There’s a famous bumper sticker that says:
If You’re Not Angry, You’re Not Paying Attention
The slogan is timeless, but it has never been more timely. American citizens have a right to be angry. And, while we are famous for paying little attention, we do manage to pay some attention. We pay enough, anyway, that a growing number of Americans are seething mad. To me, it’s a sign of three things. The news keeps getting worse, the press is starting to report the news more honestly, and more people are paying attention. The result? As George Will says, “…everywhere there is the histrionic fury of ordinary people venting in everyday conversations.” But George Will, while very handsome, is not very bright.
Many people who loathe George W. Bush have adopted what [anthropologist] Peter Wood describes as “ecstatic anger as a mode of political action.” Anger often is, Wood says, “a spectacle to be witnessed by an appreciative audience, not an attempt to win over the uncommitted.”
Maybe. But anger is also the rational response to a government that fucks up everything it touches, has no respect for American institutions, and treats thinking people with contempt. George Will goes on to say that Jackie Robinson and George Washington were better people than we (who could argue?) because they mastered anger rather than being mastered by anger. That’s all very cute, but the bottom line is that George Will doesn’t like people that don’t like our President.
The anger directed at Bush today, like that directed at Clinton during his presidency, luxuriates in its own vehemence.
Today, many people preen about their anger as a badge of authenticity: I snarl, therefore I am. Such people make one’s blood boil.
So, we make George Will angry, too. And he makes us angry because he is such a mendacious charlatan and suck-up to Republican power. More Americans are angry because they have a right to be angry. Open this morning’s papers and read. If you don’t come away angry, you have the reading comprehension skills of a first-grader. And I don’t need an anthropologist to explain that to me.
