I have been away from here for many months and it has been difficult for me to come back to Daily Kos for various reasons, but mostly because of the passion ... often mindless and sometimes intimidating ... here. Yet I have drifted back almost as if it were a bad habit (sigh) ... reluctantly and with some trepidation ... precisely because I love the passion. It is exciting mentally and emotionally to be with people who know and care about real things and are up to the moment on things. That said, I must caution that this diary is strictlly a need to express a personal feeling. I am not a political wonk; I don't have statistics to back me up on things I feel. I am just a marginal, occasional member of this community.
One of the best things about this site, for me, is the number of clips that show us our heroes ... those people who publicly speak what we are thinking and who, with passion and forthrightness and many times some wit, say the things that feel like self-evident truths. We have cheered them until they toppled over from feet of clay or were washed away in elections as so much dross ... Weiner, Grayson, Fiengold, etc.
With some, it almost feels as if we need to eat our young ... Weiner for example. We get into a frenzy about them and then end up saying (it feels like) "Good riddance" as we go on to the next hero. Within the last month, I have been saddened when Weiner went from being our hero telling off the Republicans (You go, boy!!) to being the lump under the rug that we wish we could ignore. And no, I have no wish to bring his particular actions back for a discussion. For better or worst, they are out of sight to us. But I do wonder about our own actions and what we do to people who say wonderful things and then show their human frailty.
One day last week, there was a clip of Rep. de Fazio stating how speculation costs us 70 cents out of the cost of each gallon of gasoline at the pump. My first thought (after say, "Yeah!") was to wonder how the right wing is going to discredit this one. My second thought was to wonder how we would react when he was attacked. It feels as if we have a need for heros with no flaws, for heroes who are full of passion about ONE thing (progressive politics) but are completely straitlaced about the everything else in their lives. And those heroes are few and far between, if they exist at all.
So I was left with the question: How do we support our heroes with feet of clay? None of them are going to be perfect, everyone of them has the potential to become a target for the right wing. How do we become the reasonable, centerred people we expect them to be in order to support our frail heroes. Or do we expect them to always support us and never to embarrass us or bring forth their humanity and never to expect our support? Or is this simply their 5 minutes of fame and I do protest too much.
I have questions and no answers, but I feel that we have to think about this otherwise, all our heroes become sitting ducks for the right wing haters and for our own hesitancy.