Today I almost felt the need to apologize to a segment of the Tea Party. Almost! I know how it feels to be the victim of a government that doesn’t listen when you are hurting. But then, when I think about those in the Tea Party movement with the racist signs, the ones who parrot the sound bites of Fox Network, I have to reconsider, because I see the bigger problem. That bigger problem was never clearer than in the last week when I began to receive personal attacks on Facebook, from people I had friended as fellow “Democrats” united to defeat the effects of the Bush years. Those attacks were framed in a way that was very reminiscent of the Bush devotees who held on to their devotion when 70 % of the rest of the country had abandoned Bush. Suddenly, the same people who had joined me in the condemnation of this very bizarre behavior during the Bush years, were now telling me I must not criticize President Obama. Suddenly the same people who had religiously posted segments of Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow and quoted Thom Hartmann as an antidote to the Fox lies, now labeled them (and me) as the enemy!       

The alarm bells went off in my head when I realized that these people were doing exactly what the Bushites had done. They translated my criticism of the president as a personal attack on them, giving them the green light to personally attack me. They responded to my criticisms with truths and half truths that were meant to distract from a conversation that was a real response to my specific complaint. Then came the sound bites from the White House, word for word. One Facebook attack used the word “Left” as if it represented the lowest form of life on earth. “Stop whining” sent chills down my spine as I remembered all the times in my life I have been told to stop acting like a girl and be a real man! Then came the references to Nancy Pelosi and San Francisco, which in my book are no different than the subtle anti-Semitic slurs about New York Jews! No, these specific references were not homophobic per se. Homophobia is the foundation that drives the acceptance of the generalization that everything from San Francisco is crazy and in some way un-American.

Here is what I refuse to accept, that I refused to accept during the Bush years and I will refuse to accept in the future. I will not drink the Kool-Aid. Truth is the bottom line for me. I cannot join some mass hypnotic trance in order to avoid the truth. The truth is Obama has reversed himself from his campaign promises time after time after time. The line he crossed in the last two weeks is one line too many for me. I will not accept responsibility for the broken political system that is destroying the United States. I will not pretend that we have a democracy when my vote counts for absolutely nothing, when we all know that money is the only important thing in America. I have the right to not participate in something I see as evil and destructive. 

In the last month I have been involved, first hand, in the process of helping a very close friend, a 75 year old widow, keep her home from being sold in foreclosure. We stood together on the steps of San Francisco city hall to stop it in the last moments before her home of more than 40 years was about to be sold. In the weeks following I have been witness to the evil, immoral behavior of the bottom feeders, those who relish the thought of getting rich on other people’s suffering. 

So I am done with the fancy hollow speeches of the President of the United States. I am done with all the devotees of Barack Obama who do not see that he is a changeling who is about to pass legislation with a majority of the Republican Party, using the excuse that the system he once denounced, requires it. He is the Great Enabler! I am done with politics that are bought and sold to the highest bidder! I am done with people who think critical thinking is arrogant! To those within the Democratic Party who use words like Liberal Base and Left with the same kind of disgust of the far right, I say this: Good luck in 2012 without us!