This is a photo that Alison took on her phone as part of a walking tour that was teaching how to best use a phone camera. I like it.
The building is where the Waycross Journal Herald used to be published. It was a daily paper owned by a far-right extremist, sort of a Fox News amplifier.
That owner sold out, and it is now a weekly (or semi-weekly - I'm not sure. I don't get the paper) that is headquartered in a different building.
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It is Tuesday as I write this, but I am reflecting back on Monday. It was a tough day in that I did a lot of studying for a class I am taking concerning racism in the United States. It can be depressing stuff.
One article clarified how the old feudal system was adapted to fit capitalism and how the elite used division and work ethic philosophy to keep control. How they eliminated the roots of European immigrants and replaced it with a kind of Calvinistic, capitalistic outlook - work was primary, rest and festivity were devilish.
Another article discussed how we were really 11 countries in one, how distinctive in approach different sections of the country are, and how it makes it difficult to decide things together. Some areas are Yankeedom, the Deep South, Tideland, and more. I was already familiar with this and use it to write my Kingdom short stories. They're on this blog. Check it out.
Another article talks about white fragility. This is a significant problem in this country. Many whites get riled up if anyone brings up racism. This can be seen in all the censorship efforts of our schools to make sure that no teacher is allowed to teach our nation's complex racial history. Nothing burns me up more than this. The same people who make fun of college students and millennials needing "safe spaces" and canceling culture are the same people who want to CANCEL American History!
There's more, including a story about a little girl asking her mother what happened to all the Indians and her mother answering, "They drank too much." All of our genocidal massacre of Indians summed up as instead being a native American drinking problem. Sometimes this country makes me so sad.
Outside of the class assignments, I also finished the book The Lost Eleven, about a group of black soldiers in WW2. They were left behind during the Battle of the Bulge, only to be eventually found by the Nazis. Instead of taking them prisoner, they tortured and killed them. It took almost fifty years for this incident to be recognized by the military and the American people.
I also watched an episode of one of my favorite TV programs, DC's Legends of Tomorrow. In this episode, the Legends found themselves in 1943, near an aircraft factory staffed mainly by females. They needed parts for their broken time machine, so the female members tried to get jobs there. The two white blondes got jobs on the assembly line, the white brunette became a secretary, and the two that were people of color had to be janitors. As TV is wont to do, the black female Legend, Astra, somehow gained control of the factory, using work orders to make the factory more efficient. Everything was humming along when she decided to issue an integration order for the assembly line. That caused the few males there to quit and almost all the white females to walk off the job rather than work alongside people of color. I know it was fiction, but it was plausible, and it made me sad, along with everything else I was reading. So sad. So very, very sad.
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And then, I saw a poll that showed only a minority of people believed that Trump was responsible for the incitement and insurrection of January 6th. WHHHHHAAATTT? How is that possible? What the hell kind of bubble do you have to live in to not know that Trump was knee-deep in trying to overturn the election?
Then I see that Fox News will not show this Thursday night's 1/6 Committee hearings, and I know where that blissful ignorance comes from.
I am down on my hands and knees, begging, BEGGING my Trump-leaning friends, please, PLEASE do not miss these hearings.
Sigh.
They're not going to do it, are they?
I try to remain optimistic, but things look dimmer and dimmer for the home pro-democracy team.
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One overwhelming, sad lesson I'm learning from history -
when it appears things may be getting better, and it looks like positive change is taking hold, remember this...
The Empire Always Strikes Back
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