I don't know who deserves the credit for the saying They tried to bury us; they forgot we were seeds, but I think it has enormous significance and resonance right now. I think if we don't adopt this as our credo, we've already lost, and if we do internalize it, we've already won.
I'm not a New Year's Resolution person, because frankly I got sick of feeling ashamed after breaking resolutions. But I do set intentions, and today, New Year's Day 2022, I'm starting this new blog. Like many people, I've been shocked, appalled, and intensely obsessed with how thoroughly the pandemic has revealed the staggering depth and breadth of institutional and corporate corruption, as well as the extent of its global coordination. Yet as much as this rocked me back on my heels, devastated me, plunged me into depression, and all the rest, I'd been aware *enough*, pre-pandemic, to even have the capability to perceive, absorb, and at least sort of mentally assimilate a lot of the truth of what is happening. What I find most painful of all is being so violently ripped apart from the other sentient, capable-of-love beings on the planet who are not (at least not yet) able to perceive or absorb this fuller picture of the truth.
Whether you call it division or polarization, it's a separation of humans, and this separation hurts like a bitch. Having no choice but to be shuttled, categorized and labeled into one or another of essentially two groups of people who are locked in an ideological, moral, and spiritual battle to the death, is as unspeakably unfair as it is apparently unavoidable.
I'd really like more than anything to unite people and heal the rift, but obviously I can't prevent some people from categorizing me as their enemy unless I'm willing to just lie to everyone all the time. If nothing else, I want to at least add my voice to the brave voices who have meant so much to me. That's optimistically assuming that anyone will ever read this. I want to represent my viewpoint while trying to side-step the temptations and pitfalls of hatred and "othering." I don't want to be "othered" and I don't want to "other" anyone else. But I am going to tell the truth as I see it.
I named this blog "There is Literally No Problem with Liberty" partly as a reference to Jon Stewart's show, "The Problem with Jon Stewart," in which fairly recently he came out with an episode entitled, "The Problem with Freedom." To me the assertion that there is a "problem" with freedom is not just troubling, it's eye-popping. But seeing Stewart's show tuned me in to the awareness that there is an increasingly commonplace quality to such statements, and that it wasn't really as easy to notice its strangeness as it should have been. This is because this statement is emerging everywhere on repeat. Like so many other propagandistic slogans, it has been very subtly encroaching a little at a time until one day, it was just a perfectly normal thing to hear, a perfectly normal thing to say. Once you've got trusted people like Stewart, who have earned a reputation for being rational and courageous and for speaking truth to power, saying "There's a problem with freedom," you've got a propaganda program that has at least partially hacked even some of the best minds. And because of the influence wielded by such trusted people, at that point this anti-freedom mindset's total penetration into social consciousness is irreversible. (At least until we've done the work to reverse it, commensurate with the efforts that went into successfully implanting it into the social consciousness in the first place. Far be it from me to fatalistically presume a negative ultimate outcome.)
So I've just asserted that there is literally no problem with liberty. How can I back that up? Is it just a gut feeling? Is it simply my emotional preference? I won't rule out that it could be part of my subjective value system, informed by my wiring or personality. But you can't dismiss it solely on that basis, because there is a long cultural and philosophical history of great geniuses outlining stunningly brilliant rational arguments in favor of liberty. And it really wasn't so long ago that all Americans (and many others throughout the world), despite our many differences, could agree that the value of liberty was an unadulterated force of good. Whatever happened to that?
There are also complex word-games at play now, where slogans that used to mean one thing are being used to promote the very opposite. Examples are arguments like "Freedom comes with responsibility" and "Freedom isn't free." Depending on what the speaker means by this, I either couldn't agree more, or I couldn't disagree more. We're constantly blocked from true communication by insidious and often unconsciously-deployed manipulations of lexical meaning. That's why what we need is to forget all about slogans and sound-bites, and instead just sit down and TAAAAAAAAAALK. Talk for a loooong, loooooong, time. That's why long-form podcast interviews are now becoming such a big deal and in my opinion are sent straight from Heaven. I love them.
It's largely in utter gratitude for the people who have brought those long interviews to me that I tip my hat by starting this blog. They had the courage to speak publicly when I didn't. We've always heard that there's a tipping point to revolutions in thought, when the masses of people who are quietly watching to see which way the wind is going to blow, start to gather enough courage to join the fight. Well, I've always been 100% on the side of freedom, but I've never had a public platform, and I'm very shy and self-conscious. I'm humbly willing to be one of the plebes that jumps on the bandwagon after the REAL heroes have made it safe for me to do so. Because early or late, I know that just like those heroes inspired me, my voice can inspire some of the people who are even a little more afraid, even a little more self-conscious, than I am right now.
So let's talk about liberty! Let's talk about not handing over our freedoms. Let's talk about being brave instead of obedient. Let's talk about being ourselves instead of fitting in. Let's talk about standing up against censorship, and reviving these powerful words: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Let's talk about loving one another, both despite and because of our irreconcilable differences. I'm gonna be here all year. 2022 is my year to start speaking out loud and clear in strong defense of both FREEDOM and brotherly LOVE. And I hope it will be yours too.
I'm not a New Year's Resolution person, because frankly I got sick of feeling ashamed after breaking resolutions. But I do set intentions, and today, New Year's Day 2022, I'm starting this new blog. Like many people, I've been shocked, appalled, and intensely obsessed with how thoroughly the pandemic has revealed the staggering depth and breadth of institutional and corporate corruption, as well as the extent of its global coordination. Yet as much as this rocked me back on my heels, devastated me, plunged me into depression, and all the rest, I'd been aware *enough*, pre-pandemic, to even have the capability to perceive, absorb, and at least sort of mentally assimilate a lot of the truth of what is happening. What I find most painful of all is being so violently ripped apart from the other sentient, capable-of-love beings on the planet who are not (at least not yet) able to perceive or absorb this fuller picture of the truth.
Whether you call it division or polarization, it's a separation of humans, and this separation hurts like a bitch. Having no choice but to be shuttled, categorized and labeled into one or another of essentially two groups of people who are locked in an ideological, moral, and spiritual battle to the death, is as unspeakably unfair as it is apparently unavoidable.
I'd really like more than anything to unite people and heal the rift, but obviously I can't prevent some people from categorizing me as their enemy unless I'm willing to just lie to everyone all the time. If nothing else, I want to at least add my voice to the brave voices who have meant so much to me. That's optimistically assuming that anyone will ever read this. I want to represent my viewpoint while trying to side-step the temptations and pitfalls of hatred and "othering." I don't want to be "othered" and I don't want to "other" anyone else. But I am going to tell the truth as I see it.
I named this blog "There is Literally No Problem with Liberty" partly as a reference to Jon Stewart's show, "The Problem with Jon Stewart," in which fairly recently he came out with an episode entitled, "The Problem with Freedom." To me the assertion that there is a "problem" with freedom is not just troubling, it's eye-popping. But seeing Stewart's show tuned me in to the awareness that there is an increasingly commonplace quality to such statements, and that it wasn't really as easy to notice its strangeness as it should have been. This is because this statement is emerging everywhere on repeat. Like so many other propagandistic slogans, it has been very subtly encroaching a little at a time until one day, it was just a perfectly normal thing to hear, a perfectly normal thing to say. Once you've got trusted people like Stewart, who have earned a reputation for being rational and courageous and for speaking truth to power, saying "There's a problem with freedom," you've got a propaganda program that has at least partially hacked even some of the best minds. And because of the influence wielded by such trusted people, at that point this anti-freedom mindset's total penetration into social consciousness is irreversible. (At least until we've done the work to reverse it, commensurate with the efforts that went into successfully implanting it into the social consciousness in the first place. Far be it from me to fatalistically presume a negative ultimate outcome.)
So I've just asserted that there is literally no problem with liberty. How can I back that up? Is it just a gut feeling? Is it simply my emotional preference? I won't rule out that it could be part of my subjective value system, informed by my wiring or personality. But you can't dismiss it solely on that basis, because there is a long cultural and philosophical history of great geniuses outlining stunningly brilliant rational arguments in favor of liberty. And it really wasn't so long ago that all Americans (and many others throughout the world), despite our many differences, could agree that the value of liberty was an unadulterated force of good. Whatever happened to that?
There are also complex word-games at play now, where slogans that used to mean one thing are being used to promote the very opposite. Examples are arguments like "Freedom comes with responsibility" and "Freedom isn't free." Depending on what the speaker means by this, I either couldn't agree more, or I couldn't disagree more. We're constantly blocked from true communication by insidious and often unconsciously-deployed manipulations of lexical meaning. That's why what we need is to forget all about slogans and sound-bites, and instead just sit down and TAAAAAAAAAALK. Talk for a loooong, loooooong, time. That's why long-form podcast interviews are now becoming such a big deal and in my opinion are sent straight from Heaven. I love them.
It's largely in utter gratitude for the people who have brought those long interviews to me that I tip my hat by starting this blog. They had the courage to speak publicly when I didn't. We've always heard that there's a tipping point to revolutions in thought, when the masses of people who are quietly watching to see which way the wind is going to blow, start to gather enough courage to join the fight. Well, I've always been 100% on the side of freedom, but I've never had a public platform, and I'm very shy and self-conscious. I'm humbly willing to be one of the plebes that jumps on the bandwagon after the REAL heroes have made it safe for me to do so. Because early or late, I know that just like those heroes inspired me, my voice can inspire some of the people who are even a little more afraid, even a little more self-conscious, than I am right now.
So let's talk about liberty! Let's talk about not handing over our freedoms. Let's talk about being brave instead of obedient. Let's talk about being ourselves instead of fitting in. Let's talk about standing up against censorship, and reviving these powerful words: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Let's talk about loving one another, both despite and because of our irreconcilable differences. I'm gonna be here all year. 2022 is my year to start speaking out loud and clear in strong defense of both FREEDOM and brotherly LOVE. And I hope it will be yours too.
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