PicoBlog

I so agree. I think we are finally waking up to how the elites have been manipulating everyone all along. Think about policy over the past 30 - 40 years. Most of it has benefited the elites at the expense of the working class. Even Obama sold out to the banks (a fact for which I will NEVER forgive him having grown up in the rust belt). He was supposed to be a champion of the people but kissed corporate butt from day 1.

See, I used to be a "little guy" lefty. I thought the power of the state should be employed to balance outsized power. "Them as can do, has to do for them as can't. And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices." - Granny Aching ― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

As I got older, I realized that power was still concentrated in the hands of a very few in spite of the rhetoric surrounding individualism in the US. Yes, we are freer than the serfs under feudalism but we can only push that freedom so far before someone with a boot comes and stomps us - sometimes the state itself. And woke is just another boot. That's why I'm now an independent. I don't believe in parties. Their planks are simply mechanisms to rally people to give them power. But, they don't really mean it. They just want to feed at the public trough.

Believe it or not, though, in spite of my cynicism and as a veteran, I still think the ideals of this country are worth fighting for. Which is why I read obsessively about woke and track its movement through the culture. And I do see a burgeoning push back with more people standing up and it does keep me going. Bill Maher, an old-school liberal if there ever was one, has finally joined the fray and he is taking massive flack for it. So, I support him even if I don't always agree with him on everything.

Anyway, enough digression.

You might be interested in a recent podcast by James Lindsay: https://newdiscourses.com/2022/02/paulo-freires-prophetic-vision-education/

He stresses the theological nature of woke ideology (which is actually akin to a fire and brimstone Xtianity but without any redemption) and addresses several salient points in Freire's book whose ideas he taps as core primary source for this ideology. It's long but so worth it (and I say that as someone who does not typically enjoy podcasts - I prefer to read because I can do it faster and I am very time-challenged). I have read broadly on this issue because it scares the crap out of me (I am an iconoclast and artist who would be burned at the stake by these idiots if I revealed my inner thoughts re: identity, freedom, race, tribes, politics, etc. I am an unrepentant free-thinker.) and this podcast is the best synopsis of root cause (beyond postmodernism) that I have encountered.

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