Firedoglake » Down With (Micro) Tyranny!
Why, we wonder, do so many Americans remain disengaged from civic and politic life? Well, one reason can be found in the overpowering signals we send that they don't matter, or that there are people much more important than they are getting to do things they, Very Unimportant Persons, cannot do.I think that everyone has been on one side or the other of this divide at some point in their life. Most people have been on both, even in a small way.
The "you-don't-matter" signals begin at an early age: "Children should be seen and not heard." The signals continue through adolescence as some (not all) authority figures promote docility and obedience. The poor and the non-white hear and see it every day of their lives, in the faces of store clerks, bureaucrats, police officers, even educators.
We create temporary hierarchies even when they are completely unnecessary. How easy it is for the church vestryman to forget he's only there because he has the luxury of time (and probably money). But the role soon takes on the aura of earned merit. There's a dividing line: deserving insiders (he's one) and undeserving outsiders.
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Not moderated but I do delete spam and I would rather that people not act like assholes.