It’s becoming my latest obsession honestly - understanding how to communicate the fact that history isn’t just one sided, and that people then acted as they do now: with limited info and hundreds of complications that need to be taken into account; that history isn’t some flat chain of events but actually a huge yarn ball of cause and effect and that yes, sometimes things devolved into unnecessary chaos and gasp even necessary violence.

Some ideas to demonstrate that point about history having two sides:

1. Frame something current and relevant as uncharitably/dishonesty as they do to Communist history. Maybe something that puts them in poor framing. Ask them to imagine a future book about US history, and it’s taught that all us voters voted for global imperialism and actively supported third world exploitation. It’s funny because it’s honestly not untrue but since it’s relevant to them, they’ll be eager to explain why that’s not the case. And you can hit them with the same dismissive excuses they use.
2. You could compare America’s retelling of history as the equivalent of Fox New’s coverage. They’re smart enough to see the bias of that, perhaps even other news networks but they can’t see the bias seen in how we retell history? Demonstrating that framing and retelling of history is inherently biased by the writer could work. Do they trust the US government at their word? If not, why would they reserve that trust ONLY for world history? If they don’t trust the US, then what was the red scare really about?
3. Personally, the biggest example that made me distrust every Western narrative of its enemies was learning of all of the US interventions in progressive elections and governments around the world. The US doesn’t just target socialist developments, they target progressive developments broadly. I think framing it that way demonstrates that the US is an enemy of progress in general, which makes you wonder why they are so aggressive against communism. If the US stops progressive developments abroad, why would they have an honest telling of history of those and related nations?

I feel the same way. My family does our best to avoid ads where we can, and almost always mute them when they do pop up. It was really easy to find a third party app to disable ads on YouTube, which is the most agregious.

When I’m subjected to them, I usually get really frustrated, and will half jokingly start yelling at the TV, usually something like “Leave my family alone!” Or just being really sarcastic. Even my oldest child will yell at the TV “Go away ads!” Which I’m proud of.

But truly, every time I’m served an ad, I get mad because it feels so tone deaf to me. I understand companies would never change their advertising, and would never share my worldview, but I just hate seeing all of the glamour and superficial shine of capitalism when it is failing more and more people day by day. It just feels like consumerist theater/escapism.