.
We live in a time when it is a naive fantasy to believe that our elected officials are going to advocate for us or even be accountable to us. Even when a majority of us stand for a particular issue, WE don't provide the money that wins their campaigns. Corporations and PACs and the wealthy do. So our politicians lie to us and fail to protect and advocate for our interests.
That means WE have to assume the worst and not depend upon our legislators and certainly not Obama. WE have to find other means for getting our needs addressed, whether those needs include government spending priorities, social and environmental justice or pursuit of corporatist crimes and abuses.
There ARE other means. We have to learn about existing ones, explore, develop and support evolving, emerging and new ones. We absolutely cannot solely depend upon those we have elected, even if they are the "good guys." They've failed us too many times.
So I ask you. Are you, like Dorothy, and her travelling partners in OZ, in those soporific fields, doing nothing, waiting for Obama, or have you awakened to the reality that he will not deliver what you truly desire. The best he'll do is hold back the barbarians a little bit, and take some edges off the worst existing or threatening abuses and violations of justice and fairness.
Some stopped earlier, when the 2006 elections gave the Nancy Pelosi a majority in the house.
By now, it's clear that even with control of the house, senate and Whitehouse, it wasn't enough.
It's clear that the elections don't matter very much. The bills that WERE passed are now at risk of being overturned, sabotaged by weak or sell-out, fox-in-the-henhouse type appointees, or failure to fund.
We live in a time when it is a naive fantasy to believe that our elected officials are going to advocate for us or even be accountable to us. Even when a majority of us stand for a particular issue, WE don't provide the money that wins their campaigns. Corporations and PACs and the wealthy do. So our politicians lie to us and fail to protect and advocate for our interests.
That means WE have to assume the worst and not depend upon our legislators and certainly not Obama. WE have to find other means for getting our needs addressed, whether those needs include government spending priorities, social and environmental justice or pursuit of corporatist crimes and abuses.
There ARE other means. We have to learn about existing ones, explore, develop and support evolving, emerging and new ones. We absolutely cannot solely depend upon those we have elected, even if they are the "good guys." They've failed us too many times.
So I ask you. Are you, like Dorothy, and her travelling partners in OZ, in those soporific fields, doing nothing, waiting for Obama, or have you awakened to the reality that he will not deliver what you truly desire. The best he'll do is hold back the barbarians a little bit, and take some edges off the worst existing or threatening abuses and violations of justice and fairness.
It took the good witch to cause snow to fall on the poppy field for Dorothy and Toto and the lion to wake up. We're facing a pretty cold political winter now. It's time for all those still waiting for Obama to wake up.
To reach the threshold of our progressive dreams, we must face the reality that Obama and our legislators have been shapeshifters who are unable, even if they say they are willing, to do what needs to be done. I am so convinced of this that I've come to believe that the strongest progressives IN congress might do more good outside of congress.
I'm not saying we shouldn't continue to work to elect non-toxic or less toxic candidates, but we MUST do a helll of a lot more than that. It is delusion to believe that simply electing Democrats will be sufficient.
