I actually got angry yesterday in a conversation with my sister, who watches Fox News all day. She was spouting the "Poor Ukraine–Evil Putin" party line and was all but ready to don some fatigues to go to the battlefield and save the children she thinks the Russians are killing indiscriminately. She could not hear me when I told her she didn't know the whole story. In one last, probably futile attempt to jog her out of her brainwashing, I sent her (and others like her) the following:
The news media (Fox not excluded) lies in what it does not present as much as when they put up old photos and videos from other wars to make you care about Ukraine. How many of you know about the civil war in Sudan? 500,000 people dead in just a few months? Ring a bell? I'm guessing you never heard of it, but you hear every day about how poor the people of Ukraine are being abused by evil Russians. It never occurs to you that the same people who supported Obama droning innocent families to death in the Middle East (almost every day) now want you to get emotional enough to agree to a war with Putin, a war which they have been itching to start since before Trump, always poking at Russia and accusing them in the hope that Putin will bite. They pick and choose what to show you (with the help of misleading or even made-up images) and hide the rest to make you agreeable to policies that will benefit them and further their plans.
Who is "them"? They are people like Schwab of the World Economic Forum, who has big plans to submerge the world into dystopian nightmare he and a few others mean to control. He says you will own nothing and you will be happy. What that really means is that he will own everything and he will be happy. They are people like Soros and his horrible son who destabilize entire nations with their bookoos of bucks in order to––you guessed it––submerge the world into a dystopian nightmare they and a few others will control. They are Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and Chuck Schumer who somehow all got obscenely rich on congressional salaries and agree completely with the plans of people like Schwab and Soros to undermine the sovereignty of the United States. They are new RINOS like Dan Crenshaw and old ones like Mitt Romney who talk conservative in campaigns and then vote with the Democrats in office. This is not to mention their minions, like the WEF graduates (think Biden cabinet, liberal prosecutors and judges, school board officials, Governors of states, etc.) whom Soros financed to put into office, and who now run policy in a number of nations around the world; or Hollywood stars, musicians, and sports figures who endlessly preach whatever the current socialist anti-American line of the day happens to be and make their little boys wear dresses.
All these traitors and mob bosses profit from war, and they are actively working to bring down the United States, socially, politically, and economically because a free and independent America stands in their way. If you didn't know, ALL mainstream news outlets are now owned by just 6 highly-interconnected corporations, and even fewer tech companies have a monopoly on the biggest outlets of online information, with impressive control of what most people are likely to view. They coordinate with each other to make sure you don't see what they don't want you to see. All of them are in bed with the leftists in government to bring you the propaganda that will make you fear some made-up crisis or care about the cause du jour. (Obama and the Democrats made that "legal.") When are people going to get it? Wake up! This is not a conspiracy theory. You are being lied to on a grand scale.
Here's a hint about the latest popular war if you think Russia is just being evil again: If Russia had been doing in Mexico what the New World Order people were doing in Ukraine with the help of leftists and 3-letter agencies in the U.S. Government, you can be sure we would have gone in there with tanks. That is, assuming there were enough people who still love our country in office. If you want to find the truth, start digging and follow the money. You'll be surprised at how many of those trails lead right to Kyiv.
no one reads long messages. especially when their mind is made up.
“No one reads long messages”. I agree wholeheartedly. I do a lot of writing for my work, and this is by far the most important rule I follow.
The most effective communication is done with the least amount of words.
It’s terrible for me because it’s natural for me to write and write and write.
Paragraphs help but the vast majority of the time if you can’t say it in one sentence, it falls flat.
Extensive writing has its place (i.e., Shakespeare, etc.), however, if your aim is to win an argument and/or make a point, short and succinct work best (another rule I follow = “less is more”). Possibly why memes work so well.
It is true that less is more, but frankly there are a lot of ideas that simply cannot be meaningfully conveyed and subsequently understood by using a construct of 3-4 sentences. If you want to make the topic very abstract, a 30,000 ft. level overview, and assume your target can read your mind or has a very strong intellect, more than likely it will fail as will a wall of text.
To address the memes work well idea. Yes, a meme can a short sentence, descriptor, usually less than 30 words, but memes with pictures have more impact as they are supported by "a picture is worth a thousand words". The wall of text is there, it is simply all mixed up in the form of an image.
I think a really good example is how if you have never done calculus mathematical notation is nearly impossible to read. Trying to learn a concept written in notation is more difficult for me at times then just a nice simple 2+2=4 vs Σn(1)n(2) or whatever the correct notation would be…
It goes both ways, I don't read their wall of text rants that occasionally appear in response to my red pill posts either. If you've read one sheep rant appealing to emotion calling your a conspiracy theorist you've read them all. Responding to it just encourages them anyway, by ignoring them and moving on to the next target you remove some of their feeble power.
Why use lot word when few word do trick?
OMG Kevin!!😂😂
After 9-11 I gave my sis this short message: "Our government was involved." She bit my head off.
Good letter. Hope it cracks the shell.
Nicely and well said Fren. Spot and great summary. 👍
Kiev. The other spelling is a madeup mistake.
My bad. The woke spellcheck got me, and I didn't fight it.
Great! but you spelled Kiev incorrectly ;)
Woke spellcheck.
YOU spelled it wrong.The legend has it, that the city was founded by three brothers and their sister and named after the oldest one, whose name in Ukrainian is pronounced as Kyi. Therefore, the city named after him should be spelled as Kyiv.
According to my Ukrainian friend both spellings are legit.
An interesting read-a good read, actually. As far as I'm concerned, you nailed it.
I talked to a woman in a car park because she wasn't wearing a mask and I wanted to thank her. She started telling me all the stuff we know here. She seemed unhinged and I knew everything she said was true.
Definitely less is more.
And I feel for you, I have a sister far far away who is lost. This year, I decided to stop writing my thoughts to her - she never internalises a single thing and keeps on spouting leftist talking points. Her latest is outrage at what she calls the "Don't say gay" bill.
I love her, but I know she is lost and she will never wake up. Either I write her off, the way lefties do to sane people - or I move on and leave her be with her insanity. Latter seems best move to me.
I still have hope for my sister, but not because of my words. I was putting my stake in the ground more than anything else. I love her, but, like you, I can't let her willful blindness affect my peace. People make their own decisions about what they believe, and we have to let them, which is evidence of our love if they would see it. All we can do is keep telling the truth, trusting that God can do what we can't do. He knows what will shift people from their deceptions, and I trust that His eyes are upon the ones we love to do them good for our sakes because He is kind.
My sister is likely to bring up the argument again because she is very much like our father, and if she does, I will once again give her my well-informed opinion without being judgmental, even if it gets my emotions up for a moment. She may live to see the truth come out more broadly, and I pray that she does. She got jabbed because the TV told her to (Fox!), and now she has health problems she won't discuss. She knows my opinion about that, too, and I see evidence that behind the closed doors of her heart she knows she made a mistake.
There is only so much we can do, whether we are just trying to get people to see truth or contending for their souls, but there is hope in the fact that none of us save ourselves, and we really don't save others. "It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy." In the end it is always God who does all the saving.
For short and effective challenge I use "so suddenly one minute covid was everything, then one day it all went, then almost the next day the war in Ukraine started, and you think this is just coincidence"?
They've never heard about he Sudan because the Democrat money laundering service doesn't reside there.