Just like living in paradise?
Winter is a funny time of year. It's kind of like everything slows down (at least where I live), and with all that extra time on your hands, you find yourself spending a lot of time in your head. Then things go cray cray in the real world and it is a stark reminder that there is a whole planet that still exists out there.
The past month or so has seen some pretty unprecedented events. As I have said in a couple of my posts now, I try not to make things political. I suck at debating in general, plus I fully acknowledge that I am not intelligent enough about the situations to make a logical argument (even if I could). That being said, I do have some thoughts that crept into my head during the cold winter days, and I wanted to share them with you.
If you have been following me for any amount of time, you likely know which way I lean politically. That being said, I am not afraid to play devil's advocate and as an empathetic human being, I try to see both sides of an issue to more fully understand the place someone is coming from.
There have been a lot of posts on HIVE lately about the situation (invasion) in Venezuela and the potential "whatever" is going to happen with Greenland. While I don't agree with the folks that lump all Americans together implying we all wanted this (we didn't), I think I can appreciate where they are coming from.
There was a recent post where someone made a pretty logical comment in regards to Venezuela and the diminishing resources on the planet. In a separate post, @azircon recently laid out some really good facts about the truth behind the oil situation in Venezuela. Nevertheless, it all got me thinking about a television show I recently watched.
Warning! There are mild spoilers for the show Paradise beyond this point. If you haven't watched it yet, you might want to stop reading. It's a good show and I encourage you to check it out.
So in this show Paradise, the main premise is that someone gets killed and they are trying to figure out who dun it. This happens right at the beginning, so I am not giving away too much yet. Another underlying theme is the fact that something happened in the world, but you don't find out what until about halfway through the show.
Here's the spoiler. It turns out, due to a volcano erupting in Antarctica, it creates a Tsunami that is going to wipe out half the planet. The world leaders have enough time to see this coming, and in a mad dash to secure what resources are left, they take the nuclear option to achieve supremacy (that's the short version so I don't totally ruin it for you).
This is honestly something I had never considered before, but the thought process behind it totally blew me away when I was watching the show. The fact that this scenario was touched on in a tv show, tells me that it's been considered in real life as well. Scary right? The fact is, resources aren't replicating (but we are), and eventually, they are going to be gone. While I still don't agree with the recent actions of the US and I am happy to speak out against them in any forum, Paradise (although fictional) is a stark lesson in why people might be do the things they do.
PS, if you are thinking I spoiled Paradise for you now, you should still give it a chance. James Marsden is great in it and I really haven't been a fan of his since the Boogies Diner days. However, Paradise and Jury Duty have really changed my opinion on him. I still can't stand him as Cyclops though. Plus, they are coming out with season 2 of Paradise soon that I think is going to take the show in a whole different direction. Finally, Sterling K Brown is just absolutely amazing in everything he touches.
Meanwhile, with the gears still turning in my head I started thinking about Greenland, and how ridiculous this whole thing is. Then I started thinking about Ukraine, and how back when the invasion started, it was so hard to wrap our heads around how the Russian people could allow something like that to happen or be okay with it.
Then I think about our current situation and am reminded there is half a country that isn't fazed at all by the current actions or intentions of the government. I know there are plenty of quotes out there about inaction being the first step towards a dictatorship or something like that, but what happens when 50% of the population is actually okay with it.
It seems like an impossible battle. I would have argued in the past that the Russian people had it worse off because they actually had the risk of being shot for speaking out, but then the events in Minneapolis happened recently, and here we are.
Like I said, I try to see both sides of things most of the time, but just because I can rationalize something doesn't mean I like it. In fact, I absolutely hate it, but with three more years to go, it almost feels helpless at this point.
This feels more like paradise lost versus living in paradise.
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I think people are often "ok with it" until it starts to go badly. That's not to say people agree with it, but they don't think strongly about the matter, so if the leaders say this is necessary, they go along with that, or they don't think they can make a difference so they just try to ignore it. Until things go badly.
When Japan started invading everywhere nearby, most people didn't like it. They asked why, they raised anti-war points, they rejected the need for violence or death. But government propaganda started up, about how this was necessary not only to secure Japan's future, but to protect all these countries against "Western imperialism". Hard core ring-wingers bought it, as they always do (as the MAGAs show us now), left-wingers remained completely against it, but the people in the middle, they kind of threw up their hands and said "whatever. Nothing I say will make a difference, so whatever," which in action basically reads "I'm ok with it". The gov took care of the left by making anti-war talk illegal and throwing enough people into prison that the rest were silenced. It wasn't until the war turned badly for Japan that the middle and right both became very much against it.
I think it's mostly the same in any country. You can see a similar pattern in Germany and Italy during the same time period. And you might be seeing the same thing play out in the US. Though hopefully there it doesn't go as extreme as in the other cases.
Who determines when it has "gone badly" though. It feels like that bar has been raised a lot higher than it should be. I hope it doesn't get to that extreme as well!
Usually "gone badly" is when the inevitable war starts turning against them. Again, let's hope that doesn't happen this time.
I feel like Americans (not all, obviously. You know what I mean) are still in that "it can't happen here" phase. US propaganda has been pumping that out so strongly for decades that for many people, the idea just doesn't compute. I think that's why the bar keeps being raised. Better to ignore the truth than to have that cornerstone of American belief come crashing down.
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It’s tough when you can rationalize why a government does something (resource scarcity) but still absolutely hate the actions they take to get it. The comparison to how we viewed the invasion of Ukraine versus how we see things now is a sharp point ,it’s a lot harder to judge a population for inaction when you’re standing in the middle of that same 50/50 divide yourself