I feel like a fraud. Why? Because even though I attempt to read diaries on the recommended list about this financial mess, I find that I can't get through them. It's too much for this bleeding heart liberal to bear, too much bad news and too much that I can't do a damn thing about. Ignorance is not bliss in this case but it's not eating a hole in my stomach.
Does this make my ignorance right? Hell no it doesn't, but it does bring me closer to the average American than I'd like it to. It brings me closer to stereotypical lack of information than I feel comfortable with and it certainly makes me feel separated from this place as a community.
The gruesome metaphors, the language that frightens people and the extreme amount of information is overwhelming for someone who is working really hard to get out of bed everyday and make life work. This is a disconnect that politics and punditry often make and probably the reason why Obama goes and does Town Hall Meetings to somehow cross that divide and address issues that can't be covered by diaries about the banking crisis.
Does this mean they don't matter? Fuck no and I'm not saying that they don't. I am grateful that there are people who care enough to wade through he cesspool that our financial system has degraded too. Legal or not, it's vile to the core and makes Madoff look like a two bit grifter who made the biggest swindle we've ever seen by one man. But it's nothing compared to the heist that's taken place over the last thirty years.
If we are going to help Obama see that we get it and understand what's happening here, more Americans have to "get it" too. More Americans have to understand that the underlying problem, if not fixed by this administration, will make the housing bubble look like, oh shit, I don't even want to come up with something comparative.
We've never seen this before, a lot of people under a certain age have no concept of what we're facing and a lot of people are just trying to survive.
I don't know what to suggest. The media pundits don't help much because they cater to people who don't want solutions, they just want rant fests and finger pointing. And people like me are tired of hearing how fucked we are without many solutions being brought to the table. This is at least the perception of things or so many people wouldn't find Tim Geithner on SNL asking for ideas on how to solve this crisis on a hotline so damn funny. It was painful to watch, it was perfect satire to something that is really hard to laugh at.
So tell me Daily Kos, how can we bring this message to more people in a way that they can understand and push their representatives and our President to hear us. We're paying attention, I'm paying attention but I've learned recently that I'm not as wonky as I'd like to be but I can, given the right information, try to empower people to act. Or maybe to think.
So many feel so helpless to do anything at all and if we as progressives want our ideas to win, we have to, we must empower those people to do something. And I mean people who don't read Daily Kos.
There are a lot of amazingly brilliant people here who can make such translations for the people like me, so I'm asking to do so here. Humor me, if you will. Tell me what you would do to fix this?
I'm sincere, as someone who still has faith in our President, I am very sincere and still somewhat optimistic because I have to be to get through the day and look at my five year old without breaking into tears. I have to keep my head up and do that for her at least. And so does President Obama for us, he has that obligation that no matter how much he knows, he's got to put on that brave smile too, no matter how patronizing you may find it.
So yes, I'm a fraud, I can't handle all the negative at times, just as a lot of Americans can't. It's a symptom of a bigger problem, I know that, but I hope that my confession might help you understand how we have to make the conversation more palatable to more people if we want to see the direction truly change and we want more people to understand the gravity of reality.
If we can't do this then we will have more outrage over bonuses and more press about off the cuff Special Olympics jokes. The manufactured rage is winning over the true shame of the whole thing because it's a lot easier to understand. This is the society we have to work with, lets attempt to work with what we have rather than hoping enough people will change in time to understand this thing NOW.