ALPERN AT LARGE - The Merriam-Webster definition of “Conflate” is “to bring together (fuse)”, or “confuse”, or “to combine … into a composite whole”. And in our “modern”, “civilized”, media-obsessed society that’s driven by political correctness as well as groupthink on all sides of the political spectrum, Conflation has become a rather efficient method to shut down other points of view and obviate any form of rational debate.
Take, for example, the recent May Day protests that some have Conflated with socialism and anarchism. To a large degree, there have been some losers that ruin the legitimate anger that the Occupy Wall Street/May Day protesters wanted to raise to the forefront of our collective consciousness. Yet an increasing number of people really DO feel angry and helpless, and that anger isn’t being assuaged by any of our local, state or national political leaders.
Then there’s the Conflation of the Occupy Movement with the Tea Party, which to some degree bears some legitimacy because the anger at the incestuous relationship between Wall Street and Washington (think Clinton, Bush, Obama and Romney—ALL of them are guilty of this in one way, shape or form) started both of these movements.
Yet whether we like it or not, the Tea Party protests didn’t lead to vandalism, and the legitimate contrast between the “leave us alone, let us take care of ourselves” message of the Tea Party and the “make sure we’re getting our fair share of the economic pie” message of the Occupy Wall Street movement can’t be ignored (no matter how hard some try). Both movements—provided they don’t lead to violence or vandalism—have their role in modern discourse, and need their air time.
Then there’s everyone’s favorite Conflationism: declaring one’s opposition to illegal immigration (and to hiring illegal immigrants) as the same as being a racist monster who hates all Latinos and legal immigrants, rather than an acknowledgment that said opposition is more akin to opposing law-breaking in the form of identity theft and tax evasion. And this Conflation has done an excellent job of shutting down the debate and making lawbreakers into victims and heroes.
Which is particularly important right now, because for some strange reason the pro-illegal immigration movement (whoops—forgot to Conflate that with the “immigrant rights” and “Latino rights” movement) chose May Day to make their stand and wave Mexican and American flags Downtown.
Why is it so strange to advocate for illegal immigrants on May Day? Because there’s no better way to trash workers’ rights, including and especially legal immigrant worker rights (Cesar Chavez had a big problem with illegal immigrants then to encourage the law-breaking, undercutting minimum wages and working conditions that have been the hallmarks of illegal immigration.
Furthermore, the Conflation of illegal immigration as being a “Latino issue” or a “Mexican issue” ignores the many Asian, European, African and non-Mexican Latinos that are in our country illegally. Such a Conflation ignores the reality that not all American Latinos are from Mexico, and many non-Mexican Latinos have little in common both culturally and politically with Mexican Latinos…who themselves are more polymorphic than their “leaders” proclaim. So who really are the racists here?
And speaking of racist Conflation, where the heck did the “bus versus rail” debate take on a flavor of minority rights? As the Times points out both buses and rails have minorities making up the majority of both bus riders (90%) and rail passengers (83%). Of course, they make up a big percentage of car commuters, too, so the whole “minority/civil rights” Conflation makes no sense.
As does the Conflation of “rail versus bus” being a legitimate and debatable transportation issue make no sense. Buses feed into rails, just as surface streets feed into freeways. Debating one over the other makes as much sense as debating food versus water, or debating soap versus toilet paper—they’re all quite necessary, and clearly not mutually exclusive.
Conflation is particularly a vexing problem in California, and especially so in the City of the Angels, where holding opposing/minority views on a given topic can end one’s political career and even economic career. Conflation of pension reform and budget balancing with “hating policemen and firefighters” has prevented the major and painful cuts needed to fix our City’s budget mess and threatens us all with bankruptcy as the only fix to our situation.
Conflation of “pro-environmental policies” (regardless of their effectiveness or economic impacts) with “join us or you want to kill the planet and poison children” has not exactly led to a healthy city, county, state or federal economy…has it? Or does even raising this question reveal that a pro-rail, patient-advocating physician like me really wants to kill the planet and poison children (including my own two children)?
And so we march into another election cycle. Liberals feel betrayed by Obama. Conservatives feel betrayed by Romney. Twenty years after the LA Riots, do individuals yet feel truly economically-empowered and enabled by their political leaders who claim to “represent” minorities or the “mainstream”, or who use Conflationary language like “agree with me or you’re a racist/radical/right-wing wacko/leftie (fill in your favorite Conflating moniker here)
Of particular note is that the dictionary synonyms of “Conflate” are listed as “confuse, confound, mistake, mix (up)”, and the antonyms are listed as “difference, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, separate” … which means that we can continue to confuse, confound, mistake and mix up through continued Conflation.
Or we can do the opposite, which is not to wage a debate by telling the other side to “shut up or leave the city or state if you don’t like it”. We can avoid our modern-day McCarthyism by recognizing the need to address complex, two-sided issues for what they are: complicated and two-sided (or even three- or four-sided).
Just don’t Conflate our region as “open-minded” because we’re “liberal”, any more than we should Conflate other regions as “moral” because they’re “conservative”. To do otherwise would merely prove that modern-day McCarthyism is alive and well in our Golden State and in our City of the Angels.
(Ken Alpern is a former Boardmember of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Vice Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at [email protected]. He also co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.) –cw
Tags: Ken Alpern, Alpern at Large, conflation, Occupy Movement, Tea Party, May Day
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 36
Pub: May 4, 2012
