The Age of Reason has not uprooted this deep pattern of redemptive violence. Reason but serves to rationalize it; industry takes it to industrial scale, and high technology lifts it to new heights.
Let's hear it for healthy jokes! In his book, Man's Search for Meaning, holocaust concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl wrote about the jokes he and his fellow prisoners told each other about the guards. I know from my own difficult experiences - never as hard as the Holocaust but still dang hard - that joking has often been a way of staying sane and making it to another day. Keep on keeping on y'all...
Oh that book!!! Viktor Frankl truly had the right idea with the "gallows humor". Comedy has gotten me through everything - through some very dark times and intense chronic health conditions. And just life in general. I have developed a very dark sense of humor but it helps so much, if you're sensitive to well, most everything. Thank you so much Bett, for mentioning this. Truly, my favorite thing to do is to laugh! I feel like we need comedy so much right now.
i don’t follow how this paragraph is connected to the rest of the essay: “None of the problems facing humanity today are technically difficult to solve...”
but re:“Systemic use of natural and alternative healing modalities could reverse autoimmunity [etc]”
my experience (so far) is that in 9 years of trying i have been unsuccessful in regaining my health, despite an awareness of the holistic approach and the trialling of umpteen methods in that time.
i recognise that “these easy solutions... require agreement among human beings” i.e. funding, research. but none of the dozens of practitioners i have seen or approaches i have tried have included the disclaimer, “my therapy needs broader societal support and a series of double-blind studies to make it work”. homeopathy, biofield tuning, psychedelics, craniosacral therapy, functional medicine, kinesiology, reiki, ayurveda, rife machines, distance healing & body scanning all work. apart from when they don’t. and you don’t get your money back when they don’t.
equally, do we have the slightest clue about how to rid the oceans of microplastics and the soils of forever chemicals? what about getting those out of our own bodies? do ‘we’ in the alternative world have the correct understanding about what ‘covid’ is? (e.g. i happen to be most persuaded by the ‘no virus’ perspective - but most in the ‘health freedom’ movement think this is insane, if they’ve even heard of it at all).
i feel uneasy posting this comment because i don’t want to sound defeatist, and i have a nagging terror that i just haven't properly, properly tried yet. i'm still playing it safe somehow. i haven’t given up, i am persevering, i want to believe. i think i do believe. but i don’t want to be delusional either. i’m open to receiving the answers. if you’re reading my comment and can send me answers in my dreams tonight, please do.
Oops, no the text is correct. OK, let me read what you say more carefully. All right, I see. I am sorry you have been unwell. I would say that no healing modality can interfere with the initiatory and evolutionary process of illness. Reading your words, my gut feeling is that the problem isn't that you haven't tried hard enough or done it right. But not knowing you, I dare not guess what the path might be.
As for forever chemicals, they are indeed hard to clean up. But it wouldn't be hard to stop using them, not technically hard anyway.
Shhh! Why don't you just lie back and accept that Charles and his ilk could fix everything if only everyone agreed with them? There's so much comfort to be found there...
Seriously, though, while yes I believe that regen agriculture and holistic health have a huge role to play in the healing of our world, but as you point out there is a great deal of complexity and no silver bullet. I find Charles' attitude gallingly simplistic and flippant.
Grappling with the complexity, nuance and messiness of reality isn't defeatist, please don't give it up for simply "believing".
I don't appreciate being referred to as "ilk," Helen. That is dehumanizing and unkind.
Perhaps that paragraph does over-simplify, but the key word is "technically." Perhaps I should have italicized it for clarity, and said "few" instead of "none". The point, however, is valid, that most of the word's problems are the result of human conflict, and not technical challenges. Take for example hunger -- the world wastes enough food to feed all its hungry people many times over.
Sorry, I had no idea "ilk" could be considered dehumanising. As far as I'm aware, it simply means "a type of person similar to the one already referred to". I only meant "Charles and others like him", so I'm sorry for offending you.
And how do you feel about Trump calling in the National Guard and the Marines to violently subdue the citizens who are trying to protect their fellow community members from deportation?
I believe there is a certain amount of truth in both narratives around what is happening around the demonstrations. Trump has repeatedly used dehumanizing rhetoric in discussing immigration, veiling the fact that most immigrants have come from desperate circumstances -- circumstances in large part caused by US policies -- in search of a better life for themselves and their families. They are fleeing poverty and violence that result in large part from US imperialism and neoliberal economic policies. On the other hand, within that context the problems of human trafficking and drug trafficking are quite real, and letting the cartels essentially manage immigration was a disaster. At this point, there is no good solution.
Yes, there are many real problems in immigration. And there are many smart people working on good solutions. Rounding up people in workplaces and schools and sowing fear on the streets of LA is certainly not one of them. Reinforcing the idea that the organized responses to ICE are riots is also not one of them. (Sure, riots will break out when people are pressed, and there have been isolated incidents, but the vast majority of the movement has been peaceful. Calling in the marines and the National Guard was way out of proportion, and escalatory.) I'm all for finding third ways, cutting through polarizations, imagining new possibilities, and creating new narratives, while taking principled stances that do not subtly inflame.
Honestly Charles, I really appreciate you responding to me. I genuinely didn't think that would happen. I first read TMBWOHKIP when it first came out about 12 years ago, and resonated very strongly with it. I have been following you since then, so I'm not just some blow-in trying to cause trouble.
I just find the endless "both sides"ing of everything very troubling. Like, if everything is just "one side's story", then everything we hear is equally valid and equally in-valid. We can simply "rise above it all" and feel superior to those caught up in the struggle. But my fear is that rising above it all leaves one totally ungrounded and untethered from reality.
Please forgive the ham-fisted analogy, but can I ask if you were in Germany in the 1930s/40s and you heard from some people that the Nazi party were murdering hundreds of thousands/ millions of people that they considered inferior or enemies of the state, and you heard from other people that Germany needed strong leadership and that the Nazi party were doing the necessary cleansing of society, would you consider those simply "two stories told by opposing political wings"? Equally valid, equally in-vaild?
Or are things only clear in hindsight, and all we can do in the moment is watch on and shake our heads at the fools who have been sucked into a narrative?
It isn't that both sides are equal. It is that to understand the situation and be effective in addressing it, one must understand the perspective of all parties, and the totality of influences on them. Even the Nazis did not exist in isolation or emerge out of nowhere. Indeed, we tend to ignore the role of US industrialists and eugenics in the rise of National Socialism in Germany.
I'll post an in-depth article on this issue soon. It is more like "neither side-ism" than "both-sides-ism."
I'm glad you made some noise here, Helen. I'm working on a comprehensive piece on the demonstrations, immigration, ICE... You are right that it cannot be ignored right now if one is to say anything about the current political environment. I was intending to write about Gaza, which is reaching whole new levels of horror, but I guess I'll put that off a bit.
I would just love to see Charles directly address what is actually going on, rather than endlessly dancing around in metaphor and simile.
I have simply named the reality of what is happening and would like to know what Charles actually thinks about it. Or does he not think about it, and only remain in the realm of the abstract?
Wow. I can see this now. Thank you for naming it. In my own life, when I graduated highschool I immediately involved myself in drug culture. I was drawn into the most outsider outlets, even living with a heroin addict for a period who was prostitute when she needed money. I remember it feeling more real to me than reality. My parents were an accountant and powerplant worker and had a controlling parental style. I was an only child who was a competitive athlete which means I only trained and went to school. I also exhibited selective mutism so I exploded immediately upon graduation and didn't come back for a decade. In "On the Road", Dean Moriarty described "IT".. and I think that's what Charles
*is referring to. Anyway, looking back I've never been able to quite explain that left turn. I had some societal consequences such as being behind my peers in career and family timelines but it was an important period of time.
This is the most interesting read I’ve come across in a while. Thanks for sharing this information. I can instantly see it in application in even my life, and I don’t attend festivals! (Have never liked them, perhaps for the looseness and lack of feeling safe!?)
As I trimmed my toe nails I mulled over the attempt to civilized a creature that has wild tendencies..no matter what the technique to civilized is. I was gifted, years ago, with a nail file from a wild form, that the native Americans used to file their nails & toenails. They were doing this for centuries. They understood that some physical stuff had to be cut back. What could we become if nails kept growing? Hmmm?
I also recently read about the oldest hotel in the world..started back in the early AD years. Located in Japan and maintained for over 50 centuries by the same family. I looked it up and knew instantly why the oriental tribe in Japan understood the phrase..less is more! I recalled how I wrote a piece in on the ancient festival of Sanheim. All Hallow's Eve is a sad "joke" in these times. I recalled that it does not fall on the 31st of Oct. It falls on the time period where the sun is in Scorpio and the full moon is in Taurus..likewise.Mayday is the opposite in Spring..Sun in Taurus & moon in Scorpio...the kicker is that the astrological Tropical charting is terribly off as it was changed and modified to each sign being 30 degrees, which is corrupted, in ancient Greece. True Sidereal astrology shows what is truly happening yet one needs to have mathematical skills, which many did not have back then yet today via computer systems, we have.
So Charles even if half of us made an attempt to participate in the natural cycles of honoring and appreciating this gift of life in form, could it change the way we relate to one another? I remember seeing in the series, On everything upon A Time, here in the USA, the episode showing where a few were on a ship in the ocean and the waters were very calm. Soon a few on the shop started arguing and brought upon themselves a terrific storm. I was hopeful after seeing that...that some others out there understood how emotions in us humans can create terrific and horrific real-time weather related storms. Emotions definitely need to be released whether through festivals, storms, sports, work, play, etc. How much more we, as an created/evolving form, needs to go through, before a full world wide realization takes place in understanding what a wonderful living, creative, feeling, and highly intelligent form we are, needing just clean water, nutritious food, clear air and loving relationships with many forms is the narrative in question, for me, right now. Will we have to go through a great annihilation of Life to get this or will we somehow see the light at the end of the tunnel through the hundredth monkey consciousness. A tidal wave of a real wak up call??
So I clip my nails and know that somewhere in time, possibly a few thousand years ago someone was using a natural nail file to keep their nails shorter so that they could use their hands and walk with their feet more safely...and so something became cultivated. 🙃
"Will we have to go through a great annihilation of Life to get this or will we somehow see the light at the end of the tunnel through the hundredth monkey consciousness. A tidal wave of a real wake up call?" -- Good question! I like to take such questions not as a request for a prediction, but as a challenge. What shall we choose?
I actually wasn't claiming that. I was simply referencing the two prevailing narratives. I am not the person to be making a case for this one or the other. Other people are much better able to do that than I am. I will say though, that neither of the two narratives can confer a full understanding of what is unfolding. That is a statement that makes me unpopular with both sides! But someone has to say it.
My thoughts exactly. I'm not even sure what Charles means in this sentence. We had any incident last week in Minneapolis with people interfering with an ICE raid and from what I could see via livestream, it was a genuine protest.
Yes, and what does it mean that this essay offers a perspective that is "complementary to and not exclusive" of either of these? Putting "riot" in the title of the piece belies a stance.
I'm all for subtly, nuance, complexity. and also being as clear as we can with our words, especially about incendiary issues in these times. I am looking for the voices that cut through the confusion and offer clear, consistent, principled ways of understanding complex issues, and as-yet-unimagined possibilities. I KNOW writing is hard and it is virtually impossible to get our words just right, to satisfy all listeners (or even ourselves). That's why I've started a substack column, so I can challenge myself. I certainly don't want to critique for critique's sake - but engage with the ideas so we can contribute with as much clarity as we can to a very polarized world.
Yes...though, I have published books with three different publishers, and none of them offered helpful editorial guidance. None asked for clarity about anything. All they provided was basic copyrighting. I think the kind of editorial guidance you are naming is only available in the top trade presses, if there. It's a lost trade. So it's up to us to be as clear as we can. The nice thing about this format is we can edit our own posts as many times as we like, and we can add clarifying notes. In my experience, when people point out inconsistencies in my writing, it usually points to something I haven't fully worked out in my own thinking. So it pushes me in good ways.
Let's hear it for healthy jokes! In his book, Man's Search for Meaning, holocaust concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl wrote about the jokes he and his fellow prisoners told each other about the guards. I know from my own difficult experiences - never as hard as the Holocaust but still dang hard - that joking has often been a way of staying sane and making it to another day. Keep on keeping on y'all...
Oh that book!!! Viktor Frankl truly had the right idea with the "gallows humor". Comedy has gotten me through everything - through some very dark times and intense chronic health conditions. And just life in general. I have developed a very dark sense of humor but it helps so much, if you're sensitive to well, most everything. Thank you so much Bett, for mentioning this. Truly, my favorite thing to do is to laugh! I feel like we need comedy so much right now.
Yep! I can relate. I'm better at crying now too. Keep on keeping on. 🙏💞
i don’t follow how this paragraph is connected to the rest of the essay: “None of the problems facing humanity today are technically difficult to solve...”
but re:“Systemic use of natural and alternative healing modalities could reverse autoimmunity [etc]”
my experience (so far) is that in 9 years of trying i have been unsuccessful in regaining my health, despite an awareness of the holistic approach and the trialling of umpteen methods in that time.
i recognise that “these easy solutions... require agreement among human beings” i.e. funding, research. but none of the dozens of practitioners i have seen or approaches i have tried have included the disclaimer, “my therapy needs broader societal support and a series of double-blind studies to make it work”. homeopathy, biofield tuning, psychedelics, craniosacral therapy, functional medicine, kinesiology, reiki, ayurveda, rife machines, distance healing & body scanning all work. apart from when they don’t. and you don’t get your money back when they don’t.
equally, do we have the slightest clue about how to rid the oceans of microplastics and the soils of forever chemicals? what about getting those out of our own bodies? do ‘we’ in the alternative world have the correct understanding about what ‘covid’ is? (e.g. i happen to be most persuaded by the ‘no virus’ perspective - but most in the ‘health freedom’ movement think this is insane, if they’ve even heard of it at all).
i feel uneasy posting this comment because i don’t want to sound defeatist, and i have a nagging terror that i just haven't properly, properly tried yet. i'm still playing it safe somehow. i haven’t given up, i am persevering, i want to believe. i think i do believe. but i don’t want to be delusional either. i’m open to receiving the answers. if you’re reading my comment and can send me answers in my dreams tonight, please do.
thanks.
Oops, no the text is correct. OK, let me read what you say more carefully. All right, I see. I am sorry you have been unwell. I would say that no healing modality can interfere with the initiatory and evolutionary process of illness. Reading your words, my gut feeling is that the problem isn't that you haven't tried hard enough or done it right. But not knowing you, I dare not guess what the path might be.
As for forever chemicals, they are indeed hard to clean up. But it wouldn't be hard to stop using them, not technically hard anyway.
I pray for your good health, Rupert.
Shhh! Why don't you just lie back and accept that Charles and his ilk could fix everything if only everyone agreed with them? There's so much comfort to be found there...
Seriously, though, while yes I believe that regen agriculture and holistic health have a huge role to play in the healing of our world, but as you point out there is a great deal of complexity and no silver bullet. I find Charles' attitude gallingly simplistic and flippant.
Grappling with the complexity, nuance and messiness of reality isn't defeatist, please don't give it up for simply "believing".
I don't appreciate being referred to as "ilk," Helen. That is dehumanizing and unkind.
Perhaps that paragraph does over-simplify, but the key word is "technically." Perhaps I should have italicized it for clarity, and said "few" instead of "none". The point, however, is valid, that most of the word's problems are the result of human conflict, and not technical challenges. Take for example hunger -- the world wastes enough food to feed all its hungry people many times over.
Sorry, I had no idea "ilk" could be considered dehumanising. As far as I'm aware, it simply means "a type of person similar to the one already referred to". I only meant "Charles and others like him", so I'm sorry for offending you.
And how do you feel about Trump calling in the National Guard and the Marines to violently subdue the citizens who are trying to protect their fellow community members from deportation?
I believe there is a certain amount of truth in both narratives around what is happening around the demonstrations. Trump has repeatedly used dehumanizing rhetoric in discussing immigration, veiling the fact that most immigrants have come from desperate circumstances -- circumstances in large part caused by US policies -- in search of a better life for themselves and their families. They are fleeing poverty and violence that result in large part from US imperialism and neoliberal economic policies. On the other hand, within that context the problems of human trafficking and drug trafficking are quite real, and letting the cartels essentially manage immigration was a disaster. At this point, there is no good solution.
Yes, there are many real problems in immigration. And there are many smart people working on good solutions. Rounding up people in workplaces and schools and sowing fear on the streets of LA is certainly not one of them. Reinforcing the idea that the organized responses to ICE are riots is also not one of them. (Sure, riots will break out when people are pressed, and there have been isolated incidents, but the vast majority of the movement has been peaceful. Calling in the marines and the National Guard was way out of proportion, and escalatory.) I'm all for finding third ways, cutting through polarizations, imagining new possibilities, and creating new narratives, while taking principled stances that do not subtly inflame.
Honestly Charles, I really appreciate you responding to me. I genuinely didn't think that would happen. I first read TMBWOHKIP when it first came out about 12 years ago, and resonated very strongly with it. I have been following you since then, so I'm not just some blow-in trying to cause trouble.
I just find the endless "both sides"ing of everything very troubling. Like, if everything is just "one side's story", then everything we hear is equally valid and equally in-valid. We can simply "rise above it all" and feel superior to those caught up in the struggle. But my fear is that rising above it all leaves one totally ungrounded and untethered from reality.
Please forgive the ham-fisted analogy, but can I ask if you were in Germany in the 1930s/40s and you heard from some people that the Nazi party were murdering hundreds of thousands/ millions of people that they considered inferior or enemies of the state, and you heard from other people that Germany needed strong leadership and that the Nazi party were doing the necessary cleansing of society, would you consider those simply "two stories told by opposing political wings"? Equally valid, equally in-vaild?
Or are things only clear in hindsight, and all we can do in the moment is watch on and shake our heads at the fools who have been sucked into a narrative?
It isn't that both sides are equal. It is that to understand the situation and be effective in addressing it, one must understand the perspective of all parties, and the totality of influences on them. Even the Nazis did not exist in isolation or emerge out of nowhere. Indeed, we tend to ignore the role of US industrialists and eugenics in the rise of National Socialism in Germany.
I'll post an in-depth article on this issue soon. It is more like "neither side-ism" than "both-sides-ism."
Okay, immigration is a complex issue.
And how do you feel about Donald Trump calling in the National Guard and Marines to suppress the protesters?
I'm glad you made some noise here, Helen. I'm working on a comprehensive piece on the demonstrations, immigration, ICE... You are right that it cannot be ignored right now if one is to say anything about the current political environment. I was intending to write about Gaza, which is reaching whole new levels of horror, but I guess I'll put that off a bit.
Thank you Charles, I look forward to reading that. And thank you for your clear eyed stance on Gaza as well 🙏🏼
Wow. That question is a loaded minefield. Pass.
I would just love to see Charles directly address what is actually going on, rather than endlessly dancing around in metaphor and simile.
I have simply named the reality of what is happening and would like to know what Charles actually thinks about it. Or does he not think about it, and only remain in the realm of the abstract?
See above. And I have written extensively about immigration in other articles.
Wow. I can see this now. Thank you for naming it. In my own life, when I graduated highschool I immediately involved myself in drug culture. I was drawn into the most outsider outlets, even living with a heroin addict for a period who was prostitute when she needed money. I remember it feeling more real to me than reality. My parents were an accountant and powerplant worker and had a controlling parental style. I was an only child who was a competitive athlete which means I only trained and went to school. I also exhibited selective mutism so I exploded immediately upon graduation and didn't come back for a decade. In "On the Road", Dean Moriarty described "IT".. and I think that's what Charles
*is referring to. Anyway, looking back I've never been able to quite explain that left turn. I had some societal consequences such as being behind my peers in career and family timelines but it was an important period of time.
The ritual of the scapegoat describes this as well. Cover it with our sins and send it out into the wilderness, and we shall all be free . . .
Thank you, as always. That all makes so much sense! Sending much love and gratitude . . .
Feels like what is unfolding in LA right now is a sacrificial crisis.
This is the most interesting read I’ve come across in a while. Thanks for sharing this information. I can instantly see it in application in even my life, and I don’t attend festivals! (Have never liked them, perhaps for the looseness and lack of feeling safe!?)
As I trimmed my toe nails I mulled over the attempt to civilized a creature that has wild tendencies..no matter what the technique to civilized is. I was gifted, years ago, with a nail file from a wild form, that the native Americans used to file their nails & toenails. They were doing this for centuries. They understood that some physical stuff had to be cut back. What could we become if nails kept growing? Hmmm?
I also recently read about the oldest hotel in the world..started back in the early AD years. Located in Japan and maintained for over 50 centuries by the same family. I looked it up and knew instantly why the oriental tribe in Japan understood the phrase..less is more! I recalled how I wrote a piece in on the ancient festival of Sanheim. All Hallow's Eve is a sad "joke" in these times. I recalled that it does not fall on the 31st of Oct. It falls on the time period where the sun is in Scorpio and the full moon is in Taurus..likewise.Mayday is the opposite in Spring..Sun in Taurus & moon in Scorpio...the kicker is that the astrological Tropical charting is terribly off as it was changed and modified to each sign being 30 degrees, which is corrupted, in ancient Greece. True Sidereal astrology shows what is truly happening yet one needs to have mathematical skills, which many did not have back then yet today via computer systems, we have.
So Charles even if half of us made an attempt to participate in the natural cycles of honoring and appreciating this gift of life in form, could it change the way we relate to one another? I remember seeing in the series, On everything upon A Time, here in the USA, the episode showing where a few were on a ship in the ocean and the waters were very calm. Soon a few on the shop started arguing and brought upon themselves a terrific storm. I was hopeful after seeing that...that some others out there understood how emotions in us humans can create terrific and horrific real-time weather related storms. Emotions definitely need to be released whether through festivals, storms, sports, work, play, etc. How much more we, as an created/evolving form, needs to go through, before a full world wide realization takes place in understanding what a wonderful living, creative, feeling, and highly intelligent form we are, needing just clean water, nutritious food, clear air and loving relationships with many forms is the narrative in question, for me, right now. Will we have to go through a great annihilation of Life to get this or will we somehow see the light at the end of the tunnel through the hundredth monkey consciousness. A tidal wave of a real wak up call??
So I clip my nails and know that somewhere in time, possibly a few thousand years ago someone was using a natural nail file to keep their nails shorter so that they could use their hands and walk with their feet more safely...and so something became cultivated. 🙃
"Will we have to go through a great annihilation of Life to get this or will we somehow see the light at the end of the tunnel through the hundredth monkey consciousness. A tidal wave of a real wake up call?" -- Good question! I like to take such questions not as a request for a prediction, but as a challenge. What shall we choose?
Please excuse my writing skills as I do not use AI...and keep typing as thoughts come through.
Whoops..Once upon A Time
If anybody else is doubting of CE’s claim that the LA riots are staged take a look at this (it really is depressing how many are still stuck in mainstream normie world since the plandemic and are still not peeking behind the curtain to “learn how the world works” as Julian Assange once asked of us): https://open.substack.com/pub/trendcompass/p/is-arab-spring-dawning-in-the-us?r=jx6c3&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
I actually wasn't claiming that. I was simply referencing the two prevailing narratives. I am not the person to be making a case for this one or the other. Other people are much better able to do that than I am. I will say though, that neither of the two narratives can confer a full understanding of what is unfolding. That is a statement that makes me unpopular with both sides! But someone has to say it.
Thank CE, I see your point now. It is my karmic proclivity to take a ‘side’ and discern the ‘truth.’
Take a look at this ‘Stan Iam’ C.E. is right on the money:https://open.substack.com/pub/trendcompass/p/is-arab-spring-dawning-in-the-us?r=jx6c3&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
My thoughts exactly. I'm not even sure what Charles means in this sentence. We had any incident last week in Minneapolis with people interfering with an ICE raid and from what I could see via livestream, it was a genuine protest.
Try this. For more, look up directly at the sources listed.
https://x.com/DataRepublican/status/1931509831254618437
Yes, and what does it mean that this essay offers a perspective that is "complementary to and not exclusive" of either of these? Putting "riot" in the title of the piece belies a stance.
I'm all for subtly, nuance, complexity. and also being as clear as we can with our words, especially about incendiary issues in these times. I am looking for the voices that cut through the confusion and offer clear, consistent, principled ways of understanding complex issues, and as-yet-unimagined possibilities. I KNOW writing is hard and it is virtually impossible to get our words just right, to satisfy all listeners (or even ourselves). That's why I've started a substack column, so I can challenge myself. I certainly don't want to critique for critique's sake - but engage with the ideas so we can contribute with as much clarity as we can to a very polarized world.
Yes...though, I have published books with three different publishers, and none of them offered helpful editorial guidance. None asked for clarity about anything. All they provided was basic copyrighting. I think the kind of editorial guidance you are naming is only available in the top trade presses, if there. It's a lost trade. So it's up to us to be as clear as we can. The nice thing about this format is we can edit our own posts as many times as we like, and we can add clarifying notes. In my experience, when people point out inconsistencies in my writing, it usually points to something I haven't fully worked out in my own thinking. So it pushes me in good ways.
Here's my substack column, which I have already edited multiple times, and caught myself in my own contradictions: https://orellana.substack.com/p/why-i-write?fbclid=IwY2xjawK3sm5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFUQ1ZLbEg4UW9uYVYzdFdKAR5s5n3niSNn8XRghWK2Q2DUrHtcza1AuxHtOlMZzxdOtoelE1w6vW8SZcXqQg_aem_keebLvZvn_WXpHBxEI7law
He's saying that the protests are being CHARACTERIZED in this way, not that they are actually this.