A Very Bad Story.1

(This post has been substantially revised.)

So, a bruising election season is finally over. Insults have been hurled, scars have been exacted. For me, it has been personal. I've received my share of hate mail, despite my best efforts to remain fair and balanced here in my obscure blog's coverage.

I'll admit to feeling a bit beaten down by my feeble attempts to express my honest (and well-researched) opinions now and then. As one friend of mine said today, "Yikes, you're being attacked both from the right and the left, mainly from within your own family!"

It's true, and I really appreciated her message. In an age of blogging and email, many misunderstandings quite easily occur, and I am powerless to prevent them. Here are some of the errors I've made and the personal consequences of those errors.

(1) A few of my blog posts supporting Obama and attacking Palin have found their way onto various conservative email lists, some of which include dear family members of mine in the Midwest. In the process, in at least one case, horribly provocative paragraphs have been attached to my original blog post, which in turn triggered angry responses from friends and family and a ton of strangers whom I don't know (and don't care to know.)

How can I counter this? I can't. The vitriolic messages I have been sent shows me that regardless of what I actually believe or write, thanks to the ease of manipulating or altering my actual words, those who wish to over-politicize my messages can easily do so.

So be it. I now see how much I am in fact loathed by people who never knew or apparently have forgotten who I actually am as a person. "Absence breeds ignorance, and ignorance breeds contempt" is, I think, the salient cliche .

(2) A rather innocent message about my disappointment, indeed my disgust, when a colleague showed me a SPAM message yesterday by perennial wannabe Ralph Nader, which I carelessly forwarded to a few loved ones, triggered another nuclear response. For the record, what disturbed me was Nader's timing. Just as the first African-American President in our history was delivering an inclusive, modest acceptance speech, here comes bitter Ralph, finding a way to critique Obama's fundraising techniques.

In my view, this was tasteless and self-righteous, two common themes in Nader's latter career after an earlier record of having achieved truly remarkable consumer protections. I speak from personal experience. The man is a sad ghost of what he once could have been.

Little did I know that buried deep in Nader's (typically) windy message were some references to Palestine and Israel.

All fool me. I didn't get that far into his email, because I was working 18 hours last night, as is my custom on election nights. I only read Nader's first paragraph and felt like puking. Why? Because he was again denouncing the corporate funding Obama received when the true story of the 2008 election was Obama's remarkable and unprecedented gathering of small donations from individuals all across America.

Do I think that Obama will serve those supposedly evil corporate interests just because they donated to his (obviously winning) campaign? No, of course not. I've been around to witness this pathetic phenomenon many times. Corporations do not donate on principle but on practical grounds.

Nader, of all people, knows this too. So I considered his message to be the sour grapes of a failed egotist, and I continue to believe this to be the case.

In any event, the feeble corporate attempt to influence Obama's policies are doomed to fail, and that's why the markets fell today. Most of his money came from the little people, and they are who he will represent.

Deeply buried, as I noted, in Nader's rant were some references to Obama's views on the Israel-Palestime question. Sadly, I only found out about this when family members redirected my attention back to Nader's original message.

On this point and on it alone, I strongly agree with Nader. It's an awful scandal that any serious candidate for U.S. President seems to feel (s)he has to pledge unconditional support for Israel, and not just Israel as a nation (which I support) but the worst elements of its society, the Zionist imperialists. This is the ultimate pragmatic political compromise, and in this sense, Obama seems to be no better than any of his predecessors.

If his message of change is to be meaningful, if Obama is going to be a great leader, he is going to have to confront this type of contradiction head-on, and suffer the political consequences of doing so (or not doing so.) But please give him time!

I just wish the people who do care about me would read my actual words here, at this blog, which I alone control. Or maybe I am asking for something else, something deeper, but if so, I do not have the words to express it.

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