Tag: lies

Posted in In my humble opinion..., Unanswered Questions

Unanswered Question: Why do we keep lying to ourselves?

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre

I saw a post and only read two lines of the poem.
The image of George Floyd was clearly displayed at the top of the page.
The poem spoke of “slave ships”.
That was enough for me.
The death of George Floyd was tragic on so many levels but the stubborn adherence to the idea that it had anything to with race is absurd. What that mindset does is perpetuate a myth, a political flashpoint, and a lie.
Derrick Shovan was a terrible, barbaric, man and cop.
George Floyd was a drug addict, repeat criminal, and misguided soul.
We could investigate all day long the ‘whats and whys’ that made them each that way, but that’s not the point.
Something terribly tragic happened and we’re not placing the blame on ‘what happened next’ where it belongs.
Both men had culpability in the route they took to that place and time of Floyd’s death, yet their race wasn’t deemed, even in court, as having an influence.
So, why do we keep lying to ourselves?
Why is George Floyd a folk hero?
How does his life and death have anything to do with slave ships?
Derrick and George were already known to each other.
No ‘hate crime’ allegation was pursued in Derrick’s trial. Because race was NOT a factor. (He was a real ‘rotten egg’ and got what he deserved.)
Race hustlers came rushing out of the woodwork, though. Some for financial gain (BLM organizers) and others for political leverage (BLM self-proclaimed Marxists, among others). Both types should have been recognized as and declared opportunists immediately.
That’s why the riots, marches, and continued mythology over George Floyd are so baffling and IMHO are symptomatic of even darker ills than a would-be individual act of racism.
Those most desperate ubiquitous illnesses are victimhood, ignorance, and-bias inspired- gullibility.
The clear perpetrators of those crippling diseases are the media, our educational system, and political activists. If you want something ‘real‘ to be outraged about, their accountability isn’t even going to be EVER considered. The avoidable death and destruction in the aftermath will go on being falsely labeled a noble crusade. Instead, the misnomer of “systematic racism” (in this specific case) will continue to destroy our harmony, unity, and sense of justice. We will therefore go on being victimized and consumed by ‘lies’, half-truths, and narrative manipulations, until the nefarious goal of dehumanizing and dividing our country for the purpose of totalitarian control, is achieved.
Don’t play a role in it by not getting your facts straight.


Posted in Writing Prompts

Simply 6- Minutes 5/23/23- Current Events

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre

We must make-up a story in only six minutes using the photo below as inspiration.

I was busy making my granddaughter toast as a news report played on the TV in the background.

“Today, the NAACP has advised all ‘people of color’ to avoid travel to Florida. They explained that Govenor DeSantis was outwardly unfriendly to minorities because of his ‘ push back’ on CRT in Florida classrooms.
A spokesperson further claims that the atmosphere there could be overtly hostile, even dangerous, for ‘people of color’!”

My application of Nutella to her toast became inadvertently hostile, when I heard that, producing a tear in the bread. I couldn’t help but comment.

” The use of fear as a political weapon is out-of-control. Getting what you want by misrepresenting the truth to scare people is ubiquitous these days! Do you know what ubiquitous means, Dear? It means something can be found everywhere.”

“Look Grandma! Even Goldie is trying to scare us to get attention! It IS everywhere.”

https://christinebialczak.com/2023/05/23/simply-6-minutes-welcome-to-the-challenge-05-23-2023/

Posted in In my humble opinion...

Sunday Poser #133- Discernment

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre

Sadje has asked us a complicated question today:

I very much like to hang on to old ways. Hand-written letters are one of them. No text can replace the sincere personal interest contained in a letter.
BUT… technology has opened up many exciting and good things.
I was that kid running to our set of encyclopedias often. It was time consuming to get information ‘back in the day’. The access to information is delightfully easy now. With the access to information, I had to sharpen a new skill. It’s an exceptionally useful one! It’s called discernment. The encyclopedias were accepted as “the whole truth” but since the internet and “out in the open” modern day misleading and propagandized information, being critical in thought has become an important skill. Total trust can create complacency. I think we’re in a big societal mess today primarily from former complacency.
Divining the truth has never been more available though (unless deliberately censored). Knowing that we need to put a bit of energy into our inquiries isn’t, at all, bad. Those encyclopedias were actually naively relied upon and never questioned. But the intellectually lazy will always lag behind. [Too bad they have the loudest voices and biggest platforms these days. 😢]
Even the revelation that censorship and biases exist, has been a useful tool. Nothing increases my curiosity more than information that seems ‘hidden’ or has been suddenly removed. That’s a big red target on where “the truth'” may be lurking. Quite an effective shortcut for the curious.

I feel as though I owe someone a fruit basket for the obvious misdirection during “The Pandemic”. It created my path to dealing extremely well with Covid-19 and certainly eased my mind once I realized that FEAR, in the form of ‘lies’ and doctored statistics, was a clearly manufactured effort to control our population. 🤔👍😂




https://lifeafter50forwomen.com/2023/05/21/sunday-poser-133-embracing-new-ways/

Posted in In my humble opinion...

SoCS 5/20/23 -“Stick it in your ear!”

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “stick.” Use it as a noun or a verb; use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

It’s not the lies. People lie. It’s about the repeating of lies… the outright promotion of lies.
There are an awfully lot of people who run their mouths without filtering their words through the ‘grey matter’ they were given, and others are manipulators for their own gain. The prompt of “stick” made me immediately think of the retort “Stick it in your ear!”.
Sometimes, ‘being nice’ isn’t easy nor is it appropriate.
Silence has always felt like compliance to me. I choose to laugh at people more often than confront them because the message of “Don’t be ridiculous.” comes through loud and clear.
“Oh my! That’s not “nice.”, you may be thinking. No, it isn’t but “nice” isn’t my default setting. “Nice” is a coward’s cover for inaction in most cases IMHO. It’s a self-comforting excuse. Heaven forbid you’d have to defend your words or explain. LOL
Is it actually “nice” for people to insult your intelligence or present themselves as “truth tellers” that you aren’t allowed to confront or ignore?
I don’t want the ambiguous game of ‘nice’ anywhere near me. I don’t think it’s nice at all to lie to each other. To say you don’t know what you’re repeating is a lie doesn’t work either. There’s a thing called “personal responsibility” which also applies to knowing what you’re talking about. Facts don’t care about feelings. If you believe something is factual and it is revealed to be false, no worries. There’s also something known as an “apology” or a retraction. Nobody’s perfect and we’ve each been fooled. Isn’t it ‘nice’ to find out?

We all have good reasons to be cynical these days. It’s sad but unavoidable. Being gullible in the name of “Nice” is dangerous. No one ever died from being insulted but many, many, lives have fallen victim to “lies”. Speak up!

Happy Saturday Friends. “Don’t take any wooden nickels.” We’re all in this together!


https://lindaghill.com/2023/05/19/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-20-2023/

Posted in Writing Prompts

Reena’s Xploration Challenge #178-Conscience Before Comfort

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre

I’ve chosen a few unusual words to serve as a fillip to your imagination.

Finifugal

Adjective: hating endings; someone who prolongs saying goodbye for as long as possible.

Meraki

Adjective: to do something with soul, passion, or love. 

Stellify

Verb: to turn into a star. 

Librocubicularist

Noun: a person who reads in bed.

Cosmogyral

Adjective: whirling around the universe. 

It may be a good idea to invent a word of your own on similar lines and use it in your piece. Mention the word that you have chosen as a prompt.

Or you could choose to write something on etymology or how authors choose their language to suit the theme.
—————————————
I chose to make up my own word for this challenge.
Survoward – A person who perpetuates falsehoods in order to preserve his/her standard of living, to feel accepted by society, or to ensure their own personal safety.



Bonnie was told to introduce gender fluidity to her Kindergarten class. It was part of the new curriculum. There was also an implied urgency to this morning’s memo.
She’d been thrilled to get the teaching position and excited to engage with her favorite age group of kids. Her generous starting pay would mean she’d finally be able to save AND pay off her college debt simultaneously.
Bonnie was instructed to use this book with kid friendly illustrations:

When she read the book, her gut bothered her. Bonnie could see her 4 1/2-year-old niece who’d be a kindergardener next school year. Her innocence was always the greatest part of playing with her. She’d never even think about introducing this topic to her!

Suddenly, Bonnie had a flashback to her ‘tomboy’ period at age 15. She had tucked back her hair while staring in the bathroom mirror and imagined herself as a boy. Would she had been a handsome boy instead of a rather plain girl? That was her momentary question at the time. She went easily from there to excelling on her softball team and forgot the question as quickly as it had occurred to her. What if? What if someone had told her to BE a boy?
Bonnie shuddered while recalling a recent video made by a child psychologist. The psychologist had said that she’d had only one child with gender dysphoria in her entire 20 years of practice until 2018. Her much older colleagues had had none in their longer practices. But starting in 2018, she had gotten a progressively larger gender confused clientele. So many that she could not in clear conscience say that this change was organic. It was, in her opinion, a conditioned response. It was real in the genuine suffering but there was ‘something’ environmental obviously inspiring it.

On the next school day, Bonnie held back tears and told her kids she had been hired someplace new. Then she handed in her resignation letter. She had chosen not to be a survoward by choosing her human dignity and conscience over her financial comfort. Her financial situation ultimately did become difficult again, but she also found that she was sleeping better than she had in a while.

https://reinventionsreena.wordpress.com/2023/04/27/reenas-xploration-challenge-178/

Posted in Words 'n' such Poetry

Reena’s Xploration Challenge 3/16/23- Hypnotic Methods

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre

You can choose to do any of the following.

  • Choose at least two words from the below word cloud in your piece.
  • Guess the theme and use it.
  • Use synonyms of two words in case these words do not appeal to you.

Or use the theme and/or words in any other manner you like.



Hypnotic Methods

There is useful stroboscopic form in repeated lies.
A designed hypnosis on those who seek to ‘belong’.
That propagandized system breeds allies.
There is useful stroboscopic form in repeated lies.
Who believes tales oft recycled is unwise.
Too few will e’er admit when they are wrong.
There is useful stroboscopic form in repeated lies.
A designed hypnosis on those who seek to ‘belong’.

https://reinventionsreena.wordpress.com/2023/03/16/reenas-xploration-challenge-272/
Posted in In my humble opinion...

SoCS 9-17-22 Ring- Warning

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre

What came to mind immediately was the idiom “ring true”. I looked up its origin:

Ring false and the antonym, ring true, which means “seem genuine,” allude to the old practice of judging a coin genuine or fake by the sound it gives out when tapped. This practice became obsolete when coins ceased to be made of precious metals, but by then the idioms were being used to refer to other matters. [Mid-1800s]

The phrase ‘ring true’ takes on a lot of weight these days. Our media has worked overtime sensationalizing everything and simultaneously has avoided doing much factual investigation.
I don’t know about you, but I feel as though I’m in a never-ending game of “Gossip”.

To anyone who is unfamiliar with the game of Gossip, it starts with a phrase whispered into a person’s ear then that person hastily whispers it to the next and so on around a ring of several people. By the time it reaches person #1 again, the phrase’s words and meaning are completely different. It’s comical as a game but tragically lacking as a source of reliable information.

Our media is a ‘for profit’ group of businesses that rely on getting the public’s attention. So, using flashy, salacious, material, and misleading headlines, works well for them, especially in our fast-paced (short attention span) American society.
Clever a-moral people have discovered this lovely way to spread ideological propaganda AND make money. Worse than that, social media companies are “in” on it too by manipulating search engines and censoring sites who might ruin their hypnotic promotion of a single ideological message. I fear that a large number of people are becoming unwitting tools of a totalitarian movement. I also fear that our Constitutional Republic is in grave danger. Freedom of Speech and ‘thought diversity’ are the most essential elements of a free society. We’re losing them both at an alarming rate.
Those who question mass media information as not “ringing true” are being cancelled, arrested, and destroyed (many are now labeled domestic terrorists!) while a comfortably numb public doesn’t even notice… most don’t care to know. Seeking comfort, a group belonging, and a sense of virtuous superiority, has replaced the need to be ethical, reasonable, and truth seeking.
I know this sounds like a finger wagging rant and I suppose it is. Telling-it-like-it-is and pursuing Truth aren’t things I will watch die off without speaking my own mind.

Have a nice Saturday and please keep your ears, eyes, and minds open. Our country’s future needs your support. ❤

https://lindaghill.com/2022/09/16/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-17-2022/