“Having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice is the last and worst of all the evils.”

- Plato

What causes a person to sell his soul? Is it that power corrupts? Is it that maintaining the moral high ground is simply too exhausting? Is it the hope that History will smile favorably on him? Or is it that he was always ready to do it, but we just didn’t see it?

For the better part of seven years, I have been a die-hard, go-to-the-mat-for-him supporter of Barack Obama. When he first burst onto the national scene at the 2004 Democratic convention, I imagined hope for America’s future. In 2008, I worked for his campaign and when he was elected I felt as euphoric as Joan Baez, who left her suburban D.C. hotel room in a bathrobe, grabbed a cab and went to the Washington Mall to celebrate.

I was one of those enthralled by Obama; one who saw his election as a rare uplifting moment in our electoral history. I saw an Obama that performed with tremendous grace and class as he helped slay this country’s racial demons. I even thought, nay, hoped, he might be that rare, once-in-a-generation political talent who could help unite the country and lead the nation to once again rise above itself— a John F. Kennedy, a Martin Luther King, Jr. or a modern-day FDR.

Now, I hoped, we could begin to reverse the travesties of the Bush/Cheney regime; we could begin to take back the America I loved and remove the tarnish from the nobility of the Great American Experiment. Soon, we would throw off the shackles of the Big Brother Police State and the Corporate Bought-and-Paid-For-Government that were hallmarks of the “W” years. Soon, we would extricate ourselves from the moral morass into which Bush, Cheney, et al. had led us. Soon, we would expunge the proverbial message of fear that had been used for almost eight years to convince us to willingly offer up our civil liberties.

Or so I thought.

For two years, I have bent over backwards in repeated attempts to reconcile Obama’s performance with that which I had hoped he would be. I knew he would have to move toward the center in order to govern effectively. I knew the changes for which I so fervently hoped would not come about overnight. I knew it would be much harder for Obama to build up than it had been for Bush to tear down. But I hoped. And then…

When he failed his campaign pledge to close Guantánamo, I was devastated; but I continued to hope.

When he expanded the war in Afghanistan, I was heartbroken; but I continued to hope.

When he proclaimed there would be no investigations into the torturous war crimes committed by the Bush Administration, I was angered; but I continued to hope.

When he continued the criminal “indefinite detention” policies of the Bush Administration, I had nightmares of the permanent dissolution of the American Dream; but I continued to hope.

When he refused to pursue the Wall Street Barons who had visited economic destruction on the country, I was distraught; but I continued to hope.

When he signed extensions to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to allow the continuation of unprecedented surveillance of U.S. Citizens in violation of the Fourth Amendment, I felt violated; but I continued to hope.

When he extended tax breaks for the wealthy in order to please the other party, I began to lose faith; but I tried my best to continue to hope.

When he signed the extensions of the Patriot Act, continuing the abolition of “certain unalienable rights” under the pretext of keeping us safe, I felt abandoned; and, finally, hope began to wane.

Now he has offered up significant cuts to the very social safety nets which Candidate Obama portrayed as sacred; and my last shred of hope is gone.

I am afraid now that America will never again be what it once was.

In spite of inheriting two wars, a Constitution beaten bloody by the previous administration, a Supreme Court bent on issuing rulings based on right wing ideology and an economy in free fall, Obama could have done better. His penchant for trying to “work across the aisle” while assuming the opposition had the same goal in mind as he did —the good of the country—has been, in the end, his downfall.

Despite majorities in both the House and Senate his first two years, Obama could only produce a watered-down healthcare bill. And this same composition of government was unable to pass a 2011 budget before the Republicans took control of the House.

His continued pandering to Wall Street after the bailouts has led to an economy that is only recovering in the sense that it is lining the pockets of the very people who cost millions of Americans their homes, their jobs and their very lives. He has not only failed to go after fiscal criminality, he has ended up rewarding the criminals.

A recent report prepared by economists at Northeastern University shows that in 2009, when real corporate income in the U.S. increased by over $500 billion, 88% of that income growth went to corporate profits (i.e., the pockets of those at the top). All of 1% went to wages. In other words, the wealthy and corporations, on whom the Republicans claim we cannot raise taxes because they are the creators of jobs are not creating jobs. Rather, they are using their profits to line their own pockets and inflate their balance sheets. And Obama has gone along on this ride.

Obama has retreated into the tea-party mantra of fiscal austerity. The once-hoped-for public-works and jobs programs of which he spoke in his campaign were downsized in the original stimulus until a tardy, halfhearted stab at a $50 billion transportation-infrastructure jobs bill produced a dandy Obama speech but little else. Where once he spoke of the need to get Americans back to work, he now seems diffident about the unemployed.

The White House’s repeated argument that the stimulus saved as many as 3 million jobs, accurate though it may be, is meaningless when 14 million Americans are looking for work and, despite Obama’s campaign promises, American jobs continue to find their way overseas. It slipped out earlier this month that one of the greatest beneficiaries of the stimulus, Goldman-Sachs, is in the process of laying off 1,000 American workers and shipping their jobs to Singapore.

I was once told civilization had seen three Golden Ages – Greece, Victorian England and post-WWII America. Having had the good fortune to have lived during one of these shining moments has turned out to be a double-edged sword; for having seen the best serves to make the present seem so much darker. While it existed, America’s Golden Age showed the heights to which the human race can rise; its ending is showing the depths to which we can sink. We are now left to ask, if Barack Obama has sold his soul, is there any place else we can turn to seek the Hope of which Candidate Obama spoke so fervently?

If you know of such a place, please let me know.