Not a big fan of the news these days. Too much opinion, not enough fact.
And it’s sad that it’s both sides … and that there are even sides, I mean, what happened, happened, right?
Not necessarily.
Faux News claims the treasonous insurrection of Jan 6th was just ‘Murricans exercising their rights to “Stop the Steal,” no different from BLM protestors burning down Portand, OR (‘cuz Maine is just too dang far — hi Stephe! BTW “The Stand” extended cut/author’s intent was the tits) and was not, in fact, an attempted coup by a sitting prez ….
Whereas SeeNotNews gets all hysterical re wrongs of the Right while ignoring misbehavior in their own camp (I see you, Cuomo, and Lemon is aptly named) as well as any story where certain folks are the baddies gets the newslite treatment (that guy who did that thing in Brooklyn — subway shooter, if I recall — funny how fast that fell out the newscycle [maybe it was the negative body count ‘Murica! Truck yeh!] digress)
So anyways, not a lot of watching national news these days, because most of it is skewed, or lies, or slanted perception (thass ray-sis!) and can never be sure of the actual truth, as opposed to the “truth” presented.
Simpler for me to remember CHRIST is the way, the truth and the life [John 14:6}, no confusion there … it’s getting through the day-to-day that can be trying at times.
W. Kamau Bell (claims to be a comedian without being funny but nevertheless appears somewhat perceptive) has a program on CNN, “United Shades of America,” where he asks interesting questions of random people to get a response … kind of like Candid Camera without the humor and the pranks.
He asked some women if it was OK to say that American slavery was “bad.”
Now, I’ve never owned a person, but I suppose from the perspective of the enslaver, slavery wasn’t bad, necessarily, but that it was actually pretty good … force someone else to make yourself rich, with the full faith, support and power of the government to do so. Nice nonwork, if you can get it.
BUT but, I guess we’re supposed to look at American slavery from a moral and residual viewpoint, and in that regard, methinks me can reasonably infer that it was pretty friggin’ bad, whatwith the whole abduction of children, rape of women, castration/burning/murder of men … don’t think there’s any real way to “sugar” coat that reality (heh).
Nonetheless, some women on Bell’s show said that it was bad to refer to slavery as bad, couldn’t do that, because … well, because.
Which brings me to the my a point.
Do we owe a debt to truth?
Or do we just “cash me outside” and OnlyFans it?
I guess the real question is: how stupid do we want our children?
Somewheres around these parts I mentioned the debt of responsibility to progeny, and methinks – bear with me here (or not … byy-yeeee) — that if we, the adult we, actively lie to our children about the truth of our shared past, don’t we dumb down the kids solely for the feels?
I don’t know about you (Other Person You) but I’d rather have a smart engineer building bridges, a smart doctor performing surgery, and a smart electrician wiring my house, over one that “feels good” about him/her/themself and stupider than a box of feathers in a pillow factory (what? think on it) and truthful accounts of the horrors in American history is one of the debts we (adult we) owe our kids.
Like financial literacy, historical literacy makes people better people, empathy actually works.
No shame, not for anyone, just information, awareness, and contemplation.
I think a debt of honesty is owed to us all, and one we owe to each other.
But as long as that debt remains unpaid, it continues to compound interest. And never the good kind.