All this anger......what about all this anger? What to do with it?

[tpsbmam]

If you're not angry, you're either a stone or you're too sick to be angry. You should be angry. Now mind you, there's a difference. You must not be bitter. Let me show you why. Bitterness is like cancer -- it eats upon the host. It doesn't do anything to the object of its displeasure. So use that anger, yes. You write it, you paint it, you dance it, you march it, you vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it. Never stop talking it.

Maya Angelou talking to Dave Chappelle about the 1960's, including all of the murders of so many of the leaders of the day from Malcolm X to MLK to RFK. It just struck me at my core given all that's going on & the feeling of DU right now & I wanted to share.

(As heard on my recorded "Iconoclasts" on Sundance. Definition of an iconoclast: a person who attacks cherished beliefs or institutions.)

[snagglepuss]

1. Great quote. K & R nt

[Atticus]

2. Great quote. Thanks. nt.

[Dogmudgeon]

3. Actually, much of it IS bitterness.

A lot of the people here have thin skin and short fuses and come here for public catharsis. They come to rant and pour out their bile and attack co-partisans at random, and justify it as "conscience". It's one thing to discuss criticism of Obama/the Democrats/the Right/whoever else, but I'm talking about publicly milking the poison. In our political conflict, there is never any real relief, and the Freepers show us what we will turn into if we can't get things under control.

Everybody wants to lay down their burdens, particularly the burden of decades of frustration over politics. I understand it, but here we also reject any talk of improving the situation. This has been the Big Problem of the Left -- the inability to use the anger, as Maya Angelou said.

I look at the current political state of things as being extremely desirable. The entire political world is in disarray, from left to right, and it isn't limited to party politics in the USA -- there's WikiLeaks, the various crises in Europe, and the economic ascendancy of China and India. Any time the public order is shaken up, the opportunity for beneficial change is the greatest. There's also danger of regress rather than progress, but the chance of progress is greater. Yet no one seems to see it. All we seem to see is the unpleasant side of things.

I don't particularly like the conflict, but I think it will all shake out soon, leaving Progressivism in a better place, Obama stronger, and most of the hurt feelings healed. But this is not following the script we expected. Ask most DUers if they'd like a Revolution, and they enthusiastically agree. They think it will be the 1960s redux. But it's actually happening, organically, and it feels like the rug is being pulled from under us. No rock-and-roll, no mind drugs, no easy low-risk sex, just Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. 1967 happened 43 years ago; it's nostalgia. 2010 is about a new set of changes, without the anesthesia of high-res cultural progress.

With reference to your program, everybody wants to be an Iconoclast, even the Rightists. Well, this is an era in which the icons are being destroyed, particularly our own. And it isn't much fun. But I think it's the best thing that could happen to us under our present circumstances -- if only we keep enough sensibility to leave the poison and corrosiveness behind.

--d!

[pnorman]

5. And I find posting #3 eminently save-worthy!

n/t

[tabatha]

4. That is save-worthy. Thanks!