Yet, at the same time, many of us who now know how we have been used, will vote for him again, because, as he rightly calculates, there is no one else, and the alternative is even worse. Watch and weep as today's rebels become next year's rationalizers.
It reminds me of when activists were asked to vote for Lyndon Johnson in 1964 with the slogan "Part of the Way with LBJ." That way ended with an endless escalation of war in Vietnam, and guns trumping butter. Sound familiar?
The search for truth and reality has hit a wall but has to continue. The lessons need to be learned. We have to say we were wrong, when we were, not in our beliefs, but in pinning our hopes on a shrewd, ambitious, and double-faced political performance artist.
While people who still back him dismiss the accusation that's he's a hidden socialist, Kenyan, or space alien, all too many suspect he may be a secret Republican. He is who he is, aloof, cautious, and a man in the middle. He's staying there.
Let's give David Foster the last word.
"The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness,...
... It is about simple awareness - awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over..."
Filmmaker and News Dissector Danny Schechter edits the Newsdissector.com blog. He directed "Barack Obama: People's President" (2009) for a South African media company.
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