What is at the root of all the animus?

[Stinky The Clown]

I'm not just talking about that which exists between the left and right. I am also talking about between righties and between lefties.

Everybody's pissed off at everybody else.

The righties, very broadly speaking, are split between the crazies and the intelligentsia.

The left, broadly speaking, is split between blind cheerleading supporters (mirror images of bushbots) and those who decry everything Obama as centrist/DLC/triangualting.

And then, all groups of lefties are against all groups of righties. And vice versa.

Lest we think this is somehow localized or reflective of only those at the fringe, we need to think again. I can cite polls that say one thing (Obama has very high support among Democrats, for example), while my own anecdotal experiences show something else. The lefties I know are much more evenly split in their support. While no one on the left that I know thinks of him in terms similar to that of the Joe Wilsons of the world, there is more than a good bit of overt disappointment in the direction in which they see us being led. Meanwhile, his supporters remain fiercely supportive, almost to the point of sticking their fingers in their ears and making baby sounds to drown out the discussion. Since I know these people, I know what they wanted and hoped for before the election. But now they're seemingly happy to just have him there, no matter what he does. The "we won" syndrome.

Similarly, the righties I know (I live in a decidedly purple area of a blue state) are split, too. Around here it seems to be those who remain enamored of Caribou Barbie (and therefore, all the other true crazies associated with her and her cadre of morons) versus those who have always, or have come to, think of her as a twit. Oddly, however, they never say this to each other. Lockstepitude seems to be genetic with them. I hear their admissions of disenchantment with "those people" only when "those people" are not in the room. Unlike lefties, righties don't seem disposed to confront their own when they disagree with them. I suppose that comes from at least one aspect of the Calvinism that infects them all (never let anyone know that Daddy eats from a dog dish while Mommy wears nipple clamps and a leather harness with a strap-on and beats his hopefully upturned ass.)

No one seems to be part of any one large group right now. Everyone seems hell bent on splintering or causing splintering. (<---- hyperbolic statements that will be taken literally only by someone about whom this post was written)

Lefties have never been locksteppers. And for that, we've suffered as much as benefited. Righties have never been critical or critical thinkers. And for that, they've suffered as much as benefitted.

The discourse is coarse.

The rehetoric is meaninglessly rhetorical.

The disdain is palpable.






Why?





I think I know why with respect to the lefties .......

[Octafish]

1. General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox

Weird: After people stopped being considered "things," we got corporations being as good as people.

[Coyote_Bandit]

2. Two Things

(1) We are not a national community. We are out to advance and protect our own needs, interests and desires. To hell with how that affects other people. We may not know the effect of our own agenda. Even if we do we may not care how other citizens fare. Everybody for themself. Pull yourself up by your own frickin bootstraps. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda.

(2) We want to win, to dominate and to control. Even at the expense of honesty and human decency. We will knowingly lie and mislead others for the opportunity to implement our own agenda. We will knowingly allow others - sometimes millions of other people - to suffer and die so we have have what we want.

[Bonhomme Richard]

3. Frustration. n/t

[The Magistrate]

4. For Anyone To Be In, Sir, Someone Must Be Out....

Politics is the business of building group identities, making people identify with the group, and with one another in the group. Groups must exclude, otherwise they cannot have a boundary. Persons excluded react with hostility, even if they do not want to join the particular group that excludes them. Dislike and even hatred of those outside the group is one of the most powerful cements for cohesion and unity within a group, thus relations between groups tend towards the hostile. Since there are real things at stake in political life, opposing groups each come easily to regard the other as seeking to them harm, and to feel they must do the same in retaliation, or even pre-emption.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. That's always been the case.

I just think the animus today is greater than I ever recall experiencing ...... and that includes the anti-war 60s and 70s.

There's something else afoot, in my view. And it isn't that old an issue.

[The Magistrate]

8. It Bites Deeper, Sir, When People Perceive There Is Less To Go Around

That has been the case for decades now.

[Mr Generic Other]

9. this is true about inter-group dynamics

but individuals belong to many different groups, family, neighborhood, church or not, school, work, political, economic, gender, etc. and there is much overlap between the groups. we leave and enter some groups, such as age groups.
the hostility is bred from scarcity.
plantation capitalism as practiced in the united states, with its foundational philosophy that competition produces the best work, has determined that what we need to compete for is survival.
the american working classes have learned from experience that when anyone else prospers it is at their expense. our regressive tax structures reinforce this sense.
discourse on economic, political, and religious topics has been banned from polite company so we can't easily use our membership in a variety of overlapping groups to flush out community concerns.
i believe that those on both the left and the right are concerned, worried about, frightened by, and hopeful for the very same things but we understand the causal dynamics behind our social/economic/political environments differently.
only by sharing our concerns and how we understand the conditions of our lives can we hope for consensus.
i used to believe that most of us, from all parts of the political/economic spectrum, had one common enemy. while i still believe that is predominantly the case it has become apparent that we can be our own worst enemies and we can be the cause of other's harm.
those who survive in the same environment should and could be supportive of each other, make sure all members of society could thrive for the ultimate benefit of everyone, but when the pickins get slim people begin to consume each other.
the lack of a decent social safety-net, including universal health care coverage, means we not only need enough to survive from day to day but we need to hoard for the future and so become even more willing to sacrifice other's welfare for our own security.
it is not a haphazard system.

[Subdivisions]

5. I've been saying for awhile now that, IMHO, we are in a situation where

we've become so divided (funny considering all the post-9/11 "United We Stand" rhetoric) that we are polarized beyond reconciliation.

And, for the very first time anywhere, I am predicting that it will end in nothing short of these two opposing outcomes: violent conflict that pits "us" against "them"; or some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor--that reunites us - reminiscent of post-9/11 unity.

And a note about post-9/11 unity. It was a charade; a farce; a smokescreen; an abberation. And, it was short-lived. Most of you will remember that the election of 2000 was an extremely divisive episode in American history and the shock and awe of 9/11 was only effective enough in uniting "us" with "them" long enough for the war machine to work its hypnosis on the masses. As soon as they got their war on terror, it was right back to choking each other and hating our own relatives for having opposing views.

[ThomWV]

6. Perceived inequality is always the basis of animus

It can be inequality in situation or inequality in voice, but either way ...

[Overseas]

10. Millions of dollars is at the root of it.

Professional bullying to protect private profits.

Longer term campaigns to push national dialog to the right through consolidation of media ownership into right wing hands.

More recent campaigns to take advantage of a Fear-Stoked populace, thanks to Bush Gang Reign, and stir up more fear and hatred and direct it against that dang Good Government the corporate sector abhors.

We could have spent the August recess talking about all the ways our Pay-to-Play healthcare system is cruel and inhumane. We could have been swapping real life horror stories about our current system. And looking at damning statistics about how other countries pay far less and COVER EVERYONE.

So corporate cash funded trawling the gutters of human emotions to disrupt and divert healthcare discussions into rumor and slander.

The corporate bullies are really playing hardball. So willing to rile people up, and so ready with their TV networks to broadcast the results.

[treestar]

11. It's easier to be snarky on the internet

One is anonymous and can say anything. That also makes it easier to disrupt.

There is no comparison to blind Bushbot supporters, because Obama isn't trying to do anything extraconstitutional or start any wars.

[Stinky The Clown]

13. The blind busbot comparison is not about Obama .....

.... it is about his fan clubbers.

[alfredo]

12. Recently, it was Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" and the alliance between

the Christian right and the political right. The only thing worse than evoking Hitler in any political discussion is evoking God.

[Nikki Stone1]

14. It's been carefully orchestrated on both sides, with the goal that we aim our rage at each other

and not at the Wall Street and European banking interests that are putting our nation (and the rest of the world) into endless debt, causing the contraction of the internal economy, the laying off of public workers, the increasing poverty of the middle class, and the complete devastation of the general welfare of the people.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

19. Absolutely. It has most definitely been orchestrated by the powerful and wealthy

in order to increase their power and wealth and minimize the strength we could harness in a unified base.

[Nikki Stone1]

20. Thanks for seeing that

:kick:

[Orsino]

15. This is the sound white privilege makes when it's wounded.

Thousands of pale, angry people converge, outraged that someone poorer and browner than they might get something for free, or for cheap.

For all their hand-wringing about government spending, their failure to oppose the wars shows them to be liars.

Despite their talk about fascism, their love for Bush/Cheney shows them to be liars.

They claim to fear socialism, but their failure to oppose Medicare (or any of the other many examples of socialized systems) shows them to be liars.

"This is not the America my father died for" is the dog whistle.

[Stinky The Clown]

16. That might account for half of it ......

.... but what about the left's animus, including the animus displayed by one left side group against another left side group?

[Orsino]

18. Do you suspect racism?

Not sure what you're asking.

I wouldn't claim that opposition to Obama is all racism, but Beck's Bigots seem to have self-selected in this march. I'd say it's a strong motivator in most of the rubes performing for the camera.

[Canuckistanian]

17. Lack of critical thinking plays a big part

Both on the right and the left. And there's much too much deferment to those in power.

I think there's a growing feeling among both sides that they're losing control of their government. That government itself has it's own goals and aims which sometimes seem quite apart from the people's wishes.

We've realized that something has been wrong for a LONG time. THEY are just coming to realize it, although they're looking for easy targets to blame. And there are those who shamelessly exploit that anger.

The political structure is a BIG problem. Money is central to politics now, not people. Is campaign reform the answer? I don't know. I think the problem goes much deeper than that.

But I still believe that some basic critical thinking skills can work wonders in cutting through the crap.