||| FROM ROBERT AUSTIN |||
I found myself thinking recently of three Orcas men I know, long-time residents, all of them white and in their 70s. One is a pretty far left liberal, another doesn’t identify with or relate to politics and never votes, and the third is about as hardcore and stereotypical a conservative as you could imagine.
The liberal—let’s call him “Mick“ told me he doesn’t trust the Government because the CIA assassinated people in the 1950s and 60s. He’s convinced that JFK was killed by the CIA. He also said he doesn’t trust the Israelis because of their attack on the USS Liberty spy ship during the 1967 Six Day war. I recently fell prey to one of his trolling emails, and mentioned the role of Hamas in starting the current conflagration between Israel and Gaza. His response was “That’s a rather shallow, and grossly inaccurate assertion, one no doubt rooted in having listened to too much mainstream news. Though listening to MSNBC and the NYTs will tell you differently, Hamas are not the terrorists in this picture– the U.S., Gr. Britain, Israel, and the few western colonialist powers that back them are.”
I did manage to set him off again last year by referring to myself as a “centrist” who detested the current partisan nature of public discourse, which he interpreted as my being wishy-washy. He most likely did vote… for Jill Stein or RFK Jr.
The one who doesn’t identify—let’s call him “Will”—inherited a lot of money and hasn’t had to work for a living. Instead, he’s been holed up here (alone) for upwards of 20 years, working on elaborating and decoding a numerological scheme that came to him during a mushroom trip. He told me that he doesn’t trust the New York Times because of their then-journalist Judith Miller’s connection with Scooter Libby during the Bush administration. His aversion extends to the extent that he would not read a piece about a musician of mutual interest that I sent him a few months ago from the Times. Everything they publish are lies. He hates the US Government, and his favorite news sources—last I checked—were the Russian propaganda site RT.com, and zerohedge.com, which is run by someone in Eastern Europe. He’s been waiting for our entire system to come crashing down for as long as I’ve known him.
The hardcore conservative—let’s call him “Larry“ has exposed me to a lot of “alternative” sources that I would not have encountered otherwise. I used to try to humor him; for example when he said a few years ago that I should use Infowars.com as a news source, I replied that I used to check it when I wanted to know what the military and aliens were doing together in underground bases. He has internalized the gamut of stock right-wing ideas: electric vehicles are dangerous, they can catch fire and are worse for the environment than gas engines. Climate change is a hoax. mRNA vaccines like our main COVID vaccines were foisted on us as illegal medical experiments, in the name of Big Pharma profits. Vaccinated people shed trillions of spike proteins that infect those around them. Instead, he took and is probably still taking the horse de-wormer drug Ivermectin, reliably recommended by “alternative” health practitioners and doctors from whom you could also buy the stuff. When he started sending youtube videos of some guy stating that viruses had never actually been isolated or studied… I sent him a link to an online textbook about virology… and as always, never heard back with a counter-argument, until the next nonsensical anti-vax arrived.
What these three have in common is a complete distrust of our government and its institutions (the “deep state”); politicians; normal media channels, and even our medical establishment and the very concepts of what science and our accumulated expertise has to offer. They all accept alternative sources of information, ranging from Democracy Now to Russian Times to America’s Frontline Doctors. All three are completely convinced that their beliefs are identical to reality, and are unwilling to engage in any sort of dialog or conversation that involves the introduction of information contrary to their closely held world views.
What troubles me the most, though, is that the Venn diagram of how their worldviews overlap is so large, and centered on mis- and dis-information, conspiracies, distrust of science and expertise in general. And the idea that our government—the “system”—is corrupt and must be destroyed. None have suggested what the alternative should be.
The consensus of what is “true” has broken down, and our shared sense of what is “reality” in our rapidly complexifying world has been cast adrift in the Sargasso Sea of crazy that has become our current national “informational” habitat.
How can we best thread our way out of this unwelcome maze of memes and misinformation?
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Thanks, Robert.
You ask: “How can we best thread our way out of this unwelcome maze of memes and misinformation?” and my intuition immediately flashed “chocolate chip cookies”. A tried and trued method of getting people at least in the same room is easy, yummy, self-chosen food. Cookies meet the essential criteria better than pies, cakes, cobblers or fruit. Community Conversations that matter have to have some centripetal-crafting hook. That’s the easy part.
Doing this online is absurd as well as impossible. We craft a safe place with reasonable rules of behavior and create a place to break ice. No heavy professional (why are YOU so stuck?) conversations. This is trust building. It has been going on since this interglacial began, We have to begin there.
Food greases the skids.
The skids are pretty dry these days.
Everyone Welcome!!
Still celebrating Columbus Day are you?
You asked, “How can we best thread our way out of this unwelcome maze of memes and misinformation?”
By stop believing what you read in Main Stream News, (including the New York Times).
“He also said he doesn’t trust the Israelis because of their attack on the USS Liberty spy ship during the 1967 Six Day war. I recently fell prey to one of his trolling emails, and mentioned the role of Hamas in starting the current conflagration between Israel and Gaza. His response was “That’s a rather shallow, and grossly inaccurate assertion, one no doubt rooted in having listened to too much mainstream news. Though listening to MSNBC and the NYTs will tell you differently, Hamas are not the terrorists in this picture– the U.S., Gr. Britain, Israel, and the few western colonialist powers that back them are.”
I agree with your friend. Having gone round and round with you before on politics in the past, (and on our foreign policy) tells me, (as I have accused you of before), that you watch to much main stream news. Anybody who thinks that Hamas started the problems (current or past) between Israel and Palestine, does indeed, have a very shallow and grossly inaccurate understanding of the history of that region. Israel is not our friend, nor have they ever been. The U.S., Israel, and their allies are the biggest threat to free countries around the world… many consider is to be the world’s terrorists.
Here’s a good place for you to start, (if you were ever so inclined to look at a different viewpoint).
(Free audiobook)– Christopher Bollyn: Solving 9-11 The Deception that Changed the World
https://www.bollyn.com/public/Solving_9-11_-_The_Deception_That_Changed_The_World.pdf
There are many who are beginning to see what they don’t want to see. And once they’ve seen it they cannot unsee it… they begin to see it in many places. Many of us have had that wake up moment, this being the result of seeing things over time that don’t quite add up. My first wake up call was when whistle blower Daniel Elsberg blew the whistle on the fake official narrative regarding the Viet Nam (non)war. Indeed, it was the beginning of an unraveling of the political account (starting with the false flag operation called the “Gulf of Tonkin incident”, and ending with the many lies being fed to the public of the escalation, the carpet bombing of civilian sites, and of the true numbers regarding the dead and injured), which led to the beginning of the end of this (non)war.
Trust government you say? I say that whistleblowers and investigative reporters are our first line of defense, and following the coverups are more trusting than the narratives that are force fed to us by our government and their compliant mainstream media outlets. In an almost free society, as citizens, it is our right, no, it is our duty to question our government. But, as we’ve come to know, all to often those that do so suffer the consequences as ones who have stepped out of line. They and their families are targeted– they lose their jobs, sometimes they are imprisoned, their lives are ruined, they get threatened, sometimes they are physically injured in attacks, and sometimes they simply disappear or are murdered. It has become the accepted, no, like many things, it has become the “expected” norm.
You said, “He most likely did vote… for Jill Stein or RFK Jr.” In other words, and as one who I’ve noticed is quick to loosely label those who disagree with your politics… “you don’t know”. And I say, isn’t that what democracy is all about… having the right to vote for whoever we think is the best person for the job? But wait, the norm is now that we don’t vote for the best candidate for the job… we’re expected to vote for the lesser of evils in a two-party dominant system. And yes, should you wonder… I, myself, have voted for Jill Stein. I have also voted for Obama (once), and I voted for Bernie Sanders. Why didn’t you?
One of the most evil things I’ve observed is the paradigm shift in our society that has been created by the mainstream news narrative resulting in things that were once considered abnormal have now been normalized… things that were once appalling are now commonplace and considered acceptable. Politicians lie, war is normal, genocide is normal, we are always the good guys and they are always the bad guys.
Trust our government? At your suggestion– did the CIA assassinate people in the 1950s and 60s? There is much documented proof that they did. Was JFK killed by the CIA? A better question might simply be, do you actually believe the lone gunman theory? And, do you believe the official narrative that the Israeli military mistakenly shot missiles, napalmed, strafed, and torpedoed the U.S.S. Liberty and it’s life rafts killing 34 and injuring 172 U.S. airmen? The 206 naval personnel serving aboard the Liberty that day don’t, and the back and forth audio transcript from the Israeli pilots to their commanders also disagree with the official narrative (the coverup), these confirming that the Israelis knew it was an American vessel.
USS Liberty – When Israel attacked the U.S.A. – Forgotten History https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5WUIzrCxxo
Trust our government you say? From page 269 of Christopher Bollyn’s Solving 9-11– “One of the most significant developments in the search for the truth of 9-11 was the publication in March 2009 of a peer-reviewed scientific paper written by nine scientists, about the discovery of “active thermitic material” in dust samples from the collapsed towers of the World Trade Center. A twenty-five page scientific paper entitled, “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9-11 World Trade Center Catastrophe” presented scientific evidence that an extremely powerful form of super thermite was used during the demolition of the Twin Towers.”
“The paper was published in the Open Chemical Physics Journal and makes a historic breakthrough in the scientific investigation of the explosive collapses of the Twin Towers, although it was not widely reported by the controlled media. If we had a truly free press in the United States this important discovery would have been front page news and a subject of discussion on every news program in the nation.”
Academia 2009– Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe
https://www.academia.edu/127772846/Active_Thermitic_Material_Discovered_in_Dust_from_the_9_11_World_Trade_Center_Catastrophe
You wanna believe the official byline… that’s your prerogative. Go back to your New York Times and Main Stream News Broadcasting Company (MSNBC). Believe what you want to believe… because that’s who you are.