A letter-writer to the Sacramento Bee has earned my stunned admiration. In criticizing the Occupy Wall Street protesters, this resident of the town of Auburn has crafted a sentence that is all but perfect in its representation of unthinking tea-partyism:
These protesters are part of a very well-organized group of anarchists who vow to destroy our American way of life, which, yes, is capitalist.Thanks for the warning! Once the well-organized anarchists join forces with infertile parents, wealthy paupers, and impoverished millionaires, western society is doomed! Doomed!
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Ironically, although anarchists are often portrayed as advocating disorder and chaos, anarchism doesn't mean no organization, it means no rule. In other words, anarchists oppose authoritarian hierarchical forms of power, and propose instead that society should be organized in a consensual, egalitarian, bottom-up fashion.
I suspect, however, that the letter writer was unaware of such distinctions, and was instead just frothing at the mouth.
Nick beat me to it. Anarchist does not necessarily equal disorganized. But, also like Nick, that shouldn't be construed to mean I agree with the letter writer.
I do not, however, hold any affection for the OWS crowd either. I suspect a good stint in the Marine Corps would be good for most of them. And get off my lawn.
As a vet, I'm curious: you got any reason to think OWS doesn't have any of us there?
Or do you just dislike street protests?
I tried to form a Staunch Individualists Society when I was in college. We could not agree on when to meet.
Also, adoption and surrogacy (among other options) allow infertile people to become parents all the time. Other than that, the analogy was pretty good.
Cat-Herders of the world, unite!!!
The Society of Punctual Portuguese -- a highly select group, to be sure.
My mother in law lives in Auburn. I've noticed on visits up there that the foothills country has a lot of interesting residents...of the far right, paranoid variety.
Geez - not to be too rude, but there are few things more annoying to me than the "throw 'em in the military and then they'll figure things out" (or "then they'll think like me") mentality. The military can do great things for a person (and they can do great things for the military,) but, if the person isn't a good fit, it can also do a lot of harm (and it was very harmful, morally and psychologically, for my drafted father.)
It'll be a good day when we finally get rid of the myth that most people (male or female) are a good fit for military service or could benefit from such service.
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