scarletwoman
scarletwoman's JournalThe problem with midterm elections for Democrats:
The right wing whips its voters into a frenzy, and those voters show up because they *know* they are at war. And it's a war they are single-mindedly determined to win.
There is no equivalent frenzy among voters who might support Democrats because they don't feel called to win a war. They don't even get that there IS a war. Right wing framing of issues is so all-pervasive that it's become normalized. And, thanks to the Corporate media, there are essentially no voices heard who might challenge it.
The big national elections every four years when the presidency is being contested gets peoples' attention because it's THE American Idol contest of American politics. The midterms, not so much. Because only one side considers itself at war, only one side thinks that it's in a life or death struggle for control - and those are the folks who reliably show up.
I know that most of us here on DU also understand that we too are at war, but that's just not the case with most of the American electorate, who are more or less disengaged and have no sense of the bigger picture.
I have no idea what it will take for our side to awaken the same sense of urgency in ordinary disengaged voters that the right wing does with their supporters. The right wing accomplishes this through constant lies and by appealing to the base instincts and irrationality of those who have no capacity for critical thinking. It's no great feat to gin up that sort of angry mob out of such material.
The question, it seems to me, is how do we, who value truth, rationality and independent thinking, gin up our own angry mob, ready to go to war? Is there a way to do this?
I could not give a shit less about the SI Swimsuit Edition or the Kate Upton photo shoot.
That being said, it's the act of bringing those things into DU that pisses me off, since it's clearly meant to rile people up and nothing more.
The thing is, our mainstream American culture is vapid, shallow, superficial, and soulless. Using scantily clad women for marketing purposes is merely one aspect of all the many factors illustrative of the fact that our culture is vapid, shallow, superficial, and soulless. And, frankly, it's far from the most disturbing manifestation, imho.
I don't in the least begrudge these women their chosen method of participating in the capitalistic marketplace - if they can make money at it, they are welcome to go for it as far as I'm concerned. As long as we participate in this capitalistic system by working for someone other than ourselves, we are all selling ourselves to one degree or another.
I'm 64 years old - way past the point where anyone would pay me for posing nearly naked for a magazine cover. But when I was young I was definitely hot, and I thoroughly enjoyed flaunting my power to attract the attention of men - and women, too, for that matter.
Humans are going to groove on looking at their sexy looking fellow humans of either sex, no matter what. I don't see any shame in that. We're biologically wired for that.
The only shame I see in the most recent spate of DU "gender wars" is in some DUers deliberately posting stuff that they know is going to cause an uproar. The SI Swimsuit Edition and the Kate Upton zero-grav photo shoot are NOT political issues. They're just part and parcel of the cultural vapidity and capitalist system we're all swimming (so to speak) in. So, if someone wanted to critique these things from those perspectives, I'd be all for it. But that's not at all what the mindset was behind posting them.
sw - yes, I AM a woman.
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Gender: FemaleHometown: Minnesota
Current location: up north
Member since: 2001
Number of posts: 31,893
