Are We Really This Stupid?
We aren’t the cause of our mutual hatred, but we are the only ones stopping it
History has been repeating itself for several years now. I remember the 60’s and 70’s and in the 20’s we are reliving them. Not nostalgically, but literally. With this many inflammatory reruns, it looks more like by design and less lie coincidence.
Sixties and Seventies
- Women’s Lib
- Gay Rights
- Race Riots
- Nationwide campus protests to end the Vietnam War.
- Save the Whales
- Sitting Democrat President drops out of reelection
- Nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union
- RFK runs for president
- Supreme Court rules to move abortion law from states to the federal government.
- Risk of nuclear war with Soviet Union
- Republican candidate Richard Nixon spies on the DNC headquarters for an advantage in his presidential campaign
- Not always easy to discern the gender of young adults
- Hippies vs hardhats
- The DNC convention held in Chicago
- Never trust anyone over 30
Twenties
- Women’s rights: the sequel
- Trans rights
- Race riots, aka Black Lives Matter
- Nationwide campus protests to end Israel’s war against Hamas
- Climate change
- Sitting Democrat President (maybe) pushed out of reelection
- Risk of nuclear war with Soviet Union
- RFK Jr. runs for president
- Supreme Court rules to move abortion law from the federal government back to the states.
- Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton spies on the Trump campaign for an advantage in her presidential campaign
- Not always easy to discern the gender of young adults
- The DNC convention held in Chicago
- Never trust anyone over 70
It’s as if nothing on the first list happened. Wiped out like a distant memory, and treated today as if we just found out, and we must frantically bring justice. Why are we forever enraged and completely unwilling to acknowledge the shoulders of the people on which we stand? What if we take a beat and celebrate the wins once in a while?
We had a biracial president for Pete’s sake. There are no more “colored” bathrooms, drinking fountains, and whatever other segregated facilities. Again, for Pete’s sake (who is these Pete, and why do we care about him?) We have a biracial vice president. Did I mention she is a woman?
No longer are gay people forced to live in the closet for fear of being denied jobs because they are security risks? Now they can do anything a straight person can do. Did I mention they have huge parades and a month devoted to being gay?
Face it. Things are way better for everyone than in the 50’s. Let’s acknowledge that progress and build on it. Let’s stop frothing at the mouth and giving ourselves strokes about it. Hatred only impedes progress. For us. Not the politicians in Washington.
Most, if not all of our social divisions are the result federal level politicians. I have suspected this to be true for years, but it wasn’t until the parade of reruns that I am confident enough to say keeping us fighting each other is by design. As long as we think the other side is the problem, it diverts our focus away from what our alleged representatives in Washington are doing.
In the 60–70’s we didn’t have many hate options to distract as we do today. Not only were they fewer, but they were mostly sequential. The Vietnam War dominated our focus and anger. After that cooled a bit, then came equal rights. One at a time. Women’s Lib, Black Power, and Gay rights. Why they didn’t all erupt at the same time, seems more of a plan than a coincidence. If they all happened at once, it wouldn’t drag on as long, and if too many groups coalesced, that would create an unintended majority.
After that, the strategy shifted, with promoting an existential threat. The Soviet Union was portrayed as an evil, imperial power, bent on conquering or destroying us. Throwing in the threat of nuclear Armageddon was a bonus. That combo would take anybody’s mind off of well, anything else. It gave the government cover, and those pesky protests faded as we learned how to survive nuclear blast. Survival consisted of cowering under our desks while the teacher closed the blinds on all the windows. This shift in tactics brought us all together as a nation. In terror. Even then, adults were gullible when the government or media were spinning whoppers. In spite their generation witnessing the devastation by Fat Man and Little Boy, nobody’s parents questioned blinds and desks as effective deterrents to an atom bomb.
Emboldened by the lack of skepticism of the population, our leaders improved their tactics as cable TV and the Internet. Stations such as MSNBC and CNN became an invaluable distributors of Democrat propaganda. Republicans used OAN, Newsmax, and Fox News to disseminate their talking points.
The Internet in conjunction with alleged news outlets have eliminated the need to create division by hating one group at a time. With the aid of the propaganda networks, they can divide us over multiple fault lines. With the new tech tools of today, Washington has assembled a buffet of people to hate. If you don’t hate someone about one issue, there are plenty more options. For example, trans women in women’s sports. Israel vs Hamas. Trump or Biden destroying democracy. Liberals vs Conservatives. With such a wide selection, everyone gets a chance to further divide and distract us. Lincoln talked about a house divided. This principle doesn’t just apply to the government, but as the population as well.
Let’s stop contributing to our own demise. We don’t need to wait for fact-checkers to save us from the barrage of horse apples. In the age of search engines, you can easily be a DIY fact checker. In the age of CSPAN, it’s easy to see what those rascals in Congress are up to. We really need to get our information from the source, and not get our information and opinions from rating driven purveyors of propaganda.
If we continue to accept what Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow tell us what to believe, based on their narrow slice of facts, then we really are that stupid.
