My God, did you hear that pathetic State of the Union? That guy, that President Obama? Disappointing times a thousand, am I right? What the hell happened to him? Why is he so weak and ineffectual? Why the hell can't he step up and fix the entire planet in under 400 days like he promised he would, in my dreams and fantasies and impossible liberal grass-fed organic tofu greengasms? Doesn't he know I put a goddamn bumper sticker on my Subaru for him? I've never done that for anyone. Bastard.
He's only accomplished what, about 100 of the things I expected him to accomplish by now? Big deal. I have, like, 5,000 more. Health care reform has failed. Guantanamo is still open. Wars are still warring. Jobs are still sucking. Gays are still unhappy because the entire human understanding of love and gender in this nation has not completely transformed within a year. Infuriating!
But the biggest disappointment of all? Turns out one calm n' brilliant Barack Obama isn't enough to solve the problem of 535 vile n' slothful congressional jackals who aren't Barack Obama. Go figure.
Shall we recall just how violently disappointed those fundamentalists were when Bush bumbled off the stage, the single greatest disaster as president we will ever know? They were, of course, mostly disappointed Bush wasn't able to do far more repellant damage than he did. They wanted nothing less than full-scale war on Islam, death to all abortion doctors, creationism in schools, homosexuality banned outright, all you scary women to please stop it with your needy n' terrifying vaginas. You know, the usual.
And now it's the hardcore Dems' turn, in reverse. Obama cannot do enough good, fast enough. He is failing as our personal SuperJesus. Not because he's not accomplishing volumes and making all sorts of history, but because we were expecting total mindblowing revolution. Hey, it's his own fault, right? He's the one that set out one of the most ambitious agendas in presidential history to go along with the million-mile hole he has to dig us out of first. Can you blame us for whining?
But we don't stop there. Not only are we disappointed, we need to express it. Vent it. Hiss it and spit it and hurl it like fistfuls of mental manure at the great wall of hey, screw you.
You have but to take a peek in the comments section below this column, any column, any article on this or any news site whatsoever, to see just how mean and nasty we have become. It does not matter what the piece might be about. Obama's speech. High speed rail. Popular dog breeds. Your grandmother's cookies. The anonymous comments section of any major media site or popular blog will be so crammed with bile and bickering, accusation and pule, hatred and sneer you can't help but feel violently disappointed by the shocking lack of basic human kindness and respect, much less a sense of positivism or perspective.
Maybe this, then, is the ultimate upshot of our endless, self-wrought swirl of sour disappointment, of never having our impossible needs fully met, of constantly being thwarted in our desire to have the world revolve around our exact set of specifications and desires.
Our disappointment begins to curdle, to turn back on itself, poison the heart, turn us nasty and low. It shifts from merely being a national mood or general temperament, into a way of being. A wiring, deep and harmful and permanent. It's all very disappointing, really.
Mark Morford, SF Gate.
The full story: here
Thanks D!
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