Oh Gawd, I suppose I’m cornered now. I was enjoying myself at this art gallery but now you’ve got me in your sights, fixing me with your beady, mucous-caked eyes and verbally shredding this so-called liberal politician who’s a complete sell-out, and that supposedly progressive politician who’s a corporate stooge, and your district supervisor the Lord God Almighty who’s actually the right hand of Satan. And I’m going to be standing here all night getting, shall we say, progressively more depressed.
If I had a dime for every Failure-Narrative, “lone gunman” radical sadsack who thinks he’s too good to join any sort of established group or contribute to any sort of organized effort that might actually achieve something, I’d be rich enough to fund the wealthy, well-organized Left-Wing Conspiracy that Fox News keeps conjuring nightly.
And to think when I was younger, I (ugh! blech!) went out with a few of you guys.
And you are usually guys. Guys with filthy eyeglasses, jackets that haven’t been washed in ten years, and skin conditions you refuse to do anything about because that would, you know, make you less pathetic.
Because grooming and presentation aren’t supposed to matter, right? Libertarian America is supposed to become Western Europe by tomorrow and nothing else will do. Compromise isn’t supposed to be necessary. That kind of thing can be attractive to younger women.
Until it isn’t. Until younger women get so tired of your carefully cultivated victimization, self-disengagement, and endlessly rotating summer/winter Emo Olympics that it finally occurs to them they’d like to actually win every now and again.
Was I disappointed by the BS, watered-down health care reform bill? Absolutely. But look how hard we had to fight to even get that. You, Mr. Guy cornering me in the art gallery – I’m curious about whether you really think you’re going to get the public option patched in at some point in the future (“Oh, that’s not going to happen, it’s too late now, and besides the public option is bullshit because etc. etc.”) by taking endless, feeble, random pot-shots at everything you happen not to like?
OK, so you wrote some letters and made some phone calls and spoke truth to power today. Fair enough. Good for you.
Did you bother looking into who else was doing the same? Did it occur to you that pooling your efforts with those who have a name, a website, email lists, and the ability to appear as something like a voting block to a politician might empower your efforts so that they actually make a difference?
Or would you rather just go on blaming those in power for making your life miserable and saying that all those activist groups are really just too bureaucratic for you, and you sort of part ways with them on Issues X and Y anyway, and off you go continuing to enjoy your treadmill of marginalized self-pity?
Would you rather, in other words, be the sort of guy who corners women in art galleries and railroads their otherwise delightful evenings?
Sir? Sir?! I’m going to get another glass of wine. Good night and good luck.