Intervention

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

I’ve been thinking about that insanity definition. This has not been the first time the White House has taken the left out behind the woodshed. Repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results in a common action found in many places but there is one group that most often comes to mind.

The underlying message from a president that once said “Make me do the right thing” has become “Leave me alone.” The classic case of a person calling for isolation from loved ones is a very common form of denial. “Don’t tell me what to do. I’m doing fine. Go take a look at your own shit” is what is often heard by family members of sick and suffering addicts.  

To the casual observer it would seem like this man is trying hard to get into “Presidents Anonymous” but the sad fact is that there is no 12 Step Program for president’s in a nation where all elected officials are prowling the back alleys of K Street and mainlining enormous amounts of special interest cash. Sadly there isn’t even an Al-Anon for progressives so we don’t have a clear definition on how to address this.  

According to the Hazelden Institute the method of breaking this denial is to gather the entire family around the afflicted to break through the cloud of denial. For a brief instant it seemed that Velma Hart might have broken through. But in this case of addiction it was she who was isolated pleading with a president who is insulated and surrounded by enablers. Enablers that convinced Obama the correct form of action would be to lash out at people like Velma Hart.

These enablers warn the president that if he listens to the people he will be forced back onto the streets to find his drug of choice. Incumbents just don’t do that sort of thing. They have graduated to having huge stockpiles of the drug delivered on sliver platters and don’t want to go back out there for nickle and dime bags from common street dealers.

Addiction will force people to do many strange things and when a president received $750 million in the most expensive popularity contest of all time he needs to seek ways of besting that number after becoming unpopular. Surrounded by former Goldman Sachs employees who warn that standing up to republicans will slow down the easy fix, medical industry lobbyist who can get the best drugs and military strength powerful enough to attack the Social Security trust fund the choice is simple. Like all addicts Obama chooses the path of least resistance, the easy money.  

Even the common street dealers have become enablers. We fall back on thin excuses like “he is obsessed with bipartisanship” when it is so obvious that nobody is that dumb. An addict will take many insults as long as it insures the oblivion of the next fix.

As the Big Book of AA warns, this is not a question of morals but an insidious disease that is “cunning, baffling and powerful.” The people must help Obama find his “bottom” but with the rock star insulation this man gets and the money he has already received almost nobody can even seem to remember that banning special interest cash, that most powerful and addictive drug, was once a Democratic platform.

As hopeless as it seems with no chance for a “public option,”  we must share our “experience, strength, and hope in order to solve our common problem,” campaign finance. But with this insulation from reality, all that is left is what Al-Anon has been telling suffering family members for the past 59 years. Once compassion fails the only answer left is detachment.