The argument can be made easily. The majority of self-identified Liberal Americans think supportively of the Obama administration. They are ignorant to the reality that his administration has a profoundly conservative platform benefiting education, immigration, economic and civil rights policies that mirror those of the previous administration. Their blindness to current events and their inability to differentiate rhetoric from practice proves something quite disturbing: we are a nation made up of apolitical liberals run by conservative interests.
The argument, even more disturbingly, can go much, much further. Take the shopping hobbits of mainstream liberals. They will buy tomato sauce labeled ‘natural’ at their local Whole Foods and pick up an $85 pro-Obama t-shirt at their closest Urban Outfitters. They won’t notice that the label ‘natural’ can be put on nearly anything and that the majority of Whole Foods products are neither local nor organic. They don’t face the reality that both Urban Outfitters and Whole Foods are owned by billionaire Republicans who love marketing to self-absorbed Democrats. Nor will they read the news story that tells them the latest bigoted statement these CEOs released against Civil Rights.
Look, I love Americans. We live in a beautiful country full of good-hearted and well intentioned brothers and sisters from a diverse array of political and economic backgrounds. But, at the end of the day, too many of us are dumb. You can blame the education system, the media and its partisan oversimplifications, or you can boldly put some of the blame on the people themselves. It’s not too hard to pick up a copy of The New York Times every once in awhile, or just log on to BBC or PBS’s website. They just don’t have anyone pressuring them to do so. Being politically minded and well informed is too often mistaken for being arrogant and idealist. In the words of Ohio congressmen Dennis Kucinich, speaking of Americans support of Israel despite their lack of knowledge on the firebombing of homes and shutting down of resources, “Americans need to wake up. Ignorance can be a very powerful tool”. Even more simply, in the words of Malcolm X, “if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.” I just wish Malcolm X had added, “You should stand for something you know something about, or you’ll fall for something you didn’t know was stupid”.
Firstly, 'apolitical liberals' is an oxymoron. Secondly, it would heed you well to cite some evidence when you claim that the owners of Urban Outfitters and WholeFoods are "republicans who make bigoted statements against civils rights"...(whatever that means)
ReplyDeleteAlso this statement: "They are ignorant to the reality that his administration has a profoundly conservative platform benefiting education, immigration, economic and civil rights policies that mirror those of the previous administration." Is wrong on so many levels it makes my head spin. You can't just make ridiculous claims like that without evidence and expect people not to call you out on your bullshit
This post is just a lot of self-congratulatory (look how progressive I am...bla...bla...bla) bluster...no substance.
I'm just stating my opinions. If you think I'm lying to you, do your own research, I'm not a reporter. Whole Foods is owned by a republican who claimed health care was not a human or civil right but a privilege for the rich.
ReplyDelete"They are ignorant to the reality that his administration has a profoundly conservative platform benefiting education, immigration, economic and civil rights policies that mirror those of the previous administration."- At this point, amongst the educated, that is common knowledge. His education policy is literally pay-for-performance and incentive based policies that make rich schools get better and poor schools get worse- same exact policies as bush. His immigration policy- raids into illegal immigrant businesses (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/10/us/10enforce.html) is the same anti-citizenship B.S bush was behind. And economic policies have been tax breaks for wealthy and bailouts to big businesses all while not regulating banks- same as bush...blah blah blah SO OBVIOUS. read the news, fool!