QAnon – Media, Meditations & Musings

Whoo hoo! Now that Tucker Carlson’s MAGA hate machine’s plug has been pulled by Fox with his unceremonious firing yesterday, it’s time to go UP the rabbit hole! UP before Fox replaces Tucker with someone perhaps ever worse for democracy. My money is on Fox’s smarmy bigot sexist Jessie Waters as Tuckem’s replacement.

We’ve all heard of going down the MAGA/ Q cult Russian fostered rabbit hole, but what if we flipped the script and go up the rabbit hole instead? Instead of getting lost in the fog of lies, blatant disinformation and uncertainty, let’s ascend back to the light of truth and unity.

“This is the way”as they say on THE MADALORIAN:

Step 1: Realize at last that the current MAGA belief system has been founded a pile of traitorous lies. Lies clearly shown in the Dominion/Fox lawsuit, settled last week for $787 million. A case where in discovery the world incredibly learned all the Fox evening anchors, including Tucker, were found to be lying about the so-called 2020 stolen election. All anchors. Let that sink in. Lies that killed people on the January 6, 2021 insurrection and over a million people from Covid disinformation. The gem from Dominion lawsuit is that it uncovered that Tucker texted to a co-worker that he hates Trump passionately. It can be scary to let go of Trump’s hateful myth of a stolen election propagated by Fox, but it’s a necessary first step to accept that the truth Trump lost and lost 2020 badly to an old man running his presidential campaign from his home basement during Covid.

Step 2: “Do the research” is how Trump’s and his lying allies took you down the MAGA rabbit hole. Now doing the research is your ticket up the rabbit hole back to the real world. Go beyond MAGA sources and research alternative mainstream viewpoints. Read books and articles by liberal-minded people who challenge MAGA beliefs. Listen to liberal podcasts and watch Netflix documentaries like THE FAMILY and THE GREAT HACK that offer a fresh truth based perspective. Don’t be afraid to learn from those the MAGA cult previously, and self-severingly, asked you dismiss.

Step 3: Connect with others who are also exploring exiting the MAGA rabbit hole. Find an online community of like-minded individuals who are also questioning their false MAGA beliefs. Attend conferences, workshops, and meetups where you can engage in thoughtful discussions and debates. You might even find that your beliefs shift as a result of these conversations.

Step 4: Reawaken your powers of critical thinking. Don’t blindly accept what you were force fed by the likes of Tucker, Fox, Bannon, OAN, NewsmMax QAnnon, but instead, question everything. Dare to open your mind to MSNBC! Ask for evidence and do your own research. Challenge MAGA racism and sexism that seeks to divide us.

Step 5: Embrace uncertainty of today’s politics. It can be uncomfortable to not have all the answers MAGA would give you, but uncertainty is a necessary part of growth. Be open to changing your beliefs as you learn more and experience new things.

Step 6: Take care of yourself. Meditate. Eat healthy foods. Get into sports with people that do not look like yourself. Exploring new beliefs can be emotionally taxing. Make sure you’re taking care of your mental and physical health. Practice self-care and seek out support when you need it. When you watch Fox mix it up with some MSNBC. Free your mind.

Going up the MAGA rabbit hole is not a journey for the faint of heart, but it’s a journey worth taking. Exploring new beliefs and challenging old ones, will at the very least expand your understanding of the world and yourself. Embrace the groovy unknown, question everything, and climb higher than we ever thought possible, beyond the rabbit hole. We have a country and planet to save.

Rise up. It’s time to…

Update 4/26: The UN Russian ambassador mourning Tucker’s firing, coupled with an offer from RT (Russian Television) to host, is confirmation about where Tucker’s roots are deeply woven in his deadly to democracy rabbit hole.

My wife Elizabeth and I had already made reservations at our favorite hotel in Santa Fe for an intimate Thanksgiving, also our 7th anniversary as a couple, when tragic news of the Club Q shooting reached us. It was the second mass shooting that week.

Since we’d be passing Colorado Springs on our way to Santa Fe we decided to make a stop to pay our respects to Club Q’s fallen. As we left the freeway and headed up Colorado Springs’ main drag, Academy Boulevard, experiencing what has to be one of the largest run of fast food joints and strip malls in ‘Merica, I said to Elizabeth we had to be prepared for possibility of a drive-by shooter. Elizabeth agreed we should not be deterred by fear.

Soon we spotted the temporary roadside memorial that has appeared in front of the strip mall that Q is part of on its backside. After circling the block for parking we pulled into the neighboring Walgreen’s lot. Walking the 100 years to the tragic site we joined about 30 people gathered in the little slice of road space delineated by a concrete barricade. On this day before Thanksgiving sadness hung in the air like nothing we’ve ever experienced but it was balanced by a deep feeling of so much love and respect for the five young LGBTQ people whose lives were cut short by hate and gun violence.

As someone who has reached his seventies and loved life, the good with the bad, I wept at the thought of these young people’s lives snuffed out by an angry stranger drunk on MAGA lies of Q of another and far dark sort. All for what? Trump?

Despite an angry white driver revving his grotesquely oversized white Ford pickup truck noisy motor as he waited at the light in protest to the show of love for the Q fallen, I said a meditation that humanity find a way out of all this maze of unbridled hate for anyone not conforming to outmoded religious prejudices that have lost their way in modern times.

I found Elizabeth talking in the crowd to a middle aged man and a woman from the Billy Graham institute. They seemed both out of place in their mission to spread the “good word”. Despite my reservations, I hugged them as a confirmation to my meditation and Elizabeth and I continued onto Santa Fe for our Thanksgiving. A Thanksgiving the fallen in the Club Q mass shooting were tragically deprived of.

All this fresh sorrow over the Club Q mass shooting took place less thanone year after a horrific Denver mass shooting took away a family friend. Alicia was head of Denver group called Sol Tribe. She operated a tatoo parlor just one-small-storefront-away her dear friend and business neighbor of my wife’s niece, Erika Righter. Alicia was one of four people killed by another rabid White Supremacist in a case that also garnered national media attention without a change to gun laws.

Here’s Erika’s recent op-ed in Westword where she discusses why we have to be much more careful to whom we donate money to after mass shootings and other tragedy’s if we want our contributions to reach the victims and the extended circle of traumatized survivors.