Jessica, I resonate with a lot of what you write, but this one hit me hard. In Fall 2022 the CDC Director made *celebratory* remarks on Twitter about the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. I watched many absolutely roast her for the remarks which made me do a deep dive into what really happened with this study.
That was the turning point that felt like there was no going back and when I started saying "I can't unsee what I've seen." I know it SHOULD have been many many times before this one things, but I do regret I was likely operating out of a place of white middle class woman privilege.
That night, I asked my husband, "How do we trust a gov't to tell us what's best about Covid when they did THIS?" I tried to talk to my friends about it too, but they just looked at me with that glazed look and I started to say..."stop looking at me like I am some QAnon conspiracy theorist." and then I'd follow up with "WE NOW KNOW THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED... I am just simply asking the hard questions of when do we trust that those in charge have our best interest at hand and how will we know if they are f'ing us or not?" I have been tossing that last question over and over in my mind for 2 years now. Little seeds of suspicion planted along with real time events, it's hard to unsee, ignore or pretend like something more nefarious isn't at play. Some of it is the evidence I've seen with my own 2 eyes, the other part is I can't figure out any other logical answers for it to make sense other than eugenics and capitalism no matter the cost which includes my and my family's lives.
I have a running list of "Wait, why didn't they teach this in K-12 or College?" items and here was the short list that would make anyone at least have less generous opinions about things:
- Tulsa Race Massacre
- The several months of riots after MLK Jr's assassination
- The reality of what the Little Rock 9 had to put up with
- Haiti, just all of our relationship with Haiti
- Liberia - what happens when racists *do* "Send them back to Africa"
- Hawaii, Puerto Rico: Colonies in all but name
- Basically all of our involvement in WWII and Eugenics
And many more "Wait, if I learned this I'd have a much different opinion about things" scenarios
Fuck a duck - I mean if anyone had been using the eyes in their head, or even just relying on news outlets based out of Israel, they'd have known this, but...
Democracy Now (and +972, and the Nation, and Mondoweiss, and...) should get widespread recognition for covering this in real time back in March and April. It shouldn't take ProPublica to make the rest of the MSM pay attention... but such is life in the Now.
I mean it's one thing for people - including Israel's own propaganda news outlets - to report on what is going on in the ground.
It's another thing when the Federal Government tries to maintain plausible deniability only for it to be revealed that they were informed by their own experts and spies in some cases that the reporting is 100% accurate and then choose to ignore it anyways.
Remember when people thought George Bush "Knew About 9/11"? Some might argue that there wasn't enough positive evidence to make a judgement call.
Here there isn't even *that* amount of uncertainty.
This seems to be a false generalization from “there are some real conspiracies” to “conspiracy-theory ideation is justified”. There is also a Strawman aspect in leaving out a key feature that distinguishes conspiracy *theories* from justified skepticism: the fallacious notion that “it’s true because you can’t prove it’s false”.
What do you call a conspiracy when it happens in plain sight, the responsible parties make no attempt to hide it, and the public at large shrugs and says, "that's just the way things are?"
The US government is currently the biggest threat to the world. They're aiding and abetting the colonialization of the Middle East. They have sent 40,000 troops to help Israel invade Lebanon.
Jessica, I resonate with a lot of what you write, but this one hit me hard. In Fall 2022 the CDC Director made *celebratory* remarks on Twitter about the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. I watched many absolutely roast her for the remarks which made me do a deep dive into what really happened with this study.
That was the turning point that felt like there was no going back and when I started saying "I can't unsee what I've seen." I know it SHOULD have been many many times before this one things, but I do regret I was likely operating out of a place of white middle class woman privilege.
That night, I asked my husband, "How do we trust a gov't to tell us what's best about Covid when they did THIS?" I tried to talk to my friends about it too, but they just looked at me with that glazed look and I started to say..."stop looking at me like I am some QAnon conspiracy theorist." and then I'd follow up with "WE NOW KNOW THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED... I am just simply asking the hard questions of when do we trust that those in charge have our best interest at hand and how will we know if they are f'ing us or not?" I have been tossing that last question over and over in my mind for 2 years now. Little seeds of suspicion planted along with real time events, it's hard to unsee, ignore or pretend like something more nefarious isn't at play. Some of it is the evidence I've seen with my own 2 eyes, the other part is I can't figure out any other logical answers for it to make sense other than eugenics and capitalism no matter the cost which includes my and my family's lives.
I have a running list of "Wait, why didn't they teach this in K-12 or College?" items and here was the short list that would make anyone at least have less generous opinions about things:
- Tulsa Race Massacre
- The several months of riots after MLK Jr's assassination
- The reality of what the Little Rock 9 had to put up with
- Haiti, just all of our relationship with Haiti
- Liberia - what happens when racists *do* "Send them back to Africa"
- Hawaii, Puerto Rico: Colonies in all but name
- Basically all of our involvement in WWII and Eugenics
And many more "Wait, if I learned this I'd have a much different opinion about things" scenarios
Fuck a duck - I mean if anyone had been using the eyes in their head, or even just relying on news outlets based out of Israel, they'd have known this, but...
Fuck
A
Duck
https://www.commondreams.org/news/blinken-weapons-israel
Democracy Now (and +972, and the Nation, and Mondoweiss, and...) should get widespread recognition for covering this in real time back in March and April. It shouldn't take ProPublica to make the rest of the MSM pay attention... but such is life in the Now.
I mean it's one thing for people - including Israel's own propaganda news outlets - to report on what is going on in the ground.
It's another thing when the Federal Government tries to maintain plausible deniability only for it to be revealed that they were informed by their own experts and spies in some cases that the reporting is 100% accurate and then choose to ignore it anyways.
Remember when people thought George Bush "Knew About 9/11"? Some might argue that there wasn't enough positive evidence to make a judgement call.
Here there isn't even *that* amount of uncertainty.
This seems to be a false generalization from “there are some real conspiracies” to “conspiracy-theory ideation is justified”. There is also a Strawman aspect in leaving out a key feature that distinguishes conspiracy *theories* from justified skepticism: the fallacious notion that “it’s true because you can’t prove it’s false”.
What do you call a conspiracy when it happens in plain sight, the responsible parties make no attempt to hide it, and the public at large shrugs and says, "that's just the way things are?"
Me, I call it "Capitalism."
The US government is currently the biggest threat to the world. They're aiding and abetting the colonialization of the Middle East. They have sent 40,000 troops to help Israel invade Lebanon.
https://www.publichealth.va.gov/