This comment is from Bob Stannard of Manchester, a writer, musician, and former lawmaker and lobbyist.
If you’re like me, you can’t wait to wake up in the morning to see if the world has tilted a little more off its axis than it should.
For the most part, the world can be a pretty scary place. Those of us lucky enough to be born and raised in Vermont have a very different paradigm than people who live in other states. Many people consider Vermont to be a very special, if not mysterious, place, and they’re right – just maybe not for the same reasons.
Overall, and yes there are a lot of exceptions, Vermonters are pretty well educated and see what is going on in the world around them. However, you may be too busy simply surviving to find solutions to the world’s problems.
As a very young person, I remember the British invasion. Music wafted from a land that was once our adversary. The Beatles arrived in America in 1964 and the kids immediately started growing their hair. It took about 18 months to two years for this fad to hit Vermont. We tend to be a little more cautious and less gullible. It could be that our DNA is wired differently.
People who came to Vermont 200 years ago did so because they had had enough of “the regulated ways of old New England,” says Scott Bartley, and wanted a different and presumably more independent life. They worked very hard, learned to mind their own business, and respected others who worked as hard as they did.
Vermonters give you the shirt off their back – but they want to know which size you wear first. It is not easy to pinpoint Vermonters because we were raised to be suspicious of new fashions and crazy ideas.
Another strange act occurred in Texas on November 2, 2021. With Texas appearing to have gone mad lately, the most recent event has hardly caused a stir. To be fair, the news has been dominated by the Democrats who finally passed the Infrastructure Bill, and they are on the verge of pushing ahead with the President’s “Build Back Better” plan. Those two things took up a lot of bandwidth. The rest was reserved for another grand ury who was called in to further investigate the former disgraced president.
It should therefore come as no surprise that many of us missed what was happening in Texas. A few hundred people actually came to Dallas, Texas from all over the country to see, and hopefully meet, John F. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy Jr.
Well, if you scratch your head about it, you don’t feel bad. Both JFK and his son are dead. However, QAnon convinced hundreds of Americans that JFK Jr. would return from the dead to run for vice president with the former, disgraced president.
I am not making this up. There are really people in the country and around the world who believe in QAnon and the nonsense they spit out. While the rest of us laughed at her, hundreds of people started chanting “God bless America” and “JFK” at 12:30 pm on November 2nd. That is, until none of Kennedy showed up.
The audience was disappointed. They had hoped and expected that others would join the Kennedys, such as the late Robin Williams and Richard Pryor. One woman said, “I can’t wait to meet Kobe Bryant.” Seriously, folks, this really happened.
I think it’s amusing at some level, but it really isn’t. What it is is scary. Sure, we’ve always had more than our share of marginal characters and some who really did harm. Jim Jones and the former disgraced president come to mind.
This is from the New York Times: “QAnon, a quirky and ever-evolving conspiracy theory put forward by some of Mr. Trump’s most ardent supporters, has had significant appeal with a segment of the public – especially Republicans and Americans who receive news from the Consume remotely. right sources. Those are the findings of a poll published today by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Interfaith Youth Core that found that 15 percent of Americans say they believe the levers of power are controlled by a cabal of Satan’s worshiping pedophiles, a core belief QAnon supporters. The same proportion said it was true that ‘American patriots may have to resort to violence’ to depose the pedophiles and restore lawful order to the country. “
For your information: 15% corresponds to around 50 million people. You understood me. Not 500 people. Not 5,000 or 500,000 people. 50 million people.
It is time for those of us who don’t believe in crazy conspiracy theories to stand up and shout down those who do. QAnon is like an invasive species that grows in your garden. They tear it out as soon as you see it or face the consequences. We are surrounded by people who believe in conspiracy theories of fact and truth and that is no laughing matter.
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