I’m so sick of “Emo Prog”, “angry” characterizations, which leave me feeling that it is “politically uncorrect” to be angry at what has happened to our bought and sold “Democracy” (and there,  I revealed my own ANGER.  Please set aside your “measured” position and look at just why this anger exists,  and spare me the argument that it is “extreme”,  and that it is “too radical” or “idealistic”.  Such arguments are typical “status quo”,  and I am sick of it……yup, more “anger”)

As if there isn’t a fully rational, intellectual, insightful, very NON-unattached reason  to be angry in a deeply offended, disappointed sense.  MLK said that “There can be no GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT unless there is great love” speaking of America and answering to critics who accused him of “hating America”.  In this case, with me,  it is a building up that reached a significant spike in intensity during the Occupy Wall Street movement,  which was tamped down to a large extent (in my own experience)  by the election of Obama, and the anticipation of his being a significant instigator of change in our political system.  By the time that Occupy rolled into Zucotti Park,  people were tired of waiting,  and disappointed in Obama’s coddling of the big banks when he had every opportunity to demand and get huge concessions and changes in behavior (see Ron Suskind’s “Confidence Men” for details.  I read this in early 2010,  and it was a significant eye-opener for me).   The last 18 months or so has taken that sense of what Occupy stirred up,  and added Ecological dimensions that renew my sense of the urgency for economic change YESTERDAY rather than tomorrow.

So back to the “anger” charge.  I hear people use this to equate Trump supporters with Bernie supporters.  One of the worst false equivalencies I have EVER known.  What makes it worse is that it’s comparing the mental state of Trump supporters with Bernie supporters.  That’s incredible to me.  And as such,  it reveals a severe distortion in how negative political discourse and opposition can get. It shows how one’s own position can seem to make it okay to put forth a rather condescending view of the “other” position.

What I want to ask people who are suggesting this false equivalence,  or simply that the Bernie supporters are “angry” (without the lame comparison to Trump supporters) is this:

Sure they’re angry.  Maybe just as important (or more important)  is “Why aren’t you?”   And now,  that question burns all the hotter,  given the state to which our economic engines have driven us,  such that our quest for never-ending growth has physically upset the balance of our Common Home.  It seems that our ecosystem will end up convincing more people of the unssutainability of this system before a sense of economic injustice does.  Whatever it takes.  But we would all prefer rapid response to what would come later,  for that “later” will turn out all the worse , the longer we wait.  More of us need to get REALLY angry.