[Grovenet] A comment

[Steven]

Are you there hoping for a confrontation?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com [mailto:grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com]On
> Behalf Of Walt Wentz
> Sent: Saturday, May 03, 2008 12:35 PM
> To: Forest Grove local interests list
> Subject: Re: [Grovenet] A comment
> 
> 
> >.three or four young men in
> >it...the passenger side front seat guy yelled:  "If it ain't white, it
> >ain't right!!"  And the car kept moving along.
> >
> >So...this is where we are today, in 2008? 
> >
> >I felt sorry for the young man.  How could this be?
> 
> Mike:
> In the weekly war vigil, watching the traffic for a couple of hours, 
> I get plenty of opportunities to view the full spectrum of political 
> reactions... and politics is seldom a result of thoughtful analysis, 
> but rather of personal angst. Young males full of teen hormones 
> instinctively run in packs, and feel compelled to "impress" each 
> other with rebellious behavior. As likely as not, this young turkey's 
> parents denounce racism, so he feels compelled to flaunt it.
> Of passersby who give negative reactions to the peace vigil, I'd say 
> males outnumber females by at least 10 to one, and young males give 
> the vast majority of those negative reactions. Usually these are 
> limited to the classic gesture of the middle finger (probably the 
> limit of their debating skills) or an unintelligible bellow out a 
> rolled-down window as their pickup speeds on by.
> I can reassure you, though, that we only get about three negative 
> reactions an evening, as opposed to a hundred positive ones. And most 
> negative reactions are delivered at high speed--this avoiding any 
> need to defend their opinions in person--but never yet have we gotten 
> a real  discussion, even from those few pedestrian "patriots" who 
> have accosted us face to face. A middle-aged gent in a black leather 
> jacket that I met Thursday evening was entirely typical. He simply 
> reeled off all the "official" rationales for the war at high speed, 
> hardly giving me a chance to get a word in edgewise, and skipping 
> hastily on to the next  routine every time I did speak up.
> Eventually he stomped off in a huff, snarling, "You just don't have 
> any REASONS!"
> "You never listened to them," I replied mildly, but by then he was 
> half a block away and accelerating rapidly.
> I've noticed that as the war news gets uglier and more discouraging, 
> the level of negativity also goes up. It's a matter of "cognitive 
> dissonance"-- people don't want to confront the real world's 
> contradictions to their beliefs, and so they respond to them with 
> anger or rejection.
> So, don't be discouraged, Mike. The young turk you encountered was 
> merely being human. If he were cornered and forced to justify his 
> outburst, he could probably only mumble some ancient platitudes 
> picked up from the gutter. If he has any native intelligence, 
> eventually he will begin to actually look at the world, and to think 
> his own thoughts. But, if not, there will always be a home for him 
> among the earnest and unquestioning audience of the Republican Noise 
> Machine..
> Walt Wentz
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