If Obama erred in describing the feelings of many Pennsylvanians as bitter, it was only in his terminology, not his meaning. Even someone as educated and eloquently spoken as Barack Obama can occasionally choose the wrong word. He’s since corrected that characterization to be, “angry (and) frustrated”, but the message for most of us, Pennsylvanians or not, was clear all along.
The problem of course was with the definition of the term, in Webster’s or in common usage, which connotes a permanent cynicism, a lost cause hater or a hopeless naysayer who wouldn’t know a stroke of good luck or a helping hand if it were to reach out and pull him out of the way of a runaway train. Not that it’s not understandable that some would devolve into that state of heart and mind, given the state of America today, but we don’t encourage or revere a sentiment that rules out all hope for a better day, because Americans are historically not a people that surrenders to the gravity of our difficulties. We fight and fight hard. We just don’t want to quit; we know by our birthright, the one laid down by our revolutionary, high-idealed founding fathers, and the one fought for generation after generation after to preserve, that our submission is equivalent to death.
But “anger”, good old fashioned righteous anger, is as American as John Wayne. Contrary to what the Bush people would assert (with all extremities crossed), in their futile attempts to silence an increasingly disappointed electorate, it is not just our right to protest, but as a patriot, not the lapel-pin-wearing, flag waving variety, but a true patriot, it is an obligation; lest we devolve as a nation into a the mass bitterness and habitual cynicism of a beaten down third world nation.
Depending on which polls you’ve seen or believed, over 70% of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. And the president’s approval rating is even worse; only about a quarter of us think he’s doing a good job. Now, even by new math calculations that means that a lot of us, young, old, rich, poor, red state or blue, are something akin to bitter; the only difference is one of longevity and/or severity of condition, and of tolerance and heartiness, of fight; just how far up the food chain are you?
Where I live, in one of the largest, most affluent (and most impoverished) cities in the country, I see plenty of bitterness, and thankfully, a lot of frustration and anger too. And not just where you’d expect it either. You don’t have to sit down in a home (valued at somewhere around 3 or 4 hundred thousand dollars) with a black family in South Central or a Latino family in East L.A. to find it. Even out in the Valley or over on the West Side where homes go for a million and up you will find the same fear, anger and frustration bordering on bitterness. The only difference of course is the numbers. A mortgage payment, whether it is one or ten thousand a month, if you don’t have it, your palms are sweating and you’ve picked up that nasty liquor and nicotine habit you thought was in your past, and these days, you’re witnessing too many Los Angeles dawns from the wrong end.
I’ll tell you what I’m betting on: The people of Pennsylvania (my home state) will read this one with their eyes closed. The people I’ve talked to in Pennsylvania aren’t offended by the “bitter” reference; they’re offended by the patronization by Hillary Clinton and by much of the media that they’re too stupid or sensitive or bitter to see such feigned indignation for what it is; a desperate political ploy at their expense, a truly “elitist” stance that treats their economic misfortune as an unmentionable disease rather than the geographical luck of the draw that it is.
People are bugged all over, not by words but by actions and inactions, and by an administration that for the past seven and a half years, has acted time and again on behalf of big business regardless of how it would effect them. The interesting thing, as I see it, is that a lot of you two-time Bush voters that thought you were voting with your best interests in mind, for tax breaks and corporate passes, in the end or maybe even in the middle, will awaken to find that you too have been sold down the river.
1 response so far ↓
Marnie // April 21, 2008 at 12:19 pm
The media is absolutely over-hyping Obama’s comment. It’s ridiculous and kind of sad that Hillary Clinton and a surprising number of others actually conceive this to be a legitimate issue– and something to be brought up at a nationally broadcasted debate, no less. People ARE bitter, though they may not want to admit it to themselves or they dislike the word too intensely to even consider it.
Obama seems not to pander or “dumb down” his speeches and it’s that sincerity that I believe rings clear with his supporters. He may be too honest for his own good.
In times like these where we face such pressing issues as war, climate change, genocide, a massive food crisis and other, innumerable domestic issues, you SHOULD be bitter– bitter about the fact that the government is too inundated with their own corrupt “interests” to give two tiny shits about what is actually going on in the world.
I think it’s a compliment. Everyone I know (or can think of at the moment) is frustrated about something. And it’s absolutely normal to feel that way if you’ve kept yourself informed, and you know that you’ve been let down and lied to for nearly eight years. Only ignorant people aren’t bitter.