My December to Remember 2: Day Twenty-One
News: Zelenskyy visits D.C., will deliver speech to joint session of Congress.
Senator Sinema announces bipartisan border trip in new Congress.
WaPo posts study that exercise reduces risk of being affected by The Virus™.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams urges New Yorkers to mask up again, seen later at the NY Post’s holiday party…maskless.
How do I call myself an anarchist without coming off like a cringy edgelord? Because that’s honestly what’s happening to me lately. My trust in all American institutions is completely blown, and at this point, I don’t know if it’ll ever come back. I just see a bunch of people wasting everyone’s time and money, all the while disparaging you for not going along with their whims. I sincerely can’t stand it. There are all new feelings in me, and I don’t know how far I want to push it. I don’t know what’s appropriate and what’s not appropriate to even say.
Because, lo and behold, it’s entirely possible for one of the “Oh-So-You’s” to come flying at me, interpreting my words into the worst possible scenario, just to affirm that I’m indeed the bad guy here.
You know the type. You say something online and someone comes back with this: “Oh, so you believe [this entirely made up scenario in my head that you didn’t say but it affirms my beliefs how wrong you are]?” It happens a million times. When you communicate with nothing but words, it’s so very easy for anyone to come away with any meaning they assign. It’s impossible to know exactly what some random person is thinking, so whatever you say can see hundreds of takeaways. Best not to get too caught up with that, but I can’t help seeing this pervasive phenomenon still going strong.
Part of me still can’t believe another person’s commentary online, like saying Biden is the best president America has ever seen. Or Zelenskyy is like a modern-day Winston Churchill. I’ve stopped letting things like that ruin my day, and I’ve not tried to ‘clap back’ at any of these people in some time. Still, interpretations happen, and even if I share my opinion on a news story, it’s not unusual to get an “oh, so you” in your face when you do what any social media site is meant for: sharing thoughts about any given subject.
Back during the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I certainly had plenty of “oh, fuck,” moments. War is never pretty, especially at the expense of innocent lives. And I had to report on all of it. We spent weeks, months even, closely watching all that was going on seemingly millions of miles away. But what started happening in my Twitter space was people demanding sides be chosen, and it had better be for the blue and gold side. Otherwise, you may as well be a terrorist.
Now, I want to make it clear that I condemn all crimes of war, the loss of lives, and violence against the innocent. This has always been my position and I have no problem with people slamming me for how generic it sounds. But taking a ‘side’ never sat right with me, especially when I saw such a strange, coordinated effort to immediately create and the enemy without understanding what was actually happening. Propaganda was pouring forth from every angle and it astounded me just how quick people were to lap it all up.
All this is why I was so perplexed at one rando online berating me for not saying, in his words, “Putin is the bad guy, Zelenskyy is the good guy.” I was replying to one blue checkmark who was on Ukraine’s ‘side’ and basically browbeating anyone who wasn’t. I asked why he saw no grey area in any of it, and got the “Oh So You” right back in my face. Basically I was called a Putin apologist, a moron, an idiot, someone who has no logic or knowledge about the current state of the world. It’s just so bizarre to me that people want to take their interactions there. Like the online person who called me a rape apologist because I like the movie A Clockwork Orange. How do people get there? Why don’t they at least listen to an alternative viewpoint? What balls do people have to project that hard? If I find myself ever in alignment with an aspect of ‘the enemy,’ why does that automatically make me the bad guy?
I’m not immune to becoming this person either. Anyone I see pledging full, unwavering support to giving more American taxdollars to Ukraine, I could say, “Oh, so you don’t care about the southern border of your own country?” Maybe they do. Maybe they’ve swallowed the “secure” lie we keep being fed. The point in all this is that there is no point. We’re just sitting around fighting each other while the real evil guys sit and laugh at how stupid we all are for fighting. We’re doing their dirty work for us when we don’t sit back, pause, and really listen to what one another is saying.
It’s time to stop relying on the imaginary battles in our heads and focus on what’s before us. There will always be people you find disagreements with, but if you must dislike them, dislike them for the right reasons. Not the ones you’ve been conditioned to hate. And believe me, there’s going to be, and currently is, plenty to be mad at these people for. Once they realize how few there are of them and how many there are of us, no amount of deflection away from the issues can save them.
I’m trying to stay whitepilled. I’m trying to believe. Just so you know.
