It's extremely important that we keep checking in to remind ourselves that this is NOT OK...

[Locut0s]

Last edited Tue Nov 22, 2016, 04:00 AM - Edit history (1)

As the daily show recently ended with a great piece we need to keep reminding ourselves that "THIS IS NOT NORMAL!" Because there is a real danger here in all of this terror that we will just let ourselves go numb. The mainstream media will of course only accelerate the normalization of the new fascist reality. We already do it every day to be honest, at this point there should be millions of people out in the streets, there should be MASS rallies around the National Mall. But we don't see it, yes there are rallies, protests, but not on the scale that there should be. Because we have already begun the process of normalization. I know many people have quoted the famous "first they came for the muslims, then they came for .... and I did nothing ... then they came for me". And it's good that people see it that way because that's exactly where we find ourselves. No one thought we would get this far and the danger now is we just keep saying to ourselves, well it's gone this far but they won't really do THAT. Because "THAT" only happens in the history books, only happens OVER THERE. Guess what people all of history was once the present and OVER THERE is always someone else's HERE. Yes it can happen, because it IS happening right now as we speak. White supremacists have been elected to the highest offices in the land.

Let that last sentence sink in. And I know I'm not saying anything new. But reread that a few more times.

This is America. And white supremacists are in power.

That's not an exaggeration.

It's reality.

It's real.

It's VITALLY important that we keep pinching ourselves, keep reminding ourselves of this. Because the ceiling keeps becoming the floor. Yesterday's joke, nightmare, impossibility, is today's reality.

Trump doesn't REALLY mean what he said about racism and sexism. He's just saying that to get elected. Once he's in power he will change his tune. Well he's in power, and he's appointed white supremacists to positions of government.

Well it's still not going to get THAT bad. This is the US after all, not 1930s Germany. Well we just had a Neo Nazi celebration rally steps from the White House with Heil Hitler salutes in which they actually HAILED trump. And Trump's response was, meh I'm more worried about actors bullying me.

I'm not saying that concentration camps are necessarily coming, but this is very much how they fucking get there. People just refuse to believe what their eyes and ears are telling them. Choosing instead to believe that "oh they aren't really that bad". Or cherry picking speeches to find the smallest of silver linings. It can't happen here.

Well I tell you what the "ceiling has become the floor" as I said, so many times of late I've lost count. Keep letting that happen and we are going to find ourselves 6 feet under soon.

[radical noodle]

1. I've seen suggestions that we keep journals

so we don't lose track of what is and is not normal and the way information changes over time. Apparently in authoritarian times people gradually lose freedoms but it just becomes the new normal as it's pushed as normal by authorities. We already see an erosion of truth everywhere but with journals we can look back and see how things were before.

[KT2000]

3. good idea! n/t

[Locut0s]

5. This is a fantastic idea for several reasons!...

Human memory is notoriously unreliable despite what we might like to think. And all the more so under stress. This is why under the worst of dictatorial regimes (Hitler, Kim Jong Il) etc, people have been able to be seemingly brain washed en mass to believe the most outlandish of things. To literally forget and disavow events that they personally experienced. Because fear is a frightfully powerful force, and memory is sadly malleable and unreliable. So simply from a point of view of fact checking the idea of a journal is a great idea! Most of us have a hard time remembering what we had for breakfast 5 days ago and as much as we like to think that our memories for EXTREMELY impactful events MUST be better than those of what we had for breakfast last week, science has shown that this is NOT the case. And I can guarantee you that this administration is going to distort the truth and their own past history worse than a fun house mirror. We can NOT trust the mainstream media to be that journal of truth that we need them to be. Because they have ceased being "news" and have simply been a form of entertainment for many many decades now.

The second reason this is great is simply from an emotional health perspective. Journaling is a key tool that therapists sometimes encourage their patients to engage in. It allows us to vent, to "throw up" onto paper that which we can't verbalize. And that is a therapeutic process. I myself continue to struggle daily, and in fact greatly, with emotional struggles. We can expect a SHARP rise in mental health issues, and sadly in suicides, as the coming months unfold.

[radical noodle]

6. And anyone can do it

Look at what Anne Frank's diary has done. Millions of kids read that book and begin to understand how really horrific the Nazis were.

I find myself muddling up dates and what happened first in a series of things, so I think I may try to do it even though I'm not good at doing much of anything on a regular basis.

[KT2000]

2. you are so right

what tells me that it will get bad is the continuing volume of hate from the RW. They are still calling for Hillary to be locked up and passing around racist messages about President Obama. Everything bad will be blamed on President Obama for years to come. They cannot stop their hatred and people like Bannon and Sessions will be there to feed haters. They are mentally unsound. This and trump's unpredictability are a recipe for chaos.

[JI7]

4. it Goes back to the start of Obama's Presidency and maybe even before then

the birther crap should have been a bigger issue. but instead it became acceptable to have that view and without media demanding answers from the ones pushing it.

and you regularly had other racist attacks against Obama and Michelle and it should have all been called out and those doing it should have been shamed.

instead it was treated as if people were just disagreeing on tax policy .

[Locut0s]

7. Exactly. Remember the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth"?....

Who managed to successfully smear Kerry, who at the very least was a war patriot, as some kind of sick opportunist? Well of course despite how outlandish that accusation was proven to be, after fact checking, it still stuck.

Most in this generation have been raised in a post "media" environment. By media I am lumping all of the various forms of entertainment "news" into one. Be it CNN, or any number of well respected news outlets, regardless of medium. Sadly we have been raised, at least my generation, to equate entertainment value with truth. And who is more entertaining than Trump? Even I take a not so small sense of schadenfreude in watching all of this unfold. Which just plays into Trump's hand.

After all real Truth, capital T truth for any individual, can only ever be attained by personal investigation into the veracity of the truth of the pablum they have been fed.

Sadly most of us don't go any further in said investigation beyond their own Facebook friend's list, which is always an echo amplification chamber no matter what part of the political spectrum you are on.

Sadly we have all fallen prey to Trump's trap. We are all more interested in spectacle over truth. And Trump offers spectacle in spades.

You know what else offers spectacle and macabre fascination? The burning of a once great nation!