Apparently the Democratic operatives with bylines on CNN are a little miffed that evil right-wingers are calling their "peaceful protesters" a "mob."
Well, I would too if someone had the nerve to call people like me a "mob." How dare they! Because as everyone knows all progressive "peaceful protesters" are on the side of the angels. Er, make that the right side of history. So they can't be a mob. Because a mob is not "who we are." We are peaceful protesters, advocates and activists against historical injustice. So there, bigot!
But the truth is that every political gathering is a potential mob. That is to say that, according to settled science, when several people are gathered together they stop thinking and acting like individual humans and start picking up the vibe of the group. If sufficiently aroused by a speaker or by a a welling-up of emotion in the crowd, any group may turn into a street mob. That's the science, pal.
And of course the whole point of political meetings -- I am thinking of President Trump's very successful political rallies -- is to ignite a collective feeling, a feeling of belonging to something bigger than themselves, among the attendees.
So come on you CNN lefty operatives with bylines. Tell truth and shame the devil. Any political group is a potential "mob" and I'd say that real and actual groups like AntiFa that practice street violence are indeed actual "mobs."
Only, in my view, the word "mob" doesn't really describe what is going on. In my reading, I understand a "mob" to be an unfocused group made up of people from the lower orders who, prodded by real suffering such as a famine, strike out in the streets, rather as the proverbial cornered rat. That is why people used to talk about "bread riots."
But the "peaceful protesters" of today are not the desperate and the hungry. They are usually educated rich kids enacting street theater, and they are endorsed by their elders in the Democratic Party and the progressive movement, and funded by liberal billionaires like George Soros, Tom Steyer, and Michael Bloomberg. If you look at video or photos of the folks enacting the Kavanaugh protests, you can tell immediately that they are educated, fashionable scions of the ruling class.
Nothing wrong with that. The ruling class can send their stooges out into the streets must like anyone else. Indeed, down the ages, the rulers have not hesitated to send their retainers and supporters out into the streets to show the plebs a bit of ruling-class muscle. In the good old days every ruling-class grandee had his own army of peasants.
But I think that we need a better name for lefty street action than "mobs." We should certainly not use their language of "peaceful protesters." Remember that in the good old days lefties spoke in more military terms about "marches" and "demonstrations." Where "demonstration" means show of force.
Back in the day the left used to talk about the street enforcers of Latin-American right-wing dictators as "death squads." We need something just as evocative for the lefty "peaceful protesters" that aren't peaceful and aren't so much protesting as demanding.
The basic problem is, of course, that lefties believe in politics as a saving faith, that politics is the way to bend the arc of history towards justice. Conservatives believe that government and politics are necessary evils that wise men and women will keep limited by constitutions and Bills of Rights.
Thus, you may say, lefty politics is always tending towards mobocracy, because any political movement is already a potential "mob," and only needs a little encouragement to become a real mob.
But I still think we need a better word for "mob" than "mob."
Well, I would too if someone had the nerve to call people like me a "mob." How dare they! Because as everyone knows all progressive "peaceful protesters" are on the side of the angels. Er, make that the right side of history. So they can't be a mob. Because a mob is not "who we are." We are peaceful protesters, advocates and activists against historical injustice. So there, bigot!
But the truth is that every political gathering is a potential mob. That is to say that, according to settled science, when several people are gathered together they stop thinking and acting like individual humans and start picking up the vibe of the group. If sufficiently aroused by a speaker or by a a welling-up of emotion in the crowd, any group may turn into a street mob. That's the science, pal.
And of course the whole point of political meetings -- I am thinking of President Trump's very successful political rallies -- is to ignite a collective feeling, a feeling of belonging to something bigger than themselves, among the attendees.
So come on you CNN lefty operatives with bylines. Tell truth and shame the devil. Any political group is a potential "mob" and I'd say that real and actual groups like AntiFa that practice street violence are indeed actual "mobs."
Only, in my view, the word "mob" doesn't really describe what is going on. In my reading, I understand a "mob" to be an unfocused group made up of people from the lower orders who, prodded by real suffering such as a famine, strike out in the streets, rather as the proverbial cornered rat. That is why people used to talk about "bread riots."
But the "peaceful protesters" of today are not the desperate and the hungry. They are usually educated rich kids enacting street theater, and they are endorsed by their elders in the Democratic Party and the progressive movement, and funded by liberal billionaires like George Soros, Tom Steyer, and Michael Bloomberg. If you look at video or photos of the folks enacting the Kavanaugh protests, you can tell immediately that they are educated, fashionable scions of the ruling class.
Nothing wrong with that. The ruling class can send their stooges out into the streets must like anyone else. Indeed, down the ages, the rulers have not hesitated to send their retainers and supporters out into the streets to show the plebs a bit of ruling-class muscle. In the good old days every ruling-class grandee had his own army of peasants.
But I think that we need a better name for lefty street action than "mobs." We should certainly not use their language of "peaceful protesters." Remember that in the good old days lefties spoke in more military terms about "marches" and "demonstrations." Where "demonstration" means show of force.
Back in the day the left used to talk about the street enforcers of Latin-American right-wing dictators as "death squads." We need something just as evocative for the lefty "peaceful protesters" that aren't peaceful and aren't so much protesting as demanding.
The basic problem is, of course, that lefties believe in politics as a saving faith, that politics is the way to bend the arc of history towards justice. Conservatives believe that government and politics are necessary evils that wise men and women will keep limited by constitutions and Bills of Rights.
Thus, you may say, lefty politics is always tending towards mobocracy, because any political movement is already a potential "mob," and only needs a little encouragement to become a real mob.
But I still think we need a better word for "mob" than "mob."
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