Month: February 2019

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Facebook: To stay or not to stay? That is the question

Anyone else out there considering leaving Facebook like me?  I wrestle with it every day, more and more, as I realize the enormous political divide between the views of 98 percent of my Facebook friends and me.  This contrasts to maybe two percent, of my Facebook friends mind you, who share my views and opinions, you know, left of center.  Both sides cling so deeply to opinions as well as political, social and religious beliefs as to have been settled long ago and cemented in concrete.

It’s a tough 21st century decision leaving Facebook over other social media.  A tiny part of me wants to stay in the loop with old school friends, former colleagues and teachers, and of course a great big number of kinfolks.  I really want to hear about and see the latest pictures of everyone living their lives through their ups and downs: traveling adventures, having babies and grand young’uns, living all over the U.S. or just hangin’ in Texas, retiring, new projects, hobbies, announcing loved ones’ eternal departure or their own painful health developments along with prayer requests.  I like original snapshots with a sarcastic or humorous comment, such as misspelled words or miscalculated costs labeled on mega store shelves.  I’ve shared a few myself because I think I have a sense of humor.  There’s a lot to laugh at as we travel together through this time called life.

However, the biggest and growing part of me wants to leave Facebook altogether.  Cher did.  Or be like the cool ones who never joined, such as comedian Bill Maher.  He could foresee a problem with Facebook: allowing millions around the world to know every little move he makes and that despite celebrity, and more so because of it, it’s not a good thing.  Tens of millions checked out of Facebook after the 2016 election and the 17 federal investigations that all concluded Russia intentionally and with malice meddled with our American election and will do it again.  And they mostly and easily interfered through Facebook.

How?  By sowing seeds in thought, sight and emotionalism that were sure to divide us.  Our political enemies know us better than we know ourselves.  Russia in particular not only created fake news that to the untrained eye and mind seemed believable, but they also targeted about 80 million Facebookers to send the posts.  With help from a huge unknown internet information conglomerate, they sought specific like-minded people whose accounts on Facebook were an open page to conservative political, social and religious leanings.

Sometimes alt-right images and slogans landed on my Facebook news feed, sent from beloved family and friends, people I’ve known all my life.  And to this day, this is what takes up most of my viewing on Facebook.  For example, in the eight years leading up to the 2016 election, I scanned over a number of anti-Obama, anti-Michelle Obama and anti-Hillary Clinton bots.  These pieces were either written up like a serious news account of some fantastical feat or were simply disparaging pictures of one of these well known Democrats with a slogan like ‘Obama’s grandparents were CANNIBALS!’  Millions of Facebookers believed anything negative against Democrats in particular and with a click shared them to all their contacts including suspicious little ol’ former government reporter me.

Let your fingers do the walking

Some I’d research online and figure out that Obama’s referenced grandparents were the ones in Kenya and did not eat people.  But the bots came more and more, many coming my way which assured Obama was the devil and Trump the preferred choice of Jesus Christ.  Once Trump won the election, still the bots appeared and were shared in noticeable numbers.  The most ludicrous was a picture of the long-haired, bearded, robed, sandal-footed white Jesus that WASPs hearts aglow would instantly recognize.  ‘Jesus’ was oddly carrying an old-fashioned suitcase in each hand and even more strange running toward the viewer.  The slogan was something like “Obama kicked Jesus out of America.  But Trump welcomed Him back in!”  Holy moly. The old suitcases, and that Jesus would even need to carry them, were obvious signs to me that the image came straight from the former USSR, always decades behind the Western world when it came to new and improved things like washing machines and luggage.

But people I know believed these sentiments to be true, time and again, sharing these things mindlessly, no questions asked.  I think they thought they were sharing their Christian faith, like they wouldn’t be good Christians if they just trashed it, like I always did.  ‘It was an image of Jesus Christ, so the message must be meaningful.’

Along with political slogan images are those computer-created posters, along the lines of a photographed flower or sky or tree or ocean or dog or bird, a bit of nature and slice of life meant to lift the spirit, coupled with a not too profound statement like “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”  These are not original or created by anyone I know on Facebook.  I’d rather see original photos and artistic expressions with and without poetic food for thought.  But it seems most social media users enjoy sending to everyone bland stock photos with positive and of course pro-conservative and Biblical quotes or a one-sentence musing.  Saturday Night Live’s meandering “Deep Thoughts” comes to mind.

For my part, I have shared articles and imagery/quotes on occasion when the moment in history is relevant.  In other words, I think before sharing.  And when I quip, I review and edit my post for brevity and clarity so that I say exactly what I mean.  But recently when I’m not busy and have lots of time to kill, I get into the Facebook feed more than I ought.  If and when I add my two cents to a thread, man the heat turns up … on me.  And I realize my place, alone with few liberals and Democrats.  [Come on, guys, where are all you in the recesses of Facebook and cyberspace?  You make up half the country; you say more than half.]  And another thing, my Facebook account’s got me wondering how come hardly any relatives and friends think like me?    

The thing about Facebook and any written or copy-and-paste commentary is the loss of human interaction.  No vocal inflection or tone.  Readers can’t tell if what is presented in quips and retorts is supposed to be sarcastic, witty, sad or aggravating.  Human emotion and intention are lost through our use and overuse of Facebook and e-mail for that matter.

So, why do I stay on Facebook?  Well, one positive has been participating in a few Facebook groups like for Beatles’ fans, classical music lovers, humane society, family page, travel group, and even worldwide spirituality.  That last one gets a long list of participants from various world religions.  It’s interesting philosophy, so I stick.  Also, I produced my own Facebook pages, at the suggestion of Facebook corporate, for my educational nonprofit and this blog.  So there would be a problem leaving, if either of my business pages is looked at in the future.  Darn.  What to do?

All my troubles seemed so far away

It’s not so much the Russian bot thing or proliferation of real fake news.  But the revelations, the political and social and religious beliefs—and the staunch unwillingness to support another’s right to a different view, as Americans used to and were willing to die for—coupled with the vitriol at President Obama and Hillary Clinton, and now that they are out of the picture, nonstop passed-along and shared internet-created by God-knows-who half-alarming half-sarcastic slogans about any controversial Democrat elected official and any American who remains liberal minded.

It’s like we’re experiencing another McCarthy era. Instead of ganging up on alleged commies, it’s just American Democrats, again half the population if not more I’m told.  I always knew the Right felt the Left were red commies, nowadays collectively referred to as socialists.  But I grew up in and was shaped and educated by the most liberal era in American history, the 1970s.  Today the malapropisms and bigoted rantings of TV’s Archie Bunker are revered and respected.  Millions of Americans believe that guy was right all along.  And equally loud-mouthed liberal Maude must have been dead wrong, especially when the over-40-year-old woman had an abortion.

I suppose when it comes to scrolling Facebook, I can just skip over the mounting derogatory slurs against my political peeps and views.  Someone advised I don’t have to respond to any inflammatory shares.  As for original comments with which I disagree or would like to point out another view, I get in more trouble for sending a quick counter.  There will be hell to pay.  And life is short.

Yet we are drawn to our smart phones and more often than not, we of a certain age I suppose, to the Facebook feed.  Checking its entirety takes up too much of our time and we are learning detrimentally affects our well being.  The latest fad besides closing our account on Facebook is to leave it alone for a week, with most participants maintaining a sudden sense of … happiness.  Yes, I remember being genuinely happy.  It had to do with being oblivious, of spender in the grass.

Remember how happy we were before Facebook?  Even way back before the internet and social media?  Before we knew every little thing about each other: our beliefs on the two no-no’s of conversation when trying to get along: politics and religion?  What a bunch of dopes we’ve become!  I get it now: None of us is ever gonna persuade another to see an issue like we do.  I’ve seen the threads of arguments go both ways on Facebook until finally one person decides no more—not in defeat, just out of emotional and intellectual exhaustion.  It is only then, when we close Facebook and put away the smart phone, that our brain returns to reality: still capable of seeing, smelling, hearing and feeling the beautiful world around us with all God’s creatures living together in harmony naturally.

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Abortion: No reason, no discussion. No reasonable discussion?

First, let’s agree: nobody believes in abortion.  There are no greeting cards to sympathize or celebrate it.  For many women it must be the worst decision of their lives, often to erase a previously bad decision; just as surely as for some to erase a horrible criminal act, and more rarely but truly to save their own lives.  The problem is: abortion remains legal as many Americans believe in their heart and soul this procedure for any reason at any time is always wrong, a sin, a crime against humanity, an abomination to God.  The other problem is just the mention of the word—such as New York state legislature’s recent ‘abortion law’ that would allow late term if and when necessary to protect the health and life of the pregnant woman or teen.

Whatever stage of pregnancy, we have an image of a fully formed baby.  He or she is already named and characterized with his or her whole life planned out, if only in the hopes and prayers of others related and unrelated.  That a late-term abortion inflicts pain and suffering on the unborn is of grave concern to those who oppose the procedure.  New York was chastised as legalized baby killers by those who sincerely mourn the terminated unborn.

But … not one word, not one mention, consideration, concern, sympathy or empathy for the one who carries the unborn, the mother whose life is deemed by her physician to be at risk if she goes through with the pregnancy.  Imagine: her deep sorrow, her family’s heartbreak, the loss of faith at being placed in such an impossible and unforgiving situation.  Most people know no one who’s had to make such a choice.  Such terminated pregnancies are one to two percent, but they happen.

Science v God

The U.S. Supreme Court has heard several cases to reverse Roe v Wade.  Instead they tossed the hot political potato back to the states and let them decide.  The Court wisely perceives the issue of abortion, whether a majority of citizens is pro life or pro choice, is rooted by communities, state and region and is not universally shared throughout the entire nation—because this national issue has been one long screaming match with equal numbers embroiled in political battle.  Through the years a few states banned any and all abortions regardless of rape and incest or life-threatening fetal deformity or maternal illness likely to end in the woman’s or teen’s death.  Texas reduced medical facilities that perform abortions to less than a half dozen.  Along with mandatory waiting periods prior to obtaining an abortion, states require parental notification, mandated reading, and viewing the fetus while listening to scripted dialogue.  

In 1967 California and Colorado were first to legalize abortion in cases of rape, incest, severe handicap or pregnancies that threaten the life of the mother.  In the formation of a new human being, a lot can go wrong with the fetus and the mother.  Though almost unheard of nowadays, healthy young adult pregnant women have been known to suddenly die of natural causes or infections.  Pregnant women have been known to develop diabetes, life-threatening high blood pressure, cancer, stroke or heart attack … the list goes on.  These are not scare tactics to prevent the propagation of the species.  But a third of all pregnancies do end in miscarriage.  [That’s another hot political issue that had been questioned by male lawmakers who assume women are to blame for miscarriage instead of learning the common interruption is of natural design, simply survival of the fittest.]  The Texas Legislature passed a law that requires a death certificate and formal burial of fetal tissue from both abortion and miscarriage.  Good grief!  Have we all gone mad?  Has repulsion over abortion led to all loss of human logic and reasoning?

If college students in a course called The Spiritual and Moral Lives of Children and Adolescents could discuss abortion sans emotion, why can’t everyone?  I thought this that night when the discussion took place, in a class of women, mostly teachers, taught by a revered male theology professor and Christian minister.  “I can’t believe we’re discussing abortion,” I commented during the lesson on considering feminist spirituality.  An older classmate remarked back to me, “This is grad school.  We should be able to talk about anything.”

So we did, calmly and rationally, one voice at a time.  What I heard were women who understood and support another’s right to choose.  I was surprised to hear it … spoken aloud … confidently as if this decision was common sense and everybody knows it.  In my world most people are vehemently against.  Some of my friends made known their decision in childhood, if you can believe kids talked about abortion in those days.  We did.  I’ve made my life’s work to seek the truth, the facts, the reasons why, along with all points of view.  But this lone subject and emphatic opinion has been and remains so loud and earnest, so emotionally and religiously overwhelming that I have had to force myself to think otherwise.  Too, life has taught me to ponder the loudest mouth.

For my class comment, I shared a recollection from the spring of 1989.  Surgeon General C. Everett Koop was making the TV rounds of morning shows to announce a federal report on the mental health of women who had had an abortion.  He was pressed to collect the data by the Reagan administration.  But when Koop’s report found no scientific basis to support the premise or assumption that abortion causes lasting psychological harm to women, the Administration did not want it released.  Dr. Koop, himself pro-life, felt his duty to make the findings public.  He reported the vast majority of women in the study went on to finish high school and/or college—the main reason they opted for abortion—eventually married, gave birth to healthy children and led productive lives.  The majority agreed abortion was the worst decision of their lives but yet at the time was the right thing to do.  About two percent of women in the report experienced lingering emotional distress directly related to their decision to abort a pregnancy, Dr. Koop pointed out.  In the general population, mental illness including depression and anxiety impacts a much larger segment, from ten to twenty percent, I concluded for the class.

When millions of people ban together in a cause they believe immoral and can cry about it, it becomes mass hysteria.  Pro life or pro choice is an individual’s deeply-held feeling, opinion and personal belief.  The U.S. government got involved in the ’70s, and remains involved for now, to protect a female’s right to control her body.  The government cannot yet demand she stay pregnant regardless of developmental or maternal health.  That last part upsets anti-abortion proponents, pro-lifers.  But now we see that even the woman’s or teen’s health is not regarded as worthy of life, not even worth mentioning.  Life begins at conception, they’ve determined.  But what about the pregnant person’s right to life?

No greater love

Perhaps when a female becomes pregnant, she should sign a legal document implicitly stating her wish in the event the pregnancy causes medically documented risk to her life in the first, second or third trimester … No, that would not suffice for the millions who would rather the unborn be born and the mother die than a pregnancy terminated in order for her to live.

Visceral feelings about abortion, in the worst case scenario, and the doctors who perform it along with lawmakers who protect it, overshadow this silent universal truth: An expectant mother would gladly exchange her life for that of her unborn offspring.

And if this life-affirming rationale were not true for every pregnant female, opponents of abortion would want to interfere.

Decisions like this, heart breaking to the core of the human spirit, are intensely private, personal, medical—nobody’s business and not to be judged.     

Now, let’s agree that life is hard, harder for some than others, and sometimes there isn’t an answer regardless of our personal ethics, religious beliefs and spiritual views.  This subject has taken up decades of our time.  Yet it still demands a lot more thought … in quiet contemplation … away from the crowds.