ANS -- Are we the enemy?

For those of you who didn't see this conversation on Facebook, I have copied it here:  

(no way I know of to link to a post of FB)

--Kim

Sara Robinson shared Rick Perlstein's post.

10 hrs · 

The thing we need to get through our heads -- NOW -- is how very very deeply the right wing hates us, hates our values, hates our cities and our visions and the horse we rode in on. (Also: our clothes are ugly.) "The Four Corners of Deceit: government, academia, science, and media," says Rush. In other words: everything we stand for, and everything that makes us what we are.

It's not about racism, or even about sexism -- though those things are part of it. It's about US. WE are what they're resisting, and WE are why they have those guns.

Liberals have a very hard time seeing ourselves as the Bad Guys. But we need to recognize just how deep their hatred goes, because they're about to unleash it all -- and unless we start seeing ourselves as warriors in an existential fight for our own cause, we will be their victims in very short order.

Rick Perlstein

14 hrs · 

. Everything run, dominated, and controlled by the left here and around the world is a lie. The other universe is where we are, and that's where reality reigns supreme and we deal with it. And seldom do these two universes ever overlap. … The Four Corners of Deceit: Government, academia, science, and media. Those institutions are now corrupt and exist by virtue of deceit. That's how they promulgate themselves; it is how they prosper."

Like

Like

Love

Haha

Wow

Sad

Angry

Comment

Share

66

Comments

Ken Cousins American Taliban.

Like · Reply · 10 hrs

James Brinton Sara, please make this public so your introduction can be shared.

Like · Reply · 1 · 10 hrs

Sara Robinson Done

Like · Reply · 8 hrs

Write a reply...

Sherry Reson Yes

Like · Reply · 10 hrs

David Clow We are a threat to them, just as the anti-slavery proponents were a threat in 1776, just as the Abolitionists were a threat in 1861. It's the same conflict now: empiricism versus anti-empiricism, where the very idea of fact threatens their world, particularly their self-image. Limbaugh is the modern-day heir to a long legacy of propagandists, apologists, rationalizers, and liars who argued by the same means Rush uses--vociferous force, religious bigotry, logical fallacies, appeals to ignorance; all worthless in the end and inevitably leading to this sort of hate. They hold positions that are doomed to start with. They're arguing against a reality that can't escape. Historically their tactics were to buy time or to just open fire but they can't do either one now, not for long anyway. Facts are all around them; the fact of fact is inescapable, and the utility of fact is what drives the economy. They're hit peak stupidity. They want to secede but there isn't an inch of the country where their thinking prevails for long. We are indeed warriors and we hold the high ground in government, academia, science, and media because our weapons are the self-evident truths, and the idea of self-evidence, that the Founders made the bedrock for our society. They aren't just fighting us. They're fighting their own businesses, law, households, even their own bodies. They can deny and evade and pretend but facts win in the end, and that means they're fighting the whole idea of America, where facts are determined empirically, not by power, ever since the day the country started.

Like · Reply · 1 · 8 hrs · Edited

Robert Cruickshank Yep. They very strongly believe this about us. They see us as the enemy within. And with Trump as their president, ready to indulge their every whim and play to their anger, there will be nothing stopping them from getting their revenge on us.

Like · Reply · 8 hrs

David Clow They aren't to be feared. Their petty vengeance will be a tantrum. They can be defeated easily in any actual arena of business, logic , science and money because they're their own worst enemies. They just permitted Nero to take their party over. Trump isn't a Republican any more than he's a Rockette. It's a death rattle. We're in for a fight but it's going to go only one way.

Like · Reply · 1 · 8 hrs · Edited

Robert Cruickshank They have total power over government in the United States, with only a tiny handful of easily overridden exceptions. We absolutely should fear them.

Like · Reply · 8 hrs

Sara Robinson You're both right. David's onto the fact that the main reason they hate us is that through those "four pillars," we make a LOT of the decisions about how their lives will be lived. And they hate us for our ownership of the system. 

He's also right that the fact that we have had control over most of the country's consensus reality gives us a lot of retained power, even now. They've built an alternate reality of their own; but it tends to fray and fizzle when it comes against the hard facts of money, power, science, human nature, and empirical truth (all of which existing in something of a fantasy zone for them). Reality bats last. He's not wrong that we can count on that, and leverage the mistakes they will constantly make as a result.

And Robert's right that the current moment gives them more leverage to undo our reality-based systems than they've ever had, which means this is no longer a war we can decide not to engage. If we want our values to survive, we're going to have fight for them -- and the battle is now global and pervasive.

Like · Reply · 2 · 8 hrs

Write a reply...

Esther Essinger We could begin by telling the truth about them. They're not "the right" - they are the wrong, the far wrong. Yes, I know the origin of this left/right trope - different country, different century. Every time we speak, read, hear, write, and think "the right" (millions of times a day) we self-brainwash via the enormous power of subliminal conditioning. They don't give a damn about human rights. They aren't "right" - good, true, moral, desirable, perfect, better. They are the wrong, and if we all simply made this one small, easy, cost-free, risk-free change - which is RIGHT on the tips of our tongues and RIGHT at our fingertips - we would shift our ethos toward truth and reality and maybe even remedy.

Like · Reply ·