A couple weeks ago, my colleague Jon Cummings posted his opinions on Keith Olbermann’s current Bizarro-world rantings, exhibiting a vehemence seldom seen from the supposed liberal left. Jon rightly claimed that Olbermann’s spasms were frighteningly right-like and as over-the-top as Bill O’Reilly. At the same time, he said that the underlying sentiment of anger at President Bush, his penchant for being so out of touch with the very country he runs, and his patronizing stabs at letting the little folk think know he commiserates are dead on. I have to disagree.

When I talk to my friends and co-workers, the folks “down here” on the totem pole, I don’t get a sense of anger, certainly not the eye-bulging, vein-throbbing anger of a certain MSNBC commentator. I get despair, and lots of it. I have written in the past about the shell game that is the Economic Stimulus Rebate, saying that our ever-mounting bills, still faltering job market and ever increasing debt-load, would render the whole thing null and void. As we roll into summer (and yes, 2008 is almost half over!) few families can afford that trip to a sunny destination and many are wondering if they can even afford to take the whole family to the movies a couple times this year. Gas prices are shattering records and that 1970s inflation curve economists have been ameliorating us with (”If you do the math, we’re still paying less than we did in ‘73! Boo-Yah!”) is rapidly breaking apart. Under the weight of all this, I find those around me are too depressed to be pissed, too burdened to rage. If the true plan from the upper 10% of America was to drive the lower 50% into a suicidal funk, it’s starting to work.

So even though it is oddly cathartic to see Olbermann bitching, ostensibly for our benefit, it is hardly about capturing the national mood. See, America used to be the land of dreams, many unrealized, but it was okay to believe better times were ahead, our lives could turn for the better just like that, and that the much vaunted ‘good life’ could be ours. It doesn’t seem like dreaming is allowed anymore. There are too many gatekeepers to pass, too many toll-takers to pay, not enough air to breathe. We can’t even go for a Sunday drive without fearing the financial backlash on Monday morning. My brother Dan has been in a band, Core Device, for more than a decade and they’re good. As a matter of fact, as metal bands go they’re actually great, and that’s not nepotism. Yet, with a small family of his own to support and a job market that could never provide what he needs, Core Device has been pushed farther and farther into the margins. My friend Tom died a couple years ago. Well, died is a soft-shoe term because he actually killed himself. His business went under, his wife was sick, his bills kept mounting and hope seemed like a fool’s game. My uncle had to take on loans to save his home and now, in a period of his life when he was hoping to retire with minimal debts, is working as a janitor where his boss condescendingly calls him “Pops.” (more…)