Us.
We are the reason that things we said we wanted were not actualized.
I wish I had reached out to his campaign folk after his inauguration with the iPromise campaign so that people could really GET this line that went out in a campaign e-mail from his folks yesterday: "From the very start this has been an experiment in our political process, testing whether ordinary people really can still come together to change this country."
When I hear people complain about the President, I still ask: "So what did YOU do, or what are YOU GOING to do?" He's one man, with a title and a big house. But we are the millions that put him there. It took millions of people, all saying one thing - collectively - to put him in office. The millions must collectively tell our congress people to vote the way we say or else. The millions must collectively stop paying their health insurance policies to demand that we all get fair healthcare. The millions must refuse jury duty until the (in)justice system is changed. The millions must keep their children home for school to demand a shift from paying out billions to test manufacturers to billions for successful educators. The millions must take their money out of banks if we want an end to their corporate greed.
We, as a nation, still don't get it.
"...For as much as government can do, and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies...What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition on the part of every American that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world; duties that we do not grudgingly accept, but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task.
This is the price and the promise of citizenship."
