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Alumbrado -> RE: Obama ups the stakes... (7/31/2008 3:14:18 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Aynne
Alumbrado, I am genuinely curious. You seem to play devil's advocate in ohhhh 99.99999% of posts. I cannot figure out who you support, what side you are on, and what trips your trigger. Just my teeny little two cents. Feel free to snark or ignore, or answer if you wish.[&:]
When it comes to politics, I am anti-politician. That means I can't really have a 'side', and good luck finding someone I could support who has a snowball's chance.
That doesn't mean I have to accept business as usual without bitching about it. And it doesn't mean that any suggestion I may have for improvement has to be simplistic, or convenient.
I react badly and usually sarcastically to things that are fomenting ignorance and devisiveness, or which use appeals to the lowest common denominator.
I'm not joking when I keep telling people that it is a survival skill for me to be suspicious of the way certain notions are expressed and spread.
As somone who's family was firebombed because we were the wrong color for the neighborhood, and who's grandmother was knifed to death in her sleep because she trusted someone, I have an intense dislike for people who think it is a knee jerk joke to accuse minorities of playing the race card when attacked. Those are the ones who goad the bombers and lynchers into action.
As someone who was brought up in an ultra-liberal household, between angry campus radical prototype father and Jeffersonian freethinker mother and grandfather, I have it ingrained in me to mistrust anyone with power. When I took part in protest actions, I really thought that the world was going to become a better place, because people would see the difference and move to embrace it...When I went into the military during Vietnam, it was because I didn't want someone else being taken in my place, since I had already debunked all the politicians claims of it being a good war...
As an adult, I found out quickly that liberals were just as bad as conservatives in their hypocrisy on power..and on race, liberty, dogma, and so forth...remind me to tell you the story of the ACLU board member college professor who found out that a black prowler had been in her home, and screeched at the police who caught the guy to beat him up in front of her.
I also have honed the 'what's wrong with this picture?' instinct to a higher level than most people.
As a social scientist by training and an avid student of history by avocation, it is my nature to suspiciously look for the reality behind the appearances of anything..especially anything popular.
I realize full well that for some people it is part of the online 'community', to recycle banter and soundbites, and accept that sort of stuff as discourse.
I'm skeptical, I place great value on things I can trust based on critical analysis, not mere labels... and I'm an iconoclast, I'm not drinking anyone's Koolaid, I find debunking a very worthwhile pursuit, and until the Mods get tired of it, I'll keep making sarcastic comments about a lot of things..
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