As Rufo put it: “The funniest outcome of the Claudine Gay saga is all of the academics coming out in defense of plagiarism and all of the journalists coming out against journalism.”
The Frauds and Hacks of academia and journalism are finally being honest about what they really are. They just happen to have picked a hilarious way to admit it.
Is it just academia or is it every industry in the United States? Has anyone ever considered all the DEI LBGQTXYZ stuff is a distraction from what Charles Hugh Smith wrote in this article?
I know two stupid think nothing liberals who by the time 2016 had rolled around were no longer Obama true believers like in 2008. By 2019 they were wearing CIA pins and keep the troops in syria. One of them posted in 2021 on Facebook that people who didn't get the jab were plague rats and that everything was their fault. I then posted an article on his post from NPR stating how the Nazis said the same about the jews. He immediately unfriended me. The most striking thing wasn't that he unfriended me, but that Facebook would allow a post like that, where if you questioned anything of what was going on you were blocked.
But you can control it, which is what is being done by those that promote these people. Do you know how you control stupid people? Advertising, making your agenda seem "cool".
"I'm vile and perverted. I'm obsessed and deranged. I've existed for years but very little has changed. I'm the tool of the government and industry too. For I'm destined to rule and regulate you. You may think I'm pernicious, but you can't look away. I'll make you think I'm delicious with the stuff that I say. I'm the best you can get... have you guessed me yet? I'm the slime oozing out of your TV set." ~ Frank Zappa
Indeed! But then, did you really need George Carlin to tell you that? Think back to your experience in Junior/Senior high, is life really that much different after high school? The cliques, the popularity contests, the lies, the power struggles, has it really changed? If people are observant in life, you can generally figure out how things work at a young age. We tell ourselves lies about how we are so things don't change.
Sort of makes you wonder if they're all as guilty as she is, doesn't it? Also reminds me of those interviews years ago with many many young people who admitted to rampant and blatant cheating in high school and college, like it was no big deal because everybody did it. Those kids are now adults, and we perhaps better understand where that kind of behavior leads.
Yes, "those kids are now adults" and they have even worse kids. The kids that can't be taught, because those adults have never taught them to respect anyone or anything.
I guess time will tell. I see more of split happening. A growing awareness in one camp, who won't be going along and will create something new, and the other camp that settles into their comfy prisons. Messy.
I agree, Ryan, it seems to follow the lines of the COVID BS. There is a dwindling # of true believers (still getting the shots!) but almost none of the others who initially bought in (& in many cases said or did terrible things to friends/family/coworkers/strangers) want to talk about it or else want to plead ignorance or ask for a forgive & forget. It’s pretty remarkable
You know what astounds me, Cindi? Is that not only are they still getting the shots, but they're still getting sick and testing positive for covid! Over and over! And there's no head scratching at all. It's just the expression of the mantra: "I'm glad I'm up to date on all my shots!" "I'm glad I'm taking Paxlovid!" "Gee whiz I can't believe I'm sick again." Smh. These are friends of mine who seem like otherwise very intelligent people. It's like watching people continually slamming their heads against the wall and then wondering why they have a headache.
😂And still taking paxlovid, Jamie! I’m in a weekly dinner group w/ a mix of libs & conservs & a couple weeks ago I, & another conservative gal bowed out because we’d both been a little under the weather that week. One of the last of the true believers texted back “wow ladies, you make me so glad I just got my booster & flu shot!” No words….
That makes me think of the other aspect of this calamity. It's that I personally know three woman who have been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2023--all three took the shots and at least some or all of the boosters. They all are or have been treated and are doing ok. Thank God. But wow. That just seems like a lot all at once for just one person.
I socialize with mostly jabbed people. Many of them claim to be what I call Covid virgins. I have seen them nose-blowing and coughing, and some have been bed-ridden, but they haven't dropped over or anything. Several of my unjabbed friends, and myself (once), have been ill and tested positive for covid.
And, yes, around here people are getting their, what, 5th jabs. And many are masked up again in stores and such because "covid isn't over."
That camp has no power and isn't doing anything to create anything new, just getting more hysterical in pointing out the craziness that those in charge use as cover.
When a regional "Screw the Feds" party gets started, you might have a point. Until then, it's just people venting on the internet.
And if anyone rolls their eyes at you for being “hung up”, just look them in the eye with slight bemusement and reply: “Not at all. I’m just making sure that YOU don’t forget.”
This is exactly where I find myself, too. People can dress as they like, identify as pigeons for all I care, load their bodies up with dangerous medical drugs - people are free to be morons without self-awareness but the moment they start pushing that on me or trying to enforce their ideology on others, the line is crossed.
I recently told one of "those" that I identify as a multi-millionaire with a bunker on Kauai. He said that then it would be true. I'm waiting, not holding my breath though.
Yes, the overall m.o. of mainstream society is to pretend that all the COVID hysteria didn't happen, or that it was no big deal and we're all over it, right? I.e., why are you dwelling on the past?
It may be forgotten. On twitter, they think the government has abandoned them, they are lying and minimizing Covid....just now....like this month or this year... Because in 2020 the government wasn't lying. No sir. Nada. Not one lie. Honest Native American pejorative.
Maybe people will quietly retreat psychologically and just keep their mouths shut after they realise they should never have gone along with such absurdity in the first place.
Did you see the video of the guy in Vegas that jumped over the bench and attacked a judge at his hearing? The only people that have gone soft are the do nothing "liberals" that have beaten everyone over their heads for the last few decades with their "credentials" while repeatedly leading the country to ever greater and greater failure. I think that is why they do some of the theater they've done the past few years. Somewhere deep down they know shit is going to hit the fan, and they think virtue signaling will save them from people like the guy in the video who tackled the vegas judge.
Bloody Hell, man, I grew up around and still have “under the radar and wish to be left alone” gay friends all around the world. None of them are so “in your face” like these mentally ill creeps. Let me remind everyone that “out of the ordinary and perhaps not “normal” peoples have lived in peace everywhere on earth until some unnatural monster comes along and begins messing with people’s minds about gay issues, or religion, race, national pride…just like pre-WWI and II, where all of a sudden a diversified German peoples were “driven” to discriminate and hate peoples they were never concerned about before—like gay people, or the disabled, or religion & race issues. I’d comment more about who these monsters are and how desperate they are to be “chosen slavers” over all life on earth, but I’d be labeled antisemitic by these racist, satanic Eugenicists—who are again using nationalisms, race and religion as both a cloak and weapon to trap their lesser-slaves and other non-you know who racists.
i have no issue with any peaceful people seeking connection, love, happiness in whatever way they chose so long as they want to live their lives and allow others to live theirs.
being "different" is not "abnormal." difference is normal. it's this sort of activism that's abhorrent. and it drives division and discrimination in ways that exceed anything it could possibly solve.
And this is yet another reason why this is my very favorite Substack. A number of the others that I read suggest to me that when the pendulum swings back, very sadly, all of the hard work that our society has done to allow the "different" to be left alone may be obliterated. The right is rightfully pissed off, but sadly, I am seeing a lot of pretty overt homophobia on other Substacks being celebrated as the antidote to Wokeness.
mysonigy too, not just dislike of feminism but the desire to return to a culture that dominated the women - is being offered as the ultimate solution to wokeness. This is justified by blaming women’s rights movements/activists for the wokeism we have today.
Oh yes. I haven't seen that on Substack, thankfully, but when I used to read ZeroHedge the misogyny in the comments section was frankly rather scary. It was SO bad, in fact, that I wondered if at least *some* of it was manufactured ... Perhaps wishful thinking on my behalf.
Thanks. I'm gay and very much opposed to DEI and "anti-racism" and all the rest of the woke craziness. Nobody asked me if the group that supposedly represents me should keep adding all those letters -- LBGTQ blah blah blah. Hell, I don't even know what "queer" means. All I know is that I'm a guy who fancies other guys.
i lived in SF for 16 years. i have lots of gay friends who share your view. they would get horribly embarrassed by the pride parades and ask questions like "why do i have to be represented by people in leather hot pants and dog masks vamping from mardi gras floats?"
i have quite a few black friends who feel the same way about BLM and CRT.
those purporting to speak for many "groups" seem to have become utterly divorced from those they claim to stand for to the point of just being a bizarre, fetishistic vanguard of nothing but themselves.
I noticed in the 1970's the rise in high school "black" student clubs. Then the rise of black ghetto slag as "Eubonics" as well as "creative" math and spelling. A push for participation prizes instead of prizes for demonstrated achievement. "All have won! Prizes for all!," as the Dodo said to Alice of Wonderland.
In college, I watched a dorm dining room table claimed by always frowning and scowling black students who'd nastily say, "Oreo!!" to any black student daring to sit with the non-black students. I had to ask what the "Oreo" slur meant.
With decades of hindsight I wish I'd sat with those black college students at least once and asked them to their faces why they judge in such an angry way fellow students by the color of their skin. Why do they feel a need to set themselves apart and shoot eye-daggers at other fellow human beings?
A couple of years ago, I was in a multi-day business conference and faced my first biological female identifying as a non-binary, complete with visible arm tattoos up to her shoulder and black lipstick who was freaking out everyone else. Decided to join her at the next meal when no one else would and chat her up. The next day she appeared with a business jacket with long sleeves for our official pre-set uniform-of-the-day. Just one nonjudgemental friendly chat did the trick to make her anger and hostility fade away.
Great story. Good on you. Will try this next time I am in a similar situation.
When researching colleges with my kid, we were surprised at all the exclusive clubs on each campus we visited (e.g., black, Hispanic, Asian, Tongan, you name it). Ofc no clubs for English American kids.
I remember when my 10 yo kid, who loved basketball, saw a bunch of kids having a lot of bball fun at a local Bay Area hotel. We asked if our kid could join the club. We were informed that unless there was some Asian blood in the family, no Asian bball for you. It was difficult to explain how that wasn’t racism.
It’s ALWAYS one size fits all, whether it’s WuFlu & everybody has to take the jab, or “identity groups” where - in LGB-FJB’s infamous words “you ain’t black” if you don’t support Dums or you’re not a woman if you refuse to board the tranny train, etc. Individualism is the great enemy of our tyrannical overlords....
It’s all just too terrible. Your sentiments are so very similar to every gay friend I ever had. Unless psychologically driven crazy over “hot button issues” for the purpose of intentionally dividing or integrating people where their would be no divisions or collectives, most humans, just like all life, are very, very curious and naturally attracted to “different” or diversity, but also have individual discriminating tastes—which is very normal.
My identical twin mother and aunt are a perfect example; very different in spite of identical likeness. Diversity is beautiful. Forced integration is as ugly as forced segregation, with the same horrific outcomes, but those in power have been put in power knowing these universal truths and are dependent upon people’s (their constituents) ignorance and “unnatural” divisions & integrations.
I keep insisting, everyone has discriminating tastes that evolve over time; that nobody should tolerate dictators standing over their salad bowl insisting what’s needed or should be removed.
These trashy wokesters obliviously and without a moment of mental self awareness
enjoy lumping everyone into their perceived pile.
It is insulting in the same way the left piles all of the dark skinned people as BLACK and now all men are lumped into the group of women that are men, and all women are supposed to pal around with men that are women
Thank you. I'm the same. And I'm glad el gato malo sees the difference between us 'normies' and the seemingly crazy others demanding unquestioned acceptance at the point of a (metaphorical/societal) gun.
Andrew Sullivan wrote a good article on this subject some time last year: "The Queers vs. the Homosexuals." Worth a read if you can find it or haven't already.
Thank you. I'd suspect millions of us have "diverse" friends and are growing tired of being called nasty names for opposing the insanity of woke-ism in all its psychotic iterations.
Suffering. Suffering, fear, pain and hopelessness are the tools that pressure otherwise sane people into doing "anything" to make it stop. The icky few that get a taste for power, like everything just fine the way it is now. This is their natural habitat. It's time to wake up and shine the light on this mind control through suffering.
Really, Littmann? I believe you’re posing a statement that leads to conflict, not a legitimate question for clarity, but I could be wrong. It’s just that I’ve been getting trolled allot lately by this method of “questioning,” and it never turns out peaceful and productive. But if you’d like to get into it, please start by going to my most popular post, and then we can have an educated, respectful conversation in my Substack rather than on someone else’s turf, just in case you have ill intentions. I welcome all, just not separatist-racists desperate for never-ending conflict, all of whom believe they have a God-given right to put who “they” call “lesser people” in their place as subordinate slaves.
Woke Supremacy is the actual “ism” we’re most burdened with presently. To inflate their injured egos and address deep self-loathing, its adherents demean and demote others (“they’re racist, they are deplorable, they are transphobic!”) in an effort to reduce their self-perceived insignificance. It’s not complicated to understand Woke Supremacy, but turning it off means replacing fear with courage and developing a tolerance of vulnerability. Most vexing for the virtue signaling addicted, it requires humility.
Yes, and what do all those military aged single men with no desire to assimilate think of all this insanity? Chances are they aren't going to go for it. AND--they may be in a position eventually to DO something about it. This isn't a spontaneous movement of folks seeking a better life--this is, as others have noted, highly orchestrated and coordinated. Possibly with ties to the cartels and several South American nations. Not to mention the ones from Africa (such a hotbed of woke liberalism--not!) and the Middle East. Yet these are the ones being welcomed with open arms by people who think they are here to sit down and sing Kumbaya.
Confess to appreciating, deeply, the current use of "Kumbaya". I always detested that song and hated having to sing it in Sunday School---and I am talking about when I was a kid, some 60-65 years ago.
Big Tech, Big Banks, Big Brother (Palantir), Big Pharma, the Military Industrial Complex, Big Insurance, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Meta are CORPORATIONS.
This is Surveillance Capitalism and Technocracy via the Internet of Nano Things and the WBAN (Wireless Body Area Network IEEE802.15.6 in the Terahertz Band.)
Fascism is the merger of state and corporate power.
Your ass is digitally chained to the cloud because of lawless corporations violating the 4th Amendment which guarantees you the protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.
The left is comprised almost entirely of people suffering from the mental illness gato so accurately described. Thus, sane people, for whom reality is largely NOT relative nor seriously debatable, are seen as the enemy, oppressing the "truly free" lunatics who have been allowed to take over the asylum.
'Certain Sorts of the Mentally Ill'....Yes there is a pathology (possibly) intrinsic to mass-mediated mass society whereby it is inherently skewed towards particular kinds of personality....mouthy kinds, angry kinds, busy-body kinds. Modern Liberal Democracy has given a disproportionate power to these kinds.....partly because normal people - people with a life - are not so one-track-minded, politically obsessed.
And while on this subject, it's about time we stopped sanctifying 'protest' and 'activism'. In dangerous places like Iran and Afghanistan, these things are brave, risky and noble but in the cosseted, cushy West they are mostly just vanity and narcissism.
I wonder if anyone will make a mental note of the last two school shooters being part of the lgbtq club.
What happens to the children who have been sold this crap? Where do they go with their anger at society turning against them? I hope not into Iowa again..
Great article. It gives me hope for sanity. Thank you! I needed it after yesterday.
Another male hopped up on SSRIs who is gender confused killed a 6th grader just trying to eat breakfast and attempted to end the life of the high school principal in the tiny town of Perry, Iowa. The worst part of it all (aside from the death of the child) is the articles absolving the boy/man due to him being bullied.
Epstein files released, que the school shooter. Comparisons of what Epstein was about and the ones putting confused children on SSRIs and transition "therapies" will show it is all part of the same tapestry.
I know many are comparing the two but why do the Epstein files even matter? No one will be prosecuted. The ones who are mentioned are so freaking rich they won’t have any fall out except maybe lose a friend or two. I don’t see how one covers the other.
I agree that most on the list won't be prosecuted. But, we are all being shown what those wealthy and influential monsters are. Perhaps, at best, foment great outrage at child exploitation and trafficking. (Oh gee, the price of adrenochrome will go up) pHarma and psychology industry handing out SSRI scripts to kids like candy, and seeing the result of permanent negative changes in their personalities, self deletions and eroded thought processes where they decide killing other children is something to do, where is the self examination and accountability for those that gave the kids these defective drugs? Their solution blame the guns, IEDs, knives, etc. and take guns away from citizens when the kids should not be able to have them in the 1st place. Shift the blame, rinse and repeat.
We’re being shown because we want to see it. Ask your View watching female neighbor what she thinks of it all. Guarantee she doesn’t know a thing or thinks it’s not a big deal because that’s what the media is telling them.
We’ve all known SSRIs are horrible for adolescents and do nothing for adults. But that is because we are researchers and people who follow people like El Gato. We’re out of the box thinkers. Most aren’t.
I want to believe something will happen. I just have no hope in humanity any longer. People should have been tarred, feathered and hung long ago.
Yes, and for many years I believed a spiritual reorienting back to common sense would occur after the personality disorders had their time. We are on the precipice of that but now I wonder if the cultural iatrogenesis is too strong, and institutional changes too enduring. This shitshow might just collapse.
Pessimistically, collapse may be part of the cure. I believe that's called "accelerationalist." I have only the most superficial knowledge of world history, but it's pretty easy to observe that nations and cultures rise and fall. The present culture is far from the first that grew painfully and slowly over many centuries, reached a pinnacle [select to taste] and then began its decline, often slowly and later quickly. There’s a reason that this message is being typed in English and not Latin, and that we pay our taxes in dollars, Euros, etc. and not Roman denarii.
Mental illness has been defined as an inability to perceive the world accurately. It's one thing for an individual to believe that a man can turn into a woman, or that it's equally safe to walk through a white, upper class neighborhood as it is to stroll through the ghetto. It's quite another when the dysfunctional insist that others buy into their beliefs at pain of ostracism or even legal repercussions. To a large extent, society has not only excused, but attempted to normalize beliefs and behavior that are not only harmful, but are at odds with observable reality.
When your opponent is literally committing suicide, you may for just a brief moment feel like stepping in. Make sure it is brief and fleeting... The head-on collision among different intersectional groups all looking for their place at the top means at some point they will eat each other... stand down and watch it burn... Women will have to put a stop to this... the ball is in their court...
When men had bud light and Dylan Mulvaney shoved in their faces, Bud Light paid a heavy price... Time to step up ladies...
Some Badthinkers argue that much of our culture's dysfunction is precisely because we let the ladies have a bit too much power. While there may be individual exceptions, history shows that women are better at keeping house and raising families, while the men folk are better at some of the harder jobs, especially the troubling but at times necessary like waging war and making tough ethical decisions. Cultures tend to weaken when these boundaries are violated.
I was around sites like Gallus Mag10 years ago when women were trying to raise the gender alarm. They were ignored and silenced. Now these assholes who think trans popped out yesterday all ask, "Where are all the women at?"
All they needed was academia to climb on board and shout “ gender fluidity is a thing!” it from their ivory, ivy covered towers. I hope it eats them all.
The sane are usually patient enough to allow the insane a little latitude. We wait to see what’s going to happen, hoping the episode will fizzle out before causing anyone harm.
The pretending to be a different sex was allowed to continue because most of us were too stunned and embarrassed for them to say anything; but we waited too long to call it out and now the insane think that because we put up with them quietly while waiting for them to self-correct, we somehow believe that they are right.
The nightmare hasn't even begun yet, seriously. I don't mean this as snark, but alot of you have only arrived at a point where some of us arrived in 2008. We tried to talk to you then, but were ignored. We haven't hit bottom yet
Interesting essay. That weak people follow trends and who they perceive to be strong is undoubtedly true, but my question is: why now? Why everywhere? Can you recall a time in US history where anything like this occurred?
Similar to the covid protocols (masks, lockdowns, forced injections), it points to a central authority advancing an agenda. Nobody in WW 1 Russia and Ukraine had hatred for dirt poor farmers, yet less than 2 decades later, with just a few years of relentless propaganda, starving kulaks who had made their way to large cities were ignored as they begged for food. People were purposely divided and taught to hate the greedy, wealthy kulaks, just as they are taught to hate the overwhelmingly white middle class now.
Gay's incompetence and stupidity caught the attention of Bill Ackman. Let's hope he follows up on his promise to destroy DIE. Crushing it at Harvard would start the dominoes falling, but I think it's going to be a near run thing.
Tent revivals did not attract the most sophisticated and learned members of society, though, like this current insanity does. And it certainly did not spread everywhere, all at once.
We are purposely being divided by race, especially, for about a decade now. There is a chart floating around indicating the number of times buzz words like "white supremacy", "white nationalism", etc appear in Wapo, NYT, and other influential journals. It exploded about a decade ago, shortly after the financial system nearly imploded. Definitely not a coincidence, imo. Even justified killings of blacks at the hands of police are amplified and used to stoke racial hatred. Something very big is going on.
This is just the usual cycle of history. Feels big and new because we're in it rather than reading about it.
And them sophisticated and learned types? As gato says:
"the anxious and insecure seek out powerful patrons/ideologies to which to conform in order to feel “safe.” when you have little faith in your own identity or drives, the desire to be subsumed and validated by the will of others is a powerful opiate; again environment as surrogate for self."
So ALL of academia, ALL of medicine, ALL of science is led by insecure, weak-minded individuals? Implausible. When did that happen before?
Pusillanimity is a more reasonable explanation, but that does not explain where this poisonous ideology sprang forth. And ideologies come from somewhere.
Elites flocked to Communism a century ago. It flattered them into thinking that mankind, led by sophisticates and guided by reason and science, could create a utopia. The opening section of the book they held in contempt would have disabused them of that notion. "When a man stops believing in God, he doesn't then believe in nothing, he believes anything."--Chesterton.
I know you discount it outright, but many people reason their way to faith in God.
I discount no one reasoning their own way to faith in whatever their concept of God might be.
I have less respect for anyone who needs to use the words and rituals prescribed to them by a cult instead of using his own. That is precisely the focus of gato's post here. Being afraid to think for oneself. Being afraid to discover that no other human being has any better handle on The Truth than one does oneself.
The medieval institutions that grew into the classical universities still educating students today were founded by cults and any student or faculty member with the stones to dissent from orthodoxy usually ended up badly--or founding their own competing version of Official Truth.
There is no new thing. There's every version of the usual thing.
Yes. The Dust Bowl migrants (Okies) were treated abysmally when they started arriving in California by the thousands. Read "Grapes of Wrath". Migrants were turned away from towns, from hospitals, they went hungry, many died. There was a lot of prejudice and hatred against the Okies. They were called dirty--and to be honest many probably were. When you don't have a place to wash up, yes, you are going to be dirty. You are going to be ragged. I suspect the same thing occurred with the displaced kulaks who fled to the cities. Hatred doesn't always have to be orchestrated from the top down. All you need is too many poor people moving to a place that can barely support their own existing population.
As Rufo put it: “The funniest outcome of the Claudine Gay saga is all of the academics coming out in defense of plagiarism and all of the journalists coming out against journalism.”
The Frauds and Hacks of academia and journalism are finally being honest about what they really are. They just happen to have picked a hilarious way to admit it.
So true.
Right wingers POUNCE!
Is it just academia or is it every industry in the United States? Has anyone ever considered all the DEI LBGQTXYZ stuff is a distraction from what Charles Hugh Smith wrote in this article?
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/what-fed-accomplished-distorted-economy-enriched-elites-crushed-middle-class
I know two stupid think nothing liberals who by the time 2016 had rolled around were no longer Obama true believers like in 2008. By 2019 they were wearing CIA pins and keep the troops in syria. One of them posted in 2021 on Facebook that people who didn't get the jab were plague rats and that everything was their fault. I then posted an article on his post from NPR stating how the Nazis said the same about the jews. He immediately unfriended me. The most striking thing wasn't that he unfriended me, but that Facebook would allow a post like that, where if you questioned anything of what was going on you were blocked.
They are afraid of your wisdom. You acquired that by seeking knowledge about knowledge.
To confront it, would demolish their world view. They avoid knowledge because it would expose what they believe to be facts as merely feelings.
You can't fix stupid.
But you can control it, which is what is being done by those that promote these people. Do you know how you control stupid people? Advertising, making your agenda seem "cool".
"I'm vile and perverted. I'm obsessed and deranged. I've existed for years but very little has changed. I'm the tool of the government and industry too. For I'm destined to rule and regulate you. You may think I'm pernicious, but you can't look away. I'll make you think I'm delicious with the stuff that I say. I'm the best you can get... have you guessed me yet? I'm the slime oozing out of your TV set." ~ Frank Zappa
Thank you for that. It made my day and reminded me there were others who came decades earlier who had already peeked behind the curtain.
George Carlin was another truth teller. "They have their club and you aren't in it."
Indeed! But then, did you really need George Carlin to tell you that? Think back to your experience in Junior/Senior high, is life really that much different after high school? The cliques, the popularity contests, the lies, the power struggles, has it really changed? If people are observant in life, you can generally figure out how things work at a young age. We tell ourselves lies about how we are so things don't change.
Sort of makes you wonder if they're all as guilty as she is, doesn't it? Also reminds me of those interviews years ago with many many young people who admitted to rampant and blatant cheating in high school and college, like it was no big deal because everybody did it. Those kids are now adults, and we perhaps better understand where that kind of behavior leads.
Yes, "those kids are now adults" and they have even worse kids. The kids that can't be taught, because those adults have never taught them to respect anyone or anything.
Well captured. What comes after absurdity? A massive reorienting back into something sane and real. Gonna be messy.
The same thing that happened after covid.
Nobody will want to own it. It will be forgotten. And you'll be "hung-up" on it if you mention it.
HI Ryan.
I guess time will tell. I see more of split happening. A growing awareness in one camp, who won't be going along and will create something new, and the other camp that settles into their comfy prisons. Messy.
I agree, Ryan, it seems to follow the lines of the COVID BS. There is a dwindling # of true believers (still getting the shots!) but almost none of the others who initially bought in (& in many cases said or did terrible things to friends/family/coworkers/strangers) want to talk about it or else want to plead ignorance or ask for a forgive & forget. It’s pretty remarkable
You know what astounds me, Cindi? Is that not only are they still getting the shots, but they're still getting sick and testing positive for covid! Over and over! And there's no head scratching at all. It's just the expression of the mantra: "I'm glad I'm up to date on all my shots!" "I'm glad I'm taking Paxlovid!" "Gee whiz I can't believe I'm sick again." Smh. These are friends of mine who seem like otherwise very intelligent people. It's like watching people continually slamming their heads against the wall and then wondering why they have a headache.
😂And still taking paxlovid, Jamie! I’m in a weekly dinner group w/ a mix of libs & conservs & a couple weeks ago I, & another conservative gal bowed out because we’d both been a little under the weather that week. One of the last of the true believers texted back “wow ladies, you make me so glad I just got my booster & flu shot!” No words….
That makes me think of the other aspect of this calamity. It's that I personally know three woman who have been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2023--all three took the shots and at least some or all of the boosters. They all are or have been treated and are doing ok. Thank God. But wow. That just seems like a lot all at once for just one person.
I socialize with mostly jabbed people. Many of them claim to be what I call Covid virgins. I have seen them nose-blowing and coughing, and some have been bed-ridden, but they haven't dropped over or anything. Several of my unjabbed friends, and myself (once), have been ill and tested positive for covid.
And, yes, around here people are getting their, what, 5th jabs. And many are masked up again in stores and such because "covid isn't over."
Yes. In one of the Christmas Card Letters a friend claimed that both she and her husband and her adult son were "novids."
And yeah. Saw a woman in Trader Joe's today double masked, Fauci style. Smh.
That camp has no power and isn't doing anything to create anything new, just getting more hysterical in pointing out the craziness that those in charge use as cover.
When a regional "Screw the Feds" party gets started, you might have a point. Until then, it's just people venting on the internet.
And if anyone rolls their eyes at you for being “hung up”, just look them in the eye with slight bemusement and reply: “Not at all. I’m just making sure that YOU don’t forget.”
Yes. I'm a live and let live type of guy until pushed too far.
This is a bridge to far, just like covid.
If you check some of my previous comments over the last couple years you'll find I have no problem speaking my mind.
WRONG is wrong. As a father of youngish children I believe it's my duty to do just what you mentioned.
You have to pick your battles though
This is exactly where I find myself, too. People can dress as they like, identify as pigeons for all I care, load their bodies up with dangerous medical drugs - people are free to be morons without self-awareness but the moment they start pushing that on me or trying to enforce their ideology on others, the line is crossed.
Same
Well Covid wanted us to participate in the medical theater.
And these people want us to participate in "living their truth."
If that's so...can I identify as an a-list movie star and hang out with all the babes in Leonardo Di Caprio's beach house?
You should see all the unpaid IMDB credits I get for "Unmasked guy in Dinner Karaoke scene"
I recently told one of "those" that I identify as a multi-millionaire with a bunker on Kauai. He said that then it would be true. I'm waiting, not holding my breath though.
almost a civic duty at this point....
Yes, the overall m.o. of mainstream society is to pretend that all the COVID hysteria didn't happen, or that it was no big deal and we're all over it, right? I.e., why are you dwelling on the past?
They asked nicely for Amnesty, they are now going to act as if amnesty exists.
Nailed it
Doesn't sound like they're 'forgetting' at all. They're baaaack demanding the same bs from 2020.
Same where I am.
someone tell that to Dave Chappel
It may be forgotten. On twitter, they think the government has abandoned them, they are lying and minimizing Covid....just now....like this month or this year... Because in 2020 the government wasn't lying. No sir. Nada. Not one lie. Honest Native American pejorative.
Don't I know it.
prefer band-aid rip
Maybe people will quietly retreat psychologically and just keep their mouths shut after they realise they should never have gone along with such absurdity in the first place.
You gotta be kidding.
When the pendulum swings far out, there's a lot of momentum on the return...
Just think of those really really long swings on some playgrounds--how high you can fly
If the left had a lick of sense, they'd be terrified...
I'm not of the left and I anticipate an overcorrection.
Life is often a predator-prey cycle. And that looks like a sawtooth.
Yes, I worry about the predator-prey cycle. We've become very soft. I have a feeling if things get horrific, they'll get very horrific very quickly.
Did you see the video of the guy in Vegas that jumped over the bench and attacked a judge at his hearing? The only people that have gone soft are the do nothing "liberals" that have beaten everyone over their heads for the last few decades with their "credentials" while repeatedly leading the country to ever greater and greater failure. I think that is why they do some of the theater they've done the past few years. Somewhere deep down they know shit is going to hit the fan, and they think virtue signaling will save them from people like the guy in the video who tackled the vegas judge.
Bloody Hell, man, I grew up around and still have “under the radar and wish to be left alone” gay friends all around the world. None of them are so “in your face” like these mentally ill creeps. Let me remind everyone that “out of the ordinary and perhaps not “normal” peoples have lived in peace everywhere on earth until some unnatural monster comes along and begins messing with people’s minds about gay issues, or religion, race, national pride…just like pre-WWI and II, where all of a sudden a diversified German peoples were “driven” to discriminate and hate peoples they were never concerned about before—like gay people, or the disabled, or religion & race issues. I’d comment more about who these monsters are and how desperate they are to be “chosen slavers” over all life on earth, but I’d be labeled antisemitic by these racist, satanic Eugenicists—who are again using nationalisms, race and religion as both a cloak and weapon to trap their lesser-slaves and other non-you know who racists.
very much this.
i have no issue with any peaceful people seeking connection, love, happiness in whatever way they chose so long as they want to live their lives and allow others to live theirs.
being "different" is not "abnormal." difference is normal. it's this sort of activism that's abhorrent. and it drives division and discrimination in ways that exceed anything it could possibly solve.
And this is yet another reason why this is my very favorite Substack. A number of the others that I read suggest to me that when the pendulum swings back, very sadly, all of the hard work that our society has done to allow the "different" to be left alone may be obliterated. The right is rightfully pissed off, but sadly, I am seeing a lot of pretty overt homophobia on other Substacks being celebrated as the antidote to Wokeness.
mysonigy too, not just dislike of feminism but the desire to return to a culture that dominated the women - is being offered as the ultimate solution to wokeness. This is justified by blaming women’s rights movements/activists for the wokeism we have today.
Oh yes. I haven't seen that on Substack, thankfully, but when I used to read ZeroHedge the misogyny in the comments section was frankly rather scary. It was SO bad, in fact, that I wondered if at least *some* of it was manufactured ... Perhaps wishful thinking on my behalf.
Same.
Thanks. I'm gay and very much opposed to DEI and "anti-racism" and all the rest of the woke craziness. Nobody asked me if the group that supposedly represents me should keep adding all those letters -- LBGTQ blah blah blah. Hell, I don't even know what "queer" means. All I know is that I'm a guy who fancies other guys.
i lived in SF for 16 years. i have lots of gay friends who share your view. they would get horribly embarrassed by the pride parades and ask questions like "why do i have to be represented by people in leather hot pants and dog masks vamping from mardi gras floats?"
i have quite a few black friends who feel the same way about BLM and CRT.
those purporting to speak for many "groups" seem to have become utterly divorced from those they claim to stand for to the point of just being a bizarre, fetishistic vanguard of nothing but themselves.
I noticed in the 1970's the rise in high school "black" student clubs. Then the rise of black ghetto slag as "Eubonics" as well as "creative" math and spelling. A push for participation prizes instead of prizes for demonstrated achievement. "All have won! Prizes for all!," as the Dodo said to Alice of Wonderland.
In college, I watched a dorm dining room table claimed by always frowning and scowling black students who'd nastily say, "Oreo!!" to any black student daring to sit with the non-black students. I had to ask what the "Oreo" slur meant.
With decades of hindsight I wish I'd sat with those black college students at least once and asked them to their faces why they judge in such an angry way fellow students by the color of their skin. Why do they feel a need to set themselves apart and shoot eye-daggers at other fellow human beings?
A couple of years ago, I was in a multi-day business conference and faced my first biological female identifying as a non-binary, complete with visible arm tattoos up to her shoulder and black lipstick who was freaking out everyone else. Decided to join her at the next meal when no one else would and chat her up. The next day she appeared with a business jacket with long sleeves for our official pre-set uniform-of-the-day. Just one nonjudgemental friendly chat did the trick to make her anger and hostility fade away.
Great story. Good on you. Will try this next time I am in a similar situation.
When researching colleges with my kid, we were surprised at all the exclusive clubs on each campus we visited (e.g., black, Hispanic, Asian, Tongan, you name it). Ofc no clubs for English American kids.
I remember when my 10 yo kid, who loved basketball, saw a bunch of kids having a lot of bball fun at a local Bay Area hotel. We asked if our kid could join the club. We were informed that unless there was some Asian blood in the family, no Asian bball for you. It was difficult to explain how that wasn’t racism.
It’s ALWAYS one size fits all, whether it’s WuFlu & everybody has to take the jab, or “identity groups” where - in LGB-FJB’s infamous words “you ain’t black” if you don’t support Dums or you’re not a woman if you refuse to board the tranny train, etc. Individualism is the great enemy of our tyrannical overlords....
It’s all just too terrible. Your sentiments are so very similar to every gay friend I ever had. Unless psychologically driven crazy over “hot button issues” for the purpose of intentionally dividing or integrating people where their would be no divisions or collectives, most humans, just like all life, are very, very curious and naturally attracted to “different” or diversity, but also have individual discriminating tastes—which is very normal.
My identical twin mother and aunt are a perfect example; very different in spite of identical likeness. Diversity is beautiful. Forced integration is as ugly as forced segregation, with the same horrific outcomes, but those in power have been put in power knowing these universal truths and are dependent upon people’s (their constituents) ignorance and “unnatural” divisions & integrations.
I keep insisting, everyone has discriminating tastes that evolve over time; that nobody should tolerate dictators standing over their salad bowl insisting what’s needed or should be removed.
I know many like you that are disgusted.
These trashy wokesters obliviously and without a moment of mental self awareness
enjoy lumping everyone into their perceived pile.
It is insulting in the same way the left piles all of the dark skinned people as BLACK and now all men are lumped into the group of women that are men, and all women are supposed to pal around with men that are women
Precisely
Thank you. I'm the same. And I'm glad el gato malo sees the difference between us 'normies' and the seemingly crazy others demanding unquestioned acceptance at the point of a (metaphorical/societal) gun.
Andrew Sullivan wrote a good article on this subject some time last year: "The Queers vs. the Homosexuals." Worth a read if you can find it or haven't already.
Thank you. I'd suspect millions of us have "diverse" friends and are growing tired of being called nasty names for opposing the insanity of woke-ism in all its psychotic iterations.
Suffering. Suffering, fear, pain and hopelessness are the tools that pressure otherwise sane people into doing "anything" to make it stop. The icky few that get a taste for power, like everything just fine the way it is now. This is their natural habitat. It's time to wake up and shine the light on this mind control through suffering.
So maybe I'm not following, but are you referring to Israel and Jewish people here, or some other group?
Really, Littmann? I believe you’re posing a statement that leads to conflict, not a legitimate question for clarity, but I could be wrong. It’s just that I’ve been getting trolled allot lately by this method of “questioning,” and it never turns out peaceful and productive. But if you’d like to get into it, please start by going to my most popular post, and then we can have an educated, respectful conversation in my Substack rather than on someone else’s turf, just in case you have ill intentions. I welcome all, just not separatist-racists desperate for never-ending conflict, all of whom believe they have a God-given right to put who “they” call “lesser people” in their place as subordinate slaves.
If you can’t afford a subscription to comment, let me know and I’ll upgrade your free subscription to a free-paid sub for a lifetime. Then you can speak freely, without fear, unless you attack others, in which I’ll downgrade you to free. I only outright ban individuals who prove themselves mentally unstable and desperate for war. https://open.substack.com/pub/jeffreyplubina/p/the-most-important-video-and-audio?r=1qpmjb&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Woke Supremacy is the actual “ism” we’re most burdened with presently. To inflate their injured egos and address deep self-loathing, its adherents demean and demote others (“they’re racist, they are deplorable, they are transphobic!”) in an effort to reduce their self-perceived insignificance. It’s not complicated to understand Woke Supremacy, but turning it off means replacing fear with courage and developing a tolerance of vulnerability. Most vexing for the virtue signaling addicted, it requires humility.
First time I've heard "Woke Supremacy". That nails it.
Good term Dog!
AKA Cultural Marxism; Cloward and Piven and Saul Alinsky style.
Creating chaos to divide, weaken and overtake society. Undermining established tradition and social mores from within.
Hence the wide-open border flooding with military aged single men with no desire to assimilate to American culture.
Yes, and what do all those military aged single men with no desire to assimilate think of all this insanity? Chances are they aren't going to go for it. AND--they may be in a position eventually to DO something about it. This isn't a spontaneous movement of folks seeking a better life--this is, as others have noted, highly orchestrated and coordinated. Possibly with ties to the cartels and several South American nations. Not to mention the ones from Africa (such a hotbed of woke liberalism--not!) and the Middle East. Yet these are the ones being welcomed with open arms by people who think they are here to sit down and sing Kumbaya.
Confess to appreciating, deeply, the current use of "Kumbaya". I always detested that song and hated having to sing it in Sunday School---and I am talking about when I was a kid, some 60-65 years ago.
Big Tech, Big Banks, Big Brother (Palantir), Big Pharma, the Military Industrial Complex, Big Insurance, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Meta are CORPORATIONS.
This is Surveillance Capitalism and Technocracy via the Internet of Nano Things and the WBAN (Wireless Body Area Network IEEE802.15.6 in the Terahertz Band.)
Fascism is the merger of state and corporate power.
Your ass is digitally chained to the cloud because of lawless corporations violating the 4th Amendment which guarantees you the protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.
https://rumble.com/v3r6l3x-fundamentals-of-todays-technology.html
https://rumble.com/v3trz3s-biophotonics-covid-load-balancing-for-the-bankers-human-husbandry.html
The left is comprised almost entirely of people suffering from the mental illness gato so accurately described. Thus, sane people, for whom reality is largely NOT relative nor seriously debatable, are seen as the enemy, oppressing the "truly free" lunatics who have been allowed to take over the asylum.
"Woke Supremacy"
Stealing.
Thanks!
Oh my. "Deep self-loathing", and as usual, projection.
'Certain Sorts of the Mentally Ill'....Yes there is a pathology (possibly) intrinsic to mass-mediated mass society whereby it is inherently skewed towards particular kinds of personality....mouthy kinds, angry kinds, busy-body kinds. Modern Liberal Democracy has given a disproportionate power to these kinds.....partly because normal people - people with a life - are not so one-track-minded, politically obsessed.
And while on this subject, it's about time we stopped sanctifying 'protest' and 'activism'. In dangerous places like Iran and Afghanistan, these things are brave, risky and noble but in the cosseted, cushy West they are mostly just vanity and narcissism.
….and often funded and enabled by shadow-groups with an entirely different agenda.
I wonder if anyone will make a mental note of the last two school shooters being part of the lgbtq club.
What happens to the children who have been sold this crap? Where do they go with their anger at society turning against them? I hope not into Iowa again..
Great article. It gives me hope for sanity. Thank you! I needed it after yesterday.
uh oh, what happened yesterday?
Another male hopped up on SSRIs who is gender confused killed a 6th grader just trying to eat breakfast and attempted to end the life of the high school principal in the tiny town of Perry, Iowa. The worst part of it all (aside from the death of the child) is the articles absolving the boy/man due to him being bullied.
Epstein files released, que the school shooter. Comparisons of what Epstein was about and the ones putting confused children on SSRIs and transition "therapies" will show it is all part of the same tapestry.
I know many are comparing the two but why do the Epstein files even matter? No one will be prosecuted. The ones who are mentioned are so freaking rich they won’t have any fall out except maybe lose a friend or two. I don’t see how one covers the other.
I agree that most on the list won't be prosecuted. But, we are all being shown what those wealthy and influential monsters are. Perhaps, at best, foment great outrage at child exploitation and trafficking. (Oh gee, the price of adrenochrome will go up) pHarma and psychology industry handing out SSRI scripts to kids like candy, and seeing the result of permanent negative changes in their personalities, self deletions and eroded thought processes where they decide killing other children is something to do, where is the self examination and accountability for those that gave the kids these defective drugs? Their solution blame the guns, IEDs, knives, etc. and take guns away from citizens when the kids should not be able to have them in the 1st place. Shift the blame, rinse and repeat.
We’re being shown because we want to see it. Ask your View watching female neighbor what she thinks of it all. Guarantee she doesn’t know a thing or thinks it’s not a big deal because that’s what the media is telling them.
We’ve all known SSRIs are horrible for adolescents and do nothing for adults. But that is because we are researchers and people who follow people like El Gato. We’re out of the box thinkers. Most aren’t.
I want to believe something will happen. I just have no hope in humanity any longer. People should have been tarred, feathered and hung long ago.
OH NOOOOO
Yes, and for many years I believed a spiritual reorienting back to common sense would occur after the personality disorders had their time. We are on the precipice of that but now I wonder if the cultural iatrogenesis is too strong, and institutional changes too enduring. This shitshow might just collapse.
Pessimistically, collapse may be part of the cure. I believe that's called "accelerationalist." I have only the most superficial knowledge of world history, but it's pretty easy to observe that nations and cultures rise and fall. The present culture is far from the first that grew painfully and slowly over many centuries, reached a pinnacle [select to taste] and then began its decline, often slowly and later quickly. There’s a reason that this message is being typed in English and not Latin, and that we pay our taxes in dollars, Euros, etc. and not Roman denarii.
Mental illness has been defined as an inability to perceive the world accurately. It's one thing for an individual to believe that a man can turn into a woman, or that it's equally safe to walk through a white, upper class neighborhood as it is to stroll through the ghetto. It's quite another when the dysfunctional insist that others buy into their beliefs at pain of ostracism or even legal repercussions. To a large extent, society has not only excused, but attempted to normalize beliefs and behavior that are not only harmful, but are at odds with observable reality.
Like a sign in my neighborhood proclaims "its ok not to be ok"
I shake my head every time i walk past it.
I've seen that, but I took it as an attempt to encourage someone who's struggling to seek help.
When your opponent is literally committing suicide, you may for just a brief moment feel like stepping in. Make sure it is brief and fleeting... The head-on collision among different intersectional groups all looking for their place at the top means at some point they will eat each other... stand down and watch it burn... Women will have to put a stop to this... the ball is in their court...
When men had bud light and Dylan Mulvaney shoved in their faces, Bud Light paid a heavy price... Time to step up ladies...
Some Badthinkers argue that much of our culture's dysfunction is precisely because we let the ladies have a bit too much power. While there may be individual exceptions, history shows that women are better at keeping house and raising families, while the men folk are better at some of the harder jobs, especially the troubling but at times necessary like waging war and making tough ethical decisions. Cultures tend to weaken when these boundaries are violated.
what exactly should "ladies" be doing to put an end to this?
Well, do not count on Jane Fonda hahah ahahahaha
What about all of the women that are now men? I find that completely insulting too.
Not to mention all of the biological women who champion & eagerly jump on the tranny train
Many are has-beens, desperately trying to be “relevant.” ( sorry, I know you know this . Just saying)
No apologies necessary! Freaks like Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, ad nauseum
I was around sites like Gallus Mag10 years ago when women were trying to raise the gender alarm. They were ignored and silenced. Now these assholes who think trans popped out yesterday all ask, "Where are all the women at?"
Fuck 'em.
Many are; Riley Gaines for one.
All they needed was academia to climb on board and shout “ gender fluidity is a thing!” it from their ivory, ivy covered towers. I hope it eats them all.
“Hans (Ze/Zir) - are we the baddies?”
The sane are usually patient enough to allow the insane a little latitude. We wait to see what’s going to happen, hoping the episode will fizzle out before causing anyone harm.
The pretending to be a different sex was allowed to continue because most of us were too stunned and embarrassed for them to say anything; but we waited too long to call it out and now the insane think that because we put up with them quietly while waiting for them to self-correct, we somehow believe that they are right.
You’ve presented it fairly. Good job
Give em an inch and they'll take a mile.
Give em an inch and they'll take six.
" they draw the uncertain and empty like jam draws ants."
You are too kind. It's more like flies round shit.
Excellent article. I am anxiously waiting for all at once Can this nightmare really finally be coming to an end!
The nightmare hasn't even begun yet, seriously. I don't mean this as snark, but alot of you have only arrived at a point where some of us arrived in 2008. We tried to talk to you then, but were ignored. We haven't hit bottom yet
I first read Mr. Bergdorf's title as "unwoman." Perhaps "U" will be the next letter added to the alphabet string.
Same! Appropo!
Interesting essay. That weak people follow trends and who they perceive to be strong is undoubtedly true, but my question is: why now? Why everywhere? Can you recall a time in US history where anything like this occurred?
Similar to the covid protocols (masks, lockdowns, forced injections), it points to a central authority advancing an agenda. Nobody in WW 1 Russia and Ukraine had hatred for dirt poor farmers, yet less than 2 decades later, with just a few years of relentless propaganda, starving kulaks who had made their way to large cities were ignored as they begged for food. People were purposely divided and taught to hate the greedy, wealthy kulaks, just as they are taught to hate the overwhelmingly white middle class now.
Gay's incompetence and stupidity caught the attention of Bill Ackman. Let's hope he follows up on his promise to destroy DIE. Crushing it at Harvard would start the dominoes falling, but I think it's going to be a near run thing.
"Can you recall a time in US history where anything like this occurred?"
------------------------------
Sure. Every tent revival season with people falling to the ground weeping as the spirit catches 'em.
Tent revivals did not attract the most sophisticated and learned members of society, though, like this current insanity does. And it certainly did not spread everywhere, all at once.
We are purposely being divided by race, especially, for about a decade now. There is a chart floating around indicating the number of times buzz words like "white supremacy", "white nationalism", etc appear in Wapo, NYT, and other influential journals. It exploded about a decade ago, shortly after the financial system nearly imploded. Definitely not a coincidence, imo. Even justified killings of blacks at the hands of police are amplified and used to stoke racial hatred. Something very big is going on.
This is just the usual cycle of history. Feels big and new because we're in it rather than reading about it.
And them sophisticated and learned types? As gato says:
"the anxious and insecure seek out powerful patrons/ideologies to which to conform in order to feel “safe.” when you have little faith in your own identity or drives, the desire to be subsumed and validated by the will of others is a powerful opiate; again environment as surrogate for self."
CS Lewis in a nutshell.
So ALL of academia, ALL of medicine, ALL of science is led by insecure, weak-minded individuals? Implausible. When did that happen before?
Pusillanimity is a more reasonable explanation, but that does not explain where this poisonous ideology sprang forth. And ideologies come from somewhere.
Elites flocked to Communism a century ago. It flattered them into thinking that mankind, led by sophisticates and guided by reason and science, could create a utopia. The opening section of the book they held in contempt would have disabused them of that notion. "When a man stops believing in God, he doesn't then believe in nothing, he believes anything."--Chesterton.
I know you discount it outright, but many people reason their way to faith in God.
I discount no one reasoning their own way to faith in whatever their concept of God might be.
I have less respect for anyone who needs to use the words and rituals prescribed to them by a cult instead of using his own. That is precisely the focus of gato's post here. Being afraid to think for oneself. Being afraid to discover that no other human being has any better handle on The Truth than one does oneself.
The medieval institutions that grew into the classical universities still educating students today were founded by cults and any student or faculty member with the stones to dissent from orthodoxy usually ended up badly--or founding their own competing version of Official Truth.
There is no new thing. There's every version of the usual thing.
Ecclesiastes 1:9. Human nature does not change either.
Peace to you, SCA.
Love that word! Lol
To the tent revivalists credit, at least they didn’t hold themselves,—nor their ilk— as God.
They thought they knew who God was.
Bingo! GREAT POINT!!!!
Tent revivals had no effect on anybody but those who chose to participate in them, & certainly had no effect on wider society at all
Waves of religious hysteria always have an effect on society.
Well, tent revivals ain’t one of them.
They sure were the roots of Prohibition and boy did that have an effect on society.
Temperance started earlier & besides, waves of all kinds of hysteria effect society
Yes. The Dust Bowl migrants (Okies) were treated abysmally when they started arriving in California by the thousands. Read "Grapes of Wrath". Migrants were turned away from towns, from hospitals, they went hungry, many died. There was a lot of prejudice and hatred against the Okies. They were called dirty--and to be honest many probably were. When you don't have a place to wash up, yes, you are going to be dirty. You are going to be ragged. I suspect the same thing occurred with the displaced kulaks who fled to the cities. Hatred doesn't always have to be orchestrated from the top down. All you need is too many poor people moving to a place that can barely support their own existing population.
All you need is too many new people, regardless of their circumstances.
I saw a great piece of graffiti somewhere... "There are too many foreigners in the world."
Almost as good as the button I wore on my HS schoolbag. "Anarchists Unite."