Inside Job and A Liberal's Lament

Why It Is So Hard To Be A Liberal

It is so hard to be a liberal in this world of greed and duplicity even though time and documentaries usually prove our deepest concerns were spot on despite what the Fox mad hatters might say in rebuttal. Yes, we, liberals, are a loyal and consistent block who are called upon to be at the ready to support those causes designed to make our world more egalitarian, more just, more compassionate. We are always hugging trees believing in some way that we must treat Mother Nature as if she were, in fact, our maternal progenitor. Probably, that particular interest is half native American myth and scientific findings. We go back to the earliest days when this country was first arising out of the colonial rule of an anarchistic geopolitical world. Patrick Henry was our iconic voice, “Give me liberty or give me death.” A no compromise commitment to the cause of freedom found a place in the collection of merchants and farmers, many of them slave owners who were only to ready to give themselves liberty with nary a thought for those working their land.
Skipping ahead, our leanings and our causes were eloquently expressed in Lincoln's words at Gettysburg, where a great man could only stomach the ravages of war if it were only in the cause of furthering those noble aspirations that lead to the country in the first place. Muckrakers delved into the horrendous practices of those who cared little if they profited from selling poison to add even more to their hordes of wealth. The liberal tradition was a force that brought about changes needed to keep a progressive nation on a trajectory toward the noble goal of transforming the body politic into a system that is utopian, with a keen eye that utopia is only a goal and that the real achievements are realized when that which is wrong is corrected piecemeal. A kind of step by step approach to improve the conditions under which humans live and die.
Liberals are known to be active citizens. We never miss an opportunity to express ourselves and our belief. Primaries are our arena where we possess a modicum of control over the direction of our party – unlike the indifferent majority of Americans who will stay home secure in their nests as long as their favorite shows are not interrupted and their paychecks continue to flow. This is not to raise us liberals above our fellow citizens but to show the contrast between those actively pursuing a dream, and those who are enjoying what they have.
Politicians know our behavior all too well. The mind bending, mind probing psychologists who have shifted the campaigns from a discussion of issues to a selling of a brand have long been in the forefront of shaping what a campaign is all about. Thus, those who actively participate, the activists, are the first cohort to get “the message” of the person seeking office. In this instance, the candidate with the help of pollsters (really little more than psychological gnomes – gremlins, if you please) craft the words of the candidate to sell the person to the awaiting activists.
I can only speak from the left of this world. Thus the Democrat most likely to win in the primary is the one who speaks to liberal issues. As a group and to the one, we liberals are gullible people. We buy lock, stock, and barrel any candidate who appeals to our sense of rightness. Oh how we swoon when we hear the words we want to hear. If you re-examine Obama's campaign speeches, you see he was playing the chords of our concerns, much as a virtuoso harpist goes through a complicated composition. When he talked, this liberal and many others of my ilk, could close our eyes and see the cherubs flowing above his head while our giants iconic leaders of the past materialize in his many references. Alas, like a hapless sot who awakens after a night of foolhardy revelry head and body wracked with the pain of afflictions, we soon discover we didn't get what we wanted. We got what we had. And if perchance we raise our voice and shout, “hey that's not what we had been promised,” we are told that 1) we don't understand and 2) we are unrealistic and even more not relevant. Thus, we are cast aside like putrid offal, while our knight in shinning armor rides under the banners of moderation and mainstream.
Why all this recrimination? Having just viewed “An Inside Job,” it is clear that the new boss is just like the old boss (I used the tidbit from a Who song before but it is seems to be what it is). While the masterminds of the fiscal meltdown continue with their avaricious ways free of any fear of suffering any consequence to their illegal and immoral actions, the people of this country scrape and crawl out of the fiscal hole that was allowed with deregulation by those whose reckless behavior was designed to make them obscenely rich. While these so called too big to fail financial snake oil salesmen continue to receive obscene compensation packages and tax breaks, we can only sit and watch and be satisfied with the meager crumbs that fall from the mouths of distended moguls whose mere breath sway the course our ship of state. Which brings me to the thugs who roll out of Wall Street into government only to roll back, like a snow ball being rolled in wet snow, though their growth is money. Is it no wonder the dollar is in the tank, when a double talking, double dealing CEO from Merrill Lynch can accumulate hundreds of millions of them while the average Joe has to give away the treasury to get unemployment insurance? And now of course, the ship of state is on a course to get the president re-elected and we liberals will need to be satisfied with the hope we can hold on to our castle no matter how humble it maybe, while the top one per cent ponder beach front property in Boca Ratan or a desert oasis in Palm Springs – hell why not both. We are sure to hear in the state of the union a few phrases that will tug at our heart strings but the vast majority of the president's speech is all a smoke screen for the top one percent huddled in some exclusive back room laying out the strategy that will allow them to continue to plunder this nation wealth.