The People Have Spoken
The Bigoted, Pedophobic, People Have Spoken.
…I wish I’d grown up in the world Mister Rogers tried to make for us….
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Mister Rogers was too good for us mere sinners.
“Donald Trump is the literal opposite of Fred Rogers.”
I posted that earlier to my facebook feed, and I’ll be honest… When I did it I was kind of hoping it would encourage my friend who studied the life of Fred Rogers extensively to chime in because I knew he would have something pertinent to say. I was not wrong.
“Fred Rogers had such a huge problem with both Regan (who he programmed his show against) and Bush Jr. (The latter of which is much more complicated as they had a relationship that tested Fred’s boundaries.) that I can’t say “I can’t imagine how Fred would react” I know how Fred would react based on his interactions with the lesser evils of Reagan and Bush:
1. Had he not been retired, he would have themed weeks specifically against what Trump was putting in the news cycle. When Trump mocked a disabled reporter he’d have a week on disability and inclusion, when Trump promoted sexual assault, he’d program a week on respect and physical boundaries, when he bad mouthed women he’d have strong women on for a week. Fred would have travelled to do a week on Mexico and he would have moved in an Islamic neighbor.
I know this for a fact because these are the actions he took with Regan both with his “conflict weeks” and his traveling to Russia for remotes during the Cold War.
2. Fred would have attended events Trump invited him to but he would do so on his terms. He would participate in these events as well as long as it was on his terms. Because Fred would rather speak truth into those spaces then avoid them. But Fred would not accuse, he would just bear truth, refuse to be seen as supporting an evil and exit.
This is what he did to respond to the love the Bush family had for him and his work. He even offered prayer at one of their fundraisers: but it was a challenging prayer, one insisting that those in power and privilege use that for the least of these and especially children. After delivering that prayer Fred exited the building and sat outside like a kid after soccer practice waiting for his ride, spurning the thousands of dollars a plate dinner not even gladhanding with the bushes after.
When asked why he said he had reached the limit of what he could do before becoming an accuser. He wanted to challenge but never accuse as accusation was what Fred associated with the devil.
3. Fred would accept invitations to news programs when those programs allowed him to educate parents on countering the negative things coming from the president for their children. He knew those things affected children so he wanted to spread tools on helping them reject war, violence, hatred, oppression and racism.
He did this during any presidents term if it didn’t prevent him from meeting an obligation to children (he once turned down a spot on Nightline to talk about violence and children, one of his main causes, because he had a visit to an elementary school that same morning and knew he wouldn’t be mentally present for it if he was planning for Nightline in the afternoon.)
So we need to be like Fred. Getting in between children and any normalization of Trumps ways or words. Fred would have been diligently working on how to handle Trump in the land of make believe. Just like when King Friday started building nuclear bombs with money he promised to schools. Yeah Fred wasn’t subtle.” - Rev. Kevin Ireland
We fear the things – and people — that we do not understand far more than the things we do, even if the latter are much more risky. For this reason, it’s not surprising that people fear technology. Its newness is confusing and no one’s quite certain what to do with the promises it offers. Furthermore, technology allows us to see people who are different than us, the very people we are likely to fear. We fear the unknown. And technology is both an unknown itself and a vehicle to connecting us to greater unknowns.
Our fears are amplified when they intersect with our insecurities and challenge our ability to be in control. Nowhere is this more palpable then when it comes to a parent’s desire to protect their child. Much to my frustration, fear is the dominant emotion that drives our society’s relationship to young people. We are afraid FOR them. And we are afraid OF them. We’re afraid of all of the ways in which our children might be harmed. And we’re afraid of all of the things that children might do to disrupt the status quo.
From “The Power of Fear in Networked Publics” by Dana Boyd, as delivered at Webstock, Wellington NZ and SXSW, Austin Texas.
…I wish I’d grown up in the world Mister Rogers tried to make for us….
Requirements
More confidence and energy.
Several things I’m seeing in my Tumblr feed at the moment confirm that modern, Western, US-centric culture is undergoing a rapid phase transition. Into /what,/ I don’t know, but I fear it’s going to injure or kill a lot of people.
A quick editorial cartoon about the intersection of self-pity, entitlement, rape, territoriality, misogyny and fear of women. You see it all over the place online in the form of Men’s Rights Activists (of whom there are a few reasonable non-misogynists), Men Going Their Own Way, Pick Up Artists, and dudes touting the “Red Pill”, because The Matrix is a good movie. Look any of these up if you have the stomach for it. These are extreme examples, but watered-down forms of these ideas are everywhere.
In lurking their blogs and youtube channels for a while, I’ve noticed that beyond the standard patriarchal chauvinism there is this deep fear of women - what they will do to me, how they will reject me, how they will use me, how they are changing society in a way that does not favor me, how they are making men into something I don’t like, how they are making themselves into something I don’t like, that they won’t give me what I want, and that they won’t give me what I think is rightfully mine. This goes beyond fear of feminism- this is fear of women at its purest. And that, to quote a puppet, leads to anger and hate. It’s sad.
I am a feminist. I think there’s enough ice cream to go around, but it does mean those of us with 3 scoops might have to give one or two up. Also, The Matrix is a fun movie but probably not anything you should be basing a philosophy on.
At BGNZ: Minecraft musings, the power of fear, talking to yourself is good, and howto be a horrible boss. http://bit.ly/IFHJi9
Sometimes, “Life As We Know It” is simply “Life As Good As We Could Manage It So Far” and is open to improvements
– summer-of-supervillainy
Another view is that LAWKI is “Life As We Can Imagine It” - hence the fear and loathing experienced when confronted with, say, a fast food joint that dispenses with the need to talk to staff, or coloured people circa 1950s/60s who insist on human rights too. Challenges to our notions of ‘normality’ challenge our notions of identity too, so engender fear and resistance.
Also, this Cameo Antique typeface doesn’t seem to match its solid and hollow versions very well, but that could be me not getting the kerning set up right.
All aboard the snekbus
dresdencodak