Through dark glasses

One’s glasses frame reality but even those who don’t need spectacles cannot see clearly in Washington. Liberals vs. conservatives. Partisan politics vs. unyielding principles. Socialist vs. capitalist lenses. Hopefully the rest of the world looks askance or chooses to be oblivious to the insanity here at home. Ever since Obama’s speech in 2004 heralding not a divided but a united America, Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals have drifted farther and farther apart. Of course Obama’s speech inspired his listeners to see and then hear him through rose-colored glasses of hope and change. Obama delivered his speech, however, from behind dark glasses that hid his shades of socialism and racism. Regardless of what T.S. Eliot the poet meant in his poem about hollow men, beginning and ending with Barack Obama, the metaphorical empty suit, this is what Americans get from politicians today.

"We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar. "

Amen, brothers and sisters!