After seeing yet another ridiculous meme posted recently on Facebook by a conservative I felt a need to take a bit of a look at it in detail, to share it because of the stupidity it presents and to take another look at the current state of political disinformation in this country.
Conservatives exhibit a great deal of incorrect information in their beliefs and arguments. Ignorance by the way, is not suppose to display as disinformation. That is something that usually indicates either stupidity or intent. To claim one didn't know when not caring enough to vet one's beliefs is simply no excuse. And finally conservatives are not apparently, any longer, actually conservative.
In this meme our so called American conservative has offered us a great example of this ridiculous kind of behavior. Although it exists to some degree everywhere and by both sides at one time or another, it is in this case disingenuous to the point of disinformation:
Yes, yet another sad and tired meme that has been going around, forwarded by those who are rather sad in their exhibited fears and desire for whatever it actually is that they want, all at the cost of reality, legality or morality. The meme twists reality around, ignores some very important things and just doesn't make a lot of sense. But then, that's a conservative for you.
Can't make reality work? Feel quite free to twist it into absurdity.
There are surely sane, intelligent and honest conservatives. There are idiot liberals like many of the conservatives we hear from and media tends to use these extremes to get people's attention and to make more money.
When you see the majority of conservative (Republican) candidates as the exemplifications of the conservative bottom line, and the liberal or progressive (Democratic) candidates as be rational and adult, it seems quite clear what the differences and adherences are. I'm no talking about those few conservatives who are rational human beings.
I'm talking here about a Republican base who are illiterate even when they can read and based belief on religion and fantasies. Making up what information they don't have when they hear news that they find offensive and that media like Fox News inflames conservatives on purpose. Then they don't go research it to disprove what they want to be true. Not that they want it to be true, but that they want it to be true in order to support their disgust in a masturbatory loop of fear and negative emotions.
I'm talking about the types who would post memes such as the one under discussion here.
So, let's jump right into the stereotyping, generalities and bigotry, line by line:
"If a conservative doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one. If a liberal doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed."
First off, conservatives are generally the ones who want to shove their beliefs down everyone's throat. To say it is liberals albeit true at times, is far outweighed by the onslaught of this type of thing from conservatives. This comment of "if you don't like it don't do it", was taken from liberals originally saying it to conservatives who complained about popular music and TV shows back in the 60s and 70s.
Liberals have not pushed for banning all guns, but limiting them from those who shouldn't have them and to have common sense legislation that isn't blanketed by the NRA and extremists who apparently would like to pass guns out at grade schools (see how stupid this kind of reactionary juvenile diatribe is?).
"If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat. If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone."
First of all show me a conservative vegetarian. Vegetarians haven't pushed to ban all meat typically but to ban inhumane harvesting of meats and meat byproducts and to bring to the attention of the public how non humans who are marketed as a food source, are so miserably treated and then slaughtered, cut and ground up and packaged for sale.
"If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. A liberal, wonders who is going to take care of him."
Plenty of conservatives use the same social services as liberals. What about when you cannot better your situation? Just die? Liberals are asking for all people to have a safety net available to them if needed. It goes back to what the role of government is or should be. Conservatives want small government and ultimate freedom, but want to govern how people act as it relates to their (Christian) religious beliefs (depending on what nutcase is their pastor, minister or priest).
Conservatives think if you can't fend for yourself you are not worthy enough to receive help (unless they are the ones who need it, ostensibly because if THEY ever need it then it must be dire and far beyond the norm, if not an "act of God"). Conservatives are fairly closed minded, wishing to help apparently no one other than themselves (unless of course again, it it they who find they need governmental help). They follow a mindset that requires everyone to fend for themselves, even those who are incapable, which for them borders on eugenics and right wing race superiority.
"If a conservative doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels. Liberals demand that those they don't like be shut down."
Again, "he" switches channel. See item one above.
Conservatives tend to watch only shows that support their beliefs and selectively remember only what supports their frequently faulty logic. They also tend to switch logic within a single frame of logic, thus supporting their beliefs regardless of reality or logic, frequently breaking forms of logic in a single argument and using unrelated news items to support whatever they wish to see supported.
Conservatives also tend not to go to another channel to watch what questions their beliefs. They lean heavily on herd mentality and love calling those who disagree with things like
sheep and
cattle when they are the ones who tend to act in such a way. They have an inability to see outside the scope of mono level thinking, or they go so far beyond that into conspiracies, it rapidly becomes inane.
"If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church. A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and Jesus silenced."
Show me a conservative non-believer, first off. Many conservatives do not even go to church or have an in depth knowledge of their chosen or originally indoctrinated religion. They tend to give lip service to religion though it is dying off. It is interesting to note that they mention God and Jesus but not Allah, or Vishnu in a very ethnocentric orientation showing their ignorance and discare about others, which seems to be rampant in their life orientation. Liberals do not want no mention of God or Jesus, this is one of the primary sets of misinformation from conservatives. They want to be inclusive. Mentions of God or Jesus, is exactly to other religions that christian conservatives say is applied to them.
"If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it. A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his."
Two things right off. This implies someone with a need for health care can figure it out on their own and not everyone can, not even all conservatives. It implies everyone is the same and can find or access a job that supplies health care. It is a very shot sighted view of an entire nation of people. A liberal asks for others who cannot achieve a situation that includes health care for them be covered and as a part of a nation having a government, that government take care of all it's citizens, even those who cannot access what they need to live. Conservatives seem not to care about those people at all.
"If a conservative reads this, he'll forward i so his friends can have a good laugh. A liberal will delete it because he's offended."
A conservative may very well forward this. And laugh at it. Even as others they are talking about are suffering. People who would read into this just how much it is a white, Christian, privileged view of the world. What is sad is even some non whites, non privileged think this also covers them. And it may to some degree but as is a conservative's view of the world they will not see that parts they should be offended about.
As one conservative I know says, he doesn't agree with much of the Republican party, but they won't take his guns. That shows the narrow mindset they are working with. Ruin a nation, keep your guns.
A liberal might just delete this meme and be offended, as should a conservative.
Better still a liberal might write a blog and tear it apart to show how offensive some conservatives can be in sharing an asinine meme such as this. Though I prefer the term progressive to liberal since it is a better description and counter to the term conservative. Who are basically not really conservative but regressive. Which fits them better than conservative (which sounds positive) and liberal (which sounds childish and overbearing).
Some of the comments that were posted below the meme on Facebook were the obvious like, "agreed", "Shared!", or "Yes!" But there were others, like:
"You could add Muslims RIGHT next to liberals can't tell thin apart."
I assume someone couldn't spell "them apart" and weren't referring to some imagined weight problem issues. But such is how conservatives are and tend to be. Overly generalized "truisms" and "factoids" that they pass around to one another over and over ad nauseum, perpetrating their ignorance, right wing nonsense and commonly racist and stereotypes of privilege.
But we all know that, don't we?
So what about the format of what they say? Take the meme above as an example of how this is designed.
Over a hundred years ago the Soviets came up with the theory of disinformation. To take information, skew it to a purpose that is opposed to popular belief, or to support the darker sides of popular beliefs and twist the reality into unreality, leaping forms of logic within a single thought, sentence or phrase, to their own private subversive desires.
Delusional conservatives. There's a lot of them now. Which is to say, those crazies who love Donald Trump, I suppose. They simply love to play as if they are smart. Then instead of using that desire to actually become more than they are, they exhibit instead quite the opposite. Something we've seen time and time again.
They like to look down the road into that which is yet to be, to see what's there. And don't we all? But what do they always see? The most negative thing they can find. Our of what? Fear. Why are they so fearful? Rough childhoods? One can only wonder? They latch onto that bad thing coming down he road, shouting about how it's going to happen if we don't do something destructive and push for it across the board.
Hopefully it will even make some rich people richer in the end.
They would argue that if you see that negative thing down the road then you have to do something to stop it, to keep it from happening. Well, how can one argue with that?
The reality however as it turns out, in order to not work toward the future with a defective orientation and character, is that we need to expect the best and plan for the worst. But in all the fuzziness of what they do not understand, what they don't even know that they don't know, they get swept away and start hoping for the worst; all while saying they are not doing that. In those things they cannot stand for or even know about, they project forward with what little information they have and expect then that they have easily perceived the future.
A perceived future that began on a shaky foundation to begin with.
And so we get people running for president like Trump, or frankly, any of the rest of the Republican flock of hopeful lackeys who are all drilling into that core of the conservative sadness. Finding respite and an energized field that props them up until eventually and always the deflation of reality finally absorbs all that ignorance and negativity.
What is most sad however is that whenever that happens after an election when they find themselves in office, then even more clueless than before... once they discover reality during their initial presidential briefings on what is actually going on in the world outside their tiny bubble of conservative politics, right wingnut radio talk shows, and the dynamo of entertainment news media, they are stunned to find, they didn't know much of anything. And yet now, they need to fulfill their promises. Promises on things that now make no sense. That must suck.
Once achieving high office they can implement their solutions, the actions that will lead to even more negative things happening. Think of how George W. Bush was planning to take Saddam Hussein out before he won the presidency and then when he became president the first thing he did was to call a meeting to stat looking for a way to fulfill that desire. And so they did.
All in the hope that originally perceived fears (now enhanced by having listened to like voices that seeped and weeped to them on the winds of the bubble media and political polls generated to satiated their beliefs for money, all of which eventually will be neutralized, all of their self generated, right wing vox populi amplified negativity as the ensuing tsunami of reality hits resolving in a popping of their bubble.
In the quake of all that all of the rest of us have been sitting there all through the process, watching it all come to pass in horror and then for some reason, we are the ones to pay to clean up the aftermath of their atrocities which the perpetrators will then simply distance themselves from, turn a blind eye yet again to and say, "why do you always have to bring up the past?"
There is a condition Pilots have to be aware of where they are flying upside down and think, will fight to maintain the status quo, disbelieving even their physical flight instruments that say, they are indeed upside down.
This is the condition of our Republican party and their succoring conservative client base.
There is a thing called the aesthetic of the ugly. Where you come to think that ugliness is beautiful. That splits into to immediately.
Bear with me.
One side are those who see the ugliness and see the beauty in it. The other side are those who have been flipped upside down, believing that the ugliness is beautiful. That, is a very important and relevant point. The former understands where they stand. The latter thinks they are one place, where they once were and want to be, but believes they are still there. And obviously, they are not.
We have these people in control of the Republican party, less than half of our nation in people, but more than half of our nation in political power. Truthfully the other side has the political potential for power but are too lazy to take control of it. Whereas the other side are zealots and think they are trying to access air to breathe in every movement.
It's where we are today.
We are a strange and wonderful country. But not unlike many first world countries today. confused, lost perhaps, wanting, but not wanting what we need, wanting what we think we need. How we ever got here is quite beyond me sometimes in seeing those around us.
Conservatives who can't stand Obama hate the fact that he is intelligent, thinks up a plan, actually puts one into place and then keeps at it because it is working (and takes time) until it shows progress rather than acting like a knee jerk Republican who cries about doing something and then does something that only gets us deeper into that conservative created morass of dysfunction and more dissipation of action.
That is to say, he doesn't just punch, he looks where to and does it methodically and accurately as an American national leader should.
Americans displeased with his anti terror actions only want to see more destruction, more actions that create more jihadists and use more of the war industry's weaponry to raise their stock options (or being poor and ignorant, raise the stock of those rich people above them who do) and simply ACT as if useful action is being taken.
To Hell with function in action, they say. Let's see some boots on the ground... as long as there's no boots on the ground!
I've heard better thinking through of an issue from preschoolers than the republican party.
There is a large segment of our society who believes that the way to achieve a goal is to go big, go brash. Which is odd as these people seem to be on the right. Which is part of a contingent of American policy who likes to do things in the shadows, who likes to do things their lesser educated types, the backbone of their party, does not understand.
Which is how to use disinformation properly, to fool even their own. Which is to use money against everyone but those involved with the money, to make more money at any cost. To acquire power no matter who it harms.
They want to see a war to stop terrorism, something that doesn't do much of a damn thing when you need metaphorical can physical snipers, not a massive war machine. No not those behind their scenes, the Kochs, the Murdochs, and so on. They want the same things but they are smart enough to know it won't end things, only extend it. They want in order to raise their stock values, for more return on their capital gains. Something their base doesn't even know the definition of for the most part and will never have any of their own.
Those base people on the right say Wake Up to the liberal left when in reality it is they who are sleeping, and when they do ever wake, they drink more of the conservative juice, they breathe in more of the Right Wingnut gasses emanating from the anal orifices of those in power and fall back vastly and intensely asleep, only to wake when one day they look around and realize their ramshackle home is now a curbside and their children are enjoying the prestigious education hat living in the streets gives one.
Well, better street smarts some day than simply pulling the river over one's head and sleeping the slumber of the vagabond in a far and distant land, destitute and wealthy in their ignorance and their lack of material goods. But it's the emotional good they received from this abuse by their leaders they strive so hard for.
Should we let them continue? Should we warn them? Or let them seep into the soil as their bones slough off the flesh their forefathers and mothers fought so hard for them to lose?
It's hard to help those who are fighting to continue drowning under the weight of their own desired and perpetuated ignorance. Frustrating to fight to save someone who doesn't want it.
At some point, as in the President's recent need for so many executive actions, you simply need to go on and govern without them. As a pre school teacher does with students in the hope that some day they will age and mature into responsible world citizens.
Here's hoping....
We work, we think we see, are attracted toward and avoid, categorize in order to understand, use our excellent pattern recognition skills to simplify, sometimes simplifying too much, sometimes overusing our pattern skills and seeing what isn't there, but could be, and yet many times isn't, but still we act as if they are and we make poor decisions.
Then after a while we get too caught up in those specifics, we see the forest for the trees and we forget.
We forget all of it, merely for the bits of it.
If you are floating hundreds of miles above the earth in a spacesuit as Earth rotates there before us, you can see it then. The specifics are destroyed, we lose the concerns, the baggage and prejudices can only come to lead us to realize that there is only that there, down there below us, that planet, that Earth, that heaven.
Heaven?
Look around you, floating there in space.
Take off your space suit.
Does it feel like a balmy island beach moment?
When you are in the shadows freezing at minus 200 degrees, or when the sunlight with all the sun's deadly radiations, normally shielded from us by the Earth's protective atmosphere, it truly can be a hell out there, up there, floating above the Earth, above the billions of people, above all those specifics that continue to confuse us.
Until we see what is really there.
Until we return down to Earth and realize, so much of what we care about is just so much baggage and that we really can do so much more, and that there is so much more to do, that truly is what is important. and yet hadn't been, before we stood tall high up in the skies where we could finally see.
This is heaven.
And what have we done with it?
