Question Everything.
An appeal for calm from Rita
I must preface this post by saying that I speak only for myself here, and your mileage may vary, but I want to share my thoughts on a re-emerging trend.
I saw a video recently wherein a news channel on YouTube interviewed independent investigative journalist Whitney Webb on the labyrinthine nefarious threads running through much of what has gone wrong in the USA for the past 50 or so years. In that discussion, Webb said the meteoric emergence of gangster rap was set into motion by record executives in the early 1980s who were closely associated with people heavily invested in the emerging market of prisons-for-profit. Record companies were asked to record and distribute music that would glamorize criminal acts to make thug culture more appealing to impressionable youths so they’d be more likely to become the denizens of these money-spinning institutions. She said that this trend was largely overlooked by the Reagan administrations because those same prison owners were friends of Reagan and highly placed government officials. Sorry, but I can’t locate that specific video, so this one of Bill Maher interviewing Ice Cube will have to suffice1.
Why would someone do something that is so obviously contrary to their well-being to such a profound degree? Well, young people can be impressionable. I will point out that the glamorization of thug culture is something from which no race is immune. It’s happened in my family. Perhaps it’s happened in your family or the family of someone you know. Sadly or wonderfully, wild and foolish youth seems to be a common phase in people of every race or creed. This is a bitter draught of which all civilizations must drink.
It’s natural that the independent spirit will find the idea of naughtiness to be amusing on occasion and to varying degrees. Comedy is borne of subverting an idea, and we love the mental exercise of having our cognition warped in surprising ways. We may love gangster movies both new and old, but that doesn’t mean we want to emulate that for our lives. I remember watching the film “Pulp Fiction” and recognizing that I would take pains to avoid ever dealing with any of those characters in real life. I felt the movie was quite compelling and entertaining although it was shot-through with naughtiness. However, it is possible to take naughtiness too far, and it’s important to question the veracity of everything we find compelling these days.
This composition is by way of a trend I’m seeing, and it’s not unlike the civilization-wide disruptions that sparked so much chaos in 2020. The pandemic wasn’t enough: we needed riots related to race and other social issues, too, to achieve the proper degree of mayhem to achieve a proper derailment of things political. Today, this looks to me like a depth charge deliberately launched by who-knows-whom, and the American public rushed to meet it headlong, embracing their role as crusaders in the Righteous Indignation du Jour. I think we’re on the verge of another similar operation.
I hope Ian will forgive me for referencing “Game of Thrones”, but the series features a scene in which Sansa throws Little Finger’s quote back at him. He’d earlier told her that to understand someone’s motives, he assumes the worst to find the possible reason they have for doing something. She points out that he turned her mother against her own sister and has attempted to turn Sansa against her sister, Arya. I think the same string-pullers from 5 years ago are back at it and want us all at each other’s throats in a similar fashion.
Perhaps you know people who ended friendships or interactions with families over whether someone would take a jab or wear a mask. Or vote for an orange dude. There’s something preposterous about ending a lifetime intimate personal relationship over something so wholly unconnected to the ties that bind two people together, ties that I believe have deep spiritual significance. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We have our own words and choices for which to account. I’m not saying to passively sit by while outrage or injustice unfolds before us, but I am saying to be slow to react when something or someone bombards us with emotional appeals to manipulate us towards the cattle chutes. I’m thinking of brothers staring across the battlefield at each other during the Civil War. Yes, there is a time to fight, but there is also a time to observe.
The race-baiting is ratcheting up again, and as easy as it would be to fall into that trap, I think it’s the self-same agents of chaos doing their dark work to undermine what good may be done in the world by people who are attentive and engaged in making the world better. Yes, it’s easy to respond with vitriol for someone who is different than I am, but I’m wondering why someone wants me to hate, and how it benefits them? People who want unfettered access to the reins and coffers of civilization will more readily have that access if hoi polloi are mired in petty and ignorant squabbles. I’m seeing so much in the news that telegraphs racism in every direction, and this is concerning. It’s astonishing to see people who are so obviously in the tank for a cause or creed of which they are astonishingly ignorant, such as people who believe Israelis were aggressors on October 7, but I am not rising to the bait. I’m watching and learning and making my own mind up about what I’m seeing.
People need to stop sending money to people whose behaviour is horrendous and anti-social, but we keep seeing people of all races winning this bizarre lottery. This is a terrible and dangerous trend, and people should be slow to throw money at people who, even having been victimized, behave badly for all to see. Excessively rewarding people for outlandish displays is only going to yield yet more outlandish displays. The lady with the child on her hip as she spouts racist invective is getting rich for her bad behavior, just as the racist young man is getting rich for having murdered another teenager. This is defective culture writ large and streaming live to our phones 24/7. What is the motivation here, and how should it affect or alter how we view the world as we move through our days? I suggest that we all refuse to lend succor to those who misbehave. This naughtiness is not attractive, and it is fast turning relatively peaceful American cities2 into unhealthy and dangerous landscapes that would make our nation’s founders weep to see. It’s important to be aware of what is happening in the world, but it’s also vital to hold emotions in check and remain reticent, especially when all around us are screaming that something must be done. I believe it is possible to hold our individuals and institutions accountable without resorting to histrionics, and, frankly, a little more calm would do us some good.
It’s not a crime to be suggestible, but trusting what we see and hear can be the most slippery slope of all. Question what you see and do your own due diligence to seek out perspectives from many angles, and you may find the truth lies somewhere in the middle. In the end, you may agree with what you hear from a mainstream source, stopped clocks being what they are, but take a beat to question what you know and to seek out corroborating evidence. Just because a person or organization on one side of an issue is acting in bad faith does not mean the person who is philosophically opposed to them is acting in full righteousness. Be honorable and decent in your dealings, but watchful to protect you and your own. Just because a bunch of people decide to lose their minds and abdicate responsibility for their terrible choices doesn’t mean we need to go along with their folly.
Rita
Salty language alert.
Have you seen what’s happening in European cities?!
On Oct 8 I made a bit of a rant on a private channel about the people who'd carried out the rapes and murders, parading the broken, dead, and dying women's bodies through the streets to the cheering crowds.
And someone I've know for years went off on me and called me hateful - someone who those people who were doing all that killing would kill in a heartbeat without a second thought.
I was rather shocked that they thought condemning such violence was 'evil'.
Needless to say, if I should ever run into him again, I will be surprised if I refrain from punching him in the face. I'm tried of 'moral equivalence'.
As for the women using bad language? I get it, I truly do. She was being stolen from by a kid, and because of the kid's race we're all just supposed to laugh and look the other way. She got tired of that and lost it. She unloaded, quite fairly, on the kid whose parent obviously encourages and excuses such behavior - because of reasons we are all just sick to death of.
What makes it worse was the guy who filmed it is a child predator who was at the park looking for victims. But again, for certain social reasons 'that's okay' and we can't bitch about that either.
So we have a woman who is by no means a sterling character, who said a word that in all fairness, if she lives in the 'hood she's allowed to use, now being forced to move out of a crap location.
The only reason she's raised so much money (and the messages she's been getting aren't racist) is that the other kid who is getting paid for having murdered a white boy, is not only raising so much money, but all of the messages on HIS campaign are highly racist. So racist (Kill Whitey!) that they had to hide them. So the white community is all like 'screw this - I'm giving her money, at least she didn't kill anyone!'
But yeah, it's the moral equivalence crap all over again, apparently saying the 'N word' equals killing a young man because he's white on the social outrage scale. Are we headed for race riots? Probably. A lot of white people are just tired of the BS. Of the two tier justice system. Of how some people get special treatment under the law and by law enforcement.
Having read just about everything Ronald Reagan ever wrote that is readily available, I am skeptical of any story that attributes him supporting gangster rap to enrich his friends. The man's mind didn't work that way. A bit of digging and we can discover that apparently an anonymous letter from 2012 claimed that there were secret meetings in 1991, but of course the Reagan Administration had been out of office for three years at that point, so the story starts to fall apart. But otherwise, nice article.