Whose failure?

In the December 6th edition of The Nation, a magazine I continue to get by snail mail so I can read it wherever I can pick it up, Eric Alterman has a thought-provoking piece reminding us that, despite some obvious miscalculations on the part of the president, we just might share some of the blame for the failures to reach the goals we thought we voted for in 2008.

But Obama's mistakes in office are nowhere near the entire story. The rest of us must shoulder our share of the blame as well. A few days after the midterm elections, Van Jones spoke to a progressive gathering in Washington. After recalling the pageant of progressive performers who came to DC to celebrate Obama's inauguration at the Lincoln Memorial...Jones reminded his listeners, "You had the full beauty of the American people, the full force of our culture on display.... None of those people quit the movement and joined the Tea Party. All that creativity, all that power, all that spirit, all that soul-it's still here. We went from We Are One to We Are Done.... Well, guess what? The days are now over when any of us can afford to wait for a politician in Washington, DC, to set the tone and the tenor and the face of our movement."

One of the things that really, really bothered me in the run-up to the 2010 election was hearing too many people who were activists in 2008 complain that Obama hadn't fixed it all.  And these were Democrats I was trying to work with.  I know that some of the problem was exhaustion on the part of those of us who had working our hearts out since Howard Dean came to town (perhaps we had not learned how to pace ourselves, or perhaps the climb was steeper and more difficult than we realized at the time?).  But some of it was, OK, we elected him, why hasn't he fixed it?

Yes, I would agree that it might have been better to push for the stars and compromise on reaching the moon or Mars afterwards, but I suspect we also forgot that there were a lot of people out there who helped elect Obama who were voting to get rid of the Bush agenda and who expected Obama to rise above politics and somehow bring everyone in line, including the Republicans, to make things better.  How many of us have been shocked by how truly dreadfully the Republicans in Congress have behaved in the past 2 years?  I know I have been, I really did not imagine they would become traitors for political gain.

This is what makes this so hard for people like me.  I really, really want us to save this country, and it feels like it is slipping away.  I am terrified of climate change and terrified for my grandchildren. I am not particularly happy about perhaps finding the retirement I am about to undertake so that I have TIME to work for the causes I believe in (I probably could have worked for pay for a couple more years, limping along emotionally and sometimes physically, with only my own future in my tunnel vision) made much more difficult as the Republicans destroy the economy and the scant but, with care, adequate retirement income I planned to use to support my activism.

I desperately need to find what is the best use of my time over the next couple of years.  All ideas are welcome.