Why Hate Occupy Wall Street?
We’re all tired of the political negativity, finger pointing, and just down right hate speech that’s taking over our national dialog. Both sides of the US political debate have groups of people they look to for leadership, and those with whom they clearly do not agree, but why does disagreement mandate all the recent hate language? Why so aggressive in the hate language? – like showing up at a town hall, declaring someone a “socialist whore” and… still after all this time… saying things like “your foreign born boss” with disdain in one’s voice? Who benefits from that?
I just read an article interviewing some people who identify with the Tea Party and couldn’t help but be sad at their responses. Hate. Just hate and anger, and focusing only on any comments that (in the case of OWS) attempts to paint “the Other” literally like dirty animals. Occupy Wall Street is the Other. The “dirty” Other. Like junior high, putting someone down makes the person feel better about themselves. Once again, politics reverts to child like behavior.
The Extreme Right cannot let its political base believe that OWS is actually the 99% because that would mean their base is part of the movement as well.
That would be disastrous to their ongoing “Us vs. Them” storyline that has been so carefully crafted through the recent decades. The Right also has to make the Occupy Wall Street movement “different” and “lowly” in order to motivate their own mob in some other direction that facilitates their current agenda. Without a common foe, you can’t unite an angry mob in any direction, so having a common enemy is necessary in today’s politics. The more desperate they are, the more aggressive the language becomes. They must be pretty darn desperate.
But since when did we live in a country where disagreeing with someone constituted calling them a socialist whore? Really? When did THAT change in the honor and integrity of our system happen? Did Occupy Wall Street suddenly cause that? No. I think we all know it’s been building for a long time.
UPDATE 01/11/12: And now, the realization that there is a very large rift between the rich and poor is being had by more and more people:
http://lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/11/10116228-more-see-class-conflict-between-rich-and-poor
Occupy Wall Street, and all the GLOBAL Occupy / 99% movements that have grown from it are the first physical demonstrations that “the Other” is finally starting to fight back against the far Right. That’s always terrifying to those in power. Look at history; ours and other countries, long past and very recent political history. When people (the regular people) gather, those in power… well, they do what they do in any way that they can to keep their power.
It’s amazingly sad that this has become not only allowed, but a deliberate tactic within our county’s dialog. People are doing this intentionally to keep fostering people being angry. Doing so maintains the divide between “us” and “them”, which then gives leverage to create action “against”. It’s wrong, and sadly I doubt it will never stop. It’s the way we work as people, but seems to be more extremely in politics and social interactions over the last few years.
The below quotation is from an old Psychology Today article; it felt very applicable to our tendency to divide populations between us and them:
“The drive to completely and quickly divide the world into “us” and “them” is so powerful that it must surely come from some deep-seated need. The exact identity of that need, however, has been subject to debate. The late Henri Tajfel, of the University of Bristol in England, and John Turner, of the Australian National University, devised a theory to explain the psychology behind a range of prejudices and biases, not just xenophobia. Their theory was based, in part, on the desire to think highly of oneself. One way to lift your self-esteem is to be part of a distinctive group, like a winning team; another is to play up the qualities of your own group and denigrate the attributes of others so that you feel your group is better.” (read the entire article )
If this is human nature (which I tend to believe) then completely squashing this tactic will never happen. All we can do is beg of ourselves to be responsible by not deliberately breaking down other peoples’ self-esteem, and then offering them an icon or person or group to hate, and thusly boost them back up internally.
If you hate, fine. We’re all allowed to not like something, but don’t spread it. You’re bigger than that. We’re all bigger than that.
If you hate them: why? Ask yourself that. Do you hate them, or what they stand for? Do you actually hate them, or is it the “them” picture that others have told you over and over again?
Let’s give inclusiveness a try for awhile and see how that goes rather than isolating emotions and encouraging beliefs that exclude, target, and marginalize. It’s just sad to see so many of us having our emotions exploited and used as a tool to maintain the end of a small group of people “in power.”
To win a battle with solders and voters you have to demonize the enemy in order to rally the troops into action. Hate is the quickest and easiest way to achieve that. It’s also the most base, crude, and damaging in the long run. Welcome to Republicanland.
