Feeding off the Carcass of Hope

Dear Mr. President,
Yesterday you came to town to pick the pockets of the super-rich. From 2 events, first a cocktail reception hosted by hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer, then a dinner hosted by billionaire Gordon Getty (heir to the Getty oil fortune), you drove away in your armored SUV with about $4 million. I was at one of those events, not inside but outside, standing in the fog and wind of a late San Francisco afternoon with 1,500 other people who want you to kill the Keystone XL pipeline (which you appear ready to approve). I didn’t have the $32,400 required for admission to the Getty mansion and a chance to break bread with you and other one percenters and I never saw you or your entourage and I’m sure you never saw any protesters either since we couldn’t get anywhere near where you were—the police had the entire street blocked off—but that’s the way it is today. To the 1% the 99% are invisible and inconsequential—as long as the police state can keep us far enough away—and without the price of admission, you never hear our voices or see our protests. I was encouraged when I first arrived, cresting the hill at Pacific Heights to see the size of the protest but it soon became apparent that this was a docile compliant crowd of establishment liberals who obeyed orders, kept the streets clear and never challenged authority. There were chants over bullhorns and a lively brass band that beat out a catchy tune but for the most part everyone was well-behaved and I soon realized they were pleading, not demanding that you reject the pipeline. It became clear that most of them were Obama supporters and apologists feeding off the dead carcass of Hope, in denial of reality, their brains scrubbed clean by the mainstream media. I met 2 friends at the rally and we seemed to be the most radical people there. Whenever one of us made a disparaging comment about you, people would turn and give us dirty looks, one elderly gent had never heard of Bradley Manning and others were clueless about Kill Lists, drone strikes, indefinite detentions and extra-judicial assassinations. One protester sighed with great satisfaction, “This is the face of democracy” to which one of my friends, pointing to the motorcycle cops lining both sides of the street replied, “No, this is the face of fascism.” I walked away discouraged, knowing that neither this protest nor a hundred others would change a thing, that change was not imminent and that the time to take back democracy has not yet arrived.