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Nov. 1st, 2008 12:02 amAnybody who's spoken with me for more than, oh, some 30 seconds or so know that I don't approve of real physical violence for its own sake. I view it as a last refuge at best, and this has carried me through a life where I have avoided a number of primary-school fistfights, been to a few demonstrations and vicariously cheered (or jeered) on many more demonstrations. I have not attended anywhere near as many as I would have liked. Such is my sometimes busy, sometimes broke, occasionally motivation-challenged life.
The closest I came to anything resembling a violent mob was a college student-senate takeover - by a senator - with a bunch of us carrying bananas and water pistols as a semi-prank. There is probably still a picture of me buried in the campus archives, looking at said student senator, looking rather unlike myself. Even so, bananas and waterguns and never anything resembling actual intimidation were about my limit.
Right now, the political right-wing in the US has been whipping up its supporters into a lather. If it were the nice clean lather of a bar of triple-milled shea butter soap that would be one thing, but this is more akin to a rabid dog's foamy drool. I am used to strong invective from the political right-wing. It's like mosquitoes in Massachusetts in summer or cockroaches in Miami. Normally it's just annoyance level - us versus them, fear, viewing with alarm, the usual morally bankrupt tactics they use when they don't have any real solutions to offer.
The levels visited this year, though, worry me. Angry mobs threatening violence against fellow citizens just based on who they want to vote for and post-rally attacks on a journalist... these people feel fully justified in threatening physical harm, even doing physical harm, to people they don't know simply based on their voting choice or their honest profession. This only happens after McCain and Palin rallies, not after Obama or Biden rallies, so nobody better tell me "All politicians are like that..." or other similar junk without some references to back it up.
We have something of a chicken and egg problem: do these rallies attract inherently more violent people, or do the rallies drive them into a frenzy? Is it some combination of both, and if so in what proportions?
The more important part to me is, why are these people so angry? I'd love to ask them myself, but I'm in the wrong part of the country and I might glare too hard.
The closest I came to anything resembling a violent mob was a college student-senate takeover - by a senator - with a bunch of us carrying bananas and water pistols as a semi-prank. There is probably still a picture of me buried in the campus archives, looking at said student senator, looking rather unlike myself. Even so, bananas and waterguns and never anything resembling actual intimidation were about my limit.
Right now, the political right-wing in the US has been whipping up its supporters into a lather. If it were the nice clean lather of a bar of triple-milled shea butter soap that would be one thing, but this is more akin to a rabid dog's foamy drool. I am used to strong invective from the political right-wing. It's like mosquitoes in Massachusetts in summer or cockroaches in Miami. Normally it's just annoyance level - us versus them, fear, viewing with alarm, the usual morally bankrupt tactics they use when they don't have any real solutions to offer.
The levels visited this year, though, worry me. Angry mobs threatening violence against fellow citizens just based on who they want to vote for and post-rally attacks on a journalist... these people feel fully justified in threatening physical harm, even doing physical harm, to people they don't know simply based on their voting choice or their honest profession. This only happens after McCain and Palin rallies, not after Obama or Biden rallies, so nobody better tell me "All politicians are like that..." or other similar junk without some references to back it up.
We have something of a chicken and egg problem: do these rallies attract inherently more violent people, or do the rallies drive them into a frenzy? Is it some combination of both, and if so in what proportions?
The more important part to me is, why are these people so angry? I'd love to ask them myself, but I'm in the wrong part of the country and I might glare too hard.
