Hi I’m Yankee McYeehaw. My government assistance during the pandemic consists of $1200 and a dick pic while congress passes a $740 billion annual military budget and trillions are funneled to giant corporations, so obviously I’m very very angry at Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
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Opposing the most destructive behaviors of the most powerful government on earth should not be an unusual and controversial position.
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Arguments for western interventionism always remind me of the beginning of Edward Scissorhands when he’s trying to move around the suburban house and make things right but he keeps destroying everything with those horrible scissor hands because they’re not designed for helping, they’re designed for cutting.
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Billionaires are just thieves who commit state-approved thievery.
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Damn lefties just want a bunch of free stuff, like for neoliberalism to stop crushing them and for billionaires to stop stealing their stuff.
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You don’t need any talent or skills to obtain extreme wealth, just find a way to insert yourself as an unnecessary middleman between consumers and talented/skillful people and then siphon off most of the profits.
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Any system which allows people with wealth/power to have more influence over news media, ideas and information than ordinary people will always necessarily lead to authoritarianism. If you want actual equality and freedom, you need to fully democratize all narrative control.
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Things won’t change for the better unless the people use the power of their numbers to force that change.
That won’t happen as long as people are propagandized.
People will remain propagandized until something fundamentally shifts in their collective relationship with narrative.
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Not to be a buzzkill but everything’s changing at an increasingly accelerating rate and all the stuff we’re arguing with each other about right now will soon be moot and forgotten.
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I’ve been accused of being a propagandist for the governments of Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, North Korea, and the USA, as well as for the Palestinians, George Soros, the alt-right, and Antifa. I guess I should take it as a compliment that I’ve been so effective using nothing but social media, a website and a Patreon account that people assume I have to be a secret agent of some sort.
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My stuff is republished by so many different outlets in so many different languages every day that I have no idea what my reach even is anymore, but it’s definitely decent. All because I started saying anyone can republish my work for free. Other indie media should take a serious look at this approach.
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With China I simply apply the same scrutiny of establishment narratives using the exact same standards I apply to narratives about other nations, and people are like “Oh no Caitlin don’t do that with China, just believe what you’re told.” Kiss my ass you brainwashed morons.
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Famous people for whom the status quo has worked out unusually well play a disproportionate and distorting role in shaping public opinion about the status quo.
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The worst atrocities in the world have not been the result of anger but by cold, calculated decisions. Never let anyone shame you out of your outrage.
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I get more insight and information just scrolling through the comments on my online posts than from blue checkmarked journos with hundreds of thousands of followers. The idea that we need any special class of people to inform us about the world is unfounded elitist bullshit.
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The British empire never ended, it just changed business plans and moved its corporate office across the pond.
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We’re hurtling toward extinction via climate collapse or nuclear armageddon and these assholes have us arguing about masks and cancel culture.
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Someone who truly knows something will be able to tell you clearly and concisely what they know and how they know it. Someone who just feels they know something will bloviate about how much more they know than you and how much more research you need to do to know what they know.
It’s easy to marinate in certain echo chambers for so long that you come away feeling like you know certain things to be true, without being able to clearly and concisely say what you know and how you know it. Religion works the same way. That’s not learning, it’s indoctrination.
This happens everywhere from economics to Russiagate to QAnon. People pretend they know something but get flustered when you ask them to say clearly and concisely what they know and how they know it. They end up giving you a bunch of homework saying “Well you need to read/watch X Y and Z to understand,” which is really just another way of saying “Well you kinda have to marinate in it.” They don’t know.
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Spiritual practices don’t cause enlightenment, you actually wake up from the meditator, the inquirer, the seeker etc and see the whole seeking game was always a complete illusion. Mass-scale awakening will be the same; we’ll be busy with revolution and fighting and pushing and refuting, and the illusions will just fall away.
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Look thoroughly at the world and you’ll gain a very pessimistic view of humanity’s future.
Look thoroughly within and you’ll gain a very optimistic view of humanity’s future.
Do both and you’ll know that humanity is crazy, but you were once crazy too.
And that change is possible.
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Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics onTwitter, checking out my podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, following me on Steemit, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my books Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.
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41 responses to “Yankee McYeehaw: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix”
A new video from Russell Brand today, “How I Stop OTHER PEOPLE Driving Me CRAZY!!!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbDg0AQnSTw
(9 minutes long)
Seems relevant to this discussion, and other Caitlin pieces on dealing with your inner stuff. I love Russell Brand. In this video he’s very open about his own struggles with keeping cool when dealing with people who are hard to deal with.
“I get more insight and information just scrolling through the comments…”
Me too.
Here’s some:
https://youtu.be/7_yh4-Zi92Q
(part 6 is where we are now)
http://thirdworldtraveler.com/
(e.g., site map > North Africa page > Libya > Qaddafi vs New World Order*)
https://williamblum.org/books/killing-hope
*research ‘great man-made river project’ to learn really why he’s gone.
This video from StormCloudsGathering is pretty relevant today, given the rioting and looting: https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=llUfFIYsiSg
Haven’t even read this article, just thought this is important to share.
That first graf sez it all !
Keep on stirring the pot and adding tasty stuff to the marvelous bouilebaise you are cooking on this site, and more and more hungry for truth seekers will be attracted!
“Billionaires are just thieves who commit state-approved thievery.”
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Ask most people it they want a billion dollars and most will say YES. Then ask them, will you accept a billion dollars if you know it’s stolen money? Then watch them get nervous and see them squirm while calculating the odds in their head.
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“You don’t need any talent or skills to obtain extreme wealth, just find a way to insert yourself as an unnecessary middleman between consumers and talented/skillful people and then siphon off most of the profits.”
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That system has worked very well in the recording industry for years. Many artists got pennies while others reaped a fortune off them.
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“Not to be a buzzkill but everything’s changing at an increasingly accelerating rate and all the stuff we’re arguing with each other about right now will soon be moot and forgotten.”
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We’ll still be arguing? Nice to know we don’t have to give up EVERYTHING.
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“Look thoroughly at the world and you’ll gain a very pessimistic view of humanity’s future. Look thoroughly within and you’ll gain a very optimistic view of humanity’s future. Do both and you’ll know that humanity is crazy, but you were once crazy too. And that change is possible.”
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It is said that the outside world is a reflection of one’s inner world. Since this is true, a lot of people must have inner worlds that are really effed up.
Awesomesauce!!!,
…
Love it,
…
Cut,
…
Print,
…
Perfect,
…
Dear US Regime (and little friends),
…
Please stop shooting us and stealing all of our shit,
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Thank You,
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Planet Earth and all of her inhabitants,
…
Again,
…
Still,
…
As long as people continue to believe that someone has authority to hold a gun to another’s head, and force them to do this or not do that, such will ever be the case. There are plenty of psychopaths around to seek that authority, which they are abundantly pleased to do, and will do. The only legitimate instance one should impose that authority is to keep their neighbor from attempting to do so to them. Such power in the hands of psychopaths will ever end the same. With a government that proposes to “protect” us, when nothing could be further from the truth. Compared to the atrocity of government, common criminals are merely an inconvenience. It matters not what form that government takes, socialist, fascist, monarchy, democracy, whatever, they all end up the same. Psychopaths In Charge.
So, how can we stop psychopaths from getting power? We know how to identify them, and I think that a computer program can be written to keep them from power. This is a long way off, I think, but some sort of objective test of a person’s fitness to have power would be a good idea. Bob Altemeyer’s research would be a good place to start: theauthoritarians.com.
You only know how to identify them per some party’s definition. Who controls the definition? In the Stalin era of the USSR, psychology was weaponized to favor the state’s tyranny. The only escape is to realize that anyone who thinks they have a moral authority to hold a gun to someone’s head and force them to acquiesce to that morality is a monster, and must be rejected. We can govern ourselves or be governed by monsters.
Politicians may be psychopaths, but they’re not in power. The real power is invisible. It doesn’t matter which puppet is installed via our rigged system. Our “elected” marionettes are managed, manipulated, threatened, rewarded… whatever it takes for control.
The real question should be, how do we expose the hidden controllers? Once revealed, victory is inevitable.
Ms Johnstone pours her heart and soul into her work and that is priceless. She is interested in ” spreading the word ” on the Internet as are many others who also give reprint permission to everyone. May the Heavens Bless you, Ms Johnstone.
Cait, with the greatest respect, you keep banging on about narrative. Why?
Narrative itself is the problem.
Narrative isn’t real. Facts are real. Narrative is something made up to explain the facts, or make us feel bad or good about the facts, or to ignore them or twist them.
We don’t need to change the narrative. We need to destroy it once and for all.
Examining the facts, putting them in context, adding perspective: this is real.
Narrative isn’t real.
Cool narrative bro.
Ha bloody ha!
(Love your work tho)
The real problem is not in opening our eyes and giving up one’s craziness. I did that years ago. Where the true difficulty lies is that the crazier most people are , the more insecure and the grater they hate. Far too often our words fall not on crazy ears, but on one’s deaf to logic and understanding and, when the proof is offered, they continue to not care, nor to even attempt understanding. Like two-rear olds throwing tantrums, they want what they want what they want. Invariably, some off to the side, those who don’t know but are willing to listen, will attempt understanding and many will succeed. But the deeply entrenched crazies have no desire to learn the truth, so take their craziness back to their families and infect them with the craziness disease. In some ways, that disease is a far greater danger than COVID-19.
Sorry for typos. Sometimes I miss them when proofreading due to vision issue. Examples here:
‘grater’ should have been ‘greater’
‘ two-rear olds’ should have been ‘two-year olds’
ha ha I like two rear-olds, its the perfect description of how we are trapped in childhood.
I respect and appreciate your shared journey of discovery and making sense out of the chaos.
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Most have yet to understand the challenge is not so much getting somewhere, be it individually or as a group, but achieving the inner realization that as individuals we’re already there.
“An all American bullet headed Saxon mother’s son” to quote John Lennon Mr Mc Yeehaw ? A meme done to death since the 1960s
“The British empire never ended, it just changed business plans and moved its corporate office across the pond.”
The Empah took over the USA as soon as FDR died.
Excerpt from FDR’s son’s book “The Way He Saw It”:
Father [FDR] started it.
“Of course,” he remarked, with a sly sort of assurance, “of course, after the war, one of the preconditions of any lasting peace will have to be the greatest possible freedom of trade.”
He paused. The P.M.’s [Churchill’s] head was lowered; he was watching Father steadily, from under one eyebrow.
“No artificial barriers,” Father pursued. “As few favored economic agreements as possible. Opportunities for expansion. Markets open for healthy competition.” His eye wandered innocently around the room.
Churchill shifted in his armchair. “The British Empire trade agreements,” he began heavily, “are–”
Father broke in. “Yes. Those Empire trade agreements are a case in point. It’s because of them that the people of India and Africa, of all the colonial Near East and Far East, are still as backward as they are.”
Churchill’s neck reddened and he crouched forward. “Mr. President, England does not propose for a moment to lose its favored position among the British Do-minions. The trade that has made England great shall continue, and under conditions prescribed by England’s ministers.”
“You see,” said Father slowly, “it is along in here somewhere that there is likely to be some disagreement between you, Winston, and me.
“I am firmly of the belief that if we are to arrive at a stable peace it must involve the development of backward countries. Backward peoples. How can this be done? It can’t be done, obviously, by eighteenth-century methods. Now-”
“Who’s talking eighteenth-century methods?”
“Whichever of your ministers recommends a policy which takes wealth in raw materials out of a colonial country, but which returns nothing to the people of that country in consideration. Twentieth-century methods involve bringing industry to these colonies. Twentieth-century methods include increasing the wealth of a people by increasing their standard of living, by educating them, by bringing them sanitation-by making sure that they get a return for the raw wealth of their community.”
Around the room, all of us were leaning forward attentively. [Harry] Hopkins [a major FDR adviser] was grinning. Commander [C. R.] Thompson, Churchill’s aide, was looking glum and alarmed. The P.M. himself was beginning to look apoplectic.
“You mentioned India,” he growled.
“Yes. I can’t believe that we can fight a war against fascist slavery, and at the same time not work to free people all over the world from a backward colonial policy”
“What about the Philippines?”
“I’m glad you mentioned them. They get their independence, you know, in 1946. And they’ve gotten modern sanitation, modern education; their rate of illiteracy has gone steadily down
“There can be no tampering with the Empire’s economic agreements.”
“They’re artificial …”
“They’re the foundation of our greatness.”
“The peace,” said Father firmly, “cannot include any continued despotism. The structure of the peace demands and will get equality of peoples. Equality of peoples involves the utmost freedom of competitive trade. . .”
It was after two in the morning when finally the British party said their good nights. I helped Father into his cabin, and sat down to smoke a last cigarette with him.
Father grunted. “A real old Tory, isn’t he? A real old Tory, of the old school.”
“I thought for a minute he was going to bust, Pop.”
“Oh,” he smiled, “I’ll be able to work with him. Don’t worry about that. We’ll get along famously.”
“So long as you keep off the subject of India.”
“Mmm, I don’t know. I think we’ll even talk some more about India, before we’re through. And Burma. And Java. And Indo-China. And Indonesia. And all the African colonies. And Egypt and Palestine. We’ll talk about ’em all.”
I might add that JFK was thinking along the sames lines when the Empire’s assassination bureau murdered him.
Small correction. Title is “As he saw it.” Thanks for the reference. Few people understand, as Caitlin apparently does, that the British co-opted our government long ago.
You mean that British Whore, named the Queen? Oh yeah, she is a bucket of shit isn’t she?
Caitlin, please do the math yourself:
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=1941
Don’t repeat the low figure the public relations specialists repeat.
every body hates: i went to a skit bar the few months ago. one year before the virus.
i sign up to read and sing. what i do. i dance and whilstle too. i’m a clown. i sit next to ablack guy. say hi. he says hi with a off kilter Brit accent. where ya from? Nigeria. cool. i go.
whadya do? i’m a comedian. yer funny. he goes yeah.
next week i get there late. i’m standing next to another black guy. i say hi. he goes hi. whadya. do?
i play guitar. he got a white date. she nice. she sticks her hand out. i saw yo last time.
she goes. cool. i go i notice yer accent to him. Nigeria? yeah. i wonder you know this other guy. nah. i’ll introduce you. ain’t that many Nigers in heah. what tribe?
uh, i dunno. what’re you? Ibo. HE WAS TALL. Ai asked him how you tell. he says well, you can’t but we look at the face–certain things. i said knowing the animosity that i would find out. i slide though the crowd and tapped the guy from the week before. say what tribe are you . Yoruba. why? good, i think. i met this guy from Lagos, right? yep. OK. He Ibo. where?
back there. witht the white chick. she makes him somewhat cool. i laughs. i meet him.
i go back and say Yoruba. you let him live? they cool.
so i start thinking about all this f—ing white folk stuff floating thick about now…in USA.
while the Hutus hate the Tutsi, and the Ibo hate the Hausa. Hindus hate the Moslems. and evil pouts it poison via Mugabe, Obiang, Obesanjo, qaddafi (who at least had some good ideas) and we killed Lumumba, da Q , Allende, Attempted on Lula, Rousseff, Morales…er al….while letting Papa and Baby Docs set the perfect US approved standards for democracy. nice job in Libya–why did not vote for Hellery, was actually Honduras, who elected a demo socialist pres just like Bernie named Zelaya….by kidnapping via what he says 200 heavy Hondurqan troops a couple choppers, US, and and a C-130 to San Jose tarmac at 4 AM with his kids cryin’ and wife screamin.
and yer telling me AMerdRica’s problem is hate. OMG. we got law. we got order here.
other places they just kill ya. and yer kids. humanity got hate. we might not be worthit to Gaia anymore. we might have to disappear to save Life itself on this Planet. what would you do if you were Mother Earth and yer lil grrrl kept running home crying. she losing like 1,000 forms of life each year. Her toys are being crushed by our stupid war machines and vendettas.
we could be curious about how others live, eat pray sing dance…what they think….instead we instinctively hate the others everywhere.
and bad boyz do not help the matter very much when they rob and shoot and steal and rape and join gangs who live a death wish….by ignorance and by hopelessness.
capital.
ain’t got none. thanks Cait. i might read this next time on our zoom…from frisco
Thanks for making me nod and smile. Please keep it up.
Yes keep it up…yer good.
Well it’s more like you go within and see what you are and have always been until they forced you into various cognitive straitjackets, and programmed the shit INTO us. You’re still THERE, so somehow we gotta get the ‘T’ off ‘THERE’ so we can be ‘HERE’ and ‘THERE’ more consciously at the same time, then dare them to look us in the ‘I’.
Or do we get the ‘T’ into ‘HERE?’ OR BOTH?
xx
Your reach has extended not because you allow republishing rights for free, but because your thoughts and articulation are excellent.
YeeeHawwww. Caity nails it again. educate… keep on … (repeat).
The article mentioned that “Someone who truly knows something will be able to tell you clearly and concisely what they know and how they know it”. This is what I always struggle with. When I really think about it I’m not 100% certain about anything. I get virtually all of my information from secondary sources and in the rare instance when I get access to an alleged primary source I don’t have the skill sets to determine if it is legitimate (i.e. was that video footage real or was it generated?). Many have lied or been wrong for so long it is difficult to trust anyone or any historical source. I try to vet most sources but this has limits. I generally gravitate towards authors that I find to be intellectually honest and have been able to predict outcomes but they can be wrong or their motivations can change. In addition, I have to be careful I don’t fall into the trap of confirmation bias.
In this day of the battle of the experts (or actors) it is confusing. Lawyers would typically deal with this issue by attacking the credibility of the opposing party and calling a higher volume of experts. Scientists would, to the extent possible, use the Scientific Method. Both methods mentioned above a largely unavailable to me. I generally try to educate myself on the issue and come to my own conclusion but due to limited amounts of time I can’t research every issue in a timely basis. I believe a couple of professors in a California institution of higher learning were offering some classes on how to vet sources but I have never been able to find them. How are others dealing with this issue?
Lost!
Watch for patterns of behaviour.
Watch how information is processed by various sources.
While I think things are becoming clearer, as to the billionaires being primarily responsible for the majority of the challenges we face, this is often how I feel. Thanks for the honesty. It’s refreshing.
`
To me, one of the primary rules of problem solving is not being afraid to admit that I don’t know. Challenges rarely, if ever, get solved by pretending to know.
Sounds to me like you have figured out some important stuff. Almost nothing can be known for 100% certain. That knowledge itself is priceless. You have described a whole lot of strategies for discerning fact from falsehood, and by implication you have some self-understanding about what you know and what you don’t know. You’re already ahead of the pack.
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A good line to use is “I don’t know”. That’s usually true. You can also be factual and honest by saying things like “I have read ..”, “This person says ..” and so on. If you have doubts, you can say “I wonder if..”, “It seems to me..”, “I believe..”, “It’s possible..” and so on. (Some people think these are weasel-words. I don’t care. To me these phrases have precise and useful meanings.)
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All you need to do is lay out the alleged evidence and the alleged reasoning. You don’t need to proclaim “This is true and I stake my life on it”, just explain how your thinking goes.
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In terms of vetting sources, I think it’s safe to assume anything might be false and anyone might be mistaken. Like a prospector, just keep looking for the bits of gold (you’ll know it when you see it). If a source turns out to be trustworthy and reliably informative, that makes it easier. They can still be mistaken. Trust your instincts. Trust your own thinking. It’s probably as good as anyone else’s.
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To get what Caitlin is talking about, read through some of the past comments and find examples. People who “.. bloviate about how much more they know than you .. end up giving you a bunch of homework saying “Well you need to read/watch X Y and Z to understand,””
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(Personally, I don’t mind so much if someone rattles on and on. Either there is something to think about or I just skip to the next comment. I also don’t mind if links are given. It’s just that providing a link is not as convincing as saying it there and then. Also, often I’m interesting in the ideas and the world-views rather than trying to figure out if it’s “true” or not.)
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“being able to clearly and concisely say what you know and how you know it. ” .. a good start is understanding what you don’t know. It’s okay to not know stuff. I can still remember when I didn’t know stuff.
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One final thought. Factual is not the same as useful and meaningful.
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You are not lost. The place you are seeking doesn’t really exist.
I had a similar response to Caitlin’s statement. I feel pretty confident I’m right about a number of things, like Russiagate being a hoax, and Julian Assange being an oppressed hero. I remember a lot of facts about a lot of things, but every day there’s new things getting churned into my memory. I generally don’t have a chance to have a civil conversation with anyone who disagrees with me on these type of things, but when I do, it comes out of the blue, months after I last familiarized myself with the details. Then they demand I support my position on the spot without any notes. Even if I could remember the exact detail that would be relevant to the other person, it makes no sense to them without context. They can only get context from something like reading a long, well-researched article like Aaron Maté’s series on Russiagate, but of course they always refuse to look at any article or video I suggest. I can understand this, since I don’t take “homework” assignments from randos on the Internet, but I get the same refusal to look at independent sources from my closest real-life relationships, which has left me profoundly discouraged.
Maybe the difference with what Caitlin referred to is that you and I don’t go around Twitter obnoxiously announcing our superiority? I suppose I do sometimes get obnoxious and allow myself some emotional venting towards a platform I believe is distorted by partisanship, like Common Dreams. Shouting at a platform that never shows signs of listening is like shouting at the wind. I don’t feel I need to use my usual civility filters. When it’s one on one, I try to either take the time to be civil and look up my facts, or acknowledge I don’t have the time or patience and walk away.
I thought Glen’s response to you above was a good one. Basically, if you want to engage with someone seriously, approach them with humility. You seem like you already do that.
Hey, I have a homework link for you! Just kidding… your screen name inspired a musical interlude in my head, so I offer this great song:
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Lost by Coldplay
“Just because I’m losing
Doesn’t mean I’m lost”
…
On a related subject, America’s problem is not systematic racism–it is hate that is part of our dna. Racism is just one manifestation of this hate.
People are not marbles. You cannot expect to mix up a mixture of races. Cultures and religions and expect them to get along. People feel most comfortable with those who they identify. Immigration is not a problem. Rapid mmigration without assimilation is a problem. Only one culture can dominate a group of people for maximum peace and harmony. America is becoming fragmented along many different lines, education, financial, politically and culture. It must fragment unless maximum force is applied to the polulace similar to the USSR. Bad times ahead.
Yes! A solution to our fragmentation might be free education for everybody. Education broadens a person and gives them some humility when they realize how little any of us know. Humility is the basis of understanding.
My fifth grade teacher hounded my family for many years to send me into the ” priesthood ” because I was a peacemaker that never let the hatred take over my heart and soul. Moi is very right; the ” hatred ” inside the United States public is very real and very violent. There are lots of human beings here that can not survive without their intense hatred running their entire lives 24/7
Spot on, MOI. I’ve recently discovered a previously unknown depth of hatred from my supposedly liberal friends (all gonna vote Biden). I’ve been put down in no uncertain fascistic terms & forbidden to dare to say anything outside the “liberal” narrative. Really discouraging…