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The Absurd Arena – Useful Idiots Discussion Board Week of 12.12
For the Useful Idiots who think they can talk back to a podcast.
Hey Useful Idiots,
This week has been a weird one.
While listening to the album Thought Gang, some of the lyrics began to sneak into my head and wouldn’t leave for the Absurd Arena. “I look down and my shoes are so far away from me. The ants were walking fast and they disappeared finally into some tall grass. The moon was half full. Everything is moving except for where it is perfectly still.”
Do you feel it? Last week’s Absurd Arena was somewhat of a rant, the culmination of a week-worth of discouraging news of power and war, and the Useful Idiots had an extensive venting session to unpack it. There was stuff to be angry about (see: Biden gutting the rail workers, Twitter Files coverups, the hands of the US government tightening around Julian Assange), so we got angry about it.
But then comes the week after, when the anger levels. Some, like great Useful Idiots guests Medea Benjamin, Abby Martin, and Mansoor Adayfi, get energized and turn their passion to activism. But what about when the passion turns to disillusionment? When the people in power hammer our energy to anarchic disinterest?
That’s when the week gets weird.
So for this aptly absurd week, let’s talk about those seemingly unproductive reactions to the news and ask how we can instead use them to our advantage. Perhaps that anarchic disinterest helps you attack today’s problems from a new perspective, fuels your life in a different creative direction, sparks an idea for your next punk song.
It’s the Absurd Arena, which means, as always, the best comments and questions will be read on the show. Here’s the prompt:
How do you react to the ceaseless bludgeoning of news? How, for those of us not on the front lines of activism, can we turn those weird reactions productive? What questions do you have for Aaron and Katie?
The Absurd Arena – Useful Idiots Discussion Board Week of 12.12
I live in Tucson, Arizona, and I can, without a doubt, confirm that we desert dwellers are in the domestic epicenter of the Absurd Arena. This topic has gotten no play on Useful Idiots, but our exiting Governor is staking miles of shipping containers across federal parks and Native land in a show of total depravity. It's fucking crazy and a joke. Although, at a total of $95 million tax-payer dollars, the performance is far from a genuine comedy. If you all want to cover this, I can connect you with some players on the ground.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-12-11/arizona-gov-ducey-stacks-containers-on-border-at-terms-end
This is small, but I usually avoid social media disputes of any kind as I find them unproductive and they often make me irrationally mad inside my head at someone I generally like a lot. However, during times like this - When Matt Taibbi is getting blasted for being a "conservative" I think it's important to say stuff publicly, so, hopefully, others who are fearful to say anything feel like they have some camaraderie.