[R-G] A Lexicon of Disappointment

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090504/klein?rel=hp_currently

A Lexicon of Disappointment
Lookout
By Naomi Klein

This article appeared in the May 4, 2009 edition of The Nation.
April 15, 2009

All is not well in Obamafanland. It's not clear exactly what accounts  
for the change of mood. Maybe it was the rancid smell emanating from  
Treasury's latest bank bailout. Or the news that the president's chief  
economic adviser, Larry Summers, earned millions from the very Wall  
Street banks and hedge funds he is protecting from reregulation now.  
Or perhaps it began earlier, with Obama's silence during Israel's Gaza  
attack.

Whatever the last straw, a growing number of Obama enthusiasts are  
starting to entertain the possibility that their man is not, in fact,  
going to save the world if we all just hope really hard.

This is a good thing. If the superfan culture that brought Obama to  
power is going to transform itself into an independent political  
movement, one fierce enough to produce programs capable of meeting the  
current crises, we are all going to have to stop hoping and start  
demanding.

The first stage, however, is to understand fully the awkward in- 
between space in which many US progressive movements find themselves.  
To do that, we need a new language, one specific to the Obama moment.  
Here is a start.

Hopeover. Like a hangover, a hopeover comes from having overindulged  
in something that felt good at the time but wasn't really all that  
healthy, leading to feelings of remorse, even shame. It's the  
political equivalent of the crash after a sugar high. Sample sentence:  
"When I listened to Obama's economic speech my heart soared. But then,  
when I tried to tell a friend about his plans for the millions of  
layoffs and foreclosures, I found myself saying nothing at all. I've  
got a serious hopeover."

Hoper coaster. Like a roller coaster, the hoper coaster describes the  
intense emotional peaks and valleys of the Obama era, the veering  
between joy at having a president who supports safe-sex education and  
despondency that single-payer healthcare is off the table at the very  
moment when it could actually become a reality. Sample sentence: "I  
was so psyched when Obama said he is closing Guantánamo. But now they  
are fighting like mad to make sure the prisoners in Bagram have no  
legal rights at all. Stop this hoper coaster--I want to get off!"

Hopesick. Like the homesick, hopesick individuals are intensely  
nostalgic. They miss the rush of optimism from the campaign trail and  
are forever trying to recapture that warm, hopey feeling--usually by  
exaggerating the significance of relatively minor acts of Obama  
decency. Sample sentences: "I was feeling really hopesick about the  
escalation in Afghanistan, but then I watched a YouTube video of  
Michelle in her organic garden and it felt like inauguration day all  
over again. A few hours later, when I heard that the Obama  
administration was boycotting a major UN racism conference, the  
hopesickness came back hard. So I watched slideshows of Michelle  
wearing clothes made by ethnically diverse independent fashion  
designers, and that sort of helped."

Hope fiend. With hope receding, the hope fiend, like the dope fiend,  
goes into serious withdrawal, willing to do anything to chase the  
buzz. (Closely related to hopesickness but more severe, usually  
affecting middle-aged males.) Sample sentence: "Joe told me he  
actually believes Obama deliberately brought in Summers so that he  
would blow the bailout, and then Obama would have the excuse he needs  
to do what he really wants: nationalize the banks and turn them into  
credit unions. What a hope fiend!"

Hopebreak. Like the heartbroken lover, the hopebroken Obama-ite is not  
mad but terribly sad. She projected messianic powers onto Obama and is  
now inconsolable in her disappointment. Sample sentence: "I really  
believed Obama would finally force us to confront the legacy of  
slavery in this country and start a serious national conversation  
about race. But now he never seems to mention race, and he's using  
twisted legal arguments to keep us from even confronting the crimes of  
the Bush years. Every time I hear him say 'move forward,' I'm  
hopebroken all over again."

Hopelash. Like a backlash, hopelash is a 180-degree reversal of  
everything Obama-related. Sufferers were once Obama's most passionate  
evangelists. Now they are his angriest critics. Sample sentence: "At  
least with Bush everyone knew he was an asshole. Now we've got the  
same wars, the same lawless prisons, the same Washington corruption,  
but everyone is cheering like Stepford wives. It's time for a full-on  
hopelash."

In trying to name these various hope-related ailments, I found myself  
wondering what the late Studs Terkel would have said about our  
collective hopeover. He surely would have urged us not to give in to  
despair. I reached for one of his last books, Hope Dies Last. I didn't  
have to read long. The book opens with the words: "Hope has never  
trickled down. It has always sprung up."

And that pretty much says it all. Hope was a fine slogan when rooting  
for a long-shot presidential candidate. But as a posture toward the  
president of the most powerful nation on earth, it is dangerously  
deferential. The task as we move forward (as Obama likes to say) is  
not to abandon hope but to find more appropriate homes for it--in the  
factories, neighborhoods and schools where tactics like sit-ins,  
squats and occupations are seeing a resurgence.

Political scientist Sam Gindin wrote recently that the labor movement  
can do more than protect the status quo. It can demand, for instance,  
that shuttered auto plants be converted into green-future factories,  
capable of producing mass-transit vehicles and technology for a  
renewable energy system. "Being realistic means taking hope out of  
speeches," he wrote, "and putting it in the hands of workers."

Which brings me to the final entry in the lexicon.

Hoperoots. Sample sentence: "It's time to stop waiting for hope to be  
handed down, and start pushing it up, from the hoperoots"

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About Naomi Klein
Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist and syndicated columnist  
and the author of the international and New York Times bestseller The  
Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (September 2007); an  
earlier international best-seller, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand  
Bullies; and the collection Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the  
Front Lines of the Globalization Debate (2002). more...