It took some time and realization. It took education too. It made me aware of my country's abuses worldwide. I now write about how the Neocons, Neolibs and Zionist Neocons have turned our nation into the world's foremost terrorist state.
For sure. It's all the same thing. The problem is, American style capitalism is 100% incompatible with so-called American style democracy. Or any real democracy for that matter.
We're all in the same boat to an extent. "Back in the day," prior to the internet, getting info efficiently was an impossible process.
Since the advent of the internet, learning things has been leveraged by many people and the ability to figure things out all but instantaneously have become routine.
The fundie movement had me enrapt, no pun intended. One must first understand how the Zionists and Babylonian Talmudists have coopted our entire western civilization.
People, and I'm not merely including but largely referring to the so-called and self-proclaimed "awake" here, when I state that they hang up with the same cognitive dissonance that they point the finger at "liberals" and others for.
It's simple however, and requires only a 2nd-grade math education and basic research skills. Yet, those same people cannot overcome it.
How does one take [approx.] 3 million, subtract 6 million, and end up with over 5 million, and miraculously increasing incessantly.
Yet, they can't piece that together for an enormous pulling back of the curtain and revelation of the bigger picture.
Yes, they're generally too lazy to spend much time learning, and the other thing is that as Americans we've generally been raised, at least over the past several decades, to first and foremost pursue leisure, pleasure, fun, etc. 2 Tim. 3:4 comes to mind. "...lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;"
Longtrail: It is not my country. It is not my government. It isn't even my nation. The USA is just a loose economic union united by the dollar and international borders.
A first step forward is to realize our political classes teach us to hate other cultures selectively to justify their criminal wars. This is a hideous treachery they have been getting away with for decades. The morons in Washington refuse to accept that country every and every peoples have a right to self-determination and this is a key element of the emerging multipolar world.
It is no longer an option to think of ourselves as a global community --it is essential to our survival as the human race. It is a crowded complex planet and everybody has to be on our best behavior.
Einstein also said if there is a third world war the next will be fought with sticks and stones.
"Any effort to get people to pay attention to the abuses of western foreign policy helps weaken public trust in the propaganda machine which lies about those abuses, and any effort to weaken public trust in the propaganda machine helps the effort to expand people’s circle of compassion.
We’ve still got our work cut out for us, but what the hell else are we going to do? "
Beautifully stated! We've been trying to do the same at The Revolution Continues as well. If you can share the information that isn't being shared (deliberately so) by the propaganda machine, you will cause others to see how they've been propagandized by those in authority they trusted. Once trust in authority is eroded, it's difficult to impossible to regain. You've seen behind the "curtain" and you know those pulling the levers to hurt us are also pulling levers to hurt others. We start to care about the fate of our fellow passengers on this spaceship Earth. It's not going to happen overnight, but every day, every hour, every minute, another one of us will begin to understand who we can really trust and how to show compassion.
Essentially. I think it ties into Mazlow's pyramid were we begin at survival and develop psychologically to transcendence of ourselves, where we can(if we choose) expand our circle to include others or the planet. That there is this idea that our tribal nature some how stops the basic biological needs. I don't think at a base level we as a species care about the trival tribalism when we are trying to survive. Which means that the whole world is a part of us, has been for 2 million years. (Homo Habilis) That the human species have been interbreeding with almost anyone we have come in contact with (neanderthals, Denisovans etc) and many indigenous people interbred because of these needs. Now with nuclear brinksmanship, our survival is threaten globally and the only natural and logical response is to stop it and that means caring about others we don't know. We know we are capable of it through charities for example. It should be a natural human response to prevent the species extinction?
Thing is our minds and our society is so anti-human we have developed unnatural or potentially insane responses. Ecocide is bad and climate change is bad, harming our survival, propaganda drives us against our instincts. So, we have the capability, compassionately and intellectually. We are being pushed to be cruel and selfish by society.
Thank you. It is rare that I see someone speaking about the emergence of behavioral modernity. It is a very fascinating and important topic and I could spend weeks discussing it. But..
Human behavior is becoming exponentially more inorganic. We have evolved both physically and psychologically as a species over the ages, and our understanding of these changes ( particularly cognitively) gives us insight on the workings of our involuntary instinctual mind. Essentially we understand the default settings now. This is how "sciences"in the 19th century were able to advance the concept of biohacking and set the stage for the development of mass society in the 20th century. Every symbol that was once human has been replaced with new meanings, a complete transvaluation of everything into a simulacrum.
My point, we really do not know the current natural state of man nor how far we actually have to go as a species to realize a just future where everyone matters. Currently our entire social reality of mass society is manufactured and it is driven by schizogenesis which is inherently tribal.
Understanding this, I have far more hope for us than what I did before I "got it". This environment is all artificial. We evolved millions of years based upon social cooperation and natural law, we were never this hateful. If the same narrative machines that inundate us with negativity would do the opposite and embraced truth instead of deception.. our species would change overnight. When we boil it all away, mass society formation is the ultimate culture war.
You touch on a lot of topics here. The development of the human mind meeting manipulation, going back to the days of state sponsored religion to achieve conformity and stability among populaces. Ancient Rome and Greece for example. In Greece Socretes was charged(and found guilty of) not believe in gods. His philosophical capabilities threatened the status quo. Fast forward with psychologists like Frued or Mazlow, you see an understanding of the human being at a base level. In the past we were nomadic and before tribalism we lived in family units and small groups. Now, here I am writing a post to a person that could be anywhere in the world. I wish you no harm, that you are safe and happy. I am certain you have done me no harm and as a fellow member of the human race, I wish you the best. That should be natural to not be violent towards others. Bombing people around the world, destroying their homes, infrastructure, etc, is horrible. Wars where people are killed is also horrible.
You mentioned a class war, we are now dividing ourselves into smaller and smaller groups to fight each other. Everyone seems to want to fight each other, race, religion, political affiliation, socio economic position etc. Why? We are not each others enemies as groups, we are being pushed and encourage to harm others to the point of destroying the world and ourselves, for the sake of rich people's Russian roulette.
Contest creates rivalry, by design. It's an institution best abolished as a source of useless waste, rather than celebrated as a sacred and infallible divination ritual.
The ungovernable are often more persuadable and less petulant than the propaganda makes them out to be; just you can't buy them from a distance.
The more people we have the greater number of them will fail in competition, by mere odds. That by percentage most will not succeed, hence niches in business where they try to avoid over saturation of the market. People logically try to do the same, but we are limited by our resources which the vast majority have relatively little. Competitive rivalry really is something that exploits humanity, most westerners often seem to say they are the hardest working, most intelligent, etc, no matter their social standing or education due to propaganda being effective. Businesses focus on the needs of the customer or exploiting their wants making them feel important. Once we value each other more we might cooperate more...might.
"It’s not hard to get people to care about tyranny that affects them personally or affects other people in their country, but getting people to think about the victims of your government’s starvation sanctions, drone bombs or proxy warfare is difficult."
That's an interesting premise, namely the first part of that sentence.
Not sure I agree Caitlin. Let's take cops for example.
They're programmed and trained like circus seals that every member of the "public," while failing to realize that THEY are "the public" too at times, is out to get them and a potential danger. Hence why they act the way that they do, namely half or fully psychotic.
I doubt that any of them give much thought to what they're actually "Protecting and serving ..." besides Tyranny as they wilfully do its bidding.
Yet, that affects them personally whether they're aware of it or not. It also affects their friends and family.
Same for people employed (meaning making money off of) our medical establishment, an INDUSTRY that THRIVES and is driven by ill-health and disease, quite often caused by the "solutions" provided by the former. And let's take the last several years where both hospitals and doctors, and in some cases nurses, got paid to kill people. With a societal boomerang affect that affects them personally too even if not directly. Yet, neither seem to have a problem with it and defer to the age old "just following orders" mantra in defense of murder.
As I see it, a good chunck of society has lost any and all moral compass and is driven by the basest of all human vices, namely greed.
And think about it, our society is bitterly divided within itself, with many people not only willing but eager to kill others on the other "side." Look at all the evil sentiment with murderous intent, even literally, by those that did, insisting that those that did not put unknown toxic chemicals into their bodies, should die via one mechanism or another.
A society as divided as that, IMO it's asking way way way too much to get them to consider anything as such outside of their immediate realm.
Then factor in stupidity, ignorance, etc. too.
Interesting piece perhaps, but I disagree wholeheartedly with the premise. I'm even far from convinced that the majority even recognizes tyranny as such. Audiences/readers here are a minority.
And lets not forget the people of Ukraine. They live in dangerous times because some dickheads in this country want to give Putin the finger, laundry money, and enrich themselves and their dickhead friends. Of course, those flags the lackwits are flying make it all worthwhile.
I find Caitlyn incredibly wise, but this: "It’s not hard to get people to care about tyranny that affects them personally" is laughably incorrect. 99% of people i know care not a whit about being locked up, tortured and robbed by the covid tyranny.
When people talk about God, or the Universal Creating One and Whole, we generally see that as separate from ourselves.
This shift in focus that we are experiencing currently is bringing us in touch with the idea that we are inextricably interconnected to the UCOW and each other and to all of Creation - Nature, the Earth, and all of the other aspects of ourselves, both in physical focus and across all dimensions of existence.
These "tiny" lives that we see as the whole of our existence are but one small aspect of our greater being-ness.
The more we move into recognition of our wider reality as being included in the UCOW, the easier it will be for us to practice acceptance and compassion for everyone on our planet.
The trick though, (and a big trick it is), is to also hold that same acceptance and compassion for those who do things we don't like. Those who we see as responsible for the ills of our world. They are as equally connected as we are, and are simply developmental focuses having an experience that is no better or worse than our own.
Because on another level, there is no right or wrong - no good or bad. It's all just experience. Our best work has to include compassion and acceptance not only for the victims, but for the perpetrators as well. They are equally connected to us, and as much a part of the UCOW as we are.
We can work to change the mass beliefs - but we must also not judge those who are not experiencing yet a wider awareness. Otherwise we are continuing the cycle of judgment and victim/perpetrator.
We don't have to like what they do. But we also cannot separate them out in judgment. To do so is to deny our own existence in however we choose to express it.
As we begin to move further into awareness of our greater reality, many of the "reasons" for why people continue to express in ways we don't like will dissipate. Violence and oppression will no longer be necessary. But in order to stop the cycle, we must end it with ourselves first. Otherwise, we are simply performing the same expressions as these others in judgment which makes us no different than them.
The only way to stop this is to stop it with ourselves. Then we will begin to see the reflections of our choices out in the world.
I always considered myself reasonably well informed and socially aware, but even looking back a couple of decades, I am a bit embarrassed by some of the stuff I swallowed.
It really does take time, effort and commitment to see totally through the smokescreens of garbage thrown at us.
The problem with compassion is it's often seen as a sign of weakness, and will be taken advantage of. Another problem with trying to convince people to be more compassionate is that it's likely to annoy them. Basically you're saying they're not compassionate enough. Tell someone they're lacking in anything and see what kind of response you get.
I think a more effective way to deal with tyranny is to simply withdraw your support. Look at where and what you spend your time and money on, and pull the plug on anything that supports the tyranny. TV and Hollywood would be a good start. Garbage industrial 'food' if you can find substitutes. Clothing made in sketchy countries by major corporations. Anything made in countries that brutalize their population. Takes a bit of effort, but who said fighting tyranny was easy?
Ah yeah. I believe she used the wrong word here. I think it's understanding and cooperation the 2 words that get people on board. Compassion is a word that makes people cringe at first but if compassionate is who you are, whatever floats your boat.
The most fundamental biological urge is the will to survive. If you point out to people that we're on the road to destruction if we don't broaden our self-interest to include the self-interests of others, you'll probably make more headway than trying to convince people to be more compassionate.
The problem I have with compassion is that it suggests a hierarchy with the compassionate (benevolent) person at the top, and is thus somewhat patronizing. I prefer the self-interest model because it takes account of the fact that other people have their own ideas of what constitutes self-interest. Non-interference is what I advocate. That's my entire platform as a candidate in 2024. Stay the hell out of other people's business. Most of them can get along just fine without us, and the few that can't we can help, not out of compassion, out of self-interest.
Candidate? You didnt sound like one at first. Who are you?
What blows my head off is the amount of malignant narcissists in the U.S. that left their own flesh and blood off to live on the streets, left for dead. These people have been homeless since 9/11, few probably longer than that. My city is the capital of the homeless U.S. and there are hordes of them. They are mentally disabled and can't take care of themselves. The whole mental health crisis needs to be reformed so these people can see professionals, not aggressive idiots that demonise them. There isn't a homeless problem anywhere else.
Oh yeah, I meant empire aligned nations, of course. The other nations that have parliamentary system that reject empire , do not. We need this multipolar world to make it harder for wars to break out.
If that isn't obvious who's the psycho one, I don't know what is then. How can all these people be crazy but the deep state isn't? Excuse me if I talk about mental health a lot here . My mom had a rare form of mental illness and I had to care for her. I still think about her every second of the day and tear up bc she fucking scream her head off everywhere we went. It wasn't until much later, we figured out she was screaming bc she was in pain. Very severe mental illness in rare cases causes brain inflammation. We used to think she was going to attack us bc of all the shit on TV that demonises mental illness.
So true, Caitlin. Just recently I was disturbed to hear that many of my "friends" didn't care about the fires in Hawaii. "Who cares about Hawaii?" they said. "What about all the missing children that may have burned alive?," I asked. "Yeah, that's sad, but I've never been there." Similar comments were made about the Hurricane Idalia suffering, not to mention the carnage in Ukraine, Russia, and all the other senseless wars. Unless it fits into their Left/Right paradigm and can be used a bludgeon for the other side, no one cares.
When a people or a person loses their compassion for humanity, they become soulless. To not have empathy for someone just because they're far away or unknown is to be a cold monster - selfishness and narcissism have taken over.
I believe this is our current state of being in the Western World. In order to inflict all the damage we've done for centuries, we hardened our culture and worldview. Makes it easier to kill the other or traffick them around the world for our needs and pleasures. This is another explanation for the terrible state of education, the less you know of the past, the more the focus is on right-now, the easier it is to be convinced to do anything.
Until we face the dead-eyed monster our culture has created and slay him, we are doomed as a people.
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
Thank you for this and especially the quote by Einstein, which by the way is exactly what is at the core of Buddhist philosophy. And why wouldn’t it be... Einstein was a wise being who probably paid attention to the dharma (also know as the teachings of the Buddha).
It was pretty crazy when that poll came about saying that a shockingly high # of democrats supported putting people in camps and such.
I live in a red state and before February 24 2022, there would be days I would go outside and I could just feel the energy field of hatred/blame/resentment for the un-v'd and then would be exposed to the news and it was like "yeah this exactly is the kind of messaging that cause the tootsies to butcher the hutu's" or whatever that awful shit was.
Weird how Putin invading Ukraine just magically "fixed" it all.
Nebulus P. McCrotty: I live in Sonoma County north of San Francisco. It doesn't get any more Democrat than Sonoma County. I was treated like a leper for not wearing a mask or getting vaxxed. I was yelled at several times, "Where's your mask!" And at the local hospital I said, "I already had the disease. I have natural immunity." The staff laughed at me.
Another thing I've noticed living here in reddest of red states is that a lot of people who are classified as "deplorables" are actually really sweet people. They may be not that smart in some ways but I feel like they do not deserve all the shame being put into them by blue America. There are a lot of assholes on the internet of ever political stripe. it tends to bring out the worst in people. I"m not saying hey your stereo typical Trump supporting MAGA white male blah blah blah doesn't have any shit coming to them. Sure maybe they do, but personally I do not think they are -- as so many libs seem convinced -- fundamentally bad people.
But then maybe I just have that kind of deplorable in me and so I can sympathize with being a deplorable because that's just the cloth I am cut from as well. Anyway to me shitlibs seem like the most disgusting people on earth and there's a part of me that believes they basically deserve to wake up in a world where every day is election day and it's just always Donald Trump being re-elected president of hell over and over and over again for the rest of time (and maybe the occassional "insurrectionist" poking them in the butt with a trident for good measure).
Feel like that would basically serve many of them right.
But whatever let's just please not have freaking WW3 OK?
Nebulus P. McCrotty: I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. It was "Flyover Country". I liked growing up in Lincoln. They were/are good people but I hear that Lincoln is much more Democrat now than it was back in the 1960s.
I also hope that WW3 doesn't come but many are predicting it (including Tucker Carlson).
If a Russian nuke hits SF I figure that our town will be about 20 miles north of the blast zone. Hopefully the wind will be out of the north that day.
It took some time and realization. It took education too. It made me aware of my country's abuses worldwide. I now write about how the Neocons, Neolibs and Zionist Neocons have turned our nation into the world's foremost terrorist state.
None of those groups could exist in today's world without Finance and Disaster Capitalism.
They got their start due to Patrimonial Capitalism and kept it going through Crony Capitalism.
For sure. It's all the same thing. The problem is, American style capitalism is 100% incompatible with so-called American style democracy. Or any real democracy for that matter.
It requires all but a complete upending of one's world view.
It was an identity crisis but I got through it and repented. I do all I can to redeem myself.
LOL, indeed.
We're all in the same boat to an extent. "Back in the day," prior to the internet, getting info efficiently was an impossible process.
Since the advent of the internet, learning things has been leveraged by many people and the ability to figure things out all but instantaneously have become routine.
The fundie movement had me enrapt, no pun intended. One must first understand how the Zionists and Babylonian Talmudists have coopted our entire western civilization.
People, and I'm not merely including but largely referring to the so-called and self-proclaimed "awake" here, when I state that they hang up with the same cognitive dissonance that they point the finger at "liberals" and others for.
It's simple however, and requires only a 2nd-grade math education and basic research skills. Yet, those same people cannot overcome it.
How does one take [approx.] 3 million, subtract 6 million, and end up with over 5 million, and miraculously increasing incessantly.
Yet, they can't piece that together for an enormous pulling back of the curtain and revelation of the bigger picture.
It's truly astonishing.
But still with all the information readily available, the majority are clueless and wish to remain so.
Yes, they're generally too lazy to spend much time learning, and the other thing is that as Americans we've generally been raised, at least over the past several decades, to first and foremost pursue leisure, pleasure, fun, etc. 2 Tim. 3:4 comes to mind. "...lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;"
Longtrail: It is not my country. It is not my government. It isn't even my nation. The USA is just a loose economic union united by the dollar and international borders.
A first step forward is to realize our political classes teach us to hate other cultures selectively to justify their criminal wars. This is a hideous treachery they have been getting away with for decades. The morons in Washington refuse to accept that country every and every peoples have a right to self-determination and this is a key element of the emerging multipolar world.
It is no longer an option to think of ourselves as a global community --it is essential to our survival as the human race. It is a crowded complex planet and everybody has to be on our best behavior.
Einstein also said if there is a third world war the next will be fought with sticks and stones.
"Any effort to get people to pay attention to the abuses of western foreign policy helps weaken public trust in the propaganda machine which lies about those abuses, and any effort to weaken public trust in the propaganda machine helps the effort to expand people’s circle of compassion.
We’ve still got our work cut out for us, but what the hell else are we going to do? "
Beautifully stated! We've been trying to do the same at The Revolution Continues as well. If you can share the information that isn't being shared (deliberately so) by the propaganda machine, you will cause others to see how they've been propagandized by those in authority they trusted. Once trust in authority is eroded, it's difficult to impossible to regain. You've seen behind the "curtain" and you know those pulling the levers to hurt us are also pulling levers to hurt others. We start to care about the fate of our fellow passengers on this spaceship Earth. It's not going to happen overnight, but every day, every hour, every minute, another one of us will begin to understand who we can really trust and how to show compassion.
Essentially. I think it ties into Mazlow's pyramid were we begin at survival and develop psychologically to transcendence of ourselves, where we can(if we choose) expand our circle to include others or the planet. That there is this idea that our tribal nature some how stops the basic biological needs. I don't think at a base level we as a species care about the trival tribalism when we are trying to survive. Which means that the whole world is a part of us, has been for 2 million years. (Homo Habilis) That the human species have been interbreeding with almost anyone we have come in contact with (neanderthals, Denisovans etc) and many indigenous people interbred because of these needs. Now with nuclear brinksmanship, our survival is threaten globally and the only natural and logical response is to stop it and that means caring about others we don't know. We know we are capable of it through charities for example. It should be a natural human response to prevent the species extinction?
Thing is our minds and our society is so anti-human we have developed unnatural or potentially insane responses. Ecocide is bad and climate change is bad, harming our survival, propaganda drives us against our instincts. So, we have the capability, compassionately and intellectually. We are being pushed to be cruel and selfish by society.
Thank you. It is rare that I see someone speaking about the emergence of behavioral modernity. It is a very fascinating and important topic and I could spend weeks discussing it. But..
Human behavior is becoming exponentially more inorganic. We have evolved both physically and psychologically as a species over the ages, and our understanding of these changes ( particularly cognitively) gives us insight on the workings of our involuntary instinctual mind. Essentially we understand the default settings now. This is how "sciences"in the 19th century were able to advance the concept of biohacking and set the stage for the development of mass society in the 20th century. Every symbol that was once human has been replaced with new meanings, a complete transvaluation of everything into a simulacrum.
My point, we really do not know the current natural state of man nor how far we actually have to go as a species to realize a just future where everyone matters. Currently our entire social reality of mass society is manufactured and it is driven by schizogenesis which is inherently tribal.
Understanding this, I have far more hope for us than what I did before I "got it". This environment is all artificial. We evolved millions of years based upon social cooperation and natural law, we were never this hateful. If the same narrative machines that inundate us with negativity would do the opposite and embraced truth instead of deception.. our species would change overnight. When we boil it all away, mass society formation is the ultimate culture war.
You touch on a lot of topics here. The development of the human mind meeting manipulation, going back to the days of state sponsored religion to achieve conformity and stability among populaces. Ancient Rome and Greece for example. In Greece Socretes was charged(and found guilty of) not believe in gods. His philosophical capabilities threatened the status quo. Fast forward with psychologists like Frued or Mazlow, you see an understanding of the human being at a base level. In the past we were nomadic and before tribalism we lived in family units and small groups. Now, here I am writing a post to a person that could be anywhere in the world. I wish you no harm, that you are safe and happy. I am certain you have done me no harm and as a fellow member of the human race, I wish you the best. That should be natural to not be violent towards others. Bombing people around the world, destroying their homes, infrastructure, etc, is horrible. Wars where people are killed is also horrible.
You mentioned a class war, we are now dividing ourselves into smaller and smaller groups to fight each other. Everyone seems to want to fight each other, race, religion, political affiliation, socio economic position etc. Why? We are not each others enemies as groups, we are being pushed and encourage to harm others to the point of destroying the world and ourselves, for the sake of rich people's Russian roulette.
Contest creates rivalry, by design. It's an institution best abolished as a source of useless waste, rather than celebrated as a sacred and infallible divination ritual.
The ungovernable are often more persuadable and less petulant than the propaganda makes them out to be; just you can't buy them from a distance.
The more people we have the greater number of them will fail in competition, by mere odds. That by percentage most will not succeed, hence niches in business where they try to avoid over saturation of the market. People logically try to do the same, but we are limited by our resources which the vast majority have relatively little. Competitive rivalry really is something that exploits humanity, most westerners often seem to say they are the hardest working, most intelligent, etc, no matter their social standing or education due to propaganda being effective. Businesses focus on the needs of the customer or exploiting their wants making them feel important. Once we value each other more we might cooperate more...might.
"It’s not hard to get people to care about tyranny that affects them personally or affects other people in their country, but getting people to think about the victims of your government’s starvation sanctions, drone bombs or proxy warfare is difficult."
That's an interesting premise, namely the first part of that sentence.
Not sure I agree Caitlin. Let's take cops for example.
They're programmed and trained like circus seals that every member of the "public," while failing to realize that THEY are "the public" too at times, is out to get them and a potential danger. Hence why they act the way that they do, namely half or fully psychotic.
I doubt that any of them give much thought to what they're actually "Protecting and serving ..." besides Tyranny as they wilfully do its bidding.
Yet, that affects them personally whether they're aware of it or not. It also affects their friends and family.
Same for people employed (meaning making money off of) our medical establishment, an INDUSTRY that THRIVES and is driven by ill-health and disease, quite often caused by the "solutions" provided by the former. And let's take the last several years where both hospitals and doctors, and in some cases nurses, got paid to kill people. With a societal boomerang affect that affects them personally too even if not directly. Yet, neither seem to have a problem with it and defer to the age old "just following orders" mantra in defense of murder.
As I see it, a good chunck of society has lost any and all moral compass and is driven by the basest of all human vices, namely greed.
And think about it, our society is bitterly divided within itself, with many people not only willing but eager to kill others on the other "side." Look at all the evil sentiment with murderous intent, even literally, by those that did, insisting that those that did not put unknown toxic chemicals into their bodies, should die via one mechanism or another.
A society as divided as that, IMO it's asking way way way too much to get them to consider anything as such outside of their immediate realm.
Then factor in stupidity, ignorance, etc. too.
Interesting piece perhaps, but I disagree wholeheartedly with the premise. I'm even far from convinced that the majority even recognizes tyranny as such. Audiences/readers here are a minority.
Just sayin' ...
"Just sayn...."- the truth.
A timely reminder. Repeat often.
And lets not forget the people of Ukraine. They live in dangerous times because some dickheads in this country want to give Putin the finger, laundry money, and enrich themselves and their dickhead friends. Of course, those flags the lackwits are flying make it all worthwhile.
I find Caitlyn incredibly wise, but this: "It’s not hard to get people to care about tyranny that affects them personally" is laughably incorrect. 99% of people i know care not a whit about being locked up, tortured and robbed by the covid tyranny.
Edit: see also the excellent comment by '37'
When people talk about God, or the Universal Creating One and Whole, we generally see that as separate from ourselves.
This shift in focus that we are experiencing currently is bringing us in touch with the idea that we are inextricably interconnected to the UCOW and each other and to all of Creation - Nature, the Earth, and all of the other aspects of ourselves, both in physical focus and across all dimensions of existence.
These "tiny" lives that we see as the whole of our existence are but one small aspect of our greater being-ness.
The more we move into recognition of our wider reality as being included in the UCOW, the easier it will be for us to practice acceptance and compassion for everyone on our planet.
The trick though, (and a big trick it is), is to also hold that same acceptance and compassion for those who do things we don't like. Those who we see as responsible for the ills of our world. They are as equally connected as we are, and are simply developmental focuses having an experience that is no better or worse than our own.
Because on another level, there is no right or wrong - no good or bad. It's all just experience. Our best work has to include compassion and acceptance not only for the victims, but for the perpetrators as well. They are equally connected to us, and as much a part of the UCOW as we are.
We can work to change the mass beliefs - but we must also not judge those who are not experiencing yet a wider awareness. Otherwise we are continuing the cycle of judgment and victim/perpetrator.
We don't have to like what they do. But we also cannot separate them out in judgment. To do so is to deny our own existence in however we choose to express it.
As we begin to move further into awareness of our greater reality, many of the "reasons" for why people continue to express in ways we don't like will dissipate. Violence and oppression will no longer be necessary. But in order to stop the cycle, we must end it with ourselves first. Otherwise, we are simply performing the same expressions as these others in judgment which makes us no different than them.
The only way to stop this is to stop it with ourselves. Then we will begin to see the reflections of our choices out in the world.
I always considered myself reasonably well informed and socially aware, but even looking back a couple of decades, I am a bit embarrassed by some of the stuff I swallowed.
It really does take time, effort and commitment to see totally through the smokescreens of garbage thrown at us.
The problem with compassion is it's often seen as a sign of weakness, and will be taken advantage of. Another problem with trying to convince people to be more compassionate is that it's likely to annoy them. Basically you're saying they're not compassionate enough. Tell someone they're lacking in anything and see what kind of response you get.
I think a more effective way to deal with tyranny is to simply withdraw your support. Look at where and what you spend your time and money on, and pull the plug on anything that supports the tyranny. TV and Hollywood would be a good start. Garbage industrial 'food' if you can find substitutes. Clothing made in sketchy countries by major corporations. Anything made in countries that brutalize their population. Takes a bit of effort, but who said fighting tyranny was easy?
Ah yeah. I believe she used the wrong word here. I think it's understanding and cooperation the 2 words that get people on board. Compassion is a word that makes people cringe at first but if compassionate is who you are, whatever floats your boat.
The most fundamental biological urge is the will to survive. If you point out to people that we're on the road to destruction if we don't broaden our self-interest to include the self-interests of others, you'll probably make more headway than trying to convince people to be more compassionate.
The problem I have with compassion is that it suggests a hierarchy with the compassionate (benevolent) person at the top, and is thus somewhat patronizing. I prefer the self-interest model because it takes account of the fact that other people have their own ideas of what constitutes self-interest. Non-interference is what I advocate. That's my entire platform as a candidate in 2024. Stay the hell out of other people's business. Most of them can get along just fine without us, and the few that can't we can help, not out of compassion, out of self-interest.
Candidate? You didnt sound like one at first. Who are you?
What blows my head off is the amount of malignant narcissists in the U.S. that left their own flesh and blood off to live on the streets, left for dead. These people have been homeless since 9/11, few probably longer than that. My city is the capital of the homeless U.S. and there are hordes of them. They are mentally disabled and can't take care of themselves. The whole mental health crisis needs to be reformed so these people can see professionals, not aggressive idiots that demonise them. There isn't a homeless problem anywhere else.
"There isn't a homeless problem anywhere else."
Yeah there is. Do a search on "Pandora homeless Victoria BC" then go to images.
Mental health is just part of it. The main problem is fentanyl pouring across the unprotected US border with Mexico.
There's also about 2 million homeless in Turkey and Syria thanks to the recent earthquake. If you want to help those people, here's how:
https://www.islamicreliefcanada.org/
Oh yeah, I meant empire aligned nations, of course. The other nations that have parliamentary system that reject empire , do not. We need this multipolar world to make it harder for wars to break out.
If that isn't obvious who's the psycho one, I don't know what is then. How can all these people be crazy but the deep state isn't? Excuse me if I talk about mental health a lot here . My mom had a rare form of mental illness and I had to care for her. I still think about her every second of the day and tear up bc she fucking scream her head off everywhere we went. It wasn't until much later, we figured out she was screaming bc she was in pain. Very severe mental illness in rare cases causes brain inflammation. We used to think she was going to attack us bc of all the shit on TV that demonises mental illness.
That is a beautiful quote.
So true, Caitlin. Just recently I was disturbed to hear that many of my "friends" didn't care about the fires in Hawaii. "Who cares about Hawaii?" they said. "What about all the missing children that may have burned alive?," I asked. "Yeah, that's sad, but I've never been there." Similar comments were made about the Hurricane Idalia suffering, not to mention the carnage in Ukraine, Russia, and all the other senseless wars. Unless it fits into their Left/Right paradigm and can be used a bludgeon for the other side, no one cares.
When a people or a person loses their compassion for humanity, they become soulless. To not have empathy for someone just because they're far away or unknown is to be a cold monster - selfishness and narcissism have taken over.
I believe this is our current state of being in the Western World. In order to inflict all the damage we've done for centuries, we hardened our culture and worldview. Makes it easier to kill the other or traffick them around the world for our needs and pleasures. This is another explanation for the terrible state of education, the less you know of the past, the more the focus is on right-now, the easier it is to be convinced to do anything.
Until we face the dead-eyed monster our culture has created and slay him, we are doomed as a people.
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
― James Baldwin
Thank you for this and especially the quote by Einstein, which by the way is exactly what is at the core of Buddhist philosophy. And why wouldn’t it be... Einstein was a wise being who probably paid attention to the dharma (also know as the teachings of the Buddha).
Thank you Cailtlin🙏
The Covid Cult Crap killed my Circle of Compassion.
It was pretty crazy when that poll came about saying that a shockingly high # of democrats supported putting people in camps and such.
I live in a red state and before February 24 2022, there would be days I would go outside and I could just feel the energy field of hatred/blame/resentment for the un-v'd and then would be exposed to the news and it was like "yeah this exactly is the kind of messaging that cause the tootsies to butcher the hutu's" or whatever that awful shit was.
Weird how Putin invading Ukraine just magically "fixed" it all.
Nebulus--they redeemed themselves by flying their blue and yellow flags. It was like an instant erasure of the previous 2 years.
Yes, right. Putin's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine did what the vaccine couldn't CQTMS.
Nebulus P. McCrotty: I live in Sonoma County north of San Francisco. It doesn't get any more Democrat than Sonoma County. I was treated like a leper for not wearing a mask or getting vaxxed. I was yelled at several times, "Where's your mask!" And at the local hospital I said, "I already had the disease. I have natural immunity." The staff laughed at me.
Another thing I've noticed living here in reddest of red states is that a lot of people who are classified as "deplorables" are actually really sweet people. They may be not that smart in some ways but I feel like they do not deserve all the shame being put into them by blue America. There are a lot of assholes on the internet of ever political stripe. it tends to bring out the worst in people. I"m not saying hey your stereo typical Trump supporting MAGA white male blah blah blah doesn't have any shit coming to them. Sure maybe they do, but personally I do not think they are -- as so many libs seem convinced -- fundamentally bad people.
But then maybe I just have that kind of deplorable in me and so I can sympathize with being a deplorable because that's just the cloth I am cut from as well. Anyway to me shitlibs seem like the most disgusting people on earth and there's a part of me that believes they basically deserve to wake up in a world where every day is election day and it's just always Donald Trump being re-elected president of hell over and over and over again for the rest of time (and maybe the occassional "insurrectionist" poking them in the butt with a trident for good measure).
Feel like that would basically serve many of them right.
But whatever let's just please not have freaking WW3 OK?
Nebulus P. McCrotty: I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. It was "Flyover Country". I liked growing up in Lincoln. They were/are good people but I hear that Lincoln is much more Democrat now than it was back in the 1960s.
I also hope that WW3 doesn't come but many are predicting it (including Tucker Carlson).
If a Russian nuke hits SF I figure that our town will be about 20 miles north of the blast zone. Hopefully the wind will be out of the north that day.
Dummies.