Dovetail

Friends, make sure you’re reading.  And make sure you’re reading the “right” journalism.  By “right” I’m talking about sources that are unbiased.  Don’t allow your mind to be taken hostage by materials that are written to influence.  Facts can be twisted, omitted, and exaggerated.  Seek out the neutral experts, even the words spoken by the President or other sources can be clarified by some interpretation or further examination.

Here’s an example: President Trump’s comment to Mika Brzezinski about nuclear weapons, “Let it be an arms race.” can be interpreted in as many as 5 different ways or more.  I wouldn’t have known that, though, it just seems downright scary.  After reading this article:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2017-01-25/reading-trump

I was able to understand.  President Trumps uses what is called brinkmanship.  It is used in negotiations where the negotiator takes the most absurd and outrageous statement to the brink of disaster. Then when he pulls back, everyone is relieved and takes a breath.  Everyone can live with the obviously lesser, safer, tempered result.  Interesting?  I think so.

Try using Snopes for fact checking: http://www.snopes.com/ and if you have the money, sign up to Foreign Affairs: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/about-foreign-affairs for articles by the experts.  Use your brain, not your emotions, is my recommendation.

2 years ago my life was turned upside down.  I was on a journey of learning that allowed knowing myself better.  It was so revealing and so interesting, I feel like I grew volumes through my experience and the work I did.  I hope I am a better person now.  I am trying.

Last weekend I was very confused.  I watched the Inauguration of the 45th President of the United States on Friday and on Saturday I watched the Women’s March which seemed like a protest against the president.  I knew the rhetoric, I knew the emotion, but I wanted to know the deeper extent of the roots of the chasm that was so evident. I recognized that the media was so biased and said to myself, I’m never going to understand anything if I listen to the media.  I looked for non-biased information on the internet.

Somehow, I stumbled onto the website for the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent, non-partisan, membership group, think tank, and publisher.  Through this website I found another called Foreign Affairs, another unbiased source of information.  Their information is related to politics and other influences on foreign policy.  The first article that I read was called ” The Jacksonian Revolt, American Populism and the Liberal Order” by Walter Russell Mead.  It contained the information I needed to know.  I really started to understand political economical paradigms like Hamiltonian, Wilsonian, Jacksonian, and Jeffersonian beliefs.  It explained how they differ, the predominant form in recent history, since WWII, and how the world is changing and how it affects our nation’s approach at this time.

After taking in this information, I could apply it to the politics of the day.  It allowed me to really understand and I was so excited about that.  I am primarily focused on how to have unity in our great nation.  I started writing about it on Facebook and got a good discussion going.  But realizing that FB is not really the place for discussion on testy issues, I decided to write this blog.