These 2014 election results are no surprise. It was prefigured in Spring 2008.
I first heard of Barack Obama when he was a keynote speaker at the Dem Convention in 2004. He was brilliant. He obviously clearly understood the problems faced in this society. Obama did the same in 2008. Everyone was enamoured, enchanted. Although I agreed with what he said, I felt a slight tug of "wait a minute."
To see that "pull," follow beneath the orange juggernaut---
I said to friends who were strong Obama supporters through early 2008, that we needed to wait before expressing full enthusiasm. Perhaps my 55 years of political activism contributed to my reserve, but there was just something holding me back from full approval, as if I had a dog pulling at a leash, keeping me from full speed ahead. I found myself saying to my Obama-enthusiast-friends:
Wait a bit. We need to see if Obama can break whatever Faustian Deal he has had to make with the financial managers for them to allow him to be nominated.
I think my 55 years of activism had made me skeptical of the controllers -- the financial managers (DLC., Wall St. et al). I had arrived at that point where I could no longer believe any person could be allowed to be nominated for President without having made very strong promises to the
controllers.
I waited to see. Obama was elected, and it was not long before we saw the first indication.
Before he was even inaugurated, Obama named his first advisors and cabinet members for treasury and financial positions -- Tim Geithner and Larry Summers! Not a good sign.
Then one after another, Obama reneged on his enlightened, progressive promises: close Guantanamo, end torture and rendition, end the wars- troops out of Iraq & Afghanistan, hold financial criminals accountable, Offer a "public option" if not full Single Payer, Medicare for all, uphold th Constitution (I can't even go there as I look at drones, the "kill list," surveillance and spying).
No I am not surprised by the results of the 2014 elections. The real difference in my finger pointing is that I don't blame Obama nearly so much as I blame us, the citizens of the U.S. It is we citrizens who allowed Obama to do this. We should have called him out long ago. We should have called him to account. We dem citizens allowed him to engage in policies which were wrong, afraid to call him out, afraid to criticize him. It is our responsibility, the Responsibility of We the People. We watched and allowed Obama to get away with tactics that were more typically Republican. We allowed him to "go forward" without investigating, criticizing, or requiring accountability and punishments for crimes of the Bush Administration.
In our refusal to speak the truth, our refusal to call out his errors, we allowed them. It is our complicity which created the situation we find ourselves in today. We are responsible for the Republican advance. We lost our inegrity. We did not live with integrity. I hope we can do better next time. The mandate of evolution is calling. We do not have much more time. The stakes are too strong: We must not flirt with extinction and planetary death.