a little reminder... on differences...

[justdrew]

They Fucking Hate You

by John Cole

I wanted to spoon DougJ in a gay love blogospheric circle jerk when he wrote this:

In light of all of this, I just don’t see why it’s sad that liberals and conservatives give to different charities, listen to different music, patronize different restaurants, etc. The two groups don’t agree on much and don’t like each other. That’s life. If people disagree with me about everything and dream of tasing/beating/shooting me, then why would they and I want to be part of the same organizations?

I don’t suck dick, but I might give a reach around when I read shit like that, because so many people just don’t get it at all. I was a winger for years, and we can discuss that particular psychosis at a later date, but what I can explain to you right now is that they fucking hate you.

They just do.

They hate you because you respect gay people as normal human beings.

They hate you because you respect African-Americans as normal human beings.

They hate you because you respect Asians, Latinos, and everyone else who isn’t a straight white male.

They hate you because you respect a woman’s right to choose.

They hate you because you respect the right of people to be with who they love.

They hate you because you respect the right of anyone to adopt a child.

They hate you because you respect international law.

They hate you because you believe in economic and tax fairness.

They hate you because you respect the right of anyone to worship any way they want.

They hate you because you respect scientists and their collective knowledge.

They hate you because you respect teachers and the work they do educating Americans.

They hate you because you respect the human dignity of every American.

They hate you because you respect the rights of people over corporations.

They hate you because you respect nature and think we have a duty to take care of the environment.

They hate you because you respect your right to vote, and they don’t think you deserve it.

They hate you because you respect the constitution and the rule of law.

They hate you because you respect laws against torture.

In short, they hate you. Period.

They masquerade their bullshit in the words of Jesus and the all-knowing free market, but it is transparent what motivates them. Not love for their fellow man, not love for their fellow citizen, not love for country- what motivates them is hate for the other.

You.

They fucking hate you. They want you, and everyone who speaks for you, and every institution that represents your values, whether it be Planned Parenthood or food banks or ACORN- you name it. They want it destroyed.

I just do not understand why more people do not recognize this. The Republicans have declared total war on America, and people are responding like this is politics as usual. It isn’t. It really isn’t. It’s really all or nothing at this point. We put the birchers/tea party/conservatives back in their place and destroy the current GOP, or we deal with this shit for the next forty-sixty years.

I know I am Godwining this post, but we are at the point where we know who is going to set the Reichstag fire. Are we up to stopping them?

[wintler2]

"..we are at the point where we know who is going to set the Reichstag fire. Are we up to stopping them?"

[NeonLX]

A coworker of mine is a rabid tea-bagger. He's also a good friend. Yeah, he does do a lot of hating and we simply cannot talk politics without nearly coming to blows. But he's also one of the most helpful people there is; always willing to drop everything and lend a hand. A few years ago, I got knocked down with major surgery--right in the dead of winter and we were getting snow every day, by the ton. The morning after I got home from the hospital, I heard the sound of a snowblower outside our house. Looked out the window and there was my coworker dutifully clearing off our driveway. He did it at least three more times. He lives about 12 miles away and had to drag that snowblower back and forth across town in the worst friggin' weather, not to mention all of his time and gasoline. Not sure what the moral of this story is, but there ya go...

[AlicetheKurious]

Not sure what the moral of this story is, but there ya go...

The moral of the story: by some accident of birth or whatever, you met his criteria for "human being"?

[sunny]

Yeah, I don't think meeting hate with hate is the way to go. We're talking about individuals, some of whom feel we're simply misguided. They don't actually HATE us. In fact, one of them rather loves me quite a bit knowing exactly what my politics are and has done since forever. A lot of them can be saved, haha.

To add, for a lot of tea baggers it's about belonging, a sense of community and activism without the 'taint' of liberalism. They can be helped over that bit of semantic madness.

[Searcher08]

Yeah, I don't think meeting hate with hate is the way to go. We're talking about individuals, some of whom feel we're simply misguided. They don't actually HATE us. In fact, one of them rather loves me quite a bit knowing exactly what my politics are and has done since forever. A lot of them can be saved, haha.

To add, for a lot of tea baggers it's about belonging, a sense of community and activism without the 'taint' of liberalism. They can be helped over that bit of semantic madness.

I agree wholeheartedly - I think focusing on the humanity in common is very important. Hate just breeds hate. It's interesting Sunny, that you can see what the needs of some of the teabaggers are, and actually create room to allow relationship with them.

There is also a paradox - in my personal life, some of the most hardball people I have met in terms of leading a life full of a John Galt-ian level of autonomy and responsibility in making every action count and demanding that of the people around them - have been far left union organisers.
On the other hand, I have met people on the far right who would be unfailingly generous of their time and resources with no thought of return...

[sunny]

It's interesting Sunny, that you can see what the needs of some of the teabaggers are, and actually create room to allow relationship with them.

Well actually, the relationships in all cases predated their tea bagger involvement. Being a native in this environment means 'making room' or going it alone. Most of the people I know, if they are not IN the Tea Party they sympathize with it's positions, or at least what each individual thinks those positions actually are. Opinions vary. The TP'er [sounds so wrong] I mentioned agrees with me in all respects when it comes to corporate power and greed, he just has a knee-jerk reaction to anything resembling 'socialism'. And this, after watching his wife die of cancer and having to constantly wrestle the insurance company for payments. As a Vietnam and 20 year Army veteran, he's also more militaristic in his worldview so you'd think we couldn't talk about Iraq, but he hates it too and is always ranting about young men joining the Army only to act as low-paid Halliburton mercenaries, courtesy of the taxpayer.

So yeah, there is a lot of common ground and much of the differences have been manufactured.

[NeonLX]

...I guess that was the point I was trying to make, Searcher08--"in spite of" his very right-wing political ideology, this coworker of mine is unfailingly generous of his time and resources. Not just with me but also with many, many others. I know that he volunteers a lot of time at the local soup kitchen & homeless shelter--I've personally seen him there many times. It's hard for me to reconcile his generosity with his political bent, but what I think I'm seeing is that while he doesn't mind being generous on his own, personal level...he doesn't want the government being similarly "generous" with social programs (and yes, he was opposed to the corporate bail-outs; one of the very few things he and I have agreed upon).

[Nordic]

Sorry but the OP is election year divide/conquer bullshit.

It's true to a point but so what? Its trying to push peoples' buttons and ratchet up the hate.

"They" write the exact same things about us. "They hate you because you go to church and believe in the word of God". You know. "Those liberals fucking hate you."

Its easy to fall for this stuff, and I've fallen for it myself, repeatedly, over the years.

[Sounder]

So yeah, there is a lot of common ground and much of the differences have been manufactured.

This is more bait that encourages it's own kind of passive aggressive and sublimated form of hate.

But hey, ain't it great to wake up in the morning knowing you are not some Neanderthal conservative and are so able to hide your own hate, well of course at least until AGW or racism come up. Then; Fuck it-- it's time to pile on and show those polluter loving elitist wang suckers that we mean business.

Most people are not intrinsically ideological except that they are manipulated in these directions because of evil folk that make their living by stoking insecurities of their target audiences. (Well that and a split model of reality, but apparently that is a story for another day.) They try to make their victims feel special while the other is being knocked down. This manufactured tripe is playing leftists just as surely as David Duke Plays his targets.

Oh, but that's right, lefties are smarter than that, so that must not be the case here.

[Simulist]

Sunny and Nordic, thank you. Truthfully said, concisely put.

It is "divide and conquer" bullshit. And "whip up the base" bullshit.

And maybe priming the pump for some "send 'the team' some money" bullshit.

[swindled69]

At the end of the day, my only hope is that when the doors are closed and people are in thier own minds, at some moment, they know deep down that we as a population of this earth see past all this BS rhetoric and that we really do care and that these things that are being amplified is just really bullshit.

We all know it and we all know we can't do anything about it.

Someday, at some point in our current timline, we will have a great equalizing event that will either A) Wipe out the Human Race and life will start over or B) Wipe out 99% of us and we will go on.

What the 1% have to do is eradicate this kind of Bullshit.

[JackRiddler]

Sorry but the OP is election year divide/conquer bullshit.

It's true to a point but so what? Its trying to push peoples' buttons and ratchet up the hate.

"They" write the exact same things about us. "They hate you because you go to church and believe in the word of God". You know. "Those liberals fucking hate you."

Its easy to fall for this stuff, and I've fallen for it myself, repeatedly, over the years.

Bullshit.

Especially the third paragraph, according to which I'm supposed to put "their" imagination on a par with reality. When did liberals ever call for the banning of churches, or make it illegal for Catholics and fundamentalists to marry?

The exercise of power, the physical abuse and state bias in each case is almost exclusively one-way: Against that perceived as left. Against that perceived as other. Against the have-nots.

I'm talking about the real state, not the stated ideals or the state as imagined by the right wing. Where do you see the billyclubs swinging, the tasers and tear-gas grenades firing, the LRAD trucks releasing sonic attacks, the stop-and-frisks en masse? Not at the Tea Party rally, even when they brandish automatic weapons. Not at the Chamber of Commerce. Not in rich white neighborhoods. Did you see what just happened to several hundred OWS occupations around the country? How can you sustain an equivalence argument after that?

And no, I'm not going to put hating some people because they ACT a certain way on the same plane as hating people because they ARE a certain way. The unconditional identity-based hate in this country has always come almost exclusively from people who identify politically to the right, and more from the top than the bottom.

Easy equivalence arguments are pernicious. Also a stock in trade of the right. They learned the lingo of revolution and tried to reverse every critique of them. The primary way they express their racism in discourse nowadays is to complain about "reverse racism."

.

[ninakat]

What is wrong with you people?!

C'mon, it's halftime in America! Go team!

Eastwood: "We get right back up again, and when we do, the world's gonna hear the roar of our engines."

[JackRiddler]

But hey, ain't it great to wake up in the morning knowing you are not some Neanderthal conservative and are so able to hide your own hate, well of course at least until AGW or racism come up. Then; Fuck it-- it's time to pile on and show those polluter loving elitist wang suckers that we mean business.

When will I learn to acknowledge it's only my own conditioned hatred that makes me incapable of showing some love to racists and to idiots who recycle oil company propaganda they read in The Telegraph? After all, don't we want to stop the common enemy? (If the common enemy is not to be racists and oil company propagandists, I wonder who qualifies.)

But you know what I really hate? Lazy false equivalence arguments.

.