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?