Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Yes it’s fun watching liberal heads explode in the Trump era, as it seems they’re losing ground on every front, but things always move in cycles and I see one battleground where things are going the wrong way: This talk about “privilege.” It used to be fringe-kooky racist stuff, as in, “white people need to learn their place and check their privilege.” And then it was radical-feminist sexist stuff. “Men have to check their privilege.” It’s quickly becoming mainstream. I’m hearing it from all directions lately. Such is the power of guilt…and, the allure of not-shutting-up. “Oh, I find these arguments completely convincing that I’m white and suburban and don’t know anything about anything and need to shut up…I shall have to prattle away about that endlessly to show how enlightened I am.”
What we should do about it is…acknowledge the truth. This stuff is powerful not just because it works on guilt, and not-shutting-up, but also because there is truth in it. Some people have good upbringings. Some people’s parents know, or knew, the right people to get them started. Those who are privileged should form an appreciation for all this. And it might be healthy to get the inventory started of all these benefits, you might find there are a lot more of them than you realized. Especially if someone else gave up something so you could have them. The falsehood is in the “you” or the “we” or the “their” or the “our.” If you are a SJW sucking in YouTube clips and tweeting up a twitstorm about “[blank] needs to check their privilege”…then you are among the privileged!
Think about people in other countries, or in our country, living in centuries past. Famine, scurvy, shingles, typhoid, black plague, to say nothing of the hours and hours that had to be burned off sowing and reaping crops not from prime land, but whatever land could be had, or found…or taken by force. To say nothing of the rampant illiteracy. Whole families that couldn’t educate their young, had to use the children as free labor in order to survive. Slavery. Not “I’m a corporate slave” or “I’m emotionally wounded by your ‘Trump’ sticker or your ‘It’s okay to be white’ sign,” but real slavery. Chains resting upon persons of ALL colors. Diseases of all sorts, family members sailing off to new continents to escape persecution never to be heard from again, wondering as the air turns crisp each autumn how many friends and relatives won’t make it through the winter. Poor hunting seasons, meager harvests, spoiled water. No toilet paper and no deodorant.
Who has these “You’re privileged and I’m not” bragging rights? Fact is — among those who can read these words, no one has ’em! If you were born, or were able to migrate to, the United States anytime in the last hundred years, you are privileged. Oh, I do not mean to say you don’t have stories. There are wonderful, horrible stories to be told…
As always, if we’re going to argue then let’s do it honestly. We’ve got persons of all sexes, sex preferences, races, colors, creeds, ancestries are foraging around like mad, like meth-addicted pigs rooting for truffles, looking for those non-existent “I’m not as privileged as you” bragging rights. If you’ve got a problem, and I had the same problem once and managed to fix it, we are peers — or, at the very least, there is a groundwork from which we can form a peerage. The accusation of “You’re privileged” is a way to fracture that groundwork, keep such a kinship from being formed. It is a way to preserve division. We have so many loud people in our nation who make money from keeping people divided and keeping resentments raw.
It’s also an excuse for failure. “Your advice is not helpful to me, I know this before I even lift a finger to try it, because our situations are different.” It’s loser-talk, nothing more than that, if some effort to implement is not made. Also, nobody should have to point it out, but one person’s privilege is not another person’s injury. At least it better not be, in a country of 330 million in which everyone’s privileged, because that would be a lot of injury.
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Wait…wait….
- CaptDMO | 05/31/2018 @ 06:29Should I wait for “latest studies show…” to find me a place on the victim reparation spectrum,
or should I file a legal claim, citing “Why I deserve payout, with interest, for the lottery drawing ticket I never walked to the store to buy, but COULD have, 15 years ago” ?