…something that’s been discussed a thousand times already. Just the same, I’m prompted to muse on it. People will disagree and may feel personally attacked. That’s the nature of fundamental differences in perspective. There isn’t any point in fighting over it, really. You agree or you don’t, and, as far as I’m concerned, whether or not you (or I) agree with someone’s opinion in a post on a website somewhere is not of enough importance to be expending a lot of energy, much less getting hostile about it. I read the posts that agree with or reinforce my existing opinion just like anybody else. Personally, I don’t bother reading the ones whose titles tell me I’ll disagree with them. I’ll read ones out of curiosity that seem to address some interesting topic, and I’ll read ones that attempt to address the same things I here attempt to address – from similar or different perspectives – and agree or not accordingly. I don’t read far into the comments - I’ll tip the author if I agree and leave it at that - and I don’t comment myself, because agree or disagree, several people will already have made any points I might think to anyhow, but also because of what these comments sections have become: a battleground of futility.
So, here comes the part that about half of the people aren’t going to agree with. You’ll know in the first few sentences. If you don’t agree, continuing to read will just bother you more. You may as well move on to a post that’s more in agreement with your perspective. Please, if you disagree, don’t waste your time reading further or fighting over it. This isn’t a personal attack on you.
For some reason, from my perspective, it all seems so obvious. You’ve got a group of people fighting in defense of the establishment. I tend to think of them as liberal authoritarian followers, though that’s certainly a shorthand way of describing a complex thing. Disagreement is seen as an attack, there’s a defensive response, there’s an offer of evidence in defense of the disagreement, which brings a more hostile defense in response, etc. etc. It’s happening now, and it happened before when diarists disagreed, for instance, with our President’s policies on various issues. These disagreements are often treated as being disrespectful of peoples’ accomplishments or perspectives, and they’re often not. It looks like the classic conservative vs liberal discussion to me, and the classic authoritarian follower activity of rising in blind defense of the authority.
And like conservative authorities, the liberal authorities, expecting unquestioning allegiance, have the potential to play them for chumps.
The idea that their authority isn’t a part of the establishment is easily dismissed if nothing else just by the chits they’re able to call in: national unions and organizations, a feminist icon and a civil rights icon, and elected officials all over the place. (That’s not to mention the biggest names in the foreign relations establishment going back to fucking Nixon) That the authorities are disconnected from the everyday reality of citizens couldn’t be more painfully obvious. It was obvious with rmoney, it’s obvious with any others.
The whole game falls apart when someone comes along and says “I disagree”, and explains why in simple terms. That’s possible because there was no substance to their program. It only takes one person to point out the scam they’ve been running and there’s no defense. That turns out to be a source of hope to me, and here’s why: because this whole episode has shown that there are millions of other people who, like me, have been appalled by the state of our nation and our politics and our media, have seen through the bullshit, and watched helplessly while people the likes of John Boehner and Scott Walker are presented as legitimate people with a legitimate agenda, where someone like Donald Trump is treated like a legitimate candidate for the Presidency, while the whole time, our nation is being sold out from under us. I’m hopeful, because someone finally came along and called bullshit on all of it and because this message resonates with millions of my fellow citizens. I’m hopeful because someone has come along who is ready to challenge the policies that have been imposed on us against our will and the assumptions behind them, and is willing to attempt to organize enough of us to be able to prevail over the corruption that has been foisted on us by almost 40 years of conservative policy. The means of real mass organization have been closed off to us, but now there’s someone who is able to work inside the system, who can’t be pushed out of the spotlight before too much damage can be done (like OWS). There’s someone the system has to grudgingly acknowledge because of popular demand, who can deflect the memes thrown at him by media airheads, and who maybe won’t be co-opted by the system he seeks to expose. I’m hopeful, because it appears that there may be enough people who aren’t authoritarian followers to triumph over those who are. And that triumph becomes a lot easier if you’re able to gain the participation of people who didn’t care before because they saw no viable options being offered and lost faith in the system.
Despite their achievements, the establishment hasn’t been able (willing or not ) to bring any balance to the status quo, and that’s bad, because the balance has been very plainly and openly tipping away from us masses for a sufficiently long time that things have become precarious for way too many of us. And it’s worse, because these conditions are acknowledged, but without any honest exploration of the causes or responses. The only options we’re typically offered are more of the same or worse. Like Chomsky says: “In the US there’s one party – the business party – and it has two factions: republicans and democrats, which are somewhat different, but carry out variations on the same policies.” It should come as no surprise that people will reject all this when offered a legitimate alternative. It does come as a surprise that so many would rise in vehement defense of the same status quo that keeps us down. It looks like they’re defending their authority and they seem to feel threatened by our disagreement.
Again, to me, this all seems completely obvious. (But, understand it’s just my opinion)