Season 9, Episode 9 September 1, 2024

On this episode, we’ll hear about the year over a million people moved to the United States, a chain of events that led to financial instability, and how the big one started. Plus, I’ll speak with a man who’s studied what he calls the 9-11 generation.  Not the Headlines examines memes that don't just divide us, but separate us.

Transcript

Hello!  Thank you for putting your ear to The Listening Tube!  I’m your host, Bob Woodley.  On this episode, we’ll hear about the year over a million people moved to the United States, a chain of events that led to financial instability, and how the big one started.  Plus, I’ll speak with a man who’s studied what he calls the 9-11 generation, but first, (Not the Headlines!)

There are a lot of ways we separate ourselves.  The aforementioned generations, skin color, religion, country of origin, and political party.  We have the have’s and the have-not’s, rich and poor, those who work with their hands and those who work with their minds.  We have heterosexuals and all the other forms of sexuality that make up the LGBTQ2S and anything I may have missed, as well as people who for some reason feel superior to others for no apparent reason.
Despite all the ways we’ve already devised to separate ourselves from other people, we’re still coming up with new ways to increase our isolation.  The Covid-19 pandemic certainly helped put physical space between us, as well as political and social space.
Remember when we used to party together?  Sure, I see casino commercials where groups of people are congregated, and I’m sure that’s starting to resume, but it’s been lonely since covid, and that hasn’t changed for many of us.  We have become more isolated, even if it’s only in the places we go and our radius of creating new friends.  
Has it ever occurred to you that there are people who prefer it that way?  
You may have heard of the old axiom of divide and conquer.  Well, sometimes it’s not as obvious as we might think.  Or hope.
That’s why when I started seeing social media memes encouraging us to distance ourselves from our friends, I couldn’t help but wonder why.  A recent one I saw said, “Sometimes as an adult you have to decide, ‘this is the last time these people are gonna make me feel this way’ and stand on it.  Whether that be family, a relationship or a friendship.” 
To credit the writer of the meme, they do give you the unannotated option of discussing whatever it was that made you feel bad enough to say this is gonna be the last time, or just severing the relationship, but it’s clearly encouraging the reader to reconsider close relationships with friends and family, almost inviting you to find a reason to put distance between you and others.  I find it interesting that the author of the meme singled out adults.  I’m not saying you should subject yourself to physical or mental abuse, but you shouldn’t need a social media meme to tell you what, as an adult, you probably already know.  This meme encourages you to find reasons to isolate yourself from your friends and family and even a person you may love.  Maybe the people close to you want to make you feel that way for the last time in order to save your life.  This meme would rather you abandon your loved ones regardless of the consequences.
A less obvious example is another meme that says, “I saw a post I didn’t agree with.  I didn’t get offended.  I didn’t comment.  I didn’t feel the need to change their mind.  I still like the person.  I just kept scrolling and went on with my day.  More should practice this.”
This meme is literally attempting to take the social out of social media.  There are probably very few things more isolating than encouraging you to not participate in the social part of social media.  But that’s exactly what this meme encourages you to do, unless you agree with whatever it is you’re reading.  But if you disagree, just shut up.  We don’t have room for your argument or dissent.  On the surface, the meme may appear to be trying to keep the peace.  Don’t argue about stuff!  Let people speak their piece.  While I agree to the latter, I don’t agree with the former.  If somebody is saying stupid stuff, and you’re one of their friends, you should tell them!  That’s why it’s called social media.  Otherwise, it would be just media, and we can’t talk back to them in real time.  They’re talking heads on television and video’s pretending to be television that are posted and shared to get you to think in a certain way.  Social media was supposed to be the place where everyone can get on their soapbox and get instant reaction.  Those of us who post our opinions in order to get feedback want the feedback.  Those of us who post only to influence don’t want feedback unless it’s positive.  Or they just say stuff in the hopes people will get pissed off.  Antagonists.  To really understand this meme about keeping your opinion to yourself, you have to take a look at who controls social media.  With the exception of X, it’s all controlled by liberals.  Mark Zuckerburg, head of Meta, just admitted his social media platforms censored Covid-19 information under pressure from the current administration, throttling American’s first amendment rights.  The goal was to silence any descent.  The same thing happened with Hunter Biden’s laptop.  The story was quashed by every social media company, as well as most legacy news outlets.  This meme is just another example of how the left is trying to get you to shut up if you don’t agree, as most of what is on social media is left-leaning because of censorship of right-leaning ideas.  Well, if you still like the person who made a statement you don’t agree with, then don’t ignore them.  Engage with them.  Granted, if they’re a liberal, they’ll accuse you of racism or masochism or maybe even Zionism.  This meme wants you to divorce yourself from your own thoughts by suggesting that you have to accept whatever somebody else says.  Everybody has the right to their own opinion!  And that’s true.  In fact, I saw this meme because a friend of mine shared it.  It wasn’t written by that friend, but by someone I never heard of.  By the way, if you don’t personally know who created a meme, you can bet it was made with an agenda.  And I know this friend to lean conservative, so they were fooled by it, too.  But being entitled to your own opinion doesn’t entitle you to universal agreement.  If your opinion deserves an opposing viewpoint, you should be willing to consider it.  Silencing your detractors is what control freaks and dictators do.  
You don’t have to disagree entirely, you don’t have to be offended, you don’t have to be trying to change their mind, and you can still like them.  That shouldn’t prevent you from sharing your agreement or descent, or sharing another point of view.  That’s what America’s government was founded upon.  If you see a meme that encourages you to keep your opinion to yourself, I encourage you to respond.  Let the person who wrote or shared that meme know that you’re entitled to your opinion, and social media is where everyone should be free to express how they feel about any given subject, and let the public respond either positively or negatively.  That’s how we grow.  That’s how we learn.  Even people who generally have bad ideas might come up with a gem on occasion.  So don’t be too quick to judge.  And don’t be too quick to share a meme without considering what it’s really trying to say.

Let’s Go Back liner

This week in 1905, it was reported that immigration to the United States reached more than one million in 1904.  Yes, it took until late August to count them all.  A story in the Chronicle of the 20th Century says that despite recent efforts to curb immigration, a total of 1,026,499 people legally immigrated into the United States, up by about 200-thousand from the year before.  Even though the year before, 1903, a law was enacted that placed a tax on entry for immigrants, and barring entry to what were called undersireables.  Such undesireables included those who fit into categories such as anarchists, idiots, felons, women of bad repute, epileptics, and insane persons, according to the story.  It goes on to say that for a hundred years, the United States kept the door open to supply American businesses with labor, but now, labor leaders are trying to stem the flow in order to keep wages going up and better working conditions for those already here.  The top regions from where immigrants came in 1904 were Italy, Austria-Hungary, Great Britain, Ireland and Germany.

It was this week in 1929 that the New York stock market value reaches an all-time high of 381.17.  Three weeks later, in a wave of liquidations, the stock market leaders sag.  Less than a month later, a wave of selling engulfs the market as stock prices fall.  A few days later, the National City Bank’s president says, “I know of nothing fundamentally wrong with the stock market or with the underlying credit structure.”   The next day, the New York stock market crashes.  In what is now known as Black Thursday.  Losses were calculated to be in the billions of dollars.  1929 dollars.  One report said that 11 speculators had committed suicide.  The panic was short-lived for those who didn’t lose everything.  Prices stabilized by the afternoon.

And this week in 1939, Germany invaded Poland, beginning what would become World War II.  Britain and France would declare war on Germany in response.  A force of over a million soldiers swept into Poland and were met halfway across the country a little over two weeks later by forces from Russia.  Germany and Russia would agree to split Poland.  Eventually, Hitler’s Nazi forces would invade Russia as well, and Russia would become an ally of the west in the battle against Hitler.  The United States tried to stay out of the war, but the bombing of Pearl Harbor changed all that. 





Phone and email liner

It is now early September, and for more than two decades America pauses to reflect on the terror attacks of September 11th, 2021.  My guest this week is History Professor Doctor Matthew Warshauer.  He’s the author of several books including two about Andrew Jackson, two about the civil war, and one called Creating and Failing the 9/11 Generation.  Professor Warshauer dug deep into the generation born into a world of uncertainty, and what sets them apart.   Matt spoke to me from his home in Connecticut... 

...that book, once again, is called Creating and Failing the 9/11 Generation.  You can learn more at the mindful professor dot org.  Thank you to Matthew Warshauer for spending some time in the Listening Tube.  
 

The Listening Tube is written and produced by yours truly.  Copyright 2024.  Thank you for putting your ear to the Listening Tube.  Subscribe today, or text me from the homepage!  I’m your host, Bob Woodley, for thou ad infinitum.