People on the left often make a fundamental error in thinking about the right.

[Jackpine Radical]

We keep thinking that the so-called conservatives are simply misguided and deluded. If we could only educate them, if we could only share our insights with them, they would then give up their destructive impulses and join with us in making a better world. We call them stupid when they fail to see things our way.

This perspective is wrong. It's not about intelligence, It's not about knowledge. it's not about an inability to understand the issues that marks the difference between the right and left in today's America, whether you're discussing corporate power or universal health care or global warming. They are not stupid. They are doing exactly what they need to be doing in order to advance their interests as they see them.

There are plenty of smart people in the corporations, plenty of smart people fighting to deny us a publicly financed health care system, and plenty of smart global-warming deniers.

The issue lies not in intellect but in something more fundamental. The Ojibwe Indians I knew in my youth would have called it "good-heartedness." It is variously expressed in small and inconspicuous acts of charity, or in great ways, as when a President pushes through a national retirement plan intended to keep the elderly out of poverty. It is about love and empathy. It is about valuing other people. It is about simple decency.

[HughMoran]

1. You imply that the other side is self-absorbed, without compassion, and most likely greedy

Did I read that correctly? :)

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Good Heavens, what did I say to give you that idea??!

:evilgrin:

[HughMoran]

3. :o)

:beer:

[greymattermom]

4. I experienced that,

My clogging group did a performance and class for kids, and a native American woman who was there gave me a polished stone and told me I was good hearted or something similar. I think she was Kaw or Shawnee though. I keep the stone with me, even though it's just one of those flattened marbles the kids like, but it reminds me of that moment.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. That gift of a stone was a greater one than you know.

Here is the wonderful Louise Erdrich on the word stone in the Ojibwe language:

http://www.america.gov/st/peopleplace-english/2009/June/20090617110238mlenuhret8.187068e-02.html

The word for stone, asin, is animate. Stones are called grandfathers and grandmothers and are extremely important in Ojibwe philosophy. Once I began to think of stones as animate, I started to wonder whether I was picking up a stone or it was putting itself into my hand. Stones are not the same as they were to me in English. I can’t write about a stone without considering it in Ojibwe and acknowledging that the Anishinabe universe began with a conversation between stones.


I too have been given stones by Ojibwe people on various occasions. The gift is not a trivial one.

[abluelady]

15. That is very Interesting

I've noticed when going to Jewish funerals/cemeteries, instead of slowers, stones are put on the monuments to show that a visitor was there. Wonder if there is a connection?

[Analyticalist]

30. not exactly the same....

my Hebrew teacher once told me part of that story.

It comes from an old Yiddish saying, I don't remember it exactly, but it was something about casting the stones was symbolic of losing the 'stone' from your heart.

[abluelady]

33. I Never Heard That

But it makes sense. Even though the meaning of the "stone" is different, the stone is still a symbol among various cutures.

[rucky]

5. The screaming minions are certainly misguided by someone

and you're right, there are plenty of people eager to manipulate - but there are plenty more getting their buttons pushed.

[Epiphany4z]

6. it is what happens

after the school yard bullies have been in charge for 8 years. Most this is not even about issues ..it is just about dems being in power...for 8 yrs we have been marginalized and told we are un-American, terrorist sympathizers who hate america,god, christmas , kittens....whatever they can think of...right now is one big temper tantrum by the right because they can't keep punching us in the face and stealing our milk money.

[dhpgetsit]

7. The final paragraph makes a leap that I cannot follow.

How do the Ojibwe Indians' concept of "good heartedness" tie in with the previous paragraphs?

Go ahead. Finish the thought and make the case.

[Jackpine Radical]

11. Those whose concerns are only for their own narrow self-interest

don't care about the earth, or other people. They understand the consequences of their actions, but they don't care, perhaps because they believe they have enough, or will acquire enough, money so they can buy their way out of the impending disasters.

[RC]

12. Jackpine jumps from defining them to defining us, without

differentiation. You're correct, it is a 'huh?' moment.

[Jackpine Radical]

16. Yes, I guess I wasn't explicit.

Hugh followed my discourse, though.

[OHdem10]

9. Right on--that Rugged Individualism. They mean it when they say

no one is owed anything. Personal responsibility.. Pull yourself
up by your own bootstraps.

It is not lack of education. The Right puts the left to shame
in the number of books produced "selling" their philosophy.

Have you ever seen the Young Republicans book list which they
are expected to read???(C-span)

[Hansel]

26. But they don't practice it.

They drive on and make their livings on roadways they personally did not build. They eat cheap food and buy products raised by people living on slave wages. They call the police and fire department when they need emergency help. They turn on their lights regulated by the government and bitch when their bills go up. If they need public assistance and food stamps they apply for them. I could go on and on.

They depend upon regulatory agencies to keep their food and water and products safe. If anything happens to them because the government didn't protect them, they are the 1st to bitch about it. Witness the Tea Baggers bitching about the metro bus service in Washington DC. Someone else builds and makes at least 90% of what they eat and consume and purchase if not 100%. They depend upon the government not to be forced into slave labor and they get benefits and decent hours only through the sweat and blood of unions which they also bitch about.

None of them throw away inherited wealth.

Rugged individualism is a myth and they live in daily betrayal and hypocrisy of the their own beliefs. It is their hypocrisy that makes me not respect them.

I'm sorry, but they are no more examples of rugged individuality than people on the left advocating for social programs are examples of "lazy" welfare recipients. Their concern is that someone else is going to get something for nothing. As long as they have theirs, they do not really give a flying fig. I don't say this as a distant observer. I say this because I have witnessed it first hand nearly my entire life.

edit for typos

[raccoon]

50. Great post. You oughta start a thread with this post. nt

[Lex]

10. No. Factually they are often just plain wrong.

Time and time again, they build their premises on untruths and wrong information.

WMDs in Iraq? Iraq attacked us? Death panels? Obama is a Muslim? I could go on and on.


I agree that there are those who do know the facts and are using the stupid right-wingers to advance their agendas by feeding them wrong information and knowing they'll buy it. That is clear.

[Jackpine Radical]

13. Yes, I'm talking more about the wolves than about the sheep.

But even a lot of the sheep are wannabe wolves.

[EFerrari]

18. They are right by their standards which are belief -, not fact, based.

And that's the crux of the thing. You can't do a reality check with someone when they aren't functioning in shared reality and out of their own choice, too.

[AllentownJake]

14. You can't have a reasoned debate or discussion

With someone who won't use facts and is willing to flat out make things up.

[Bonn1997]

17. Maybe that's part of it but I doub it's all of it

Many of the conservatives I know are ones I met through our mutual volunteer work with the local humane society. I think part of it is education; part of it may still be empathy; and part of it is probably a dozen other variables at work.

[IsItJustMe]

19. I agree. Ask the simple question of which one of these two do you agree with more and you will come

to the answer of whether you are a Republican or Democrat.

It's a tough world out there and you have to take care number one.

or

We are our brothers keepers.


I also find that the more authoritarian you are the more likely you are a Republican.

[OHdem10]

21. Absolutely, "oub brothers keepers and they go ballistic."

I think the Conservatism contributes to their authoritarianism.
Not as quick to question as Liberals. If someone with a tiltle
of any kind.---Liberals tend to question (in their head if not
out loud). Republicans will tend to follow more quickly.

[Cirque du So-What]

20. I have no such illusions about the right wing

They comprise Sociopath Nation, and I don't live there; I don't even have a passport. I don't visit, I don't proselytize, and I sure as hell don't expect anything resembling enlightenment to descend upon their pointy little heads.

There are, however, untold millions of Americans who just want to exist without having to think about politics or how issues affect their lives. While I cannot condone such a position, I am a great deal more sympathetic to their position than that of the brownshirt-wannabees on the right. The wingnuts are either compelled by pathology or a conscious desire to take everything of value at the expense of everyone else, so fuck'em & feed'em fish heads! The Great Apolitical Middle, however, will take a stand when they or their loved ones are affected...hardly admirable, but at least it's more 'human' than the sick fantasies of right-wingers.

When I'm not on DU, I visit corporate-media websites and go toe-to-toe with the wingnuts, and I assure you that changing their minds is NOT on my agenda. I write for those in the Great Apolitical Middle, whose opinion I stand a fighting chance of influencing. In fact, I recommend that ALL DUers establish a goal of countering the RW and their allies in the corporate media by talking to people who may be potential allies at some point in the future. DU is great - don't get me wrong - but it's too easy to become complacent if this is the only place where you articulate your views and your ideology. I hate to invoke the old, tired cliché of 'preaching to the choir,' but it's certainly an apt description of speaking only to like-minded individuals (occasional trolls, DLC drones, PUMAs & gun nuts notwithstanding).

[CANDO]

35. Yes! I employ the same strategy.

I had this conservative going on various topics in a Teamster forum. There are plenty of conservative union people, way too many for my liking. But he finally says I'll never change his mind.... to which I said to him.....I'll let you in on a little secret, it's not you who I'm trying to reach. Your arguments make for great fodder to challenge with truth and facts. It's other folks who may be browsing that I'm trying to get to.

[LWolf]

22. I'll be the devil's advocate.

While it's true that the right-wing power-holders are not stupid, those they are getting their power from are, not stupid, but, in some respects, brain-washed.

Where do we get our information from? We ALL get information from the media, in some form. We form our world views based on the conditioning we get from our parents, our communities, and our churches.

Everyone has some form of automatic conditioning that helps to shape their world view. It's not an accident that, born in 1960 to a single mother, raised by those some today would call "hippies," I carry those values forward with me.

I see plenty of evidence of conditioning every day right here at DU; if "our president" says it or does it, it must be right.

The masses that give churches, republicans, centrist Democrats, and the right wing political power have been conditioned to do so.

They also have empathy for others; they also can act with simple decency towards others. They just don't recognize that their leaders' teachings conflict with that decency. They've been conditioned not to.

I work with a Glen Beck fan. My co-worker is a good man. As a matter of fact, he was in the building working for free on labor day to make sure that the rest of us were good to go on the first day of school; he's our custodian. No one asked him to. He just showed up. He is kind, he's hard-working and responsible, he operates with common sense in most areas. Except for politics. I don't fight with him about Glen Beck. That wouldn't get me anywhere.

He does like to bring up political topics with me in the early mornings, when I'm working in my classroom and he's mopping the hall. I remain neutral. The day I told him that I don't like, nor listen to, any talking head on tv or radio, but prefer to read, evaluate, and form my own opinions, he told me, "I don't have the time or understanding to do that. I pick someone I trust to do it for me."

THAT is the whole problem in a nutshell: trusting someone else's judgement over our own, or allowing someone else to do the thinking for us.

In our most recent conversation, I calmly pointed out the extremes talk show hosts will go to in order to whip people into an unthinking frenzy, their propensity to take things out of context, and their need to put ratings before substance.

He admitted that I was correct. He's not ready to give up his addiction, but he has acknowledged that it's not infallible.

:shrug:

[Klukie]

23. I think the lack of decency stems from a kill or be killed mentality...

survival of the fittest so to speak...just MHO.

[ejbrush]

24. Conservatives are Pragmatic.

I can't really put it into words, but they tend to focus on what can be done (easily/cheaply/quickly) instead of what would should be done.

[Jade Fox]

25. They imagine they are pragmatic....

but most conservatives have trouble grasping the complexity of issues, and just dumb them down for a simple solution.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/07/22_politics.shtml

[ThomWV]

27. So basically incapable of empathy?

In a sense sympathy is about putting feelings into action but if you don't have the feelings, don't have empathy, in the first place then there not only will never be action to relieve universal pain but their will be active revolt against it. Pretty much what we see today.

Or I got it wrong. Both are possibilities.

[Jackpine Radical]

28. I'm betting you got it right.

[divideandconquer]

29. We keep thinking they're low information voters, but they are low morality voters

Endlessly trying to turn greed and selfishness into virtues

[earth mom]

31. The rethugs are heartless sociopathic bastards. We should never forget that. nt

[CANDO]

36. How right you are....

One of my brothers is a hard core conservative. We've had many knock down, drag out battles over the years. Some of the shit he spews would make a billy goat puke. And snarky as all hell, which he gets from listening to smart ass-ed Rush Limbaugh all these years.

[Towlie]

32. No, you can't sweep the greedy rich sheephearders and the poor dumb sheep into the same category.

They are two distinct general groups consisting of the manipulators and the manipulated, each of which can be further divided into several sub-groups. It's not "more fundamental", as you state, it's much more complex.

[Jackpine Radical]

37. You are of course right.

However, I was basically interested in responding to others who seem to keep seeing all this Republican dodging, denial and disinformation as some sort of error arising from ignorance, rather than proceeding from the actively malicious intentions of the perpetrators. The idea is a pretty simple one at base, and I wanted to keep it short rather than hedging it in with all the qualifications and exceptions that I would have needed to make it an airtight statement. I was interested in painting quickly, so I used a broad brush.

I am in particular very much aware of the sheep-wolf distinction as it applies here, but i think that even some of the sheep are wannabe wolves who let themselves be led while at least suspecting the falsity of the lies they agree to accept at face value. Perhaps they do this in order to "make their bones," perhaps they do it because they have always found it safest to agree with authoritarian voices. Thus, if some of the paint from my broad brush slopped over onto them, I was perhaps not too far wrong after all.

[iceman66]

34. If stupidity, coupled with apathy, wasn't a BIG part of it,

the 'conservative' movement wouldn't be so dependent on propaganda and outright LIES to get its message across.

Your post best describes the leaders on the right, as opposed to the rank and file.

[MrScorpio]

38. I agree wholeheartedly

I've often said that our right wing opponents are anything, if indecent.

[Martin Eden]

39. You're talking about the leaders

There are planty of poor stupid deluded shmucks who are being manipulated to protest and to vote against their own interests.

Whether the majority of them can ever be made to realize that is another question.

[Jackpine Radical]

40. See my comment on Post 37.

[nadinbrzezinski]

41. You know if there is something to add to this

well it is that politics and religion make the same part of the brain react in a PT Scanner.

Food for though... huh...

[lumberjack_jeff]

42. It's not an ideology, it's an attitude.

In their world, ignorance is a virtue. It's easy to be resolute when you have no clue.

[MellowDem]

43. Wrong...

the truth is, the vast majority of the right ARE so ignorant that they vote against their own interests thinking they are really voting for themselves. You're right in that a segment of the right, the "elites" know exactly what the fuck they are doing and how they are convincing people to screw themselves over. THOSE are the most evil fuckers there are. But to pile on what is a rather poor and ignorant base is stupid. Those people have always been exploited and need to be informed, not demonized.

[Jackpine Radical]

47. #37 above.

[followthemoney]

44. Our economic system brings out the worst in us.

The insurance company employee gets paid to deny coverage. If she does it very well she gets a bonus. She can look up the the most successful deniers of coverage and see that they are among the most wealthy people in this nation.

We are trained to always look out for number one, that our gain must be someone else's loss. The right wing media doesn't lack for pay. Those who were wrong about Iraq and everything else have jobs because they are paid to be wrong. Those who were correct still work at the margins, with few exceptions.

Good Heartedness is only an obstacle when indifference means greater monetary rewards.

[Bosso 63]

45. I think the difference is fear.

People on the right live in a state of fear, which connects them and motivates them in a way that is difficult for those of us on the left to comprehend. When you mind is full of fear, you are focused on short term survival, Things like global warming are ridiculous abstractions. The man with simple solutions seems brilliant. If the ship is sinking, you want to be directed to a seat on the life boat, rather hear a lecture about who is responsible for the crappy construction of the ship.

Many on the right would say that this is bullshit, and point to the number of people who are on the Right that serve in the armed forces. However, the fear is not necessarily confined to physical security, it can be more existential.

Examples of this are found in the men, (typically) who kill their partners and then commit suicide, or the terrorist who blows themselves up as they kill the "enemy". In both of these cases, I think the motivating force is the fear of their sense of significance being at risk.

They are not dumb, but they are frightened.
Now the smart ones know how to take that fear,
and use it to make money.

[RagAss]

46. Bingo ! .. You nailed it....I can smell the fear on the ones I know.

[bertman]

48. Some very conservative folks I know are that way because they really think liberals want

to give lazy, dishonest people things they do not earn or deserve by way of taxing those who do work hard and who are honest.

When I expressed some skepticism I was confronted with numerous examples of people that they know personally who are scamming the government and getting free services even though they do not deserve them and do not qualify (honestly) for them.

As one guy said to me, "if I see this many people doing it, how many more are there out there that I will never see?"

Having known, and still knowing, some free-loaders, I understand my conservative friends' perspective even though I have been able to convince myself that the number of cheats is miniscule compared to the population at large.

So, back to the point at hand, these people see others who are "playing" the system and they buy into the right-wing meme that government cannot do anything right. Once you buy into that part of the ideology you open your mind to lots of other ideas.

[Juche]

49. It is fear

Conservatives have an over active fear response to threats, change and uncertainty. This makes them closed minded, aggressive, dogmatic, reactionary, intolerant, bigoted,

http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/07/22_politics.shtml

Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about the psychology of conservatism report that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include:

* Fear and aggression
* Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
* Uncertainty avoidance
* Need for cognitive closure
* Terror management



These people have overactive fear reactions.

[nyc 4 Biden]

51. The enemy is Fox and the Corporations.

IMHO, more than half the people on the right are decent people who are severely misinformed. They watch fox and listen to RW hate talk all day and are whipped into a frenzy by RW propagandists. An honest media in this country would reduce the right to bigots, religious fanatics, and the greedy rich.

"There is no greater misfortune
than underestimating your enemy.
Underestimating your enemy
means thinking that he is evil." -tao te ching