The eight years of *Bush "ultrasuckiness" energized me. The past year....

[NRaleighLiberal]

of frustration watching the ugliness of partisan politics, the empty hyperbole of the fringe nutcases (= teabaggers and worse), the continued decline of any attempt at the MSM to do anything but grandstand and sell products rather than news, is driving me toward a depressing apathy. I thought Obama was our best hope to drag us out of a very dark time. Now it seems as though the corruption top down in our government - hell, throughout the world - the apathy and ignorance in our country, with so many turning away from what is actually good for them and an embracing of exactly what causes the problems - is just incredibly frustrating and demoralizing.

This is something I probably (in my more lucid moments when not caught up in the bye bye Bush, halleluja Obama moments) knew was possible - that change would take incredible patience, and in some cases appear to be near impossible...but being faced with it is something else.

I guess it isn't so much disappointment with Obama, but disgust at what appears to be an inability to dig out of the incredible mess (from finance to health care to wars to jobs) that was seeded by Reagan and fertilized by the guano of the Bush years. Will we? Can we? And if the political winds start to blow the repubs back in with the 2010 elections...well, I just can't go there. It is too unpleasant to ponder.

[FrenchieCat]

1. Changing things is supposed to be hard.....

yep, even after January 20th.

I think we are currently have a debate in this country.
Before, certain things weren't allowed to be said,
but it seems that now, just about anything goes.
Perhaps it is a good thing,
perhaps not.
We need more time to tell,
even if we are tired.

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. thanks, and yes, that describes it - tired, exhausted even.

[LakeSamish706]

3. Good post... And now I will continue... Yes, I am very disappointed in Obama

One of the first things I was hoping that he would do was hold the Bush Administration (All of them) accountable. As we know, this has not happened and probably won't. My hopes were that we would see a reopening of the 9/11 investigations, doubtful that this will happen.

Obama as a Constitutional Scholar would make sure that the Constitution was fully intact (and not just a piece of paper as Bush left it), not done.

Get rid of the Patriot act entirely, not done.

In short, I am not impressed with our current Administration and I have not seen change in a good direction.

All I see is another Politician that is collecting a pay check and gaining fame from being the first to do something; ie: First African American President.

Now I will preface this by saying; Of the Candidates left standing in both the Primary and the General, President Obama was the best choice.

[NRaleighLiberal]

4. I think you hit a root cause of my apathy and exhaustion - lack of acountability

for the Bush crimes. And that means lines will be crossed again, because there is nothing to fear - there is obviously no longer any rule of law. And that is a tragedy.

[murdoch]

5. My political activity

I had been reading political material for years. However, I'd say I didn't really become politically active in terms of going to demonstrations, helping organizers etc. until 9/11.

I live in New York City, and seeing troops walking through the streets, going into train stations and seeing troops with rifles, and guard dogs, reminded me of third world countries I had been in. Not that I had a tea party notion of any immediacy of a problem, but it showed me how things can change. The real things of worry were the Patriot Act (which still exists), the gearing up for war etc. Don't forget, Bush sent the US Air Force to play chicken on the Chinese border in 2001, and killed a Chinese pilot. Five months later I protested at the World Economic Forum, and began getting more active.

I began easing out of activity when the war in Iraq started going bad. From November 2004 to January 2005, 344 coalition troops were killed, mostly Americans. The poll question "All in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States, do you think the war with Iraq was worth fighting, or not?" went from 70% yes, 27% no in April 2003 to 45% yes, 53% no in April of 2005. I knew that would put the brakes on Alan Dershowitz and friends appearing on television and talking about how the US should torture its prisoners.

Also, I got a little tired of the infighting the groups I was involved with were going through. It taught me that it is probably better to work in a small group that gets along than in a bigger group that doesn't.

I am busy now with work and school. Really I think a lot of people thought like me after 9/11. There were hundreds of thousands of anti-war protesters in New York on February 20, 2003. The war went bad, and now we have Obama, 58-60 Senators and a large majority in the House. Sotomayor just went on the court. I know people have to work at the grassroots level to change things, but I am devoting a lot less time to it, as I have my own things to work on.