Something that concerns me

[flotsam]

I have plenty of families and friends who avoid politics and avoid the news which has always been the case, but lately I see many posters here joining them and even bragging about avoiding following current affairs and telling how very good this has been for reducing tension and stress.
I am reminded of the citizens of post-war Germany when all civilians swore they NEVER supported the Nazis and that they had no idea of the death camps existence. They heard nothing,saw nothing, knew nothing, and smelled nothing even though the smell of death and rot was overwhelming when the wind blew from a certain direction..."I noticed it but after a while I got used to it and it just became one more thing...".
But they knew nothing only because they consciously avoided hearing and seeing and smelling. Human decency demanded that though they could not stop it or perhaps even oppose it their remained a duty to at very least bear witness to the evil revealed before them. And they failed.
After three hard years the media has finally had enough and is beginning to bear witness. While the information that flows is sick and disgusting it is the truth-our leader and much of his party are treasonous criminals driven only to possess wealth and power. They are craven evil and many who support them are good Germans. I have made my decision, I have just two duties, to bear witness and to vote them out. Will you join me or look away?

[brush]

1. Thanks for this. This is the first time, thru years of reading and watching recorded...

history on the nazi death camps that I've heard that the smell of death was evident in major population centers if the wind was right.

[gibraltar72]

2. For our own sanity we sometimes have to back away.

We are no good to the fight if we are sitting in a corner talking gibberish to our selves.

[Chainfire]

3. A man hears what he wants to hear

and he disregards the rest.

[Dem2]

4. I think people are battling Coroneurosis.

I know I can only take so much bad news. I check in from time to time, but often if I absorb too much, I won't sleep at night and I'l obsess about every breath I take. It's awful. I do enjoy the failings of the administration and Republicans nation wide, but it's nearly impossible to avoid the doom and gloom 'rona posts.

[unitedwethrive]

5. I try to watch as much as possible, as long as Katy Tur is not the anchor...she

must mispronounce a word every two sentences. SO hard to listen to her!

[cyclonefence]

6. I agree

but in my experience in trying to talk to MAGAts in a civil manner about politics, it is pointless to cite facts or invoke logic. They do not believe facts from reliable sources, like WAPO or CNN, which provide Fake News, and even quoting source material, say from OMB, is met with sneers and accusations of falling prey to the Deep State. They believe what they see and hear from Faux News and the likes of Alex Jones.

I've concluded they exist in an alternate reality, one where cruelty is good--hell, where everything I despise is admirable. There really is no point in trying to talk seriously with them, and I think it's better to try to maintain family ties and "friendships" than to follow them down the rabbit hole.

I don't know why Liberals have to be the adults in the room, but there it is. I think the only alternative would be to indulge their fantasies by asking them to expound on what they believe, and their fantasies do not warrant our time. By taking them seriously, we elevate them to a level they don't deserve--like trying to argue with creationists.

[qwlauren35]

7. I don't watch.

I do my best to block out as much madness as I can. I skim DU headlines, I skim CNN headlines, I skim NYT headlines. But it sickens me, and I can't handle it.

I have a lot of work to do - I am an essential employee/engineer working to put a COVID-19 product on the market. I can't afford to be depressed - it slows me down and I have a May 1 deadline.

If I had to choose between "being informed" and "working my ass off for COVID-19", I'm going to choose "working my ass off". To be honest, I would bet that a lot of first responders would make the same choice. They don't have time to be depressed. They can't waste their energy being angry.

But I'm sure we will all be voting in November.

[pnwest]

8. I am joining you in bearing witness, but I do not fault anyone for taking care of their

own mental state by tuning out. My first three weeks of lockdown were wracked with depression and survivor's guilt, and I was spiraling hard. All the people who were losing everything - jobs, homes, businesses and even loved ones - just drenched me in survivor's guilt for being in a good place and not suffering as so many are. I had to tune out for a minute or two, and with some help from an awesome group here in DU I realized that this is simply not my turn to suffer, not my turn to help, it's just my turn to stay out of the way. I've suffered and I've helped plenty in past, and no doubt I will do both again in future. And then I realized that no matter how much I feel miserable for everyone else, it's of no practical use, and only causing me great stress. So I had to tune out. Not for long - and other's mileage may vary - but just a short time helped me get my head back on straight, and now I can bear witness again, without causing myself mental harm. Don't disparage people for tuning out, no matter their stated reasons. No point in having a nation of PTSD sufferers after this is all behind us.

And, for some, the cognitive dissonance of seeing what's going on with their own eyes, while trying to believe Fox and trump is just too much to compute. Checking out is a reasonable reaction. Maybe some of those people will actually have time and peace to do some critical thinking while they're trying to square what they see vs what they believe. That can only be a good thing.

[ibegurpard]

9. It's impossible to avoid entirely

And most of the really important things ARE getting through. Having said that i agree that it is probably best to tune a lot of it out. Unless there is something you can do about it how does it help to be overwhelmed by the minutiae of the overall shitstorm of our current reality? Nothing will keep me from voting these fuckers out and encouraging everyone i can to do the same. Nothing will increase my intensity level. Being inundated with more shit will just make me personally unhealthy.

[stillcool]

10. that's assuming there is something

informative in someone's choice of 'media'. I stopped watching cable stuff in 2008. I watch local news, weather, and everything else is on-line, or you-tube. When I think of the power of the media, and mis-information I think of Germany too...and I am reminded of Julius Streicher.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/nuremberg-trial-defendants-julius-streicher

It may be that Streicher is less directly involved in the physical commission of the crimes against Jews than some of his coconspirators. The submission of the Prosecution is that his crime is no less worse for that reason. No government in the world, before the Nazis came to power, could have embarked upon and it; into effect a policy of mass Jewish extermination in the way in which they did, without having a people who would back them and support them, and without having a large number of people who were prepared to carry out the murder themselves. (See Chapter XII on Persecution of the Jews.)

It was to the task of educating and poisoning the people with hate, and of producing murderers, that Streicher set himself. For 25 years he continued unrelentingly the perversion of the people and youth of Germany. He went on and on, as he saw the results of his work bearing fruit.

In the early days he was preaching persecution. As persecution took place he preached extermination and annihilation and, as millions of Jews were exterminated and annihilated, in the Ghettos of the East, he cried out for more and more.

The crime of Streicher is that he made these crimes possible, which they would never have been had it not been for him and for those like him. Without Streicher and his propaganda, the Kaltenbrunners, the Himmlers, the General Stroops would have had nobody to do their

In its extent Streicher's crime is probably greater and more far-reaching than that of any of the other defendants. The misery which they caused ceased with their capture. The effects of this man's crime, of the poison that he has put into the minds of millions of young boys and girls goes on, for he concentrated upon the youth and childhood of Germany. He leaves behind him a legacy of almost a whole people poisoned with hate, sadism, and murder, and perverted by him. That people remain a problem and perhaps a menace to the rest of civilization for generations to come.

[flotsam]

11. And where he writes Streicher...

I read "Fox News".

[stillcool]

12. yeah...and we're witnesses..

cause and effect. I think the worst thing I've seen that was news-related, was Fallujah. Dahr Jamail had some astounding reporting during the Iraq War, and Fallujah just blew my mind. Good god, that was other-worldly.

[PufPuf23]

13. What Happens When Coronavirus Invades a War Zone NYT News

Some much is going on and in our own communities that it is easy to over look elsewhere.

Our intervention in Libya was evil.

&feature=youtu.be