A long time ago I got very sick.For almost eight weeks there was a battle going on in my body,as a variety of nasty little bugs crawled about in my system.During that eight weeks I had strep throat,a cold,the flu,bronchitis and an ear infection.Not to mention the athlete's foot that I acquired as the result of having so many antibiotics in my system.For days on end I felt that I was at deaths door.But in the end it was my own body that took command and,since that time I have very rarely been sick.Whatever doesn't kill you... I'm told that my body produces antibodies,that it has an autoimmune system,for which I am eternally grateful.
All bodies need an effective auto immune system.In society,any society that function is provided by those who dissent.Those who stand up to government and social forces that are often stronger than they are for the sake of overcoming systemic disadvantage and achieving a higher level of social justice.No society can be healthy without dissent as a separate political movement,as a means of keeping the powers that be honest,of holding authority to account,so that it does not go beyond it's limits.That is why democracies articulate certain rights and freedoms to be the law of the land.But,there always remains the active debate of just how much those freedoms mean in terms of the right to dissent,to stand against power.
So what is dissent,exactly.More specifically,what is not dissent.I am not referring,for instance to the shooting of police officers as being dissent.It is,strictly speaking a dissenting form of action,but the dissent I'm referring to is subject to legitimacy,just as are the powers to which that dissent is directed at.Therefor proper dissent my involve itself,from time to time in civil disobedience,but not in the breaking of obviously just laws.I may,therefor be referring to actions such as marching on a political convention,even if that involves disrupting normal services and conveniences.But the whole point of dissent is about defining legitimacy,so that it is not defined only from the top down and perhaps by very coercive means.
This,of course leads directly to the question of how healthy the state of dissent is in America today,in the light of a society that seems obviously frustrated and angry,with that anger and frustration coming from multiple parts of society.There is no doubt that the bounds of legitimate action need to be re-established in America and on many fronts,but how likely is that given the current rhetoric?
It is not necessary to put a gun to the heads of dissenters to greatly limit their effectiveness.All you really have to do is to pretend they have no voice.Pretend that you can insulate yourself from them simply by erecting a wall,mocking them, or being willfully ignorant of their presence.So does this sound like anyone on the current political front? When I see a politician,a billionaire,a seemingly healthy one at that mocking,openly and childishly a person dealing with disability,I have no doubt that that politician has no tolerance for the voices of those he considers to be beneath himself.And,more to the point,that only a narrow range of interests will be represented,that that politician lacks the means to Make America Great Again.
But just because that figurative gun is not typically pointed at the heads of dissenters,is not to say that it might not be.Consider the recent disclosure of Edward Snowdon,who suggests that the American Government is undertaking wide spread surveillance of the cyber world in the name of national security.That disclosure obviously makes Snowdon the most infamous of American dissenters,and I presume,reasonably that his life perhaps,and his freedom certainly is in danger.But he raised a valid question,that being,what is the point to all this spying if the current American authorities intend to allow a broad base of dissent.
Security of state is without any doubt a legitimate concern.But the post 9/11 world has become a place obsessed with the need of state,which promotes state over individual to an ever increasing degree.The awareness of that enemy other becomes more and more obvious.ISIS.Mexicans.Muslims! Liberals,communists,Socialists! To be sure the state has very real enemies and that fact must be capably managed.But the direction of that management seems to be falling increasingly along racial lines,the perception of threat being based on stereotype.Hence the rise of Black Lives Matters,for now legitimate dissenters who point out a very real disparity among Afro Americans relative to the rest of society.And they are far from the most militant interest group.
Washington D.C. has long been a town of lobbyists.I'm told that there are more lobbyists than there are politicians.And every possible interest is there vying for the ear of any politician they can influence.I'm more or less willing to accept that as a given reality without passing harsh judgement on it,under one condition.That being that the structure and management of society be undertaken subject, at least in part to the general degree of discourse in that society.In other words,I would prefer the powers that be pay as much attention to the voices that emanate from places like Compton and Harlem,or rural West Virginia,as they do to those voices that inhabit Washington with fists full of dollars. Unfortunately that seems less likely in a beleaguered nation that seems to view extremity,of whatever variety as the solution to it's growing problems.
Blyndpapaya
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