I would like to nominate the woman in the red hat in the photo above to be the poster child for the tea bag movement.

She is stylish, well groomed, tasteful, and the scarf represents a certain understated patriotism. I love it!

Tom,

You know what makes people angry? When they listen to your show, namely yesterday’s show, and they are treated to callers who seem to think the end of Apartheid in South Africa was a not such a great thing. Why would that make people angry? Did it make you angry Tom? If it didn’t, then there is something worong with you.

Hey Tom,

Why not do a show on what Apartheid in South Africa is all about?

Hey Stacked,

I would of thought that ending Apartheid would not be a liberal/conservative issue. guess I was wrong.

Us Anti-Apartheid bullies need to get our noses bloodied Tom. Listen to Stacked!

American has its set of chosen neuroses, misconceptions that liberate us and empower us in our approach to life. Presently a lot of those neuroses are getting challenged, those of the rich, those of the disempowered, and those of the steeply-squeezed middle class. I suspect therapists know very well that abandoning cherished ways of thinking has a price: anger. Well, denial first, then anger — the five stages of grief.
As to this forum, if the poster of a thousand names, the many-headed robo-poster “stacked” is going to stand in for ALL angry Americans, I think that is a disservice to the many colors of anger.

So Stacked,

What happens after you “beat me up”? Do you think it will change my definitions of right or wrong and intelligence versus stupidity? You aren’t very persuasive that way. Try making your point without jingoistic shouts or threats of violence.

Ellen Dibble, this isn’t a funeral, it’s a revival, so you can put up your Psych 101 Book on grief now. And I don’t claim to speak for anyone other than myself and those I know. Your words remind me of all the white University Professors that head African Studies departments and sit in front of throngs of students required, or enticed by the promise of “extra credit” to be in attendance at their yearly Black History Month speeches. One sits in wide-eyed amazement as people of color cheer on these mostly white men and women who are telling them their history, and the glazed, and automatic call and response of the white students who run through the motions, as we all pretend that this isn’t what it really is…a complete and total farce!

Cory, I never and never would seriously suggest or carry out physical violence against you or anyone else. That kind of stuff gets one arrested. I’m a law-biding citizen. I just reserve the right to express my opinion, and I will, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. No Cory, I would never try to persuade you. You’re the enemy. One destroys the enemy. I of course mean, at the polls, but the fact that you probably think I mean physically says more about your mindset than mine.

Judging by the ages of most “Tea Partiers,” at least as seen in photos and at rallies, their place in history will be brief.

Stacked nice try. But you have commented plenty of times about using violence about how you are ready.
You also use language that is filled with subtext of hate, intolerance and violent overtones.

Now you try to back track. It wont wash.

Why are people angry? For some it’s fear, others it’s malice, racism and the sense that they can’t control the outcomes of the world around them.

Where is the switch that turns this one sad/blue — “disappointed” and regarding the offending institution/individual as pathetic, “poor baby,” whilst the other turns red hot angry, warpath divisive? Perhaps it is genetic, the shy versus the outgoing. Perhaps it is experience wherein those who enlist their anger to solve a problem have seen this to be effective, in their homes, in their schools, where bullying is the norm… Personally, it took years, decades for disappointment to ripen to where I didn’t mainly blame myself for everything. Then I look towards sparing others the long useless years. Then I look towards solving the problem, and no, I don’t think name-calling and mud-slinging is the answer, even if I know exactly what I’m talking about. If I know exactly what I’m talking about I get a whole lot more crafty.

Anyone else associate anger with (among other things) the rapid population increase? Don’t many Americans see their slice of the pie getting smaller every year?

We seem angrier today because cable news shows love anger — they gravitate toward it, stoke it, and treat it as entertainment. Get rid of Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann and I’m sure we wouldn’t seem so angry.

I don’t know whether the anthropologist views humanity over the millions of years or over the hundreds, but I do think that a State of Irony is well symbolized by the original Boston Tea Party. Colonists came here because England was a land where you lived twice as long (40 not 20 years) if you were rich. There was enough of an entrenched aristocracy, the House of Lords, that people didn’t see a fair shake actually anywhere in Europe.
However, once the people in New England got their houses built and the Indians less of a threat, they began to emulate the British, to demonstrate that the “class” they couldn’t achieve in England could be well replicated here. In Boston, they carefully KEPT the British accent, the non-rolled R. You can still hear it. And people established parlors in their homes, wherein they had TEA PARTIES, with the best china that could be obtained, imported from the continent if possible, and TEA.
We aspired to have a privileged class. We set up universities to enable some to have the same “advantages” in terms of “classical” education as could be had on the continent.
The more the Angry Masses seemed to rise up, the more people wanted to establish Privilege, get away from having to shout back, so to speak. We have wanted to be “gated” and “above it all” for centuries. I think “privilege” is beginning to look like “corruption” under another name. The Silver Spoon in the Mouth, the Trust Account Baby, those are not badges of honor. Well, were they ever?
When people go to get themselves educated, do they choose the University of Chicago? Or an Ivy League institution? It seems to me the former is more rooted in Common Soil, and Ivy League schools are seeking the same rootedness, or so it seems to me. I have no idea how Cambridge or Oxford in England are morphing.

Ellen Dibble, privilege is really a metaphor for safety. Life feed on life. It always has, and always will on this planet, the more people you can put between your self and the wolf, the more safe you are, and that’s what we really mean when we say privilege.

What you see as ideal is called Communism. It failed. It was a nice idea, but it failed because it did not address the one unstoppable human trait…lust for life. The reality of the world is: If you are camping, and a wolf comes to hunt, you don’t have to be faster than the wolf. You just have to be faster than the slowest camper to live, and the further away from the perimeter of the camp that you are, the more of a headstart you will have when the wolf comes. Savvy?

Oh yeah stacked,
and capitalism has proven the great savior of humanity!

… a race to scarcity in a few generations of man, a race to the bottom, forcing crisis after crisis, and always behind the curve, solving any problem whatever only when it has reached a self-inflicted crisis level.

You certainly have all the “right” answers.

If there is to be true racial peace, then the time spent on minorities must now be spent on those that gave them consideration. Being white is not a crime! Pride in ones race is not a sin! Benevolence has been shown from the former majority, but it has yet to be returned in kind! And keep in mind, white people are STILL the majority. You treat us badly, after all we have done–more than any other dominating race has ever done for others, and look to Africa, Mexico, Asia, would you get as fair a shake as you have gotten here…HELL NO YOU WOULDN’T HAVE–and there is still time to push WAY, WAY back. The message: deal in good faith, all Americans, and be Americans, or actions can be taken. We are not fools. This is the test! Have we been foolish? You tell us. This isn’t over by a long shot, so choose wisely; choose as fairly, overall and in historical context, as you have been treated. If you think you got a raw deal here, then get the hell back to where you heralded, and try that smack there! It’s equal for all or bust! Time for whites to be considered as well, hell, we’re only the builders and STILL the majority afterall…

You posted this Sack. It’s full of threats. You say I’m slandering you? Are you kidding? You have a very warped view of the world, it’s as if all non whites owe people like you gratitude and alms. Amazing, this is the height of gall.

You turn things around to make it seem as if whites are the victims. Pathetic.

To answer the main question, of whether Americans are angrier, just read the posts on this thread. Case closed.

Gee,

Who would have ever thought the mess Bush and the Republicans created could have ever lasted a year and two months beyond Bush’s departure?

… must be someone else’s fault.

… and who would have ever thought it was far worse a mess than anyone could have ever imagined?

Stacked if you’re going to use wolfs you should at least understand how they hunt. First off they mostly hunt in packs and sense the weakest elk or deer, then they take it down. Lone wolfs mostly hunt small pray. A lone wolf would never attack a group of campers. He might steal your food however.

What you did show in the you’re analogy is how you think.
Instead of helping you’re fellow campers you run hoping that the weakest in the group will aid in your escape.
This says a lot about character.

jeffe, The wolf was in itself a metaphor for “forces beyond ones control.” I can see that you do not understand metaphor, myth, symbolism, or maxim. You’re a teacher dude? Seriously? You simply MUST be fired!

If the “angry Americans” we are talking about are the Tea Party, the “front” for the corporations and their power, the “conservative” status quo ante (ante the two crumblings — Enron et al circa 2000, Lehman Brothers et al 2008 — brought about by their excesses but anyway), that is the anger of change, but where are the corporate execs on the battlements? How did they enlist the religious right, etc.? Oh, play on their fear, says the Republican PowerPoint.
Hey! What about MY fear??? What about MY anger?
This is so confusing.

… Yeah Scott

… and what’s even more funny is how the parties managed to operate with relative civility for the fifty years Dems ran Congress before the “Republican Devolution.”

It seems Republicans had to get in power and ruin the cooperative spirit of Congress before things could get this bad.

I understand metaphor, it was a bad one.
You also should your true self, you would run and leave people behind.

What is interesting is that you seem to think you are smart. That you can twist things around, make derogatory statements and then cry wolf, oh, oh I’m using a metaphor… you use this to change the subject, which is your warped world view.

Typo, I meant showed your true self, a coward.

Nat Turner?

Those we have entrusted with managing the moving parts of our complicated society have proven themselves untrustworthy: government on every level, banks, our churches, the food supply, our jobs, our roads, medicine and health, the environment, the whole sorry planet.

It is a visceral experience not being done justice by egghead, theoretic discussions.

Did not the colonists ATTACK Thomas Hutchinson’s HOME?

Ben Franklin’s wife armed herself in her Pennsylvania home when word spread that her husband was collaborating with England on the stamp ct.

I’m not angry at you. I think you are very foolish.
It’s not about control. I’m telling you up front that your comments are offensive. Not only to me but to anyone who is a non-white. You post these things and when people react you are upset when you are called on the rhetoric.
Then you try to turn it into this thing about me. Which is funny because I’m not the one who is posting racially charged comments.

I disagree with your guest that anger is worn like a badge of honor. The working class in this country, what’s left of them, HAVE HAD ENOUGH. There’s nothing “flamboyant” about being angry that with a masters degree and a good position, I cannot buy toilet paper this week, I cannot help my kid with college, i cannot pay the plumber, I cannot pay the plumber, I cannot get a vehicle. I cannot refinance. I cannot collect the overdue child suppport due to me. I cannot buy food by the end of the week. It is not due to spending, I don’t spend much, I don’t drink, I don’t drug, I don’t go out…I think it’s right, to be angry. I think it’s MY RIGHT, and it’s due to the fact that economically in this country, like I said before, If you don’t make enough money, you are treated like a criminal. That’s the truth, and THAT makes me angry. Oh, and for the record, I have a 40,000 house that I cannot afford to fix up. My six yr. degree got me a position teaching…I KNOW how to budget.

John, the US Revolutionary War was supported by only 13% of the Colonial Population, and was seen as a “Terrorist Movement” by the British, who were then the sovereigns of the land.

Your “disgust” is duly noted, and understood to be meaningless. The dirty little secret of not only the US, but all societies, is that the smart, motivated, and tough, minority of any population rules over the passive, simpleton, majority. The US just had very benevolent Founding Fathers. That is what makes it so different here. Believe me, everyman serves a master. If you are lucky, they are nice ones. If you are smart and tough, you may even be able to create enough luck for yourself to pick your master.

This world is not about good or bad, right or wrong, it’s about “as good as it gets” and the US is that.

Tom,

I recently re-read King’s Letter from a Birmingham jail, in which he details his justification for disobeying unjust laws.

The angry right have a lack of unjust law. Their anger is a deeper reaction to a country and a culture that’s confronting the realities of a new era of austerity. To compare the modern Tea Party to the just actions of America’s founding patriots is ridiculous.

I think our anger over 9/11 showed up in our decision to invade Iraq. Iraq was a defenseless country with no plans to attack or threaten the U.S.

Isn’t this type of anger a usual manifestation throughout social history? When people feel pushed by some authority they respond through communicative means. Today we happen to have more methods of communication than before so the same social and historical outcome is being expressed through new means. In American history (and just about everywhere else) we have has race riots, civil rights marches, labor riots and strikes in the 19th century, women’s suffrage, popular socialism in the 19th century. All of these movements utilized all available resources to express their anger to the broader public. What we see with the modern tea party movement should be deamed as no different. This is not an American institution, it is reflected in all societies that experience strife with an authority figure. This is a very popular and very typical response to power structures as a whole. People get pushed far enough and they just go for it.

Right. I’m hearing all the wrong “insights” into the anger of today. Check out Rush, Thompson, Glenn and Mark Levin. What’s your answer to the inciteful conservative talk radio trend? That’s right … inciteful (not misspelled). Who cannot hear the “stoking” going on with Levin, for example? How did John Patrick Bedell just happen to decide to head off to Washington D.C. and try to kill two Pentagon guards? … answer me that. Then check out my latest post on Lit.org — “The Fan of Mark Levin.”

EXCERPT
~~ Anti-Government Rants ~~

Within the last couple of days or so, on Thursday, March 4, 2010, a Northern California man, John Patrick Bedell, drove cross-country to Washington, D.C., then shot and wounded two Pentagon security guards before being downed by return gunfire from a third. In the press he was repeatedly characterized as a “troubled individual.” It was quickly learned by investigators — according to news reports — that the man in recent months or years seemed to be spending an inordinate amount of time posting anti-government rants on the Internet.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE
http://www.lit.org/view.php?viewid=47742

It seems to me that these new “angry” people are the wrong people. They seem to be the “haves” wanting to have even more and railing at the “have-nots” and those who would help them. Why aren’t the “have-nots” angry?

I feel anger is not productive or healthy; it belies a spiritual hunger and the resulting inability to see the big picture in terms of how to live a life with dignity and meaning that can be a model for our children and their children.

Shay’s Rebellion?

Right on, McEnroe! This kind of anger is not new. We did have a little burst of anger in the 1860s that some of you may remember, no?

We have always been quick to anger and blaming someone else when our group’s position of privilege has been threatened.

@Stacked – “I fear that you too may be a “forest for the trees” type liberal. I hope that I’m wrong.”

I don’t exist at the risk of your acceptance.

Obama and Bush are identical in action, but a world apart in intelligence and diction. Unfortunately, this changes nothing because the republic is not under the peoples control.

You should point the facts out to that fellow who thought that President Obama appointing “czars” to head up various posts was evidence of communism socialism. The title Czar or Tsar is about as far from communism as possible. In terms of our own recent history I think it was Nixon who appointed the first “drug czar.”

The anger we are experiencing is saturated with hate and fear.
Indeed rationally is being trumped by the world’s oldest commodity, ‘hate’
Scripture reveals God’s greatest gift to man is discernment
With media provocations enveloping the nation’s agenda, individual thinking is suspended especially by countless outlets (Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Fox, Cheney etal) to do our thinking for us. So do not mistake even true ‘anger’ with regurgitation.
AND now the main stream media feels compelled to even bring aboard and sometimes give unearned equal voice to even the opposition lunatic.
Sound proposals, and the advancement of the human condition is goal all failure to see the light of day in this sea of darkness,

Now freedom of speech needs to be balanced with freedom of thought (to think.

A caller mentioned Czar’s in context to being proof that the country is becoming socialist.

A Czar in context to Russian history was the emperor or king and has nothing to do with communism. The Russian revolution was about removing the Czar.

Czar has been used as a metaphor for positions of high authority in modern politics.

“Who would have ever thought the mess Bush and the Republicans created could have ever lasted a year and two months beyond Bush’s departure?
…must be someone else’s fault.”
Posted by JP

True; but for the fact that, within the past year, Obama has let pass numerous opportunities to undo the damage caused by Bush.

And, actually, it IS someone else’s fault. The likes of Bush and Obama aren’t running this mess; they’re only political puppets. We don’t elect presidents anymore, we elect actors.

I don’t think that the problem is about external causes. There’s always reasons to be angry. The difference is that we are no longer constrained by any hesitancy to express it. More of the extended adolescence of the country. The concept of civic responsibility that requires civil discussion, even when we disagree: that’s now the foreign concept.

There is a total lack of respect for others and a sense of enlargement of the self as all-important, a typical attitude of teenagers.

Exactly as your guest, Richard, just said.

However, its interesting that with more and more ways available to us now to communicate, the widespread anger suggests that people feel less and less heard…

Anger is a loss of nerve. Anger, the acceptable kind, is anger that does not rant and rave but takes constructive action calmly and cooly when the situation justifies it. That anger, the good kind, would be undetectable since its hallmark is that it doesn’t express itself except cooly and calmly. Maybe our President with his patience, his coolness, his calm, his patience in the face of Republican obstructionism, deceit, etc. and his constructive action to push an agenda that serves the people epitomizes this good anger, which in effect is simply energy that is harnessed to action which corrects a problem.

Thanks, Richard. You and lived through the very same experiences. These guests on today’s program obviously did not. What I hear from the guests today is what comes from the mouths of millennials — those who think things today are simply the way things have always been … cars stacked up bumper to bumper on freeways … loud music (?) blaring from cars with kids roiling about on drugs of every type and description … people eating the food while they shop at supermarkets (plus the long lines at checkout) … it’s impossible to go on.

On Anger

When the Right Wing had control of all elective branches of government, they did pretty much what they wanted. While those to the left, did not like this, they expressed their anger verbally.

Now that the Right Wing is out of power, I think they are a) feeling a large loss, to some a loss of their entitlement, and b) projecting – - what you in power are now doing is what we were doing to you when we had it.

Next are Americans from all over the political spectrum who are feeling disenfranchised by the loss of their jobs, homes and businesses while Wall St thrives on their misfortunes.

Finally there are the funded lobbyists whose fortunes continually grow, especially when differences are sharpened by anger or whatever else.

Things I’m pissed off about:

- Where my taxes are going.
- My government treating me like I’m stupid.
- My government’s refusal to do a real investigation of 911.
- The incestuous, corrupting relationship between government and industry.
- Installation of photo red lights without a commensurate give-back in personal responsibility. (3 o’clock in the a.m.? GO AHEAD!)
- The fact that the Federal Railroad Administration has recently started enforcing “safety” regulations on commuter rail here in Boston. The one conductor per car rule means you have to cram everyone into a few cars while the rest of the train is vacant. Jesus!
- Feeling like I better watch what I say over email or telephone.

Stacked did I say you should not post? No, I only said I found it offensive.
I said you hide behind the 1st Amendment and I still think you do.

I know you don’t care what I think or anyone else for that matter. However that does not mean anything in context to a political discourse. Your attitude points more too a disdain towards people how do not think like you. It’s interesting how you turn this around and try and make it look like I’m the intolerant one. I don’t have any issues with people who are not like me. You do.

The anger that I hear comes from frustration caused by the inability to fix all the wrongs that are going on in this country. Our representatives care more for their reelection then investigating the ramifications of the bills they sign late in the night. They do not seem to care what will be the results in the future and will sign anything that they think puts them in a good light. Problems are not being solved. Our country is not being protected. Education is not good. Food protection is not good. Health protection is not good. The people have been promised the world without paying for anything. Good grief, Americans have every reason to be angry.

Lorie, you cannot have a “life of dignity and meaning” if you cannot afford to eat, feed your children EVEN WHEN YOU ARE WORKING A GOOD JOB!!!! Lorie, noone can be a “model for our children and our childrens’ children” if they CANNOT AFFORD TO LIVE. The tone of your choice of words is nauseating to me. It’s that view from one who , let me guess, has more than enough money coming in, is sooooo sacharin in a culture where MANY are suffering. Get a clue. Your words make me sosooooo angry!

NO REVOLUTION AS LONG AS WE THINK LIKE “ME”.
I think we need to channel all this anger to a final revolution of change, not just a hope for bit by bit evolutionary change. Will we lose out on this opportunity? I think, Americans are too much about “me me me” and we won’t revolt to get all the changes we want and eventually will squander this opportunity. Sad, but I think it’s true.

I think this could also be epidemic of chemical imbalance – people are eating too much processed foods, getting little or no exercise; the combination which fuels the body with sugar ups & downs.

The best name I’ve heard for my generation (currently in college) is “Generation Whatever”. It seems that we’re watching all these people on TV, people protesting, etc. about so many different topics that we just get weary of it all, sigh and say “whatever”.

How on target is this and what does it mean for the future of us college students?

I am irritaated (not angery) that no one in the US, citizens and politicians, do not take responsibility for anything, like the War in Iraq.

If you want nicce things and want a safety net you must pay for them.

There is anger only because the “Free Lunch” hasn’t happened. Some liers (Fox News) are still promising the “Free Lunch”.

Jeffe, you mis-spell my handle in insulting ways all the time. You constantly say that I’m violent and insinuate that I’m some kind of home-grown you know what! You refuse to ever admit that maybe I have some very valid points. And you dog me constantly. Everytime I say something…there’s jeffe, like some kind of stalker! Just say something constructive to me, or let it go bro.

There’s the problem — caller Jason. Here’s the Limbaugh listener who couldn’t “make it” on his own if his life depended upon it. Jason just hasn’t been tested. Wait, fella. Your “examination” day is getting closer every day.

I completely agree with Peter Wood. I see the culture and society glorifying anger and angry behavior, reality t.v. shows, women fighting vebally and physically, sports such as hockey where refs. let the players fight while the fans cheer then replay it on the screen, politicians constantly battling at the expense of getting anything done. The result, nasty emails in professional settings, increased bullying and cyber bullying in schools, road rage, self-righteousness. It goes on and on . . .

I think Jason’s call summarized so well what is wrong with his county – people are forgetting what makes civilization civilized. It is NOT competitive self-interest, it is the balance between that and civil institutions that protect the rights and welfare of individuals.

I never took a handout! What a lie! There isn’t a person in this society who hasn’t benefited from civil institutions like the interstate highway system, social security, and a basically well-functioning society where the rules work and the laws are generally obeyed.

I think John Dean analyzed this well in his Conservatives Without Conscience. The appeal of the bully has very much to do with the authoritarian style of personality which is attracted by this kind of idiotic rage.

Existential anger from Florence?

Huh?

Peter, you are just too smart for your own good.

We Americans seek out things to up set us. Shock Jocks like Rush make their living off angering people. And the same people tune in to be outraged.

Helen,

OK. Yes, things are tough for you. I sympathize. But, why do you find the need to detest hard-working people who are trying to make it here in America – as your ancestors undoubtedly did?
You say that you’re angry because you find yourself behind “50 Hispanics” – why is that relevant? The word “Hispanic” refers to language and to culture – not to immigration status. Do you know their immigration status? Did you ask them?
Unless you’re a native american, you have no – zero – right to “claim” this country – especially on the basis of language.
The founding fathers were worldly and would have had nothing but contempt for that kind of provincialism.

MTS

PS

Even if they are “illegal” – they are people who are trying to make it just like you!

Stacked well I see you’re getting angry, how appropriate for a show on anger. You are correct, refuse to see any validity in anything you say. Constructive? Well you just posted you don’t care what I think. Now you seem to be all hot under the collar about it.

I say this again, I’m not the one posting rhetoric that is offensive, you are. That you find my calling you on this, well I’m only voicing my 1st Amendment rights. Which for some reason it seems you think only apply to you.

Peter Wood is also indicative of the problem … the ivory tower speaks of society needing to “mature more.” Well the exact opposite is happening, and it’s happening not because the human genome is changing, it’s happening because we are eating, breathing, drinking and despoiling our way out of a planet on which to live together.

Nine billion people is the number. Anyone who thinks that “maturity” is the answer doesn’t have a clue into the problems that no food, no clean water, no fresh air and no safe place to live will do to his so-called, “mature mind.”

Say Jason, in this sink-or-swim world, sees a brick wall in front of him and takes responsibility and jumps off the highest bridge in his state. Some Good Samaritan comes along and finds him washed up and still breathing. Said Samaritan pulls out a cell phone and looks in Jason’s pocket. No insurance card. Woops. Leave him here. He obviously was trying to end his life anyway. Well and good.
Say Jason is attacked by robbers in his house, is shot right through with a handgun in the process. He calls 911 and they come apace. They find him bleeding by his safe. Where is his insurance card? No card? Okay, next question: Do the robbers have no fault insurance to cover their victims? Nope. Okay. We’ll move on then.

“There’s the problem — caller Jason. Here’s the Limbaugh listener who couldn’t “make it” on his own if his life depended upon it. Jason just hasn’t been tested. Wait, fella. Your “examination” day is getting closer every day.”
Posted by F. William Bracy

And you deem yourself qualified to tutor for such an exam?

Anger is an easy go-to emotion. Those who are truly angry (and not just riding the MAD wave) should really focus on what kind of solution they want to create.

I understand that there is a housing crisis; people are losing their jobs and health care issues.
However I look at it this way, “how can I help my own community?”

Sign up for CSA so your local farmer won’t have to close down for the year, live on less than you make, don’t use credit cards and save more.
So if you are down sized you can live like a college student until you develop your purpose.

Instead of looking outward at who is the problem, look inward on creating solutions. We as Americans are resilient, let’s dig deep and look for solutions.

I agree SO MUCH with the woman who called from Montreal! THANK YOU for your call.

I absolutely DISAGREE with the caller who called in immediately after the woman from Montreal. The only time that America worked like his version of life/the economy (& then only for free whites, especially males) was when there was free or dirt cheap land for settlers because land was grabbed from the Native Americans and when land was cleared by slave labor. The gentleman would be well advised to fear American corporations more than government!

References to the status of anger in the 1960s has gone both ways: We were way angrier with way more cause; or just the opposite. And I hear that the baby-boomers are the main angry ones. A college student posted, “Whatever.”
Looking at the photo up top, I’m seeing a generation that came of age AFTER the Vietnam war, AFTER the Civil Rights movement, toward the end of the Women’s Lib movement. The social activism (and anger) of their big brothers and sisters, those a decade older, would have seemed like a missed opportunity, in a way.
Am I saying maybe the baby-boomers are Wannabe Human Rights protestors? Do they want the opportunity to create the change and earn the respect that others did? One of Tom Ashbrook’s panel referred to worrying about a national funk, a decade of something like depression, referring to the 1970s. Nothin’ to fight for, just an economc downturn up till Reagan came along promising Hollywood Dream Fulfilment.
The American Dream — don’t let the Government Steal it from You. It’s Your Money. And away we go.
In the late 1960s, college students who came together to stand up against racism, who came together to stand up against American involvement in Vietnam, they pored over newspapers, and had unending pow-wows, both among themselves as well as with professors at the various institutions and senior potentates within their communities. They weren’t coming at the situations uninformed.
I’m not so sure about the reincarnation of the Protest ethos among the current loudest voices. Remember baby-boomers cover those born across a 15-year span. Those at the leading edge were the protestors in the late 1960s. Maybe we’re a little burnt out. We don’t have the time and the organizing potential of college campuses to foster the purposefulness that was had then.
If students are saying “Whatever,” I’m sad. We need their anger, their understanding, their, dare I say it, leadership.

My laid-back toddler son’s personality just took a turn toward anger – full-on tantrums, hitting, throwing things. I notice it flares up whenever he makes the realization that he sees how things should work, how things should be and does not have the power to make them so. This is not “righteous anger”. This is frustration about momentary impotence.

Similarly, the Tea Party not voicing righteous anger, but thinly veiling an honest, intense fear of impotence – the anticipation of the loss of a position of dominance that any step toward true social justice would certainly bring.

ALL HAIL TO THE REPTILE BRAIN!!!!

We are angry, because
1.) We are often ignorant and bad at reasoning things out, especially now that we have had a few generations raised largely on the Image and the reptile-brain–encouraging advertisement,
2.) We don’t have the things to which we think we have a right, such as a good living without working half as hard as any assembly-line worker in China, and getting extra respect for being male and pale,

…but most significantly
3.) We value and respect anger…. People treat anger as a sign of the strength and virtue of one’s intent, and will in fact criticise some Obamas for not being angry enough. I consider this utter dribble—I consider anger an impediment to real knowledge and/or victory—someone at whom one is angry seems neither fully human nor as weak and fallible as they actually are.

We get shafted by an unregulated economy tailored to high finance speculators, then the rest of us end up holding the ball, fighting each other for scraps in arguments about whether to raise taxes to pay for, say, child health care, or that we’re all broke and can’t raise taxes, while the high rollers go back to their games. We SHOULD be angry (constructively), but we’re angry at each other when it is this economy of, by, and for big banks instead of workers that is the problem.

Fittingly, I felt angered listening to this program about America’s Anger Problem. But it’s because I’m angered by a number of the callers, and I wished I could debate them on air.

One caller rang in and asked, “Whats the government doing with these czras? Isn’t that communist?” And another chimed in with, “I want the government off my back…free market…”

Normally, when a lot of people are feeling certain sentiments, they’re based in something that is right. But when all their feelings are based on complete lies- those people are wrong. Listening to programs like FOX News and Rush Limbaugh have brainwashed a loud chunk of this country. These people have no knowledge of what is actually going on in the country, past or present.

Ronald Reagan had czars- and that title is just a nickname. They were widely expanded under George W. Bush.

If you don’t want to buy into the government option (not like were getting one thanks to you) then you don’t have to. That’s why it is an option.

Look at the facts here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/finalmarch-day1

Lets try something more simple here:

Lets say you’ve just spent the last of your capitol to buy a new house and furnish it. It’s moving in day, and you’re arranging your irreplaceable furniture. You look up, and notice a 800lb. Gorilla, literally going ape-sh*t in the middle of your living room.

You don’t save the house or the furniture by poking it with a stick or screaming at it. If you shoot it, it will fall on the furniture, and then you have an 800lb. body to deal with. What you do is run to the kitchen, and start laying a trail of bananas out the front door.

Does that make it through some of you guys skulls? You have to GIVE something the gorilla wants to get rid of it in a fashion that doesn’t destroy a large part of your investment! DUH!

BTW, JC Cabell, Dave Wasser & jsp2- Right On!

I think Matt from CA hits the nail on the head:

“But when all their feelings are based on complete lies- those people are wrong.”

A large percentage of the present rage in this country can be traced directly to deliberate misinformation by Fox News. They, Limbaugh, and the Republican Party seem to have forgotten that stoking public rage is playing with fire.

Yeah, you can get the crowd to get out their pitchforks and torches, but God help all of us when those people become our policymakers.

Catherine’s call from Montreal confirmed something I’ve felt on the occasions I’ve visited there. Although admittedly only a tourist, nonetheless I felt everywhere a palpably friendlier, less confrontational atmosphere than in a comparable American city. The most noticeable difference came in interacting with employees in stores or cafes. Every clerk was pleasant and relaxed, with neither the snark nor the simulated my-job-depends-on-it cheerfulness that I am accustomed to. These Canadian service workers were clearly more content in their jobs than their American counterparts. I concluded, as Catherine has, that being assured of human necessities like health care makes for a happier, emotionally healthier population – even for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. Canada realizes, like most every other advanced nation, that protecting the least of its citizens benefits all of its citizens – as well as tourists like me, who get to enjoy the anger-free ambiance!

Much of the anger from the right, left, and center arises from the unspoken yet undeniable fact the the U.S. is in steep and permanent decline. I’m 40, and if you look around at the loss of wages, benefits, education, national prestige and esteem it is patently obvious. We are helpless against this decline and it makes us want to lash out. Yeah, I’m angry too.

I think there was a lot less anger about financial and employment matters when marginal income tax rates on the highest incomes were close to 90%; we had usury laws making it illegal to charge the interest rates commonly charged today; CEOs made 30 times more than the average wage earner, not 300 times more; we had strong unions in the private sector and elected officials willing to back them up; when most businesses were locally owned, not controlled by a public company serving the wants of distant if not foreign officers and shareholders; the financial sector existed primarily to serve the rest of the economy, not the other way around. Frankly, people ought to be angry. I know I have been for the last two-plus decades of “trickle-down” economics that has transferred almost all the gains from everyone’s increased productivity to an increasingly smaller number of people. Unfortunately, anger today is usually directed at the wrong target: the ones people are told to be angry at by the ones they should be angry at.

Oh, I agree with Jim out of Omaha and twenty-niner (and so many others), but it doesn’t help much take note and agree. There are a few sort of death spirals that seem to be going on, and simply appreciating that is not enough. Voting is not enough, when the people “put up” for election or re-election are part of that death spiral.
Some here say oh, this too will pass.
What’s that, the United States as an arrogant SOB? The United States as a moral force internationally? The human race as inhabitants of the planet?

I most surely have to come back and comment.

Stacked (and all your alter personalities) – if no one challenged you on your words and thought you’d presume there was no disagreement with your thinking which would widen your net of those who convert to your thinking.

Ellen Dibble – particularly loved your 10:13 perspective.

like i said, need to return later.

What’s the opposite of angry? Happy? Content? Placid? Pleased? Optimistic? Grateful? Whatever…I’m not angry.
Every day we kill more islamist dirt…that pleases me. Obama followed Bush in rescuing the financial sector and saved millions of retired people from destitution…for that I am happy. I have much to be thankful for…that makes me grateful. My children have flown from the nest and are meeting the challenges of life for now, but can always return if they need to…that makes me optimistic. I never hit the big money, but used what I was given wisely…I am content. I gave up anger long ago.

Bushes Fault,

It is sad that killing pleases you. I’d rather be angry than a sociopath.

There are some 2.5 billion Muslims, and not all are terrorists. Actually, there are also non-Muslim terrorists.
And speaking of ad hominem attacks, I don’t see how that last remark is anything but. I mean, it is pretty ridiculous, given that for all we know “why don’t you pick up a rifle” is exactly what Cory has done for his country. There are commenters here in law enforcement and in the military, current and past.

First of all I don’t know why anyone here is even engaging with “stacked” or whatever his nom-du-jour is. He obviously has mental problems and the fact that he doesn’t even realize that he’s made statements which anyone else would understand to incite violence only reinforces this. There is nothing to be gained by interacting with him. He’s looking for a reaction and by responding you’re reinforcing his behavior.

WRT the topic “anger” – I do not think that Americans are any angrier than in the past. We are a nation with a history of riots, lynchings, tar-and-feathering and other outbursts but we’ve seen nothing like that recently and FBI stats show that violent crime has been falling over the last decade or two. In the 1960′s and early 70′s we had massive race riots and antiwar riots, but nothing like that recently. Nor have we ever had anything like the barricades which have historically arisen in the streets of Paris in times of protest, or kristallnacht or the storming of the Bastille or similar outburts in other countries.

I think we’re seeing a journalistic phenomenon: we live in an age of zillions of competing media sources and lots of overstimulation from our cell phones, the internet, hundreds of cable channels, and so forth. So increasingly what we used to call the “news” has to SHOUT to be heard – it needs to focus on ever more loud, colorful, bizarre or lurid behavior to have any hope of attracting an audience for its advertisers to get the almighty buck. So it’s not that there’s more anger, it’s that angry people attract a bigger audience.

I really enjoy it when folks get upset about “czars” being communist, and “Barney Frank was dating ‘the guy’ running Freddy Mac.” (Did he mean Kellerman, and did anyone inform Mrs Kellerman?)
Nothing says “ignorance” like getting upset about nonsense.
These are obviously facts that they teach in school South of the Mason Dixon line.
There, get angry about that!

Ken Tebbetts mentioned that a lot of the anger may be linked back to 911, and it probably is not only that but all the frustration involved with finances. People are taking it out on other people and on ideology.

Psychological trauma may have behind Bush’s irrationality and delusional thinking in the aftermath of 911, incidentally.

Severe stress can do odd, strange things to some people.

Great insightful comments from two of the callers: from Canada, and from the Irish-American, the latter pointing out the media saturated with stupid, incessant anger.

There are whole organized groups of people who have decided it’s somehow a great idea to display odd emotions and deliver florid, public tantrums. Fueled, no doubt, by a great deal of stress indeed, almost a decade of mishandling an economy that finally blew up, taking peoples’ retirement incomes with it, shadowy criminal syndicates like AQ attacking the country. Incredible amounts of stress, and the media is there with instructions about what to do with it.

I think peter nelson makes a somewhat valid point. Yes, anger sells, probably second only to sex, but what good does that realization really do you? I mean, he actually was so drawn to my sometimes angry sounding diatribes, that he started his entire post, on a show focusing on Anger in America, on me, and why nobody should pay attention to me. You, of course, see that simply by doing what he did, he violated his own tenant, and also proved that even he is a slave to his own observations.

This brings us to another question; what difference does it make? You may analyse, and be correct, yet be powerless to make any usage of your observations. Why is that? Could that be a cultural meme? And if impotence is recognized to fuel anger, could this just be the beginning of a spiral to anger transmitted into violence unseen? The bottom line is: I think it’s really too early to tell, and it’s entirely possible that when the anger, manufactured or real, finally does become a self fulfilling prophecy, it could explode with such force as to sweep aside any semblance of law and order, like the hand of God brushing aside wind.

hehehe, analyze that peter. P.S. The God ref. was to screw with your rubric. I’ll give ya’ that one.

Gary, your post should be required reading for anyone before they go in a voting booth — before anyone runs for office might be better. You lost at “terrorist myth.” It seems to me that copycat troublemaking, pumped-up rage, has ever greater “opportunities” for causing huge disruption. The emotional disruption (the media attention and overreaction) caused by terrorism is way out of line with reality; I’ll grant you that. I heard yesterday that in the United States we have achieved a 55-year-record in the LEAST deaths per mile driven. We’re down to something like 360,000 DEATHS per year. I calculated 100 a day. OMG, that would be 1,000. I misconstrued. Maybe it was 36,000 deaths last year. In any case, if you add all those maimed for life, the costs to all, that is a lot more than than “terrorism.”
Cutting off cell phone calls over 8 mph is interesting, though apparently accidents have been going down not up, and if I were in a runaway Toyota I would want a functioning cell phone.

Peter you’re right, don’t give the people who post racially charged diatribes the time of day. They are looking for attention and a reaction.

I also agree with about the anger and rage in the historical context. There was a time not long ago that racist blew up Black churches, burned crosses, and lynched people. Now we have the cross burners online ranting.

However I think we can see rage in some individuals, such as the Andrew Joseph Stack IRS incident, that will be extreme in the amount of violence perpetrated. What intrigued me was the missed placed anger, the IRS does not write the laws it enforces them. Joseph Stack should have been angry at congress.

In hard economic times people will look for scapegoats.

I think it’s good when people who know this forum – like jeffe in this thread – can be seen to be “handling” the more distracting individual/s. If someone visits and sees a flood of unanswerable stuff, it’s quite a turnoff (contrary to what a certain someone seems to think), at least to anyone seeking a posting place where a thoughtful comment might be valued. On the other hand, if they see that the red-flags are being clipped, so to speak, the discussion can go on sort of around that process.

I think “someone” was trying to derail the productive nature of the forum by distracting a lot of us into — well, I don’t think a certain “someone” knows how to have a useful exchange. I’ve never seen it. It SEEMS to be dialogue, but then the layers of dishonesty come out, that “someone” is just toying with us, playing with us in mean ways.
I tried to let visiting people know up top that we can recognize this and live with it, that it would be better to talk about “the many colors of anger,” and not just one attention-getter. And I think we did it. I think jeffe did the red flag clipping and did it very well, so thank you. If none of us answered, there would be floods of provocations, and others who have productive things to say would be side-lined in trying to deal with it or would simply pass up the chance to discuss. Jeffe is imposing a time-out, was my impression, in a curious way.

Historically, Americans could move to the frontier when they disagreed with the status quo or the legal and social restrictions imposed on them. No more. That relief valve no longer exists.

Over the last 2 centuries, government has become more intrusive and restrictive. The frontier is gone, so there is no escape. We formed a government based on individual liberty, and it has grown cancerous and corrupt as it morphed to accomodate bad social theories, powerful special interests, and grasped for more and more control over the individual.

The federal income tax sprang up in 1913, and has grown ever more manipulative, trying to coerce certain behaviors with incentives and punitive aspects. Congressmen sells their votes, no longer even ashamed, calling it “closed door negotiations”. Folks no longer see their tax dollars as a fair part of supporting a common good, like national defense, but as extorted under threat of force to fund certain favored “charitable” social programs. Government is no longer “ours”, but just another dangerous special interest group.

Many folks now feel backed in to a corner, and attacked by authorities, with their own money. They see a government that doesn’t know how to stop spending what it doesn’t have, putting their futures and those of their children ever more at risk. People having trouble paying their mortgage aren’t going to want to pay someone else’s health insurance. People struggling to find work aren’t going to want to bail out bankers, or give special deals to unions with cadillac health care plans.

The system is disfunctional, not because it can’t function, but because nearly everything it does accomplish is destructive to individual freedom and liberty. Our leaders are ignorant of the real world, and make proclamations based on theories and dogma. Foreign adversaries see our ignorance and blindness, and prepare against us without fear.

The illuminati and politically well-connected sneer at the common folks, even as they gorge at the public trough. And the public trough is being filled with borrowed swill from China, mortgaging our futures. The elites live by ideas alone, and are judged by self-congratulatory peers who also only deal in ideas, ideas that never meet the hard anvil of usefulness and the hot forge of reality. Big corporations interests no longer track with our national interests, and they export valuable manufacturing employment overseas to cheap labor for better profits. Government works hand-in-hand with them to open borders hoping for a cut of the profits and tariffs.

Anger was useful when it might have made a difference. That time has come and gone. Now is just time to arm, dig in, and hunker down.

A judgment day is coming. And it will not be pleasant for any of us. Americans have always held strong opinions, spoken strong words. It has brought us to the brink of civil war many times, and at least once full on. It will do so again.

“When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion — when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing — when you see money flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors — when you see that men get richer by graft and pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you — when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice — you may know that your society is doomed.”

Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged, page 413

I have just listened to this podcast and found myself nodding along with Peter Wood.

There seems to be a view that the rising tide of anger in America is justified in light of tough economic times. But has anyone seen “God Grew Tired of Us?” The young men who traveled countless miles on foot to escape being killed in their homeland, only to end up in a refugee camp for ten years, were nonetheless filled with a sense of joy that is rare among Americans.

I’m 26 and only know the past two decades of American life, let alone since World War II, but the “look-at-me” anger seems to grow year by year.

This is an important discussion, but let us distinguish between two kinds of anger. One is justifiable anger on the part of mature individuals. This sort of anger is generally sublimated, resulting in directed action to a solution to whatever prompted the anger. Unfortunately, this appears to be the behavior of a minority of citizens. The majority demonstrates the second kind of anger, which is familiar to any of us who have raised children through middle school. Our country is awash in juvenile behavior, and self-absorbed anger, upon which your guests touched, makes the headlines. It is time for the “grown ups” to bring some order to the playground, for clearly there are quite a number of people who need a “time out.”

I didn’t hear all of the anger management show but I would like to weigh in. I am a 60 year old woman,old enough to have observed trends in social behavior. Americans are becoming angrier and ruder with every passing minute. I don’t think that it is about the government or the economy because even when times were better,the rudeness index was rising. I think it is about “entitlement”.People think that they are entitled to scream at government officials, (witness the town meetings on health care)public employees in post offices,parks, schools etc, and at anyone who serves the public.It seems that anyone is fair game for wrath. Part of this is fueled by talk radio and the low level of expectations that we now have of ourselves.We need to begin having a different expectation of acceptable decorum for all social strata and in all media , including radio, print and tv.Let’s bring back
civility and respect and bury the Me generations. Frankly, I am tired of “ME”.

Gee Frank lets tar a few generations with one brush.
That’s like saying the generation that fought WW2 are all the “greatest generation”, which is not really the truth. Some were and others were not.

Life is complicated and corporal punishment does not seem to me to be a panacea.

Frank I understand what you are saying. However plenty of non-boomers over extended themselves as well.

I’m not sure what you are trying to say here, that all of this is on the shoulders of people born between 1946 through 1964? What you’re not going to blame FDR and the New Dealers as well?

The economics of this melt down were on part created not by boomers but by Reagen’s generation based on the ideas of Milton Freeman who is hardly a baby boomer.

The majority of people who called in during this episode are what makes me the angriest. These people rail mostly against big government. But if you look at the individual issues that rile them the most, the REAL culprit is not big government. It’s big business. Question: What is the only entity that could possibly wield the power to curtail the unbridled, predatory greed and exploitative practices of mega-corporations? Answer: a large, powerful, central government that is not in the pocket of big business. I think the Teaparty folks are entirely justified to be as angry as they are. Americans are being tied over a barrel by “the powers that be” perhaps more than ever in U.S. history. But these people are aiming their anger at the wrong villain and they want to take down the one thing that can keep that villain in check.

Stacked
I think it’s interesting that you don’t speak to the actual content of what I wrote. You seem to think that simply throwing pathetic insults is some sort of a rebuttal. The big media corporations tell us what to think. The big banks control our housing and our money. The for-profit health care and pharmaceutical industry decides whether we’re going to live or die based upon how much money we give them. Monolithic agribusinesses decide what’s going to go in our foods. The list goes on. And none of them cares at all about anything but profit no matter who it hurts. If there was no one to put limits on corporations’ obscene greed, there would be no stopping them at all. What is a government for but to see to the welfare of its citizens? The Tea Party folks are basically saying to Washington “please let Big Business do whatever it wants to us without any limits”. The worse thing about big govt is that it’s walking in lockstep with big business. We need strong government that’s an adversary to big business—rather than being its puppet. So let’s hear you say something intelligent this time, Stacked, instead of silly meaningless insults.

We are remembering the Town Hall rage-in’s last August where members of Congress had to come home “on vacation” and be escoriated for their efforts right, left, and center. Come Easter week/Congressional recess, with a vote for health insurance reform dangling around their necks like a scarlet letter of shame, Congress again gets the “opportunity” to explain themselves — if not now, then in the fall before elections.
I mention this here because I am hoping Joal keeps his points sharp: Is Congress the puppet of Big Business, or the profit-at-all-social-costs part of the USA? The Supreme Court seems to want to encourage that by their vote in United whatever it was, where corporations were decreed to be People, something like that, and as such able to consider a Dollar the same as a Voice.
I think that’s where it all hits the fan, so to speak: Can Congress run On The Merits? Or are they going to fly under the moneyed talking points that Pew and so forth deem will “fly” them on to election.
That is the infuriating situation, NOT whether they get tagged as subsidizers of Big Insurers, which it seems likely inevitable, and in our best interests in some inexplicable way.
Can the media shape up our choices so that we are not helpless against smoke and mirrors of campaigning but have honest brokers (media) letting us participate? I think the congresspeople running would appreciate that vastly.
Campaign by rage underwritten by Big Money? Or campaign by Best Interests and reason? Please help us, media.

kathyah,
Thanks for listening
Thanks for picking up on, pointing out, Lori could not hear. Nope, she’s just not going to listen to it, nothing is going to penetrate the sacharin peace bubble..no no no, it’s just a beautiful world, and if I go hungry, and cold, and my kids go hungry or cold, despite the fact I am owed 90,000 in back child support, well that is nothing to get angry about. Maybe Lori does a few prescription drugs to maintain that peeeeaceful bubble. the voice of Lori is like the voice of a teacher who stays on even keel, expecting the homework done and done well, except for the fact there’s nobody home to help with it, there’s no supper, there’s no heat, tisktisk, we must set an example. Excuse me while I pour my tea.

There is not enough anger/rage in this country right now, and the anger that does exist is deliberately focused on those who suffer the most at the hands of who our rage should be focused.

If you’re not angry, either you are part of the established and/or corporate elite, or you have been successfully indoctrinated by the corporations – the dominant institution of today – with the philosophy of futility designed to divert our attention to the insignificant things in life.

Meanwhile these corporate citizens, who “have no soul to save and no body to incarcerate” are usurping OUR wealth…and not just our private wealth, but what many have come to take for granted: fresh air, clean water, healthy and somewhat safe environment, etc.

These so-called “citizens” share the rights of us mere mortals with none of the responsibility or accountability to the democratic process …their only allegiance is to profit. Yet we’re allowing these psychopathic institutions to blatantly rob us blind while determining the way we live our lives.

I’m a white woman, and I’m angry at whites’ sense of entitlement. I think unemployment for anyone is a horrible thing, and I think that everyone should be able to work who wants to – that’s not my issue. However, the current unemployment rate for black men between the ages of 16-24 is about 34%, and for black women in that age is 26% (which is 11% more than white women in that age group. Twenty-five percent of blacks are underemployed, while 14% of whites are underemployed. If anyone has a reason to protest and be angry, it’s people of color. Yet the majority of people we’re talking about (and are hearing from on this show, in terms of callers and guests) are white. I know the frustration and fear that comes with being unable to find employment, but considering that we still are extremely privileged when it comes to the majority of the world, are we really considering whether this anger is ok?

I enjoy this show, but I’m disappointed that this conversation is focusing on white rage without consideration of any other groups. Currently, white folks are facing an unemployment rate that is what black folks normally experience (around 8%). If white rage is justified, then what should blacks do now that their unemployment rates are twice as high as whites? How should blacks act now, then, since unemployment for black men is at 17% (while it’s at 10% for white men)? Since we’re giving whites a pass, and telling them it’s ok to be angry, will we tell blacks it’s ok to be angry and to yell racial epithets, spit on Congresspeople, and display posters of racist imagery when we go back to the status quo of recession-level employment for them? Will we explain away and laugh off that imagery the way we are with racialized presentations of our president?

I have to echo sentiment I read in a Cokie & Steve Roberts – the Democrats won the election, so stop acting like spoiled children and work toward change in the democratic way, which is through elections.