Note: Still traveling, but here’s a quick #FreedomMusicFriday.
I’ve asked the question before…
If THEY bring IT back again (and you know they’re just itching to), will you comply?
The last time around, they created perverse incentives for compliance that were hard for many to overcome (take the poison jab or lose your job, e.g.). So it’s not always easy to take a stand.
Still, far more people are awake and aware than were in 2020. Will it be enough to create critical mass? One person not complying is easy for them to overcome. 30% of the population not complying makes it very, very difficult.
So when the time comes, take the stand. Be the dancer. Be the first follower. Create a movement. We need that critical mass. In the meantime, hold onto that spirit of noncompliance every day.
I am not a big fan of country and western—especially the modern stuff that sounds like it was written by the CountryMusicBot 3000. But this one by Bind Joe is real and it’s a rollicking good time. Lots of fun in under three minutes.
One of the biggest problems I see is in well-meaning 'independent' journalists and content creators highlighting the asinine nonsense that is being promulgated by our institutions as propaganda.
(I am not accusing you of doing this.)
I can give a number of examples, but just because one of our so-called 'venerable' media institutions such as NYT publishes some stupid fucking spoon-fed CIA 'report' meant to jar the population or advance some propagandist dialogue that serves the Empire(s), doesn't mean we need to have a knee-jerk reaction to it and further advance the propaganda by becoming spreaders ourselves.
One of the base tenets of becoming self-aware is that "what we pay attention to, we create more of."
Fear-porn is fear-porn and while 'we' may be immune to the overall effects of it and can discuss it as a development without internalising it, we also can inadvertently take part in making it real to people who do not have the same discernment abilities as ourselves.
I think in many cases rather than highlighting and opposing these dialogues and narratives, it may be far better as a course to ignore them and hope they die the slow death of lack of interest.
Opposition creates a state of challenging. Challenging creates a state of competition. And again, all the while that we are opposing something, that something becomes more and more real as NPC's and punters hear more and more about a subject.
Journalists and pundits that I love like Michael Shellenberger and Jimmy Dore make their hay by seizing upon every ridiculous story that comes down the pike. And while that makes great entertainment, and has the effect of bringing awareness to the unaware, these same wonderful people run the risk of becoming bullhorns for propaganda and furthering the agendas of the powerful institutions and elite which wish to continue to control us. There's a fine line between being an aware sharer of information, and becoming a cartoon caricature of yourself that is rife for exploitation to your audience.
I find myself saying in many situations now, "NO, just simply NO." I am NOT going to advance their agendas by talking more about their propaganda and spreading it to people who believe everything they're told.
If and when the time comes when something talked about becomes real, we will have plenty of opportunity to discuss it and make choices to avail ourselves of it or not. In the meantime, we can best fight the propaganda by sucking the oxygen out of the room, and not being party to their insidious nonsense by becoming super-spreaders.
We do not make others' choices, and it is not our responsibility to 'fight against' something and try to bring people to our perspective. Our best work is in being powerful examples of being our own authorities, and in the choices we make for ourselves. That gives others a framework in which to exercise their own sovereignty.
I did not the last time and Will Not this Time!