20 Lessons for Survival in the Post-Truth World. NOT mentioned is #1 "The Only Thing to Fear is Fear Itself"

[SorellaLaBefana]

UK Guardian writer Carole Cadwalladr has this grounding and helpful article in the Sunday Guardian. Following are a few of her points:

1 When someone tells you who they are, believe them. Last week Donald Trump appointed a director of intelligence who spouts Russian propaganda, a Christian nationalist crusader as secretary of defence, and a secretary of health who is a vaccine sceptic...

4 If that sounds scary, it’s because that’s the plan. Trump’s administration will be incompetent and reckless but individuals will be targeted, institutions will cower, organisations will crumble. Fast...

8 Protect your private life. The broligarchy doesn’t want you to have one. Read Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: they need to know exactly who you are to sell you more shit. We’re now beyond that. Surveillance Authoritarianism is next. Watch The Lives of Others, the beautifully told film about surveillance in 80s east Berlin. Act as if you are now living in East Germany and Meta/Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp is the Stasi. It is...

17 There is such a thing as truth. There are facts and we can know them...We can’t even fully recognise what tyranny is if we let the ruling powers get away with lying to us all...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/17/how-to-survive-the-broligarchy-20-lessons-for-the-post-truth-world-donald-trump

There are real dangers in the world which are beyond our control; but the enervating, paralyzing fear and despair come from within us and so *are* within our control.

The points above all help, but the fundamental thing to remember FDR’s statement in his First Inaugural that “The Only Thing we Have To Fear is Fear Itself.”

I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days...

This link lets you hear him for yourself
https://historymatters.gmu.edu/audio/8_5_7_a_FDRFirstInaug_MSTR.mp3

https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5057/

[Walleye]

1. I hope all these women who voted for Trump are prepared to have their periods tracked by some little man he puts in

[FarPoint]

2. Just maybe.....

this is the lesson they need to learn..... We find it so obvious of the loss of autonomy.... they do not understand...so, this is the lesson and we suffer while they learn.

[Walleye]

3. Any Republican man in Congress should be asked by every reporter when his wife's last period was

They want to preserve their own privacy while sticking their nose and everybody else’s business

[Hope22]

4. Hoping that hopes all women will be violated in that manner!

They certainly won’t discriminate. Please don’t advocate for the monster!! All women are in danger!

[Walleye]

5. I'm sorry, but I've done all I can, hoping doesn't cause something to happen

[Hope22]

6. No, but women out here are under extreme pressure and the anxiety is overwhelming.

I’m sorry that you don’t get it.

[Walleye]

8. I do get it, I got nothing but anxiety. I don't really know if your point is.

But keep fighting the good fight if you think it’s gonna help.

[Hope22]

10. Thanks to you too.

My point is the conversation out here is changing. I can’t say it any clearer than that. Keep your eyes open. Don’t want to risk saying more.

[wnylib]

17. Neither does defeat. The OP is a guide for getting through this.

So, you could take some deep breaths, find a way to calm your inner despair, and then consider some of the OP advice.

[Skittles]

20. oh they'd probably love it

just imagine the mentality of a woman who believes in fucking sex offender

[jfz9580m]

7. I have posted many (now deleted) rants

on surveillance capitalism here. Used to feel ashamed of them.

I assume by now that most data on the net is hoovered up and used to profile us.

More than gulags, the likelier thing for many of us of working age (who also post about politics ) is that we are probably going to end up being profiled as depressed, paranoid, anxious, lazy etc. Could be accurate some.. depression and anxiety are not an inappropriate response to the world we live in:

https://theconversation.com/how-neoliberalism-is-damaging-your-mental-health-90565

A colleague recently informed me that young children in Bermuda make amends for misbehaviour by intoning, “I want to make good choices”. As criminologists Steve Hall, Simon Winlow and Craig Ancrum have explored, “choices” become life-or-death when a bad choice or two can turn you into an irremediable “loser”. We are told that structural barriers to aspiration, achievement and contentment will melt away in our fantasy “choice” economy.

But this falsehood of “free choice” demotivates and depoliticises. In such a world, depression, anxiety, narcissism (the primitive defence of the infantile self against overwhelming attack) are entirely logical responses. It has been confirmed that neoliberal societies make their citizens physically as well as mentally sick; the effect is magnified the more unequal the society and the more unprotected its citizens from free-market “competitiveness”.

Depression in this context may appear almost self-protective: an opt-out from an unwinnable set of continual competitions. The recent rise in diagnoses of mental illnesses and “developmental disorders” involving states of agitation and hyperstimulation is similarly interesting. In the case of ADHD, for example, a person’s hyperactivity and distractibility render them officially “disordered” or even disabled, to the extent that they are supposedly unable to cope with a hyperstimulating, late-capitalist environment. Yet they are, in another sense, entirely in tune with an economy of non-stop distraction, in which attention is repeatedly grabbed at and financially exploited.

Managing that however is important. Now that the worst has largely happened I feel quite calm. I think far less net helps me. Enough to stay informed and say hi to you all and no more.

I have not viewed the net the same way over a decade now. I was indignant about it at first and am merely cynical now..shrug..

[Walleye]

9. I always just shrug and say my life is an open book. Fortunately, nobody's interested in it.

I don’t know if that’s gonna change now maybe every Democrat will be vulnerable. I don’t know. I’ve never experienced living under a dictator before.

[jfz9580m]

12. Well it is less of a concern if you are retired

If you are not, it is yet another thing employers can use to winnow you out etc. Authoritarian societies I guess don’t spring up overnight. It is a slow erosion of one’s rights..

[Walleye]

13. I know it's a weird feeling to feel lucky that I'm old

[SorellaLaBefana]

15. Perhaps?

But if one is dependent upon Social Security, Medicare, Company or Individual Retirement Plan, VA Benefits and a functioning economy—all of which have been explicitly targeted by the incoming Administration—then one might *not* be.

[jfz9580m]

16. Agree completely

I don’t know how cruel you have to be to target the elderly so an obscenely wealthy billionaire and his equally sleazy cronies can loot govt coffers.

Well that may be a hyperbolic spin on it but it still is not totally off the wall nuts..

I am hoping that there are safeguards against such horrors..its all one can do..

The less of a concern part was specifically about the damage our internet profiles do to people. That specific type of damage is worse if you are of working age, a visitor to a foreign country etc.

[Farmer-Rick]

11. We are going to have an economic crash

Especially when they abolish the Federal Reserve and FDIC. Add to that the reduction or elimination of Social Security. Elimination of disability pay both for civilians and military. Tariffs on everything. Massive nonstop corruption siphoning off our tax dollars to the filthy-rich. Federal Debt upon debt upon debt upon debt.....

The rich and their corporations will not pay their taxes. You will get a national sales tax and a flat tax. Probably a 10% sales tax on top of all your state sales tax. In TN that means a 20% sales tax.

They are starting at 15% for your income tax. My income tax is a lot higher than that right now. I seriously doubt they are going to lower any middle class and poor person's taxes. Expect your flat income tax to increase to about 20% or 30%.

Immigrants without the right paperwork will be shoved into concentration camps for deportation. Mostly Trump will go after Hispanics .....

The Constitution allows slavery as punishment. They will send those Hispanics to Tyson's slaughter houses, to Bezo's warehouses and Trump's construction sites. And those in concentration camps will work for free. They will compete with you for jobs adding to the economic collapse of Nazi USA.

All these things are in Project 2025. Funny how no one told the American people of what affects the dementia riddled Nazi fantasy economy would create.

Get ready, make a plan. Good luck.

[Walleye]

14. If they axe the FDIC, there will be a run on the banks. And the cryptocurrency Bros will make out.

[wnylib]

18. Speculating on what might happen

can increase anxiety and a feeling of helplessness. But, speculation can also increase awareness and lead to preparations, *IF* the speculation has some foundation in probability based on facts.

Example: We know that tariffs will raise prices. So we can speculate on what products we use that will be affected and stock up now, before the prices go up, e.g. medicines.

[wnylib]

19. Excellent OP. Thanks for posting it.