civics lesson

if minor stresses induce labor, surely attendance at another government meeting where there are presenters from the Tea Party will bring this baby out.

i disagree on all manner of political matters with national figures, local commenters, friends, family, my spouse. that's just what happens. usually i recognize that those disagreements arise because we have different interests, or values, or perspectives, or experience, or something. even with many of those issues that i would really go to the mat for, i understand that people disagree from some reasonable reason. and of course, the whole point of sociable living and democracy and making knowledge and getting somewhere is disagreement. lest it be surmised that i envision some toga-and-marble-steps utopia, i should also add i get incredibly impatient when i perceive that the source of disagreement is the other person's fear, racism, general parsimony toward humanity, lack of curiosity, protectiveness of their own privileged status, or inability to imagine that there are other interests in the world besides their own.

i have, however, also experienced disagreement with people whose ability to simply name what happened or is happening (i.e., their relationship to facts) is compromised. i was reminded of my conversations with such people last night when i attended a local government meeting that featured presentations by tea partiers. i mean, i knew i didn't share values with their ilk.* what i didn't know was how throroughly their position is situated over a vast pool of quicksand comprised primarily of fear and paranoia and a repetition of "facts" that they generate and circulate among themselves and so which apparently become true in the repetition.

so, sure they're racist and reactionary and think property is the most important thing of all, ever, and they sneer at phrases like "ending poverty" and "environmental protection." fine. so, they're not nice people. but they also are delusional, and have worked each other up into a froth about the coming one-world government and how it's going to force people to move into, like, tenements together, and force rural communities to build subways or trolleys. even though none of them have suffered any loss of life, liberty or property, they all see such losses as an imminent threat, so that personal anecdotes fizzle out b/c nothing bad has happened to any of them, but what led up to nothing happening is evidence that SOMETHING IS HAPPENING. they occupy the bizarre and powerful epistemic position of a prophet of disaster, but it doesn't matter that the disaster never happens, because it always could.

these people, who are paranoid first and ask questions later, and then when they don't like the answers to those questions make up their own answers and then wrap it all up as a conspiracy against them that no one can prove doesn't exist, have gained and are gaining power. i knew i disagreed with them but i didn't know they lived in an alternate universe.

also, to file under "seemingly unrelated, but fair enough": luckily for us, during the main presentation, we noticed that the presenter had tucked his shirt into his underwear. nice!!

*though i thought maybe we could get together on the issue of american indian land rights? i mean, they're totally into property and against eminent domain, so surely that translates into objecting to the entire way this nation was founded? right?