Perspective: 1
I know it feels like polarization is increasing due to events in the Middle East. But when I talk to, ya know normal folks, people not obsessed with the news. They don't really give a darn, If you ask them, they will mildly say that they support Israel.
But they will talk your ear off about grocery prices.
Most of the polarization is driven by a main stream media.
And most people don't care.
+
Perspective: 2
Many feel like college's are becoming more violent. Let me tell you about college student violence as one who went to college in the late 60's. Remember the National Guard firing live rounds into students. Remember students blowing up banks. Remember students burning down selective service officers. Remember robberies, bomb building, and black students being assassinated by the FBI.
Perspective: 3
I had a front row seat when the SDS split into the Weather Underground. I spent literally months of time debating whether it was better to work from inside the system or violently overthrow it. I know well the arguments on both sides.
Me. I chose neither. I fucked off to northern Thailand to study Buddhism instead. Yes at first it was a copout, a running away. Then it became much more interesting.
@corlin Boston. it was a branch. i was all of 15, too. just good at making things go boom.(i have all my fingers!) i really do miss how easy it was to get good chemicals back then... i have some stumps that could go boom...
Ya I had a bit of fun with ammonium nitrate.
And home made thermite.
But never spent any time in Boston. I was in Chicago, and Seattle.
@corlin manganese is quite fun.
@corlin When were you in Chicago, Corlin?
Off and on between '66 and '72.
@corlin Interesting times!
@corlin @MisterE @redenigma i was on a school field trip downtown when the convention riot started
@redenigma @corlin SDS was in my school hallways with their clipboards and sign-up sheets. Didn't go so well. Mainly apathetic people around. Also, wrong environment for recruiting. Like, read the room.
@corlin I don't aim to do either per se.
I predict: Climate change is going to put increasing pressure on society; the slow, creeping societal immunodeficiency COVID has been inflicting will open the door for disease on a mass scale; increasing social polarization combined with popular rage induced by a crushing economic crisis will lead to fragmentation of governments/institutions...
The chaos, panic, fear, & rage are only going to get worse.
The exact ingredients I need to win hearts/minds.
@corlin I'm not a very good fighter, and I'm not particularly good at playing stupid political games - but give me a roomful of people who are panicked, afraid, and don't know what to do, and I'll give them direction.
I've done it on enough occasions to be confident that, given the right powder keg, I could bring together a modest community.
Enough to have a real voice. Enough to, at very least, exert significant influence at a local level.
That's all I can realistically aspire to for now.
@corlin i was attempted recruited for the Weather Underground. i turned it down because they weren't concerned about collateral damage. i would blow up a *thing*. i will not willingly cause damage to other lifeforms. that's my line in the sand.