MORE CRABS

My post last night included crabs, and a picture of them, but I neglected to mention why, some of you probably guessed or knew the metaphor I was referring to, but for those who don't it's basically about how crabs, when trapped in a pot or cage, will attempt to climb out using whatever means are available, including other crabs, which means of course that they are constantly pulling each other down, and stepping on each other in an attempt to get out, the meaning of course being that if everyone is selfish, no one succeeds.

And yet, so many of the arguments against progressive thoughts policies, and ideas, all come down to the "Fuck You Got Mine" attitude that I love to rant about. The idea that success can't happen for one person unless another person fails, you see it in arguments against everything from income inequality to affirmative action, from the Civil Rights Act to global agreements on trade or talks about climate change. Everyone acts like helping someone hurts them.

On the micro scale this attitude is of course purposefully imposed, again I blame the Republicans, as I do for many things, but in America other forces would have pushed it if they didn't, probably. We are a country, a continent, a developed world, founded on improvement of one group at the cost of others, just ask the remnants of the native populations, who are still getting screwed both legally and socially to this day, is it any wonder the idea takes root easily here?

There are those in power who take advantage of this without knowing it, and those who do so in full knowledge, the GOP has been outright pushing the idea for more than thirty years now with no signs of stopping, it is divisive, us against them mindset and a divided people are very easy to control.

And to  steal from.

In WWII after the attack on Pearl Harbor, over a hundred thousand Japanese living on the West Coast were forcibly moved to internment camps, we all know about that (I hope), the majority of these people lost pretty much everything, including land and houses, claimed by the state or sold at unconscionably low prices to real estate speculators, many records, from the IRS and others, about that era have been conveniently destroyed, but I would be willing to bet that a number of those who lobbied for the internment ended up making a large amount of money off of it. No one important noticed or cared though, they were the enemy after all, nevermind that many of them were second or third generation American citizens, they looked different, so fuck em.

The practice is still around today, the police regularly impound property with little or nothing to do with the crime they may have been investigating, and more often than you'd think, that stuff never gets back to the owners, even if they are innocent of wrongdoing, once again this is largely inflicted on the minority communities, and people say "The thugs probably stole it anyway".

Poor people of every background are at risk of abuse from those in power, banks routinely pack in fees, increase interest rates, or flat out steal property from their customers, even if that property has been fully paid for.

But when people protest the banks, there always seems to be an element that tells them they deserve to be fucked, and it is rarely coming from those in the position of power, no it comes out of the mouths of the caller on a talk radio show, or the person driving to work delayed by their protest, or their neighbor, any and all who are themselves living on the same financial edge as they are.

We have been trained all our lives to keep ourselves down "the man" has to do little more than keep the pipes primed with propaganda about urban crime, sanctuary cities, illegal immigrant workers, and welfare queens and we will do the job of pulling our neighbors down into the trap with us for them.

This political cycle has been interesting though, the wheels are starting to come off and those who want to keep power are starting to lose control of those who want to gain it, the current crop of Republican primary contenders have been incredibly, overtly, racist so far this season, with Donald Trump leading the way of course, but JEB! and Bobby Jindal are not far behind, JEB! with his disastrous comments about "Anchor babies" followed up with his incredibly awkward clarification that he meant "The Asians" and not Hispanics, and Jindal pushing for the elimination of the 14th Amendment provisions that allowed him to be born an American citizen in the first place.
The whole damned lot of them are the just the worst of course, a minute on Google would find you things that should sink the political careers of any one of them in a sane world.

But like I said, the wheels are starting to come off, there is hope to be had, and we have the Donald to thank once again normally at this time in the primary process, no one but Iowa would know or care about who is running or what they stand for, but because of his appallingly belligerent nature, we as a nation are forced to see what our potential leaders are saying, and as he gains support from the extremely racist and stupid elements of the country, his competitors have to at least make an attempt to match him, which means they have to actually say the things they believe in plain language, and for those who take advantage of the divisiveness that subtle racist messages provoke, this is the last thing they want to see happening.

Because most people aren't hate filled bigots, or at least don't think of themselves as such and when you realize you have been listening to hate filled bigotry, you then examine things they said before it became obvious, you realize that it has always been there, and then you look for alternatives, you listen to people who aren't bigots, and you hear their ideas that maybe actually address problems rather than pointing you at an enemy to blame.

Crabs don't get out of the pot because they are crabs, they are really very stupid, humans aren't, and we can get out of the pot, but we can't do it as individuals, and eventually we will realize that whatever color we start out as, we are all gonna be red after the pot boils.