Thought this is relevant.
There is no pay wall, just close out the first screen if your not interested in contributing and you get to the episode.
Museum of Now - This American Life
Artifacts and exhibits of this particular moment we are living through.www.thisamericanlife.org
Crazy times and fear can manipulate targeted change.. I just listened to that episode this morning and it fucked with me pretty hard for half the day.
In conclusion... if you fold to a political correctness agenda, then you are submitting to being manipulated and held to it.. period.
Bluelights rich freethinking history is the reason the drug taking stigma has been successfully countered? Or does it stem from.. those drug takers must be alright as they are politically correct or barring that they chose to be politically censured.
I really have reservations that our forum is so sensitive and scared we are rolling this way. Personally I have been through so much, so post me whiskey and piss in the skim milk.. where has skim milk got anybody.
Ban political discussion because it causes controversy.. because it isn't the forums focus? Because allowing it creates fear .. maybe let it role because there seems to be a really significant global social struggle going down with world changing political dynamics.
Idk thats not the spirit of the bluelight? I stumbled across her (BL) so many years ago and was initially terrified to post.. I mean these insane people are posting about all kinds of drugs and like using them.
I know everything evolves and developes.. just really never want to museum the long held bluelight uniqueness of being able to express your views as long as they adhere to the BLUA.
I just listened to that episode this weekend - it was both unsettling and refreshing to hear discussion about what Americans are facing and trying to understand on a human level (rather than on a political level). I feel like the political discussion often covers up the actual human impact of the actions of the state. My cousin, a conservative and Trump supporter, is flying to China next month for work. It's a trip that was planned last fall and has nothing to do with the current trade war that's going on. I was talking with him on Easter and he was telling me that he's nervous about going there - afraid of being arrested. We were also discussing the economic realities that are impacting members of our family, and in particular, in a family owned vacation home that is seeing much less interest this summer due to an enormous drop in international travel to Cape Cod. I avoided getting into the politics of it, as he's my cousin and I love him. He knows where I stand, I'm not going to convince him to see things differently, but I could push him away by trying to challenge his views. I personally hope that some of the real human impact of what continues to be occurring helps him and others to see beyond political affiliation, and maybe consider these things moving forward.
I don't like political correctness - it's lazy and ineffective. I also think that the real social struggle you mention is making it hard to create space that doesn't devolve into anger and hostility. We are in the midst of an escalated culture war that urges us to choose sides which makes it harder for people to stop and look at the problematic things their own side is culpable of. It reminds me of Red Sox/Yankees in the mid-00s (politics in the US often remind me of sports). Red Sox fans were quick to vilify the steroid use of Jason Giambi and A-Rod, but fiercely defensive of Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz. It created this looming sense of hypocrisy any time steroid use was brought up and players for 'the other team' were seen as the problem while 'our team' was not viewed through the same lens.
i surrender.
