People are not brainwashed -- it's a very bad metaphor to use to refer to the general populace, however 'stupid' their opinions. And I've been pounding away on this for 11 years, almost no one who thinks seriously denies it, but then they go back to acting as though the U.S. were an auditorium, and all you [sic] had to do was stand up and announce The Truth and if no one paid attention, it was their fault, as though everyone's life isn't filled with work, sleep, staying alive, eating, getting a little entertainment, applying Preparation H to their Hemorrhoids, brushing their teeth, trying to arrange a family reunion, having a little relaxing conversation with a few friends, rushing to the supermarket to pick up the vital ingredient they forgot to buy . . . . make out the list yourself.
To think politically is to ignore all those not ready to receive your message; forget the ones that won't listen or who disagree. This afternoon six of us plus a visitor from the Peoria Group spent nearly two hours trying to think of how to reach out on several projects. Our general concern was growing over the next two years, and to do that we have to appear larger than we are in a visible way which will reach people who agree with us but who don't think its worthwhile to do anything (they are merely nauseous) or who don't even know we exist. We are planning to take up the attack on the schools, since one of our key members is an elementary teacher in Bloomington. We're just feeling our way along; that's why there is so much busy work involved, so much time spent in conversation that may or may not result in a good and workable idea of a way to start and to gain a couple people who we don't know yet and who don't know us.
And people on this list keep endlessly wailing about how horrible u.s. policy is and how stupid people are to believe it. And all of this is just in a vacuum. I wish the whole list would go back to discussing the singers they like and the singers they hate rather than political comment which in fact is anti-political, which is expressing the very sentiments that keep people out of politics.
And if you take politics seriously, you find a place (however trivial or silly) where you can plug yourself in and you keep at it week after week, month after month, not above complaining because people just won't pay attention but endlessly going back to the drawing board to try again. No matter how hopeless at a given time it is, if people don't keep continuously trying to do what they fail to do, NOTHING will ever happen, because when the unpredictable comes along and hope might arise, there won't be that army of the pluggers there to be the loci from which things take off.
Carrol
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of 123hop at comcast.net Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2011 3:53 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Austerity
Yes. I noticed that piece of "reportage."
The brainwashing is extremely effective though. One of my regular bridge partners is a senior scientist at UCB. Last month he told me that the greed of unionized teachers is the same thing as the greed of Goldman Sachs traders.
This has shown me that if you make things abstract enough, you can express any number of idiocies. But if you were to fill in the details:
"A teacher wishing to afford food and shelter after a lifetime of work is just as greedy as a man who wishes to retire at 35 on a king's ransom."
...it's a little harder.
I supposed we should all prepare ourselves to hear about the greed of the old, the sick, and the unemployed.
I am nauseous.
Joanna
----- Original Message ----- From: "Julio Huato" <juliohuato at gmail.com> To: "Lbo Talk Lbo Talk" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>, pen-l at lists.csuchico.edu Sent: Sunday, January 2, 2011 9:44:46 AM Subject: [lbo-talk] Austerity
My latest blog post:
http://juliohuato.wordpress.com/2011/01/02/austerity/
I don't have a chance now to revive it for serious, but I couldn't resist this for the time being. ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk