I've been following you for years and you are only getting better. I watched Episode 5 yesterday and came away with the sad notion that everything I had been taught to believe is bullshit and the American Revolution was, like everything I've seen in a lifetime here in Arizona, a real estate play in which the colors of the people don't matter except insofar as they are obstacles.
We truly are a white supremacist country back to the get-go. I don't know what to do about celebrating July 4 in the future. And in retrospect, black people can be said to be fortunate because they were deemed too useful to kill and scalp for souvenirs. Lucky you! Can you tell that this film has left me cynical and depressed?
I can feel your cynicism shining through francine! I also hope you'll find a way to move through it in time. Not to ignore the feeling or gaslight yourself. But to find some of what I've found. There was a LOT of bullshit in the founding and the story that was promoted. AND there's some gems in the past and certainly in the present. If they can make shit up, so can WE. Stay tuned for more on work I and others are doing to grab this July 4th moment and create a bigger, better story of us.
I hear you, Francine. I, too, was speechless and mortified at how much bullshit we were taught. Nothing I learned in this 12 hours jibed with what I was taught. Nothing! American exceptionalism? Crap? Manifest Destiny? More crap. The Founders being saints come down from Olympus to create a just and equal society? More crap. The country was clearly not founded with good intentions. All the colonists wanted was to plunder whatever they could and take whatever they wanted from whoever they wanted. They were white and thought they were better than anyone else, especially negroes and savage Indians. Well, for me, there will be no 4th of July flags, no standing for the anthem. No more thinking of us as the good guys
The extremes of human nature brought out by hardship, need, and greed strongly emerged in the fifth episode. I have forever found it difficult to understand the need for people to find another group to place beneath themselves in order to feel confident and prosperous. Unhealthy competition continues to plague us as a species. It appears to be the only thing, other than epidemics of disease, that seems to keep our cumulative population checked. Of course, these devastating, self-serving behaviors do not inhabit every person as a rule, but it is a thread that runs through human existence like a venomous snake, releasing its toxins via war, racism, and cruelty at regular intervals throughout history. Being a person who has lived miles from Mt Vernon hearing that history of heroism more than a few times and also with family in Indian country listening to stories of Native governance and survival, the value of peace is not a concept to me but an essential reality to be wisely sought and cared for like a fire that supports our benevolent purpose.
I've been following you for years and you are only getting better. I watched Episode 5 yesterday and came away with the sad notion that everything I had been taught to believe is bullshit and the American Revolution was, like everything I've seen in a lifetime here in Arizona, a real estate play in which the colors of the people don't matter except insofar as they are obstacles.
We truly are a white supremacist country back to the get-go. I don't know what to do about celebrating July 4 in the future. And in retrospect, black people can be said to be fortunate because they were deemed too useful to kill and scalp for souvenirs. Lucky you! Can you tell that this film has left me cynical and depressed?
I can feel your cynicism shining through francine! I also hope you'll find a way to move through it in time. Not to ignore the feeling or gaslight yourself. But to find some of what I've found. There was a LOT of bullshit in the founding and the story that was promoted. AND there's some gems in the past and certainly in the present. If they can make shit up, so can WE. Stay tuned for more on work I and others are doing to grab this July 4th moment and create a bigger, better story of us.
I hear you, Francine. I, too, was speechless and mortified at how much bullshit we were taught. Nothing I learned in this 12 hours jibed with what I was taught. Nothing! American exceptionalism? Crap? Manifest Destiny? More crap. The Founders being saints come down from Olympus to create a just and equal society? More crap. The country was clearly not founded with good intentions. All the colonists wanted was to plunder whatever they could and take whatever they wanted from whoever they wanted. They were white and thought they were better than anyone else, especially negroes and savage Indians. Well, for me, there will be no 4th of July flags, no standing for the anthem. No more thinking of us as the good guys
Glad I wasn't the only one cheering on the British!
The extremes of human nature brought out by hardship, need, and greed strongly emerged in the fifth episode. I have forever found it difficult to understand the need for people to find another group to place beneath themselves in order to feel confident and prosperous. Unhealthy competition continues to plague us as a species. It appears to be the only thing, other than epidemics of disease, that seems to keep our cumulative population checked. Of course, these devastating, self-serving behaviors do not inhabit every person as a rule, but it is a thread that runs through human existence like a venomous snake, releasing its toxins via war, racism, and cruelty at regular intervals throughout history. Being a person who has lived miles from Mt Vernon hearing that history of heroism more than a few times and also with family in Indian country listening to stories of Native governance and survival, the value of peace is not a concept to me but an essential reality to be wisely sought and cared for like a fire that supports our benevolent purpose.
So beautifully said. Thanks for sharing some of that fire with us
Baratunde, let’s make a John Paul Jones event happen. I was also wanting more of him and think his story would be fascinating