If you have Sabrina Salvati, Russell Brand, Matt Taibbi, and Glenn Greenwald on one side of any argument, regardless of what it is–and on the other you have MSNBC hosts, and chirpy little professional Democrats like Robert Reich …
Which side you choose tells you, me, and the whole world everything there is to know, about the true state of your mind and soul, at least politically and socially and intellectually.
There are plenty of people in the first group who hold smart views in common across a wide range of topics and issues. They generally have smaller voices, less visible platforms, and way less money.
In the second group, you’ve got a general consensus of half-informed partisans and well-greased career liars, who are wrong either because they are well-paid to be loudly wrong, or who hold neo-liberal views due to a reliance on a kind of comforting secular religion, based on blind faith instead of actual critical thinking–which, to be fair, they may simply lack the capacity for. It could also be a lack of time, or patience, or historical memory, or tolerance for bleak realities … it’s … a lack of something.
So here’s the test case that meets all of the above criteria perfectly.
If you’re reading me with uncommon alertness, and are plugged in and awake enough this week, you might already know the exact issue I’m dancing around; the particular issue addressed in the video.
Next week there will be another.
Statistically speaking, throughout a year of weeks, you’ll fall on one side or the other, the same side, a large majority of the time.
When I’ve made this point in less measured terms, over other issues, I’ve had virulently negative reactions sometimes–reactions which indicate that people think I’m calling them stupid, for not agreeing with me on some matter of public debate.
Sometimes, they’re interpreting what my attitude is saying correctly. “Wull, don’t them Jews have a right to defend themselves?” Yep sure sure uh huh. You betcha they do. It’s just that … that is so very far from the greater moral point that I don’t even know what to say. Often I’m not very quick and this is doubly so when I am appalled.
But far more often, I really am pleading my case in good faith. Far more often, it’s hurting my heart that the blindness seems so willful and reactive, so rooted in a kind of insecurity or lack. I’m not feeling superior. I’m feeling like I’m begging, for my marginal and unpopular view of the world to be taken with some seriousness. Some indication that it is on some level, equal.
At times like these, my perception of reality is costing me dearly. More than my perception of reality will ever cost you.
Smile indulgently. Nod with artfully concealed condescension. Change the subject. Act charitably, toward my broken, angry, deluded state.
Or at the least, I’m asking please, just … spare me the snippiness.
After all, God and Anderson Cooper are both on your side.
So cling to that in magnanimity.