If Wisconsin was a taste of things to come, then the future of this country is terrifying, or maybe the future is already here. A world where fear beats hope and reason and people vote against their best interest.
Whatever happened to hope? It seems like just yesterday we were full of it, everything was going to get better, we were going to get universal health care, a progressive tax code, a world class public education, opportunity for all. Fairness and justice were coming back, Reaganomics was to be just a bad, regressive memory.
We had the House, we had Obama, we had hope. Just for an instant, we had hope. Then, fast and surely, it started to fade.
Our leader, the man carrying the flag of hope was a nice man, too nice of a man. We needed a fighter, we got a president who wanted to be liked at all costs by the enemy itself.
After a debilitating fight over an anemic healthcare bill came Citizens United, then came the 2010 election debacle and hope became a memory.
The distance between the haves and have-nots keeps growing and those in the middle have less every day. Those on top are fighting for total power, as they already have all the wealth, and unless "we the people" recognize we are under attack, the few will win.
The fight for justice lost its impetus at the starting gate. The American middle class has no fight in them, too stressed under the weight of the hardships of survival.
I had so much to say, hopelessness has shut me up. I used to write all the time, now I can barely speak.
I want to believe the good guys still have some fight in them, that justice is not just a Robin Hood cliché but something we must fight for. I want to believe but I am having a lot of trouble with it. I am one of the good guys but I honestly don't know if I have any fight in me either.
In 2010 I spent hours making calls to Wisconsin, trying to get out the vote. I called Democrats and independents, I really wanted to help save Feingold's seat, I was not able to convince a single person to go vote -- not one. Feingold was the real thing; no one disagreed, or cared.
What happens in November will either sink our future into the dark ages or spark the hope for a better future once again.
Will we rise up or succumb to impotence?