I’m not the NOLA expert around here, so I won’t say anything…
was my first thought after readingScout’s excellent post but goddamn if I wasn’t committing one of the Stupid Liberal Tricks* that chaps my ass more than almost any other:
“I’m not a woman so my opinion on abortion or birth control doesn’t matter.”
(alternate version: “I’m not straight so my opinion on abortion or birth control doesn’t matter” or “I’m 87 so my opinion on abortion or birth control doesn’t matter.”)
“I’m not gay, lesbian, bi, trans, queer so my opinion on GLBTQ issues doesn’t really matter.”
“I’m lucky to have a comfortable job and benefits so my opinion on poverty issues doesn’t really matter.”
“I’m only 17 so my opinion on political stuff doesn’t really matter.”
(fill in the blank, rinse, repeat)
All of those are just another way of saying “I don’t want to get involved.”
The thing about not wanting to get involved is not really that it’s almost always a morally bankrupt cop-out, not really that it’s a luxury progressives can’t afford in this day and age, it’s that it’s a complete and utter refutation of reality.
We can say it, and we can even think for a bit that we’re getting away with it, the way we can look at pictures in a magazine of a hole in the ozone, pick up our coffee cups, take a sip, and turn the page.
We are involved. We were born involved, remain involved even if we are unconscious of it, and we’ll die involved even if we never wake the fuck up. We are involved with other Americans and with every other person on the planet. We are involved with the rest of that big family in the same way that our each individual hand is involved with our each individual kneecap and they both are in turn involved with all the fingers and toes.
If my hair catches on fire, my hand doesn’t have a choice but to reach up, my feet no other choice but to run for water, a blanket, help. To say I would do otherwise in that situation is ludicrous. To believe I would do otherwise in that situation is insanity. Todo otherwise when the situation actually happens is symptomatic of something even graver: catatonia, quadriplegia, a persistent vegetative state.
What’s our side, our party, our country’s diagnosis folks? When it’s so easy to think that way, when it’s the norm, when the words come out of our mouths without even thinking. When aWill Bunch looks at the track of Gustav and just sees the bright colors, lines and arrows, just sees a hypothetical, a scenario, a good opening paragraph for a story about the Republicans he could have written a month ago, that doesn’t fucking need another disaster to make it real?
And about that paragraph? When you say “I hope, for the sake of those, you know, airquote peopleairquote it will overwhelm, injure, maybe even kill, that this humanitarian crisis doesn’t happen, BUT…” see, already, there’s a problem. You’re not just saying you don’t want to get involved, you’re saying there can be a context wherein involvement is irrelevant. And that, Will, is somefuckmookery.
And thediary over at Kos? Already aDNR.
*Stupid Liberal Tricks-No, I’m not saying liberals are stupid, or even that liberals are the only ones that do this, but I sure do keep seeing this stuff lately in all the old familiar places.