Substack is fast becoming just another pointless social media platform.
A case in point is Glenn Greenwald’s column “Joe Biden’s Submissive and Highly Revealing Embrace of Saudi Despots.” Mr. Greenwald points out that after promising to turn Saudi Arabia into a pariah, he is now begging the Saudis to save him from the foreseeable consequences of his own decisions. I agree. So do many posters who appear to believe the US is the root of all evil, and take the column as undeniable proof of their beliefs, which equal facts. They are supported by one another to vilify anyone disagreeing with them.
Having spent years in the Middle East and knowing personally a number of key players, as well as having advised the US Government agency responsible for unannounced US inspections of Russian sites, I believed I had insights to offer. As a result, I have been engaged in discussions as wide ranging as trying to educate one poster that grains, hence grain exports, are not only wheat, through telling people whose opinions are facts that they need to examine their biases, to defending myself against multiple accusations of lying. Demands for URLs to disprove someone else’s opinion abound.
This is the price we must pay for platform absolute freedom of speech. One simple step would begin to modify behavior in political columns. Disable the “like” button. Social media posters are incentivized by number of “likes” and point to them as proof of their virtue signaling and infallibility. I claim no virtue and freely admit to fallibility. Also, I was born without the give-a-shit gene, which simplifies my life considerably.
In the kingdom of the blind, a one-eyed man can get pretty lonely.
I cannot disagree more with you, M. Bill, and with the pessimism of the four posts so far, three from posters I have come to look forward to hearing from, and I so fear that I have been a catalyst for such despairing that my heart is breaking.
As I type, a perfect song for what I want to say has come on my Pandora station, by the Raconteurs (one of Jack White's excellent bands), called These Stones Will Shout on the Consolers Of The Lonely album. Look for it, and listen to the lyrics.
"Speak to me, and don't speak softly/Talk to me and let me know/Grab hold of my shoulder and tell me/Grab hold and do not let go/Grab hold and do not let go/"
Maybe the type of music does not appeal to you, but listen to the words, the sentiment, the emotion!
We at the end of our lives *must* speak. My peeps, we must not despair. We must calmly, justly, softly *and* loudly persevere. We ARE being heard, here on substack and when substack fails, or is captured, then on the next platform. Social media is NOT the enemy; it is ever the public square, and if we remove ourselves, we abandon all we hold dear.
What we, individually, *hold dear,* of course, is not clear, nor common, even to us. We disagree, too, profoundly, in complete dis-union on this or that, whether basic precept or simple manner of expression and response. And we are just as "capable" of mis-speaking, or mis-responding, with too much emotion, or too little! Younger peeps need to hear us post/respond rationally AND irrationally. They need to hear us screw up, and own up to it, that they also lose their fear, and read and think and let their voices be heard, and learn to listen and be unafraid to change their minds, or not, to reassert their arguments in new ways.
I conclude with what I tell my teen-agers, over and over, the one thing I want them to remember, until they are old like us.
We are, collectively but especially individually and all alone, STRONGER and more effective that we think.
Mr. Bill, we are all born with that "give-a-shit" gene, and at the end of life it might be better to give in, and go quietly in the night (I will never hold it against anyone to do just that), but I won't. I'm fighting the good fight, and I don't give a shit what happens. I'll die happy doing so.