The Backlash Against the Backlash

There has been a fair amount of complaining lately in the knitting blogosphere that people are getting too political, and that the anger and sadness and opinion being expessed about the election and the state of the US is inappropriate and unbecoming.

To quote Teresa Nielsen Hayen's brilliant post, Grieving Process "Oh, malarkey."

This post is just so right, so apt, that I have to do more than link it. Here's what I'm talking about.

I’m entirely out of patience with Americans whose whimpering plaint is that we Democrats brought this on ourselves because it hurt their feelings when we acted like we think they’re stupid.

To this I say: Oh, malarkey.

First response: Grow up. If they’re that big on self-esteem issues, let them go volunteer as helpers at their local elementary school, where it’ll do some good. It’s faintly nauseating to hear so many supposed adults whine.

Second: Bullshit. For the last ten or fifteen years, I’ve listened as Democrats, liberals, the French, and other groups have been treated to sneers, calumny, loutish bullying, and unashamed lies by the right. It’s been a terrible burden to the spirit, and has brought public discourse in America to hitherto unheard-of lows of infamy. Where was all this sensitivity, when that was going on? If they could bear years and years of hearing that thrown at others, with never a protest or reproof at its callous ugliness, they can surely bear up under a breath of implication that they’ve made a singularly disastrous decision.

Third, I say bullshit and malarkey again. They weren’t upset about the Democrats acting like we thought they were stupid before the election took place. It wasn’t an issue back then.

You know what’s really happening? They’re seeing our reactions, and they’re scared. It’s like that moment where someone tells you what they’ve done, and it’s disastrously wrong, a complete catastrophe; only they haven’t understood that until now, when they see you stagger and turn pale at the news. And as you’re standing there steadying yourself, feeling your heart pounding and a terrible weight descending on your shoulders … you realize that the other person is preemptively yelling at you. They still don’t quite know what’s happened, but they can tell they’ve screwed up big time, so they’re screaming that they certainly hope you aren’t going to pretend that this could somehow have been their fault, because …

They can tell we’re not just acting like we’ve lost an election. They know that politically, they haven’t been acting like responsible grownups. So now, their reaction is to raise and sharpen their voices, and say they certainly hope we aren’t going to pretend that this could somehow have been their fault …

Well, yes. It is. They’ve been stupid and self-indulgent and irresponsible. Not having to pay attention to what’s happening around you is the most expensive luxury there is; and they just went to the ballot box and wrote a blank check to cover it.

The truth of this is just staggering.

Like I said before, this isn't simply a knitting blog, so I don't feel like I have to back down from my bitching. You come here, you get the whole package. Frankly, I'm so concerned with boring the pants off of those who might not be interested in the endless knitting minutae that I may soon move over to typepad so I can have categories. But I don't think that any of the brilliant crafters who have been publicly grieving these past weeks should apologize for anything.

"Remind them that they are the creatures who knit the wool, not the creatures who grow it on their backs." -Barbara Walker to Elizabeth Zimmerman, 1971