Sunday, July 31, 2011

A Pathetic Little Distraction


This unremarkable e-mail arrived in one of my in-boxes today. It's from the official Obama reelection campaign committee, Obama for America. It doesn't ask for money, surprisingly, but it touts the President's plan to make cars more fuel efficient. It pissed me the hell off. A lot; and not because of what it said...I stopped reading it part way through and didn't even bother finishing it for this blog post.

It pissed me off because this weekend the administration and its Democratic allies seem to have been busy doing absolutely nothing more than preparing a massive appeasement of the tea party extremists over the fake debt ceiling issue, and this pathetic e-mail arrives in my box insulting the intelligence of people who once voted for Obama — yes, that includes me — with its lame attempt to distract its audience with table scraps when a massive betrayal of American social programs is in the offing. It is utterly cynical and shameless. And I'm pissed off at myself for falling into the trap of thinking in some small corner of my consciousness that maybe the movement of people that swept Obama to power would be enough to actually change anything at all when the right-ward trajectory of American politicians for decades is plain for all to see. This sad little e-mail is embarrassing not for what it says but for what it doesn't say, which is anything relevant at all to a watershed moment in American politics.

Take me off your mailing list please.

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