I've noticed something...

[rrneck]

8. Well, I've just been thinking...

It seems that everywhere I look there are red herrings that double as battle lines in the culture wars. Why have a special class of obnoxious behavior. What drives that need? Who really profits from it?

I am given to wonder whether gender issues are really gender issues. Through the magic of disaster capitalism, I sometimes wonder if gender issues have become the source of a revenue stream. I'm trying to find out who's at the creek bank with a bucket.

Here are my responses on another thread that follow those lines in a way...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022660989

Two guys are digging a hole. It's hot, tiring work. Joe says to Ed, "Howzit the boss is up there drinking beer in the shade and we're down here digging this hole?"

Ed says, "Why don't you go up there and ask him?"

"Believe I will", and with that Joe climbs out of the hole and strides up to the boss. "Hey boss, howzit you're up here drinking beer in the shade and we're doing all the work?" The boss replies, "I'll show you". He stands up, holds his hand in front of the tree and says, "Hit my hand as hard as you can". Joe takes a mighty swing and at the last second the boss pulls his hand away causing Joe to hit the tree, fracturing three knuckles. The boss grins and says, "Now do you understand?" Joe says, "I think I've got it".

Joe climbs back down in the hole and Ed asks how it went. Joe says, "The boss explained it perfectly. Here, I'll show you", and with that he holds his injured hand in front of his face and says, "Hit my hand".

..............

The more I think about that joke the more it becomes an accurate analogy about the times in which we live.

The one percent sits under a tree profiting from the labor of the rest of us. When we question the unfairness of our lot, "the boss" holds a moving target out at arms length that hurts us instead of him. That moving target seems to be the endless culture wars that cause us to demand government be an hommage to Christianity, outrage at inequality be an hommage to gender, a secure economic future to be indentured servitude to capitalist expansion, the nonsensical parsing of firearms aesthetics, and a voracious consumer culture that has turned ideology into a product.

And we embrace a tactic foisted on us by the people who are screwing us, take it to our fellows and get punched in the face for our trouble. Isn't that how Libertarianism works?

Robber Baron Jay Gould is famously accused of saying that "He could always hire one half of the poor to kill the other half".

I should probably take it to the philosophy forum.