It’s hazy and hot already, it’s supposed to be in the 90s all week, and here in Chicago that means humidity too. It’s like being back in Costa Rica.
As we head into the most important election of our lifetime–no hyperbole, the convicted felon who is a convicted felon has waxed wistfully about murdering people at will, being a dictator and seeking “revenge,”–I have my mind on people who are trying to distract. Who are stirring the pot, trying to redirect anger to the wrong places, take our eyes off the ball.
I’ve always embraced the idea that the best cure for “bad” speech is counterspeech, but now, I’m thinking of enlisting Spoutible’s tool that lets you delete replies to your spouts.
Propaganda is, by its nature, intended to sway people, often using falsehoods and lies and distortions and fiction to do so. It generally appeals to emotion.
Does it hold any value in the marketplace of ideas? Or is it simply a form of shouting “fire” in a crowded theater, a dangerous means to harness irrational behavior and response for the greater bad?
Because I think it’s that last one.
And I also think it’s more important than ever not to entertain it. Come next January, we could be in a place eerily like russia, largely because it is and has always been putin guiding, controlling, using trump as his dutiful ventriloquist’s dummy. We could be witnessing public executions of the people trump is angry at, including Pres. Biden and the First Lady.
Sure, it will be my own opinion of what is or is not stupid. And I’m not saying I’ll delete everything that disagrees with my perspective.
But attacks on civil servants doing their jobs; “friendly fire” on our people; statements that are not connected to reality or how things actually work; anything meant to undermine our ultimate goal of keeping trump away from power all may vanish.
Because what is the point of any of that? What is the goal?
Anyway, that’s it for me today. Have a great Monday.
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