I believe you are describing the process of becoming self aware. I also believe the “anti-woke” campaign is basically just another vein of the war on the consciousness movement.
“The good news is that the first step in getting better is admitting there’s a problem.” Hello, my name is [insert your name here], I was born into a world not of my choosing and I have been programmed. I started the process a few decades ago.
The good news is, you can reprogram yourself. It’s wonderful and continuous.
While I agree with your overall position and arguments, I would point to 2 caveats.
While the Democratic party is shambolic, there is simply no option but to vote a straight Democratic ticket in November.
This is not an endorsement of an assortment of hapless politicians or an absent vision for the future...it's a necessity to ward off a fascist regime that will destroy our future. My personal disgust at Biden's foreign policy and innumerable missed domestic opportunities is irrelevant. The very least we all can do is vote against dictatorial rule at every level.
Second is the reality that Americans aren't all that interested in our poltical system. A tiny fraction of a percent are actively engaged in GOTV efforts, running for office, or volunteering to help candidates. Until this changes, public officials won't feel pressured to challenge the status quo.
This is an awesome dispatch. The letter writer really nailed the description of stepping outside the matrix. And your response points to many ways the fake “reality” is spun, by whom, and why.
There is so much to humanity, and the earth.
The people at the top need us to ignore our potential, go along with the program. So they spend ungodly money to influence us to accept the unacceptable: a life where we increasingly walk in smaller and smaller circles until our bodies or minds give out.
That is grim shit. But it isn’t the only reality.
We need to grow our ranks and interfere with the processes that are destroying our lives and our world!
There's people out there that think that if they vote Trump, their lives will continue to go on as usual, under democracy. This is a really ignorant way to think. The only way it will, is if they vote for democracy, if they vote for Biden.
God, another dose of ipecac here, but better to have it out in the open than churning my upper GI tract. Not surprisingly, Jared, the same toxicity is unraveling the church I've attended the past ten years, too; unraveling at the local, diocesan and national levels (the Episcopal Church of the US)*. More on that later. But, in parallel, a story I've told my church's leadership about the job ahead (politely listened to at the annual retreat), a metaphor, stems from one of the Stephen Ambrose stories from Easy Company. A hedgerow in Normandy, a frightened private, a zen-like squad leader rounding up strays, that ends with this lesson: "We're all scared, Blithe, because you think there's still hope we'll all get out of this. But Blithe, there's no hope for that, and the sooner you understand that we were all dead men the minute we stepped on to those planes, the sooner you can just do your job."
I'm thinking "our job", as you've said, is to vote, (as hw wrote here), to not just shrug and accept in advance, as Timothy Snyder's written for years, and to clearly and firmly live so as not to keep feeding the Machine; and, to quit hoping there's some institution going to save us; and,
To provide living, walking, talking alternatives to this growing madness. I routinely point out your observations to others: that the dysfunction and hypocrisy ARE the point, that this all serves the people Jane Mayer wrote about years ago, and that even "our side" on the television is just engaging in the scrapping out of what's left of the country as infotainment, and turning it into money.
A recommendation: we've seen three episodes of PBS' recent documentary on the rise of national socialism during the last century. It's startlingly relevant. It's well produced. It's hair-raisingly prescient. I suspect there's some real intent with the timing of production and release, and it's particularly effective.
Thanks for your work, and I've recently acquired a taste for modest bourbon. I'll endeavor to join in some time.
Tim Long, Just up the Hill from Lock 15
*PS: the national church leadership seems to be subtly telling us that doing "the work we've been given to do" doesn't entail the sustenance of "organized religion" and its grand services and buildings. "Organized Religion" is at least as funny to say as "military intelligence" when you've been in the front pew awhile.
I resonate with so much of what you wrote here, and it reminded me of Richard Rohr’s quote: “the truth shall set you free…but first it will make you miserable”
The piece of flotsam that this particular drowning man clings to is that we still do have elections, and elections are mostly determined by who gets the most votes (yeah, I am aware of the Electoral College, thanks) and a party that displays open contempt for what most people need or want is less likely to get the most votes. You can tell me I'm all wrong when Trump wins in November.
You got it right when you said we are looking for solutions so we could feel comfortable with what's going on in political leadership so we can go back to ignoring it. I'm in shock also by how much we were only the shining city by comparison to other horrible countries. I never bought how clean our hands were but the truth is a slap in the face.
I see the world is a scary place but we can ask Biden for the change we need. Demand he expand the Supreme Court now, get rid of the trump appointees left all over his administration, especially the head of the FBI and the fed chair. He needs to step up if he wants to be a leader we can get excited about.
I believe you are describing the process of becoming self aware. I also believe the “anti-woke” campaign is basically just another vein of the war on the consciousness movement.
“The good news is that the first step in getting better is admitting there’s a problem.” Hello, my name is [insert your name here], I was born into a world not of my choosing and I have been programmed. I started the process a few decades ago.
The good news is, you can reprogram yourself. It’s wonderful and continuous.
Thanks Jared.
While I agree with your overall position and arguments, I would point to 2 caveats.
While the Democratic party is shambolic, there is simply no option but to vote a straight Democratic ticket in November.
This is not an endorsement of an assortment of hapless politicians or an absent vision for the future...it's a necessity to ward off a fascist regime that will destroy our future. My personal disgust at Biden's foreign policy and innumerable missed domestic opportunities is irrelevant. The very least we all can do is vote against dictatorial rule at every level.
Second is the reality that Americans aren't all that interested in our poltical system. A tiny fraction of a percent are actively engaged in GOTV efforts, running for office, or volunteering to help candidates. Until this changes, public officials won't feel pressured to challenge the status quo.
This is an awesome dispatch. The letter writer really nailed the description of stepping outside the matrix. And your response points to many ways the fake “reality” is spun, by whom, and why.
There is so much to humanity, and the earth.
The people at the top need us to ignore our potential, go along with the program. So they spend ungodly money to influence us to accept the unacceptable: a life where we increasingly walk in smaller and smaller circles until our bodies or minds give out.
That is grim shit. But it isn’t the only reality.
We need to grow our ranks and interfere with the processes that are destroying our lives and our world!
There's people out there that think that if they vote Trump, their lives will continue to go on as usual, under democracy. This is a really ignorant way to think. The only way it will, is if they vote for democracy, if they vote for Biden.
God, another dose of ipecac here, but better to have it out in the open than churning my upper GI tract. Not surprisingly, Jared, the same toxicity is unraveling the church I've attended the past ten years, too; unraveling at the local, diocesan and national levels (the Episcopal Church of the US)*. More on that later. But, in parallel, a story I've told my church's leadership about the job ahead (politely listened to at the annual retreat), a metaphor, stems from one of the Stephen Ambrose stories from Easy Company. A hedgerow in Normandy, a frightened private, a zen-like squad leader rounding up strays, that ends with this lesson: "We're all scared, Blithe, because you think there's still hope we'll all get out of this. But Blithe, there's no hope for that, and the sooner you understand that we were all dead men the minute we stepped on to those planes, the sooner you can just do your job."
I'm thinking "our job", as you've said, is to vote, (as hw wrote here), to not just shrug and accept in advance, as Timothy Snyder's written for years, and to clearly and firmly live so as not to keep feeding the Machine; and, to quit hoping there's some institution going to save us; and,
To provide living, walking, talking alternatives to this growing madness. I routinely point out your observations to others: that the dysfunction and hypocrisy ARE the point, that this all serves the people Jane Mayer wrote about years ago, and that even "our side" on the television is just engaging in the scrapping out of what's left of the country as infotainment, and turning it into money.
A recommendation: we've seen three episodes of PBS' recent documentary on the rise of national socialism during the last century. It's startlingly relevant. It's well produced. It's hair-raisingly prescient. I suspect there's some real intent with the timing of production and release, and it's particularly effective.
Thanks for your work, and I've recently acquired a taste for modest bourbon. I'll endeavor to join in some time.
Tim Long, Just up the Hill from Lock 15
*PS: the national church leadership seems to be subtly telling us that doing "the work we've been given to do" doesn't entail the sustenance of "organized religion" and its grand services and buildings. "Organized Religion" is at least as funny to say as "military intelligence" when you've been in the front pew awhile.
I resonate with so much of what you wrote here, and it reminded me of Richard Rohr’s quote: “the truth shall set you free…but first it will make you miserable”
The piece of flotsam that this particular drowning man clings to is that we still do have elections, and elections are mostly determined by who gets the most votes (yeah, I am aware of the Electoral College, thanks) and a party that displays open contempt for what most people need or want is less likely to get the most votes. You can tell me I'm all wrong when Trump wins in November.
You got it right when you said we are looking for solutions so we could feel comfortable with what's going on in political leadership so we can go back to ignoring it. I'm in shock also by how much we were only the shining city by comparison to other horrible countries. I never bought how clean our hands were but the truth is a slap in the face.
I see the world is a scary place but we can ask Biden for the change we need. Demand he expand the Supreme Court now, get rid of the trump appointees left all over his administration, especially the head of the FBI and the fed chair. He needs to step up if he wants to be a leader we can get excited about.