{"id":3692,"date":"2020-12-13T07:27:18","date_gmt":"2020-12-13T12:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=3692"},"modified":"2020-12-13T07:27:26","modified_gmt":"2020-12-13T12:27:26","slug":"the-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2020\/12\/13\/the-box\/","title":{"rendered":"The Box"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

High School<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I graduated from high school in 1974. It was after the \u201chippie era\u201d \u2014though\u00a0many of us had older brothers and sisters who claimed that time. We were the \u201cnext generation\u201d – a stop between dropping acid and drinking Mad Dog or whatever else was available – the \u201cDazed\u00a0and Confused<\/a>\u201d era of the later 70\u2019s.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while we may have been soberer than those before and after us, we had our own set of issues. Ours was an era of \u201cfinding\u201d a place in life.  Some of our friends and classmates became \u201cChildren of God\u201d; some would be \u201cMoonies\u201d and some \u201cHare Krishna\u201d. They gave up everything to their chosen \u201ccult\u201d – their names and credit cards, families and nonbelieving friends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were taught to believe and obey. Prayer and work crowded out independent thought. Continual chanting \u201cHare Krishna – Hare Krishna, Krishna – Krishna, Hare – Hare<\/em>,\u201d drowned out any attempts to analyze their situation.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I diet of little more than boiled rice kept them from having the energy to think. Outside influence – family, friends, Media, was strictly regulated. They could talk to their parents: but only under supervision and generally in attempts to get more money for their \u201cnew family\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When they went into public, often to sell their \u201cherbal incense\u201d; more seasoned and trustworthy elder members closely supervised them.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Programming<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We learned vocabulary words taken from the new mainframe computers carefully fed with stacks of punch cards.  Our friends were \u201cprogrammed\u201d by the cults. Their minds were cleared by lack of sleep, intense work, limited nutrition and constant chanting. Then they were \u201cprogrammed\u201d with the faith and regulations of their newfound religion.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there were the \u201cdeprogrammers\u201d:  guns for hire that would kidnap your child from the cult. The cult member was held in a room against their will for days.  The \u201cdeprogrammer\u201d would lecture, argue, quote scripture, and after days \u201cbreak through\u201d the cult\u2019s mental barriers.   For some of us reuniting with our lost friends it seemed more like \u201cre-programming\u201d with middle class American Christian mores replacing rather than returning them to their pre-cult state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flash forwards forty-six years to 2020. The mainframe computers are piles of hazardous waste, and kids think punch cards are something used to score a Mixed Martial Arts contest.  Like those old dialup modems that cradled the landline phones, the cults of old are mostly gone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the concept of programming the mind is sharper than ever. Now instead of a cult member at the bus station offering \u201cfamily\u201d, the recruiter is on your pocket computer screen. It\u2019s a YouTube video, or a celebrity text: all saying to ignore the \u201cmainstream\u201d media. Like the Krishna \u201cgurus\u201d of old this electronic programming demands loyalty and exclusivity. Any message questioning their conclusions from \u201coutside the box\u201d of the phone is \u201cwrong\u201d simply because of its origin. The \u201cmainstream media\u201d is declared totally corrupted, so none of their \u201cfacts\u201d can be real. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the Box<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But the \u201cprogrammees\u201d are no longer high school kids. They are twenty and thirty something\u2019s, Generation Y.  And why not, they are the video game generation grown to adulthood that worked together to kill Nazi Zombies and win Call of Duty<\/em>.  They saw hope in Obama\u2019s \u201cYes We Can,\u201d but saw those ideals smothered by \u201cthe old white guys\u201d.  Bernie offered an alternative despite being an old white guy himself, but when the establishment went with Hillary – their anti-establishmentarianism turned them to Trump (and I got to use that term in a real sentence<\/em>!).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump was the master of the Twitter message.  An entire mythology was built around him, from QAnon to Alex Jones.  If you throw out the entire Mainstream Media, Fox News included, what remains is only the extreme, all knowing and all inclusive.  They have a universal answer to all of the questions, from class inequality to UFO\u2019s.  Science is an enemy, corrupted by industry.  The guy on YouTube knows more than Dr. Fauci, and the anti-vaxxers lend respectability and even heroism to dodging a needle in the arm.  The failures become the omnipotent victims, from Michael Flynn to Scott Atlas.  They must be right, but silenced by the establishment.  It’s George Soros striking once again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And perhaps even worse, there is a universal equity in blame.\u00a0\u00a0Mitch McConnell and Joe Biden, John Roberts and Ruth Bader Ginsburg: all are establishment and therefore all are rejected equally.\u00a0\u00a0Republican and Democratic Parties both deny the \u201crevolution\u201d, so both are unacceptable.\u00a0\u00a0If it was on Netflix, or YouTube or anything on the \u201cbox\u201d in their pocket, then it must be true.\u00a0\u00a0Anywhere else merits the universal denial \u2013 \u201cfake news\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breaking the Box<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

How to \u201cbreak the box\u201d? We can\u2019t kidnap Generation Y and lock them in a room to  \u201cdeprogram\u201d them.  We can\u2019t convince them that what sounds like the \u201cuniversal key\u201d to all problems is like almost all singular answers to complex problems \u2013 wrong.  They are convinced:  that all of the the vaccines, electoral counts, lower Courts, Republican election administrators, and now the Supreme Court itself are all corrupted \u2013 the universal answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reality is there is some corruption in our government, and even in our elections.  The universal opposite isn\u2019t any more valid.  And we must find a way to reach out from inside the box.  Maybe “Trump World<\/em>” needs to be a Podcast, not an old-fashioned essay.  But that is the way out, after all of the craziness of \u201cStop the Steal\u201d and \u201cNatural Herd Immunity\u201d fades.  The box is unbreakable from the outside, but from within, it can be breeched. And that’s the way we bring America back to a place where we can work together again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

High School I graduated from high school in 1974. It was after the \u201chippie era\u201d \u2014though\u00a0many of us had older brothers and sisters who claimed that time. We were the \u201cnext generation\u201d – a stop between dropping acid and drinking Mad Dog or whatever else was available – the \u201cDazed\u00a0and Confused\u201d era of the later … Continue reading “The Box”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Box : Our America - Essays on Politics and American Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There is a generation programmed that the only answers are on the internet, and the rest of the media is a lie. 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