coming soon, the red army

I don't think I understand your concept of Others.  There is this concept of The Other in sociology, which is something like yours.  There are people who are in our tribe and people who aren't.  The people in our tribe are alright because we all love each other (ha!), but people in other tribes are suspect, and doubly so since if we are suspect of them, it follows like night the day they must be suspect of us.  This normally applies to countries and races, but it could also be religion or political beliefs or something like Cubs vs White Sox fans.  It is particularly striking to me in those gangs like the bloods and the crips who are like mirror images of each other, and yet they are willing to shoot each other at the drop a hat.

But extending this across generations seems a little strange to me, I mean we live in the same families.  I resented the fact that some adults had power over me, but that didn't extend to other adults who were fine by me.  I will say that during the period of the book it was more plausible that there was a Them running things, inasmuch as there was like the guy said, only three television networks, and everything was just more ordered, and it seemed like there was a template for how to be, and anything you did that didn't fit in (like you not going to college) was suspect.  There had to be something wrong with a person like that.

There was a general consensus in how people should be, but I think that was blown apart in the sixties.  Now there are many different ways to be, and I suppose the different groups see each other a little as Others.  But people generally belong to several different groups and they overlap, so it's hard to see where there could be one Them.  There is authority and power and people who wield it more than others, but they are like the Greek gods, constantly joining up with each other and just as often fighting each other.  I don't believe there is any one true Them Who controls everybody, and I think it kind of limits one's thinking.  To me it is like astrology.  It might be fun and maybe one likes to think of oneself as an Aries or whatever, but it doesn't get you anywhere and it is just plain dumb.

You'll have to explain to me how you knew who were the good and bad authority figures.

How were you shocked when you discovered that other people had their own agendas that were different from yours, when all along you had your own agenda that was different from theirs? 

We have open primaries here.  When I go to the polls they ask which ballot I want.  There is always talk of people crossing over in primaries to maybe vote for someone on the other side that they like or to sabotage the other party.  I've never done that, and from what I've read it just doesn't happen very often.  I suppose I could cross over and vote for Trump because I think he would have little chance of winning, but I would be risking the chance that he might actually win. 

You know it strikes me that maybe they should let people vote in both primaries.  The way it is now candidates have to hew closely to the party line to win the primary and then once they have won it they have to race to the center.  Maybe if a candidate could appeal to both sides when running in the primary we would have more appealing candidates.  I have been thinking of who I would vote for in a republican primary in the last two elections, and it seems like there were a few moderates at the beginning of the elections who didn't last, and in the end I felt like maybe I could sort of stomach McCain or Romney, but I don't know if there is anybody in the current crop that I could sort of stomach.  Maybe Kasich.

They didn't change immigration in favor of Asians and Hispanics, they changed it to make it equal to those snow white Europeans you seem to favor.  Whenever somebody nonwhite or nonstraight wants the same rights as everybody else your ilk always cries bloody murder that they are trying to get more favorable treatment.

What is it with you and white people?  If some other group, blacks, hispanics, asians, whatever, becomes the majority, as long as they are good Americans who cares what color they are?

Remember when I asked you what you would have been like if you were born in Russia?  I saw a very interesting movie Saturday night, Red Army, about the Soviet hockey team.  Very interesting.  I'll go on about in the next post.