About last night...

The feeling I'm having from last night is very similar to the one I had back in 2016, when I got angry w/Hillary, or whoever was working for her, refusing to let all votes be counted in the primary against Bernie.

I was a Bernie bro, back then, thinking I would always be a lifelong Democrat as I had been since I was first able to vote in the 1980s. That was how my family voted, and it seemed right at the time. I wasn't so much enamored with the socialism aspect of Bernie, I just liked his way of being (still kinda do, actually.)

But seeing the corruption, the dirty dealing and the "Oh just shut up and go with it." of Hillary's people that year, it felt as if scales were falling off my eyes, and I even realized Bernie was kinda weak too (and a commie!), the way he just fell in line.

Even though I will NEVER be a Trump supporter, over time I couldn't disagree with his idea about "fake news." The mainstream media, I started realizing, were going at things as though they had an agenda , perhaps only brought on by Trump's pettiness, but it became obvious to me, they really didn't like him, and were seemingly starting to say to  themselves, "Hey, we're not without options here, we control the narrative, we're how most people find out what's going on in the world..."

It's the whole system of how "the truth gets told." For many years now, we just WATCH these panels of "expert pundits" spout their opinions, accepting them as the gospel truth, accepting the ones spouting off w/o questioning why we should trust them, etc.

This is what comes from people not wanting to read books, or get familiar with things like history or the Constitution, or even seeking out people who *have* done those things & are willing to share & educate about what they know.

Or learn things like Critical Thinking, where you start realizing things like, "news *commentary* is actually NOT the news, it's just someone's *opinion* about the news", and, "that station constantly running *different aspects* of *just one story* for hours on end isn't actually keeping me informed."

I really think that for awhile now, that's what's been happening. And I feel a little bit the way I did when I stopped being a Democrat, even though I would never vote for Trump. 

We'll all be *incensed* over this for a couple of days. Then we'll go back to consuming media. Then it'll get worse.

Something That's NOT About Trump...

I didn't have it on my bingo card for June that people were once again gonna be trying to cancel Adam Driver (if that's not what's happening, I apologize, not my intent to harm anyone in the rat fandom.)

I think (and this may be because a lot of us rats are on the younger side(not me I'm gonna be 58 this month)) people have trouble accepting everyone, and being a little gatekeep-ey about things.

It's not for me to tell everyone what to think, and there are a lot of things in this fandom I won't talk with other fans about because there are issues I'm pretty sure I would disagree with others on. You can look at my profile and tweets (if you've the stomach for that) and see that I have a lot of strong opinions that not every rat shares.

But you also won't see me "correcting" fellow fans or the like, because I know we're such a big group there are lots of different kinds of people in it, and people have a right to be who they are, and think what they want.

I almost didn't become an Adam Driver fan b/c I was pissed that he killed Han Solo. I was in the hospital when I saw it, they were having movie night in the community room and I actually stood up in my wheelchair and threw popcorn at the screen & started yelling.

But now this whole thing of who he's worked with in the past and who he might be working with in the future has people in a tailspin?

I know I made a joke about "don't hurt our precious pookie bear". And there are people in Hollywood that I also don't care for or agree with. But to let it affect who I *do* enjoy? 

Maybe I'm telling everyone what to think, but I just felt like saying, go easy on each other over this, it's just Twitter, it's just movies, a guy can work with people who are abusers or have wrong ideas (sometimes people with wrong ideas just misunderstand stuff, it doesn't make them evil.) without it affecting how great they are.

Unless he does something like murder his family, which I don't see happening (maybe if they get in the way of his *cereal* consumption, or take away his rotisserie chicken?) Adam Driver is pretty unproblematic to me.

I'll be a Driver rat till I die. Not that everyone else has to be, but go easy on each other. There's no reason to chop each other up over things.