I interviewed Jeeni Criscenzo in Sacramento, California. Jeeni brought up the prevalent use of scapegoating by conservatives. I find it curios how a Conservative Movement that preaches individual responsibility is so adept at finding scapegoats and not taking true responsibility. I think it has to do with the type of responsibility they preach. It is not the unqualified progressive sense of responsibility, where you feel responsible for yourself and the society around you, but rather conservatives always talk about a qualified 'individual responsibility' which actually is really no longer true responsibility, but rather a value of selfish self-centeredness. It's like taking the value of love or caring and saying we're for 'individual love' or 'individual caring'. The values lose their meaning and are turned into nothing but the Failed Conservative Value of individual selfishness and greed.
Individual Responsibility: A detachable burden easily shifted by conservatives to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck, one's neighbor or other Scapegoats. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star. Modified Devils Dictionary
Jeeni Criscenzo: I think conservatives have lost their way, they don’t realize that. I recently saw a video of the Minutemen movement who were out there giving the finger to people, and being obnoxious and rude. There was also something with them being at a church where they were interrupting the communion and screaming about not letting immigrants into this country.
If they could see themselves, what they look like and how they sound. I think that they would be repulsed by what they saw. They are trying to protect themselves. They see themselves as being activists who feel helpless with the way things are going in this country, and they need to blame someone. And a scapegoat is being delivered to them. And they don’t realize they are being used.
The goat shall be used for making atonement by sending it into the desert as a scapegoat. Leviticus 16:10
(Cartoon: The Secret of Success is knowing who to Blame.)
http://images.acswebnetworks.com/...
The rightwing in this country and beyond the rightwing, the corporatocracy, the military-industrial complex is trying to take over our world. It’s using two techniques: it’s called divide and distract. And too many of the people in this country who are frustrated because they are losing jobs, because life is not turning out the way they thought it would be.
Our children don’t have the same opportunities and hopes that their parents had. And they need to blame someone. So they’re falling right into this trap – of divide and distract. And unfortunately, I think, the immigration is all about that.
Yeah, they make you find somehow who is at fault for the fact that their lives are not – that they are not happy. There is a great emptiness in a lot of people that comes from thinking that you can feel whole by having enough stuff. And we are bombarded by this message all the time. You need more stuff. You need a bigger car. You need a bigger house. You need more and more and more.
And they keep trying to fill up this hole in them that can’t be filled with that. And then there is delivered a message by people that they trust, by politicians, by church people, that says that the reason that you don’t have enough is because of them, because of the other. And it’s so easy to fall into that trap. And they become so dispirited and angry, that they don’t realize that they’ve been manipulated.
One thing they are trying to say is that we want to give away the store. That we want the government to take care of us. That we want the government to pay for everything. That we’re socialists or communists.
And that’s not correct. We as human beings have a responsibility to one another. Whatever happens to the least of them happens to me. I can’t be happy and live safely and have a good life if I am surrounded with people who are starving, who are living in the street, who are homeless, who are not being given health care. That is a direct threat to my quality of life.
If I want to look at it in a completely selfish way, I can’t feel safe if there are starving people around me. They are going to come and take what I have. So, for conservatives to look at progressives and say, "Well, you just want to give everything away" is incorrect, because it is in their best interests to have everyone have at least basic health care, basic food on their table, shelter.
No human being should ever have to sleep on the street. When you fall asleep you are in a condition of complete vulnerability. How can you do that if you don’t have a safe place to lay your head. So it’s a basic human right that everyone has to have shelter and food. And for conservatives to say "Oh, well, if you give it away, then people aren’t going to work, and they should work".
There is a basic human right that we all have an ability to earn a living, that we will have the opportunity. And then – for lack of a better word – this military-industrial complex is depriving more and more people of that by not providing mental healthy care for people who are not capable of taking care of themselves. And again, it comes back to, okay, you need to take care of those people.
I don’t own a car. I take public transportation all the time, and the buses are full of mentally ill people. And they talk to themselves, are in another world. Some of them are maybe a little threatening. But mostly, it’s really very sad that these people are just tossed out like garbage, because our society is not taking care of them.
- One that is made to bear the blame of others.
- someone who is punished for the errors of others
http://onelook.com/...
At Wikipedia The scapegoat was a goat that was driven off into the wilderness as part of the ceremonies of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, in Judaism during the times of the Temple in Jerusalem. The rite is described in Leviticus 16.
The word is more widely used as a metaphor, referring to someone who is blamed for misfortunes, generally as a way of distracting attention from the real causes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Scapegoat Society Scapegoating is a hostile social - psychological discrediting routine by which people move blame and responsibility away from themselves and towards a target person or group. It is also a practice by which angry feelings and feelings of hostility may be projected, via inappropriate accusation, towards others. The target feels wrongly persecuted and receives misplaced vilification, blame and criticism; he is likely to suffer rejection from those who the perpetrator seeks to influence. Scapegoating has a wide range of focus: from "approved" enemies of very large groups of people down to the scapegoating of individuals by other individuals. Distortion is always a feature. http://www.scapegoat.demon.co.uk
The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices -- to be found in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own -- for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone. Rod Serling
Progressive Value Alternative: Responsibility
Part of the Failed Conservative Values of: Irresponsibility, individual responsibility
Some Questions To Ponder:
- What is scapegoating all about?
- Why does the conservative movement that says they value 'individual responsibility', yet seem to always blame others and is always looking for scapegoats?
- How does this conservative value of scapegoating differ from progressive values?
- What are some examples of conservatives using scapegoating? liberals, welfare queens, immigrants, Muslims?
Failed Conservative Values I ask for your assistance to systematically build the arguments and tell the stories that reveal how Conservative Values have Failed. Join in our effort to create a documentary and book on the subject by contributing articles, posts, chapters for the book and video clips. Check our website for more information and a growing outline of tasks that need to be done on this project. http://progressivespirit.com/...
Permalink | 3 comments