Seriously; The Universe has a way of dumping, square into my lap, timely and relevant and connected experiences that help me to work out a question or problem I’m working on unraveling. I should stop being surprised when stuff like this happens.
With all the hoo-hah going on over Romney’s “inelegantly worded” railing against the lazy, irresponsible “47%,” it’s been hard for me to not think about the ways in which our economy, our social policies, and our history have shaped the way we think about each other. I stood in delighted admiration as I watched Jon Stewart break the system down (in a way only Jon Stewart can) in his “Chaos on Bullshit Mountain” piece (really; if you haven’t seen it yet, go watch). It spoke, clearly and directly, to the idea of “cognitive dissonance” that has been frustrating me for so long.
This morning, as I was reviewing some of the reading for this week’s class, I came across this quote from Gregory Mantsios’s essay titled “Media Magic; Making Class Invisible:”
For the media, “we” the affluent stand not only apart from the “other” – the poor, the working class, the minorities, and their problems – “we” are also victimized by the poor (who drive up the costs of maintaining the welfare rolls), minorities (who commit crimes against us), and by workers (who are greedy and drive companies out and prices up). Ignored are the subsidies to the rich, the crimes of corporate America, and the policies that wreak havoc on the economic well-being of middle America. Media magic convinces us to fear, more than anything else, being victimized by those less affluent than ourselves.
We NEED to figure this out, People.
