Isn't it awesome how disagreeing with someone, requesting information or clarification about a single point of discussion, or otherwise expressing less than wholehearted support for a person's views means that you hate them in the same reactionary and blindly-1-dimensional manner that a 4-year-old expresses hatred for vegetables?
If you immediately thought of Ron Paul's supporters, then you know what I'm talking about.
It astounds me that I would be accused of outright *hatred* for asking questions about contradictions in anyone's statements or logic. A refusal to acknowledge the fallibility of anyone regardless of your personal admiration is just as much a flaw as refusing to acknowledge the accomplishments of someone you don't like. And when your political rhetoric falls apart and you fall back on childish insults, you only reinforce the stereotype that Dr. Paul's supporters are psycho-fanatics who can't handle criticism of their candidate, and that Ron Paul is a political cult leader.
I know that's not true across the board... But it's discouraging that I've encountered maybe 6 Ron Paul supporters that actually address the issues rather than launching frothing, rabid attacks against anyone who questions him. Blind fanaticism is not a viable political platform, and you're doing your cause a major disservice by not only engaging in it, but allowing it to happen from others.
Might want to look to that if you want to be taken seriously.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Pro-Life Conditioning Within the Sociocultural Landscape of America
Let's talk about the "Miracle of Life" for a second.
I can already hear some of you sharpening your pitchforks and soaking your torches in gasoline.
Most times I read a status update or hear from one of my friends that they're just SO excited to be newly and unexpectedly pregnant, I cringe and facepalm. Not because I think any of them will be bad parents, but because of the underlying sociocultural brainwashing so obviously in effect.
It's been a great victory for the Pro-Life movement that even though they've been unable to overturn Roe v. Wade thus far, they've still managed to insert a cultural mentality that somehow, the biological process of conception is somehow wonderful and special and (without actually using the word in most cases) sacred. But here's the thing: it's really not. It's a biological process that pretty much anyone (with the obvious medical exceptions) can achieve with gratuitous amounts of unprotected sex throughout a woman's period of fertility.
Put down the tar and feathers and let me finish, please.
This is an area of the ideological war that the Pro-Choice movement has mostly lost, in my opinion. While abortion remains legal, the mainstream mentality on unexpected pregnancy remains that it's somehow special and miraculous and should be carried to term if at all possible.
Regardless of the mother's economic status and financial stability. Regardless of the fact that a woman who has children unexpectedly at a young age is much less likely to finish school or be able to pursue her own goals and dreams for the next 18 years. Nevermind that raising a child without doing something to inadvertently screw them up seriously is damn near impossible unless you have a massive fuckton of planning, at least a passing knowledge of child development education, and a sturdy support network of people with enough love and patience for you and your kid to see you through the rough times.
I find it extremely disgusting that the same people who have cultivated this "Miracle of Life" mentality are the same people who advocate abandoning the child and mother to the harsh forces of the Free Market after birth, and who will even slam her and degrade her for using government programs for assistance. The same people who would have literally spit on her for getting an abortion will now rage against her and talk shit because now that she's been talked into having the damn kid, she has to rely on WIC, TANIF, and Food Stamps to support it.
Therein lies the problem (or at least, MY problem) with the "Miracle of Life" mentality; after the birth of an unwanted child, that could have been safely aborted early on if the mother hadn't faced so much social pressure to carry it to term, suddenly the concern shifts from "Miracle of Life, Carry The Kid To Term If Possible" to a almost complete about-face, into "If You Can't Raise Your Kid Right, You Shouldn't Have Bred in the First Place". Mainstream society implicitly expects a woman to carry a pregnancy but then abandons her and the kid once it's born and persecutes them for being poor, or unready, or for any other number of sociopolitical/economic factors that should have been good reasons to consider abortion in the first place!
Therein lies the ultimate problem, with the entire Pro-Life/Pro-Choice conflict, that often gets lost in all the screaming rhetoric: As it currently stands, the very nature of the sociocultural landscape stacks the deck against women who enjoy sex but don't want kids. Anyone who argues that women who don't want kids should be abstinent is completely fucking ignoring, willfully no less, the biological realities of being a post-pubescent human. Humans have and will ALWAYS engage in sex for recreational purposes, for the enjoyment and pleasure that lies therein, and/or for the emotional bond with another person. The "Only For Procreation" philosophy stems directly from Religious and Theological mandates specifically designed to oppress and marginalize females of the species by relegating them to the status of Baby-Makers. It's the same damn mentality that advocates the philosophy that men should "bang a slut, marry a virgin", but that women who don't want kids need to just "keep their legs shut".
These are not unique revelations; they're basic tenants of any advanced civil rights and feminist theories/philosophies you might study. Maternal oppression is largely invisible because it's so tightly woven into the very fabric of modern society (at least in America and most European-based societies; I can't speak for other cultures that I haven't studied as thoroughly).
But it's a very real issue, and one that actually affects real, live humans in ways that make any "shoulda-coulda-woulda" theorizing about what a potential person *might* accomplish or become entirely irrelevant. You're comparing the very REMOTE possibility that your kid is going to have the exact right combination of genetics, environmental factors, and life interests/opportunities to be the next Einstein (or Brett Farve, if you prefer) against the statistical REALITY that most kids born into less-than-stable circumstances are much more likely to be caught up in cycles of trauma and poverty.
I sense that there are still some of you ready to call for my head on a pike for daring to suggest that perhaps ensuring the stable upbringing of a child should be a bigger priority than maintaining a viable pregnancy, so let me put it this way:
Next time you go to WalMart and see some middle-aged woman with half a dozen screaming crotchlings that she can't control, recall that she and most of the people around her likely considered every single one of those snot-nosed, shit-stained, rowdy, obnoxious, uncontrolled, maladjusted, future-rednecks to be a "Miracle of Life". Then imagine what she and her kin must be like on an airplane.
I can already hear some of you sharpening your pitchforks and soaking your torches in gasoline.
Most times I read a status update or hear from one of my friends that they're just SO excited to be newly and unexpectedly pregnant, I cringe and facepalm. Not because I think any of them will be bad parents, but because of the underlying sociocultural brainwashing so obviously in effect.
It's been a great victory for the Pro-Life movement that even though they've been unable to overturn Roe v. Wade thus far, they've still managed to insert a cultural mentality that somehow, the biological process of conception is somehow wonderful and special and (without actually using the word in most cases) sacred. But here's the thing: it's really not. It's a biological process that pretty much anyone (with the obvious medical exceptions) can achieve with gratuitous amounts of unprotected sex throughout a woman's period of fertility.
Put down the tar and feathers and let me finish, please.
This is an area of the ideological war that the Pro-Choice movement has mostly lost, in my opinion. While abortion remains legal, the mainstream mentality on unexpected pregnancy remains that it's somehow special and miraculous and should be carried to term if at all possible.
Regardless of the mother's economic status and financial stability. Regardless of the fact that a woman who has children unexpectedly at a young age is much less likely to finish school or be able to pursue her own goals and dreams for the next 18 years. Nevermind that raising a child without doing something to inadvertently screw them up seriously is damn near impossible unless you have a massive fuckton of planning, at least a passing knowledge of child development education, and a sturdy support network of people with enough love and patience for you and your kid to see you through the rough times.
I find it extremely disgusting that the same people who have cultivated this "Miracle of Life" mentality are the same people who advocate abandoning the child and mother to the harsh forces of the Free Market after birth, and who will even slam her and degrade her for using government programs for assistance. The same people who would have literally spit on her for getting an abortion will now rage against her and talk shit because now that she's been talked into having the damn kid, she has to rely on WIC, TANIF, and Food Stamps to support it.
Therein lies the problem (or at least, MY problem) with the "Miracle of Life" mentality; after the birth of an unwanted child, that could have been safely aborted early on if the mother hadn't faced so much social pressure to carry it to term, suddenly the concern shifts from "Miracle of Life, Carry The Kid To Term If Possible" to a almost complete about-face, into "If You Can't Raise Your Kid Right, You Shouldn't Have Bred in the First Place". Mainstream society implicitly expects a woman to carry a pregnancy but then abandons her and the kid once it's born and persecutes them for being poor, or unready, or for any other number of sociopolitical/economic factors that should have been good reasons to consider abortion in the first place!
Therein lies the ultimate problem, with the entire Pro-Life/Pro-Choice conflict, that often gets lost in all the screaming rhetoric: As it currently stands, the very nature of the sociocultural landscape stacks the deck against women who enjoy sex but don't want kids. Anyone who argues that women who don't want kids should be abstinent is completely fucking ignoring, willfully no less, the biological realities of being a post-pubescent human. Humans have and will ALWAYS engage in sex for recreational purposes, for the enjoyment and pleasure that lies therein, and/or for the emotional bond with another person. The "Only For Procreation" philosophy stems directly from Religious and Theological mandates specifically designed to oppress and marginalize females of the species by relegating them to the status of Baby-Makers. It's the same damn mentality that advocates the philosophy that men should "bang a slut, marry a virgin", but that women who don't want kids need to just "keep their legs shut".
These are not unique revelations; they're basic tenants of any advanced civil rights and feminist theories/philosophies you might study. Maternal oppression is largely invisible because it's so tightly woven into the very fabric of modern society (at least in America and most European-based societies; I can't speak for other cultures that I haven't studied as thoroughly).
But it's a very real issue, and one that actually affects real, live humans in ways that make any "shoulda-coulda-woulda" theorizing about what a potential person *might* accomplish or become entirely irrelevant. You're comparing the very REMOTE possibility that your kid is going to have the exact right combination of genetics, environmental factors, and life interests/opportunities to be the next Einstein (or Brett Farve, if you prefer) against the statistical REALITY that most kids born into less-than-stable circumstances are much more likely to be caught up in cycles of trauma and poverty.
I sense that there are still some of you ready to call for my head on a pike for daring to suggest that perhaps ensuring the stable upbringing of a child should be a bigger priority than maintaining a viable pregnancy, so let me put it this way:
Next time you go to WalMart and see some middle-aged woman with half a dozen screaming crotchlings that she can't control, recall that she and most of the people around her likely considered every single one of those snot-nosed, shit-stained, rowdy, obnoxious, uncontrolled, maladjusted, future-rednecks to be a "Miracle of Life". Then imagine what she and her kin must be like on an airplane.
An Open Letter to 2nd Amendment Supporters
DEAR HARDCORE SECOND AMENDMENT SUPPORTERS:
Your assertions that "liberals hate guns" is highly offensive. I've said before and I will say again here, the issue is not the ownership of firearms. The issue is keeping track and controlling access to who has possession of a weapon that has been proven over and over and over again to be a lethal device of destruction that is relatively easy to operate and has a high rate of accidental injury and death associated with it. This is not an issue of Gun Abolishment; it's an issue, as it always has been, of GUN CONTROL. As in, controlling who has access to a dangerous weapon, or where a dangerous weapon can be carried or used.
If there was not a long and extensively-documented history of firearms being used in reckless, destructive, and overwhelmingly harmful acts, this would not be such an issue. But even claims that allowing anyone to carry a firearm at any time could/would have prevented any tragedy is speculation at best; most acts of gun violence occur so quickly and abruptly that even when there are fully-armed and trained individuals present, they often don't have the reaction time to prevent a shooting. Adding further guns to the mix, wielded by average people without specialized training, would likely only add to the chaos and increase the body count.
Once again: Most liberals do NOT wish to get rid of all guns, everywhere. We'd just prefer that people like the guy who shot Gabrielle Gifford (Or JFK... or Mahatma Ghandi... Or John Lennon... Or Ronald Regan...) would have had a much more difficult (if not impossible) time acquiring the weapons they used for the acts.
Love,
A Non-Gun-Hating Left-Wing Friend
Your assertions that "liberals hate guns" is highly offensive. I've said before and I will say again here, the issue is not the ownership of firearms. The issue is keeping track and controlling access to who has possession of a weapon that has been proven over and over and over again to be a lethal device of destruction that is relatively easy to operate and has a high rate of accidental injury and death associated with it. This is not an issue of Gun Abolishment; it's an issue, as it always has been, of GUN CONTROL. As in, controlling who has access to a dangerous weapon, or where a dangerous weapon can be carried or used.
If there was not a long and extensively-documented history of firearms being used in reckless, destructive, and overwhelmingly harmful acts, this would not be such an issue. But even claims that allowing anyone to carry a firearm at any time could/would have prevented any tragedy is speculation at best; most acts of gun violence occur so quickly and abruptly that even when there are fully-armed and trained individuals present, they often don't have the reaction time to prevent a shooting. Adding further guns to the mix, wielded by average people without specialized training, would likely only add to the chaos and increase the body count.
Once again: Most liberals do NOT wish to get rid of all guns, everywhere. We'd just prefer that people like the guy who shot Gabrielle Gifford (Or JFK... or Mahatma Ghandi... Or John Lennon... Or Ronald Regan...) would have had a much more difficult (if not impossible) time acquiring the weapons they used for the acts.
Love,
A Non-Gun-Hating Left-Wing Friend
The Cycle of Bullying and Violence
All throughout my childhood, I was bullied. It started in Elementary School and went on through High School. My Sophomore year of High School, I adopted a Gothic look and lifestyle, knowing that it would scare off and intimidate a lot of the assholes at the Catholic School I went to, but it was a lonely existence. And the behind-the-back, subtle jabs never stopped, even after the overt harassment was curbed.
That kind of thing wears on you. Day after day, week after week, year after year. I slipped into a serious depression in Middle School that still plagues me to this day, albeit much less than it was back then. High school was the worst; I knew, by that point, that I was so weirdly *different* from the rest of the world that it didn't matter where I went or what I did; I would perpetually be the Outcast Freak.
I got into one actual fight the entire time I was in school. Another classmate, one of the people who was preppy and wealthy enough to rank at the bottom of the preppy social ladder, liked to make himself feel big by picking on me. I finally had enough of it, and encouraged by several other classmates, challenged him to a fight. I thumped him several times, back behind the school, he slapped the glasses off my face and ran away... and then I never was bothered by him again.
It. Was. LIBERATING. You can't imagine the rush of knowing that I could physically make someone STOP treating me like that, after a childhood that de-emphasized violent and angry solutions and the repeated lesson from the majority of the authority figures in my life that "violence is never the answer". Not only had I found a situation where violence was useful outside of pure self-defense, but it felt good to have that power. After that fight, combined with my Gothic appearance and manner (and the Colombine shooting, while heinous and tragic, helped scare the piss out of my tormentors further), the majority of the outright harassment stopped dead. But the whispers and rumors never did, nor did the social ostracism. By the time I graduated High School, after years of internalized self-loathing, a pitch-black worldview of society and how horribly I'd felt it treated me, and perpetual labeling of myself from myself and others as the Outcast Freak, my flashbacks had already started. It may sound laughable, but the torment and mind-fuckery and straight-up cruelty that I endured through my school days finally took their toll on my mind. The flashbacks started shortly before my High School Graduation. I sank into an even deeper depression than ever before the next year while away at College, and ended up dropping out. After visiting several psych doctors and therapists, I was diagnosed as borderline-PTSD, not quite a full-blown case, as I could (and still can) usually shake myself out of them after a few moments. But the damage was done, and I continue to live with it to this day.
I was tormented all throughout my school days, and was continually told by authority figures in all but the most extreme cases to endure it. There were a number of times when I finally tried to take action for myself to stave off the bullies and cruel language, and usually ended up getting into trouble for it myself. It was a constant no-win situation for me; my complaints were responded to with mere verbal reprimands for the bullies, which did NOTHING to end the problem and usually only made it worse. Any time I acted out in an effort to take matters into my own hands and scare them off, I was punished for my outbursts.
I consider myself lucky that I've always been intelligent enough to think ahead far enough to realize that the sociocultural minefield of childhood school days was not a template for the entire future. I endured, and ended up slightly broken, but never lost sight of the fact that what the school councilors and my parents and my psychiatrist told me, that life after School would get better, was probably true.
I can easily see how people like TJ Lane, or Harris and Klebold, or any number of other rampage shooters could just become overwhelmed by anger and despair that they just gave up hope. While I can obviously recognize that it's a destructive and Violet way of thinking, the desire to destroy others along with yourself, because you've been driven to a point where it seems and feels like the only worthwhile and/or meaningful act left for you to commit in order to tell and show the world how you feel inside, is not an alien mindset to me. I just had the foresight and wisdom to realize the folly of such actions and the toll it would take on the people I did still care about, the mental fortitude to understand the greater ramifications of such an act, and an intense dislike of firearms stemming from how I was brought up.
When I read TJ Lane's writing, something about it resonates with me. I recognize a quiet and awkward kid who internalizes his pain and torment. It's almost like looking in the mirror at a younger version of myself, the "nice" Goth kid who smiles at the people who will actually talk to him without looking down on him, while harboring the secret and ultimately self-destructive rage and loathing toward a world and the people in it that constantly give him the message, spoken and unspoken, that he's powerless to stop the barbs. This Is Just How It Is.
And then I look at my stable home life compared to Lane's history of family problems, and I can't help but think, "But for the grace of GOD go I..."
Because, as I discovered accidentally...
Sometimes all it takes to stave off the brunt of the bullying is a single act of violence. When nothing else worked, and nobody else would help, throwing a few punches and kicks did more for my mental and emotional well-being than any counselling session or the assurances from teachers, parents, and therapists that it would get better ever did. My home life was stable enough that I got enough love and support from there to keep myself from going over that final, irreversible edge. TJ Lane did not have as fortunate circumstances.
Want to end bullying and prevent any more school shootings related to such things? There's no easy fix. Stop fostering a sociocultural environment in which bullies are essentially given a free pass to torment, where the only fear they have is the occasional verbal rebuke from an authority figure that their rebellious teenage brains likely don't take seriously anyway. Do away with the Jock culture that puts sports players on a pedestal and renders them virtually immune or mostly untouchable out of a desire to keep them happy and/or in the Next Big Game (which punishments for bullying could potentially affect). Dismantle this Us vs. Them social mentality that the current system fosters generationally, start educating kids about tolerance and empathy at an earlier age, and then for the love of GOD, enforce it.
Because sooner or later, a lot of bullying victims discover how easy of a solution violence can be for their problems.
That kind of thing wears on you. Day after day, week after week, year after year. I slipped into a serious depression in Middle School that still plagues me to this day, albeit much less than it was back then. High school was the worst; I knew, by that point, that I was so weirdly *different* from the rest of the world that it didn't matter where I went or what I did; I would perpetually be the Outcast Freak.
I got into one actual fight the entire time I was in school. Another classmate, one of the people who was preppy and wealthy enough to rank at the bottom of the preppy social ladder, liked to make himself feel big by picking on me. I finally had enough of it, and encouraged by several other classmates, challenged him to a fight. I thumped him several times, back behind the school, he slapped the glasses off my face and ran away... and then I never was bothered by him again.
It. Was. LIBERATING. You can't imagine the rush of knowing that I could physically make someone STOP treating me like that, after a childhood that de-emphasized violent and angry solutions and the repeated lesson from the majority of the authority figures in my life that "violence is never the answer". Not only had I found a situation where violence was useful outside of pure self-defense, but it felt good to have that power. After that fight, combined with my Gothic appearance and manner (and the Colombine shooting, while heinous and tragic, helped scare the piss out of my tormentors further), the majority of the outright harassment stopped dead. But the whispers and rumors never did, nor did the social ostracism. By the time I graduated High School, after years of internalized self-loathing, a pitch-black worldview of society and how horribly I'd felt it treated me, and perpetual labeling of myself from myself and others as the Outcast Freak, my flashbacks had already started. It may sound laughable, but the torment and mind-fuckery and straight-up cruelty that I endured through my school days finally took their toll on my mind. The flashbacks started shortly before my High School Graduation. I sank into an even deeper depression than ever before the next year while away at College, and ended up dropping out. After visiting several psych doctors and therapists, I was diagnosed as borderline-PTSD, not quite a full-blown case, as I could (and still can) usually shake myself out of them after a few moments. But the damage was done, and I continue to live with it to this day.
I was tormented all throughout my school days, and was continually told by authority figures in all but the most extreme cases to endure it. There were a number of times when I finally tried to take action for myself to stave off the bullies and cruel language, and usually ended up getting into trouble for it myself. It was a constant no-win situation for me; my complaints were responded to with mere verbal reprimands for the bullies, which did NOTHING to end the problem and usually only made it worse. Any time I acted out in an effort to take matters into my own hands and scare them off, I was punished for my outbursts.
I consider myself lucky that I've always been intelligent enough to think ahead far enough to realize that the sociocultural minefield of childhood school days was not a template for the entire future. I endured, and ended up slightly broken, but never lost sight of the fact that what the school councilors and my parents and my psychiatrist told me, that life after School would get better, was probably true.
I can easily see how people like TJ Lane, or Harris and Klebold, or any number of other rampage shooters could just become overwhelmed by anger and despair that they just gave up hope. While I can obviously recognize that it's a destructive and Violet way of thinking, the desire to destroy others along with yourself, because you've been driven to a point where it seems and feels like the only worthwhile and/or meaningful act left for you to commit in order to tell and show the world how you feel inside, is not an alien mindset to me. I just had the foresight and wisdom to realize the folly of such actions and the toll it would take on the people I did still care about, the mental fortitude to understand the greater ramifications of such an act, and an intense dislike of firearms stemming from how I was brought up.
When I read TJ Lane's writing, something about it resonates with me. I recognize a quiet and awkward kid who internalizes his pain and torment. It's almost like looking in the mirror at a younger version of myself, the "nice" Goth kid who smiles at the people who will actually talk to him without looking down on him, while harboring the secret and ultimately self-destructive rage and loathing toward a world and the people in it that constantly give him the message, spoken and unspoken, that he's powerless to stop the barbs. This Is Just How It Is.
And then I look at my stable home life compared to Lane's history of family problems, and I can't help but think, "But for the grace of GOD go I..."
Because, as I discovered accidentally...
Sometimes all it takes to stave off the brunt of the bullying is a single act of violence. When nothing else worked, and nobody else would help, throwing a few punches and kicks did more for my mental and emotional well-being than any counselling session or the assurances from teachers, parents, and therapists that it would get better ever did. My home life was stable enough that I got enough love and support from there to keep myself from going over that final, irreversible edge. TJ Lane did not have as fortunate circumstances.
Want to end bullying and prevent any more school shootings related to such things? There's no easy fix. Stop fostering a sociocultural environment in which bullies are essentially given a free pass to torment, where the only fear they have is the occasional verbal rebuke from an authority figure that their rebellious teenage brains likely don't take seriously anyway. Do away with the Jock culture that puts sports players on a pedestal and renders them virtually immune or mostly untouchable out of a desire to keep them happy and/or in the Next Big Game (which punishments for bullying could potentially affect). Dismantle this Us vs. Them social mentality that the current system fosters generationally, start educating kids about tolerance and empathy at an earlier age, and then for the love of GOD, enforce it.
Because sooner or later, a lot of bullying victims discover how easy of a solution violence can be for their problems.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Love Thy Neighbor (Unless They Happen To Be Richer Than You)
I encountered something rather interesting the other day.
I came across an article about how some of the people at the lower levels of the "1%" are starting to encounter economic problems. (EDIT: The article was by Bloomberg Business, and appears to have vanished from Yahoo. This is the only sign I can now find of it.)
The bonuses and salaries that they've become accustomed to have been dwindling, suddenly and rapidly, and now some of them can't afford some of the lifestyle perks and high-class investments and costs that they've become accustomed to. These people, who were assured they were protected by and valuable to the established hegemony, are now discovering that when the ship starts sinking, they are, in fact, more expendable and vulnerable than they were initially told. Private schools for their kids are in jeopardy, Country and Golf Club Memberships are becoming unaffordable, and they are starting to find, to their unimaginable horror, that they have to start tightening their belts and making changes to the lifestyles they've becomes accustomed to. A lot of it sounds like bitching about Rich-People First World Problems, and for the most part, it pretty much is.
The bonuses and salaries that they've become accustomed to have been dwindling, suddenly and rapidly, and now some of them can't afford some of the lifestyle perks and high-class investments and costs that they've become accustomed to. These people, who were assured they were protected by and valuable to the established hegemony, are now discovering that when the ship starts sinking, they are, in fact, more expendable and vulnerable than they were initially told. Private schools for their kids are in jeopardy, Country and Golf Club Memberships are becoming unaffordable, and they are starting to find, to their unimaginable horror, that they have to start tightening their belts and making changes to the lifestyles they've becomes accustomed to. A lot of it sounds like bitching about Rich-People First World Problems, and for the most part, it pretty much is.
But that's beside the point. Some of the folks that were formerly in the "Haves" are now discovering that the bullshit they've been fed for so long about "Hard-Working Rich People" and "Lazy Poor People" might actually be as fecal as the 99% claim.
So... That's a good thing, right? People who were arrayed against the populist side are starting to wake up. That's encouraging... Isn't it?
And then I got to the Comments section.
It turns out hateful language and bigotry doesn't just come from the top-down. The vitriol spewed forth from readers was no less alarming and reprehensible as a Corporate CEO calling OWS protesters "stupid monkeys". From what a lot of these angry and indignant commenters say, you would think that these former and soon-to-be-former 1%'s had run over their cats and then lamented about the cleaning bill for their Beemer. How DARE they be upset and distraught that they went from making $500,000 a year to $300,000 a year??!!??? *RAGEFACE*
Well... How would you feel if you were assured over and over that you had great job security, so you spent within (okay, let's not delude ourselves, slightly beyond thanks to credit cards) your means to establish a comfortable lifestyle for yourself and your family, that the people who said you were evil and wrong were nothing more than jealous naysayers who were just lazy, and then one day found out that you were getting a $3/hour pay cut and all that "job security" you were assured starts looking like an illusion? And suddenly that lifestyle that you and your family are used to, that you PROMISED them was a sure thing, has to change drastically. This isn't just going from buying champagne to Mad Dog; this means your kids might have to change schools. That you might have to sell a house that you love but can't afford anymore. Economically, this is a REALLY BIG DEAL, because they're finding out the hard way that the same top-level millionaires and billionaires that they thought were their friends and allies are largely even elitist towards them.
Keep in mind, these people are the lower-end of the Wall Street crowd. And what does the lower end of any group end up doing?
The grunt work. The bitch work. The nitty-gritty, down-and-dirty day-to-day mundane shit that the upper levels don't pay a lot of attention to until it affects their profit margins. These are the people who know what actually happens on a daily basis in the financial and banking industry. So why, exactly, are you gonna be a raging, callous douchebag to these potential newfound allies, who actually know how things work and who's doing what? I thought this self-realization on the part of the 1% was what the 99%ers WANTED to happen. Well, it's happening... And you're going to get pissed that they didn't end up completely destitute???
Hold on a second.
Unless you're a raging, reactionary, completely anti-establishment anarchist, the actual amount of money that someone else has or makes is not the issue.
Let me repeat that: another person's economic status is NOT. YOUR. PROBLEM.
It's the SYSTEM you have a problem with, the system that created economic disparity in the first place. The System that told them they earned and were worth every penny they had even while it told you to shut up and work harder. The System and the ones who run it at the top are the ones who have been lying to EVERYONE about the magic of the Free Market and the Glory of Capitalism.
So... Some of them are starting to be hit in a very real way with the reality of the situation... And rather than accepting them to your side with open arms and empathy for other people who have been used and lied to in the worst way, who's very worldview has been cracked and shattered... You're going to rub their faces in it and wish them even more ill? What happened to understanding them as you want the 1% to understand your own position? Why doesn't the love and solidarity you espouse for each other extend to them?
This isn't supposed to be about "punishing" anyone for the mistake of believing a lie. Unless they've knowingly and intentionally engaged in thoughtful criminal behavior, they don't deserve prosecution. Alienating newfound allies does nothing but shoot yourself in the foot.
So what's it going to be? Are you more interested in seeing people who make more money than you vindictively punished for making mistakes, or is this actually about loving and accepting everyone into the fold in the name of fixing the broken system that caused this conflict in the first place?
Your move, 99%. Choose wisely.
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