It's Not Me, It's You

Margaret Anna Alice put out Letter to an Agree-to-Disagree Relative podcast which was initially posted last November.

A good revisit.

Letter to an Agree-to-Disagree Relative

It’s helpful to read/listen to anyone who actually reflects the depth of outrageousness and absurdity of our current situation. Reading her words is like absorbing a healing balm.

She captures the impossibility of what we’ve been living through - no small task.

And here I don’t mean the genocide; or how humans volunteered to be lab rats for a global experiment; or the decimation of small businesses and accumulation of even more power and money for the Big Guys; or the obvious steering of our country to its destruction; or the constant gaslighting, and never-ending lies.

Nope.

It’s the impossibility of where we are now; the continued lack of recognition from the other side of what we just went through. Are still going through. The unspoken, lets-just-move-on thing, the let’s-just-not talk about it phenomenon afoot.

I keep saying some version of this to my partner.

“They must know, right? By now they must know.” (I could be referring to any number of people.)

Because I’m waiting. (And perhaps this is where I’m a dupe. Where I don’t learn.)

I’m waiting for them, my friends in particular, to snap out of it - and then reach out to me, and apologize.

I want to hear from them that they want to know what it was like for me, for us, from our perspective, as the outsiders. This is necessary if we are to get on the same page.

Or maybe even just the same planet.

I avoided writing about the Atlantic amnesty essay which has been covered thoroughly and beautifully on Substack already via many authors.

Post’s essay was so manipulative and nuanced in both avoiding her ugly complicity and dodging the really tough questions. Impressive almost, in its strategy and tone yet so utterly obvious in its true aim.

Which was clearly, still, all about her and those like her and the whitewashing of their sins.

For Ms. Oster, it’s still all about them.

The papering-over of how non-compliers were treated like enemies who should be punished, the lack of self-reflection, (How did I find myself in a spell that turned me into a rabid asshole carrying water for Big Pharma?) the attempt to simply provide a pathway forward without any genuine acknowledgement, let alone apology - well that’s unacceptable.

“Some of us were right for the wrong reasons and some of us were wrong for the right reasons” (paraphrasing) rationale avoids the deeper truth that many, like Emily, don’t want to look at.

She wants to equivocate both sides now because her side was wrong. That’s easier than wondering how she was fooled and became a fool. How she turned into a professional mockingbird-head. How she raised her hand to be a guinea pig.

It’s too bad. Really.

Because if she/they could muster up the intellectual integrity, the self-honesty and humility this moment demands…. Well, she might at least stop being an asshole, for starters. Eventually, she may even become someone who helps.

If you want to build a bridge with us - who you mocked and disdained us - great.

Start by acknowledging how easily manipulated you were. How worthless your education and profession were in the face of the propaganda. When I hear that, I’ll start walking towards you on that bridge.

The world split early 2020.

We’re coming up to year three. Here’s where I was dead-wrong: I never thought this much time could have passed and the two realties would continue running alongside each other, each still, so separate.

Where’s the sadness and recognition of the unnecessary loss so many of us endured? Loss of jobs, of friends and family. The catastrophic loss of health, and lives by those who went along.

So much has been lost.

Where is the accountability?

There is no going forward for us as humanity, if we can’t do that.

And that’s the point.

If we can’t own our fuck-ups, own how we’ve been duped - which admittedly feels shitty - we can’t maintain integrity. Absent integrity there is no trust. And without trust, why would I receive the olive branch you’re extending? .

If we’re always looking to protect that little piece - that self-identity that wants to stay protected and right - even in the face of massive evidence to the contrary, there can be no healing.

Dear Emily (and everyone you represent),

It’s not me. It’s you.

Please consider a paid subscription or buying me a kofi.

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