Forestluv

On the other side. . . Yes, I can see how FoxNews and Trump’s spokesperson can be seen as annoying. Yet as I mentioned above, we are striving for a Tier2 level of discussion. Ridicule and implicit ‘demonization’ Is Tier1 and it inflames culture wars, which this subforum is trying to avoid. In general to everyone: I understand how emotionally charged these times are, yet this subforum needs to step up it’s level of discourse. It has been regressing since the Corona virus outbreak and protests toward conspiracy theories and culturally charged inflammatory rhetoric.

I never said it was easy to solve. It is a highly complex issue that involves social structures, economics, history, self identity, survival, education and on and on. Tucker occasionally strikes a populist tone, however I don’t consider him to be an advocate for economic and social equality. I’m not saying his viewpoint is 100% wrong, 100% of the time. I’m saying it is contracted and he is unable to see other perspectives. In part because he has a vested interest in his identity, his massive wealth he has accumulated, his elite status and he is compromised by the billionaires that pull strings. I’ve made similar comments about hosts on MSNBC. Please be mindful of the subforum guidelines “Spreading propaganda videos. Sources like Fox News, PragerU, etc. will be considered propaganda. (You can link them if you are debunking them.)” And. . . “This sub-forum is meant to be a nuanced (Spiral Dynamics Tier 2) discussion of politics, not a culture war. Discuss political issues from a systemic level.“ ”Be here with an open mind. Be here to learn. If you are just here spreading your pet ideology you will probably end up banned.” I consider you to be in a grey area of being closed-minded to learning and being here with an intention of spreading your pet ideology. Open your mind, be here to learn and raise your level of discourse.

Just as a general reminder: It is ok to disagree, yet let’s refrain from using name calling with an antagonistic tone. As well, needling others for a reaction is a mild form of trolling and is against forum guidelines. This thread is closed since the OP has stated it is an old forgotten thread that is just getting bumped to stir a pot of controversy.

I agree with you. That is why I stressed that what I was saying is only relevant in the context of someone that is genuinely trying to learn, grow and purify past karmic loads. In other contexts, this would not apply - such as the context you describe. In that context, what I wrote would actually be enabling a person and be counter-productive.

Yes. Another example was that drunk driving was not considered a big deal in the 50s and 60s. My father told me hold police officers would give him a ride home if they pulled him over for drunk driving. They would just say, “don’t do it again”, there were no real consequences. Yet in 1980, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) was founded. This brought attention to the underlying issue and their was massive cultural change. Today, drunk driving has severe consequences and is considered a really bad thing to do by the vast majority of the public. Today, if someone was arrested for drunk driving, they wouldn’t be joking around about the wild party with their buddies the next day. I hadn’t thought of it in this context before. . . Yes, suppressing underlying issues with violence takes time and effort. It is not the most efficient way to address underlying issues. An analogy would be a father that tries to suppress underlying family issues through intimidation and violence. That takes a lot of energy. That father would be at a disadvantage in developing himself and advancing his career relative to a father that was open to addressing the underlying issues. For example, he would be open to see his part within the family dynamics. He would be open to changing himself.

I see this in one context, yet there is another context. As a personal example, when I was young I had a drinking problem and mistreated some people along the way. When I stopped drinking and went into recovery, it was very tempting to say that I “was turning my life over to god” and wash myself of all my prior misdeeds. Yet as you say, there was still karma. I couldn’t just say “I’ve found god and all my past mistreatments are washed away”. There is also work involved for purifying away that karmic load and ime, it’s important to allow safe space for those genuinely wanting to clear away that past karma. For example, if people around me shamed me for my past mistreatments I would not have looked at it. Rather, I was told that I had underlying problematic issues that were leading me to behave in ways that were mistreating others. Yet I had to spend a lot of time self-reflecting, writing and working with others to gain clarity. As well, I went back and made amends to those I mistreated. These were keys for me toward purifying that past karma, yet I needed some support around me to do it. If I was shamed for it, I wouldn’t have done it. . . Yet this of course assumes that the person genuinely wants to clear themself of negative karma they are carrying.

@Epikur You are shifting the topic. I am discussing black-white dynamics in America, not other cultural dynamics. Tucker Carlson is an elite millionaire paid by mega-elite billionaires. They are benefitting from participating in a system with structural racism and they have a vested interest in maintaining that system. To understand this, one will need to let go of their identity and attachment and see things from a meta view, which includes *getting* the perspective and experience of what one considers “the other side” as well as acknowledging biased structural factors that one benefits from. Tucker Carlson is not at this conscious level. In this context, denying structural racism is akin to denying climate change. Structural racism is very easy for black people to see because they are being negatively impacted by it. It is much harder for white people to see structural racism because they are benefitting from it. Black people have to carry this burden. If I discuss structural racism with black people, they are like “Duh, obviously”. Yet when I discuss structural racism with white people, most are like “Hey wait a minute, what about. . . “. They often try to obscure and deflect. For those that would like to learn more about this, I wrote a detailed description in another thread. The title of the video you linked is “class war”. That is also an issue. Wealth inequality is at extreme levels in the U.S. and this is causing all sorts of problems. Not just for lower class black people - for all lower and middle class people. This is why my higher priority would be to address wealth inequality in the broader sense. Overall, all lower / middle class people will benefit, yet lower class black people will disproportionately benefit, since they are disproportionality impacted negatively. For those wanting to learn more about the broader range of wealth inequality, I would recommend Anand Giridharadas.

@electroBeam Yes. This was a major issue with the city council. Cops are not trained ir qualified for many instances that involve drugs, mental health or domestic violence. Police often escalate or mishandle it because they are not trained for it. Many cases should would be better handled by those trained in social work, addiction, psychology and de-escalation.

@Epikur The majority of people are peaceful protestors. You have been linking to right wing FoxNews propaganda that portrays the protestors as violent angry mobs. It is very misleading. The below video is from a woman immersed in the protest. She describes three type of people at protests: the protesters, the rioters and the looters. She explains how the game is rigged and how the social contract has been broken. People are fed up and angry for a good reason. There is so much focus on the *what* they’re doing. She explains *why* they’re doing it from an inside view, rather than millionaire FoxNews hosts paid off by billionaires. Any explanation that does not include wealth inequality in incomplete. And you won’t hear about wealth inequality on FoxNews because they are instrumental in creating, perpetuating and benefitting from that inequality. She uses an analogy of the game Monopoly. For those not familiar with the game: players try to accumulate as much wealth as possible during the game.

Oh, that is not my impression. I’ve watched some videos of the Minneapolis city council and they seem to sincerely want to help their community. They may be misguided, yet my impression is that their heart is in the right place. I wouldn’t call it a “knee jerk” reaction. It’s not like there was one or two incidents and the city council had a knee jerk reaction. There has been years of this going on and many incidents in the police department and justice system. It’s the reason Klobuchar has zero support in the black community. The day before the Minneapolis primary a few months ago, protestors flooded her event. She refused to talk with them, canceled her event and dropped out of the race. This has been going on for years and a lot of people are at a boiling over point.

This thread has run its course.

That’s great you are working on self improvement. I hope you find the forum. I agree with you that taking personal responsibility is a good trait for personal development. I also understand why people complain and blame others. I spent several years blaming my upbringing and father for my difficulties before I was ready to forgive, let it go and move on. Also, someone that has been abused has been negatively impacted and it can be difficult to work through.

Yes, as more people stand up and protest it can put pressure on people with power to change. Yet that standing up and protesting can have personal consequences and often takes courage. I’m impressed with how many people are speaking up. One of my online Yoga instructors put our a personal heartfelt video about supporting indigenous people and minorities. I thought it was very loving and positive. Yet she got a lot of backlash and lost some of her subscribers / viewers.

I agree that this makes Trump look more like a normal person and it is a bad look for democrats. Yet I disagree that they are opportunists and cowards. I’ve watched some of the city council explain the history of the city and their intentions. They seem like good people that want the best for their community and are fed up with corruption. There are also facing a lot of backlash and powerful headwinds. In that regard I would consider them courageous, albeit misguided.

@Epikur I can relate. I also grew up in a fundamental religious environment. The deconditioning process has been ongoing. There are so many layers to it.

Yes, this seems overboard - yet to give the perspective of a lot of Minneapolis community members, there have been many protests and efforts to “restructure” the police department and it has failed time after time. Keep this in mind when thinking “This is absurd, why don’t they just protest and put effort into restructuring the department?”. They have, many times. I’m not saying the idea to dismantle the department is best. Yet I understand that after so many efforts of restructure have had no impact, a lot of people are fed up and want more drastic action. There is a larger context here. When people get fed up and desperate, radical ideas can emerge - some good, some not-so-good.

@Dutch guy You’ve mentioned white guilt several times and I think this is an important point. I’d like to share a personal experience regarding guilt. When I was learning Spanish in Central America I was at a beginner level. I felt awkward trying to speak Spanish with locals. I wasn’t good at it and I felt embarrassed and that they probably think I’m stupid. I was very intent on speaking Spanish properly, especially with pronunciation. I practiced pronunciation over and over. My teachers often told me my pronunciation was actually quite good for my level and assured me that people wouldn’t judge me. Yet that wasn’t good enough. I spent countless hours practicing how to roll RRs and thrill Rs. When I returned to the U.S., I realized that I had been subconsciously judging how others speak and this is the reason I was so insecure about people judging my poor Spanish. . . When I was a kid, my parents would mock the speaking pattern of inner-city black people. It was a manner of speaking that was not proper English and there was a different tone an cadence. People around me would call it “Jive” and mock it. I knew from a very early age that this was a stupid form of speaking. As well, my parents were very strict about my speaking. If I used incorrect grammar, they would firmly correct me. I knew I didn’t want to sound like “them”. I went on into academia and it became important for me to speak very precisely and articulately. . . And for decades of my life I was judging others based on their speaking style. Judging them on how educated, intelligent, status, worthiness etc. I wasn’t intentionally doing this. It was subconscious. Even after I realized this, I couldn’t make it stop. It was conditioned into me and it would automatically appear. Here is the part with guilt: When it would appear, I felt bad about it. I didn’t want to judge people like this. I wanted to be able to connect with lots of different people. I also remembered how I would often correct people when they didn’t speak English properly. I would do this in public spaces, even my classrooms. I did it in a manner that was very insensitive and a bit derogatory. I felt guilty about it, yet I didn’t do it on purpose. It was subconsciously conditioned into me. Yet now that I knew, I could do something about it. . . I was very ashamed to talk to anyone about this. Especially a black person. I was afraid they would judge me and call me racist. I didn’t want to feel guilty. Yet that’s not what it’s about. I started dating a black woman and told her. I really liked her and didn’t want her impression of me to change, yet I also wanted to grow closer to her. To my surprise, she wasn’t surprised at all. She actually appreciated my vulnerability and willingness to look at myself and grow. This gave me the confidence to share with my colleagues of color at my University. Again, I was nervous that they would judge me and call me a bad professor. I didn’t want to feel guilty. Yet that’s not what they did. Like my gf, they allowed safe space. They could see that I genuinely wanted to learn and grow. I learned a lot about implicit biases and started teaching about it in my courses. This process removed this filter that was conditioned into me. And I can say I appreciate life much better. I much better at connecting with a wider variety of people. For example, I spent a month living with locals in Belize. The community I lived with spoke a broken form of kriol English and had a very difficult time speaking proper English. Yet rather than judging them and trying to teach them how to speak English ”properly”, I had a deep appreciation for their kriol. There manner of speaking was sooo wonderful. It was spontaneous and flowed beautifully. I was with a group one time and asked them to help me speak kriol like them. Yet I couldn’t do it. Just like they couldn’t speak “proper” English like me. Yet now there was no “proper”. There was no “right” way to speak English. There was no “better” culture of English. . . We had so much fun, even though I sucked at it. There were times in which they would laugh hysterically at my poor kriol speaking. Yet I was no longer insecure about this. I laughed with them it was part of the fun. One time I playfully said “Oh yea? You think my kriol is bad. How about you say Hippopotamus?” They stumbled around trying and we all laughed together. In going through this process, the “me or them” dissolved. I was no longer an outsider looking in. I was no longer judging them as being inferior based on their “improper”. Rather, I was engaging with them. There was love amongst each other. To me, it seems like you are missing out on something very special and I hope you get to explore that one day. It’s not an intellectual thing, it is a heart thing.

@Dutch guy Have you ever lived in other cultures? For example, living within a foreign country with a very different culture than yours. When I was younger, I had a belief that “American Culture was best”. I wasn’t conscious of this, yet when I traveled to foreign countries and someone would say something about their culture, I might say “Well, in America we do it like this”. There was a subconscious belief that this was better. . . Yet then I started living within villages in foreign countries. For example, I lived two months in villages in Honduras and Guatemala. I started noticing things about their culture that I liked better. It’s not that I had to reject American Culture, I just saw how there culture had very positive aspects that American culture generally lacks. I started to see how I liked aspects within various cultures. I was no longer bound to thinking “American culture is best”. I was no free to see the positives in various cultures. This is very liberating and opens space for amazing discoveries and experiences. I later spent three months traveling through South America and discovered / experienced so many wonderful things about South American culture. And not just from a distance like a tourist. I learned to speak Spanish and lived with locals in their homes.

He is centered at orange, yet he has some sympathy for green. To me, some of that sympathy is pandering, yet I also sense that some of it is authentic. I also think that he has a basic capacity for self-reflection and that being president is bigger than himself. In a Biden presidency, I predict he would be influenced mostly by Orange level lobbyists, bankers, CEOs and neoliberal / corporate democrats, yet he would be willing to listen to greens and throw them some crumbs at times. Although unsatisfying to green, it would still be a major upgrade from Trump. I lean toward him choosing Warren as VP. I think Warren is fundamentally green, yet she lets her ambitions get the best of her and acts in a way to advance her status, which would mean complying with Orange.

Be careful in pegging logical intellectuals at Tier2. Orange can go to extremely high levels of logical theorizing.

@Dutch guy I wasn’t referring to you. In this area, you are not yet at what I consider a transitional negotiation stage of development.

Observe how the mind negotiates as it tries to hold onto the ideas it is identified and attached to. That is a transitional stage of development.

@Parththakkar12 Nice work. ?

Of course there is no mention of that, because that is not what they are protesting. There is also no mention of saving the Rainforest, combating climate change, banning fur coats, equal gender pay, LGBTQ rights or ending the conflict in Libya. Those causes have merit, yet they aren’t protesting and trying to bring attention to those causes. Of course there will be no mention of it. Personally, I’d like to see them mention the legalization of psychedelics, yet that isn’t what they are protesting.

Hmmm. . . I can’t quite categorize clearly how much was purple, green or turquoise. They also did a lot of mescaline and peyote to enter other realms, yet perhaps they contextualized it at purple levels. I’m not sure. Ime, there are times I have connections in nature and feel that Native American essence. A crow may squawk at me, the wind may talk to me and I get a sense of what Native Americans were in tune with. At any rate, it would be interesting to have seen how they evolved if they were allowed to. Perhaps they would have gone trough versions of blue, orange and green.