This post is going to jump around a bit from the political to the personal and hopefully end on a positive note. Many people believe they’re telling you the truth, even when they feel no responsibility to do the legwork to try to verify the information they present as facts. Instead they tell you to do your own homework. I’ve seen this on numerous sites that delve into politics and where they get into the hot take viral stuff a lot.
Well, yes, we should all do our own homework, but if someone’s presenting “news” and advising people how to respond to that “news,” then they should feel some responsibility for making sure the information they presented was accurate. This trend of racing to repeat the hot take news permeates actual news organizations, with actual journalists and among social media content creators. Everyone likes to race to “amplify” is the word they use these days, the stuff that everyone’s talking about.
I try to present links to where I found information and also, try to take the time to do a bit of research. When I joined the Army, I attended the Defense Information School and went through the basic journalism course. That was back in 1979, but I still remember how many times my instructor made me rewrite articles and he challenged us on how we presented the facts and how we went about sourcing and verifying information, along with all sorts of ruthless critiquing our grammar and sentence-structure. I realized then that I wasn’t a very good writer, but I do love writing.
Yesterday I read a piece on a right-wing site about the Netflix movie, Leave the World Behind, which was scathing, but also included examples of messaging that I missed. I hadn’t been to that right-wing site in a long time, but just decided to take a glance at the headlines. The piece, Obama’s New Movie, Same Message: Blame White People, describes the first alarming event to unfold in the movie:
“To be sure, there was ample foreshadowing suggesting that Americans would ultimately be blamed for their own suffering. The oil tanker that crashes into the beach is the “White Lion,” a reference to the early-seventeenth century privateer credited with delivering the first Africans to the colony of Virginia to be sold as indentured servants. We get it: oil and slavery are both really bad.”
Even though I missed the “White Lion” messaging, the movie was filled with left-wing racial messaging and the only character in the movie, who had done anything to prepare for an emergency was negatively labeled a “survivalist” and portrayed as being greedy and a mean-spirited, bad neighbor, for not just handing over antibiotics to the liberal neighbors, who came knocking on his door.
I’ve watched plenty of prepper videos on You Tube since 2020, with advice on how to handle people who come to your door wanting your supplies in an emergency and how to protect your home in an emergency too. Protecting your home and family is of paramount importance in a crisis and chaotic situation. Before 2020, my emergency preparedness efforts were, what I’ll describe as inadequate, not well-organized, and looking at the world through rose-colored glasses, as far as to how people really behave in emergency situations and chaotic times. I was focused mainly on weather emergencies. 2020 was a huge wake-up call for me, because I hadn’t thought seriously about civil unrest or the breakdown of law and order.
While I don’t want to abandon my religious convictions about helping people, I believe protecting my family and home is a higher duty than trying to take care of other people, so I’ve had to reevaluate how I go about my own preparedness efforts. And, while I’m not someone who has made being a “prepper” my entire life, since 2020, I invest a lot more time acquiring information and working on my own preparedness.
I firmly believe working to become better prepared for emergencies, in these tumultuous times, is something everyone in America should do.
It’s easy to use data to make whatever case you want and the vast majority of BLM protests in 2020 were peaceful, however those that weren’t peaceful caused more damage than any other riots in US history. The rioting and looting during the 2020 BLM protests really served as a wake-up call to me, because in some of those riots, the police were ordered to stand-down. The other thing that struck me was how quickly normal neighborhoods could become dangerous. One of my adult children lives in a city and there was some BLM protesting there and a bit of chaos. Here’s an even-handed 2021 review at Reason magazine, of those violent protests in 2020: Gaslighting Last Summer’s Riots and the Law Enforcement Response. For me, it was a wake-up call that I hadn’t really thought enough about what happens if the police don’t respond to protect my neighborhood or home or what happens if they become overwhelmed with too many emergency situations to handle. Just realizing how quickly things can go from normal to chaos hit home in 2020.
I still believe that principled and proactive leadership, at any level, even in your own family, can keep your family and group calm and working together. As a society we lack principled leadership at every level – in our federal and local government, in our communities and most of all within too many families. In fact, the idea of needing leadership in families would be dismissed by many people and arguments about every person’s opinions matter and everyone has equal say and all sorts of other debates would ensue. In American life over the past century, there’s been a complete abandonment of the idea of there even being a “head of household,” who is not just the primary breadwinner in the household, but someone who plays a key leadership role in nurturing, protecting and guiding his/her family. Parents used to be the leaders in their families.
If you choose to lead, hopefully you’ll think about how your advice and behavior “influences” (that’s the popular word these days) other people. If you choose to follow, well, hopefully you think long and hard about the character and competence of the person or people you choose to follow.
Getting people fired up about Us vs. Them constantly isn’t a good leadership model for pulling America together, but its’ the kind of leadership millions of Americans (on both sides) gravitate to. It just adds to the divisiveness and rancor. People seem to want someone to blame and be angry at some evil person or group labeled “THEM,” who are out to destroy us, the good people. I click on a few You Tube prepper/homesteading channels as sort of a barometer of how the Trump base is reacting to the conspiracy-addled right-wing social media echochamber and I click on X and read some liberal news opinion writers as sort of a barometer of how the liberal left is reacting to the conspiracy-addled left-wing social media echochamber. There’s a whole lot of anger at “THEM” on both sides.
In 2014 I wrote a blog post, Who will defend our castle?, in which I mentioned one of the last combat skirmishes, the Battle for Castle Itter, in WWII (thanks to JK for that link). Castle Itter was a German castle that the Nazis used for VIP prisoners. A small group of American soldiers were sent to secure Castle Itter. I wrote:
“The almost farcical nature of the characters and events in the battle for Castle Itter provides a quirky, yet almost emblematic view of how in the unlikely circumstance of fighting for their lives, this castle’s curious mix of inhabitants, like people everywhere, can put aside national and personal loyalties, to unite in moments, because not much else mattered, except surviving.”
“The story centers on VIP French prisoners, whom the SS kept imprisoned in Castle Itter during WWII. As the Americans advanced across Europe in the waning days of the war, a young American first lieutenant, John C. “Jack” Lee, Jr., made the mistake of volunteering to go secure the castle, after a surrendering German major arrived to tell the advancing Americans about the VIP prisoners held prisoner in nearby Castle Itter. The young American officer sets off with 8 volunteers, plus 5 soldiers from the African-American Company, along with the surrendering German major and a truckload of his German soldiers. The French VIPs, upon seeing their small rescue force, were unimpressed that such a paltry band of soldiers was sent to rescue their grand personages. But quickly the scene changed as the castle fell under attack from SS troops. The squabbling French VIPs (which included two French generals, who despised each other) and the surrendering Germans all turned to the young American lieutenant to take charge of their castle defense. To get the full impact of the absurdity of the events, read the full story of the battle for Castle Itter (here’s the link again).”
So, the German soldiers inside the castle and two French generals, who despised each other, all fell in line and worked with the small group of American soldiers, led by a young American Army officer, John C. “Jack” Lee, when the castle fell under attack by the SS. If this unlikely group could unite in a moment of crisis, I feel certain that Americans can too… if we choose to.
I’ve been challenging myself to stop jumping reflexively to the “Us vs. Them” way of thinking and instead trying to think about ways to present my views and beliefs, without dismissing people who hold views that are completely different. That doesn’t mean I want to appease people or go along to get along or not speak my mind, it’s just that if I am talking to someone who I hope I can reach and get them to listen to my viewpoint, that’s not going to happen if I beat them over the head constantly. I’m trying to find ways to find small slivers of common ground with people I care about, who hold completely different political views and it is truly a challenge, because I’m very quick to jump on my soapbox and spout my conservative viewpoints or point out what I consider the far-left crazy, that I believe is wrecking America.
Many people who are on the left, hold equally strident views about Trump and right-wing Americans and believe we’re wrecking America. There are loads of liberals who are terrified of Americans who own and carry firearms. Deep down, even liberal elites know that the people who do prepare and do know how to defend themselves and others are who to turn to in a crisis. In this Leave the World Behind movie, no matter how negatively they tried to portray the “survivalist,” when the chips were down, he’s the one the liberals went to for help. The wealthy liberal elites rely on armed bodyguards, not ones wearing peace sign necklaces or blabbing about their pronouns. Bottom line is that if things get more chaotic we might not know what’s happening all over the country or world and what’s really going to matter is what’s happening in our own neighborhoods. Most of all, real change starts within each of us and no matter how much craziness is swirling about, we can all take steps to become better prepared – spiritually, mentally, physically, financially and within our own families and homes.
I want to circle back to Ronald Reagan’s favorite dystopian novel, The Journal of David Q. Little, by Daniel R. McMichael, which I hadn’t even heard about until reading an article where this was mentioned. While many people, myself included, view the 2020 pandemic lockdowns and BLM rioting as wake-up calls to how quickly our rights can be infringed upon and civil order can slide into chaos, for many other people, they view the threat as the Americans who resisted lockdowns and spoke out against “defund the police” or Jan. 6th.
We live in a time filled with non-stop propaganda hitting us everywhere we turn – even in the name of an oil tanker in an Obama-produced apocalyptic movie. In that 1967 McMichael novel, the narrator, David Q. Little, sounds like many people today. While he’s aware that things are no longer normal, his wife and best friend, who is an ardent proponent of socialism, keep talking him around to why all the changes being made that curtail civil liberties and erode constitutional rights are only minor sacrifices they all need to make temporarily for the greater good – world peace. David Q. Little came to the realization that America had been surrendered to communists gradually, but his wife and best friend were much slower at coming to that realization. However, in the end they all had to face the truth, as their jobs were eliminated, their homes seized and even their children taken by the state. They were exiled from society. As the chaos and tyranny spread, it became nearly impossible to avoid the truth (or becoming an enemy of the state).
With our overload of information and everyone and their brother now taking to social media to add their two cents, it can take stepping away from the social media and news media noise to see more clearly. I like to find some quiet time to reflect lately, because it helps me sort through the information overload and escape the online “hot take” drama. I highly recommend taking some breaks from the media noise.
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