A call for unity and grace in on this day memory of Martin Luther King Jr.
"We must learn to live together as brothers, or we will perish together as fools."
"The person down the street who votes differently than you is not your enemy. They are your neighbor. They worry about the same things you worry about. They want their kids to be safe and their bills to be paid and their country to be a place worth living in. They have been manipulated just like you have been manipulated, fed a different flavor of the same poison, sorted into a different tribe by the same algorithm, pointed at you as the enemy by the same people who point you at them.
The working class Republican and the working class Democrat have more in common with each other than either of them has with the billionaire class that funds both parties.
You share the same struggles. You face the same rigged systems. You are being crushed by the same economic forces that have transferred more wealth upward in the last fifty years than at any point in human history. And instead of uniting against the people doing this to you, you are screaming at each other on the internet about pronouns and flags and whatever fresh outrage the algorithm served up this morning.
This is exactly what they want. A nation at war with itself cannot resist a takeover. A people consumed by mutual hatred will accept any authority that promises to protect them from the manufactured enemy. Every empire that fell was divided before it was conquered. Every free people who lost their freedom were set against each other first.
The red versus blue war is not real. It is a show put on by people who own both teams. It is professional wrestling and you think it is a real fight. The wrestlers go backstage after the match and laugh together while you are still screaming at the guy in the other section who was rooting for the wrong character.
This Is Our Country Not Theirs
This nation belongs to the people who live here and work here and raise families here and will be buried here. It does not belong to billionaires who hold citizenship in three countries and will flee to their bunkers the moment things get bad. It does not belong to tech oligarchs who view democracy as an obstacle to efficiency. It does not belong to foreign interests who have purchased so much influence that they might as well be writing our laws themselves.
We have to stop letting them divide us. We have to start seeing each other as fellow Americans again instead of enemy combatants in a culture war that was manufactured to keep us weak. We have to remember that the person screaming at us online is also a victim of the same manipulation, and maybe if we stopped screaming back and started talking, we might realize we have been fighting the wrong enemy this entire time.
Turn off the television. It is not informing you. It is programming you. Question everything, including the sources you trust, especially the sources you trust. Talk to people who disagree with you and do it without trying to win. Listen to why they believe what they believe. You might discover that the monster you have been told to hate is actually just another person trying to make sense of a confusing world with imperfect information, exactly like you.
Remember who you are.
You are an American. Your ancestors came to this land or were brought to this land or were already on this land, and regardless of how they got here, they built something together that was supposed to be different from the old world’s tyrannies and aristocracies. That project is not finished. Every generation has to fight to keep it alive against the forces that want to drag us back to a world where a handful of rulers own everything and everyone else serves at their pleasure.
Stop letting them divide you. Your enemies are not your neighbors. Your enemies are the people who profit from your division and are building machines to replace you the moment you are no longer useful.
Start acting like it before it is too late". —The Wise Wolf
This framing is extremly sharp, the way you connect MLK's "inescapable network of mutuality" to todays tendency to focus only on swing states hits different. That passage about rejecting "wait" is so relevant right now - dunno why more people dont lean into that when talking about urgency around organizing. What really resonated was the reminder that injustice in rural Ohio or deep-red Texas still matters even if it wont flip an election, because letting those communities deterriorate affects the whole fabric. I saw this first-hand volunteering in a supposedly "unwinnable" district where folks had been completly ignored for decades.
Letter from a Birmingham Jail is absolutely one of his most important works, vastly overshadowed by I Have a Dream. But you can take I Have a Dream and take snippets out of context, which so many like to do. The excoriation in the letter, though, is brutally honest and gives real insight into his thoughts.
MLK knew what was coming. Hopefully, the Orange shan't decide, in his chronic idiocy, to forbid the celebration of the day, through a stupid, biaised, racist reason.
Find Jesus Christ as your Lord and Messiah. Proclaim he died and his Father raised him from the dead. Do it now because eager passion and vigor does not mean running I.C.E. agents over. Does not mean burning down buildings. Does not mean invading a church. Does not mean murder of Jews. Murder of Christians. Does not mean invading a country illegally. Ravaging the countries homes, businesses, hotels, grocery stores, health care. Dies not mean abortions. Does not mean transgenderism of children in schools. Does not mean sex trafficking. Does not mean drug trafficking. Does not mean one world order. Does not mean one health organization. Does not mean one military with 205 countries providing 10,000 soldiers to the UN. Does not mean one monetary system. Does not mean one justice system. Does not mean one RELIGION. Wake up. Slave demon spirits exist everywhere. I bind the slavery demon spirits. I cast them into the pit of the abyss. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Amen.
A call for unity and grace in on this day memory of Martin Luther King Jr.
"We must learn to live together as brothers, or we will perish together as fools."
"The person down the street who votes differently than you is not your enemy. They are your neighbor. They worry about the same things you worry about. They want their kids to be safe and their bills to be paid and their country to be a place worth living in. They have been manipulated just like you have been manipulated, fed a different flavor of the same poison, sorted into a different tribe by the same algorithm, pointed at you as the enemy by the same people who point you at them.
The working class Republican and the working class Democrat have more in common with each other than either of them has with the billionaire class that funds both parties.
You share the same struggles. You face the same rigged systems. You are being crushed by the same economic forces that have transferred more wealth upward in the last fifty years than at any point in human history. And instead of uniting against the people doing this to you, you are screaming at each other on the internet about pronouns and flags and whatever fresh outrage the algorithm served up this morning.
This is exactly what they want. A nation at war with itself cannot resist a takeover. A people consumed by mutual hatred will accept any authority that promises to protect them from the manufactured enemy. Every empire that fell was divided before it was conquered. Every free people who lost their freedom were set against each other first.
The red versus blue war is not real. It is a show put on by people who own both teams. It is professional wrestling and you think it is a real fight. The wrestlers go backstage after the match and laugh together while you are still screaming at the guy in the other section who was rooting for the wrong character.
This Is Our Country Not Theirs
This nation belongs to the people who live here and work here and raise families here and will be buried here. It does not belong to billionaires who hold citizenship in three countries and will flee to their bunkers the moment things get bad. It does not belong to tech oligarchs who view democracy as an obstacle to efficiency. It does not belong to foreign interests who have purchased so much influence that they might as well be writing our laws themselves.
We have to stop letting them divide us. We have to start seeing each other as fellow Americans again instead of enemy combatants in a culture war that was manufactured to keep us weak. We have to remember that the person screaming at us online is also a victim of the same manipulation, and maybe if we stopped screaming back and started talking, we might realize we have been fighting the wrong enemy this entire time.
Turn off the television. It is not informing you. It is programming you. Question everything, including the sources you trust, especially the sources you trust. Talk to people who disagree with you and do it without trying to win. Listen to why they believe what they believe. You might discover that the monster you have been told to hate is actually just another person trying to make sense of a confusing world with imperfect information, exactly like you.
Remember who you are.
You are an American. Your ancestors came to this land or were brought to this land or were already on this land, and regardless of how they got here, they built something together that was supposed to be different from the old world’s tyrannies and aristocracies. That project is not finished. Every generation has to fight to keep it alive against the forces that want to drag us back to a world where a handful of rulers own everything and everyone else serves at their pleasure.
Stop letting them divide you. Your enemies are not your neighbors. Your enemies are the people who profit from your division and are building machines to replace you the moment you are no longer useful.
Start acting like it before it is too late". —The Wise Wolf
Thank you for your wise words.
This framing is extremly sharp, the way you connect MLK's "inescapable network of mutuality" to todays tendency to focus only on swing states hits different. That passage about rejecting "wait" is so relevant right now - dunno why more people dont lean into that when talking about urgency around organizing. What really resonated was the reminder that injustice in rural Ohio or deep-red Texas still matters even if it wont flip an election, because letting those communities deterriorate affects the whole fabric. I saw this first-hand volunteering in a supposedly "unwinnable" district where folks had been completly ignored for decades.
Letter from a Birmingham Jail is absolutely one of his most important works, vastly overshadowed by I Have a Dream. But you can take I Have a Dream and take snippets out of context, which so many like to do. The excoriation in the letter, though, is brutally honest and gives real insight into his thoughts.
https://open.substack.com/pub/educationsuperhero/p/in-honor-of-dr-king
MLK knew what was coming. Hopefully, the Orange shan't decide, in his chronic idiocy, to forbid the celebration of the day, through a stupid, biaised, racist reason.
Amen! Especially to the video.
Find Jesus Christ as your Lord and Messiah. Proclaim he died and his Father raised him from the dead. Do it now because eager passion and vigor does not mean running I.C.E. agents over. Does not mean burning down buildings. Does not mean invading a church. Does not mean murder of Jews. Murder of Christians. Does not mean invading a country illegally. Ravaging the countries homes, businesses, hotels, grocery stores, health care. Dies not mean abortions. Does not mean transgenderism of children in schools. Does not mean sex trafficking. Does not mean drug trafficking. Does not mean one world order. Does not mean one health organization. Does not mean one military with 205 countries providing 10,000 soldiers to the UN. Does not mean one monetary system. Does not mean one justice system. Does not mean one RELIGION. Wake up. Slave demon spirits exist everywhere. I bind the slavery demon spirits. I cast them into the pit of the abyss. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Amen.