I'm all out of outrage.

[Skidmore]

Exhausted and feeling overwhelmed from the effort of trying to move mountains in an uncaring and, I'm coming to believe, undeserving world. SO buried in the detail of what needs to occur and what is occurring that I can no longer see either the forest or the trees and the world blends together in an amorphous grey mass. Beginnings and endings are illusions. I'm still one person among many one persons being cast aside by great forces and small, by friend and foe alike.

I don't know about you, but I'm very rapidly losing the will to fight.

[barbtries]

1. i hear you

sometimes i find myself rejecting reading something on DU just because i know it will trigger the outrage, and i'm tired. still think it would be worse to disengage, but i can't argue the position. nothing much good seems to go on.

[timeforpeace]

34. With Obama as Prez and the Dems in control of everything, still being miserable and unhappy may mean

it's personal, not political.

[tavalon]

52. It actually hurts more to be betrayed by Obama and his do nothing Congress

[SammyWinstonJack]

57. Exactly!!!

:thumbsup:

[peace frog]

89. HELLO

Betrayal by the ones you trusted is the final blow. I'm close to done.

[geckosfeet]

93. They are 1,000,000 times better than what was there before. Much better than McLame/Palin too.

Nowhere near perfect and disappointing in many ways, but an incremental improvement. The right direction.

[FedUp_Queer]

128. Really?

First, I, for one, am sick and tired of the "at least they're better than McCain" argument. A cold is "better than" the flu. Breaking my nondominant arm is "better than" breaking my dominant arm. It's all about lies and deception.

1) Bagram Air Base (Obama's Gitmo) big and getting bigger...$60 million for add ons
2) TARP
3) Geithner, Summers, etc. (like putting heroine addicts in charge of curing a heroine problem)
4) Military Commissions
5) Indefinite Detentions
6) War, War, War
7) Dragging feet on DADT, DOMA (in fact arguing gays don't have a 'right' to marry)
8) State secrets
9) Warrantless wiretapping

Obama is largely turning into just another corporatist, war-mongering, national security stooge.

[CrispyQ]

137. Hear, hear!

He's a prettier, nicer, less extreme version of boosh.

I think this is one of the best articles on the current American political scene.

Buying Brand Obama
by Chris Hedges

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/04

snip...

Barack Obama is a brand. And the Obama brand is designed to make us feel good about our government while corporate overlords loot the Treasury, our elected officials continue to have their palms greased by armies of corporate lobbyists, our corporate media diverts us with gossip and trivia and our imperial wars expand in the Middle East. Brand Obama is about being happy consumers. We are entertained. We feel hopeful. We like our president. We believe he is like us. But like all branded products spun out from the manipulative world of corporate advertising, we are being duped into doing and supporting a lot of things that are not in our interest.

What, for all our faith and hope, has the Obama brand given us? His administration has spent, lent or guaranteed $12.8 trillion in taxpayer dollars to Wall Street and insolvent banks in a doomed effort to reinflate the bubble economy, a tactic that at best forestalls catastrophe and will leave us broke in a time of profound crisis. Brand Obama has allocated nearly $1 trillion in defense-related spending and the continuation of our doomed imperial projects in Iraq, where military planners now estimate that 70,000 troops will remain for the next 15 to 20 years. Brand Obama has expanded the war in Afghanistan, including the use of drones sent on cross-border bombing runs into Pakistan that have doubled the number of civilians killed over the past three months. Brand Obama has refused to ease restrictions so workers can organize and will not consider single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans. And Brand Obama will not prosecute the Bush administration for war crimes, including the use of torture, and has refused to dismantle Bush's secrecy laws or restore habeas corpus.

Brand Obama offers us an image that appears radically individualistic and new. It inoculates us from seeing that the old engines of corporate power and the vast military-industrial complex continue to plunder the country. Corporations, which control our politics, no longer produce products that are essentially different, but brands that are different. Brand Obama does not threaten the core of the corporate state any more than did Brand George W. Bush. The Bush brand collapsed. We became immune to its studied folksiness. We saw through its artifice. This is a common deflation in the world of advertising. So we have been given a new Obama brand with an exciting and faintly erotic appeal. Benetton and Calvin Klein were the precursors to the Obama brand, using ads to associate themselves with risqué art and progressive politics. It gave their products an edge. But the goal, as with all brands, was to make passive consumers mistake a brand with an experience.

===

more at link

It's a fairly long article, but worth the read.

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[truth2power]

159. "Obama....could be painted as all things to all people." says Hedges...

Back during the primaries, when I couldn't summon up any enthusiasm for any of the choices we were being offered, other than perhaps Kucinich, who hadn't a chance, a co-worker of mine expressed his excitement over Obama.

At the time I said, "Obama gives all-purpose speeches." I wasn't impressed. But eventually I got on-board, motivated in part, I guess, by the prospect of McStupid and the Wolf-killer. Eventually, I began to think that things might turn out all right after all. I guess I was wrong.

You know, I wasn't even shocked to see the article on DU about the rendition plane that had been spotted. I remarked to a number of people, back when Obama made his statement about torture, that he had chosen his words very carefully. That he said WE wouldn't torture, but he didn't exclude the possibility that we would send people to places where OTHERS would torture them. See how that works? Obama is very smooth.

Way, way back, 7/8 years ago, Mike Ruppert (remember him?) wrote an article, the title of which escapes me, where he said that if we weren't careful we would end up with a new boss much the same as the old boss, only with more pleasant background music. A prescient statement, perhaps.

I don't think any nominee for high office is even presented to us who hasn't been vetted and approved by the military industrial corporate complex.

[geckosfeet]

157. I see. Where were you for the previous 8 years?

[FedUp_Queer]

161. Here's where I was...

In law school; working to help my Brazilian partner with his education and immigration situation, trying to inform people about the way this government treats bi-national, same-sex couples, representing people in court seeking asylum. You? Don't patronize me.

[geckosfeet]

162. Oh. I wouldn't think of patronizing such a saintly visage.

My point being, that for the last eight years the country has been raked over the coals. Obama is so very much an improvement. Granted, imperfect, but we can't all be like you.

[T Wolf]

111. Exactly. Betrayal and failure by expected allies is worse than expected betrayal and failure by

known enemies.

At least under Bush, there was the hope that if we could win elections, things would improve.

The reality of the emptiness of that hope is far worse than the damage the pukes were doing. Now we know that destruction will continue with the eager aid of the "democrats" in office.

[galloglas]

64. Or perhaps not

It may mean it is political and not personal, based on a political emotion somewhere between

:-(

1) disappointment with Obama and the Dems for their (apparent) inability to do anything much for the average citizen of the country, compared to what they do for the PTB, M/IComplex, and the Oligarchic-Corporatocracy,

and

:wtf:
2) absolute outrage at Obama and the Dems, for taking the support of honest Progressives to A) win an absolutely historic election while promising to B) address the everyday problems created by the benign neglect of the GOP over the years, as well as to C) tear off the huge and growing scab of Fascism that was brought to us by the Psychotic-Religious wing of the GOP party, yet once in office, selling us out Heart and Soul to the PTB, M/IComplex, and Oligarchic-Corporatocracy,:mad:


:puke: Meet your new boss! Same as your old boss. :puke:

[ProleNoMore]

2. I Am With You In Spirit - I Choose To Fight Less And Live More

If moving mountains was my personal Karma, then a lever I would be.

Sadly, I am one person stuck in a system that cares not a whit about myself and most others.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

104. A win-win.

A win for you and personal betterment.

A win for them because they're one more step toward acting with impunity.

Have a nice day. :)

[bobshin]

138. Exactly.

When I hear people at our local meetings get up and "threaten" to move elsewhere and the like, I say the same thing. However, I would call it a lose-lose. The loss of a caring, educated, willing, brave voice in the effort and one less soldier in the well-financed war against humanity.

On the other hand, if you become so obsessed with winning the fight that it affects your personal ability to continue then you're not doing anyone any good.

[lonestarnot]

3. Tired as hell, but never giving up!

[MH1]

4. Try taking on small battles and being happy for small victories

Gandhi: "Whatever you do will be insignificant but it is most important that you do it."

A lot of small victories add up to progress. Even small actions can influence others.

[jwirr]

30. That is how I feel. Tired after 40 years of activism - yes, giving up no.

I see small steps that lead to the top and just keep going. Sleep is a vital tool of an activist. When I am down - even to the point of being suicidal - I sleep for long hours and awake with a fresher look on things - if not the same hope as in the past.

[rucognizant]

78. Absolutely!

Gandhi: "Whatever you do will be insignificant but it is most important that you do it."
At the end of the day Gandhi's impact was VERY significant.
This society's atmosphere of instant gratification.................makes it difficult. BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE!
Begin in your own neighborhood and do it with love..............really works.

[underseasurveyor]

5. It will ebb and flow

You just need to recharge a bit. That fighting spirit will come back when it's ready. Every time I've said, fuck this I'm done, it may be a week, it may be a month or more but that fighting spirit always comes back. It's part of who I am and I can't help it. It's like that for people of conscience.. Like you.

Allow yourself to recharge:hug:

[rhett o rick]

8. Well put. nt

[ldf]

16. there's "ebbing" and there's "flowing"

and the same group of citizens always end up in the "ebbing" column.

not just of spirit, but in recovery and inclusion.

i'm so close to the same point as the op.

our party refuses to do it. they are no longer part of the answer.

the republican party may very well split itself in two. but do you think the democrats would then, with complete control, the presidency, and huge majorities in both houses, do what it takes? unfortunately, no. they can not wean themselves from the corporate teat.

it seems the only real answer is to, en masse, stay home. LET them win. and then let them take us to rock bottom. (more likely off the cliff, but the pain obviously has to get a lot worse before we, as the citizenry, have the guts to do what HAS to be done.)

the conservatives aren't the answer, and if we give them the rope, they will prove it.

the republicans aren't the answer, 'cause they will be trying to out-conservative the conservatives.

the democrats have proven they will never, ever step up to the plate.

i would be willing to bet that, by then, the response to a progressive alternative would be overwhelmingly positive.

there has to be an alternative to the democrats. and all of us who can no longer stomach the cowardliness of the democrats, and the few remaining republicans with a shred of integrity (all 3 or 4 of them; if you still can stand to admit to being a republican, after the last eight years, you have no integrity), should move, en masse, to the new party.

a party that throws out the playbooks of previous parties. one that will address everything that needs to be addressed.

the democratic party isn't going to do it.

edit for spelling
re-edit, spellcheck is not always your friend

[Nay]

23. Amen, ldf. New party needed. nt

[Andronex]

73. In Canada...

the party most responsible for the public health care has never taken power nationally, the new democrats (social democratic) by getting a significant portion of the vote, 10 to 15% has forced the debate to the left, so much so that even the conservative party of Canada on most issues is left of the US democratic party. There is a lesson there, if you want the democratic party to earn your support and stop taking you for granted there has to be a credible alternative...

[underseasurveyor]

26. I was here....

"en Massey, stay home. LET them win. and then let them take us to rock bottom. (more likely off the cliff, but the pain obviously has to get a lot worse before we, as the citizenry, have the guts to do what HAS to be done.)"

...8 years ago.

But I still find myself getting back up and fighting other battles because like I said, it's part of who I am and my conscience simply won't allow me to ignore some things. I fight where I can and sit back when I feel it would be wasted energy.

But yes I hear ya and I'm there... I've just been patiently waiting for the rest to catch up and get there too.

Cheers:toast:

[Enthusiast]

41. Extra nice post award.

[liberalmuse]

6. I hear you loud and clear.

The more we try, it seems the more bigots and assholes climb out of the woodwork. I've learned you can't force people to behave decently and give a shit about their fellow human beings. Imagine how it would be living a few hundred years ago when injustice was rampant. It's frustrating. The human race is moving forward, but it might be much too slowly to do any good, or save us from ourselves.

[Warpy]

7. People out in the world are stressed to the max and getting meaner

and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to stick my head out the door when I need to go grocery shopping or do anything else.

I do find that George Carlin provides an antidote, though, manages to put things into proper perspective.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw

[dixiegrrrrl]

19. Damn, Warpy..I thought that was just me.

Glad you said something.
I had heard " 80% of maturity is fatigue"
and figured maybe that was it.
but I find myself wanting to tune out, feel exhausted from paying attention to all the RW outrage and the glacial pace of "change".
Not to mention the over all gloom of the economy.

[Lorien]

22. Many of us feel the same way

I no longer turn on the TV, even for a little while. The people of this country have gotten too ugly and too self centered. Life has become horribly cheap to most of them. They see nothing outside of themselves. That in itself is causing me to lose hope.

[Warpy]

39. I had a great time commiserating with a DMV clerk yesterday

when she asked a co worker if she could put "jerk" as the former customer's occupation.

It could be worse. I could have a job and be forced to deal with them 8 hours a day.

[pipi_k]

9. My outrage supply ran out just before the election last year

It had been on Maximum for eight long years.

I'm out. Almost completely empty. I also have no more will to fight about some things.

Anybody who still has the energy left to be outraged or to keep fighting...go for it. Have at it...be my guest...

I just don't want to be bashed by any of the people who still have fight left in them just because my tank has run dry. Being perpetually outraged for eight years has made me sick, and I have nothing left to give.

I know there are many of us who feel the same way

:(

[Nay]

28. As a former Vietnam war protestor, I also have run out of outrage.

Time for the kids to stand up and do their fighting. If they like things the way they are cuz they can still clap a cell phone to their ear and buy a burrito at Taco Smell, well, who am I to argue?

I thought Reagan was a moron, and whoever bought that shit was a moron, too. Turns out I was right, but they're still clinging to that moron's dead carcass. Bush II practically shoved it into our faces that he was an idiot who was there to get what he could get, and he STILL got voted in - or weaseled in - twice, with no one, including the Dem candidate, putting up a fight.

Obviously, as the OP sez, things need to get a lot worse before the scales fall from a bunch of eyes. I won't vote for a Republican, but in my view, this country needs another Pub prez, and all the shit that comes along with that, before it can even begin to smarten up. But it won't smarten up, cuz it will all be Obama's fault, anyway.

[Enthusiast]

32. But if we quit, things will get even worse.

Well, things will probably get worse anyway.

But, imagine this country without a free internet. The print media is controlled, the radio media is almost completely under RW influence and the TV M$M media is ridiculous. Without someone to challenge this things could get even uglier.

Just sayin'

[RadiationTherapy]

141. 'the kids'. hahahaha.

[Enthusiast]

43. I think this is what

the PTB are counting on. That our outrage tanks are empty and we will quietly accept what ever kind of bullshit they shovel our way. They use experts to figure this stuff out so they are mostly right.

We need to surprise them.

[HughMoran]

10. It is difficult to keep perspective at times

Especially when we're right up against the giant sequoias and it's nearly impossible to see anything else. We will be able to see the forest again soon enough and it's never as bad as it seems when we are overwhelmed.

[tblue]

11. It's called Outrage Fatigue.

Those of us who practically spilled blood for Change and are told now to STFU while the President thanks NOT us, not Senator Wyden, not Rep. Weiner. No. He thanks Olympia Snowe! -- How else could we feel?

We didn't do what we did to enact the HCR policies of 4 conservative Democrats, Traitor Joe Lieberman, or Olympia Snowe. Or did we?

I've worked in every presidential and most congressional elections since 1992. I don't expect so much as a thank you. But this?

[Enthusiast]

44. Nice post, tblue!

[Tansy_Gold]

56. +1000 n/t

[angrycarpenter]

12. Sometimes I just have to give it a rest.

Lately I been giving a lot of thought to Michael Moore and his latest movie. I expected it to renew my convictions and refuel my will but the opposite happened. I am beginning to think that things are just too far gone and we are just doomed. The last line where he says that he is getting too tired to do this anymore almost sounded like an admission of defeat. The last couple of weeks I have been trying to find other more mundane things to occupy myself rather than the usual deep daily look into the pit of despair called humanity, it is just too depressing.

[blues90]

25. That's really the main problem

"I am beginning to think that things are just too far gone and we are just doomed"

Not that I blame you or dissagree at all , I feel the same way.

We are forced to depend on those in power to do the right thing and they are not doing it. I would rather they just put all the truth out there so then at least the people (who I do think can handle the truth) could decide where they can go from there.

While they play with health care and wars and the economy and inject statistics as if these actually represent the truth we are left with no answers.

Many say be patient yet many people do not have that luxury. I feel the main anger is that the last admins 8 years was even allowed to happen because if it were not we not not be here now.

[niyad]

13. almost all of us go through burnout at times--we NEED to take a break, or break our hearts.

all of you who need to rest, or just stop because it is too painful, will hear no criticism from me. there are days I want to scream at the stupidity, the hatred, the violence, the sheer unbelievable magnitude of what is wrong --oh, and do I ever scream.

"illegitimati non carburundum" (very bastardized latin for "don't let the bastards grind you down" is my motto. I am too stubborn to give in, too stubborn to just let them have their way without hearing that there are people here who care, and care deeply. doesn't do much good-as I can attest with countless battles with local govt. but I won't give up.

years ago, while fighting yet another TX effort to ban abortions-- I told one lege to just go ahead and pass whatever stupid legislation they wanted--that eventually they would all die off, and we would dance on their graves (well, I actually had another verb in mind. . .) and then fix whatever the hell they had done. I still need to believe that is possible.

for all of us in the fight, I pray for strength, courage, and peace.

[mule_train]

14. Until you realize that BOTH parties are in on most of this, you'll never get anywhere

both parties are involved in free trade/globalist/open borders that will competely finish off our working and middle classes. been this way since at least 1992

and even then, you still might not

but when you have a true understanding, at least you have a chance

the people who fight H-1b understand that, and have at least (mostly) held ground for 5 years, under withering, blistering, never ending assault, up against a mountain of lobbying, paid for politicians and brainwashing media, along with false accusations of 'racism', 'xenophobia', being 'unskilled' etc. you just come to terms that you're up against raw unfiltered scum, that their barrel has no bottom

i quit being outraged a long time ago (well, ok, i have to admit i still do, but i try not to focus on it). I'm up agaisnt offices of people who are like the terminator. if i go on an emotional roller coaster, they'll outlast me, period

i just FIGHT

i stay informed on the nuts and bolts, and fight

they WANT you to feel defeated, so they can finish you off

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

15. I'm tired of being outraged too.

I was 11 on a scale of 10 throughout the whole Bush Presidency. I thought it would be all over with Obama and that hasn't been the case.

But the whole healthcare reform has opened my eyes to one thing - it's a lot worse than anything I ever imagined. Our entire government has been penetrated by people who are either too cowed or corrupt to do the things that are necessary to protect the rights and interests of the American people.

I think we have to start over and I don't just mean with healthcare or any other legislation.

I think we need a new movement or party that will simultaneously focus on:
healthcare reform (the real thing)
campaign finance reform (the real thing)
removing the invisible corporate hand running the United States like a fiefdom for entrenched interests

Until all 3 of those issues are addressed by a loud public voice simultaneously we will just descend lower and lower until there is no such thing as a middle class, we will LITERALLY be wage slaves (it won't just be a funny moniker anymore),and we will be spending 50% of our incomes on healthcare and another 25% on water which will soon be controlled by private interests if we keep headed down the road we are on.

[Enthusiast]

35. Really really very excellent good post, Phoebe!

I think the same about health care reform. In a way corporate America has betrayed their best interests because now most of us can see through the facade. They exposed themselves and their congressional allies.

And, like you said, it IS worse than anything we could have imagined. Now the PTB are using RW crazies to attack financial services regulation and energy use legislation.

If we don't implement the solutions you suggest we are doomed. This imagined terrible future society that some envisioned will actually come true.

[bikingaz]

51. Vote against all incumbents (both those with R & D)

Don't vote the party ticket & kick the incumbents out regardless of their party.
It would shake things up. If things don't straighten out, do it again.

[winyanstaz]

122. You are right.....

This is the way it is now..we have been sold out.
I believed we were sold out a long time ago but I have been holding on trying to believe in Obama.
I feel more and more like we have been played and I keep seeing Bush's agenda staying in place..it is infuriating and depressing all at the same time.
However, we cannot give up..we must keep on trying.
I am hoping they will reinstate the draft..because perhaps then the younger generation will get off their asses from in front of their video games and get out on the streets.
I don't see much hope unless there is a radical change and so far..I have not seen any change.

[glitch]

17. There's some good advice on this thread. Take a break, and take care of yourself.

Lots of sleep and eat healthy. I mean it. :hug:

[niyad]

18. hyacinths to feed thy soul

(I know this doesn't help much, but it is something I try to keep in mind when things are really hard)

If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,

and from thy slender store

Two loaves alone to thee are left,

Sell one, and with the dole

Buy Hyacinths to feed thy Soul.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

20. At times, it seems as though the whole concept of right vs. wrong has been discarded.

Things used to be more black and white as to what was the morally correct thing to do. Now, it feels as though the planet is controlled by a giant smoke and mirror machine. There's a mesmerizing haze enveloping everything that we are told or led to believe.

Reality now appears to be whatever our "leaders" and the "media" want us to believe is reality.

Because of serious health problems and being unemployed for the last 18 months with the obligatory mountain of medical bills, I couldn't even bring myself to watch "Sicko" until yesterday.

I knew that emotionally it would be a little too much until I was in a little happier place. It was still hard to watch and I'll leave it at that. The one positive is that it has restored some much needed energy if only because I'm so pissed at what this country has become during my lifetime.

When continuing the fight gets too hard to handle and the mountains seem too high to climb, anger can serve as an adrenaline rush. The overwhelming apathy from so much of America acts as a narcotic that hopefully will in time wear off. It's a delicate balancing act that people with a conscience must perform. Too much of either anger or apathy is bad, but the fight must go on by people such as yourself that care.

I realize that not everyone likes Celtic Music, but these guys have gotten me through some tough times.
It's not a panacea, but the right music can help reinvigorate us.

http://www.highlandreign.com/


A much needed rest from time to time can be cathartic, so try not to feel as though you aren't allowed to get discouraged or just walk away for a recharge.

[Enthusiast]

37. You are certainly right about

the concept of right and wrong being discarded. And those claiming to be moral in the loudest voice are the ones that have discarded right and wrong the most completely. Have we ever seen such levels of hypocrisy?

[Altoid_Cyclist]

47. The two that spring to mind are these.

#1 Holy Roman Empire (from Yahoo Answers)

What is the meaning of "the holy roman empire is not holy neither roman nor an empire"?

It was predominantly German, not Roman. It was political, not holy. It was a patchwork of principalities and kingdoms, not a unified empire.

#2 Moral Majority (from the Urban Dictionary)

1. Group of people who think and act as if they are BETTER than you. Especially if you do not worship the same deity in exactly the same way they do.

2. People who use the Bible as a facade to promote their political agenda. Also, quoting the bible out of context to emphasize their political agenda.

3. Absolute hypocrates!
The moral majority helped to re-elect George W. Bush at the expense of the middle class, the poor, and all the military service men and women.

Of course, we're still dealing with a lot of the people who thought that they really were the "MM" so it's actually the continuation of their twisted ideas of what morality is that we're seeing today.

Every day, I get a little stronger feeling that we're now living in "1984".

I don't mean the good one either! (Van Halen)

[CrispyQ]

129. There was a bumper sticker several years ago, that we should bring back.

The Moral Majority Is Neither

The severely compromised media puts these whack jobs front & center, 24x7, so their voice seems bigger than their actual numbers.

I wish I could say that I am a 'glass half full' type, but I'm not. I have very little hope that this country is going to recover.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

139. I hate to say this, but I couldn't be more in agreement with you.

Whenever someone asks me if I'm a glass half full or half empty type of person, I respond that I'm in a third category.

I figure that it doesn't really matter whether some metaphorical glass is half full or empty. We're doing so much to doom our species that I couldn't care less about a glass of water. Some people say that there's no difference between a pessimist and a fatalist, but I consider myself a fatalist. Hhhmmmmm maybe I'm a radical pessimist since the media loves to put "radical" in front of something to villify it.

As you said, I think that we've lost our way as a civilized country and I don't see anything that is going to change that for the better in my lifetime.

Republicans...controlled by the corporations (for the most part).
Democrats.................... Ditto.................................
News organizations............Ditto.................................
Military......................Ditto.................................
Too many Americans thoughts...Ditto.................................


Too many Americans have become so enamored of the apathetic lifestyle since it makes it easier to ignore what the human race is doing to itself, that I don't see anything like the 60's type of active involement ever happening again.

[snagglepuss]

144. "Apathy is a narcotic. " Very true. Good post. nt

[Altoid_Cyclist]

150. Thank you.

At times I think that apathy might be one of the most dangerous narcotics known to man.
It certainly seems to be addictive and it causes a lot of harm when too much is consumed or forced on other people.
Sometimes I think that the Pod People have already taken over.

[OwnedByFerrets]

21. Sadly K and R

[City Lights]

24. I hear you, Skidmore!

And I'm right there with you. :-( I try to stay positive, but feel like I'm under constant assault. I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that my voice doesn't count for much when looking at the big picture. The only way I can cope is by tuning out. I've all but abandoned the corporate media, and don't even bother with Keith, Rachel, or Ed anymore.

[whathehell]

45. It must be an epidemic.....

I've been feeling the same way. :-(

[pundaint]

27. Why do we have to work after the election to get our way?

That's what we hired these jerks in Congress for. If they can't do the job without constant nagging, then they need to be fired like any other employees delivering such a performance would be. We got two parties serving the same corporate masters, so while in theory I'd like to beat the democrat incumbents in the primary, if that doesn't work, it's most important to beat every one, Republican or Democratic, who doesn't actively fight for single payer. If we turn out a whole Congress we'll get action for the people pdq.

The power we would get by turning over about 360 congressional seats would be immense. THAT is change we CAN believe in!

[Dinger]

75. Been Wondering That Myself (nt)

[blindpig]

100. The obvious conclusion:

Elections are worthless, as things now stand.

There's no getting money out of politics, we must attack the money.

[CrispyQ]

29. You are not alone, my friend.

The system is so corrupt & compromised I don't believe we'll ever get it back. There's not going to be a revolution in America. We're too divided. The working/unemployed class will continue to fight among themselves & hatred will continue to grow & the PTB will continue to prosper on the suffering of the rest of us.

I reached this point once before, in 1980, during the Iranian hostage situation. When I saw how Bush/Reagan manipulated that situation to win the election I was sickened & I didn't vote again for two decades. I'm in that same place again, only worse.

There's something to the saying, "Take care of your own little corner of the world." I've found it hard to disengage in national politics, but the few weeks I have managed to turn off the 'news', stay off of DU, & not read anything political, I've felt better, calmer, more positive. Sure, I've been less informed, but I've been happier. I completely understand the saying "ignorance is bliss" now.

I wish I could offer encouraging words, but I simply don't have those words to offer. :hug:

[Enthusiast]

46. I was right there with you

in 1980.

And now TV talking heads still speak with great reverence for Reagan as if Iran-Contra was a figment of our imagination.

[ChiciB1]

121. Crispy! You Talk For Me Too! I've Been Trying NOT To Tune Into The

LATEST GREATEST NEWS of the day!! I've dug my nose into getting some of those things down around the house that I've put off for all too long!

Not things that needed done right away, but just sitting there looking at me. Clearing out closets, etc. I've felt burned before, know well how to lose gracefully, but NOW feel BETRAYED by our own!

REVOLUTION won't happen, people don't have the will or courage for it anymore! Too much APATHY! I had thought it was the lack of funds because of the economy that was keeping people from rising up, but I think people ALWAYS find a way if they REALLY believe in a cause!

Today on C-span the FIRST question of the morning was "Is America Going Broke?" and the comments were not very uplifting to me! There was also a sense that "we the people" just DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!!

I've been around since Viet Nam and have seen some "bad times" but the American people DID RISE UP and FIGHT! The fact that there is no real MOVEMENT other than those such as ANSWER (which is fractured to say the least) tends to make me feel we are looking more like ROME than the fight of the American Revolution!

We've lost our way, and our so called leaders don't care much about anyone but themselves and where they can get their next buck!! With this type of leadership, we won't be able to OVER COME!!

The days of the past were volatile, but we prevailed, now I think our constant bickering will be something that will lead us to ruin!

JMHO!!

[RagAss]

31. Take a week off Skidmore...take it from me....it recharges the Piss and Vinegar glands !!

[snagglepuss]

38. "Piss and Vinegar glands"

ROFLMAO Thanks.

[FrenchieCat]

33. They want you to lose your will to fight......

those in the opposition and even those who try to say they are on our side....

We have made a lot of progress, and more is waiting to be made....
but if you give up, then they win, and so yes....we lose.

Don't let the skeptics and the naysayers get you down; cause that's their job...

Most folks who trust that things are changing for the better and will change even more still,
are not posting so much on DU, because in life, when things are going in the right direction,
the only folks who post on blogs, for the most part, are those who have major gripes.
You can clearly see that any good that this administration does gets basically little if any comment here, while anything that is perceived as bad news gets many threads all saying the same thing,
and many opinions.

DU is kind of like Cable News, where Bad News is the only thing that folks care about.

In the end however, when tallied up, the good news will outweight the bad by a large number...

so what you see here is politics....
which is why I post less than before.....
cause I know what kind of post I will be reading on DU, and 75% of them will be negative, if not more.

[Skidmore]

42. I don't post much anymore, except for an

occasional comment or question. Most of the replies are just riddled with plain ugliness so it is not worth the effort. I miss interacting with some of those who were here at the beginning, when I joined. I know some of those who frequent now are here to sow dissent and to deceive. But then, again, I've found myself surprised that such venom could erupt here.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

48. I haven't really been here long enough to confirm or nullify what you just said.

But for what it's worth, I wholeheartedly agree. I didn't find this place until the day after numbnuts....er I mean ex-president "W" was supposedly "re-elected." Not that he was ever actually "elected" the first time either, but to the idiots on the SCOTUS who appointed "W", thanks for 8 years of hell.

But it's very noticeable that the isms here on DU have gone downhill since that disgrace to America left office. I don't include everyone here, but there just seems to be more intolerance, baiting and disruptive
posts since the beginning of the year.

I've mentioned in other posts that it seems like the old theory is still holding true today. Once a common enemy or threat is removed, people who were united against the common foe will for some reason tend to turn on each other.

[nannah]

49. interesting observation skinner. i am a long time member who reads here more than i post.

there is a fundamental ruthlessness encouraged by the corporate world that has removed concepts like honor and integrity from conflict; they play dirty and justify "winning" at any cost. it is hard to remain yourself if you take on the tactics of the ruthless. principled people are vulnerable to people who are ruthless. righteous is often the cloak worn by people who are ruthless. one of their very successful tactics is control of information; they are not hindered by a need to be honest; information and communication are tools to be used for shaping perception and belief. it is a gauge of DU's effectiveness that we have spinners here. the question is, what do we do?

[prairierose]

109. Skidmore, I miss the interesting discussions we used to have....

here and the amazing amount of information and research that used to go on here. I see so many posts that show such ignorance as well as enmity. Ignorance can be remedied with purpose but enmity is another matter. I still come because this is a fast way to find links to news items and read occasional posts but I do not post much anymore either. I find that it is impossible to have a conversation with trolls and disruptors so what is the point. And sometimes I am just too tired to try to educate the ignorant, even though, in many cases, it is really not their fault.

[ChiciB1]

124. There Is Opposition AND Then There Is Opposition! Here At DU I've

NEVER seen more opposition and infighting since I joined! Even those of us who are supposed to be united in "some" way find that comments being made get attacked with vehemence and hate!

If it were only "they" we had to fight it might be easier... but the FRACTURING here is very discouraging! I don't comment anywhere near as much as before, AND I'm beginning to think that blogging is getting IGNORED by our LEADERS too!

They seem to dismiss what we say out of hand, because we only "blab" and "blab" some more! I CAN'T even get my neighbors interested in ANY type of political action because most say.... "there's no way, and there's no use" they're going to do what they want anyway!

THEY could be correct when we have such APATHY in this country!!

Other poor countries have found way to organize and make their voices heard, even if in the end they didn't achieve the purpose, but at least you have to give them credit for TRYING!!!

There is a chasm of UNITY lacking here and in the American countryside!!

[CrispyQ]

135. "I CAN'T even get my neighbors interested in ANY type of political action ..."

My friends all think I'm a political nut. Only one other friend keeps up on what's going on - the rest just don't give a damn. Like you said, most believe that they can't make a difference anyway, so why the hell care. When the biggest voting segment in our population is the non-voters, no fucking wonder we can't implement any change! And yet, I'm so discouraged that I'm almost at the point of joining them.

Arghh!!!! :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

I look at the list of some of the good things Obama has done & I'm glad those things have happened. But they are mostly small social or environmental things. Am I glad we have stem cell research? Absolutely! But we also still have the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, torturers are free men, bragging about what they did on national TV, Wall St. is living large on the taxpayers dime & we are about to give the health insurance industry, who has treated it's customers like crap (!) millions of new 'mandated' customers.

I realize this is Obama's first year, but the trajectory isn't looking too good right now.

[ChiciB1]

152. At Least We Seem To Agree... I Too Am Looked Upon As A Political Nut!

I used to always reply to others that WHAT goes on in D.C. affects them directly if they would just pay attention! I tried so hard to get people out to vote many many times and now there's a certain irony going on!

Many I tried working with, actually going to their homes, sitting down and pointing out certain aspects of things, stating my opinion and saying YOU should have one too, many times leaving because they wouldn't get off the dime! Now, I've had people call asking me questions about "where they can get help" because they have been so affected by the economy! I want to laugh in their faces and remind them how much I tried to get them off their asses!

But, I'm not afraid to tell them, I TOLD YOU SO!! It's crazy how many people who don't vote even when you take an absentee ballot to them!

I've seen more and more disdain and apathy than ever before and I too think that sticking your head in the sand is the better way to go.

Regarding Obama, I came late to supporting him but I did, and worked hard to help get him elected. He HAS disappointed me by many of the decisions he's made even IF it's only been a year! I do realize things take time, however too many "pretty speeches" just don't cut it for me! Given all that is going on today, I simply think that there are times he should just do something like slam a shoe on a podium or at least do some serious FIGHTING back! Plus, I'm always "wondering" exactly where he really stands on things. Seems like it's always some sort of "wait & see" thing when I feel he should have much more CLARITY and shout it out loud and clear!

Oh, I've gone on too long... time to hit the kitchen and the pots and pans for dinner!

[snagglepuss]

145. Now bush is gone, common ground is hard to find. Just look

at Health Care debate, there's no agreement among democrats. There doesn't seem to be anything democrats can all rally around. I also agree with another poster who said apathy is a narcotic especially when personal stresses abound.

The other narcotic that dsinclines people to action is the internet. Sites like DU don't promote apathy but they do provide a mirage of involvement. I'm in no way dissing DU, it's just that it has an addictive quality. I suppose people get informed at the cost of being active in the sense of going to meeetings.

[Delphinus]

36. Funny you would post this

I mentioned to someone this morning I was going to back off and let things go. I'm tired of beating my head up against a brick wall - getting the clueless to get a clue is not something I've been successful in. I've failed. I need to let it go.

[Enthusiast]

40. This is a timely thread!

I think we are all feeling this to one degree or another.

Several on this thread have suggested a rest. I agree. Maybe a nice break and you will gain new vigor for the good fight.

[Laelth]

50. The days are getting shorter and it's getting colder.

Depression is rampant. None of us is immune.

But remember this ...

These really are the best of times. Slowly, oh so slowly, we have gotten better and better over the years. The government has always, and I mean always, principally served the interests of the ruling elite. Look at those rich white guys who signed the Declaration of Independence. Nary a woman nor a person of color, nor even a white indentured servant in the whole lot. Ours is a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich (even though our rhetoric says something else).

Slowly, over time, we have improved the Country and brought our reality closer to the rhetoric of our founding documents. We abolished slavery. We established public education. We granted women the right to vote. We reformed labor practices. We actually gave people of color substantial rights in the 1960s. We got Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. As many problems as the Country has right now, in truth, this is the best it has ever been. Hell, we just elected a black President. He may be a corporate toady, like all the rest of them have been, but so what? What did you expect?

Does that mean that silence and acceptance are the answer? No. Of course not. We will continue to do what liberals do. We will keep our eyes open, talk to one another about the problems we see, care for our families and neighbors, vote for the people we think are more likely to share our values, and, occasionally, write letters, march a bit, or otherwise scream our heads off until someone with power listens to us.

And they always do, in the end. Conservatives are wrong on the issues 95% of the time, as history has well proven. So, be proud of what we liberals have accomplished, and just keep doing what we do. What alternative do we have, really?

:shrug:

:dem:

-Laelth

[pengillian101]

62. Great post. n/t

[snagglepuss]

146. I've been thinking along same lines, though I would say its important to

look back over the centuries and take note of countless people who fought the good fight.

I am speaking as someone who is also exhausted by outrage, just wanting to disengage from that heightened emotional state. Being involved just means being continually angry not just by those who are creating the problems but those countless others who don't care. I'm not happy with this situation and I've tried things like mediation but it doesn't work for me which is how I came to your line of thinking.

I'm now thinking that instead of focusing on those who are so maddening and conditions that are so overwhelmingly bleak would it not be better to focus on people both living and dead who fought the good fight, people like MLK or Jane Goodall who never seems to give into despair or the countess activists we never hear about in places like China where social change seems totally hopeless.

Perhaps that is why Catholics have saints or why MLK talked about going to the mountain top. Maybe the key is to sustaining sanity is not to focus on that which enrages one but focus on that which inspires.

And this is not an endorsement in any way of positive thinking which can create way more problems than it solves and IMO often masks a cynical mindset; rather what I've being mulling over is more along the line of McCrae's thinking

snip

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

[Laelth]

153. Beautifully said.

I certainly insist on giving credit where it is due as a method of maintaining sanity. Gandhi, MLK, Tommy Douglass, Tony Benn, FDR (or, more importantly, Elanor Roosevelt), Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln, Tubman, even Jefferson ... and many have been left out ... all of these and more serve as inspiration. They are to be admired, and some may draw strength from their examples.

But for me, I am merely compelled to fight injustice where I see it. I can't really give anyone credit. I just do what I feel is right. I can't help it. That's why I encourage all those who are losing faith to just keep doing what they're already doing (what they too may be compelled to do) ... as I said above ...

"We will keep our eyes open, talk to one another about the problems we see, care for our families and neighbors, vote for the people we think are more likely to share our values, and, occasionally, write letters, march a bit, or otherwise scream our heads off until someone with power listens to us."

I couldn't sleep well at night if I didn't do these things.

Thanks for the response.

:dem:

-Laelth

[MoonRiver]

53. Let go, and let God.

It's a wonderful release.

[Kitty Herder]

54. Me too.

[treestar]

55. Giving up never leads to success

Persistence does.

[Skidmore]

58. I'm not certain what I'm fighting for anymore.

Only what I think I'm fighting for. And I feel alone in fighting for those ideas. Where is teh cohesiveness from the election period? Has it been totally lost.

[saracat]

69. I feel the same. My ideals have been trampled on. I feel lost..

[Jackpine Radical]

59. I find more and more lately that I'm just not seeing political action as the way

to accomplish meaningful change in the world. Instead, I think we need to make some very deep changes in our souls. The world needs more love, less fear, more concern for our fellow humans and for the Earth herself, less single-minded greed and acquisitiveness. I see us headed for really tough times, and foresee a need for all of us to pull together and take care of each other. Somehow, the conventional route of politics just doesn't seem to cut it. I'm not sure just what does, but I personally have been devoting more time to meditating, to filling myself with peace and calmness, to making contact with others on a deeper level, and in various ways to putting my own house in order.

[eridani]

82. All that stuff is political too, but it still matters who holds office n/t

[Jackpine Radical]

118. I agree that it matters who holds office.

I'm just not sure that I need to put as much attention into that arena as I once did. This is about focusing my own energies, not meant to particularly influence what others do. I'm not professionally a politician or political activist; I set out in life asking questions about interactions among body, emotions, mind and spirit. Sometimes the hurly-burly of politics seems like a major distraction from the things that concern me the most. And likely this is a passing phase for me; that kind of thing has certainly happened before.

[eridani]

60. I will not go gentle into that good night

Rage, rage, against the dying of the light!

[donheld]

61. Been there done that.

[inna]

63. Lots of great posts in this thread.

I feel a litte better now...

:grouphug:

[Deja Q]

65. Define "fight".

[philly_bob]

66. REC cuz sometimes I feel same and cuz think I know an answer:

Belong to a community of like-minded folks who alternate outrage with fun and the pleasure of everyday life.

[mullard12ax7]

67. You are 100% correct and I understand

The U.S. has never been this bad although as a friend of mine told me just tonight, it's still one of the best countries in the world. Corruption, stupidity and laziness rule the day and very little is being done about it and as you just said, we are just 1 person, there is very little we can do.

I don't have anything to say except to repeat that you are right.

[juajen]

90. Actually, one person can do a lot.

I have seen a reawakening of love and caring upon the death of my husband. I posted here on DU about his passing and over three hundred of my DU friends posted comforting me and wishing for a renewal of my spirit.

At his wake so many good friends were there with wonderful things to remember and say about my dear love of 50 years. I am getting by with help from every last one of my friends.

It makes me want to make a difference in someone else's life, and I will, in the name of my husband, who gave his all almost every day, though faced with a long horrible illness.

He would say that in History life repeats itself. Change can come from faith and making little inroads, one life at a time.

Thanks again, all my friends, for your loving help at my dark hour, and, please, do not give up, for all it takes is making a difference in one person's life, and it spreads, and spreads, and spreads.

[snagglepuss]

148. What a beautiful post.

I'm very sorry for your loss but now he is with you in spirit. Love like that never ends.

[GreenPartyVoter]

68. Time for a mental health break.

I felt that way for a long time, got revved up and started annoying congress critters over healthcare. Now my mood goes up and down with all the different info coming at us. Sometimes I want to fight and others I think staying in bed and hiding under the covers feels so much better. :hug: So those times you don't see me much on DU, know that I am tucked away in my safe little nest. :D

[Name removed]

70. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Mithreal]

74. 24/7 365 outrage and effort, you will tire as well.

Make an allowance for those that need to catch their breath.

I admire your energy though. If it is at all motivational then I support it.

[northernlights]

83. welcome to ignore

It's not about one team or the other team winning the election.

It's about cleaning up the shit TPTB has shoved down our collective throats for nearly 30 years. The democratic administration, for the most part, appears intent on shoveling additional shit down our throats I suppose as gratitude for our votes.

I, for one, felt a surge of great hope when Obama was elected. I haven't felt that way since shortly before Bobbie Kennedy was assassinated. No doubt the rest of you had even more invested in Obama than I did, as I came late to the party. I cut him slack over early appointments I was unhappy about. Who better to help undo landmines than the people who set them to begin with.

But instead of using Summers/Geithner/et al point out and defuse the land mines, they've been given free rein to lay more land mines and lure more unsuspecting into newer mine fields. Trillions of tax dollars to the banksters so they can continue to collect their multi-million dollar bonuses. And the rest of us can eat shit and die.

He took single payer off the table from day one, starting negotiations from the middle and moving right from there. If you can't afford to pay extortion to the health insurance industry, than you can go eat shit and die.

I didn't expect him to get us out of Iraq in a day. It's simply not that simple. And I knew he'd probably up the ante in Afghanistan. But he gave us a head fake by pretending to follow Biden's suggestion to narrow the focus on al Qaeda, and now is turning Afghanistan into another Nam. And he's given Bush/Cheney a free pass on torture in our names and continues their worst policies at our expense.

And I cannot for the life of me understand why he's appointed Olympia Snowe president. :wtf: I've lived in Maine for 6 years. With apologies to the Mainers in this forum, because I know that there are some decent, intelligent Mainers out there, I've never met such a collection of ignorant, corrupt and stupid thugs in one place at one time in my 56 years. Maine is a state of extremes: you are either in the extremely wealthy very tiny minority, the miniscule and daily shrinking middle class, or one of the vast majority of dirt poor living hand to mouth, pilfering from transplants and neighbors, while worshiping the wealthy masters. It's the land of poppy bush, for cryin out loud. It is the shining example the right wing can point to when they spout about the incompetence of government. It is overflowing with Kristian schools turning out students who believe, and this is a direct quote, "Darwin is bunk."

I'm going back to my original belief about Amurka. I simply can't be part of what's going on any more. I didn't bother to get a converter box and have been without t.v. since June. I miss it, but I missed it when I had it. I miss having real news on the news hour, having creative entertainment or educational programs during prime time. Look hard at what passes as news and as entertainment. It's worse than American Idol, which at least is some people with a modicum of talent. It's a bunch of narcissictic, whining, back-stabbing, self-important fools on some stupid reality show. That, sadly, is the real Amurka. And I simply can't care about those people. :puke: :puke: :puke:

Somewhere along the way, Amurka took one fork in the road and I took a different one. I have nothing to do with that Amurka and when I look at tv and "news" I'm glad I don't.

As a country we are done. Stick a fork in us already.

[handmade34]

87. your's isn't the only story

...that may be the primary reason for the fatique... to see the Dems numbers and still not be getting serious results. Your response to the op is unnecessary.

[VOX]

88. Calling out an established and fellow DUer is not only bad form, it's against the site's rules...

Best not to make an entrance to DU frothing and flinging the angry horseflop, or your stay will not be long.

[Chemisse]

96. Wow - that was over the line. Simmer down pup. nt

[FarLeftFist]

71. Sometimes I miss being on the offensive and bashing the Republicans for the last 8 yrs

But then I remember how horribly evil republicans are as Presidents, politicians, activists, pundits, etc. and am of course much happier we have a Dem President. Just sometimes wish we had a more Progressive one.
The only thing I'm getting tired of is having to vote for "the lesser of 2 evils" and the 2 party system.

[Mithreal]

72. For me, part of it is the shorter days

and the outrage has been so regular that I often feel like the only thing I can feel any more is the rage. I spent some time outside today to soak up the sunlight. Got some exercise too, daily even in little doses, and try to eat more healthy, working on that. Learn a few new recipes, unclutter and clean the home. Anyway, I am feeling the same and wonder how many of you escape the frustration. Stay warm and healthy, witt.

[NuttyFluffers]

76. Isn't that an Air Supply song?

i think Kirk Cameron's character from Growing Pains used to sing it karaoke style or something...

[Missy Vixen]

77. Bravo

I'm with you.

The only thing that makes me want to get out of bed in the morning is that I started taking care of myself. I wrote on a thread yesterday that politics is now kabuki; once I figured that out, the rest becomes too frustrating to stress over.

:hug: to you.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

79. You know

there is a plan for day after day massive civil disobedience in DC this spring
1000 people a day- putting it on the line.

[BigBearJohn]

80. Focus on your own community of friends. Join hands with them

and make the best you can of your life.

[Le Taz Hot]

81. We've all been there.

Luckily, I've been around long enough to know that NEITHER political party is working for OUR interests so there was no big surprise when Obama ended up being just another politician. But I do understand your disappointment and your resignation.

So, this is it. Spend whatever time you need to mourning -- perfectly healthy. At some point, however, you WILL start feeling "normal" again. When that happens, look around and choose a fight. There are MANY causes that need your fight and activist spirit. Maybe tackle something a little closer to home. My two causes at the moment are working to get Prop. H8 overturned (one way or another) and keeping MM dispensaries open and accessible to MM patients.

I'm not a real "huggie" kind of person, but here: :hug:

[zippy890]

108. I lost my wild-eyed idealism in 1972

and woke up to what our country really is politically.

I am not surprised about Obama's presidency, He could NEVER deliver what people - progressives- expected of him, especially young people. The disappointment was inevitable.

your advice is good - there are many local & regional issues that need a LOT of attention.

I for one am content with Obama in the White House. When his second term comes -thats when he'll try to have more impact on issues.

[juajen]

84. Same here, more's the pity. NT

[gooey]

85. You may not like it but...

You can't save the world. I know that's a platitude but it's also true.

One day if and when you have to means to save the world then you are more than welcome to make an attempt. But since that day is not today what can you get done TODAY. Do that. You may not see tomorrow.

All you can do is leave a mark. A legacy. All you can do is influence those around you. You already DO influence them anyway.

Focus on here and now. The next person you speak to may be the last person you speak to. What kind of impact do you want to leave on them?

Something physically that you can do to help is to go without something you enjoy. Internet, TV, sex, marijuana(that's a tough one for me), even food. Abstaining from certain activities/comforts helps us gain perspective on how these things affect our mental state.

__

P.S. If you're feeling you need something beyond any of that. Go visit a third world country for a month to gain some perspective on what really matters to you.

[goclark]

113. I feel like you feel ~ well said

I certainly feel better about our world situation today than under GW.

I refuse to complain if every issue, including Health Care, which I am passionate about, doesn't go my way.

I am happy to be alive!

[gooey]

160. Then you are a step ahead of a lot of people.

:)

[shadowknows69]

86. You decribed how I've been feeling exactly.

I'm hoping going to see VP Biden today will re-spark some of my passion for politics, because lately I just don't freakin care anymore. And that scares me.

ETA: :hug:

[ChiciB1]

127. The Very Fact That So Many Of Us Are Posting Here With Almost The

same message says VOLUMES! We're tired, we feel defeated and we don't see much good coming in the future! My first POTUS vote was for McGovern, so I've been in the political realm for a very long time... and I've never felt so VERY ALONE!

I don't think re-charging our batteries are going to be the answer. We need NEW BATTERIES with updated capabilities! For those of you who are younger, I salute your dedication and youthful thinking, it may help, but I'm not THAT old and I've seen this country FIGHT back in a much better way!

We are watching things slip away because we DON'T KNOW what else to do!!

[quaker bill]

91. I ran out of outrage

5 or 6 years ago.

[handmade34]

92. take a break

...the road is long, but the sun is coming up

[geckosfeet]

94. Yes. But we nudged things in another direction. A better direction.

Have a rest and come back.:toast:

[Greenheron]

95. Yep

I lost it years ago and decided if I didn't start do do something for the benefit of my family and stayed on the grindstone I would go mad. This is what we did.www.fuenteverdecommunity.org Still looking for some more like minded cool people.My email is enlightenedgringo@gmail for anyone with questions.

[Ganja Ninja]

98. We asked for a public plan that cut insurance companies out of the picture

because we really can't trust them and what did we get? We got a plan that forces us all to buy their less than satisfactory services under penalty of law. Better not nudge them them any more or they'll be selling our organs to the Chinese.

[geckosfeet]

158. Ah. Cool rationality.

[twitomy]

97. To think we will ever have a completely "just" world

is folly. So dont get too worked up about it. As long as the individual has free will, the ability to choose justly or unjustly, so long will those unjust choices extrapolate to an unjust world. No laws, no economic system, no politician, will ever stamp out ill-justice completely as long as there is free will. Perhaps this is why people turn to a higher power. The best a person can do is to do right by themselves and their fellow man and to influence others personally, or in your vote to do the same. But your own choices ,influence, and prayer, (if you are a beleiver), is all one really has so dont beat yourself up.

[placton]

99. Yup - Obama and the Dem Congress

killed it for me. Good luck America. I plan to watch the train wreck from the sidelines.

[Horse with no Name]

101. My friend

I feel I lost that urge during the Primary cycle.
The realization is that the only thing I can do is best prepare and keep the ones around me.
I cannot save stupid people from themselves. It is impossible.
May you advance to a peace that your wants and needs are not considered frivolous because they are not someone elses wants and needs.

[bread_and_roses]

102. Hey, just amble on over to GDP

where you'll be told that you are not a "grown-up," that you don't understand political realities, that you are just looking for ponies, and more of "with Obama as President and Congress in D hands" any negative reactions to current state of affairs must be "personal." Now, THAT'll make you straighten up and fly right!

After all, those of us who marched against Vietnam, protested Iraq war I & II and Afghanistan, protested NAFTA and CAFTA and DOMA and fought every year to save reproductive rights and protested School of the Americas and and worked on the State level for incremental health care measures and worked local and state and congressional races and, in my area, turned a totally Red area almost totally Blue (one State legislator left) and and and and and and ... why, we are just naifs looking for ponies.

Krugman writes an article that - from my quick scan of it - never even questions the trillions our Pres and congress turned over to the Banksters but very mildly calls for stimulus that might actually create jobs for the millions out of work, and evidently gets "unrecs" since there is a + by the count - I guess because he says Obama needs to do more...can't have that, now can we, on an "underground."

So, get a grip, wo/man!

[prairierose]

103. I am so glad that you said this...

It is exactly the way I have been feeling but I could not quite figure it out. I don't know if it is the length of time or what seems like overwhelming numbers of problems but I am getting so tired. And the feeling that so few people are even aware there might be a problem.

[zoff]

105. Should we expend whatever emotional energy we have left ...

... trying to get our chosen officials elected into office? If we get screwed in spite of having the majorities, why bother to vote? Let's see, if every true democrat did this in protest, Washington will have half an audience for its charades. And we'll be treated to double the number of sex scandals, couple of more wars ...

[Myrina]

106. I ran out of outrage and fighting spirit in 2004 ...

... since then have become a (guilty) observer. :(

So I totally understand and empathize with what you're feeling.


:hug:

[wial]

107. me too but

I still want to dedicate my life to good, of some kind. It strikes me there's one issue that trumps all others, a tsunami of an issue, a black line on the horizon we can all see but we've been hearing the sirens so long now we consider it just another part of life: climate change. People are governments are too craven to change their ways enough to stop causing it, and the CO2 is already far higher than the Earth can possibly afford. Whatever transformation of society will come far too late. If Gore had been elected he would have given himself a nervous breakdown trying to get the message across. Gandhi tried to tell the Indian people to have less sex and fewer children and we can see how well that worked. Americans live in the blood bath of the slaughter of the buffalo, they have even less hope of achieving moral restraint.

According to the latest predictions, there will be 6 degrees of warming by 2100.

So what to do? If this planet is to make it into the 22nd century as anything other than a nearly lifeless desert, as wrecked as it was from similar causes 250 million years ago, we must find ways to correct the damage to the climate. Herculean geo-engineering projects. Pumping cold from the deep of the ocean to cause plankton blooms. Sulphur in the stratosphere. Sun shields in space. Whatever works, whatever the side effects. Chemotherapy for the planet. All out war on those who will not stop causing the problem, if that can be done without making the problem even worse. No need for outrage, just grim necessity. Cold equations.

Can anyone offer a reason why we should not be doing everything we can now to gather the means to stop climate change, above all else? The only counterargument I've heard is given we got ourselves into this mess, perhaps it's best for the galaxy we suffer the consequences -- but I can't accept that. Rage, rage, against the dying of the light, as someone else said.

[scentopine]

110. Its the relentless dogma from the media...

Fox News bullying anyone who stands up for working class people, human rights, spokesmen for their corporate masters

Its mainstream media refusing to upset their corporate sponsors by telling the truth about health care

Its the democratic leadership embracing Reaganomic and neo-con style trickle-down and free-market policies afraid of losing corporate sponsorship

The last 20 years have made the rich unbelievably richer - our government and media is just following the money

- Outsourcing all US labor manufacturing goods and services to China and India is good

- Unions are bad

- Single Payer is bad

- Insurance Companies good

- Public health is bad

- Government run by lowest bidder for-profit companies good

- Government run by public and accountable employee's with training and a passion for public service bad

We have an unstoppable death spiral

- the rich should be rewarded for their brilliance and moral and ethical purity that proves the free market is fair and just

- the poor should be punished. they have angered god and they are lazy and stupid and expect government to send them money

- sick people should be punished, they have angered god and just want free health care from the government

- the free market can solve all our problems from global warming to public health care to Wall Street corruption

Through all the despair - our hope and change leader is proving to be an able bodied company man, happy with his station, unwilling to put cheap rhetoric into hard core policy and only too happy to lecture us on education while letting CEOs outsource skilled jobs to unskilled labor in Asia.

And democrats - well, lets just say that as a nation we have moved so far right that today's Democratic leaders are not much different than early Reagan neo-cons on the economic axis and fairly close on the social axis. There are a few exceptions, but on average both political parties have moved hard right with nothing but disaster after disaster to show for it. But the purity and infallible free market lives on in the media.

Its all because of the new gilded age of the CEO robber baron. We just don't have leadership that can see past the piles of cash. CEO wealth has shifted the balance of power from the middle class majority to the tiny privileged minority of the uber-rich - corporations can run their own candidates, outspending civil servants.

So, if I may summarize, we are completely and thoroughly fucked. I am struggling to vote this election and if I do I feel like I might puke on the ballot.

[TomClash]

112. Look on the bright side

A lot has been won.

You threw the Republicans out of the WH.

Freewheeling capitalism has been discredited, tossed on the asheap of history.

State by State, gay marriage and other important rights are being won.

We have a President who is actually concerned about what you think.

We have an economy that is no longer collapsing.

And that's just for starters. It's not perfect, but that's not bad in less than a year.

The struggle will always be with us. Keep doing the right thing.

[Duval]

114. Skidmore, yes! Are you

a writer, a professor, a poet? Just wondering if you use your gift/talent in the working world.:thumbsup:

[Skidmore]

116. Thank you.

Right now I'm a frustrated, over-the-hill, unemployed housefrau with health problems. I used to do some technical writing in my job at a university but was never on faculty. I do love writing. I think some people here believe me to be moronic with naive questions sometimes. This comes from periodic problems with memory and foggy thinking. It also affects my wordfinding and spelling skills sometimes, a source of great frustration after I've hit the "post" button and looked at something that seemed correct at the time. I don't claim to be an expert in anything but I have done a fair amount of living--some of it hard. I've been very concerned about healthcare issues and believe I will die early, particularly if nothing changes in terms of affordability of care and major changes. I do want to leave some thing behind that is better for the little ones. This is what I have worked for this cycle--something better.

Thanks for your kind words.

[Stumbler]

115. I agree, it's easy to lose the will to fight when even our victories feel like stalemates

Remember how you felt when the Dems won the majority in the Congress in '06, and then Obama was elected in '08? Elated, excited, and hopeful that things might actually change. We'd just emerged from an 8 year nightmare in which it seemed every week there was YET ANOTHER scandalous violation of our Constitutional rights as American citizens. And in Nov. of '08, we all thought it was finally over.

Less than one year later, the euphoria and momentum has stopped dead in it's tracks. After witnessing the previous administration pass one wretched bill after another, with complete disregard for the non-top-1%-ers, this new administration has allowed itself to get stuck in a quagmire of debating health INSURANCE REFORM for almost a solid year now.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure:
We've had no debate on improving nutritional education for our children.
We've had no debate on why a bag of Doritos or a Big Mac cost less than a pound of broccoli.
We've had no debate on increasing the number of employees for the FDA, to ensure food and drug safety.
We've had no debate on the value of government subsidies to corn producers and those who turn that corn into high fructose corn syrup, likely the #1 cause of obesity and heart disease in the US.

And I think that's why we're getting tired and fed up. First, this "health care debate" is only focusing on 10% of the entire issue. Add to that our "Dem-controlled Congress" is caving in on their own position in order to possibly get one (R) vote, maybe. And then you realize that ANY watered-down bill won't have any effect until 2013, and it's hard not to feel discouraged, tired and beaten.

And all the while, this "voice for change" has maintained a number of Bush-era, quasi-fascistic policies, from maintaining our occupation of Iraq, escalating troop presence in Viet... er Afghanistan, to invoking "the states secrets" act to keep our prying public eyes off "sensitive material."

And again, this endless health care "debate" rages on, taking focus off other issues. There's been little to no debate on campaign finance reform, reducing our reliance on carbon-based fuels, ending the free trade policies that've sent millions of jobs overseas, reforming our War on Drugs campaign, etc.

I think the very fact that this health care "debate" continues week after week contributes to this feeling of fatigue. In the past, when I've felt overwhelmed in terms of political powerlessness, I've just shut off the t.v. and radio for a week and recharged. And like I said, when I tuned in again there was another NEW scandal to foment my outrage. But this time after a week's ignorance, I tune in to hear the same conflicting stories about whether or not the public option will be included in the current bill, and I can feel my political will and fighting spirit evaporate like a cup of tap water thrown onto an inferno.

But I still have faith in the younger generation. We need to reach out to them, to prevent them from becoming (R)s and cons. Teach them the values and virtues that Liberalism stands for, as well as the victories we've won in the past, and let them fight alongside us.

[SammyWinstonJack]

120. +1 nt

[dhpgetsit]

117. A hiking analogy

You have a big mountain to climb, and you have been struggling for hours and you see thet you are not at the top yet. You are tired, your energy is depleted, you are discouraged.

Take a short rest and focus on the beauty that exists around you. Enjoy the orange that you packed for its sweet fresh refreshment. Have a good drink of water. Talk to your companions and let them know you appreciate them. Then with your fresh shot of energy, a heightened sense of community and purpose, continue the climb at a slow and steady pace. The summit is attainable.

[ElboRuum]

119. I'm with you...

But I don't get outraged. I've seen way too much and know way too much to get that angry anymore. Outrage saps the soul and the will as you've so correctly pointed out, especially if that outrage goes overlooked by people who could address the issues which are the source.

The fact is that it is hard to change things for the better when very few can agree on what is wrong in the first place. Even here, there is no unity since the election. We had an enemy back then and we could at least agree on that. If it turns out that we can agree on the what and the why, its the how and the when that flummox us. Now that's just HERE. Open that up to the population at large and you'll see that it really is an amorphous mass of conflicting ideologies and no really clear unifying answers.

Our quandary, as a nation, is one of attitude. If we can't even figure out what it means to be one of us, how the hell are we supposed to get people to even TALK about the myriad of problems this country faces? If we can't accept the views of another, even if we mostly agree, how do we expect to begin to change the attitude of boringly predictable recalcitrance which has become synonymous with what being an American truly means? The fact is that, while we all have the right to speak as we choose, very few Americans actually ever shut up long enough to LISTEN. And when they do, it is only to the people with whom they already agree.

It's about choosing sides, splitting apart rather than coming together, highlighting differences rather than finding commonalities.

It's about buzzwords and jingo and sloganeering. It's about obfuscating truth behind a veil of rhetoric so thick that you can portion it off with an ice cream scoop and plop it on top of a sugar cone.

It's about pitting one against the other so that we all forget what it is we really want.

And it is absolutely tiresome, wrongheaded, and pointless.

The trick is to accept that your view isn't always going to be welcome. Some people will never be convinced. And when they push back against you, don't act surprised or incredulous. It is in the nature of the endeavor to be the hardest row to hoe, changing people's minds and getting them to see their goals as convergent, that is.

Get rid of outrage. Supplant it with resolve.

[blueworld]

123. You actually gave the answer in your post...and thanks for the reminder!

Beginnings & endings are illusions. I've always admired your writing & logic here at DU. You need & deserve a really restful break.

You're one note in the symphony - a helluva note, but still just one. When I felt that way years ago (and I feel that way again NOW coincidentally!), my 12-step sponsor gave me a note to stick on my bathroom mirror:

Dear Blueworld:)

I thank you for all your help over the years, and I'm gratified that you've submitted an application for the position, but I'm not ready to give up the job yet.

Love, God

Keep the faith, Skidmore. I can see how many people here (& elsewhere I'm sure) value you. :hi:

[earcandle]

125. Take a deep breath and know that you are really needed here.

We all have outrage fatigue.

We have to meditate and regroup and move forward with some awareness of what is happening
and then act as trimtabs to turn this ship around. Most of what is happening is wealth backed
illusion and smoke and mirrors while our money is being misused and stolen.

We do have a constitution. We do have the rule of law. We must impeach and recall until we
get it right. And we must elect leaders who will manage, not spend our money when we are not
looking and let regulations go out so their buddies can profit. We must prosecute those who
let those regulations go out and the crimes ensue against the American people.

We have to get it back, but we have to do it with language and the rule of law.
We must rebuild our trust and faith in humanity and that means all of us.

Outrage Fatigue

[ramapo]

126. I feel your pain

The health care reform fiasco has sucked a lot of energy out of me. Whatever winds up passing will be an improvement but that is about the best I can say about it. There is no question that the corporations and lobbyists continue to rule the country. The corporatcracy is alive and well.

Now and then I find it necessary to withdraw and tune out. I'm just about at that point. I did the same after the Bush selections.

There is no doubt that Obama is an overall positive development. He is nudging the ship but he is not capable (nor does he really believe in) executing a hard left rudder. In reality this doesn't even matter because Congress is not truly representative of the people. It is unlikely that this will ever change.

Take time to explore that part of the world closer to you. If it hurts to listen to the media noise, just shut it off. I always tell myself that I'm going to turn off the internet but that is a tough one.

[2QT2BSTR8]

130. Just by virtue of the fact that you posted...

I would say that you have plenty of outrage yet to hand out.

[Liberation Angel]

131. The will to fight is the first thing fascism tries to destroy

Look at the death camps during the Shoah. look at the African slave trade. Look at the annihilation of Native peoples globally and especially in the western hemisphere.

First and foremost - you have to take care of yourself.

Check your thyroid health (check out Mary Shomon's site.

Chronic fatigue and depression is a symtpom of a stressed or environmentally harmed thyroid (it is a stressor that works havoc with your endocrine system and hormones).

Make sure you eat right and try some medicinal plants that can help (I highly recommend Ginkgo Biloba which relieves anxiety and improves overall strength and health - I harvest and roast and eat the nuts this time of year for free --- but NEVER eat more than ten nuts at a time). It really has helped me immeasurably and I had been feeling like you. Or get the tea or supplements. Even SOBE drinks have ginkgo (Nirvana).

In the death camps the inmates, Haftlings, prisoners called those who had given up Mussulmen (a variation of the derogatory term for Muslims but mostly i think it referred to the fact that they didn't even bother to bathe or make sure they ate - they were resigned to death and were usually "selected" for the gas chambers). As the Nazis always needed to vacate space for new slaves in the camps they picked those who had given up for slaughter - as they could hardly work and were useless.

But the first thing the Nazis did to prisoners was to make them certain that all efforts at resistance were useless and that any emotion to resist was destroyed by the random depravity and murder of anyone at any time: it made one, who wanted to survive, docile (see Primo Levy's "Survival in Auschwitz" if you really ant to know what BAD is, count your blessings and learn something about how to survive this current set of horrors). In order to make prisoners compliant the will to fight, to resist, had to be eradicated.


Fascism WANTS you to lose the will to fight. Monopoly Capitalism WANTS you to lose the will to fight it. It is a war of attrition and only those who can endure survive.

But a final key point: Hannah Arendt points out in "Eichmann in Jerusalem" that the when some Jews or members of the Judenrat or Capos (Jews who helped make their own people docile to get on the trains to the death camps) were criticized by other Jews for complicity the defense that resistance was futile was not really true:

People who resisted the Nazis, who ran away and joined the resistance or fled instead of giving up the fight and "going along" had survival rates of up to 50%.

Those who gave up and went along because they had lost their will to fight only had a 10% survival rate.

Take care of yourself.
Keep the faith.

Rest. get what help you can and learn how to take better care of yourself naturally and/with healthy living and proper care of yoruself.

And never give in to these bastards.

That is what they want.

Don't try to move mountains, Skidmore.

Just make sure you do the one thing they MOST want you NOT to do: survive and keep fighting.

You are among colleagues and comrades who understand. But we also know that if you give up they have won and our children and future generations will be lost if we give up.

Peace and love

la luta continua

[tiredtoo]

132. Never give up

Folks,
Giving up is exactly what the rightwingers want us to do. This is an evolutionary process not a revolutionary process. The rightys have been growing in power for the last 40 years in this country. We should not expect to turn things around with one election. We have made some gains, as mentioned in the wsj of all places. Mining in Wyoming, hate crimes bill and i don't remember the third one mentioned. But the pendulum has finally reversed direction we are moving left. This is a good thing and will probably continue for the next 40 years. So cheer up and recharge we are moving in the correct direction, just baby steps to begin but giant leaps in the future. Hang in there my friends, the best is yet to come.

[AngryAmish]

133. I'm out of bubblegum

[Liberal_in_LA]

134. K&R number 100!

[guitar man]

136. Outrage Fatigue

It's well documented in this article

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30624

[ensho]

140. sometimes I go to bed thinking - 'that's it, I'm done' but the next

morning I'm back in fighting mode.

I don't understand myself.

[1776Forever]

142. I was just thinking about this yesterday & when I read your post it really struck me again.

Caring people are becoming less and less. Greediness is spreading more and more. I don't know what to do about it and I don't want to lose my soul but I felt like we, the caring people, are being drowned by indifference and people who think they are "rich" when there are only 1% of the truly rich around. At 63 I thought the world would be so much better then it is now. I really don't know what to do.

:shrug:

[clear eye]

143. Maybe it's time for you to move to the next phase of activism.

I remember years ago I used to look at someone like Pete Seeger who had worked, say, 40 years by that time for important causes and thought, "Where is his outrage? Why does he seem so optimistic? Doesn't he understand how entrenched and systematic the evil is?"

I thought back then that his efforts to clean up the Hudson River were naive and missing the big picture. A lot of older activists struck me that way. They tended to know only one or two issues in depth, though they kept up casually on current events.

I think now that he was still an activist who continued to get results because he had moved to a different phase of activism than I was in at the time.

When we first open our eyes to the world of public policy and politics, it is generally because we have been inspired to join a political campaign. There's a certain glee in finding out how our candidate's positions are superior not only to his/her opponent's, but to what has been achieved in Congress or the state legislature or wherever the candidate is headed. We get a sense of superiority just knowing we back someone who knows better and who will improve things. We knock ourselves out campaigning and celebrate when we win. When the next candidate appears w/ a similar agenda, we back that person, too.

We want to see how much of a difference we made, so we start following what happens next, politically. This leads to the next phase--starting to pay attention to issues and current events in general. Perhaps we start getting newsletters from one or two issue-oriented groups. Or follow one or two blogs. Or become active in a party locally. We start to see how much more work there is to do than we were formerly aware of. But we dig in, call Congress when prompted, or hit the pavement each summer for our favorite candidate, and write checks when we can. We read in those newsletters or blogs how we have sometimes gotten a piece of legislation passed--how our efforts made a difference. Or sometimes our candidate wins. But we also start to notice how sometimes the bill was defeated or the court case lost, even though we'd been convinced that the situation was important. Sometimes our candidate is outspent and loses, and often can't get the promised reforms passed.

Then we try harder. We try to involve others. If our SO, or close friends are disinterested, we may get involved in recruiting strangers when we campaign door to door, phoning for the party, or writing motivational pieces for a blog. And our understanding of the broader picture increases. By this time we may sometimes watch C-SPAN. We see how the same politicians keep obstructing needed reforms. We learn how much more money the entrenched elite interests always have than the reformers. We learn about the huge, negative, worldwide impact on much we hold dear is caused by the unremitting actions of a small, powerful segment that cares only about its own advantages. We find out how few of our neighbors want to do anything more than vote every few years, and even then how few of those care to learn enough to make informed voting choices. Sometimes we hear even luminaries like Michael Moore say they're discouraged. We learn the devastating impossibility of making it all, or even most of it, right.

We think about giving up. We try to pay less attention to what's going on, but we can't unlearn the big lessons. Even if we only scan the front page of the newspaper occasionally, or see politics when it shows up on a satirical TV show, we know what it means in a way we didn't before we began the journey.

There are a number of ways people go at this point. Some get used to being bitter. They stay fairly informed, but the whole world becomes the enemy--part for perpetrating evil, the rest for allowing it. They disengage, and they get a sort of nihilistic satisfaction when the good side yet again loses. They feel their low opinion of the world is vindicated.

Others decide that they need to be more realistic. They decide their hurt is a painful lesson about how foolish it is to tilt at windmills. They move toward the "center" of the political spectrum and look for positions to advocate that won't get such hard pushback from the powers that be, such as carbon credits as opposed to stronger emissions regulations. They remain involved and feel they are sometimes making headway, but have little hope that the world will ever get much better than it is. They try not to look at the longterm picture. They get angry, even vindictive, with people who demand they back more anti-establishment measures. They tell themselves they're angry because "the perfect is enemy of the good", and those idealists are only derailing good compromises. But they are actually angry because the more progressive activists remind them of the hope they have lost.

A few, after having been knocked down, reassess things a little differently. They acknowledge how strong evil is and how powerless and disconnected with public policy most people feel in modern large societies. They admit to themselves that not only is progress slow, but that there is no such thing as an ultimate, a final, once-and-for-all win. As far back in history as it's possible to go, they see that there have always been people who have clawed their way into positions of power over others and who spend their considerable energies staying in power no matter the consequences to the society as a whole. They accept that there always will be. They wonder how, in light of that reality, some reformers keep going for a lifetime.

They look in history for examples of when there was a point to the struggle. What they see is that it took 80 years for women in the U.S. to become enfranchised. No one who was active at the start of the struggle lived to see the victory. From the Magna Carta to the U.S. Constitution there were 572 years, and citizen empowerment in the U.S. continues to be endangered and needs constant shoring up. It took over a hundred years to abolish slavery in the U.S., and African-American citizens are still working to have the same access to opportunities that citizens of European descent take for granted. Perhaps most problematic have been labor rights, access to a comfortable standard of living for the majority of working people. We have not seen straight, upward progress. There's been a lot of three steps forward and two steps back, depending on whether the gov't has been backing economic measures that benefit working people and the economy as a whole. Still, a great many jobs offer a 40 hour week, more or less, two days a week off, workers comp if you get hurt, and the promise of Social Security in your old age.

Politically active people who get this far in the re-evaluation usually remain active. They see their goals differently. They think of themselves, however large or small a part they play, as a belonging to a much larger effort with an unknown destination. They know that what may not be possible in one lifetime may still bear fruit. They know that improvement, but not absolute success, is possible, and that it matters. They even know that the human race will eventually die, but that as a member of the species we have an allegiance to it--it's the way we are made; it's who we are. Anything less diminishes a person. We know that this awareness gives us a grounding and sustenance that the most elite and power-driven can't imagine. Think of the MLK "I have a dream" speech. See how Michael Moore pulled himself back up and set up a website to encourage people to commit to a certain number of actions a week--w/o knowing for sure whether or not anyone would respond.

People in it for the long haul pace themselves. They learn their strengths and their limitations. Each person's abilities are different. They look for the next action they feel they can take, big or small, that moves in the right direction. They look to ally with others going in the same direction, and they don't waste time worrying about those who aren't. To newbies they may appear naive. It doesn't matter. They know that sometimes they will evaluate situations incorrectly or make other mistakes. They know that they can only do their best and hope that sometimes they will be very right.

Though I don't have Pete Seeger's talent for motivating people to drop everything and devote themselves to a particular action, I do believe I now understand better who he was. And I hope my small daily actions are a tiny bit effective, and that they cumulatively have some impact. Perhaps you can find where in the spectrum you fit for now. And it can give you some peace despite the ups and downs of being engaged.

[inna]

147. outstanding post.

thank you so much for your insights.

[clear eye]

149. Thanks.

I had to figure this out for myself a while back. I think a person has to be ready to hear these things, though.

I might put this up as an OP on the Activist HQ forum, on the off-chance it will be just the right time for someone reading it.

[Mithreal]

151. One of the best posts I have read. Thank you.

[Laelth]

154. Very interesting. Thanks. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[Agony]

156. Cheers!

Excellent analysis. Eternal vigilance I say.

Thanks much,
Agony

[Lagomorph]

155. More bad news....

It's been like this since the 60's and before that, WWII was only a lull in our cultural war.

Breathe deep, spiritual warrior, for the barbarians will keep coming.