btp@work: It’s RightWingWorld ™, folks!
So, I’m moving to a new group at work. Better opportunity, but early indications have my spidey sense tingling. In the past week, I’ve observed:
* a cartoon posted in the managers’ office area portraying New Orleans as a toilet bowl, with Lake Ponchartrain as the tank. Somebody had typed “Finally someone figured it out!!! Why would we spend billions of dollars fixing up…” etc.
* an email someone had printed out and left on their desk where “liberals and stupid people are one and the same”
* praise of the round the clock work habits of the Chineese, compared to “lazy American workers”. Me: “Maybe Americans are just striking a better balance between work and family.” Them: “No, they’re just lazy.”
* someone railing against “our crazy government” because of its privacy laws that protect personal medical information.
* one of the managers was showing a presentation to the team on a projector hooked up to his laptop. When he pulled down his Favorites in the web browser, there it was: “Lonsberry”.
That’s the bad news. Good news on the flip.
The good news is that there’s a “target rich environment” here to talk with folks that may fundamentally disagree with me. And I’m a lot better at that than I used to be, thanks to all the studying I’ve done, talking about issues with other progressives, and this site.
I’ve still got a long way to go, but I’m starting to feel comfortable at least engaging these folks and asking some questions.
I’m also getting good enough at response that maybe I won’t be able to do it face to face, but ideas are coming to me. Like making a similar comic to the NOLA one, but instead showing the Netherlands, and the North Sea. Why has this not been a problem for a WHOLE FREAKIN COUNTRY for HUNDREDS OF FREAKIN YEARS???
What did they do differently? Oh yeah, King Whoever of the Netherlands decided that it would be a good idea if some of the royal treasury were to be used to, I dunno, protect his people from storms and floods and the like. I know, call him crazy.
The other good news is that these people are super nice. They seem to really like me as well, so it’s not like I’ll be talking to grumpy, mean conservatives.
Wish me luck. It’s a long road, one conversation/comment/question at a time. But I gotta do it.
Related posts:
Good luck finding your next job. Righties can’t stand working with Liberals, much less “engaging” with them, as you will soon find out. Watch your back. Excelsior.
These people are morons. I wouldn’t bother reasoning with them. I’d be more concerned about their ability to do their job and not wreck the company than about encouraging them to understand political issues.
One piece of advice. Never own up to their ‘logic’ and fall in the conservative mind warp of frames and circular questioning which leads back to hotbutton wedges such as affrimative action, aborition, 9/11, gays, oil and/or flag burning as their sticking point. Then you will be scaepgoated as a commie pinko sandal hugger in the office as the stumbling block to reaching the conservaative ’solution’ which is one or a mix of the following: free market, privatizing of public programs (schools , medicare, vets healthcare) and ending of quotas to restore ‘fairness’.
As you can see, I gave up convincing people at work invoking reason.
What I find what works is gradual persuassion. For example my buddy in the Air Force. Thanks to years of conversations with progressive open minded military co-workers and friends like myself, he has toned down his conservative rhetoric and has come closer to the center. Took him three years, but time is necessity for behavior conditional thinking to evolve and be accepting of novel ideas such as the ‘L Word’.
I am 50 years old and have been Liberal since I knew what it meant. There was a period, say between the ages of 10 and 15, when I liked to call myself Conservative because that was the environment I grew up in. I have to say that all that leftover hippie stuff of the early ’70’s had a lot to do with me finding my “center”, that and all the Irish Rebel tunes I heard growing up, which sang about Freedom and challenging a smug, Conservative authority. I’m a Scout Leader, church going Catholic, gun owner and hunter, so I meet a lot of Righties. Until they get to know me, most think I’m one of them, so they let it all hang out and I hear the stuff they say to each other in private. I used to keep my mouth shut, but since Bush I let them know pretty quickly that I’m a Liberal Democrat. If it’s a racist joke or remark, they quickly step all over themselves to deny that THEY are racist. Then they try to “prove” that I’m a Conservative too, because of the guns, mostly. If I know them well enough, I might try to debate them, but mostly it’s for my own venting. I’m a pretty good talker, but I don’t think I’ve ever made even a dent in any of them. I’m convinced they are set in their views and nothing will change them. I’m pretty set too, but I think the difference with Liberals is that we are MUCH more inclined to say, “well, you’ve got a point there; I never looked at it like that before”. And remember, many of them have been “coached” in the Rush Limbaugh school of “How To Debate a Liberal”. It’s like talking to a missionary at your front door. 99% of the time, it’s a losing battle. The one time I absolutely refuse to discuss political views is at work, because it could affect my employment. I am a free-lancer, and being hired or re-hired is totally the whim of the employeer. There would be no discrimination leg to stand on. So, to sum up; unfortunately, the Righties are a lot better at getting those in the Middle over to their side than we are. I think a lot of it is plain old White American culture. It’s a lot easier to blame things on some detested “other” than to Stick It to The Man. The other thing is the independent streak in Americanism, which has good and bad consequences. I think discussing politics, culture, or anything controversial with Office Conservatives is a recipe for frustration, isolation, and eventual unemployment. Do a good job, make a profit for the company, and use some of your own pay and time to advance The Cause, but do it off the clock and off the property. You’ll be more productive on both sides. Excelsior.
it has been my experience that for each of these “righties” there are a bunch of people who chose to remain silent. I believe this is your target. getting people exposed to a different view point as time permits. I have found that it works for me in small groups and I discover unregistered people as well as voters who typically are disengaged. You show them that there a options and they ultimately become engaged in the process.
Have fun.
Next business trip you can pick up a senior manager and forget to turn off Air America on Satellite radio in your rental car. Only to turn in down just as Sam Seder starts a rant about GWB. I assure you that will make for interesting conversation throughout the day (voice of experience).
I agree with everything you say, but I think that, slowly but surely, we’re getting better at winning those in the middle over to our side.
[...] btp gives us WAYAP and “It’s the Right Wing World, Folks” [...]
[...] btp gives us WAYAP and “It’s the Right Wing World, Folks“ [...]