How the Right pissed me off, and the Left turned me off..... [View All]

For some time now, I have been passionate about my politics. As an immigrant who didn't get "Turned on" to politics till quite late in the game (Election theft 2000), I believed that I have made up for it since.

Before I found DU, I was an avid reader of Buzzflash and Mediawhores.com and a few other progressive websites. I looked for anything and everything that would counter the propaganda that I was being fed daily via my cable television screen. I stayed up all night to hear what Ray Taliaferro had to say that morning on my local KGO radio station(he came on at 1:00 a.m.), and before him, I'd listen to Bernie Ward. I was frustrated, upset, and disturbed by what the Bush administration was doing to this nation.

I happened upon DU back in December of 2002, and in August of 2003 (under a different name)I joined in the discussions.......and have posted ever since, and currently have over 60,000 post under my current non de plume.

During those hard years (my hubby called me depressingly obsessed, and I was), I dedicated a large part of my life to making a political difference. I worked hard and fought hard to get Republicans out of office. I canvassed, donated, called, wrote, organized, etc... I also fought hard against the media. I wrote and called them daily (my email contacts were the who's who in the media world). At that time, I couldn't quite wrap my head around why the media, who was supposed to be on the side of the people, wasn't. I detested George Bush and all of his cronies. I marched against Bush BEFORE 9/11 (there were only about 200 of us in S.F. marching with our anti-Bush Banners). I marched again in October of 2002, and again in February of 2003. I couldn't believe what was happening to this country that I had loved from afar prior to becoming one of its citizens.

My lowest peak during my activism was that I was unable to affect our march to war, and felt utterly depressed that I couldn't make a difference; and yet still I kept on fighting.

Then John Kerry lost the election, and I was truly devastated, and couldn't figure why not enough folks saw things as I did. And yet....I kept up my fight. I was determined not to let the country down with my inaction, come hell or high water!

Then it happened! After doing all what I needed to do to get it done, my objective was realized, and Barack Obama was elected and Bush left office. I understood then that the nightmare was primarily over. I wasn't expecting to see things be rectified all at once, but I did expect that we would get back to where we were before Bush, the interloper, who in my eyes, had interrupted this country for 8 long ass devastating years.

.....However, instead of being able to enjoy the new president's actions in restoring us to some normalcy, and all that he was to bring us as we worked with him to repair 8 years of total shit....I began suffering from a different type of anguish and my political interest has gone downhill ever since.

As much as I hate the Right for its evil-spirited made-up hyperbole and constant unfair criticism of this administration that is given much play in the press, I have started to feel even more let down by those whom I long considered my political brethens in the trenches fighting to restore a semblance of fairness to this country.

I now find myself as puzzled as I was with this country as I was when Bush stole the election. I don't understand how some on the Left and Right can dismiss everything this President does that is good, and focus with laser beam on what they don't like. Ever since inauguration, I have been constantly worn down by all of the criticisms that I hear from every direction toward this man and his administration, and I no longer feel as interested in politics as I once was.

I no longer watch News television, because I know just about everything reported will be exaggerated and slanted to reflect badly on this administration. I read here or elsewhere less every day, because I already know that just about everything will be a negative critique of what is being done, versus what should be done, etc. I know that the Right and the Left will each be having their say, and that very few will support this President.

In other-words, although I support and want to help this President like I promised I would, I feel cheated and tricked......not by the administration as much as by the 95% negativity that I hear constantly around me from every direction. I fought so hard in trying to restore a certain normalcy to this country, and yet, I now realize that there will never be a normal....ever...and that this country really just was never what I naively thought it was; a country that was not really all bad, and in fact, had and still has a lot of good in it.

So what should I do now?
Do I give up and just say Fuck it.....I don't have any more strength to go on....?
or do I find like minds, who like me, believe that this administration although not perfect
needs allies that will cut through that negative 95%, and fight to allow this administration
to be all that it can be (not all that I want it to be....cause one thing I learned in politics, is you rarely get all or even half of what you want...and then it takes forever).

I don't know what I will do right this moment.....but I do know that as pissed off as I am at the Right's twisted hatred campaign to rid this country of this Administration, many of the voices on the Left have totally turned me off, and have made me wish for my good old days of apathy....

and if apathy can creep back into my life, after all of my willingness to fight the good fight for what seemed to have been a very long time, I can only guess what is happening with all of those others, who like me, understood that everything wasn't going to be peaches and creams, but that it was going to get better. So yeah...the Right has pissed me off for some time, but the trouble is that now, the Left is turning me off.