[quote=“nungesser, post:48, topic:53477”]
And please don’t insult my intelligence by telling me that I’m just a sheep listening to the ‘status quo’. Sometimes the ‘status quo’ is right.
[/quote]I apologize that I insulted your intelligence. I happen to very much admire your intelligence and my passion got in the way of that, and I’m sorry.
To some degree, I suppose we’re all sort of “sheep” that listen to the status quo, including me. I don’t think any of us can really escape it or we end up surrounding ourselves within an echo chamber bubble with too many monolithic, activist slants on things that can erode a wider perspective.
I don’t pretend to know the answers, nor do I think I can often predict the future within this complex world. I have to get at least some of my news and information from “status quo” corporations that have a decidedly corporatist slant just like anyone else has to do. The corporate media has vast financial resources to gather important stories we all wouldn’t learn about if it wasn’t for them and I’m most certainly influenced by their narratives, I’m sure of it. And, believe it or not, I’m thankful for it and I’m very thankful to brave journalists that work within that system and risk their careers and lives every day to bring me news and information that slips past the corporate censors.
However, I’ve also learned (even with some good intentions among journalists) that the corporate media lies and they lie often (especially with half-truths). I often have to research issues beyond their narrative and also rely on the few reliable corporate media watchdogs that exist today as well. Sure, sometimes the status quo are right, as you say. However, they often are only telling part of the story when they’re technically “right”.
For example, the status quo often preaches a recurring narrative that most of this nation is conservative and will only vote for conservative “centrists” such as Hillary Clinton. What the status quo would like us all to ignore is the facts right in front of our eyes. What they want us to ignore is the fact that a presidential candidate ran on a progressive platform in 2009 that involved (at the time) a single payer system for health care along with a progressive anti-war, anti-bankster, anti-disparity agenda.
With that progressive agenda, he won in a landslide with the highest voter turnout in 40 years. A conservative majority would have never allowed that to happen. When that same administration later failed to follow through (along with most of the rest of his party) to enable most of those decidedly progressive agendas, voting then turned towards a 70 year low.
That reality very clearly shows that this country is not looking for conservative Democrats (a.k.a., centrists), they are looking for progressive Democrats to lead this country and are damn well upset and disillusioned when they don’t get what they asked for. In the meantime, the status quo wants us all to ignore that reality. I say to hell with those destructive delusions. Look at the facts beyond the rhetoric. We truly are a progressive nation. We can get a progressive president if we would just try.
Another example…
The “status quo” corporate media is “right” that Democrats also ushered our country into the Iraq war. That’s now a narrative for many Americans that was induced by the status quo. What the status quo often doesn’t tell us is that it’s only part of the story and a half-truth, at best. The truth of the matter is the majority of the Democrats voted against the Iraq War resolution while nearly all Republicans voted for the war.
What they don’t tell us is that if more Americans had gotten off their asses and voted, we very likely would have never entered into that war in the first place despite the Cheney Bush administration’s aggressive warmongering.
What the status quo conveniently forgets to tell us is the majority of the American public still wanted the UN inspectors to find actual evidence of WMDs and most of the Democrats reflected that with their votes against the war. But, all we hear is the narrative that Democrats simply voted alongside the Republicans for that war… and that’s that. And, that’s bullshit. That’s a narrative set up for a purpose and that purpose is to break us.
They do this over and over again and it’s time for us to look at the reality behind the curtain and stop falling for their half-truth narratives and allowing those narratives to dictate our own behaivors.
That’s why I say to hell with the corporate media narrative that Bernie Sanders can’t win and I say let’s just try. The best that happens is we change this country (as we’ve done before) and once again shock and terrify the status quo with our amazing resilience against the odds. The worst that happens is Clinton wins the nomination anyway and we support her to win against even more oppressive conservatives, the Republicans. So why not just try?
It’s not about the status quo being right or wrong on whether Bernie Sanders or anyone else who will fight for average Americans is a long shot. Progressive agendas always have been and always will be a long shot. It’s the nature of our reality. The incredibly powerful and wealthy status quo will often have the upper hand in everything from information warfare (see media examples above) down to being able to fund and outright bribe our politicians to conform to their will.
However, despite that situation, despite the bad odds, the will of the people continues to push this nation slowly (but surely) more progressive over time. Why? Because when the status quo and their compliant media tells us that human rights are a long shot and we shouldn’t even try to change things, we ignore their lies and sometimes succeed anyway because we TRY.
I’m just saying we should try. At least we can look in the mirror down the road and say we did that.
