I wonder if people were going around Milan saying, "We're going to be okay," in November 1922 🤔
@DyDave would they have known what it meant?
we have the benefit of hindsight. we know what happens.
and we know what happens now b/c it's happened before.
They would have read about the angry 30,000 dudes in black shirts who pressured the king to appoint Mussolini in 1922 🤷♂️
The thing that's got me thinking about it is the "we" part of "we're going to be okay".
Who, precisely, is the "we" in that statement? If it's wealthy cis white American folk, sure, they'll probably be mostly fine.
But that's how these things happen. People who think they'll be okay just let these things happen, and everybody else feels the consequences.
@DyDave here's the thing. we do move on when bad shit is happening around us but not TO us.
there's an est. 4-5,000 missing & murdered indigenous women in 🇨🇦 the past 3 decades. doesn't happen to us so we're ok.
there's almost 1200 women & girls killed by men (partners, exes, family members) in the last decade, w/ a 14% increase btw 2020/21. but doesn't happen to us so we're ok.
there were over 34,000 sexual assaults reported in 2021 (18% higher than 2020).
you get the point.
💯 spot on. That's exactly the kind of thing I'm thinking about today. I'd add climate and basically anything that happens in Africa, too.
The great Douglas Adams wrote that the simplest and best way to make a thing invisible is to erect a 'Somebody Else's Problem' field around it, and people will walk past it, around it, and even over it, blissfully unaware that it's there 🤷♂️
Again, spot on. It's kind of the definition of conservatism to not mind the status quo unless it's happening to you, and I reckon a lot of people are less progressive than they like to think they are.
All the politicians on both sides who tearfully changed their minds on same-sex marriage because their son/daughter/niece, etc. came out as queer come to mind. It didn't matter until it was at home 🤷♂️
And then there's just rank bigotry. As Lyndon Johnson put it:
@DyDave ah the human condition.
we really don't deserve this world, do we?
orcas would do a better job.
They really would.
@DyDave i was thinking about this in terms of voting and the diff groups.
i think there's a group that says, i got mine so fuck you.
there's another group that says i got nothing but i'm going to keep you from getting anything either.
there's a quote that goes something like:
we rise by lifting others.
but i think there's a whole lot of us that missed that memo.
and then there's just basic apathy, right?