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Words Matter

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I. Out of Context

Cheats cherry-pick the words that suit their ploy
To shame the names of those who disagree
With all they say. If counter claims destroy
Their idiotic ideology
They’ll tangle terms. They’ll mangle mood and meaning.
They’ll lift a line from here, a phrase from there—
Spleenful schemers snaking in and gleaning
This and that. The spoils they’re keen to share,
They paste on patchwork pages slick with bile.
Their cobbled twaddle drips with bitter spite
In out of context claptrap spat with vile
Intent. These serpents swear that black is white,
That wrong is right… and if opinions clash,
Cheats cherry-pick and cobble in a flash.

.

II. Inner Sanctum

You walk with me across uncharted land.
You guide me through earth’s labyrinth of lies.
I trust in all you are and all you’ve planned.
You draw my eyes to mesmerizing skies
Above the steeple reaching for the stars,
Beyond the knelling bell and churchyard tree,
Far from the pulpit where the preaching jars—
The words don’t match the wonders you teach me.
I hear your chorus rising with the sun.
I see your shimmer in the gibbous moon.
I watch this crooked planet come undone
As prophets pirouette to Satan’s tune.
You knitted me together—made me whole.
Your grace and glory sing within my soul.

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III. The Word

Zipped lips are golden gifts for those who hate
The word that shines its coruscating rays
On oubliettes where knaves annihilate
The truth. If only frozen tongues would blaze
With roaring fury sent from realms beyond
The horrors and the hubris of this hell.
Will spineless silence ever break its bond
With shills who witness ills yet never tell?
The hush that hovers over heinous deed
Abets the beast that bristles neath the bed
Of innocents. It lets the monsters feed
On sweetest dreams till wee heads drown in dread.
The stifled screams of angels would be heard
If lips unzipped and spread the mighty word.

.

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Susan Jarvis Bryant has poetry published on Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, Light, Sparks of Calliope, and Expansive Poetry Online. She also has poetry published in TRINACRIA, Beth Houston’s Extreme Formal Poems anthology, and in Openings (anthologies of poems by Open University Poets in the UK). Susan is the winner of the 2020 International SCP Poetry Competition, and has been nominated for the 2022 Pushcart Prize.

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65 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    These are three powerful poetic pronouncements. The first and third reverberate with truth and condemnation of the “cheats” who “cherry-pick” and those who believe silence is somehow golden, when it actually is fool’s gold! “Inner Sanctum” is such a beautiful depiction that can be taken both as a reference to God and as a sincere devotion to a loved one. You already know how much I admire your works. These three are inspirations sent to us from your heart and I love them. Your poems are for the ages!

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Roy, thank you so very much for your beautiful comment. You’re right, my heart played a huge role in the composition, and I’m thrilled you enjoyed the result. I must say, I love your alliterative opening… you’re speaking my language. 😉

      Reply
  2. Russel Winick

    I agree with Roy, and will be studiously scrutinizing these soulful Susanisms several times today.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Russel, swept away by the sibilant sensation of your superlative comment… I am speechless… but smiling. Thank you!

      Reply
  3. Jeffrey Essmann

    Thanks so much for these, Susan. They artfully (and beautifully) articulate my own dismay/horror at the gutting of language we’ve been witnessing these past few years (longer, actually). Do you know Josef Pieper’s essay, “Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power”? You’ve turned much of his philosophical prose into some gorgeous poetry. I especially love the left-handed hope in the final couplet of “The Word”: “The stifled screams of angels would be heard / If lips unzipped and spread the mighty word.” Again, many thanks–and a blessed Easter to you.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Jeffrey, thank you very much indeed for your appreciative and encouraging comment. I haven’t read Josef Pieper’s essay and I’m most intrigued. I’m always glad to hear I’m not alone in my thoughts in a topsy-turvy world that claims the sane are insane and the bad are good. The closing line of my third sonnet is a definite stretch… but, ever the optimist, I live in hope. A blessed Easter to you too!

      Reply
  4. Phil S. Rogers

    May the reader consider, Out of Context, a major slam on the main stream media? It certainly fits. Zipped lips are most certainly the golden gift for the left as so many people seem afraid to say what they really think for fear of being criticized. Thank you for three excellent poems this morning.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Phil, I’m thrilled you enjoyed these, and that my message spoke loudly and clearly in a woke world that wants me to shut up. Thank you!

      Reply
  5. C.B. Anderson

    Well yes, Susan. Free speech is less a “thing” than it is an admonition: Free speech! Clearly, Texans do not cotton to forked tongues.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      C.B., I love your comment! FREE SPEECH NOW! It’s been held hostage for far too long!

      Reply
    • Cynthia Erlandson

      Yael, thank you for posting this link. The Babylon Bee comedians are geniuses!

      Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Yael, it’s always great to hear from you, and I’m over the moon you enjoyed my poetic offerings. Thanks for the link. The Babylon Bee highlights the insanity of our society perfectly, although (sadly) many of their satirical sensations are saner than the actual news headlines! I intend to speak up and spread the love for as long as I have ink in my well. Yael, thank you!

      Reply
  7. Paul A. Freeman

    News outlets, mainstream and alternative, do cherry-pick. It suits their audiences and often the audiences are quite happy to believe what they hear. In my experience whatever passes for the truth these days, lies somewhere in between.

    As a great lover of the natural world I appreciate Inner Sanctum, even if I’m not the most religious guy in town.

    Those zippered lips can be zipped for many reasons. If unzipping means loss of livelihood, imprisonment or even death, maybe the person should get a pass. When they’re zippered through malice, well that’s a different matter.

    Thanks for the thoughtful reads, Susan.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Thank you, Paul. It’s those zippered lips that are responsible for genocides that have nothing to do with the passenger pigeons. Livelihoods, imprisonment or even death should be the least of one’s worries when saving children from being sex trafficked, genitally mutilated, and overdosed on poison. I know the side I’m on and I know the side you’re on… that’s why we’ll never see eye to eye.

      Reply
      • Mike Bryant

        Susan, give Paul a break… after all, it’s not HIS kids.

      • Paul A. Freeman

        How do thousands of maimed and killed children in the Gaza Strip fit into your equation? After all, they’re not your children.

      • Mike Bryant

        Or Paul, maybe you could get your feet wet by speaking up for the North African Ostrich… the potential dodo where you live.

      • Brian A. Yapko

        For Paul Freeman.

        What a deep and perceptive comment, Paul, to launch a little hand grenade into Susan’s excellent poems about not cherry-picking facts and then manipulating them to fit an agenda. There’s no leftist irony here at all. In fact, I’m deeply impressed by your clearly sincere caring for the children of Gaza. I’m even more impressed by how much caring you have demonstrated for the Jewish children in Israel who were not killed by warned-of artillery fire in war but were attacked by Arab terrorists who tore unborn babies out of their mothers’ wombs and crushed them to death, who beheaded babies in front of their parents before raping the mother and shooting the father, who took Jewish babies and, while alive, baked them in ovens to death in front of their doomed parents. I’m so impressed by your level of caring for Jewish children and your condemnation of the actions that started this awful war and self-created Gaza’s tragedy in the first place. I’m also deeply impressed by your call to the terrorist organization Hamas, to stop putting Arab children and other innocents in harm’s way by launching rockets from hospitals and turning schools into munitions depots. I’m moved by your bravery in calling for Hamas to surrender because of its horrifying manifesto and actions which prove its murderous intent even to using its own children and women as human shields if it can mean erasing Israel. Especially since we all know that if Hamas were to surrender today the killing would stop. I’m deeply impressed by your caring for the murdered people of Syria (300,000 and counting) and Yemen (150,000 and counting) whose numbers dramatically exceed the children of Gaza in terms of death and mutilation – the difference being that those far worse casualties were caused by Muslims rather than Jews (so perhaps woke Muslim genociders get a pass.) I’m deeply impressed by your caring for the children of Uyghur Muslims in China who are truly the subject of a genocide by the Communist Government of China. In fact, your compassion for every one of these suffering children is just overwhelming.

        And while we’re on the subject of genocide, it was deeply compassionate of you to consider the genocide of birds which doesn’t in the least bit trivialize the genocide of people. Admirable restraint in not using the term “holocaust.” Bravo, fellow poet, bravo.

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Hamas uses civilian men, noncombatant women, and children as shields because Hamas knows that there are millions of oversentimentalizing liberals in Western nations who have overactive tear ducts, and who think with their glands rather than with their brains. These are the ones whom Lenin called “useful idiots.”

        But worse than such stupid, feeling-driven types are those ideological fanatics who are completely on the side of Hamas, and can’t bear the thought of their brave little army of anticolonialist Third-World heroes being wiped out.

    • Paul Freeman

      Maybe you missed Mike’s snarky snipe about my kids after Susan implied I was an uncaring bastard. The reality is that it appears some children are more equal than others. I come into contact daily with children begging on the streets and there’s only so much you can do. Then there’s the neighbouring Gambia where the FGM ban is about to be repealed on ‘cultural’ grounds – led by a male legislator! You think this doesn’t infuriate me. Think about these things before glibly replying.

      Reply
      • Mike Bryant

        Paul, when you accuse American “invaders” and their guns and axes for the “genocide” of passenger pigeons that became extinct way before we were born, you have already told us who comes first in your hierarchy of bird and man… and it’s not the latter. Susan didn’t imply you were an “uncaring bastard.” Words matter and yours say it all.

      • Brian A. Yapko

        Paul, I didn’t see any digs at your children. I did see Mike call you out on not caring about kids being misdiagnosed as transgender and having their genitals mutilated. I perceive a pattern here of caring more for long dead injustices than for those happening at present. But rather than stay on topic you then toss in the highly charged and irrelevant subject of Israel and Gaza, directly on the heels of your discussion of genocide. It doesn’t take a house to fall on me to get where you’re coming from. You surely knew what kerosene you were pouring over the discussion and then igniting it. It is your blithe willingness to “go there” that really bothers me. You then talk about some children mattering more than others. Well, those are your untrue words not mine. But I at least know the difference between tragic casualties of war versus the sadistically tortured and ghoulishly dismembered victims of murder.

      • Joshua C. Frank

        That’s because the left considers these long-dead injustices to be a valid excuse to punish all white people everywhere with more steps toward the Great Replacement.

        Indeed, the strongest proof that Israelis are white and Western is how much the left hates them.

      • Brian A. Yapko

        The irony, Josh… it’s not true. A majority of Israelis are actually not white because they are either Ethiopian, Mizrahi or Sephardic from Arab lands. The white Ashkenazi are a minority. But no one on the left wants to look at that either.

      • Joshua C. Frank

        Wow, I had no idea! So those others are the only nonwhite people the left hates? Interesting exception…

      • Mike Bryant

        Josh, the exceptions are legion. Our one worlder confusers believe in nothing but power. That is why every time they divide us it is framed as the powerful vs. the powerless. The short term goal is to divide all people of the earth along as many lines as they can while they build the corporate/managerial state to worldwide domination over all the hopelessly divided.

        We should all stand up for all children that are being used for slave labor, that are being sex-trafficked, brainwashed, sexualized, drugged, genitally mutilated, medically kidnapped, and used as weapons of war and shields and any other horror they are accomplishing or contemplating.

        We must realize that this war is really against, not only Judeo-Christianity, but every single moral, spiritual and kind-hearted impulse that exists in the human spirit. Instead, those impulses are just more fodder for division while they slice up the nations and our children.

        Those who mindlessly parrot every “current thing” pushed by our leaders are just as guilty as those evil power addicts. Those who are being paid to carry out then camouflage their one world narratives as “caring” are even guiltier.

      • Brian A. Yapko

        Josh, they avert their eyes. They refuse to look because if they do the facts will interfere with their “white colonial” narrative. They hate facts that don’t support their ideology. So they keep blinders on.

      • Susan Jarvis Bryant

        Paul, I’m not implying that you’re an “uncaring bastard”. I believe you’re very caring indeed… for exactly what the MSM and the Global Government (pushing the Green New Deal) want you to care about… only you don’t see it that way. You probably think the same way about me, which is why Mike’s comment on division is so apt. How about you quit using the word “genocide” to describe the extinction of birds and stop flame throwing in the comments section… and (here’s the rub) start to think of the majority of poets posting on this rare site as your friends and not your enemies.

      • Joshua C. Frank

        I think we’ve all given Paul far more time than he’s worth. That’s exactly what he wants. He wants us to play his game by his rules. I think it would be better to deny him this satisfaction.

        We give him facts, but as Brian so wisely pointed out, leftists hate facts that don’t support their ideology.

      • Lannie David Brockstein

        On March 21, 2024, Paul Freeman wrote:
        >>> “I come into contact daily with children begging on the streets and there’s only so much you can do. Then there’s the neighbouring Gambia where the FGM ban is about to be repealed on ‘cultural’ grounds…”

        ~~~~~

        Paul, are you not aware that those begging children are modern day slaves of the evil genocidal Muslim supremacists? Any money given to those children is money that is used to finance Muslim supremacist terrorism.

        If you are aware of that, then why didn’t you mention it? Because it is not safe for you to do so? But not mentioning that does not excuse you having falsely accused Israel of genocide.

        In reality, Israel is exercising its legal right to defend itself against the evil genocidal Muslim supremacist Hamas terrorist organization that the ghastly Gazans voted to govern them.

        In case it is news to you, on October 7th, 2023 the democratically elected government of the Gaza Strip committed horrific war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide against thousands of Israelis and dozens of foreign nationals.

        Furthermore, the Muslim supremacist Gazan government is using its voters, including the children of its voters, as human shields, despite the legal fact that it is a war crime for civilians to be used as human shields. Also, the Muslim supremacist Palestinians are using child soldiers to war against Israel, which is also a war crime.

        Not every Muslim is a Muslim supremacist. But any Muslim who hates Israel, the Jewish people, the Christian people, and the West is an evil genocidal Muslim supremacist.

        I hope for you to consider reading this article:

        Anti-Slavery International | UK Registered Charity – “Slavery in Senegal: forced child begging”: https://www.antislavery.org/what-we-do/senegal/

        From Lannie.

  8. Joseph S. Salemi

    Susan, these are wonderful, as usual. “Inner Sanctum” is a profoundly human piece, and I’m not sure if the addressee is God, a deeply loved person, or perhaps an ideal of integrity in your mind.

    “Out of Context” and “The Word” are savage riffs on the utterly strangulated corruption of public speech today, and the crying need to smash open the shackled gates of free expression.

    By the way, our little Marxist Irish gobshite can’t restrain his addictive need to lurk here at the SCP, and then attack you viciously. He went into a fit of rage about your latest poem on St. Patrick’s Day. But I guess we have to understand that he is in a very bad mood, seeing as how the IDF is creaming his favorite terrorists in Gaza.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Joe, thank you very much. I always appreciate your fine eye. As for the hypervexed sourpusses at the porn site that’s fading like the ghost of St. Patrick, I can’t help but laugh. Have they nothing better to do with their time?!

      Reply
    • Mike Bryant

      Joe… isn’t it funny how those two guys are obsessing about a sweet SCP poet! I happen to know that Susan is oblivious to those idiots. Tellingly, there are two more people that have let me know that Susan’s poems are about them! She is living rent-free in at least four or five peoples’ heads. Maybe those guys should try meditation…

      Reply
    • Mike Bryant

      Joe, I didn’t realize that gobshites, like tweedledum and dumber, think it’s ok to stalk and harass women… I should have though, because we have our own IN house true believer that absolutely MUST push the “current thing” while stalking Susan. I wouldn’t be much of a man if I didn’t stand up to the slime balls.

      Reply
      • Joshua C. Frank

        Given that they push for men to be allowed to dress as women and go into women’s bathrooms, it’s clear that they think it’s okay for men to stalk and harass women.

        Of course, since feminism is a form of misogyny, what did we expect?

    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Mike, you have to realize that both of the gobshites we’re talking about, the hillbilly fake translator and the Marxist paddy, are both in a state of repressed rage over the Israeli war in Gaza, and the slow but certain eradication of Hamas.

      The two of them are forced to be silent on the subject, because they are terrified that the Dems will lose the 2024 election if the party splits heavily over the Gaza issue. So they can’t breathe a peep about what’s happening there, lest they inflame potential Democrat voters.

      The desperation of the Dems is now at a fevered pitch, and even Senator Schumer has taken the major step of asking an allied nation to dump its elected government in the midst of a major war — a sign of terror that Michigan will be lost.

      Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      So much for his claim that he was finally done with the SCP after he read my rebuttal to his anti-Susan poem last summer!

      But since when can we believe anything leftists say?

      Reply
  9. Cynthia Erlandson

    Three wonderful sonnets, Susan! Have you thought about entering the Maria W. Faust sonnet competition? You can enter an unlimited number of sonnets. This year’s deadline is June 1 (though there is an entry fee discount for submitting by April 30). Anyway, I absolutely love “As prophets pirouette to Satan’s tune.” and “If only frozen tongues would blaze….” — among many other lines. These poems preach necessary admonitions in beautiful poetic language.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Cynthia, thank you very much for your continued support and appreciation of my poetry. I hadn’t thought of entering the Maria W. Faust sonnet competition, but I will now. Your winning entry was superb… I don’t know if mine will reach such heights, but I’ll give it a go. Thank you very much indeed!

      Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Susan, I agree with Cynthia. These sonnets are great. I think you’d win.

      Reply
      • Susan Jarvis Bryant

        Josh, I’m glad you enjoyed the sonnets, and thank you for your vote of confidence… I appreciate it.

      • Joshua C. Frank

        I think my favorite of the three is “Inner Sanctum.” It describes the believer’s relationship with God so well… and I love the Wordsworth reference in the phrase “churchyard tree.”

  10. Brian A. Yapko

    Susan, for reasons I believe you can readily infer, I didn’t get the chance yesterday to comment substantively on your wonderful poems. I wish to do so now, not just because they are marvelous work and deserve acclaim, but because you are a brave soldier in our culture wars and I wish to offer you my respectful salute. Thank you for your fearlessness even in the face of those who would quote you “out of context.” This is a big topic these days playing out in real time as the media gloatingly warps Donald Trump’s auto-industry “bloodbath” comment. As in your poem, they cynically cherry-pick so that (there’s no other way to say this) they can MANIPULATE the masses too stupid and partisan to actually go to the source and see what was actually said and why. Dereliction of grown-up responsibility to actually get the facts because they have a narrative that they’re so invested in, no evidence or facts or argument will penetrate it. It’s not just the media, of course, that has chosen Leni Riefenstahl as their patron saint. The vileness oozes from many a source, including poetry sites which groove on their ability to bully people into their moral vacuity.

    “Out of Context” is a marvelous poem which calls out those who engage in this type of editorial manipulation and propaganda. Your weaponized alliteration and assonance beautifully calls out these toxically evangelizing zealots for whom efffective advocacy far outweighs actual neutral Justice. We have become a world of obnoxious lawyers rather than open-minded jurors. I especially like your description of “patchwork pages slick with bile.” Ewwww. You’ve identified those manipulators as serpents, and serpents they are.

    What a stunning contrast is “Inner Sanctum” which is something of a valentine to God but which is also a credo in which you “hear your chorus rising with the sun” so as to transcend the fact that “the words don’t match the wonders you teach me.” Cognitive dissonance (interpersonal dissonance, too) has a way of resolving not in the head but in the heart.

    Lastly, “The Word” is a both frightening and inspiring piece about the dangers of “spineless silence” (great phrasing) and how important it is to speak out. A word spoken in truth and from the heart matters greatly, but obviously your titled reference to “The Word” is an essential aspect to reading this poem. This is a poem which served double duty for it certainly describes the contemporary world’s demands that truth be buried, fabricated or misstated. But yours is also a deeply theological poem in which you describe “hell” and “the beast” at odds with the “screams of angels.” The mighty word is also The Mighty Word and where would we be without Him, the ultimate source of truth, peace and courage? Most powerful, Susan.

    Reply
      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Mike, this kind of manipulation for propagandistic purposes is right out of an Orwellian nightmare. Dictionaries changing the meaning of a word simply to help one political party tell more lies? How could ANYONE possibly defend this?

        The word “bloodbath” has ALWAYS had a figurative-metaphorical meaning as well as a literal one. Anyone who tries to deny that is a swiving liar.

        I realize now that Joshua Frank is right. There is no sense or purpose or value at all in talking to left-liberals. None whatsoever.

      • Mike Bryant

        Joe, they say that whoever wins the war writes the history. It looks like history is being rewritten as the war rages.

      • Brian A. Yapko

        Mike, this is about the worst thing I’ve heard yet about leftist strategy. Language itself has been not only weaponized but turned into a moving target that shifts however it benefits leftist ideology, whether it be the definition of “bloodbath” or “woman.” It’s an old story though. The Pharaohs rewrote history by chiseling out the names of unfavored leaders. The Nazis didn’t want Germans to know that Johann Strauss II, his father and related musicians were of Jewish descent. So they went back and rewrote his family geneology so that they could be good Aryans.

        It’s a fraud on history, historical forgery and linguistic counterfeiting. But everything they do is because they care about the people so much because, dammit, they’re such nice people.

      • Mike Bryant

        They are really nice unless you are a small child, a woman or anyone who thinks.

      • Mike Bryant

        Also, Brian… are they really leftists? Isn’t it a partnership between the government and large corporations. Isn’t that what is allowing the censorship and media propaganda that is actually working too well right now. I’m trying to think of the name that describes that particular type of tyranny.

      • Lannie David Brockstein

        Mike, after having read that “Right Journalism” article you mentioned, I double-checked archive.org.

        It shows that the current “bloodbath” webpages at the Merriam-Webster website, and the Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries website (where Google’s listed definitions are from), are no different than how they were well before Trump’s “bloodbath” comment from March 16th, 2024, and thus that neither of them have been altered since then:

        https://web.archive.org/web/20240000000000*/https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bloodbath

        Unless…archive.org itself has been altered?

        I wouldn’t consider that beyond the realm of possibility, because archive.org is not based on a censorship-resistant decentralized blockchain, and thus its content is vulnerable to being altered by bad actors.

        That is why I archive my content (poems and comments) at the newly emerging censorship-resistant decentralized blockchain based social media platforms. I’ve been saying for years here, that I hope for the SCP, and each of its content contributors, to consider archiving their own poems and comments in this manner; not only on one decentralized blockchain, but on as many as possible.

        Soon enough it will probably happen that artificially intelligent bots have become so advanced, that at the press of a button they can be programmed by bad actors to permanently delete the content of any centralized website. The destruction of the Library of Alexandria happened, and as we know history rhymes. Before the emergence of decentralized blockchain based social media platforms, many of the online forums where I used to regularly post my poems and comments have since then become defunct and thus are no longer online, as a result of those forums having been deleted by their owners. Furthermore, as Brian has mentioned in his March 21st, 2024 comment, numerous tyrannical regimes have tried to re-write history, with the woke in today’s day and age being no different.

        If at archive.org in relation to the “bloodbath” webpages of Merriam-Webster and Oxford, you notice something that I did not, then kindly mention that.

        Despite that “Right Journalist” story seemingly being a nothingburger, historical revisionism is something that everybody should be concerned about. At least Wikipedia has a “history” page for each entry there. Every dictionary should feature a “history” page, too.

        Having said that, I hope for Elon Musk to buy one of the major dictionaries, and thus for it to become the official dictionary of X, whereby it is guaranteed that the definitions it features will never be altered for political reasons. It is only for literary reasons that the definition of any word should be expanded to include a new definition that does not negate its original definition.

      • Mike Bryant

        Lannie, I was wrong. The article says that Google changed the definition on their search. He doesn’t have a screenshot for Webster’s… either he got bad information, or he lied about Webster’s.

        But Webster’s did famously change the meaning of “sexual preference.”

        “During a hearing held on October 13, Senator Hirono informed Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett that the term “sexual preference” is now offensive even though Hirono herself and the late Justice Ginsberg have used the term extensively. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary has now labeled the term “offensive.” Senator Hirono prefers “sexual orientation.”
        https://classicalpoets.org/2020/10/16/a-poem-on-merriam-webster-dictionary-changing-the-definition-of-sexual-preference-by-susan-jarvis-bryant/

      • Brian A. Yapko

        Hi, Mike. To answer your point: the partnership that you identify is, I believe, a leftist one instigated by leftist governments such as Communist China, Stalinist Soviet Union and the current United States of America. But, yes, it can certainly be manipulated by any totalitarian-leaning government like Nazi Germany, which would be far right, despite the misnomer “national socialists” (remember how Hitler persecuted communists.)

        I’m not sure what word you’re searching for but the one that comes to my mind is “agitprop.” This is a pormanteau word combining agitation and propaganda which certainly strikes me as pertinent.

        Speaking of agitprop, Dennis Prager today observed that the New York Times has something like 50 reporters and editorialists and not one of them supports Donald Trump, even though over 50% of the country does. NYT potentates not only do not represent the country let alone objective fair-minded journalism — they have their own little agitprop fiefdom under the approving auspices of our banana republic government.

      • Mike Bryant

        Brian, I believe that when a government is in bed with the media, Hollywood and most large corporations that could rightly be called fascism, unless the meaning of that word has been changed too. Whether Germany was Socialist or capitalist hardly matters. We here in the good old USA are probably more soaialist than capitalist at the moment. Nazi means national socialist. I think we are looking at a rising International Socialist Movement. Big corporations and big governments working together to make a world monopoly. It’s gonna be a sweet deal, too… if you are in tight enough. I don’t think that the pipsqueaks that always bow down to the “current thing” will be in tight enough, though. Anyway that’s my macro-take on where we are now.

      • Mike Bryant

        Brian, did you know that when Joe Kennedy came back from his stint as our ambassador to Germany, he told anyone that would listen that Germany had it right. They got the government together with the biggest corporations, some of which are still in business, and then got to work taking over the world. The reason Hitler persecuted the communists was because they couldn’t see the genius of what he was doing. Joe Kennedy did, though. And so do a lot of our current leaders. You ever wonder what happened to the trust busters in government? They are all rich now. AOC, an unemployed bartender a few years ago, is now worth 20 million. What’s not to like?

      • Brian A. Yapko

        Joe, you and Josh are right — there’s no point in arguing with leftists. They are too invested in their narratives to ever be reachable and they simply view facts and evidence as something to condescendingly dismiss or to cherry-pick to support their views. They have blinders on and will not see how bankrupt their paradigms are because they “have history on their side, dammit, and how dare we not recognize their superlative state of highly evolved consciousness?”

        However, I submit that it is vitally important that we continue to make a record of the things that have occurred here along with the fact that the adults in the room have done their best to point out what is true, what is objective and what is undoctored, unfabricated and unforged. I myself am no longer writing to convince anyone of anything. I’m writing so that people looking back at these times will recognize that we did not go down without a fight. And that is between me, my conscience and God.

      • Joshua C. Frank

        Brian, your reason for writing poems to leave a record makes perfect sense. My reason is similar: just as books showed me an alternative to the far-left worldview with which I was raised, I want to pay it forward. A few people have started to question norms they’ve been taught, all because of my poems, and that’s just the ones I know about.

        But I’ve stopped doing debates except in the poems. Debates have never gotten me any results.

    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Brian, I always appreciate your close reading of my poetry, and I’m especially grateful for your fine eye on “Words Matter”. My heartfelt thanks for your encouraging, inspirational, and sagacious observations, but most of all for your understanding of exactly where I’m coming from. In a world that is all too quick to damn me for not spouting the party line, I am happy to hear that you and the majority of commenters relate to my words.

      Your mention of Leni Riefenstahl, held up as the saint of those rooting for the eradication of the Western culture, is spot on. Your words should serve as a warning to all who haven’t seen the signs yet, that we’re heading down well-worn paths piled high with the bones of those who don’t conform to the visions of power-hungry philanthropaths (with the aid of their puppets) who want to rule the world.

      Brian, I have also read your courageous comments, and I thank you for each and every one of them, just as I thank everyone in the comments section for bringing to light the evil machinations of a global government that have only their own interests in mind.

      Reply
  11. Joseph S. Salemi

    To Mike Bryant —

    A little higher up in this thread you posted the question about what our current governmental system of the collusion of massive federal administration and Big Business should be called. The adjectives “left” and “right” don’t seem to be as clear-cut as they once were.

    Back in 1940, James Burnham (an ex-Communist turned conservative) wrote a brilliant book titled “The Managerial Revolution.” In it he argued that real power in developed countries was slowly but surely being transferred from the big tycoons and entrepreneurs of 19th-century capitalism to “the managerial class.”

    By this class he meant those CEOs and Boards of Directors and upper-level managers and administrators who were increasingly starting to run the show in corporations that had grown to gargantuan size. In the earlier days you had a tough and energetic individual like a John D. Rockefeller or a Henry Ford making all the important decisions, and calling the shots. But when Standard Oil or the Ford Company became so rich and powerful that no single person could supervise it all, then “the managerial class” began to take over. They now ran the show, and like all persons with power they carefully arranged matters to enrich themselves and those like them.

    That’s what we have today. What we call the Deep State and the Woke Corporate Class is merely this very self-conscious aristocracy of high-level executives and managers. They long ago took control of what we call “politics” (the Senate, the House, and organs of administration) the banking system, the judiciary, academia, and the most diseased thing of all: the endlessly intrusive NGOs.

    There has never been a force this powerful in the entire history of mankind. Not the Roman Empire, not Pharaonic Egypt, not the Persians, not imperial China, not the far-flung British Empire. NOTHING comes close to the massive wealth, power, influence, and tyranny of The Managerial Class.

    Reply
  12. Lannie David Brockstein

    On March 21, 2024, Mike Bryant wrote:
    >>> “But Webster’s did famously change the meaning of “sexual preference.””

    Mike, what is going on is beyond ridiculous. An entire generation of children lost two years of their schooling during Big Pharma’s miserably mismanaged covid-pandemic.

    Big Pharma and its lobbyist-politicians also mandated for all babies of that generation to be prohibited from lip reading, and viewing the facial expressions of their face mask wearing parents and family friends.

    Additionally, as you have more or less mentioned in your previous reply, that generation is having their dictionaries diluted with woke ideology, thus rendering the definitions there to be meaningless.

    Hopefully that level of neglect does not result in their entire generation suffering from a lifelong chronic cognitive dissonance, whereby it is difficult for them to think for themselves and also with the well-being of others in mind.

    The gaslighting woke WEFtist agenda to change in a negational manner the original definitions of words (amongst its other retarding tactics), is probably how the human race in the original Planet of the Apes movie devolved into mutes!

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      “Hopefully that level of neglect does not result in their entire generation suffering from a lifelong chronic cognitive dissonance, whereby it is difficult for them to think for themselves and also with the well-being of others in mind.”

      Oh, you mean like my generation? (I’m 40.)

      Reply

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