While I wrote most of this to a specific individual, it does have much broader implications. Therefore I adjusted slightly and share it here.
You might assume that I am arrogant, don’t respect your opinions, or do not comprehend your world view. I believe those would all be incorrect assumptions.
Most of what I know about how the world works I began learning after my last child left my shelter. I know now what I have learned since they left my home PLUS what I knew before. My memory is not gone.
In my 20s and 30s I read local newspapers plus Newsweek and Time magazines. Over the years I watched thousands of mainstream news shows. It was a well-presented reality. I thought I understood as well as anybody what was going on in the world, and my world in particular.
Learning about Operation Mockingbird changes everything about how I view those information sources that I trusted then. I have much better information now. We have so much knowledge that was simply unobtainable for normal people in the pre-Internet age. The occasional outlier-crackpot I ran across was easily dismissed. I view them differently today.
When the primary goal is to have lots of friends and be surrounded by family, you tell them what they want to hear. If your priority is to inform and educate, you tell them the truth. I feel the latter is a better service to my personal community than the former. Perhaps someday they will come to understand and respect me. If not, at least I tried to help them find knowledge.
I take the chance of alienation in the hope that respect for me will inspire review of the information I offer. I don’t make this stuff up. I look, listen, read, research, and decide if they are credible. When two opposing views collide, I have to use what I have learned, what I know and what I think to choose one over the other. Silencing or ignoring one side is not the same thing.
If you cannot bring yourself to pursue the information sources I present, at least understand that I am doing my very best to be a good Dad, Grandpa, neighbor, friend, and to help you do the best for your family and your community, our community.
In the end, you have to use your head and your heart to do exactly that.
Good luck. It is not an easy task.
