"That justice is a blind goddess is a fact to which we Blacks are wise; her blindfold hides two festering sores that once, perhaps, were eyes." Langston Hughes
I read your ten questions several times and concluded that honest answers could only come from those who acknowledge their responsibility for all the shit that has gone on in the past and continues today. We are here now and dumbass answers like “I didn’t own slaves” or “I wasn’t here then” make you part of a continuing problem. All of those things occurred and continue because we accept them and prove our approval of them by electing boneheads certain to add to the problems.
Here we are preparing to elect another racist rapist. Yes, another one for Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner, racist and rapist. He was chosen instead of a man who was an abolitionist and feminist. Admittedly, he was "elected" after 36 ballots in the House of Representatives. Obviously, this is not a new behavior for us. It was reflected from our beginning and whatever change comes will be difficult for many to swallow.
In some ways, I was lucky. My grandparents were Cuba and Spanish. The Spanish have a poor record related to slavery and Cubans were enslaved for a time. I attended all-white schools and visited many facilities with colored restrooms. I never liked it, but I accepted it. That makes me part of the problem. My luck is that my father was a hardass, a genuine ball buster who no one messed with, and his rage wasn’t reserved for any color. I never heard him use the N word. During my youth, he partnered with a black man who was also in construction. They built many homes together, and they were friends. I don’t mean business convenience friends, but family dinner together friends. Eventually, the partnership broke up, but color was never an issue. Looking back, I realize my father had little concept of race. If you got on his wrong side, there was hell to pay no matter your color.
As a hardass, he naturally raised a hardass and some of the turmoil between us scared some family members and neither of us gave a damn. I went to work with him at age twelve and he was a taskmaster. We had many verbal battles and sometimes work sites cleared because some believed we might come to blows. That never happened, and I learned much from him, but we never discussed anyone’s color or ancestry and those were valuable lessons I still value.
To answer even one of the questions you posed, we need the decency to put race behind us. I would like to believe that’s possible, but as long as we keep celebrating assholes, there’s not much chance.
Sorry I can't cross-examine you. I think you proved your case beyond a shadow of a doubt. But sitting in the jury box, I can provide you with my deliberations.
Question One.
Who (white) did not “horrible institution and you did not benefit from it” except the black man who did not need to be enslaved to “benefit” from slavery, seems he was benefiting himself just fine before he was enslaved.
But to your question the white man benefited from slavery whether he “owned” black men or not, and still benefits today by believing in his superiority—kind of an answer to multiple questions.
Question Two.
Reparations? Reparations must require more than money. More than an apology (q1). It seems to me reparations require a complete transformation and abolition of the apartheid state of mind. Seems to be reparations only will occur when the man (maybe all white men) are imprisoned for that state of mind.
Question Three.
When God is invoked, seems to be that that is an invocation of hunting license against others (especially melanic People.)
Question Four..
All men are created differently but should have equal power as individuals within the state. Nothing creates inequality more than the statement “all men are created equal”.And as for the (supposed) author in the Dec. of Independence q.5 answers he knew he was making stuff up he didn’t believe.
Question Five.
The question unasked why did Thomas Jefferson like to have sex with smelly, ugly black woman?’ Or better he did answer it, black women suffer less deeply than white women when they’re raped. Of course they might have tried to hold in their suffering more because if they led out they had suffered, their child might have had his head placed on the chopping block.
Question Six:
Well I can’t answer that question, but the question answers multiple other questions.In fact all of the questions illustrate the point of the post, don’t they.?
Question Seven.
American Exceptionalism means America Alone Is Excepted from being humane to others,
Question Eight.
Been trying to answer the Jew question for a long time. Maybe it was just to get them the hell out of Europe. Another question is that brown and black skinned Sephardic Jews are the majority of the Israeli Jewish population. Why do we never see their pictures, only ever seen white Israelis. But the their lives really don’t matter anymore than Black Lives Matter in America.
Question Nine.
A little unfair. Europeans have never been overly shy about killing each other, but they do unite in multi-national harmony to kill others not European. The real answer might be that to the European NO Lives Matter, but non-European lives matter even less.
Question Ten.
See responses to question three and question seven. Aren’t the chosen ones, after all, the last one picked when choosing sides” The very ones generally left out of the choosing do have a tendency to view their being left out as their being exceptionally special to god because they are exceptionally unspecial in the eyes of their fellow man, and bring about these questions in the first.
So I have a question of my own, how many fields did the slaveowner plow?
I think you answered that in your post “message to a white man.”
Pardon my scattering of responses, but there is a method to the madness, so to speak. I mentioned elsewhere how I cannot get anyone to engage & deeply explore Zionism. Nor can I get anyone to engage & deeply explore the notion that gun control may be rooted in White privilege. I did also mention elsewhere just how deeply denial of reality runs in this nation. Even with Trump getting elected (however that happened) once, I find it shocking that the majority still seem OBLIVIOUS about the volume of "fellow Americans" who not only are armed for war, but the man whom their banking on to make their Dixieland dreams a reality, could in fact become POTUS again, and next time, he will know better than to have ANY person who's sworn an allegiance to 🇺🇸 vs. him/Dixie/white power/etc. in any position that would talk sense/reason, like last time. A few times I've mentioned in the live YouTube chat, Thom should have Killer Mike on the program, not because I necessarily think he's the best spokesperson on the subject, but he absolutely has a legitimate perspective as a black man. I don't think these people even fully understand that all communication is owned by these people...They're busy obsessing about the trees (this channel, that channel) to see the whole forest runs on the same basic infrastructure owned predominantly by the right. So, back to the method of my madness...Zionism, Gun Ownership, Communication Infrastructure owned & operated by White Supremacists, & White Privilege...it's all quite troubling, to say the least, yet there's this same issue of populations who are either comfortably numb (apathetic haves) and other in absolute denial of our cultural realities. Nothing changes the fact that the lowest dreads of society (by that, I mean the people doing the deeds or fulfilling their schadenfreude by persuading others to do these deeds while they get off safely at a distance as voyeurs--every day Trump remains free is a Testament of that) were legitimized & emboldened by the 'King' who would legitimize & help them satiate their bloodlust. These people are ready, willing, and able to fulfill the very thing they claimed to be concerned about. (Refer elsewhere in my comments about projection, fake patriots, Christian frauds). What was perceived as 'paranoia' regarding the gun nut folks, was actually confession & projection. I do indeed see how white privilege has opened the door for genuine monsters to infiltrate every area where there's an opportunity for the strong to prey on the vulnerable vs. citizens filling these spots out of a sense of duty...from police forces to military to schools to nursing homes to slaughterhouses, and yes, politics as well. I see how white privilege could deliver it's own karma & bring the entire thing crashing down & killing up to 50%, perhaps more, of the population. Certainly as soon as everyone felt THEY were safe re: covid, they nolonger cared about masking, distancing, isolating, etc. to ensure the vulnerable who weren't safe & couldn't be safe were protected. In all fairness, one side was happy to use covid as a weapon to kill, but the other side was eager to return to comfortably numb...the passive, enabling kind of participation. So, that's the bad news.
The good news, I also see where people can reflect & examine what they can DO, & suck it up and do whatever they can do as individuals to be their brothers keeper, so to speak. It's really important people DO what they can, no matter how insignificant it may seem. For the second (maybe more?) time, I don't know the actual numbers, but it seems like 99% complain, while 1% DO. If you really care, you have to 1st BE (or at least actively try to be) the change you wish to see in the world. WE could be leading/enacting/inciting positive change vs. complaining in our echo chambers. Everyone CAN make their own impact. Even a homeless hungry person can hold up a sign that begs the question "How is it possible that I'm always hungry in the "greatest" "Christian" country, yet I'm genuinely always hungry?" I don't recommend anyone do that, at least not holding a sign up in public while trying to scrape something together so they can eat & bless anyone with the gonads to do that, but my point is we can all figure out ways we can actually DO things. Worry is unproductive, action is productive. Whatever we can do, we need to be DOING.
While I'm trying to do, I'll still be contemplating why no one is willing to do a deep dive into zionism nor the communication problem nor the gun thing. Few seem ready to admit just how bad things actually are. Reality is frightening, but it's our collective fault through denial & complacency.
10. From my perspective, that's a trait all those who use religion as a WEAPON (Fake Xtians, Fake Muslims, all the poser 'religious' extremists) share. It us absolutely a common thread & they are willing to unleash it upon anyone who dares not fall in line with the angry "rightous" mob. Whom any of them target may vary, yet the basic sentiment remains the same. Now, the cognitive dissonance re the ability to recognize Sharia Law as wrong in Muslim nations, while fully embracing it on US soil, including the white male incels, aka the whole 9 yards, hey... I'm just here bearing witness, shaking my head, trying to figure out how to persuade anyone that everyone needs to be looking in the mirror & making adjustments. People still haven't figured that part out. You can't lead, shine your light, etc. if you aren't LIVING the path. Still, again we're simultaneously trying to improve the human condition when we're raised without the adequate education & tools (logic, empathy) and there simply are no shortcuts. Lately I find myself cursing HRC, who was more concerned about scoring points on who does & doesn't pay, when in fact, many of the people who are in the greatest need of an education ARE the wealthy, who are inflicting a massive amount of pain on others vs. the masses on the receiving end who understand quite well what it feels like being on the receiving end. As for lower castes who wilfully play along with other lies, honestly something else scares me in that what seems so obvious to some, actually isn't obvious to others and basic IQ (for numerous reasons) appears to be declining. We're now also in an era where field experts are becoming extinct & the youth are going to be stuck having to re-invent the wheel. I do indeed mean this in a general sense quite literally, which is only going to add fuel to the power of those willing to use anything as a weapon to satiate their schadenfreude.
#8. THIS has recently stood out like a sore thumb. Specifically the embracing of Zionism by so-called anti-zionists, including Thom Hartmann, whom I believe to be one of the "good guys," yet I've witnessed some cognitive dissonance where he claims to fully support democracy, right up until it encroaches on the Israeli border, which he then flips into full blown defense of Zionism, and I can assure you, I've tried to engage other progressives on the topic & ain't no one interested in having a discussion that goes THAT deep, as not many are willing to do the real work of deeply examining the mores they've adopted. Perhaps out of fear of having to admit that people AREN'T inherently "good," which opens that other can of worms about people who live in denial & lie to themselves.
"The purpose of my doing so was an attempt to see if there were patterns in conduct; a pathology. I have tried to do so through different modalities.
...
Because, nothing says coward as loudly as silence."
Cultures are cults, & ours is indeed illogical & pathological. People lie to themselves daily, believing themselves to be "good" people or "good Christians," & they somehow believe their own lies.
HOW LARGE was the crowd who stood there doing NOTHING as the world witnessed a man MURDER George Floyd IN PUBLIC? FFS, even in the days of legalized slavery, it didn't take rocket scientists to understand the concept of a person OWNING another human being was WRONG.
We all bear witness to the "good" men & women today who continue to stand by doing NOTHING when given opportunities day after day to do the right thing. The RAGING apathy of the haves is a very real sickness. How deeply embedded is this ability to lie to ONESELF? Take, for example, Nancy Pelosi. One Jan. 6, a mob wanted, planned, and attempted to KILL her. Didn't get through. She was on the phone with fellow ENABLER & fake xtian, Mike Pence. Shortly after, a crazed man breaks into her home to KILL her. STILL NOTHING. My point is this sickness of apathy & denial is genuinely pathological, yet it's the freaking NORM. Unfortunately, it's the exception, not the rule of our species to grasp that norms don't define what is "good, healthy, etc." Seems since the creation of our species, there have been sane people perplexed by the behaviors & "values" of the heard. We endure the craziest of things just to survive, yet even when we've survived an event & can retreat to a safer place, the members of the herd REMAIN silent. It's troubling, alright!
What can we do? Honestly, I can't think of 2 things we NEED more than for our educational system to include not only a house in, but an entire curriculum based on critical thinking, yet without also including lessons in empathy, things will remain pretty ugly.
I read & meditate on the "First they came" quote & am fascinated how even when karma is coming directly at them, the most secure of the haves, they still don't understand themselves to be the very people the quote is about, like I said earlier, the Pelosi's & Pence's of society. The fact of the matter is they will actually be amongst the 1st to be killed, assuming neither has a jet on standby lined up already to get them out of the country. I don't believe either do, as I do think they're so mentally ill they actually believe they're safe.
Sorry to trail off like that. My point really is that cultures are in fact occults and that without the understanding of this, which is the root problem, it's nearly impossible to defend anyone from the mob-like mentality, as the biggest, most threatening MOB are those who live comfortably & remain apathetic because they too are monsters who are fine with the way things are because as long as THEY are okay, that's all that really matters & everything else about them is PERFORMANCE. Who amongst us actually believes for one moment, if Obama were in Trump's shoes inciting the exact same attempted coup that not only would he have been arrested THAT DAY (Jan 6), he wouldn't have been assassinated on the spot? Yet Trump commits crime after crime, after crime and has not spent a single night in prison. So again, the ability of people to lie to THEMSELVES, to grasp just how deeply embedded this is, you & I may understand that taking away all of his personal protections & tossing Justice Thomas out to fend for himself in White, Patriarch USA SHOULD be a wake up call, but it WOULDN'T. He could literally be beaten to his death, but he's persuaded HIMSELF, via all his privilege, that he's safe, different, exceptional, above, immune to the cult because he's bought, earned, etc. his way into being a higher ranking member of the same cult. Cult members always default to believe what they WANT to believe vs. reality. So, as a lay person vs. psychologist/psychiatrist/sociologist/anthropologist I can only offer logic/education/empathy, and through all of human history, it concerns me how the experts in human behavior are just as able to lie to themselves as the masses in all cultures. It does take exceptional people to view their society objectively from the outside. Fortunately, as horrible as the people who look to "norms" to guide their values are, there have always been exceptional people as well, but the lesson that's very obvious is in fact that societal norms AREN'T where anyone should be looking when it comes to personal values, but MOST people are in fact held captive, rather wilfully captive, by societal norms vs. what actually is morally right or wrong. Few live by & exercise empathy, aka the Golden Rule. I swear, at least 99.9% of self-proclaimed Christians not only lie about being Christian, they have THEMSELVES convinced they're Christian when nothing about them subscribes much less exercises a life of empathy for others. EXCEPTIONAL people throughout human history have noticed & commented about this phenomenon, e.g. Gandhi, yet the cult believe themselves to be Christians when in reality, they're FRAUDS/FAKES/POSERS. Again, people may do/endure atrocities to survive, yet even in relatively safe spaces REMAIN SILENT. MASSES will literally destroy their own offspring's future in order to remain comfortably numb. As someone who observes this every minute of every day, I don't understand this ability to believe what one wants over reality, but it is what it is. Imho, we're a defective species & a plight on this planet. Still, I'm a hopeless romantic (supported by rare/exceptional evidence) that somehow we can overcome this.
A little something to brighten your day. In the darkest of times, no matter how lonely it may feel, you're not alone. Amazing Grace reminded me of this song today & it's the kinda thing that must be paid forward.
A collective refute of history, and complete ignorance of reality is the only way this land of hypocrisy, and the bigots who stole the idea of democracy, are raised onto a pedestal.
Posted six hours ago, and I’m the first to like it. Chirp, chirp, chirp.
I hope to find time to answer, but it won’t be today, brother. Thank you for a worthy read.
I did have a question for you, though.
Now that your 60th birthday has passed, and you are officially a full-fledged geezer, will you go full on Old Black Man, muttering under your breath about the hygiene and mental habits of white folks on the bus, and so on? I always loved those guys.
I read your ten questions several times and concluded that honest answers could only come from those who acknowledge their responsibility for all the shit that has gone on in the past and continues today. We are here now and dumbass answers like “I didn’t own slaves” or “I wasn’t here then” make you part of a continuing problem. All of those things occurred and continue because we accept them and prove our approval of them by electing boneheads certain to add to the problems.
Here we are preparing to elect another racist rapist. Yes, another one for Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner, racist and rapist. He was chosen instead of a man who was an abolitionist and feminist. Admittedly, he was "elected" after 36 ballots in the House of Representatives. Obviously, this is not a new behavior for us. It was reflected from our beginning and whatever change comes will be difficult for many to swallow.
In some ways, I was lucky. My grandparents were Cuba and Spanish. The Spanish have a poor record related to slavery and Cubans were enslaved for a time. I attended all-white schools and visited many facilities with colored restrooms. I never liked it, but I accepted it. That makes me part of the problem. My luck is that my father was a hardass, a genuine ball buster who no one messed with, and his rage wasn’t reserved for any color. I never heard him use the N word. During my youth, he partnered with a black man who was also in construction. They built many homes together, and they were friends. I don’t mean business convenience friends, but family dinner together friends. Eventually, the partnership broke up, but color was never an issue. Looking back, I realize my father had little concept of race. If you got on his wrong side, there was hell to pay no matter your color.
As a hardass, he naturally raised a hardass and some of the turmoil between us scared some family members and neither of us gave a damn. I went to work with him at age twelve and he was a taskmaster. We had many verbal battles and sometimes work sites cleared because some believed we might come to blows. That never happened, and I learned much from him, but we never discussed anyone’s color or ancestry and those were valuable lessons I still value.
To answer even one of the questions you posed, we need the decency to put race behind us. I would like to believe that’s possible, but as long as we keep celebrating assholes, there’s not much chance.
Sorry I can't cross-examine you. I think you proved your case beyond a shadow of a doubt. But sitting in the jury box, I can provide you with my deliberations.
Question One.
Who (white) did not “horrible institution and you did not benefit from it” except the black man who did not need to be enslaved to “benefit” from slavery, seems he was benefiting himself just fine before he was enslaved.
But to your question the white man benefited from slavery whether he “owned” black men or not, and still benefits today by believing in his superiority—kind of an answer to multiple questions.
Question Two.
Reparations? Reparations must require more than money. More than an apology (q1). It seems to me reparations require a complete transformation and abolition of the apartheid state of mind. Seems to be reparations only will occur when the man (maybe all white men) are imprisoned for that state of mind.
Question Three.
When God is invoked, seems to be that that is an invocation of hunting license against others (especially melanic People.)
Question Four..
All men are created differently but should have equal power as individuals within the state. Nothing creates inequality more than the statement “all men are created equal”.And as for the (supposed) author in the Dec. of Independence q.5 answers he knew he was making stuff up he didn’t believe.
Question Five.
The question unasked why did Thomas Jefferson like to have sex with smelly, ugly black woman?’ Or better he did answer it, black women suffer less deeply than white women when they’re raped. Of course they might have tried to hold in their suffering more because if they led out they had suffered, their child might have had his head placed on the chopping block.
Question Six:
Well I can’t answer that question, but the question answers multiple other questions.In fact all of the questions illustrate the point of the post, don’t they.?
Question Seven.
American Exceptionalism means America Alone Is Excepted from being humane to others,
Question Eight.
Been trying to answer the Jew question for a long time. Maybe it was just to get them the hell out of Europe. Another question is that brown and black skinned Sephardic Jews are the majority of the Israeli Jewish population. Why do we never see their pictures, only ever seen white Israelis. But the their lives really don’t matter anymore than Black Lives Matter in America.
Question Nine.
A little unfair. Europeans have never been overly shy about killing each other, but they do unite in multi-national harmony to kill others not European. The real answer might be that to the European NO Lives Matter, but non-European lives matter even less.
Question Ten.
See responses to question three and question seven. Aren’t the chosen ones, after all, the last one picked when choosing sides” The very ones generally left out of the choosing do have a tendency to view their being left out as their being exceptionally special to god because they are exceptionally unspecial in the eyes of their fellow man, and bring about these questions in the first.
So I have a question of my own, how many fields did the slaveowner plow?
I think you answered that in your post “message to a white man.”
Verdict: Guilty on All Charges.
Pardon my scattering of responses, but there is a method to the madness, so to speak. I mentioned elsewhere how I cannot get anyone to engage & deeply explore Zionism. Nor can I get anyone to engage & deeply explore the notion that gun control may be rooted in White privilege. I did also mention elsewhere just how deeply denial of reality runs in this nation. Even with Trump getting elected (however that happened) once, I find it shocking that the majority still seem OBLIVIOUS about the volume of "fellow Americans" who not only are armed for war, but the man whom their banking on to make their Dixieland dreams a reality, could in fact become POTUS again, and next time, he will know better than to have ANY person who's sworn an allegiance to 🇺🇸 vs. him/Dixie/white power/etc. in any position that would talk sense/reason, like last time. A few times I've mentioned in the live YouTube chat, Thom should have Killer Mike on the program, not because I necessarily think he's the best spokesperson on the subject, but he absolutely has a legitimate perspective as a black man. I don't think these people even fully understand that all communication is owned by these people...They're busy obsessing about the trees (this channel, that channel) to see the whole forest runs on the same basic infrastructure owned predominantly by the right. So, back to the method of my madness...Zionism, Gun Ownership, Communication Infrastructure owned & operated by White Supremacists, & White Privilege...it's all quite troubling, to say the least, yet there's this same issue of populations who are either comfortably numb (apathetic haves) and other in absolute denial of our cultural realities. Nothing changes the fact that the lowest dreads of society (by that, I mean the people doing the deeds or fulfilling their schadenfreude by persuading others to do these deeds while they get off safely at a distance as voyeurs--every day Trump remains free is a Testament of that) were legitimized & emboldened by the 'King' who would legitimize & help them satiate their bloodlust. These people are ready, willing, and able to fulfill the very thing they claimed to be concerned about. (Refer elsewhere in my comments about projection, fake patriots, Christian frauds). What was perceived as 'paranoia' regarding the gun nut folks, was actually confession & projection. I do indeed see how white privilege has opened the door for genuine monsters to infiltrate every area where there's an opportunity for the strong to prey on the vulnerable vs. citizens filling these spots out of a sense of duty...from police forces to military to schools to nursing homes to slaughterhouses, and yes, politics as well. I see how white privilege could deliver it's own karma & bring the entire thing crashing down & killing up to 50%, perhaps more, of the population. Certainly as soon as everyone felt THEY were safe re: covid, they nolonger cared about masking, distancing, isolating, etc. to ensure the vulnerable who weren't safe & couldn't be safe were protected. In all fairness, one side was happy to use covid as a weapon to kill, but the other side was eager to return to comfortably numb...the passive, enabling kind of participation. So, that's the bad news.
The good news, I also see where people can reflect & examine what they can DO, & suck it up and do whatever they can do as individuals to be their brothers keeper, so to speak. It's really important people DO what they can, no matter how insignificant it may seem. For the second (maybe more?) time, I don't know the actual numbers, but it seems like 99% complain, while 1% DO. If you really care, you have to 1st BE (or at least actively try to be) the change you wish to see in the world. WE could be leading/enacting/inciting positive change vs. complaining in our echo chambers. Everyone CAN make their own impact. Even a homeless hungry person can hold up a sign that begs the question "How is it possible that I'm always hungry in the "greatest" "Christian" country, yet I'm genuinely always hungry?" I don't recommend anyone do that, at least not holding a sign up in public while trying to scrape something together so they can eat & bless anyone with the gonads to do that, but my point is we can all figure out ways we can actually DO things. Worry is unproductive, action is productive. Whatever we can do, we need to be DOING.
While I'm trying to do, I'll still be contemplating why no one is willing to do a deep dive into zionism nor the communication problem nor the gun thing. Few seem ready to admit just how bad things actually are. Reality is frightening, but it's our collective fault through denial & complacency.
10. From my perspective, that's a trait all those who use religion as a WEAPON (Fake Xtians, Fake Muslims, all the poser 'religious' extremists) share. It us absolutely a common thread & they are willing to unleash it upon anyone who dares not fall in line with the angry "rightous" mob. Whom any of them target may vary, yet the basic sentiment remains the same. Now, the cognitive dissonance re the ability to recognize Sharia Law as wrong in Muslim nations, while fully embracing it on US soil, including the white male incels, aka the whole 9 yards, hey... I'm just here bearing witness, shaking my head, trying to figure out how to persuade anyone that everyone needs to be looking in the mirror & making adjustments. People still haven't figured that part out. You can't lead, shine your light, etc. if you aren't LIVING the path. Still, again we're simultaneously trying to improve the human condition when we're raised without the adequate education & tools (logic, empathy) and there simply are no shortcuts. Lately I find myself cursing HRC, who was more concerned about scoring points on who does & doesn't pay, when in fact, many of the people who are in the greatest need of an education ARE the wealthy, who are inflicting a massive amount of pain on others vs. the masses on the receiving end who understand quite well what it feels like being on the receiving end. As for lower castes who wilfully play along with other lies, honestly something else scares me in that what seems so obvious to some, actually isn't obvious to others and basic IQ (for numerous reasons) appears to be declining. We're now also in an era where field experts are becoming extinct & the youth are going to be stuck having to re-invent the wheel. I do indeed mean this in a general sense quite literally, which is only going to add fuel to the power of those willing to use anything as a weapon to satiate their schadenfreude.
#8. THIS has recently stood out like a sore thumb. Specifically the embracing of Zionism by so-called anti-zionists, including Thom Hartmann, whom I believe to be one of the "good guys," yet I've witnessed some cognitive dissonance where he claims to fully support democracy, right up until it encroaches on the Israeli border, which he then flips into full blown defense of Zionism, and I can assure you, I've tried to engage other progressives on the topic & ain't no one interested in having a discussion that goes THAT deep, as not many are willing to do the real work of deeply examining the mores they've adopted. Perhaps out of fear of having to admit that people AREN'T inherently "good," which opens that other can of worms about people who live in denial & lie to themselves.
"The purpose of my doing so was an attempt to see if there were patterns in conduct; a pathology. I have tried to do so through different modalities.
...
Because, nothing says coward as loudly as silence."
Cultures are cults, & ours is indeed illogical & pathological. People lie to themselves daily, believing themselves to be "good" people or "good Christians," & they somehow believe their own lies.
HOW LARGE was the crowd who stood there doing NOTHING as the world witnessed a man MURDER George Floyd IN PUBLIC? FFS, even in the days of legalized slavery, it didn't take rocket scientists to understand the concept of a person OWNING another human being was WRONG.
We all bear witness to the "good" men & women today who continue to stand by doing NOTHING when given opportunities day after day to do the right thing. The RAGING apathy of the haves is a very real sickness. How deeply embedded is this ability to lie to ONESELF? Take, for example, Nancy Pelosi. One Jan. 6, a mob wanted, planned, and attempted to KILL her. Didn't get through. She was on the phone with fellow ENABLER & fake xtian, Mike Pence. Shortly after, a crazed man breaks into her home to KILL her. STILL NOTHING. My point is this sickness of apathy & denial is genuinely pathological, yet it's the freaking NORM. Unfortunately, it's the exception, not the rule of our species to grasp that norms don't define what is "good, healthy, etc." Seems since the creation of our species, there have been sane people perplexed by the behaviors & "values" of the heard. We endure the craziest of things just to survive, yet even when we've survived an event & can retreat to a safer place, the members of the herd REMAIN silent. It's troubling, alright!
What can we do? Honestly, I can't think of 2 things we NEED more than for our educational system to include not only a house in, but an entire curriculum based on critical thinking, yet without also including lessons in empathy, things will remain pretty ugly.
I read & meditate on the "First they came" quote & am fascinated how even when karma is coming directly at them, the most secure of the haves, they still don't understand themselves to be the very people the quote is about, like I said earlier, the Pelosi's & Pence's of society. The fact of the matter is they will actually be amongst the 1st to be killed, assuming neither has a jet on standby lined up already to get them out of the country. I don't believe either do, as I do think they're so mentally ill they actually believe they're safe.
Sorry to trail off like that. My point really is that cultures are in fact occults and that without the understanding of this, which is the root problem, it's nearly impossible to defend anyone from the mob-like mentality, as the biggest, most threatening MOB are those who live comfortably & remain apathetic because they too are monsters who are fine with the way things are because as long as THEY are okay, that's all that really matters & everything else about them is PERFORMANCE. Who amongst us actually believes for one moment, if Obama were in Trump's shoes inciting the exact same attempted coup that not only would he have been arrested THAT DAY (Jan 6), he wouldn't have been assassinated on the spot? Yet Trump commits crime after crime, after crime and has not spent a single night in prison. So again, the ability of people to lie to THEMSELVES, to grasp just how deeply embedded this is, you & I may understand that taking away all of his personal protections & tossing Justice Thomas out to fend for himself in White, Patriarch USA SHOULD be a wake up call, but it WOULDN'T. He could literally be beaten to his death, but he's persuaded HIMSELF, via all his privilege, that he's safe, different, exceptional, above, immune to the cult because he's bought, earned, etc. his way into being a higher ranking member of the same cult. Cult members always default to believe what they WANT to believe vs. reality. So, as a lay person vs. psychologist/psychiatrist/sociologist/anthropologist I can only offer logic/education/empathy, and through all of human history, it concerns me how the experts in human behavior are just as able to lie to themselves as the masses in all cultures. It does take exceptional people to view their society objectively from the outside. Fortunately, as horrible as the people who look to "norms" to guide their values are, there have always been exceptional people as well, but the lesson that's very obvious is in fact that societal norms AREN'T where anyone should be looking when it comes to personal values, but MOST people are in fact held captive, rather wilfully captive, by societal norms vs. what actually is morally right or wrong. Few live by & exercise empathy, aka the Golden Rule. I swear, at least 99.9% of self-proclaimed Christians not only lie about being Christian, they have THEMSELVES convinced they're Christian when nothing about them subscribes much less exercises a life of empathy for others. EXCEPTIONAL people throughout human history have noticed & commented about this phenomenon, e.g. Gandhi, yet the cult believe themselves to be Christians when in reality, they're FRAUDS/FAKES/POSERS. Again, people may do/endure atrocities to survive, yet even in relatively safe spaces REMAIN SILENT. MASSES will literally destroy their own offspring's future in order to remain comfortably numb. As someone who observes this every minute of every day, I don't understand this ability to believe what one wants over reality, but it is what it is. Imho, we're a defective species & a plight on this planet. Still, I'm a hopeless romantic (supported by rare/exceptional evidence) that somehow we can overcome this.
A little something to brighten your day. In the darkest of times, no matter how lonely it may feel, you're not alone. Amazing Grace reminded me of this song today & it's the kinda thing that must be paid forward.
https://youtu.be/16bFBzx7I_0?si=DdMLH43oslr6ePxC
A collective refute of history, and complete ignorance of reality is the only way this land of hypocrisy, and the bigots who stole the idea of democracy, are raised onto a pedestal.
Posted six hours ago, and I’m the first to like it. Chirp, chirp, chirp.
I hope to find time to answer, but it won’t be today, brother. Thank you for a worthy read.
I did have a question for you, though.
Now that your 60th birthday has passed, and you are officially a full-fledged geezer, will you go full on Old Black Man, muttering under your breath about the hygiene and mental habits of white folks on the bus, and so on? I always loved those guys.