A Note to a Friend

Here's an email I sent this morning to a friend, following a heated exchange last evening at a group meeting that we both attended. My friend was clearly deeply disappointed with Obama, as were several others on hand, and her disappointment found expression in scathing anger. I did not offer much in the way of a response at the time, partly because I believe that heat trumps reason in such circumstances--and we need reason more than heat. I dropped her this line this morning:

Dear .....

My apologies for not having had the energy to enter into the debate last night, but I believe that your anger at Obama is misdirected. You are in danger, as I see it, of being manipulated by a clever Republican/corporate strategy to have their way and blame the president for the results. The Republican Senate leader's latest solution to the debt ceiling crisis is a perfect example: pass a bill allow Obama to raise the debt ceiling over the objections of the Congress!

I myself believe that the president is doing what he can to abide by his own principles--those he was perfectly clear and honest about when he ran for election. As Maya Angelou observed, it is not so much a matter of Obama abandoning his supporters as they abandoning him.

Though I understand the frustration in today's poisonous political scene, it distresses me greatly to see my fellow progressive/democratic/socialist thinkers lash out against the man who comes closest to representing our vision of a better country. It only adds to the toxicity, and serves the interests of those who seek to control and profit from the inaction you identify. Could it be that, unwittingly, your anger is being stoked and manipulated by the very interests you oppose?

Best, Peter