Posts with the tag despair

If I could speak with President Barack Obama

FarmGal — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 18:41:17 EST

Dear President Obama:

I would like to talk about hope. And I want to talk about despair too. Many, many Americans have hope but there are those who have gone from hope directly into the pit of despair. For them there is not hope left. What could they possibly hope for now? People in grocery stores having to put pack 2 gallons of milk and 3 boxes of store brand cereal can only hope that their children standing with them in line will stop crying because they wanted milk and cereal. The despair of the parent or parents is obvious. They apologize over and over to the people in line and the clerk because they had to hold up the line while they have food for their children put back. Sometimes it breaks my heart that I can’t quietly say to the clerk please ring those things on my bill. Oh I do it when I can but I’m a retiree on disability and a part time job that nets my husband and I have an income of about $1800 a month out which at least $400 goes into drugs, gap insurance and drug gap insurance.

But this isn’t about me because we have our home and we try to live within the money we get. My husband who is younger than me works part of the year for the State of Virginia in the Agriculture Department certifying cattle scales and that is now in question with all the state budget cuts. He has reached the “out of hope” frame of mind of landing any kind of work in his field of construction but as I said we hold on.

The people who can’t hold on are my concern. People who couldn’t afford to have a job while the oil industry played with the fuel prices, people who went to their factory job one morning and were told the plant was shutting down, men who used their last bit of money to pay for a course at a truck driving school being told this weekend that the school was closed as of TODAY because they had no money to fuel the trucks so some men who drove 2 hours to get to the school returned home with the feeling their tuition is just money they’ll never see again and they won’t be getting that job they had counted on when they received their commercial drivers license.

People are filled with hope that the Stimulus Package will bring them relieve but many are already saying that that “stimulus” will be spent by large companies on perks for themselves instead of hiring workers. Oh they’ll bid jobs but they plan on using the people they have or hire illegal aliens at cut rates to further enrich themselves.

Meanwhile the Republican Party of which I am a member plays games trying to stop forward progress in rescuing this country. To them it’s simply a game they play because they don’t concern themselves with 2 gallons of milk and 3 boxes of store brand cereal for their hungry children. In fact it appears many of our elected officials from both parties don’t even concern themselves with paying their lawful taxes until their tail is in a crack.

President Obama, Sir, I’m sure you are aware from your work in Chicago that when hope turns to despair the next stage eventually becomes anger. Anger with oneself for not providing, anger at the “system” because there’s no relief in sight, anger at Congress who had no difficulty spending trillions of dollars for war but can’t see that America’s people are close to losing their tiny hold on sanity and hope.

Please Sir I know you are a smart man and know these things but someone must now step up to the plate and ensure that the billions of dollars you pushed through Congress is not wasted in filling the pockets of the greedy and the corrupt. Somehow there must be a way and a means to keep the Stimulus dollars moving to where it needs to be.

Thank you for listening. I spent as much time and funds as we could afford supporting you when you were running for office and I shall remain steadfast in my support of you. Remember when things aren’t going as planned that there are millions who trust you and know you will do the right thing.

Sincerely,

Hope and disappointment.

Greg from Bloomington, IN — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:24:55 EDT

I have been politically aware since about 1999. In other words, I've seen a lot of politicians win elections by telling one lie after another. For example, every primary season my congressman is strongly against the Iraq war. Then from May-November he tries not to talk about it. Then every January he goes to Washington and votes to fund the war, six months at a time. Every primary there is a challenge from an honest progressive who is actually against the Iraq war. Each time, their honesty fails to overcome various limitations in our electoral system. I become jaded.

Introduce Barack Obama. I never really heard of him until he started winning primaries. When I started looking up his stances, I was shocked. Here is an honest progressive, running for office, and winning! When he gave a speech confronting the intersection between race, religion, and politics, I found his commentary not only insightful but stunningly forthright. He didn't shy away from the complexity or difficulty of the issue. He delivered a speech knowing full well that it would not "sound bite" well. Wow! Then Hillary invented this bogus gas tax holliday and instead of joining on and shovelling the poop, he stuck to basic principles of sanity and honesty. And he was still winning! Wow!

For the first time in my life, I saw someone use honesty to win an election. I had not felt this good about democracy since reading Jefferson and Franklin in a gradeschool civics classroom.

Then there is today, and these quotes come to my attention. Until June 2008, Obama was saying all of the right things about FISA and telecom immunity. He was not using weasel words, he was promising concrete actions in service of concrete goals: the rule of law, equal application of the law, executive accountability, and essential liberty over temporary security. He was willing to stand up in public and say something that needed to be said even though it didn't make the best sound bite or use any of our base fears to manipulate us.

But as you can see, in June 2008 he completely changed his stance. When someone makes a promise in October 2007 to filibuster a bill and then announces in eight months later that he will support that bill, that is not just a flip-flop, that is a lie and a betrayal. It is a breach of the basic trust between politician and populace. It is not change I can believe in. It is change I have seen (and smelled) before.

To be clear, this is not a wedge forming between Obama and the progressive movement. This is a wedge forming between Obama's actions and Obama's words. It is not a failure in Obama's security policy, it is a failure in Obama's character.

Are You Down With This

Zo — Sat, 17 May 2008 20:07:58 EDT

Has this been the longest five weeks of your life or what. Looking at my first post here, I can't believe the tests—test after test after test—faith has been through. Least my shreds of. I don't know about you, but I wobbled, I withdrew, I detached—I did all the things people do when they fear. When they care about something so deeply, have allowed themselves to dream—and watch that dream get shoved around. Dragged real low. Sullied, even, by some of the shabbiest human behaviors, when that is not where a dream is supposed to go.

Dreams are genuinely precious. Dreams are pure hope—pure child. And who, really, can bear to carry anything so vulnerable into this world. I don't suppose anyone can, or does … without some kind of faith.

And what if the dream remains unanswered? Hopes go unfulfilled?

I begin to see, I would have made a terrible black person, like around the time of the Civil Rights marches. I begin to see the ways in which, as a white woman, I get to stay home.

Maybe this is what happens when someone inspired grabs hold of your heart and your hopes, especially after such a long time of national despair—I mean, torture, can America sink any lower—and says, “I'm asking you to believe in you.”

Someone like Barack, who—despite all the crap politicians go through, despite the crap Black Americans go through—somehow both Obamas manage to exemplify faith. Somehow Barack has managed to stay on-path through some truly cringe-worthy trashings—times that make me wonder if the Republicans can possibly do worse—without giving up, without trashing back. Okay, he tried trashing back a time or two, but his heart wasn't in it, it was pretty damn feeble, as trash-backs go.

Here's the hard thing: he may lose. And of course, that's what it looked like, during this agonizing … has it really only been a month?

I still don't have any answers. I can see what the Obamas have that I do not, and that is a working faith. One that carries hopes and dreams past the idea of wins and losses—and apparently, at the same time sustains your ability to go for it, in the present, as if it's a done deal.

Why, as a white woman, am I so invested. Why do I want to see a black President in the White House so much it scares me. Why is this the most exciting thing to come down the road since the Sixties …

In April, I had pure Obama-bliss. Looking back, boy, was that easy. Now we get down to it. To the ugliness. Racism, in all its profound discouragement. The swift-boat thinking that has so gripped the American mind. To hope anyway. To find one's way of working for Obama, towards the dream. Perhaps that's the key. Perhaps faith is the working-towards.

And of course, working-towards never stops.

America's Hope: The Renewal of the Soul of a Nation

PrayersForAmerica — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:08:57 EDT

The vision of the future that many carry for America today is not one of hope, but one of sorrow and one of despair because the ideals upon which a proud nation once stood are being undermined by practices which depart from the high ideals of democratic functioning. Nevertheless, the hope for America lies in these ideals – in the clinging to the virtues which were embedded in her founding which still shine with their own light as a beacon to other peoples and other nations.

America's hope cannot be found in those practices which corrupt her willingness to compromise with others because it would diminish her power. Nor can it be found in the wish to ensure her control of energy resources at the expense of those same resources being made available to all. Nor does it lie in the many ways in which the sense of entitlement has taken hold of a consuming public with a voraciousness for new things and new technology that is both the envy of much of the world, and also the sadness of much of the world, for this indigenous greed leads to a distribution of wealth that is not beneficial to the planet, but only to those who have the means to satisfy their appetites.

In contrast to this picture lies the awakening of America's consciousness of moral uprightness - the desire to be a source of peace not a source of war; the enmity toward those in power who pursue power for their own purposes, not for the purpose of national integrity or wellbeing as is so often claimed. The awakening of America's consciousness is an important step in the rebuilding of the moral center of her foundation which has become weakened by policies and practices which depart from her true center. This weakening has also created a departure from the sense of generosity and selflessness which historically has been her relationship with others who came to her shores to seek a better life.

The longing for renewal that beats so strongly and increasingly in the hearts of many, is a longing for a restoration of the single note of pure idealism that once so informed America's outlook on life and her purpose in the world. It is the wish for a restoration of the sense of positive movement forward that has been present in other epochs in history and that, in the view of many, is not present at this time. We, who are waiting for this renewal of the soul of a nation, may have longer to wait before the desired outcome can appear and the heart feel a sense of ease from having removed itself from the precipice upon which it now stands. We may need to wait through times of turbulence before the darkening that has taken place to America's collective conscience can be dissolved in the presence of greater light. As we wait for this inner and outer transformation, let us hope that those who are granted positions of leadership that allow them to represent the will of the people, will once again turn toward the consensus of the governed in order to develop a policy and a point of view toward others that will be the source of pride and of national unity. As we wait for this transition into a new state of being, let us also pray for the soul of a nation to be strengthened, so that one in vision and one in purpose, those who are part of a once-noble nation can join together in common bond and extend America's hand as an offering of peace and prosperity to the rest of the world.

By Julie Redstone, reprinted from LightAmericaSpirit.org

Change, Hope and Continuity

Nikki Kehoe — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:55:03 EST

Change is the way of the world. Yet at the same time, continued through living transmission, we experience an incredible continuity of love, and the hell of breaking faith with it; relearning old wisdom and learning to recognize the gold glint of truth in teachings discarded by some, ignored by others, and cherished by some all along; the hope for soulfulness to save us, some how, some day, from that of ourselves that we know must die.

What does this have to do with politics? Well ask yourselves - what moves us to make a community out of a population, to use the unmatchable power of unity to uplift us all? What paralyzes us with discouragement and cynicism instead? Who are you going to follow? How are you going to lead? Whether you choose to or not, you do follow, and you do lead. It is soulful to choose; in fact, choice is one of the few proofs we have of our soul. Perhaps that is why we "fight for freedom".

Hope is the coming alive of our soulfulness, the divine, magic discovery that it is not a crutch brandished feebly against despair but is the quickening of faith, the awakening of our personal direct knowledge of our relatedness to the good of the past and the good of the future and that we are the living link to bringing it forward. Hope is experiential knowledge that our attitude makes a difference, it is, in fact, what every fairy tale, every hero, every religious story has been there to teach us all along: there is a good spirit that belongs to us, and it is powerful; it is our power. It can help us survive; it can help us thrive; it can help us help each other, and it can help us change.

It can help us connect to our soul and live more rightly and more brightly. It can help us discover our choices and our part in the continuity. It can help us recognize the falseness and deadliness of apathy and cynicism. These are the lies that would rob us of our living goodness and response-ability and numb us into tolerating the unconscionable, excusing ourselves for indulging in distractions while other souls and families are murdered and mangled in our name. It is a philosopher's stone, to be contemplated until the truth lives in us and we know how to practice and bring into being the spirit of love, the spirit of life, that we want to belong to.

It is not a club that belongs to one religion. It is for everyone to give to everyone, by coming together, by making choices, and by loving action in the world. This action does not succeed when it is motivated by hostility, hate, or resentment, no matter how warranted. It works when these are recognized as the forces that divide, that kill, that destroy peace and peace of mind, and live only through our giving them energy. The way of peace is found through living love. That's living as a verb, not an adjective. This is important because when we are not inspired by a great leader, when we find ourselves coping on our own amidst the forces of isolation, when the sails of our hearts are not filled with the collective breath of hope, we must remember what is true; we must guard our light and learn how to stoke it. When we overcome our pessimism and negativity, together and within, we flex our soul and discover the best that we can be.