"Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me and I welcome their hatred."
President Roosevelt, Madison Square Garden, October 31, 1936
There is an astonishing lack of anger among liberals, progressives and radicals who have abandoned emotion to the right. Our role model continues to be not FDR, still less Malcolm X, but our "bipartisan" and apparently tone-deaf President Obama
Michelle Obama lectures us on obesity while one in eight Americans (and one in four children) are on federal food stamps.
Where and when did we lefties lose this vital part of our social language? Was it in pre-school where we're urged as toddlers to use sweet reasonableness to resolve disputes?
the suppression of sane, liberal anger has been around at least half a century, certainly since the sociologist C Wright Mills in his influential book The Power Elite deplored the loss of capacity by the public to experience outrage as contrasted with earlier periods in American history
Why should full-throated emotion be the monopoly of the so-called "populists" who seem to be the only people around unafraid to shout, yell, stomp and scream?
No comments:
Post a Comment