The case for righteous anger as a force for good

I felt like this a whole lot during the Bush era. I wish I had been this articulate about it, then. The Virtues of Public Anger and the Need for More, by Glenn Greenwald, in Salon. "The public rage we're finally seeing is long, long overdue, and appears to be the only force with both the ability and will to impose meaningful checks on continued kleptocratic pillaging and deep-seated corruption in virtually every branch of our establishment institutions. Obviously, mass rage can entail its own excesses and, and if unchecked, can lead to mob rule, a form of majoritarian tyranny. ... But we are far, far, far away from the point where unchecked public sentiment plays too great of a role in how our political institutions function. Rather: we're a country that, for the last decade, acquiesced meekly and quietly as our Government transferred huge amounts of national wealth to a tiny elite; launched a devastating war based on purely false pretenses; tortured, spied on us and literally claimed the right to invalidate law and the Constitution; and turned itself over to the highest bidders. The overarching question is not: why is there so much public rage? The overarching question is: why has there been so little? A political establishment that can function without any fear of the citizenry will inevitably trample on its interests. The only thing that disappoints me about the current public outrage over the AIG (and other) bonuses is that we would choose, as a people, to let the amorality of the Bush administration cruise by for eight years without getting our hackles well and truly up. We'd only get really, really ticked off only when we was our pocket money stolen by bullies. Better late, and even petty, than never. ...