Look...

Yesterday Brent sent me a text to beware of the latest Radio Lab. It's a podcast we both listen to and he had started it during his workout and had to turn it off. He said it was brutal. 

I listened to it today and I am super grateful for the warning. I was able to listen during a light walk cooldown instead of while doing something that needed a lot more concentration and breath work. Because he was right, it was brutal. It was about a series of photographs taken during the Afghanistan war. Really good podcast, and I highly recommend you searching it out and listening to it. 

One of the things that really struck me was the photographer talking about the limits of what is shown and what even could be shown. During Vietnam those restrictions weren't in place and she really believes (and I agree) that the pictures and the video is a large part of what turned the tide in American feelings about the war. 

Seeing the coffins, seeing the bodies, understanding the cost of war makes sending our children to fight a lot harder. 

We are visual. Pics or it didn't happen right?  How much longer has our time in Afghanistan and Iraq lasted because we didn't have those pictures?

I've talked about this before in reference to things that seemed obvious to me but didn't get traction until the video was released or the photos. You can tell people the number of troops that are dying, the number of people who were coming back missing limbs or with traumatic brain injuries, but if you don't see the carnage yourself it's easy to dismiss. 

We need to see it to believe it. 

We are starting to see that with the Capitol Insurrectionist right now. For four years people (not just me) have said that a large part of Trumpists were white supremacists, were ready for a civil war, ready for violence. But until the pictures came out it was easy for some to dismiss it. "I voted for Trump and I am not those things." Right now the images make it hard to deny that you might not feel like that's who you are but a large group of people who support the same person you do are. And don't you think that's a thing you should wonder about?

If I voted for the guy that a large group of "crazy" people voted for what does that say about that guy? What does that say about me?

I can tell you that a lot of the people on the far left don't really represent me. But what I generally have to clarify is that I don't think their methods are effective. Or that I think they are farther left than I am comfortable with. But what I cannot do is deny that the majority of the people on the left hold ideas that I also hold. Maybe varying places on a spectrum, but I believe that there should be a base health care coverage for every American. I believe that our college costs are out of hand and if 1-12 is free, why not 1-16?  I believe in the social safety net. And I'm willing to have a discussion with anyone on the left as to why they believe in further left ideologies than I do, or in lesser. But I know that most all of us have a baseline that is the same belief. 

There are always some on the way outer fringe that you have a hard time identifying with. But usually that's a small handful. 

So when you see a large percentage of "your group" that believes things that you claim not to, then you have to ask why you are in that group?

And did it take seeing a guy with a Confederate Battle flag roaming the halls of the Capitol to question that? Why didn't seeing a large group of people complaining about taking down Confederate statues do it? If you couldn't believe it when they tore down the American flag to put up a Trump flag why didn't you notice when they manipulated the flag for Blue Lives Matter or for those Trump with an Eagle superimposed over the US Flag abominations?  All of that falls under desecration of the flag. You hated it when Kaepernick kneeled but those things were okay?

Right now there are people grappling with not recognizing themselves in those images but still those images represent something they believe in. So what else do you need to see? 

And understand that a lot of people who do look just like you, and like me, were in that crowd. They just don't make as good of a photo as a guy in fur cape. 

The very respectable looking politicians who supported the false claims of a stolen election. The ones who have fomented this insurrection, they all look just like all of us. You've been looking at those images for years. 

The question you have to ask is what are you seeing? 

You need to look at the photos. You need to see the outward crazy looking folks that were there. You need to ask yourself if you really are aligned with people who brought zip ties into the building to handcuff members of Congress who were ready to do their jobs. And what were they going to do with those that they handcuffed? Well...they were chanting "hang Mike Pence." They also shit on the floors and spread it on the walls.  Are these the people you identify with? 

Because they aren't done yet. 

They still are ready for their war. 

They need the respectable looking folks for cover. 

So who are you? Will you be in the next picture? 

We need to see the images of war to understand the costs.
We need to look at the images of terrorists to understand who they are. 

We need to look at the mirror and ask who we are.

I told you yesterday I know who I would have been. I know who I am. 

Do you?