I've been duped. How did I get to be this age and know nothing about how the world works, who to trust, what is real and what is manufactured for my consent? And, although it didn't just start, the feeling of being duped intensified, as if on steroids, during these last three years of mayhem.
I relish understanding how things connect, which means I go down a lot of rabbit holes trying to find out how things relate one to another. My great unraveling - the duping of Claudia if you will, started when I became a Bernie Sanders supporter in 2015, when he first announced his run. I was an avid Bernie watcher. I followed his speeches, how people responded, what the criticism was and how it was countered. I read the reports, watched the videos and listened to the commentators. It didn't take long to see that the truth was a casualty in the sabotaging of his campaign.
My larger point isn't about politics. It doesn't matter how you feel about Bernie. What has caught my attention is how difficult it has become to discern the truth. I have friends who insist that mis- and dis- information are the real threats. I agree. They always have been. But I have come to believe that governments are the largest purveyors of mis- and dis- information. On this subject, I am only at the beginning of a fascinating read by Whitney Webb, One Nation Under Blackmail, but my head is already spinning. Not for the faint of heart or the ostriches amongst us, a recent interview (watch the short clip below) will give you a sense of what she has uncovered. Like Julian Assange, she is a hero in my eyes. The pages are filled with subterfuge and lies told to the American people by their government.
Next week I travel to Morelia, Michoacan to attend The GreatER Reset Conference... the antidote to Klaus Schwab's Great Reset, the World Economic Forum's dystopian vision of our future. Conference topics range from economics to health to food security to technology to creating community. I am hopeful it won't be about blaming or fault finding. I look forward to conversation that enlightens and challenges. In order to avoid falling for mis- and dis- information we need to learn the skills of discernment, to become better critical thinkers, to question everything. We can't learn these skills by banning speech. Unbridled speech is the hallmark of a free society. I never considered that this right might be taken away or abridged. I didn't quite understand the centrality of this freedom until I saw it being lost in the runaway censorship we suffer today, with social media blazing the trail.
I will be the first to fight for your right to say what is on your mind. I may not agree with your opinions, but we have a human right to express ourselves. Censorship is never ok. It just isn't. No matter how awful the speech, how repugnant I find it, it has to be allowed. Otherwise, we are all at risk of being censored. Some I know think I've lost my mind when I say that it is good to have a lot of people on earth. Among these masses will be the individuals who solve our problems.
Let's start right now by agreeing to understand the problems. Because the transparency and integrity required to understand the problems will take us far in the direction of finding a solution. "Many hands make light work." We must come together, even, and perhaps especially, us former dupes.
Claudia Peresman had a long career in education: first as a primary school teacher, then working for a publisher selling educational materials, and finally as a consultant training teachers. Moving from the bustle of NYC to eight acres in Stonington, a quiet corner of Connecticut near the sea, she wrote a blog about her experiences building a house and taming a wild farm patch into a series of gardens. After escaping a number of Connecticut winters here, she decided to make San Miguel home. You will often find her walking with Astro, her wonder dog, as in, "I wonder what possessed me to get a pup at this point in my life?"
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Discover Lokkal: Watch the two-minute video below. Then, just below that, scroll down SMA's Community Wall. Intro / Mission
