Random fact…
This isn’t a hieroglyph. If you have a careful eye, you might see them in odd places. This one is supposed to mean “Do not climb.” Typically it’s placed on poles needing replacement.
Over time, I’ve concluded that many of these are nailed into poles that are, in fact, way easier to climb than normal poles.
I’ve ordered 535 of them. One for each member of Congress.
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Rule 47
“Anyone who posts words, policy, or statements by our current president for any purpose other than mockery or excoriation can no longer be taken seriously regarding any societal, political, or economic consideration.”
I can cite countless examples. The government shutdown can be ended without any Democrats voting in favor of it. By changing the filibuster rules, Trump and his Republican devotees can pass the budget bill immediately if they choose to do so. Given the increasing risk that Congress shall soon become an anachronism without teeth, it’s ridiculous to worry about tomorrow’s fire when our shoes are melting today.
People reposting Trump’s ill-informed and uneducated rants in support of something that’s factually untrue isn’t surprising. If racism, misogyny, fraud, and incitement toward insurrection aren’t deal breakers, it’s a deep well from which to draw an infinite spiral of malevolent ridiculousness.
If Trump wishes to be king, then let’s proceed with the coronation so that we can move on to a broken democracy. At least under that scenario, we will not be victim to an ongoing onslaught of “WTF”
moments, nor continue to hope for an end to the madness.
We can acclimate ourselves to the loss of the country we grew up in because we’ll have no other choice.
This isn’t politics. It’s madness and mayhem, driven by someone completely unfit to run a household, country, or company.
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something wicked this way comes
with unhurried and deceitful feet
camouflaged with righteousness, smirking with weaponized ignorance
flame heats but also burns
love amplifies but brings stagnation
comfort stills us yet closes doors
silence is not peace, no more than lightning is the thunder
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American History X
This is a thought experiment. Read the catch after the introduction.
In the 1940s, the Soviet Union conducted research in Guatemala. They infected hundreds of Guatemalans with syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases. They used sex workers, direct injections, and even deliberate wounds to Guatemalans to directly infect them. Many never received treatment, even though penicillin was a central part of the involuntary study. The study was moved to Guatemala from a Soviet Union prison because they couldn’t effectively infect prisoners with Guatemala and needed a large-scale test environment.
Now replace “Soviet Union” with the “United States.”
It was us. Not them.
This horrendous and illegal study was hidden for 60 years.
Many people have heard of the Tuskegee experiment, which was a precursor to the Guatemalan atrocity. Those people were identified as infected but never treated. It wasn’t uncovered until 1972 when a whistleblower came forward. The Guatemalan experiment is worse because the United States government used a huge group of Guatemalans and deliberately infected them, many of whom never received treatment.
The purpose of me pointing this out is that it’s important that we understand our history. Not the history that gets whitewashed. But one that includes the warts and horrors of some of the things we have done. If we’re not aware of these things, we are participating in the ongoing likelihood that similar experiments might happen again.
None of this is a conspiracy theory. It’s all established fact. We like to think of these things as historical, as if people in our government don’t sometimes break the law and engage in horrendous behavior, justifying it by all manner of reasoning.
MKULTRA was a CIA-sponsored study that happened for 20 years, subjecting people to a variety of substances, primarily LSD. The Unabomber was part of one such study.
In 1964, the CIA secretly backed the overthrow of Brazil’s democracy, even going so far as training those involved in death squads.
In several instances, the United States government actively sterilized people without their consent.
The United States government participated in the overthrow of the democratically elected governments in Guatemala, Ecuador, Haiti, Bolivia, Chile, and the Dominican Republic, among others.
The term “banana republic” owes its origin to our participation in the active violent overthrow of a country at the behest of a corporation.
Project Sunshine. Operation Northwoods. Operation Paperclip. Operation CHAOS. COINTELPRO. The Gulf of Tonkin incident. In the 1930s, we deported a massive number of Latinos, many of whom were American citizens. We did the same thing again in the 1950s. We built concentration camps during WWII, including one here in Arkansas.
George Washington inherited slaves when he was 11. Throughout his life, he owned 500+ people. He actively worked to ensure that none of his slaves could be free. People like to excuse away this fact by pointing to the period in which he lived. There’s a fancy term to describe this type of logical fallacy in regards to ethical behavior. It’s pervasive in our society.
We’re taught the myth of the Pilgrims, and other similar groups. They weren’t trying to flee religious persecution. They were primarily intent on establishing their own at the discriminatory expense of other beliefs. Does this sound familiar to those of us in modern America?
I could go on. The purpose of all this is not the throw darts that are well deserved. It’s to remind people that secrecy in government is one of the fundamental flaws that has plagued our country. Failure to teach our flaws and choices will result in their repetition.
I’m fascinated by history. Not the history I was taught in elementary school. Rather the complex and shocking version that mirrors reality.
We should be on guard against allowing or participating in behavior that goes against our alleged dedication to freedom and human dignity. Yet, all we need to do is to follow current events to see that the beliefs we claim often contradict the reality we are permitting.
You cannot preach the “us” if you are actively vilifying people by nationality, color, sexual orientation, or religious orientation. It’s a clear warning bell that you are on the wrong side of history.
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An observation about life. Some of us did everything right, went to college, studied hard, and checked the boxes like an efficient grocery list. Others made decisions like they were at a craps table at 2:00 a.m., a cigarette dangling from their lips and their last $5 set on black.
Life has a sense of humor so it equalizes us. We’re all going to end with the same finality regardless of whether we wear a Rolex or a Mickey mouse watch. Both sets of people might be working at the same place. But they experience the same instability of the economy, or employer loyalty. It’s true that those who did everything right are earning more. But in general, they are exchanging bigger chunks of their life for that choice. Without a guarantee or assurance that their jobs might not disappear, or that a single tragedy could wipe them out. Just like those of us who chose to roll the dice.
Studies show that people earning more have the chance to be happier. They also show that they generally are not.
All of this is one thing older people don’t understand about the younger generation. Generally speaking, it’s why there is such a backlash about getting on the treadmill. Because some of those younger people see that the treadmill is a trick, one predicated on circumstances that no longer exist.
Most of us can feel the shift. Not just the fact that our social safety net is disappearing. All of us are subject to the same complicated factors of economy and society that are shifting underneath us.
Some of this is future shock, because we prepare ourselves for a future that might have shifted entirely.
Just remember that for each choice you make, you’re giving something up. More hours on the job means fewer hours with family or less personal time. Watching more sports means less time to read, listen to music, or to sit on the porch with a cup of coffee and smile at your grandchildren.
Collectively, a lot of choices are being made for us, ones which constantly shift our ability to react or cope. I’m assuming that most of the people who know me are experiencing the same uncertainty.
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PS The ball in the water is one that I retrieved by climbing through brush I should not have a few days ago. I was by the creek and saw it. There was a family frolicking on the water dam so I thought it would be fun to get the ball and throw it across to them without them knowing where it came from. By the time I emerged mostly unscathed to throw it, the family had moved on.
I’m innumerate more often than I care to admit. BUT… I was spouting off the effects of inflation to someone who wasn’t buying it, pun intended.
(Generally speaking, for those keyboard correctionists out there. If you’re looking for logic, we broke that door hinge again, possibly forever. If you’re looking for impeccable writing or ironclad mathematics, ask your doctor if Givafocken is right for you.)
If I net $40,000 this year and the inflation rate stays at 2.7%, that means I will “lose” $1,080 in buying power compared to a year ago. Without a change in income or spending, $1,080 will vanish from my wallet. Sure, it will be the same of dollars, but WHAT I can buy with those dollars will decrease by 2.7%. The percentage sounds small, whereas the dollar amount tends to raise eyebrows.
Much like buying things is harder when you calculate how many minutes, hours, or days you have to work to buy it. Especially if your boss is a micromanager, a dude named Steve or Kevin, or says BS like, “you need to circle back and touch base after you drill down and leverage your blue sky thinking.” You’re sacrificing your life segmented into minutes to buy every item you choose to purchase.
That’s before the additional tariff nonsense, which is a tax regardless of how it is defined. The next effect is that higher costs will be passed to you, regardless of whether it is small or large. I assume you’ve noticed that highly profitable corporations tend to love their billions of dollars. They are the modern day dragons that we feared when we were children. They are resting on a reprehensible amount of wealth that should be taxed at a rate comparable to a couple of generations ago. But we’re stuck worrying about Karen maybe getting a few too many dollars that she has to stretch further than a Dollar Store condom.
Conclusion: you’re losing a lot more money than you believe you are. Percentages are misleading because we don’t connect the concept of inflation to disappearing purchasing power.
PS Rich people take a lot longer to feel the effects of economic factors because they do not need to spend all their money once earned, whereas we poor people are spending all of our money in an attempt to avoid a free month’s stay in the tent out back of our brother-in-law’s garage, or to avoid buying canned goods with pictures of animals on them.
Although I make jokes in the telling of my point, I remain cautiously cynical about people who think economics is simple, straighforward, or honest. It’s like expecting your drunk, cheating husband to tell you why he has a pair of panties stuck in the glove box. You’re going to hear a mountain of nonsense. By the end of their excuses, they will have launched a campaign for the US Senate.
Economics is the lie we tell ourselves that we can comprehend a global financial market with a million moving parts, while almost none of the variables are within our control or comprehension.
This concludes my wildly strange TED talk. Please sign the guest register on your way out.
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Everyone is one day or one unexpected moment away from tragedy. One incident distanced from the inevitable humility of needing help. It’s math, statistics, and inevitability. I learned it the hard way multiple times. It’s part of the reason I continue to shake my head at the cruel push to defund any part of our social safety net. Collectively, we are subject to the same uncontrollable forces. Tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, or war. The day comes when each of us will need help, either as individuals or as a community. If we take away the support, life will become even crueler. The FAFO moment isn’t a question of if, but when.
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Dear citizens of Privilegeville: society most often works along the course of a huge pendulum. That which you take for granted today will be replaced, and most likely by something closer to its opposite. If you are pushing for an exclusionary society now, don’t be fooled by the status quo. Just as you couldn’t look back to 2008 and assume that the progressive surge would not fall into chaos. The further you push away from the middle, the greater the shock will be once the pendulum swings back. It is religious, political, generational, and societal. It’s such an obvious truth. But people embrace the status quo as if it’s anything other than temporary. We make plans for the future and we envision a society that will be there. It’s always a moving target. It is the very definition of entropy.
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On a recent friend’s post, people seemed to agree with “Social media destroys friendships.”
Do you mean to say, much like telephones did when they were introduced? Or computers?
Blaming technology is a vacuous accusation.
Social media is problematic because people do not use it in the same way that they hold conversations in their living rooms.
Much for the same reason, when people enter vehicles, it adds a layer of impersonal anonymity. That’s why people do and say things that they most likely wouldn’t do in person. It leads to road rage. Cursing. Aggressive behavior.
Social media gives people the power to reveal themselves. It does not create problems out of thin air. It strips back the ignorance we have about the things the people we know believe. It reveals resentment and anger hidden below the surface. It gives access to rudeness and poorly planned responses. That behavior is the responsibility of each person who engages in it. It does not fall on the outlet of expression we use as social media.
Social media is a virtual living room and the modern town square. Personally, I treat mine like my living room. If you go to my pages, you don’t see hostility. That’s because I don’t typically engage in it, and it’s not welcome in my virtual space.
If, however, I visit a page or website that’s not mine, I expect it to look and sound exactly like our society. If you are expecting kumbaya in content outside of your control, you should probably take a dosage of reality pills. People in groups are crass and argumentative. Logic is not the presiding factor. But people are also creative, compassionate, and informative. If you judge one portion of social media without consideration for the other, you’re missing the point.
If you gather a group of people, you’re going to hear a huge variety of opinions, interests, and hobbies. You’ll see people whispering to each other if they’re having conversations about other people. Uncle Larry is going to say something racist. Someone will likely show up drinking – and you know darn well they aren’t going to behave. Others will attempt to hog the conversation or say outrageous things for the reasons that people say and do those things. Social media works the same way.
Social media did not become massively popular by accident. It is the result of our individual choice and vote to use our precious time and energy engaging with it.
Social media does not destroy friendships. People do. One crass comment at a time.
People who focus exclusively on the negative aspects of social media ignore the power and beauty of collective expression. It’s easy to dial in to cynicism and hate. These aspects of social media are exactly what people exploit when they have agendas.
Each of us has tools to limit our exposure to things we don’t want to see. It works exactly like a TV guide. We can ignore platforms, programs, and the stations we choose. I don’t get angry because MTV has cooking shows. I scroll past it. I roll my eyes at what some people say, just as I expect them to roll their eyes or get pissy when they see mine.
If you’re looking at content from your friends, family, and acquaintances that makes you angry, it might be better to take a second look at who they are, how they behave, and what they believe. Act accordingly. They are revealing themselves. And while it might frustrate you, you at least have a means to see what occupies their thoughts and time.
Social media is what you make it. You can’t control collective communication. But you can control your exposure and how you choose to use it.
Social media per se is not the problem. It is us. All the defects and things about it that you do not enjoy are a reflection of our society.
Social media is exactly like alcoholism. Alcoholics falsely like to claim that their behavior is the result of drinking. It’s not. Alcohol removes their inhibitions and their control regarding what’s already in their heads. It is not a creator. It is a revelator.
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I wrote a powerful rebuttal to something recently. I haven’t posted it. In doing so, I came up with a quote that covers much of problem inherent in what I wrote about. The quote in the picture is a snippet of the words I conjured.
Our society will not function unless the prevailing notion that ‘live and let live’ governs us. Politics is a choice, much like religion, opinion, or what color underwear you choose.
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P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 