Journal SPAM: Table Ready, Party of Hate 3
I felt a bit nauseous watching the Republican convention last night. I'm very much a give-the-benefit-of-the-doubt kind of guy, so I try to listen to the arguments people make even when they're made in over-the-top or patronizing ways. Sometimes it's good to distinguish between the rhetorical devices and the underlying substance. Even people who use manipulative language sometimes have an important point beneath their persuasion techniques (ads against smoking, for example).
I usually don't feel uneasy when I put those filters on, but last night - during the Guiliani speech - I realized I was no longer filtering a speechwriter's intentional manipulation; I was trying to look beyond real hate. These folks were gritting their teeth, shaking their fists, and smiling the way gladiators do when going into combat against barbarians. And this is the incumbent party. The ones currently in power.
What is it they hate? Guiliani and Palin both made it pretty clear: community organizing. Community organizing is energized from below. From the periphery. It is the direction and facilitation of mass energy towards productive and cooperative ends. It is about replacing conflict with collaboration. It is the opposite of war; it is peace.
Last night, the Republican Convention made it clear they prefer war. They see the world as a dangerous and terrible place. Like the fascist leaders satirized in Starship Troopers, they say they believe it is better to be on the offensive, taking the war to the people who might wish us harm than playing defense. It is better to be an international aggressor - a bulldog with lipstick - than led by the misguided notion that attacking people itself makes the world a more dangerous place.
More below the fold.
Yep (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's not about policy. It's not about logic. It's not about real expectation of benefit. It's definitely not about any connection between current rhetoric and past performance or future plans.
It never has been - and that is why R's have been as successful as they have, in getting rubes to vote their own extinction.
Because it's about how they make you feel.
Otherwise, Romney's "free market" crap would be seen as the jobs-export engine that it is, and that cutting social welfare is championed, so that corpora
Re: (Score:2)
It is about world views. Conservatives see the world as essentially hierarchical. Not only that, but it is a merit driven heirarchy. The good people are on top because they deserve to be.
They believe (whether Christians or not) in moral absolutes. There is no room for nuance or debate, things are either right or they are wrong, and there is no in between. People who deserve to be on top are right, no matter what they do, and people on the bottom are wrong.
They do not accept that we live in an interconnected