Haven't had much to say and then what finally is coming to mind is so small it pisses me off that I find it so damned interesting. The big issues of the day, no, I got nothing to say, although I avidly read my favorite bloggers on the issues I've got a record of blogging on. Mostly justice, social justice, justice on torture, plain and fancy justice, fried and baked, and even souffled.
Really, it's such a tiny thing yet my mind won't let go of it.
Started when I observed the spurt of fighting over how one should speak of Obama, pro or con, the passionate arguments which ensued, the real anger and hurt when someone would either criticize or defend our President.
I couldn't take it seriously as being about Obama at all. I tried! I tried to take it on its face and see it as a political issue about all the directionals of Democrats, left, center, right, up down, those far left fringies, those centrist control freaks.
But I failed.
So I went prowling, mostly because I'm so easily bored.
I wanted to look behind all the politics to the raw human emotions. The stuff that goes deep within us and brings forth our famous gut reactions, often clothed in the most rational and well sourced blogging language. Our veneers of civilization, as it were.
What finally gave me a little glimpse of ... well not an answer, but something to look at ... was an essay posted over at Docudharma by Maryscott O'Connor. As is usually the case with Maryscott, fireworks ensued. And that's where I felt that whole prowling thing going on in my demented psyche.
Now to me it really wasn't important what Maryscott wrote about -- something about Obama's latest decision on Cuba, lifting some of the travel restrictions.
But here was one of the leftiest of lefties getting really pissed off at other lefties calling Obama names. Now THAT I found interesting. The emotions of it all.
I've noticed this reaction a lot these past couple weeks, and Maryscott wrote a pretty representational description of it:
Go ahead, my dear "leftist," Free Mumia, disrupt-every-peace-rally-I've-ever-been-to-with-your-own-agenda types. Go ahead and tell me he's Just Another Bush in Disguise. Go ahead and tell me he's Just the Same Old Corporatist. I'll be over here, eating some "Change Has Most Definitely Come" cake.
Free Mumia. Disrupting peace rallies with "your own" agenda. I could add some more stereotypes but I think you get the drift.
And this is from someone who has some of the most impeccable leftist credentials, at least in my opinion.
Is this the real danger in America? These hordes of wild leftists? How many do you think there are? Tens of thousands? Millions?
I have trouble believing that our biggest problem right now is extreme leftists.
And then of course we have the extreme righties and the scary violent rhetoric and disturbing statistics showing a rise of hate group activity.
How many of these extremist righties do you think there are? Tens of thousands? Millions?
I also have trouble believing that our biggest problem now is extreme righties, although I think it wise to keep an eye on the hate groups.
For eight long years we have been spectators at the demise of our democracy and the shredding of the rule of law. Regardless of the real problems which came before that (and those are legion), these past eight years have ripped away any illusion of government doing the will of the people and exposed the naked helplessness of a citizenry in the face of unhecked power. To me, that goes beyond politics, goes into the deepest parts of our emotions. What the most vulnerable in our society have always known trickled up, as it were, and invaded the middle class, forced us to see our dreams of our own importance had somehow blinded us to the need to be united as an informed and active citizenry.
It wasn't that good people didn't protest, there were countless acts of resistance, good people within the system who risked everything to blow the whistle, there was no shortage of people of conscience.
Nor am I speaking of big coalitions and political groups, there've been plenty of them.
Hard to put it into words. A mass of citizens, but not an organized group. Individuals who are informed and as individual citizens act on that information. Eh, maybe I'm just deluded.
Regardless, together as citizens, we were unable to stop the abuses of the past eight years and now, together as citizens, we are facing the results of that debacle.
Have you ever noticed it's usually the good guys who tend to take responsibility when something goes wrong, even if it wasn't their doing? They take the wrongs done to heart, feel it deeply, and are driven to help make things better.
The ones who are really to blame usually don't give a damn. Human nature, I guess.
I approve of Obama but will not praise him. That's not my role as a citizen. When he does the right thing like, for example, signing the executive order banning torture, I approve. That's what citizens do. Approve when the right thing is done and disapprove when the right thing is NOT done. We deserve this. We deserve to have our representatives do what is right for our country. That is not praiseworthy -- it's their jobs. And when something good is accomplished, they have our approval as citizens. It's a decent reward. Approval is a very good feeling.
I'm not so worried about Obama or his Administration or our Congress. I'm very worried about us. I'm very worried we don't have confidence in the power of our own citizenship other than in the election booth. Or that we think we need be grateful if our representatives do something they should have done to begin with. The majority of us here in America want not only to clean up the mess of the past eight years but to feel we are living in a participatory democracy and that our individual voices have power. We cannot change the past, but we've learned so much about what is needed for the future. In many ways we have access to more information than ever in the history of our country.
It's not confidence in our "leaders" I want to see. It's confidence in ourselves, that we matter.
I don't think our problems are in the extremes in our society. And I don't think our problems can only be solved by rational thought. We need to feel as well. We need to feel our deepest needs, which have been denied for so long. We need, I think, to dream bigger than we have ever dreamed before, include more of the disenfranchised and oppressed than we could ever before have imagined, a greatness of heart and spirit never before seen in the United States of America.
We need to heal. And so we need to look straight at the truth of what has happened to us all, which will hurt, which does hurt. And we need to look at it together.
Ah, emotions, those pesky things. Can't be put in a box and given footnotes and tidied up by experts. Messy emotions. They're not easy to find. So I prowl.
I thank anyone who's read this far for allowing me to indulge myself in this ramble.