Today’s Thought:
How can we compromise or collaborate with people who refuse to believe in facts? Facts like:
Progressives love their country.
Obama is not a secret muslim terrorist out to destroy Christmas.
The top tier of American economy contains 25% of the country’s wealth.
The only common ground is my first point. A point that a number of people on the right refuse to acknowledge. Without even that basic level of understanding, how the hell do we hope to accomplish anything?
Marty, this reminds me of the Huxley vs. Orwell strip: http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourselves-to-Death.html
“Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.”
In reverse order:
3) You view this as a bad thing; I just kind of view it as …a thing. What percentage constitutes the top tier?
2) I don’t know anybody who genuinely believes “secret Muslim terrorist”, though I’ve seen a few on message boards. I do know that I am deeply, deeply suspicious of Obama and his crew.
3) I’m sure progressives love their country. I am also fairly sure that my father loved me, but when the vast majority of what he said was “you didn’t do this right/you didn’t do it with a big enough smile on your face/you didn’t do it for the right reason/you didn’t notice and attend to this small detail that any right-thinking person would’ve noticed”, it was kind of hard to believe.
Just some thoughts from the other side of the aisle.
1) 2% of american’s control 25% of america’s wealth: source. The top tier of wealthy people have more say than average folk.
2) Glenn Beck, Sharon Angle and Michelle Bachman, Orly Tartiz. These are the people who are continuing to float that meme. What are you suspicious of? From 2001-2009 when I said I was deeply suspicious of Bush and his Haliburton crew, I was accused of hating my country. For a while, I even let myself buy into that crap. When you say you’re suspicious of Obama and his crew, please note that I’m not saying you hate America….
3) Why is dissent unpatriotic? Why is calling out inequality in America unpatriotic?
1) Insofar as having more wealth gives your vote more power than that of a poor person, I’m with you. However, human beings WILL try to get their way; shut down one avenue and they’ll discover or build another. I’ve yet to see any solution to the money/power equation that doesn’t boil down to “take their money away from them because their activities don’t conform to my goals”, which skeeves me out on several levels.
2) I don’t pay much attention to any of the above, to tell the truth. One-on-one observation of the people I know suggests that people don’t see Obama as the heart of some evil conspiracy, they see him as someone with goals that they disagree with and dubious competence in a crisis.
3)Incessantly? If we’re talking about public perception…well, I hear lots and lots of “God damn America” and “for the first time in my (40-odd years of) life, I’m proud of my country” and pretty much anything Michael Moore puts on tape. I’ve never seen or heard a liberal equivalent to Reagan’s “shining city on a hill” or anything that would indicate that, by and large, this is a pretty cool nation. To go back to the familial analogy, when the vast majority of what I hear is “you suck, now change”, I am not going to fall all over myself with the warm fuzzies when I get an occasional “awww, it’s Thanksgiving and we’re all one big happy family.”
And dissent quit being the highest form of patriotism once President Obama took office. Now dissent = racism.
“Now dissent = racism.”
That is total fucking bullshit. Also, by and large, this is not a pretty cool nation. We’ve done some great things and we’ve done some atrocious and horrible things. I’m not sure if the good outweighs the bad. Time will tell. I love my country too, but I don’t need to have blinders on in order to do so.
First and formost: Dissent is dissent. Judd Greg from New Hampshire can dissent about health care without calling it “obama care” or “Witch doctor care.” David Brooks doesn’t hold up signs of Obama in a SS uniform or as witchdoctor when he dissents. Racism is racism, and Tea Party elements–and Limbaugh–all clearly demonstrate racist attitudes and beliefs. I don’t think every conservative is racist. I don’t think Dissent is racist. But if cannot agree that there are elements of racism within the “tea party movement” then we are at a serious impasse.
Momma, if you didn’t think the inaugural address was inspiring and a dedication to the pretty cool country we live in, then I don’t think we live in the same country.
When wealth pools at the top 2% of a country, we are no longer a capitalist society. We are a plutocracy.
Re: “dissent = racism”: within the past two months I have read articles in Time, Newsweek, and the NYT about opposition to the current healthcare tangle. Without exception, in each one there was a large paragraph to the effect of “of course, the specter of racial prejudice raises its ugly head”, with a strong implication that the primary reason people are objecting to any of Obama’s agendas is because he’s black. Which, no. I object because I don’t want the federal government any bigger than it absolutely has to be.
There was an interesting article a while back about liberal vs. conservative perceptions of family (hang on, I *am* going somewhere with this). Its thrust was that liberals are more likely to have “family of choice” in that innermost “rely on and serve as backup for” circle, while conservatives are more likely to stick with birth family and other physical relations. (Which interested me, since I have dear friends BUT until my mother’s death, my first response in serious trouble was directed to my actual relatives. I think there may be some of that in perceptions of the nation and generic-your relation to it on either side; conservatives love their country first because it’s *theirs* and only afterward for specific reasons, while the progressive approach is a bit more complicated. It makes an interesting explanation for why progressives are perceived as not loving their country, but that’s just me theorizing because I like to theorize.
Also 1) there are dozens of definitions of racism; and 2) there are racist aspects to *anything* involving human beings, unless you’re going with the definition of racism that states “only a member of a privileged class can be racist”.