I used to think people in power fought for the interests of mankind. Boy did that one bite me in the ass.

Julian Assange is dead.

Or did I?

You did. we all did.

NASA. I believed they were credible and good and you were all off your meds until i had an unmistakable sighting of an orb doing loops in the sky over my garden while being brighter than the full moon, silent, changing speeds and direction for a full five minutes before zooming east from above me to past the horizon in a couple of seconds.

Once you actually see one it changes everything!

Man-made climate change. I fully believed human activity was going to cause a new Ice Age.

Skip a decade and a half, and I thought the same thing about Global Warming.

After MANY failed predictions, I gave that line of reasoning up.

Yup. My dad mentioned the 80s had a few fears, an impending ice age being one of them. What a quick turnaround to go from ice age to out of control greenhouse. :)

By the 1970's the majority of science journal reports were predicting warming, but not all of them. MSM focused on the ice age reports--not the warming reports. That's MSM for you. :)

That is probably why you and /u/GlenCompton believed that. Those magazine covers from the 1970's are legendary.

Today, MSM "debates" global warming using the same methods of the smoking industry.

Aren't you the user who just edited their comment, lied about what it had said to make me appear racist? Going to have to take you with a grain of salt.

I admitted the change. You gonna stalk me now rather than replying over there? I have a better idea... Watch the video showing the 40,000 voter registrations not processed. It's here https://www.democracynow.org/2017/6/15/greg_palast_how_racist_voter_suppression

Today, MSM "debates" global warming using the same methods of the smoking industry.

Could you please expand on what you mean by this, out of curiosity?

The propaganda experts who said that smoking has not been shown to cause cancer, and then later said it is not proven -- many of the same disinformation artists -- are sowing confusion today about global warming.

If you start this video 26 minutes in, it covers it with the names and connections.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T4UF_Rmlio

Note that RJR and Exxon have funded both causes.

hmm, that is an odd parallel you are making...

Here is a deal for you, I will start believing in Global Warming again when some of the doomsayer prediction about it start coming true, or advocates start to ratchet back on those types of deceptions.

That video is a gem. She explains it way better than I just did.

Basically, scientists discover a problem with something, then industry hires its own scientists to deny it. After a while, they can't deny it anymore, so they say there's no proof or there's no causal connection or something else is responsible or other things are responsible.

It's a formula. This has happened many times: leaded gasoline, smoking and cancer, global warming.

I generally trust that science is correct, but when it goes wrong -- it goes wrong good!

I just found this paper. It seems right on point. http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf

I know that this will seem ironic in a sub like this, but I think it applies in this case. Hell, I think it applies to a lot of topics here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

That said, I do believe, based on the undeniable science, that the global climate has been steadily getting warmer since the last ice age. I also think the humans HAVE had an undeniable effect on the environment and that would naturally impact climate.

What I don't claim to know is what degree people affect the climate, or to what degree we could actually change the steadily increasing warming effect.

All the same, I walk to and from work everyday. I try to avoid the impact I directly have on the environment in the many small ways an individual is capable.

I have simply lost faith in the man-made climate change advocates and their line of fear mongering. 20 years ago I was led to believe that by now Florida would be gone, California would be an archipelago, the ice caps would no longer exist, the Mississippi river would reverse flow and cut the nation in half, etc, etc... They only damage their own reputations and the credibility of the topics they advocate for by these sorts of predictions, as they were demonstrably false.

So like I said before,

I will start believing in man-made Global Warming again when some of the doomsayer predictions about it start coming true, or advocates start to ratchet back on those types of deceptions.

The first time I recall global warming really taking center stage was in the 2003 defense department report.

Ha! Funny you mention it. He mentioned it was some mini magazine that used to be popular, Readers' Digest.

So MSM then was as MSM today... I'd laugh if I wasn't crying.

Choosing the Purple stuff over Sunny D.

2012, I was and still am so sick of shit I was literally hoping for a cataclysmic event or zombie apocalypse to wipe the slate and start over.

I think a lot of people still feel this way today, and the only real way to reset everything is a crazy event. As much as I enjoy electricity I can't help but think of how different our lives would be without it.

Have you ever heard of the evolutionary biology standpoint that humans are designed to be in groups of interdependent people? They say that's why soldiers miss war and even cancer patients can miss their cancer in a way, due to how much they were reliant on the other members of their microsomal society coming together and helping one another. Katrina survivors said similar things I believe, that the rebuilding process brought people closer than ever.

I haven't, but will certainly look into it more! I was there for Katrina though and I can definitely confirm that it brought many many many people together.

Have you read Dies the Fire? Enjoy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emberverse_series

I will now 😊

Realistic post-apocalyptic fantasy...can't beat it.

Yeah reading the wiki definitely sparked my interest. I'm gonna see if they have it at my local library. Thanks for the heads up on it!

I used to feel the USA was morally superior. Fought to bring good to the world, would never strike first, used reasonable force to subdue enemies.

Then shock and awe happened. Then the big one for me was the release (was it by hero Manning?) of the choppers mowing down civilians in Iraq, talking about it like it was a video game.

I remember holding onto that vid on a USB stick, showing people in private - asking if they lie about this, what else? How is this protecting our freedom? How would we react if another force was on our homeland shooting our families?

I realized these terrorists aren't terrorists because they hate our freedoms. They hate us for butting in, killing them.

I thought Trump himself was under FBI investigation.

Ditto.

I thought we were randomly attacked on 911

Every morning I would wake to a new Wikileaks release. Reading, researching, the Podesta leaks opened the door of truth. I read real government conspiracy and was hooked. I know so much now. In less than a year my perception of everything has changed. 9-11, gun control, MK ultra, Genetically modified seeds, CIA, satanism in the elite.

Wikileaks insurance keys being hidden in the blockchain.

too many to count..theorizing is a faulty process by its nature

After 9/11 I joined the army. Patriotic. Fighting the "terrorists". Serving something bigger than myself. Going to Iraq. All that nonsense. Driving around on patrols and mail runs, and seeing the oppression we were inflicting on the people of Tikrit and Mosul was pretty surreal, but not enough to wake me up. Seeing my commanders call in blanket bombing a neighborhood (artillery) out of "revenge" for a minor skirmish which tore up a humvee. It was a little shocking, but not enough for me. Seeing murdered people flopped over dead in their cars on the side of the road, while we drove by. I still didn't see, completely. I was pretty disillusioned with what we were doing over there, sure, but not enough to really question what was going on.

It wasn't until a year or so after I got out, watched a pbs(?) documentary showing building 7 going down. Sitting there in my apartment, watching that controlled demolition, I finally realized how badly I'd been duped.

I am so sorry man. So many people got swept up in the patriotic machine post 9/11. So many. You weren't alone.

Thanks. Most days I'm alright, but every once in awhile it still hits me pretty hard. What I participated in. What I let myself become. The lies I bought.

Never again.

You were taken advantage of, that should give you comfort but likely doesn't or ever will.

Have you found doing anything that helps you earn karma back? Something that helps those you were made to hurt? If not, seems like that is the way to get past it.

I do some things, but not enough to help Iraqis directly. I don't run across any in my neighborhoods, and traveling isn't really an option for me these days. I speak against propaganda, wherever I can, and point out the psychosis of our war mongering in the middle East and other places. I've also become too much of a softie, not wanting to even hurt a fly if I don't have to. I'm vegetarian now. Doing more harm to humans and creatures around me is something I avoid as much as possible. Not out of pennance or guilt, but being true to myself, and not letting others convince me of what's "ok" or "right".

Maybe I'll find ways to help more, down the road, but my main mission for the foreseeable future is to raise up my kids to not fall into the same trap I did. To be kind to their neighbors, nearby and around the world. To not live in fear of the foreign bogeyman, and to not blindly believe what their tv's tell them to believe.

You are on an amazing path. I am not one to thank soldiers for their service - but I will thank you for enduring the path of self realization you had to endure as a soldier.

Much of your post resonates in me and I imagine will impress many people today. Thank you for posting frankly.

Thanks for this comment man. You're a hero to me, and many others. Stay strong brother

I thought Greece would default and just get outright taken over by the Troika in 2015. I was wrong. But they are still getting siphoned.