Hi Crowd!

Some of you know that I spent a few elementary school years living in Texas. It's true, 4th through 7th grade my young mind was shaped and molded by the educational department of the Lone Star State. Even more exciting, during those years I attended private religious schools, so you can imagine the curriculum. I sometimes wonder what my life would have looked like if we'd never moved out of the state, if I hadn't been kicked out of those schools, etc.. funny where paths end up leading, but that's a different story. One of the things a lot of people who didn't go to school in Texas don't know is that in addition to American History which is taught in schools across the country, Texas schools also teach a separate Texas History class, with a separate textbook and the whole thing. Even then at that age I found it interesting that events we'd learn about in depth in Texas History would be ignored, glossed over, or described entirely differently in the American History class. I can't recall if this was discussed or if other kids recognized it, but for me at least this was a strong early lesson to consider the source, and who is telling the story is often as important as what they are saying.

One thing that was drilled into us year after year was how many different countries Texas had been a part of (It's six by the way, hence the name of the theme park Six Flags Over Texas). The narrative was that Texans were Texans first, [country nationality] second and that while countries come and go, Texas is strong and there for the long run. Part of this of course got into the various bloody wars and battles and treaties for claim to the land, and the storied heroes like Davy Crockett and James Bowie who fancied themselves freedom fighters though in hindsight and from a different perspective could certainly be described using other words.

Anyway, this is a little piece of history that I sometimes find useful to help with my own thinking and context in other situations. I saw a post this morning where such a thing happened, and asked what I thought was a interesting question.

Yes it's a bit snarky but it's not aggressive, and if you know the history I think it's a kind of absurd/funny proposition. That said, Hezbollah & the GOP both are political parties, both filled with people who think they are God's favorite, both have a lot of guns and both like using their religion as justification to control other people. I can understand where some might object to the comparison but it's not entirely off base either. You can say "but they are terrorists!" and while that could be true, I doubt many Republicans consider themselves terrorists. It's always helpful to remember that such accusations are labels assigned by others not self applied branding. The Proud Boys have certainly been classified as terrorists and see themselves as the personal army for the current Republican presidential candidate, and have engaged in political violence that has unquestionably terrorized people. When you think of Jan 6 it's harder to argue that it's just fringe extremist views. But really with the "terrorist" label being slapped on students at anti-war protests, the word doesn't really hold the visceral weight it used to and has kind of devolved into "everyone I don't like." Don't get me wrong, Hezbollah sucks too.

Anyway, with the added history that Texas has historically been disputed land at one point controlled by Mexico, I thought it was a clever comparison and my comment did what I always set out to do which is first and foremost entertain myself. And yes, it was kind of bait, but I caught something I wasn't expecting. Take a look:

So first of all, turns out a lot of people didn't know Texas used to be part of Mexico, and also a lot of people seem to think the border between the two is perfectly peaceful. I didn't do a ton of analysis or tracking here, but judging by the fact that both these accounts have their location set to Israel and both have a lot of main feed posts in Hebrew, I'm going to assume they are Israeli. I'm not committed to that and it's entirely possible they are fake accounts set up by some other country to make Israelis look bad, but at least one of them seems to run an investment fund in Israel and they both pass bot tests. I'm not going to fault Israelis for not knowing the nuance of Texas history, but there is something to be said for not talking about things you haven't done any research on, but both of these accounts seem like they spend a lot of time arguing with and harassing people who weren't talking to them.

Honestly I sort of expected that, but did you see what just happened in these two examples? They flipped the analogy. I'm obviously equating Israel and Mexico, which is ridiculous but that's sort of the point. These guys switched it and equated Israel and the US, throwing Mexico into the role of Lebanon. Taken at face value, one might guess they defaulted to the assumption that any comparison which involves the US and Israel is going to paint both with the same brush, if you want to be a little more critical then it's easy to read this as the expectation that brown people must be occupying the same role in the analogy, that brown people must be the bad guys. Of course I'm cherry picking these two comments for the discussion, though these weren't the only examples and others didn't always pass bot or grammar/spelling tests.

Going back to my original story, the Texas History books painted Texans as the heroes, who though one reason or another ended allied with (or forcefully part of) various countries at different times, but nevertheless always with a strong independent Texas spirit and eventually choosing to join the US very much as an equal. The American History books talked about an unpopular annexation of financially troubled slave land that only narrowly passed due to political card stacking. So again who is telling a story, and why, heavily influences which story is being told. Perspective is an interesting thing and stepping out of it is tricky. Speaking of stories changing, the 2020 Democratic platform explicitly said "the Democrats believe the US should not impose regime change on other countries and reject that as US policy towards Iran." That language has been removed and replaced with new text calling for Lebanon to be free from "Iran-backed Hezbolla" and with today's news that US troops are being sent to the Middle East, it sounds like we're back in the war business.

Another fun story, apparently Elon Musk is considering removing the block function from Xwitter. As if the site wasn't enough of an atrocious trash fire, that will really push it over the edge. He's so desperate for traffic and engagement, and probably realizes that the rampant nazis and trolls are providing all of his likes and most of the page views these days and people blocking them slows that down so what better way to kick up those numbers than remove the blocks right?

What a nightmare, and really there's no 1:1 replacement because while the tech is easily replicated it's about the communities and the only reason I'm still on Twitter at this point is for the super insular crypto community which just isn't anywhere else. I'm on the other sites and they all feel like a ghost town, and yes I know there's a chicken/egg thing where if I'm not posting every day then I can't expect interactions every day, but there's a point where I just have zero motivation to try to build up something new somewhere else. I'm almost 50 ffs.

Truthfully, I'm really starting to loath "social media" and much prefer smaller chat groups of friends. I absolutely fantasize about just walking away and never looking back, but also don't know how that would even work in 2024 and since I'm not independently wealthy sitting on a giant pile of cash so much so that I never need to work another day in my life, I'm still here and still cranking. But for warning, the day it becomes realistic that I could just take off and go read books offline for the rest of my life I'm doing it. Wait, I also need my synths. And my guitar. Guitars. And pedals. And this chair. And this thermos.

OK, I'm going to just publish this and go make dinner. Hope you are all well!

-s