My children (young adults) said this a year ago. Their news sources were live video feeds on the ground in Gaza, while we were still watching mainstream media who, BTW, was paid for by corporate sponsors. They compared it to the students that spoke and protested against Vietnam. Those same students are now baby boomers, many who are have been hoodwinked by corporate led media. Where are our memories? Being against a genocide does not mean anti-Israeli people or anti-Jewish. And those starving babies and children are not Hamas.
Don't you think the antisemitism that did exist as part of the campus protests made it easier to dismiss the correctness of much of what the students were saying? I am a Jew who has been outspoken against the war from the beginning, but I could not defend (and indeed felt threatened by) some of the language coming out of the protests (not the use of the word genocide, but the "all Zionists deserve to die, for example). I have to also say that in my personal experience, the worst antisemitic harassment I experienced was from a fellow adjunct professor at a community college, and it was based on his antiZionism (and happened regardless of the fact that I have never supported the occupation and have worked for Palestinian liberation, but he had no interest in what I actually thought, only in the fact that I'm a Jew). I just find it odd that in an article about language, you skip over some of the language coming out of those protests that made it easier for people to dismiss what they were saying.
I appreciate that, Paula. It sucked, but I certainly didn't let it stop me from speaking out for Palestinian freedom and against the occupation, or from being a proud Jew!
Good for you! I have been speaking out too but have not been so proud of what my people are doing (I am Jewish too). I've had a lot of trouble coming to terms with a country that calls itself Jewish behaving like this.
To me, being a proud Jew has nothing to do with what other Jews do. I don't take credit when a Jew wins a Nobel Prize and I don't take blame when a Jew does something evil like Netanyahu is doing right now.
I'm proud of our tradition and the values I take from it (even if not everybody does), our culture and our calendar, and the fact that we have survived. My Jewishness is part of what gives me empathy for Palestinians and all oppressed people, and anger on their behalf, and I wouldn't trade it if I could - which I can't anyway :). I don't allow what Israel does or does not do to impinge on my Jewish identity.
The way I see it, I don't have a vote in Israel, so any responsibility I have for what Israel does is no different than that of any other American (and we do have some, but it is as Americans and shared with all Americans). As an American, I have been supporting Friends of Standing Together. I don't know if you know about Standing Together in Israel-Palestine, but they are a co-led Palestinian-Jewish organization fighting against the Netanyahu regime and the occupation and growing power for a permanent cease-fire. I recommend checking them out. Supporting Friends of Standing Together has helped me as an American during this time, to feel like I am working to change the situation and end this nightmare.
That's a great way to look at it. I have been going on the assumption that Israel is the Jews, although I know there are plenty of us who don't live there, and Israelis who don't support the government.But I think the world sees it that way. I have been supporting various organizations but I hadn't heard of that one. I'll check it out--thank you!
The problem with deniers, in particular those of power and influence, is that their denials kill people. Wars, climate, hazardous chemicals, slave/child labor, and on and on. That is the inexcusable part. How many Ukrainian and Russian lives would have been saved if Trump, Vance, Rubio and their ilk had actually listened to Zelensky in the Oval Office 6 months ago?
Saying thank you for this essay is inadequate. If you've read one of my most recent comments, you know I am struggling mightily with this very thing. I have absolutely no interest in shaming people or pushing them down. I have always been about lifting people up to be the best they can be. But, and yes there is a but, when people have made bad judgements that have been very damaging to myself directly on a personal level or indirectly via through the effects on the society in which I live, I find that I must ask for not even just an apology, but some real evidence that they get just how bad their judgement was and that there is some motivation to make better, more informed judgements in the future. If I don't see that, I can still forgive people, but I won't necessarily want them in my life anymore. After all, how many times do you put your own well being at risk for a person who hasn't really been honest with themselves or others about their mistakes? We MUST face and learn from our errors or they will just keep happening again and again. I couldn't care less about getting a reward or even public recognition of having been "right" about something. What I want is for the people involved to listen to me the next time when "something" falls in my area of expertise and let me use my training and knowledge to help solve the problem. The loss of trust in our society is at the root of so many of our problems, and I have no clue what to do about it.
I appreciate this thoughtful post and agree that apologies and self-awareness are needed for those who stayed silent about the unfolding genocide over the past year and 10 months.At the same time, it is essential to bring more people into the tent to oppose fascism. I would also like to see more acknowledgment of U.S. complicity in arming Israel, defunding UNRWA, blocking UN resolutions, and harassing those who have spoken out against the genocide. This complicity is shared by most Republican and Democratic politicians and has been cheered on by most mainstream media.
I think the conclusion you seem to be pointing toward without actually drawing is that indeed, people who have made bad mistakes in the past should be forgiven when they gracefully step aside and defer to people who were right. Which, with those two Iraq war proponents, clearly was not the case.
Yes, it is easy to forget the horror of the Iraq war and the capitulation of almost all of congress to support it. I, for one, don’t think of George Bush as a cute ex-president who now paints. He’s a war criminal as are those other fuckers who were in cahoots with him; actually who manipulated him. America is arms dealer to the world and the most bellicose nation. We have so much to apologize for that I really can’t fathom it some times.
Yup. His policies post-9/11 really freaked me out. And now 25-year-olds don't remember the world that preceded 9/11 and security theater and "terrrists." Sigh.
I agree that these late comers should be welcomed, but they should definitely be grateful for the students and for those who have contributed to the movement from the beginning, fighting the stringent pushback coming from the mainstream. There should also be some acknowledgment of remorse. during all this time, before finally joining or co-opting the cause against genocide, over 60,000 people have died and more are dying as I am writing this. While they should be welcomed, even with open arms in order to join the cause to save as many lives as possible, the support of Israel and Netanyahu was shamefully unflinching. What shouldn’t be ignored is that those who are late to the cause are complicit in these deaths, especially Biden and other Democratic leaders. In my opinion it’s the students who are the real heroes in this story, though unfortunately this story is not over yet. The students spoke out organized and went to jail for the victims in Gaza. They fought hard even though they were often dismissed or demonized. And the few bad eggs who espoused antisemitism on campus’s should not override these heroes.
Misdirected raging at people who may not have spoken out against the horrific war crimes in Gaza & whose opinions would have no impact on the Israeli government's military operations is more than counterproductive. Posts like Ruth Marshall's : “Fuck ALL the way off, you complicit fuck...You did NOTHING with your platform to prevent this. You are complicit and you need to APOLOGIZE... you vile POS” signal a need for anger management & perhaps some meds.
Focus on the criminals, #Resist authoritarianism, & #Vote Blue.
Our unwillingness to recognize and acknowledge the human-ness of certain groups makes it easy to ignore the vile inhumanity of their treatment until certain images are forced upon us and we finally cannot look away. Shame.
Like Bull Connor releasing dogs on Black women and children. Eventually, we saw, and enough were shamed to cause change. Now undocumented folk are being terrorized within our borders and babies are starving in Gaza because we cannot see them as humans deserving better. We keep learning the same lesson over and over. I am not sure that actually constitutes learning; and, while it certainly is a good thing that we are “getting there”…just as certainly, we have no reason to be proud.
Yes 💯. for everyone else it is let’s save our asses time. Hopefully every unimaginable cruelty, ethnic cleansing, violence, of the genocide is documented and will be in museums all over the world.
In “Anatomy of Revolution” Crane Brinton writes that one sign of a future revolution is that the intellectuals disagree with the current political situation. Parallel to a revolution could be a major shift in a country’s views on a political situation. During the Vietnam war, one large group to express early major opposition to the war was college students. Later other Americans came to agree with them. Now college students have vigorously opposed the treatment of the people of Gaza. Other Americans are beginning to agree with them.
A few months into the bombings, my daughter and I shredded a conversation on Gaza, back and forth, until she said the thing I needed to hear "What if killing people is taken off the table? What if killing people isn't how to solve a disagreement about who lives where?"
"When the student becomes the teacher..." As a life-long teacher, it was always my hope and dream that my students would one day outshine me. I wanted them to become smarter, more caring and make a bigger difference in the world. As a 40-year parent, I prayed and nurtured my children to grow and dare to be more than I am, the best they could be, having greater advantages than I and using them to improve others' lives around them. As a 10-year grandparent, I want my grandchildren to surpass my children and be the change that they want to see in this world. Sometimes, when the children become the teachers and the leaders, they are welcome to supplant us for the better good.
But let's not forget how hard this can actually be when it happens. If everyone in your family is MAGA for example, and you are the first that has had the chance to go off to college, see the world, and grow as a person, sometimes you outgrow your family and you have the, "You can't go home again" scenario. This can be an extremely painful thing for people. They have lost their family and perhaps their friends that were the foundation of their life. And many people, when faced with that prospect, stop their own growth because they can't bear to lose those connections. It is a big ask we are making of people to leave behind what they have always known and believed in. I'm not saying it isn't necessary, mind you. I am pointing out that I can understand why some people simply "can't" believe what I'm selling when it means leaving a huge part of their very identity behind.
I understand. I actually fit the scenario above, but for different reasons (not MAGA). My family and I initially parted on poor terms- I was thrown out for my different views. I made my own life. Fortunately for me, my mother began to realize that I was not wrong. The relationship became stronger (not perfect) over the years, and she depended on me for my viewpoints and decision-making on behalf of hers and my father's health. She gave me a very difficult decision to make on behalf of my father (life or death) at one point. An older sister apparently was jealous of that decision (why??? I did NOT want to make it!) and asked my mother why she gave it to me? My mother, who told me this story said, "I can trust _________ to make this decision and live with the consequences whatever way it goes, and know she made the best decision she could." In that moment, I realized that my mother FINALLY got me! But that's why I said, "Sometimes, when the children become the teachers..." because it doesn't always happen this way. Thank you for the opportunity to explain that. :)
I’m not clear on what “beliefs” a person’s MAGA family would be painfully giving up. Which part of their “identity.” The fearful bigot? The woman hater? The “belief” that people of color are inferior to them? The belief in arming themselves to the teeth? The anti-intellectualism? The willed ignorance? The American exceptionalism masquerading as patriotism? Educate me here because what I see is an unbridgeable gap between MAGAs and me.
I think you're missing the point. What I am trying to acknowledge is that if you have grown up in a family with certain views and beliefs, it is hard for you to embrace new beliefs if they stay firmly entrenched in theirs. It's like being in a relationship where both of you smoke. Smoking is a lifestyle. If you want to give up smoking and your partner doesn't, well...good luck with that. It's not impossible, but it is very, very hard and can be the thing that breaks you apart. Perhaps a good thing for you in the end, but more painful than some can bear. We have to realize when we try to persuade others to a different way of thinking or point of view that it is not just the individual's beliefs that are at issue, but also the beliefs of the important people in that person's life.
I don’t think bigotry, etc, is a “lifestyle.” At least, I hope it’s not. Is there a MAGA lifestyle? That implies that is volitional. Like taking up smoking. Remember they voted for him twice.
Don't just think of MAGA. It could be any number of things. I just used that as an example. The simple fact of the matter is that we are so far apart right now that we can't even agree on the meaning in literal or operational terms of words like kindness, decency, empathy, etc. For myself, the way I define those terms literally and in the way I demonstrate them in my life is incompatible with a vote from Trump. Full stop. What that tells me is that people who voted for him are not defining those words in the same way I am. If you have been raised to believe that "kindness" means opening the door for an elderly person entering church only to then turn around when the service is over and you're trying to get out of the parking lot, yelling, "The son of a bitch cut me off!", or you're father talks about treating everybody with decency but then takes great pleasure in waiting to get over until the last minute in a lane that's running out and forcing his way in and telling you, "That's how it's done. You gotta take charge and be smart. Why wait in line like sheep when you can bully your way to the front of the line?", you were raised very differently than I was. I don't disagree with anything you've said Seth. I don't know how this current situation is going to be resolved without violence. I truly don't. At some point, you have to stop trying to reason with those with a Nazi mindset and impose the way it's going to be. The Civil War didn't end because people fighting for the south changed their minds. It ended because the Union eventually out fought the Confederacy. Same thing in WWII. The Nazis didn't all of a sudden have a "Come to Jesus" moment. They were out fought by the might of the allied forces. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on which side you happen to be on, "Wars don't decide who's right, just who's left" to call the shots. We all must have our own internal compass to decide what's "right" regardless of who wins.
Oh sure. It's very common. But it's also very common for people to simply "stay where they are" because it's too painful to grow apart from those they love. It's just something I try to remind myself to keep in mind when I am trying to persuade someone of something. One of the reasons my brother believes what he does about me is because his wife has those negative views. If he starts to see me in a different light, that puts him at odds with his wife. Since she's the one he is married to, shares a daughter, a home, and a business with, it's not hard to understand why he takes the psychologically and emotionally easier path and chooses to not look too hard at the holes in her views.
I can understand that. I had a similar situation with my father and my stepmother. I don't know how anyone resolves these kinds of things. Either you limit contact or keep your mouth shut, I guess. Or argue.
Acknowledging one's errors, both inwardly, and, to keep yourself on the straight and narrow, publicly, is a requirement of true repentance and regret. Without this, (and sometimes, unfortunately, even when it occurs) sincerity is not guaranteed. Ideally, reparations need to be made as well. I sure wish we had a cultural equivalent of going around dressed in sackcloth and ashes.
We wish, but nope. We have never really come to grips with any of our historic evil. Canada has apologized for at least certain of the governments historic crimes, but as far as I know we have not. And as for reparations to our First People and/or enslaved Africans, puh-leez.
I know a few places have allocated some reparations to Black people but there aren't many. If we can't spend money fixing our climate and educating our kids, I don't see how the federal government is ever going to make reparations.
My children (young adults) said this a year ago. Their news sources were live video feeds on the ground in Gaza, while we were still watching mainstream media who, BTW, was paid for by corporate sponsors. They compared it to the students that spoke and protested against Vietnam. Those same students are now baby boomers, many who are have been hoodwinked by corporate led media. Where are our memories? Being against a genocide does not mean anti-Israeli people or anti-Jewish. And those starving babies and children are not Hamas.
Don't you think the antisemitism that did exist as part of the campus protests made it easier to dismiss the correctness of much of what the students were saying? I am a Jew who has been outspoken against the war from the beginning, but I could not defend (and indeed felt threatened by) some of the language coming out of the protests (not the use of the word genocide, but the "all Zionists deserve to die, for example). I have to also say that in my personal experience, the worst antisemitic harassment I experienced was from a fellow adjunct professor at a community college, and it was based on his antiZionism (and happened regardless of the fact that I have never supported the occupation and have worked for Palestinian liberation, but he had no interest in what I actually thought, only in the fact that I'm a Jew). I just find it odd that in an article about language, you skip over some of the language coming out of those protests that made it easier for people to dismiss what they were saying.
That's really appalling, Rachel. I'm sorry that happened to you.
I appreciate that, Paula. It sucked, but I certainly didn't let it stop me from speaking out for Palestinian freedom and against the occupation, or from being a proud Jew!
Good for you! I have been speaking out too but have not been so proud of what my people are doing (I am Jewish too). I've had a lot of trouble coming to terms with a country that calls itself Jewish behaving like this.
To me, being a proud Jew has nothing to do with what other Jews do. I don't take credit when a Jew wins a Nobel Prize and I don't take blame when a Jew does something evil like Netanyahu is doing right now.
I'm proud of our tradition and the values I take from it (even if not everybody does), our culture and our calendar, and the fact that we have survived. My Jewishness is part of what gives me empathy for Palestinians and all oppressed people, and anger on their behalf, and I wouldn't trade it if I could - which I can't anyway :). I don't allow what Israel does or does not do to impinge on my Jewish identity.
The way I see it, I don't have a vote in Israel, so any responsibility I have for what Israel does is no different than that of any other American (and we do have some, but it is as Americans and shared with all Americans). As an American, I have been supporting Friends of Standing Together. I don't know if you know about Standing Together in Israel-Palestine, but they are a co-led Palestinian-Jewish organization fighting against the Netanyahu regime and the occupation and growing power for a permanent cease-fire. I recommend checking them out. Supporting Friends of Standing Together has helped me as an American during this time, to feel like I am working to change the situation and end this nightmare.
That's a great way to look at it. I have been going on the assumption that Israel is the Jews, although I know there are plenty of us who don't live there, and Israelis who don't support the government.But I think the world sees it that way. I have been supporting various organizations but I hadn't heard of that one. I'll check it out--thank you!
The problem with deniers, in particular those of power and influence, is that their denials kill people. Wars, climate, hazardous chemicals, slave/child labor, and on and on. That is the inexcusable part. How many Ukrainian and Russian lives would have been saved if Trump, Vance, Rubio and their ilk had actually listened to Zelensky in the Oval Office 6 months ago?
YES!!!!
I came of age in the 60s; always listen to the students.
You betcha!
Saying thank you for this essay is inadequate. If you've read one of my most recent comments, you know I am struggling mightily with this very thing. I have absolutely no interest in shaming people or pushing them down. I have always been about lifting people up to be the best they can be. But, and yes there is a but, when people have made bad judgements that have been very damaging to myself directly on a personal level or indirectly via through the effects on the society in which I live, I find that I must ask for not even just an apology, but some real evidence that they get just how bad their judgement was and that there is some motivation to make better, more informed judgements in the future. If I don't see that, I can still forgive people, but I won't necessarily want them in my life anymore. After all, how many times do you put your own well being at risk for a person who hasn't really been honest with themselves or others about their mistakes? We MUST face and learn from our errors or they will just keep happening again and again. I couldn't care less about getting a reward or even public recognition of having been "right" about something. What I want is for the people involved to listen to me the next time when "something" falls in my area of expertise and let me use my training and knowledge to help solve the problem. The loss of trust in our society is at the root of so many of our problems, and I have no clue what to do about it.
Amen!
People may be criticizing "oligarchy," but they are not criticizing "capitalism."
I like your name. 😀
Thanks! She was a great Texan! I'm not from Texas, but one of my grandfathers was.
She was a wonderful lady.
I appreciate this thoughtful post and agree that apologies and self-awareness are needed for those who stayed silent about the unfolding genocide over the past year and 10 months.At the same time, it is essential to bring more people into the tent to oppose fascism. I would also like to see more acknowledgment of U.S. complicity in arming Israel, defunding UNRWA, blocking UN resolutions, and harassing those who have spoken out against the genocide. This complicity is shared by most Republican and Democratic politicians and has been cheered on by most mainstream media.
"a warm phone call of rapprochement..."
So adorable. :)
I think the conclusion you seem to be pointing toward without actually drawing is that indeed, people who have made bad mistakes in the past should be forgiven when they gracefully step aside and defer to people who were right. Which, with those two Iraq war proponents, clearly was not the case.
Yes, it is easy to forget the horror of the Iraq war and the capitulation of almost all of congress to support it. I, for one, don’t think of George Bush as a cute ex-president who now paints. He’s a war criminal as are those other fuckers who were in cahoots with him; actually who manipulated him. America is arms dealer to the world and the most bellicose nation. We have so much to apologize for that I really can’t fathom it some times.
Yup. His policies post-9/11 really freaked me out. And now 25-year-olds don't remember the world that preceded 9/11 and security theater and "terrrists." Sigh.
Great article!
I agree that these late comers should be welcomed, but they should definitely be grateful for the students and for those who have contributed to the movement from the beginning, fighting the stringent pushback coming from the mainstream. There should also be some acknowledgment of remorse. during all this time, before finally joining or co-opting the cause against genocide, over 60,000 people have died and more are dying as I am writing this. While they should be welcomed, even with open arms in order to join the cause to save as many lives as possible, the support of Israel and Netanyahu was shamefully unflinching. What shouldn’t be ignored is that those who are late to the cause are complicit in these deaths, especially Biden and other Democratic leaders. In my opinion it’s the students who are the real heroes in this story, though unfortunately this story is not over yet. The students spoke out organized and went to jail for the victims in Gaza. They fought hard even though they were often dismissed or demonized. And the few bad eggs who espoused antisemitism on campus’s should not override these heroes.
Misdirected raging at people who may not have spoken out against the horrific war crimes in Gaza & whose opinions would have no impact on the Israeli government's military operations is more than counterproductive. Posts like Ruth Marshall's : “Fuck ALL the way off, you complicit fuck...You did NOTHING with your platform to prevent this. You are complicit and you need to APOLOGIZE... you vile POS” signal a need for anger management & perhaps some meds.
Focus on the criminals, #Resist authoritarianism, & #Vote Blue.
Our unwillingness to recognize and acknowledge the human-ness of certain groups makes it easy to ignore the vile inhumanity of their treatment until certain images are forced upon us and we finally cannot look away. Shame.
Like Bull Connor releasing dogs on Black women and children. Eventually, we saw, and enough were shamed to cause change. Now undocumented folk are being terrorized within our borders and babies are starving in Gaza because we cannot see them as humans deserving better. We keep learning the same lesson over and over. I am not sure that actually constitutes learning; and, while it certainly is a good thing that we are “getting there”…just as certainly, we have no reason to be proud.
Yes 💯. for everyone else it is let’s save our asses time. Hopefully every unimaginable cruelty, ethnic cleansing, violence, of the genocide is documented and will be in museums all over the world.
In “Anatomy of Revolution” Crane Brinton writes that one sign of a future revolution is that the intellectuals disagree with the current political situation. Parallel to a revolution could be a major shift in a country’s views on a political situation. During the Vietnam war, one large group to express early major opposition to the war was college students. Later other Americans came to agree with them. Now college students have vigorously opposed the treatment of the people of Gaza. Other Americans are beginning to agree with them.
A few months into the bombings, my daughter and I shredded a conversation on Gaza, back and forth, until she said the thing I needed to hear "What if killing people is taken off the table? What if killing people isn't how to solve a disagreement about who lives where?"
"When the student becomes the teacher..." As a life-long teacher, it was always my hope and dream that my students would one day outshine me. I wanted them to become smarter, more caring and make a bigger difference in the world. As a 40-year parent, I prayed and nurtured my children to grow and dare to be more than I am, the best they could be, having greater advantages than I and using them to improve others' lives around them. As a 10-year grandparent, I want my grandchildren to surpass my children and be the change that they want to see in this world. Sometimes, when the children become the teachers and the leaders, they are welcome to supplant us for the better good.
But let's not forget how hard this can actually be when it happens. If everyone in your family is MAGA for example, and you are the first that has had the chance to go off to college, see the world, and grow as a person, sometimes you outgrow your family and you have the, "You can't go home again" scenario. This can be an extremely painful thing for people. They have lost their family and perhaps their friends that were the foundation of their life. And many people, when faced with that prospect, stop their own growth because they can't bear to lose those connections. It is a big ask we are making of people to leave behind what they have always known and believed in. I'm not saying it isn't necessary, mind you. I am pointing out that I can understand why some people simply "can't" believe what I'm selling when it means leaving a huge part of their very identity behind.
I understand. I actually fit the scenario above, but for different reasons (not MAGA). My family and I initially parted on poor terms- I was thrown out for my different views. I made my own life. Fortunately for me, my mother began to realize that I was not wrong. The relationship became stronger (not perfect) over the years, and she depended on me for my viewpoints and decision-making on behalf of hers and my father's health. She gave me a very difficult decision to make on behalf of my father (life or death) at one point. An older sister apparently was jealous of that decision (why??? I did NOT want to make it!) and asked my mother why she gave it to me? My mother, who told me this story said, "I can trust _________ to make this decision and live with the consequences whatever way it goes, and know she made the best decision she could." In that moment, I realized that my mother FINALLY got me! But that's why I said, "Sometimes, when the children become the teachers..." because it doesn't always happen this way. Thank you for the opportunity to explain that. :)
I’m not clear on what “beliefs” a person’s MAGA family would be painfully giving up. Which part of their “identity.” The fearful bigot? The woman hater? The “belief” that people of color are inferior to them? The belief in arming themselves to the teeth? The anti-intellectualism? The willed ignorance? The American exceptionalism masquerading as patriotism? Educate me here because what I see is an unbridgeable gap between MAGAs and me.
I think you're missing the point. What I am trying to acknowledge is that if you have grown up in a family with certain views and beliefs, it is hard for you to embrace new beliefs if they stay firmly entrenched in theirs. It's like being in a relationship where both of you smoke. Smoking is a lifestyle. If you want to give up smoking and your partner doesn't, well...good luck with that. It's not impossible, but it is very, very hard and can be the thing that breaks you apart. Perhaps a good thing for you in the end, but more painful than some can bear. We have to realize when we try to persuade others to a different way of thinking or point of view that it is not just the individual's beliefs that are at issue, but also the beliefs of the important people in that person's life.
I don’t think bigotry, etc, is a “lifestyle.” At least, I hope it’s not. Is there a MAGA lifestyle? That implies that is volitional. Like taking up smoking. Remember they voted for him twice.
Don't just think of MAGA. It could be any number of things. I just used that as an example. The simple fact of the matter is that we are so far apart right now that we can't even agree on the meaning in literal or operational terms of words like kindness, decency, empathy, etc. For myself, the way I define those terms literally and in the way I demonstrate them in my life is incompatible with a vote from Trump. Full stop. What that tells me is that people who voted for him are not defining those words in the same way I am. If you have been raised to believe that "kindness" means opening the door for an elderly person entering church only to then turn around when the service is over and you're trying to get out of the parking lot, yelling, "The son of a bitch cut me off!", or you're father talks about treating everybody with decency but then takes great pleasure in waiting to get over until the last minute in a lane that's running out and forcing his way in and telling you, "That's how it's done. You gotta take charge and be smart. Why wait in line like sheep when you can bully your way to the front of the line?", you were raised very differently than I was. I don't disagree with anything you've said Seth. I don't know how this current situation is going to be resolved without violence. I truly don't. At some point, you have to stop trying to reason with those with a Nazi mindset and impose the way it's going to be. The Civil War didn't end because people fighting for the south changed their minds. It ended because the Union eventually out fought the Confederacy. Same thing in WWII. The Nazis didn't all of a sudden have a "Come to Jesus" moment. They were out fought by the might of the allied forces. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on which side you happen to be on, "Wars don't decide who's right, just who's left" to call the shots. We all must have our own internal compass to decide what's "right" regardless of who wins.
Any time a person grows and her circle doesn't, she faces this situation. I don't have any wisdom to impart but I imagine it's pretty common.
Oh sure. It's very common. But it's also very common for people to simply "stay where they are" because it's too painful to grow apart from those they love. It's just something I try to remind myself to keep in mind when I am trying to persuade someone of something. One of the reasons my brother believes what he does about me is because his wife has those negative views. If he starts to see me in a different light, that puts him at odds with his wife. Since she's the one he is married to, shares a daughter, a home, and a business with, it's not hard to understand why he takes the psychologically and emotionally easier path and chooses to not look too hard at the holes in her views.
I can understand that. I had a similar situation with my father and my stepmother. I don't know how anyone resolves these kinds of things. Either you limit contact or keep your mouth shut, I guess. Or argue.
Acknowledging one's errors, both inwardly, and, to keep yourself on the straight and narrow, publicly, is a requirement of true repentance and regret. Without this, (and sometimes, unfortunately, even when it occurs) sincerity is not guaranteed. Ideally, reparations need to be made as well. I sure wish we had a cultural equivalent of going around dressed in sackcloth and ashes.
This is interesting! There must be one. I'd like to hear more about this.
We wish, but nope. We have never really come to grips with any of our historic evil. Canada has apologized for at least certain of the governments historic crimes, but as far as I know we have not. And as for reparations to our First People and/or enslaved Africans, puh-leez.
I know a few places have allocated some reparations to Black people but there aren't many. If we can't spend money fixing our climate and educating our kids, I don't see how the federal government is ever going to make reparations.
I'm not expecting that, just pointing out our history, which is dire. Sad to say.