Let me qualify this post and question by saying this is something I have wanted to ask and write about for quite a while. I often ask this question to people I meet in general life discussion, and I am very interested to hear every response. Today is a great day to ask this…
Think back… So, you are living your life, doing what you and everyone familiar to you are doing in the ordinary and regular way of living your specific life.
Perhaps you paid some attention to the political comings and goings of things, perhaps not.
Perhaps like most comfortably invisible people you were just putting one foot in front of the other, and generally doing the day-to-day things that most would consider ordinary.
Then one day, for some unknown and likely not that consequential reason, something caught your attention. Something piqued your curiosity; perhaps you noticed something you wouldn’t ordinarily have noticed. Perhaps you heard something, or saw something, or were just in a situational space where something itched your brain as you looked at something, heard something or noticed something that just didn’t quite fit or sit right.
Perhaps that little something, or big something, caused you to look just a little bit closer at the story, event or moment with a little more curiosity than before. Perhaps you dug into that specific moment with a little more than a side-eye glance, and you noticed something. After looking at it a little closer, you realized that construct was not at all what it appeared to be on the surface.
From that moment forward, for the first time, you really started to question the ‘thing’ that was in front of you, and from that moment forward, you woke up to recognize that things around you, things you perhaps didn’t pay attention to before, were not what you thought they were. It was from this moment when you really started to pay attention and your political awakening began.
Question: When was that moment for you?
I am always amazed at the replies I get in real life to this question of when the individual awakening began.
For some it was at an early age, for others much later in life. For some it was recently, and for others it was a long time ago. However, for everyone there was that moment when it started, and it is completely unique to the individual.
So, on this day, Sunday February 19, 2023, a generally innocuous day in the grand scheme of things, I pose this question to everyone.
Yes, even all the CTH lurkers who read here and never join the conversation. The comment section is open for all replies with the general rules of on-line decorum still standing. Us old schoolers still use the early internet standards of on-line discussion, and CTH requests polite and civil conversation that enlightens, expands thinking and uplifts the audience.
I am genuinely curious and will be reading every reply because it’s really cool to see what that “moment” was for each person. I’m pretty sure the entire CTH community will also enjoy reading the unique replies to the question.
We all travel a different path. We all come from different, likely comfortably invisible, life experiences. And we all merge into this big melting pot of curious people who are looking deeply at the issues we face. Regardless of how each of us arrived here, the larger dynamic is that we likely share a common curiosity for the reality of our situation. It’s a safe bet to say that almost everyone reading this is in the top-tier of “high information” consumers.
My question is not what arrived you at The Conservative Treehouse, but rather what the moment was when you began looking around and realizing that things just didn’t seem to add up. That’s the origin of the journey. That’s the moment I am inquiring about.
Perhaps it’s a weird way of looking at CTH, but our fellowship is always what has been the most important aspect to this little corner of the internet. It’s not the content of the Treehouse, but the conversation on the porch that matters. You, the readers, friends, people who assemble here, are the important element. Not me and not the site admins.
That’s genuinely the way I have always looked at our fellowship, and that’s also the reason for every detail I put into keeping this little corner of the internet standing.
So, with that in mind, what was that moment in your life when you realized the social, political and/or media narrative, was not at all what it was presented to be?
Love to all,
~ Sundance
“Read my lips: No new taxes.”
That statement intrigued me. That was a very definite statement of policy, though at 23 I didn’t recognize it as such. It is said, by parsers of words more Clinton than I, that he didn’t actually create a new tax, but my gut tells me he broke that promise.
Now I watch as EVERY RNC favored scoundrel from the Republican party claims fealty to the idea of a closed border only to look the other way when the interests that put him in office demand it.
No more trust. Even President Trump had to earn it. He did.
It started for me when the community organizer said something about transforming our nation.
Why would you transform something you loved?
I think my curiosity has always been on the periphery, in the shadows so to speak. Kinda had a suspicion about Vietnam and how all that played out. Slowly came to the realization that it was a way to line pockets while giving the illusion of “battling communism”. Very sadly, it was also filling graveyards. Then transitory for me except , mostly, local or state events; innocuous to me. But like a lot of commenters, 9/11 was a big eye opener, especially how the facts of the perpetrators histories were quickly swept under the rug or totally ignored. Then the lighting fast Patriot Act-made me realize we are totally being played.
The turning point for me was the presidency of Donald J. Trump. I knew then the wheels had come off the bus known as America. That the Dems were up to go no good did not bother me, that’s what Dems do. But when I saw the the RNC, the Republican Party, our elected Republicans, and the FBI/DoJ/DoD start to interfere, mock, wage lawfare, and legally and illegally impede PDJT at his every step (all condoned and supported by the MSM), I then realized that the country had turned a corner that cannot be undone in my lifetime. I am an old soldier, always part of the team sworn to protect and defend this country, its citizens, and our way of life. I’ve been betrayed, lied to, and taken for granted. I live in a country I no longer recognize, surrounded by people who work diligently to tear apart the nation. I hope I am around to see this all rectified but I fear it will take more years than I have left. God bless this country and President Donald J. Trump, and may he continue to serve.
Same with me except I wasn’t a soldier. My mind now understands the depth of the betrayal. But I still am in emotional shock over what is being destroyed.
Probably since the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal and Hillary Whitewater and FBI files, which started turning my husband and myself away from liberalism and towards conservatism. Then the hubby found Rush. After 9/11 I found Free Republic. Then came Trump and I found The Donald on Reddit. TBH I couldn’t say when I started reading Treehouse, but it has been some years now I think.
Totally forgot about Whitewater and how the Rose law firm billing records (under subpoena if I remember) mysteriously just show up, on a chair, in the White House, two years later.
I’ll say the first time I began to sense not all was as presented was YK2. When that day fizzled, I began to look more carefully at government. Not long after 9/11 (after the emotions of it all) I began to question the narrative. Bush had been my governor and I wanted to believe his innocence, but I could not get out of my head his daddy talking about “the New World Order.” The fiasco of Afghanistan and Iraq cinched it for me. Obama was tolerated. But I became a Trump supported soon after his escalator ride.
1980, after reading Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose book. For me at the age of 20 was my awakening. My parents were delegates to both of Reagan’s nominations.
My second Great Awakening occurred in the 2020 election. 40 plus years of political immersion taught me to watch the political support in what is known the Bell-Weather States and Counties as well as a few other Tea-Leaves that had always predicted the political sentiment of my fellow American voters. The 2020 election stood all of that on its head. If you were a political campaign consultant and could write a perfect script for your opponent to engage in in order for your candidate to win in a landslide the Biden campaign performed that perfectly and yet we are to believe Biden is significantly more popular than Biden.
I now question whether every politician elected today Republican or Democrat was legitimately elected and therefore every law enacted since then is suspect/invalid.
I am presently 74, old, tired, cranky, and disagreeable. My ‘AHA’ moment came fairly early: 6th grade in Madison, Wisconsin.
It was just a cursory news story about an episode of labor union fraud and thuggery I saw in the Milwaukee Journal (back when that was its name). All the typical obfuscation, covering over, and excuse-making for an actual criminal act.
Haven’t trusted News Media since, and my disaffection proceeded from there to where it is today – a nearly total absence of trust in ‘established’ institutions of almost any persuasions.
This is fatal to consensual representative governments and societies at large.
Cheers,
Hammersdad
I had a 6th grade epiphany too, albeit in a different time frame. We were learning how the Russian people were indoctrinated with pure propaganda and had no access to real news.
It then occurred to me that I had NO idea if the people feeding America its “real” news were on the up-and-up either! As the years went by I was proved correct.
Question everything. And I mean everything.
I figured out Washington DC was evil only for the organization’s FBI CIA so on when I was around 25 now closing in in on 62 worked for city goverment over 20 years was on local school board 8 years helped with numerus state and local elections might not be the smartest guy out there but have experience.
The Clinton Impeachment. Hands down.
I was no spring chicken then, but always have wanted to hear both sides of a story before forming an objective opinion.
Clinton was remiss in answering truthfully. To a point that he was no longer even trying to hide his corruption and immoral character. Sound familiar?
It is because, even today, the Democrats show behavior with this very same pattern. And ‘The people” still vote for them. We owe it to ourselves, individually, to decide right from wrong, true from false and most people fall back in their chair and say: “Oh, I don’t care anymore. Do what you want”. We, as a nation, have forgotten what cost our freedom comes with.
We need a refresher course.
I became a skeptic when I was six years old during “Apollo.” I knew enough about physics to know that a radio signal takes about 3 seconds one way. But, as you can hear with “Tranquility Base here,” there was no delay. Apollo would say something and MC would immediately reply in a way that showed they understood. Physically impossible.
I asked an innocent question and was slapped down (figuratively). This was a moment of glory. But later, well out of earshot of my mother, my Dad quietly said to me, “I wondered the same thing myself.”
I remember the exact moment. I was in the hallway of my home when my wife approached me and asked, “Is it possible that this Obama candidate could win the presidential election?” The date was some time just before the Democratic primary in 2008. My uninformed, naive response then was something like, “There is no way the country will elect a community organizer with the name Barack Hussein Obama after only 7 years since 9/11.” I was wrong and seismically so. There were no excuses for my simple mindedness, but after this avatar of evil was elected, I knew that my nation had transformed into something I no longer recognized. Since then, I’ve spent countless hours listening, reading, and studying current events, politics, and history. I won’t be sandbagged by a carpetbagger in an Armani suit again. As the old saying goes, “You might not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you.”
You were not wrong, This country did not elect him.
I said something similar to people when talking about Biden. I told them that there are photos and videos of him molesting girls all while being fully clothed. I said that once Fox News and other stations start posting the evidence of Biden being a pervert child molester (and probably more) then no one will vote for him.
I used to not worry too much about our country, kind of knowing there were more of ‘us’ than there were of ‘them.’ With Obama’s election, I knew that wasn’t true any longer.
It was through Rush for sure, especially about Clinton (AKA: Slick Willie)
When someone I have always respected just made the simple comment–Don’t drink the Kool-aid.
I then asked where do you recommend that I find information or begin my research.
The Treehouse was one of the places he recommended.
My journey started then.
It is just as simple as that.
Shortly after Judge Colliers NSA opinion in April 2016 things started getting weird
Then Drudge turned and I was like wtaf
Solidly Fall (November) 2017 after Contreras … and I found this place and Sundance (came here via Zerohedge which was the only outlet talking about the the 2016 election and podestas emails in any kind of an honest way)
JANUARY 2018 is when I went “nuts” on facebook, fully woke
Hello friends who know me from that
Sundance, this is one of the most interesting topics that you have thrown out to your “Treehouse”. It has made me really think. Grew up in a Democrat and Catholic family and neighborhood. I pretty much believed everything I read and heard.
I remember jumping up and down on the couch because Kennedy was elected. Was in grade school and thought everyone was Catholic.
Fast forward to being an adult- believed the lies about Clarence Thomas , thought Rush was weird, etc. Then as a divorced single parent, I started selling real estate. Drove a lot in my car and listened to talk radio. Decided to listen to that lunatic Rush and found that he started to make sense.
Did not find Conservative Treehouse until before the 2016 election- can’t remember how I found it. Through your writings sir, I have learned more about this country, how our government works ( or doesn’t), how the economy functions, etc. I feel that I finally am using this brain of mine. Out of four remaining siblings, only one is receptive to my new views and appreciates being informed. My only conservative sister passed away before this happened. Would have loved to share all of this with her.
I’m now 70 years and there are times when I wished I didn’t know so much. It gets disheartening to find so many people that don’t want to know what is happening. But my biggest blessing is being married foe 33 years to a conservative husband who allows me to vent. ( Sometimes yell at my IPad).
Trump is another blessing in our life. We both have enjoyed watching every rally- listened to every speech Trump made during his office- was able to enjoy his visits to foreign countries. We even got to attend the NRA rally for Trump in Indianapolis. With my husband walking with a cane after surgery.
I firmly believe that someday people will look back and say, “ You were there when Trump was president? Both times?”
I am living in this crazy, exciting, tragic, scary period of our country’s history. God will win and evil will not.
expecting our first-born, researching options, learning about home birth, discovering its comparative safety and all of the attacks against it from the very system of highly-touted health care that so spectacularly fails mothers and infants every day – things didn’t add up
also a Biblical worldview that all mankind, and the entirety of the world system, is fallen and self-interested apart from God per Romans 3:10-18, Psalm 2, etc.
I grew up in a semi-rural, relatively decent community where local politicians tended to be patriotic and based on principles. Yes, imperfect, but generally decent.
When America. diplomat April Glaspie told Saddam Hussain it would be okay to invade Kuwait?
And then the ordinary Deplorable Iraqis and their infrastructure were blown to smithereens for doing what our government had told them was okay?
That did not add up, unless the perception that our government was dishonest entered the discussion.
I have relatives in Israel who had to shelter from SCUD missiles possibly tipped with poisons. So it wasn’t that I was 100% pro-Saddam. It just wasn’t my perception of how America should negotiate with others
Santa told me the truth about the Tooth Fairy and after that I started asking questions.
I have always considered myself a contrarian. However, it was the Nixon Watergate issue that began my doubts into main stream narratives. This unease was further increased by the narrative put out of the Lindy Chamberlain case. However, I mainly put this down to ignorance rather than political partisanship. Listening to “our” ABC in Australia in the early 1980s, convinced me that bias was rampant, however. I started seeking my information from multiple sources from this point in time.
Just how evil the system is became very obvious during and after the election of DJT. I now consider it almost impossible not to see the strings being pulled, as Sundance so correctly refers to it all.
My skepticism amped up about 20+ years ago when I had a major lawsuit against a prominent lawfirm. Got passed from judge to judge until we ended up with a judge that dismissed the case with precedence. After the dismissal I learned the judge and the judges spouse (also a judge) would receive free trips each year to a junket sponsored by the law firm’s litigation department. When I told my attorneys to appeal the matter based on this conflict of interest I was told they couldn’t as they would never win another case in the county if they exposed the judge. I began to question everything from that time forward. With the 2020 election…I saw the middle of the night vote drops in the swing states…to date, no one has dug into what happened there, yet the line is “there was no evidence of voter fraud”. Yep, sure. With the Covid scam, it was when the PCR tests were rabidly pushed by politicians and then run at 35-45 cycles per CDC recommendation (which created massive false positives to stoke numbers of cases and deaths), and then when the jabs were introduced it went to 25 cycles, and then four months later the CDC published on their website that jabbed people should be tested at 25 cycles and unjabbed at 35-45 cyles…doesn’t take an Ivy league statistician to understand the manipulation. The manipulation is everywhere and unfortunately, not conspiracy theories…..our government, sadly, all branches, is the most corrupt and manipulative in the world.
Let me start by saying that I am 81 years old. Just putting that in print almost makes me gasp as its hard to understand how time has passed so quickly. My journey started when I was in high school in Long Beach California. Someone mentioned a new book that had been written by an author named Ayn Rand. It got my curiosity and I found the book “Atlas Shrugged” and after getting over the enormous length I began reading. Frankly I had not read her earlier book or even heard of her. I was mesmerized by her writing and couldn’t put the book down until I had finished it. I began studying her after that especially her connection to UCLA through one of her then disciples (with whom she had a falling out). I have looked through that prism ever since. Today I perceive that John Galt really exists in the form of some modern day folks that stand up against tremendous odds–especially the COVID mess. Dr Robert Malone MD and the company that surrounds him immediately comes to mind. I try explaining the concept of the 4th pillar of our government and it usually falls on deaf ears as not believable. I feel there will be an awakening down the road and everything Ayn Rand wrote about will come to fruition. Please keep up the good work as I read this website daily and I try to tell all my friends that need to also read the articles.
A guy at the gym mentioned “Atlas Shrugged” during a conversation where we were both mocking Bill Clinton. I asked him to tell me more about the book, and he said, “Just read it.”
I couldn’t put it down. Reading it was a revelation.
I’ve always paid attention. Confession: Beneficiary of the ultimate privilege this world offers. Two parents who stayed married and took us to church every Sunday, loved us and gave us good educations. From there, the world is easy to navigate. The first time I could vote in a presidential election Ronald Reagan won the nomination and after watching Carter all through high school, my mind was firmly made up then as my brother’s and father’s were also. Coming from a republican house, I always had a hard time understanding liberals until I married into them. Of course, every family has some usually, one of my hard-core democrat Aunts converted and red pilled after seeing the effects on the medical system she dearly loved from Obamacare. For most of my life, I didn’t get involved in politics but, usually voted. One time in my life for a democrat. I thought people who thought like me were going extinct until the internet came along. Still, there are not a lot of us. I guess I never really had a political awakening but, I did have a religious one. A red pill experience far greater than stepping outside the communist matrix. Politics are downstream from culture.
OKC. I was a pretty regular NRO reader and Geraghty who was usually a straight shooter basically said I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but this book leaves me with a lot of questions.
Oklahoma City: What the Investigation Missed–and Why It Still Matters
Then I read this one:
Aberration in the Heartland of the Real: The Secret Lives of Timothy McVeigh
Then I talked to Jesse Trentadue.
If this has been going on that long, it’s terrifying what they’re up to now.
The Secret Life of Bill Clinton by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard for bonus points
I get the pleasure of a work trip to OKC next week
Into the federal courthouse itself
I’m slightly nauseous just thinking about it
My epiphany occurred during the Tea Party movement. I had always been focused on governance and continually wrote to my elected officials to voice my opinion but when the Tea Party movement started, I thought that surely the fact that there were then many voices being raised in rejecting the governance they were being subjected to would make a difference. My thoughts were, “politicians can ignore a single voice but they’ll have to listen to millions voicing the same opinions!”
I couldn’t have been more wrong or more disgusted by what happened. The change that I thought would occur and be welcomed by the party I had supported for years, was instead stifled and eventually completely ignored and killed. The realization of the fact that We the People meant nothing to the parties was a hard pill to swallow, particularly given that I had sworn to give my life in defense of this nation…. I nearly did, actually, and knew many who did die serving this nation.
Now, I am ashamed of the nation I once lauded and proudly served. I often connect with old fighter pilot buddies and I have found that my feelings are not unique nor are my grave doubts for the preservation of this country. It is clearly in God’s hands at this point but the question is: Will the nation realize this and pray for God’s grace? I doubt it.
My moment was the Watergate Scandal. I was not very old, yet it intrigued me how the events unfolded. As a young man I was taught the only way to get to the truth was to Ask “Why?” 5 times to reveal what actually caused something to happen. I Have been cautiously optimistic, yet skeptical about anyone in positions of power, especially politicians. I am a quiet Treeper, but recommend CTH to all my close friends who don’t always get when I question the things I do. I appreciate what Sundance does for us exposing the truth – good or bad – it’s the truth and no agenda! I spend hours reading the articles and the comments and have learned so much. However, I wish, at times, I couldn’t see the strings on the Marionettes. I have learned not to stress so much and let God handle the things I cannot change.
I have been politically interested since childhood.
LBJ’s Great Society program deliberately undermining the lower socioeconomic classes and creating racial polarization led me to question everything. Then Nixon, Carter, GHW Bush, Clinton, GW Bush, & Obama ALL continued the deliberate deconstruction of America.
It’s been like watching a slow-motion train wreck! EVERY car explosive hazardous cargo!
Two books helped me.
Ron Paul’s “End the Fed” and Pat Buchanan’s “Where the Right went wrong”
Amen to the Buchanan book
Sundance,
If you are going to say that today is a “generally innocuous day” and later chose to use a photo of internment camps, then you should be more familiar with Executive Order 9066.
It was the JFK assassination and the subsequent fairy tale Warren Commission report
After Trump was elected and Drudge began to turn on him. I couldn’t grasp what Drudge was doing. Something spiked my senses. So I reached out to someone I trust a lot and he turned me on the Tree House as his only home for sanity. That was my Moment that pried me from the establishment for good.
I’ve always known most of these people in power were corrupt pigs, like when I’d see Bush’s at Clinton’s weddings. That stuff always bothered me. But when I really saw things were not as I could even grasp was Drudge falling.
My moment came way back in 2002 after we attacked Iraq.
I was watching Donald Rumsfeld giving his daily war briefing and he announced the award of a government contract for some military supplies. The contract was given to a foreign company. A reporter asked why the contract was not given to the lowest bidder, an American company. Rumsfeld responded that that would be un-American.
I thought I had misheard him so I stayed up that night to watch the re-run of that show. Nope, I didn’t mishear him.
That stunned me to the point I began paying careful attention to what was being done/said. Shortly thereafter I came to the conclusion George Bush was a horrible, anti-American president.
I do not know the exact year, but it was years prior to me moving to Florida in 2002. I remember I already declared myself a republican when Slick Willy was president. I can remember highlights, like when the internet was in it’s infancy, and websites like Yahoo news was a place I went to for information. Then low and behold I started seeing the bias in there reporting, especially as it related to their Antisemitism. After moving to Florida I noticed that the news feeds to the sites I visited seemed to be tailored to my interests. This only increased my suspicions. I went to college after a few years living here and I remember one of the things that the college wanted to do was to teach their students critical thinking skills. Sadly for them they did, at least in my case. Fast forward 16 years and now my eyes are more opened to the truth. I don’t want to speak for everyone but the correction to our vision (becoming aware) really hit high gear after President Trump became Commander in Chief. I am a student of Prophecy as found in God’s word, and His word is the real reason for the understanding, and for the peace that it gives. If we stay tuned more will be revealed. Maranatha.
Two moments that collided together in my mind.
1. USMC, volunteered for Operation Sea Signal 1995, 1996. Went to Gitmo Bay because a bunch of Cuban socialists were trying to get into the country. But learned these people were risking life and limb to provide a better life for their families. Most were educated. Doctors, Lawyers and artists. Both young and old. These people embodied our forefathers. They were fleeing tyranny. It was the news media that projected these people as criminal socialists. That’s when I realized the media lies for the democrat party.
2. USMC, volunteered to look for weed in Monterey County with the Monterey County Sheriff Department. Farmers were growing weed in the National parks because the drug search and seizure laws are so bad in the US that if a farmer grew weed on their own land, they’d lose their house, car, family and everything they own, so they grew their cash crop on federal land. That’s when I realized the gov was expending unlimited resources fighting a plant which grows naturally and the “War” on drug was propaganda. That’s when I realized the Republicans, just like the Dems, would use any resource available to push an agenda.
That’s when I started paying attention and questioning every media story and every gov public ally stated position.
It also made me realize that everyone born in America has a silver spoon in their mouth. Black, brown, white or yellow. If you were born here and you don’t succeed, it is your own fault because just being born in the US, you have it better than 99% of the world. And it’s up to you to make it because all of the resources are available if you want it. If you are willing to work hard. That’s also the moment when I realized The idea of racism is nothing more than political manipulation used to control people.
Elian Gonzalez. That was my awakening.
…when Bush II would talk tough about illegal immigration while simultaneously ordering the Border Patrol to stand down! I knew that it didn’t make sense!
It happened for me the first time I listened to Rush Limbaugh in 1992
Wow, this could be a long list:
Biggest turning point for me was CTH 2012 that allow me to validate my thoughts. The second turning point was in 2015 when I heard on NPR that a independent WSJ reporter talk about a company call GSP Fusion that was trying to cancel him for his reporting on the drug cartel which brought Gary Webb (research on CSPN) then Iran/Contra then Barry Seal, which just tied everything together from sex trafficking, drug trafficking and arm sales.
I became more aware when the hospital I worked at refused to show President Trump’s inaugeration on the cafeteria TV. Obama’s was broadcast proudly. My coworkers screamed at me that President Trump was pro-life and misogynist. Next was forced jabs. I took them and pray God protects me but I am ready for #when.
When the purple tongue devil was foisted upon America!
I did not know the extent of political rot but was aware of the rot of the political parties for many, many years. I was aware of the John Birch Society for many years and Thenewamerican.com website for many years. I was also aware of Alex Jones and thought most of what he investigated was true but he had not been able to get all the evidence to prove it, but I believed he was onto something. So they have tried to shut his free speech down and almost won. I have written in my own candidate for president once, When Romney ran against Obama and did not vote for president once in my life, when McCain and Obama were running. I told my children, one lives AZ, this was a joke from the adversary, write in your own candidate. They all did. So have been aware of the worse for a long time and at his point want to believe we still have a chance for our country to be great again but it will take some serious B**** from the people for that to happen. It is the people who have let this happen. Football, the bachelor on tv and any other distraction they want to throw at you and letting other people handle the hard things and only wanting the free things from government instead of “It is not what my country can do for me, but what can I do for my country.” That attitude and the attention to what is really going on is hard to come by these days. God will continue to bless those who continue putting him first and continue to trust Him no matter happens.
I might start saying I grew up in the late 50’s/early 60’s in a medium size city in the Midwest, attended Catholic school, including all-girl Catholic high school. My father was a newspaper man at the then conservative local newspaper. I had been surrounded and educated by reasonable, moral, and fairly strict adults – and assumed most adults were the same. My first “aha” moment came in a class at a public university when students smoked and ate in class, were disrespectful to their instructors, and I was aghast. I always stood in respect as my teachers entered the classroom and never disrupted the decorum of the class. So very naive!! Next – aha – at a local PTA meeting at my children’s elementary school. The head of the PTA was a very poor communicator, rude, demanding, and actually an ignoramus. Sounds a bit trite, but I realized then – “leaders” and others in positions of authority were often pushy, rude, and power hungry – not smart or wise at all. I was really disillusioned for awhile, and became much more awake and less gullible. The next awakening was as a student nurse caring for a woman who’d undergone a saline instilled abortion the night before. I took the assignment because I am not there to judge my patients but to provide the best care possible. I have always been adamantly pro-life, and for me I wanted to test myself and do my patient right – not judging her. Turns out she’d “delivered” her dead baby in the bed – much to her horror, as she thought it was just a blob. This was her 5th child – four children at home – and she’d been told by Planned Parenthood an abortion was the best option for her. She was a black woman in her 30’s, had diabetes, and was told she would suffer dire consequences should she continue her pregnancy. She asked me to find out the sex of her baby. His little body was just down the hall, in a disposable 24 hr urine collection container, housed with many other dead babies in a refrigerator – awaiting removal to the downstairs lab for disposal. This little baby was probably 7 months, eyelashes, hair, fingernails. This was a stunning aha for me – the mother of 3 young children of my own. I grieved with this poor mother who aborted through ignorance and the malevolence of PP.
My final transition to being awake was working in research at 2 major universities, one public and one private. I worked on clinical drug trials and over time realized grant monies were always awarded to the “trend of the moment” grant proposal, and the universities depend on grant money – especially Federal money – to stay open. Huge grants given to the same groups – over and over – with perhaps a small tweak in the new study parameters. Millions of dollars dished out. When the current president of the public university emailed the entire university – faculty, staff, & students – his dictum slamming the governor of our state, I realized I would have to leave my job.
I now have my eyes wide open – and sometimes wish I was asleep! I – and most of my family – are critical and questioning of everything – speak out and try to awaken others. I realize so much corruption, fraud, graft, blackmail, and on and on – is really nothing new at all. The biggest shock to me at this point is how many people refuse to see what’s happening, accuse us of being conspiracy theorists, traitors, etc. Despite everything, I am grateful for my faith, and for all the brave souls willing to put themselves out there, risking their relationships, jobs, and reputation. Thank you, Sundance, for your wisdom and willingness to share with all of us.
Since Rush Limbaugh told me about Base Line Budgeting.
I think it is profoundly important if your parents and/or grandparents demonstrate critical thinking/common sense – so as you grow, that is your background to test against anything that you see being promoted, especially when there seems tremendous pressure to conform to the latest “thing” – especially good if you are warned about being a lemming, watching your parents demonstrating skepticism – when you hear a line repeated – as they used to say, “the party line” –
or like this one, “Jimmy Carter was one of the worst Presidents but he is a good man”
so we aren’t supposed to criticize him at all for being part of the giving away of the Panama Canal – it seemed to me he was pretty sore about not getting reelected and was forever on a quest to be recognized for his brilliance and goodness – so perhaps if he received a Nobel Prize, that would assuage him –
finally, he did receive a Nobel Prize –
but I just could not ever get past that he gave away a strategic asset but we are supposed to say he is a “good man”.
I would say he was a very brave man as he was one of the nuclear scientists who went down into the core at the Chalk River nuclear facility and that had to be damn scary . . . yet the campaign to depict him as scared by a rabbit seemed to take hold in the public mind.
Not sure what you mean when you say, really paying attention
I really paid attention in the 8th grade when kennedy got shot.
I really paid attention when I was 18 in 1969 to the news wondering if my ping pong ball birthday number of 270 was going to come up that year for the draft.
I really paid attention when the watergate stuff happened and tricky dickly left washington on a helicopter.
I really paid attention, not, and voted for mr peanut.
I actually really paid attention to what Reagan had to say.
I paid even more attention to politics when Rush Limbaugh opened my eyes to the corrupt dc cesspool.
Now I pay attention just to find out what new corrupt thing the biden regime has done or is doing.
Reagan got me started and Rush got my attention.
😉.
Rush was it for me. I found him on the radio in 1988 when I was 25 and stuck with him. One of the countless examples of what I learned from him was to find out what people think about something, not what they feel. Although we all knew it was coming, the day I heard Kathryn start the show and tell us he had passed away was one of the saddest days of my life.
His talent will never be matched.
God Bless Rush Limbaugh
Ditto.
A government that would assassin a president, murder kids at Waco, conspire with terrorist to fly jet planes into skyscrapers and release a deadly virus should never be trusted. The patriots that died for this country died in vain.
And let’s not forget about Kent State and all the people the Clintons have discharged.
Do you think God believes they died in vain?
Excellent point
I grew up in a “love Kennedy/Democrats and Sesame Street, love to hate Richard Nixon” household in 1970s San Jose, Ca, when everyone’s dad up and down the street worked in the defense industry in what would become Silicon Valley. Second generation immigrants on both sides of the family. We subscribed to Newsweek and National Geographic, watched network news and “60 Minutes” and were witnesses to the weirdness of the “Sexual Revolution,” the Patty Hearst kidnapping, the occasional bombing of a power station or capture of a serial-killer. As a kid in the 1970s I instinctively loathed the counter-culture because I thought revolutionaries who “hated the pigs” and aspired to blow things up were idiots. It bored me that every movie of the 1970s had a villain who turned out to be a CIA guy or an evil corporation. And I could see hippies, selling their home-made earrings out of the back of VW vans were dead-beats (my mother thought hippies were refreshing, though not close up). My father, working for the demonised defense industry, urged us always to be sceptical thinkers and not to buy the Jane Fonda-style politics of cheap slogans and cheap cynicism.
When I went off to university (1981), I remember a specific moment: reading an issue of US New & World Report in the library, and when the writer mentioned a Republican politician, I sort of winced in anticipation of the usual implied smear. But it wasn’t there. Then I realised, “Of course: being Republican is just having a different view, it’s not being a Bad Guy.” And I saw at that moment with some irritation how brainwashed I had been by Newsweek and the three networks. This was important.
Then (1985) I spent a semester in the USSR and while I saw the ludicrous Soviet propaganda for what it was, and resisted and mocked it (internally), after five months I telephoned my mom from free Finland. Her first (joking) question to me was: “Have you tried the new Coca-Cola?” and her question’s light-heartedness shocked me because I thought the US and USSR were on the brink of war. All my scepticism (not to mention my weak language skills) had not actually shielded me from the effect of ubiquitous bellicose Soviet messaging. The brainwash had penetrated, and amazingly so after only five months.
More key “a-ha” moments piled up over decades (about the mediocrity and ass-covering of government people, and the herd-instincts of journalists, about how telling the truth is not as high a priority for diplomats, journalists, & academics as getting along with their peers and retailing conventional wisdom is).
Finally in 2016, I lived overseas was raising a family and not paying much attention to US politics; I assumed the newly-beatified Hillary would win, and the Manhattan blowhard who had been so abused by a smug press corps would lose. A key moment came with a WSJ article by Kimberly Strassel suggesting Hillary was not so holy as the press made out — what a break with the herd! — but the most interesting thing was a reader comment to Strassel’s story. A man wrote that The Guardian had a piece on Trump’s address to a Jewish group, saying he’d pelted them with anti-Semitic slurs; the commenter continued: “I had no love for Trump, but I thought you don’t become a billionaire in NYC real estate by insulting Jewish people. So I went on-line and found the video of the speech. Trump said things like ‘Here I am talking about making deals to a whole roomful of people who know how to make deals!’ And the whole audience burst out in laughter. Every single joke met with that response. I realised The Guardian had lied to me. And I wondered what else they lied about.”
Just after that shocking 2016 election, the RussiaHoax stuff started. To someone who had lived on and off over a decade in post-Soviet Russia, the proposition that Russia would have the ambition, or the skills, or want to squander its reputation, or feared Hillary enough to try to rig the election outcome seemed ludicrous on its face. I waited for the experts to weigh in and challenge the Narrative, repeated with screaming headlines or lip-curled innuendo, every day, 24/7, by every major news outlet for weeks and weeks. None did. I eagerly read through the January 2017 “National Security Assessment” which supposedly contained the proof of collusion (perhaps my instincts were wrong?) and saw that the document had literally zero evidence of anything remotely related to what was charged. The “evidence” that the media implied made its case never materialised, and instead all we got was a pile of hooey created merely by “reporters” amplifying and repeating each other’s innuendo.
The ensuing years of grotesque, compounding dishonesty have made me (like many others) not merely a doubter of the news media’s ability to get facts straight. It is clear that the media is a hand-in-glove operation to serve power that is untouched by elections, propelled by the DeepState/permanent state, and used to getting its way.
The
-hijacking of the US justice system and the psy-op-pushing press who now serve some unspoken junta of globalist “Overlords”,
-the de facto abolition of constitutional rights and protections (see Flynn, Stone, Cohen, Bannon, Trump, J6 martyrs),
-the serially stolen elections and criminalisation of anyone who notices,
-and the great human sacrifice to the gain-of-functioned Frankenflu named “covid” and related mandatory “vaccines”
have all made it clear that we now live in a genocidal dystopian tyranny which spans the 5-Eyes countries operationally and most of the globe ultimately (Russia, for instance, is all on board for QR-codes after killing many with its home-brew vaxx) . The UK, Canada, EU and DC war-machines are currently playing a nuclear game of chicken with Russia over Ukraine, the “most corrupt country in Europe”.
The future promises to be grim indeed. I’m guessing revolutionary.
Russia and china are our enemies on the grand stage, but I’m convinced they’re in bed with the rest of the west. The masses are just sheep to be herded, they work together to keep us subdued, entertained, dumb.
Population reduction – if you think about it – is the only winning strategy. Covid was a nice test run to see how accurately they could kill off certain demographics, while simultaneously setting precedent for global lockdown.
Nuclear war is def on the table, but there’s probably less messy ways to cull the herd that they’ve got in store. It’s every 20 years these days. Every generation gets a Kennedy.
It felt great to hear about your sniffing-out that Trump, regardless of anything else he might be like, would obviously be too smart to be anti-semitic in a speech to Jewish people – and then you went to the source. BOOYAH! Would that everyone were so keenly observant!
It seems there are necessarily levels, even of ‘really paying attention’…
Having been assiduously apolitical for many years, in retrospect it seems both 9/11/2001, and all the circuitous BS that followed, spontaneously caused me to begin paying attention in new and enhanced ways that I didn’t really even register at the time…
Then, suddenly, in July 2008, after that highly improbable freak and twit Barry Obama gained some traction toward becoming President of the United States of America, a kind of inexplicable characteristic of a tendency toward focus and alarmedness intensified–the full, conscious turning point came when I (even apolitical I) watched one of Barry’s speeches in which he said he wanted a domestic force as strong and well-funded as the US military… At the specific moment in time when I witnessed that, I was furious and in a powerful kind of shock… I couldn’t believe that he wasn’t grabbed immediately and forced off the stage… At that time I just could not understand how he could say such a thing and not evoke an immediate, overwhelming reaction…
Almost as if by force, from that moment I began to really pay attention…
LOL, “that highly improbable freak and twit Barry Obama.”
I was born & raised liberal, & thus ignorantly voted for him. I’m also amazed I fell for his speeches, which someone later said were “completely NLP”…
I think I’m just saying this because it’s SO hard for most of us to admit we got suckered, were lied to ridiculously, and believed the BS.
At first, one wants to sink down into a hole, in shame; it turns out it’s so healing to just come out and state: “damn… I fell for the LIES.”
My first awakening was in the early 70’s, living in a highly unionized Democrat-led town. Something wasn’t quite right. The newspapers and TV stations didn’t seem to be telling the entire story. I sought out alternate sources of information, giving me a comparison and a broader view of the news. From that, I began to recognize the bias, and the words that were purposely used to deceive the masses into believing a particular point of view. Once you see the propaganda, like the man behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz, you can’t unsee it. Long ago, the WSJ used to be a reliable business focused publication, now it reeks of subtle progressive and Marxist propaganda. None of my siblings can spot the bias, because they don’t know where to look/haven’t trained themselves to see beyond the words to the agenda behind them. Still, over the years in full swing of a very busy executive career, I didn’t have time to pay attention to the corruption. At some point, I still thought Republicans were the good guys. Reagan was an absolute blessing and breath of fresh air in a smoke filled room, and Donald Trump, along with you Sundance, fully opened my eyes to the depth of corruption and the lies Americans have been told for years by our government . In the Biblical sense, we all have a duty to warn others, and I’ve tried that with family and liberal friends, to no avail. Even my older sister told me about the vaccine mandates, “I trust my government.” So for those of us fully awake, our job is to first get right with God, prepare for what is to come, and do our best to witness to the truth to whoever will listen. Thank you Sundance, and others who enlightened all of us and lifted us up together in friendship, fellowship and gave us a place to call home.