Confronting the inner teabagger

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Read the article at HuffPo yesterday, got pissed and wrote something angry, then went to work. While at work I read some comments, though, admittedly, not all of them, and realized why so many people have a beef with HuffPo. I’m not trying to throw HuffPo under the bus, writing in anger leads to this, and I wrote in anger and put too much trust into a single source. Just because you are using a BIG NAME for a source doesn’t mean that source is right, they are just as likely to misinterpret something as you are. That is human. But there is a difference between misinterpreting and deliberately misconstruing, and since our political guard is always up about deception, and since many of us are partisans, we often frame things within our own pre-made narrative. All of these things I have been guilty of, but who among us can plead innocent among such charges?

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I took a HuffPo piece at face value because I am pissed with the Attorney Generals office, and the misinterpretation of the ACORN business fit a narrative I framed for myself that let me be angry about the AG, which I am admittedly predisposed to do. This made me think of how all of us of a partisan nature react to news, but especially those of us who have minds clouded with anger, and let’s admit that there is quite a bit to be legitimately angry about.

But there is a lot of misplaced anger due to misinformation, some by honest misinterpretation and much by willfully misconstruing info (lying). In the white hot kernel of rage within us all on the bottom of the trickle down system there is the near universal sense of injustice. Almost all of us know we are getting screwed. It makes us angry. The inner screaming teabagger within all of us is outraged at perceived injustice because they do not know why they have been aggrieved or even who or what is the source of their injustice, but everybody in the new bottom 99th percentile of the trickledown class war is mad as hell, the problem is nearly all of us don’t know the cause of our affliction, we have no collective name with which to name our antagonist.

Divide and conquer. Misinformation. Stoke anger and hatred and division, then misdirect that anger away from the source.

The true source of the injustice done to the new proletariat of this reguilded age comes from greed, greed for wealth and power. It emanates not from one politician, official or agency, nor from one CEO or industry, it is the collective greed that shirks the responsibility of being thy brothers keeper. It is the greed that is amplified in our economic, political and social structure, and the men who profit most by pursuing that greed are the same that misdirect that blame and misconstrue the truth.

In confronting my inner teabagger and delving into the eternal outrage of the factless mind, a mind I had myself when misinterpreted facts fit my anger frame, I realize that the anger of the teabagger is not unlike the anger of others, we simply blame different people. Teabaggers blame ONLY the Government, never the private sector or Big Business, and this not only muddies the water from legitimate blame, but it distracts from the greed driven economic side. This is intentional. Misinformation is used to achieve this end, and whether it comes from honest misinterpretation or lies the outcome achieved is still the same, it creates anger, which is apparently an industrial byproduct of unregulated greed.

The eternal outrage of the factless mind needs someone to blame. The factless mind will never consider the notion that the owner of the factless mind is at fault, they will frame perceived injustice in the ways they are conditioned to. Info that misinforms needs someone to blame, info that enlightens nearly always seeks solutions, it often shares new information and ideas, it does not only seek to blame the oil spill on someone other than ones self, it seeks to solve it and prevent it from happening again. That is the difference, in essence, of the only two prevailing mechanisms for change in our society, one is based on individual greed, anger, scapegoating and fear, it calls itself conservative and pious, but it makes up its own facts and cares not for anything outside of its own personal gratification, and it justifies itelf and claims victimhood, it attacks and claims innocence, it hates and fears and feeds the furnace of that white hot rage because rage not only blinds, it motivates. It is better to be feared than loved, but better still to drive others with fear, for the driver of fear needs not fear for his own in creating fear, he aims it at something else and the focus becomes what he wishes it to be, while he stays out of the focus. Fear is the mindkiller. Anger is the mingbreaker. It makes you act out in hate. Love wishes to cure. It wishes to empower. Love creates. Hate destroys. These are our choices.

In my anger, I do not propose solutions. This helps no one. It vents that anger, the product of injustice done to oneself, which exists in all people who no the game is rigged against them. Who we blame is based on facts, or it is not. Even then, we must always question what we believe facts to be, is the info true or misleading, and if misleading is that intentional. The source of the problem always will blame something else. Is my anger justified with fact, and thus capable of leading to solutions, or am I vent a mine shaft to the white hot kernal where my sense of injustice lives. This is the truth in all people who find someone else at fault. Am I trying to fix it and make it better, or blame and punish?

The factless mind can only blame and seek to punish. The enlightened mind seeks to cure and create and grow and share. Anger is the road to the factless mind. Agape is the road to the enlightened mind. Agape, the self giving gift, the gift we give others is that which we give ourselves, it is love, and a love for our fellow human being. The heart of greed is without love. It must hide and lie. Agape gives and wishes well. Greed seeks to take advantage. Anger is fueled by it’s own sweet words who blame others, and whether justly or no it uses energy that could have been channeled for a greater good, and thus is futile. A spark of anger can ignite positive action, the flame of anger burns the heart.

I have made mistakes before. Certainly, others shall too. There are honest mistakes and deliberate misleading, my mistake was honest, I considered my one source of fact to be true because it fit my frame for blame in a narrative that would fuel my anger. My anger is pretty strong lately, especially since Blanche Lincoln won her primary, and my beef with AG Eric Holder is over his inability to move forward on the actions of the previous administration, actions which I believe to be illegal, as many others do, based on established fact. The one source I found reaffirmed my anger, I acted upon it, then went to work late at night, came home, passed out, woke up, checked my email and read comments in the diary, realized my error, and decided to respond to one kind email as a response to everyone regarding my previous article. I erred. Anger fueled my narrative, but reading comments in my diary I ask if those who shout LIAR online are any different from those who shout YOU LIE under other circumstances. My motivation is not to mislead, my hope is to improve and create ideas and a better situation for everyone, a more just way as I see it. Certainly that is the motivation of all who do not mislead. But my screenname being an Orwellian pun does not make me a liar anymore than if my screenname were Humpty Dumpty would make me a blogging egg. We often read into things what we want to see in them.

Yesterday I saw into something that which I wanted to see. It fueled my anger, which is a narrative created by a sense of injustice based on fact, or it is not and it is based on misinformation. In confronting my inner teabagger, that kernel of white hot rage at a sense of being the victim of or witnessing an injustice, I acted in anger, which solves nothing. Others responded in anger. Anger begets anger. Love begets love. Good deeds beget good deeds. Greed begets greed. Lies beget lies.

In confronting my inner teabagger, I have looked the white hot anger the eye. I will not let it rule me. I will fight it. I need not the energy of anger, whether righteous or not, but the thoughtfulness of solutions. There is a part of me that wants to punch holes in the universe for the injustice I see, I blame greed for power and money, but that solves nothing. In confronting my anger and identifying the source of my sense of injustice I must find solutions, not just cast blame, it is only one thing to identify the source of the injustice, once that is done the only constructive way to effect the situation is to seek solutions, not express outrage. A little outrage is enough, just a spark, too much consumes and destroys, it is easy to mislead and be misled, and it solves nothing. In confronting my inner anger, my inner unintelligible, screaming teabagger, I now better understand both the teabaggers and myself. We are not so different, the base of the left and the right. The difference is our facts (admittedly, a huge gap that is the source of the problem, misinfo spread by the greedy source of the economic injustice), who we blame, and what we do with our energy once we realize the first two. Do we solve or blame, do we create or destroy? Do we love one another or hate others? Do we ask if we are the problem, what we can do ourselves to create a solution? Or are we incapable of taking the blame ourselves when we are incorrect? I will. I have done so before, I will continue to do so when I am wrong. I am human, I might be wrong. I hope the difference between myself and an Andrew Breitbart is that I will own up when I am wrong or misinformed, or if I am myself guilty of misinforming others. I am honest and my editor is a shitty blogger. I admit it. Andrew Breitbart would steal worms from a feeding mama birds mouth, he gets paid to never say what is actually happening, and even though he has more wealth than I, at least I have an excuse for having an editor who is just a shitty blogger.

Are we enraged, or trying to make things better? I ask this of myself, and of all of those who read this. I have confronted my inner teabagger, my inner white hot kernel of anger, and I choose to find a solution and not feed the fire of rage. I am aware of my anger now, and the answer is to try to solve things with it, not blame and vent. That is how we will restrain our energy and use it to create ideas and solutions. That is how I will learn and make progress, a little at a time.

I thank one and all, even those who may not think they would be thanked by me today, and I hope this puck may make amends.

Cheers