i’ve suffered from writer’s bloc. no fire with which to write. no inspiration. no… no well no anger.
not like the good old days, the BushCo days. in some perverse way, george bush and I carried on a stormy, passionate affair. it was addictive. it was seductive. and it was satisfying.
maybe that sounds strange. but as god as my witness, it’s true. i loved writing (in a perverse way) about this man, his presidency, and the utter subversion of our country and my ideals. i loved finding my political voice and the salonesque experience of writing at places like Daily Kos and Docudharma.
the whole affair gave me purpose and directed my priorities. i was part of a group of people working, writing, campaigning to to keep our country safe by exposing bushCo.
x posted at writing in the rAw
then 2006 rolled towards November and the Dems recaptured control of congress. ::: sigh of relief ::: and i thought we had really been part of something spectacular.
yet…….. something strange happened: the rethugs, as we called them, still seemed as much in control as they had been in the majority. further, most democrats seemed to vote yea to everything george bush wanted.
i admit, at first i was confused. not sure of what i was perceiving. feeling a bit sick, actually. suddenly, this bushCo affair wasn’t going so well. i couldn’t tell good guys from bad guys anymore.
writing about it left me lonely and listening to people saying how our only option was to elect dems and use them to get our progressive agenda enacted. i thought: geez, that scenario doesn’t look at all promising. in fact, i thought it might be more fun to try another tact… like having the netroots support Cindy Sheehan over Nancy Pelosi. just to make a point.
of course, there was a flood of the totally irrelevant retorts like do you know her position on education? well, i really didn’t and i really didn’t care either. the point was to make a point to dems: respect the electorate; respect your base.
okay. then Obama gets elected. i, like so many others, HOPED he would call for accountability, create jobs, stop the thieves…
great :::chest heaving sigh::: that didn’t happen either. i know lots of people tout the health care bill, but i don’t find it terribly impressive and it falls short of the really big issues, like controlling costs. to me, it seemed like a few bones were thrown but the really big stuff, like accountability for war and economic crimes, have no play.
i’m also pretty sure that having Rick Warren at the presidential swearing in ceremony of Barack Obama was a pretty clear signal that Obama was going to disappoint and disappoint big…
as this plays like a slow mo wreck caught as time yawns, i realize this makes me miss bush terribly. at least i knew him. he was a reliable bad guy. i could count on him to be consistent. his lies didn’t hurt, his broken promises never disappointed. and, for a while, i was safe thinking there was an antidote: the democrats.
now i’ve come to accept that brand politics and the group of men and women currently running the show in Washington are inept decision and policy makers. some are self-serving, others mere sycophants, and a few truly dangerous. most all near sighted and cowardly.
the down side of acceptance, to date, is that i’m a bit unplugged. i feel vague. i don’t have hold of my anger and don’t know where to point my writing.
i’m looking for something. another purpose. something clear. something true. something i can understand and fight for.
because i am done fighting against the current.
i am looking for some way to change the game. the board. and the rules.
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I am reminded of a distant event. After LBJ left the white house and richard millhous nixon was elected president, I was watching a football bowl game on television. Texas was playing somebody, and LBJ, who was somehow the embodiment of Texas barbecue, was in the stands. The camera panned to him, and I said without thinking, “LBJ, you old mfer, I miss you.” That’s how it was for me at that moment. After years of demonstrations and carrying on tear gas and the rest of that, LBJ was gone. Finally. Good riddance. And then, what did we get in his place? Yowie. Mfer never looked as good to me as on that New Year’s Day.
I guess LBJ was my first GWB. It’s not that I’m promiscuous, it’s just that what MLK called “the arc of history” doesn’t seem to me at the moment to be inclining toward justice.
Write about things other than politics.
I like reading about seemingly mundane things such as what you noticed or felt during a walk in the woods, or something else, could be anything.
Many of us are in a similar place:
Please check out the Dump Obama diaries by jeffroby at firedoglake.com, as well as the Primary Obama diaries by themalcontent, also at firedoglake.com.
Dump Obama / Primary Obama is looking to use the presidential primary process to boost it’s organizational efforts into a political force for progressives that persists through election cycles, long after Obama is history. IOW, Dump Obama / Primary Obama is not mainly about Obama!*
Nobody seems to agree with me (yet), but I’ve argued that the biggest problem is one that nobody is addressing, yet (but should have, already). And that is, how to grow the movement aggressively. This can’t be maximally done just via the internet. It requires face-to-face encounters.
My thoughts on this subject here and here.
So, here’s a suggestion: Become a face-to-face evangelist, and then blog about your evangelism experiences – the good, the bad, the ugly, the funny, the effective, and the non-effective. Some video blogging would be cool, also, with “man on the street” segments.
* Some people have a lot of problem with this notion. The analogy I like to use is that the (Michael) Jordan Rules were not primarily about ‘deafeating’ Jordan – it was impossible to hold him scoreless, and generally impossible to make him score low – but rather primarily about defeating Jordan’s team. Jordan was the focus of the defense, but defeating the team was the real goal.
turn of events has sparked me. I have given up all hope of working for the Democratic establishment the whole government and the pols are so rotten they don’t even seem to be bothering with putting on a good show for the suckers anymore.
Ive been reading and watching the wikileaks show instead.
It’s fun to watch the ruling class scramble and squirm.fun to see the authoritarians on dkos try and defend the ever growing reality of the real war here. My current hope politically speaking is that anyone with a brain in their head and there are lots of us will cease to see this as a struggle between the evil Republicans and the ‘moderate’ Democrat’s. Interesting to to watch the FP at dkos stop carrying the water.
Torrent dumps and hacker geeks wonks along with a new state Assange calls Swiss bits have changed the board some. Fitting that an outside force of geeks in conjunction with 5 newspapers can give people a way to see beyond the narrative given is available for those who really want to know.
I’m in a weird space myself blogging wise and need to unglue from my own torrent stream of information and endless redo’s of uselessness. things do seem to be breaking and although the good and bad guys have merged it clearer now with =out the distraction of belief in a system they seem to have by-partisanly almost killed. so change is coming pfiore8 it’s just got a form and time different from the elections and seasons the enemy stages for our distraction.
I will come to RITR as soon as I can get some solvent and unglue myself. Miss you terribly and all the people I love and value here on the blogs. How’s Amsterdam? Your art your life and your loves? Good writing topics in these areas.
We could have saved all of the Nazilike graphics from the Bush years and superimposed them on Obama’s corporate globalists regime. A bailout of financial criminals, a Peace Prize for expanding two wars, Bush’s two wars, based upon Larry Silverstein’s asbestos abatement problem. A health bill destroying health, a unicorn flu scare, a Frankenfoods Bill and a national feel you up at the airport theme.
All of it needs chucking.
It was a classic struggle of good and evil and we knew evil would be thwarted with the incoming Democrats.
You’d have thought I’d have known better – I sure as hell do now.
We need a whole new chessboard – what is in DC doesn’t work anymore.
I don’t know how it will shake out – but it will shake out or we’re doomed.
Obama is odious – and I don’t waste time thinking about his psychological process – all I know is he’s bad for us – that’s all I need to know.
Maybe, I just wished you had used a different title.
I have been trying to get over the ill feeling I’ve had the past few weeks. Only in America could a “war criminal” go strutting about, from State to State, and being interviewed on television, as he pompously enjoys stating that “hell, yeah, I authorized torture . . . . !”
With corporate backing, I never expected that Obama would be all that effective, it’s just that I never expected the outcome to be this acquiescent to corporatists and the Republicans!
The mind just hits a blank, at times.
Republicans plunged this country into trillions of dollars of debt, now call for:
Fiscal responsibility?
While demanding the extension, even the permanence of the Bush tax cuts!
While Social Security and Medicare are under consideration for cuts?
While Americans have run out of unemployment benefits — just before the holidays and no action yet?
Watch for trade-offs!
We’re fast approaching 3rd world status!
Thanks, pf8!
Any Howard Zinn? Any Cassiodorus (our very own!)? Because it sounds like it’s time for you to go out into the metaphorical (and perhaps real) wilderness and do some political soul searching. Those are three authors I suggest to alter your thinking, but you should try direct action and third parties and organizing in your community for whatever cause can be organized around. Tangible action is what it’s all about…none of this donating to Democrats and writing letters to Congress stuff we’ve been hearing about for years.
http://www.opednews.com/articl…