I really love the gently acidic way Brent Simmons has been phrasing problems of power lately. Here’s the entirety of this great post:
You run into those fellas in life and online who will always explain, for any situation, why the big company is right.
If asked, they will discuss their political and economic ideology. That ideology, they’ll explain, is about reality and logic — it isn’t some blanket defense of big companies. No way. It could just as easily defend small businesses and working people.
Except… every single time, without fail, they side with the big company. And then you realize that they’re the overdog lovers. They cling to the big wealthy power and hate the underdogs. It would be nice if they’d just say so.
“It would be nice if they’d just say so” is SUCH a polite way to destroy the kind of “I’m just being realistic here” bullshit underlord who paves the way for oppression everywhere, whether corporate, national, or personal.
People who support power because they identify with the powerful, even when they have little of their own. Household patriarchs the world over who spit on the downtrodden and vote for idiot fascists because they like the appearance of power. Fascist fanboys whose vision of “realism” is that consolidated power isn’t an unjust accident of history, but simply the way things ought to be. Ignorant cowards who bluster loudest about how tough they are, usually to a limited audience of their own disgusted families. The lapdogs of history, tiny men who must be handled with care while seeing themselves as wolves, who think their yipping is a powerful roar.
Anyway, that’s the sort of thing that comes out when I try to address these people. I wish I were more readily capable of Brent’s calm; I think it’s more effective for reaching the people whose minds might be changed.