As We Protest Incoming President Trump, Let's Not Play Political Ping Pong
As We Protest Incoming President Trump, Let's Not Play Political Ping Pong
EDUCATE! 2016 ELECTIONS, DONALD TRUMP, LIBERALS, PROTESTS
By Thomas S. Harrington, www.commondreams.org
December 28th, 2016
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Above Photo: Where incredulity begins and ends says much about what horrors
we are willing to tolerate-or have tolerated thus far. (Photo: Jewel
Samad/Getty Images)
As activists are organizing to protest the inauguration of Donald Trump, a
president who will be well-deserving of persistent protests; and tens of
thousands, maybe more than 100,000 women, march against misogyny. The
article below is a good reminder that political ping pong with Democrats
replacing Republicans replacing Democrats replacing . . . is not the
solution to the crisis in US politics - duopoly is the crisis in US
politics! We need to organize in new ways if we are serious about
transforming the US political culture and end the two -party mirage
democracy. KZ
I Would Love to Share in Your Incredulity
I would love to share, my liberal friend, in your sense of incredulity about
the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of United States. I would
love to stand with you in the sense of woundedness that, while certainly
painful up front, carries with it the secondary compensation of a warm and
nurturing solidarity. I would love to sit with you and fulminate in
righteous anger about the unparalleled vulgarity and cruelty of Trump and
his followers.
As much as I'd like to do these things, I won't. Why?
Because I know you, perhaps better than you even dare to know yourself. I
know you well because I have watched you with great and detailed care over
the last three decades and have learned, sadly, that you are as much if not
more about image and self-regard as any of the laudable values you claim to
represent.
I have watched as you accommodated yourself to most of the retrograde social
forces you claim to abhor. I have seen you be almost completely silent
before the world's greatest evil, unprovoked war, going so far as to embrace
as your presidential candidate this year a person who cold-bloodedly carried
out the complete destruction of Libya, a real country with real people who
love their children like you and me, in order-as the Podesta emails make
clear-to further her personal political ambitions.
I watched as you stood silent before this same person's perverse on-camera
celebration of the murder by way of a bayonet thrust to the anus of the
leader of that once sovereign country, and before the tens of thousand of
deaths, and hundreds of thousands of refugees, that war provoked.
I watched during the last eight years as you sought refuge in the evanescent
qualities of skin color and smooth speechmaking so as to not to confront the
fact that your "liberal" president was almost totally lacking in actionable
convictions regarding the values you claim to be about.
I watched as you didn't say a peep as he bailed out bankers, pursued
whistleblowers and deported desperate and downtrodden immigrants in
heretofore unimaginable numbers.
And I didn't hear the slightest complaint (unlike those supposedly stupid
and primitive libertarians) as he arrogated to himself the right to kill
American citizens in cold blood as he and he alone deemed fit.
I monitored you as you not only completely normalized Israel's methodical
erasure of the Palestinian people and their culture, but made cheering
enthusiastically for this campaign of savagery the ultimate litmus test for
social and political respectability within your ranks.
I watched as you breezily dispatched the memories of the millions of
innocent people destroyed by U.S. military aggression around the world and
damaged police brutality here at home in order to slavishly imitate the
unceasing orgy of uniform worship set in motion by the right and its media
auxiliaries in the wake of September 11th, 2001.
In short, since 1992, I have watched as you have transformed a current of
social thought once rooted in that most basic an necessary human
sentiment-empathy-into a badge of cultural and educational superiority. And
because feeling good about yourself was much more important to you than
actually helping the afflicted, you signed off, in greater or lesser measure
to almost all of the life-sapping and dignity-robbing measures of the
authoritarian right.
And now you want me to share in your sense of shock and incredulity?
No, thanks, I'll save my tears for all of the people, ideas and programs you
heedlessly abandoned along the road to this day.
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As We Protest Incoming President Trump, Let's Not Play Political Ping Pong
Educate! 2016 Elections, Donald Trump, Liberals, Protests
By Thomas S. Harrington, www.commondreams.org
December 28th, 2016
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Above Photo: Where incredulity begins and ends says much about what horrors
we are willing to tolerate-or have tolerated thus far. (Photo: Jewel
Samad/Getty Images)
As activists are organizing to protest the inauguration of Donald Trump, a
president who will be well-deserving of persistent protests; and tens of
thousands, maybe more than 100,000 women, march against misogyny. The
article below is a good reminder that political ping pong with Democrats
replacing Republicans replacing Democrats replacing . . . is not the
solution to the crisis in US politics - duopoly is the crisis in US
politics! We need to organize in new ways if we are serious about
transforming the US political culture and end the two -party mirage
democracy. KZ
I Would Love to Share in Your Incredulity
I would love to share, my liberal friend, in your sense of incredulity about
the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of United States. I would
love to stand with you in the sense of woundedness that, while certainly
painful up front, carries with it the secondary compensation of a warm and
nurturing solidarity. I would love to sit with you and fulminate in
righteous anger about the unparalleled vulgarity and cruelty of Trump and
his followers.
As much as I'd like to do these things, I won't. Why?
Because I know you, perhaps better than you even dare to know yourself. I
know you well because I have watched you with great and detailed care over
the last three decades and have learned, sadly, that you are as much if not
more about image and self-regard as any of the laudable values you claim to
represent.
I have watched as you accommodated yourself to most of the retrograde social
forces you claim to abhor. I have seen you be almost completely silent
before the world's greatest evil, unprovoked war, going so far as to embrace
as your presidential candidate this year a person who cold-bloodedly carried
out the complete destruction of Libya, a real country with real people who
love their children like you and me, in order-as the Podesta emails make
clear-to further her personal political ambitions.
I watched as you stood silent before this same person's perverse on-camera
celebration of the murder by way of a bayonet thrust to the anus of the
leader of that once sovereign country, and before the tens of thousand of
deaths, and hundreds of thousands of refugees, that war provoked.
I watched during the last eight years as you sought refuge in the evanescent
qualities of skin color and smooth speechmaking so as to not to confront the
fact that your "liberal" president was almost totally lacking in actionable
convictions regarding the values you claim to be about.
I watched as you didn't say a peep as he bailed out bankers, pursued
whistleblowers and deported desperate and downtrodden immigrants in
heretofore unimaginable numbers.
And I didn't hear the slightest complaint (unlike those supposedly stupid
and primitive libertarians) as he arrogated to himself the right to kill
American citizens in cold blood as he and he alone deemed fit.
I monitored you as you not only completely normalized Israel's methodical
erasure of the Palestinian people and their culture, but made cheering
enthusiastically for this campaign of savagery the ultimate litmus test for
social and political respectability within your ranks.
I watched as you breezily dispatched the memories of the millions of
innocent people destroyed by U.S. military aggression around the world and
damaged police brutality here at home in order to slavishly imitate the
unceasing orgy of uniform worship set in motion by the right and its media
auxiliaries in the wake of September 11th, 2001.
In short, since 1992, I have watched as you have transformed a current of
social thought once rooted in that most basic an necessary human
sentiment-empathy-into a badge of cultural and educational superiority. And
because feeling good about yourself was much more important to you than
actually helping the afflicted, you signed off, in greater or lesser measure
to almost all of the life-sapping and dignity-robbing measures of the
authoritarian right.
And now you want me to share in your sense of shock and incredulity?
No, thanks, I'll save my tears for all of the people, ideas and programs you
heedlessly abandoned along the road to this day.
