408 Comments

“It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” ― Mark Twain

Jonestown is no longer a compound in Guyana. It is a global digital cult that pumps in kool-aid 24/7. Those who spread cult messaging are the Sacklers of information. NPC PMC consoomers with poor information diets will deteriorate further into broken-brained BlueAnon Boomerwaffens.

We are the media now. They are the noise, we are the signal. Democracy dies in the darkness, but mockery thrives in the light!

https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/bezos-wapo-hard-truth-future-of-media

Expand full comment

I’m reminded of this wisdom and that it’s missing.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

If individuals would develop their personal character this way, then collectively we would get along fine.

Expand full comment

Their parents didn't bring them up to have any personal character, or any morals for that matter. They were brought up to believe only they matter in every way.

Expand full comment

Bandit,

It’s not all nurture. Nature has its place.

I try to live my life very much in the spirit Johnny Be Real represents.

My mom and sister are way in the cult. They aren’t talking to me right now. There’s too much cognitive dissonance between what I represent (a terrifying and alienating witches brew of openly Christian, devoted wife and mother, successful business owner, highly educated Trump voter) and the daughter and sister they love who demonstrates compassion and forgiveness for them. That I’m also disabled (a highly coveted victim label they can claim sympathy for while condescending to me - a win-win) but do not let that define me other than to be grateful for the lessons it’s taught me confounds them deeply. I’m not in the victim/villain/hero construct - very confusing. Best stay away from me. I’m a giant challenge to the world view.

And I’m not big on food coloring, artificial flavors and sugar filled pitchers of liquid hate.

Expand full comment

Emily, I have seen you make this comment, in almost totality, on other stacks. 🤔 I wonder what that means.

Expand full comment

That I’m a political orphan and it pains me. That I related to your comment. And that I need not speak with you again.

Expand full comment

I for one am glad to hear from you about your experience and condition. I do not spend much time on comments on stacks, so I may not have known you if you hadn't shared here as well.

Expand full comment

Yes. Good.

Expand full comment

Most likely that it's her core values. Sorry, Emily, of butting in. Just thought it was kind of obvious.

Expand full comment

Thank you.

Expand full comment

Spot on! Do I get a trophy now?

Expand full comment

Are you still breathing? Then absolutely! As a bonus, when you pass away, the democrats will recruit you to vote.

Expand full comment

lololololololololol 🤣

Expand full comment

My son and his wife are leftists...and I sure didn't raise him this way. I know now when he started to break towards this insanity. Hindsight is 20/20, but it's not like he would have listened- because hormones and the head on his shoulders wasn't what was talking to him....

Expand full comment

With lots of men, it never is. 😉

Expand full comment

🙏🏻🙌🏼♥️

Expand full comment
founding

Democracy needs to die in darkness. Long live the Republic.

Expand full comment

According to the Financial Times the only groups that moved towards the Dems were college educated women and (checks notes) boomers.

Expand full comment

The Dems thought they "owned" the college educated women. Perhaps they do/did own the coastal elite groups of such women. But as a non-elite educated woman myself, I know rather a LOT of college educated women as well as non-college educated women who never supported Harris and who have always supported Trump....for most of them this is their third time voting for Trump. Furthermore, working women have known and worked around/for/under women who act very much like Harris. We didn't like it AND we recognized those negative personal qualities in her. When 90+% of a person's staff quit, we all know the reason why. The Dems don't seem to understand who their loyal voters are at this point. Nor did they try to find out, which is hard to do when your main focus is simply herding people into voter groups.

Expand full comment

Well said. I didn't/don't know anyone who voted for Harris. Sadly, my friends & family - save a couple - don't want to discuss/hear/read anything political. They seem determined to remain uniformed about what's happening in that realm. It's quite vexing! 🤨

Expand full comment

A friend of mine voted for her. She likes to portray herself as this well read woman because she reads historical fiction. Her daughter told my daughter “we voted for Kamala because she would have been the first woman!” like that was some sort of reason. Her daughter is 11.

She’s a SAHM but was an early education teacher prior. I’d love to know the degrees/professions these college educated women actually have as I would guess they fall mainly in the useless or the indoctrination degrees (ie teaching). Most intelligent women I know voted for Trump.

Expand full comment

How about this one: My sister in law (very low information voter) admitted she voted for Harris. Her one and only reason? Harris is a woman. Sigh.

Expand full comment

Ccxn NBC v

Expand full comment

Posted in error

Expand full comment

Jonestown was never just isolated and in one place. It's been cropping up like some bug-a-boo whack-a-mole since time immemorial. All you have to do is study herd behavior to know, this can happen to us, and maybe far easier. Get one or two skittish herd members running and you have a stampede. And it has served us well on occasion. Do you stand your ground and ask questions or do you wait for the unseen predator that has caused the stampede?

Many will bolt.

Expand full comment

Behavior is contagious.

Expand full comment

> the Sacklers of information

Most people aren't aware of how much systematic media and data manipulation were involved in "the Sackler method," a carefully thought out strategy used to turn family doctors into pushers for pHarma in the middle 20th century.

You can find Art Sackler in the Medical Advertising Hall of Fame (yes, there is such a thing), inducted in 1997 for being the first to sell $100m of a pharmaceutical (Valium).

https://www.mahf.com/mahf-inductees/

Forverts/Forward was pleased to offer this lengthy piece in 2017 on his proto-Big-Data good buddy LW Froelich:

https://forward.com/news/359832/the-secret-life-of-the-gay-jewish-immigrant-whose-company-sells-your-medica/

https://archive.is/d1hm6

Suffice it to say, after more than a century of this sort of mass media brainhack/fear porn, coupled with intensive, granular information control, it's not going to be easy to reclaim minds and souls. I'm not terribly hopeful, but I also haven't given up quite yet.

Expand full comment

Jonestown was a test run.

Expand full comment

The people who post their meltdowns, write awful social media responses, cut off family and friends over politics seem of a type. Attention seekers whose day-to-day lives don’t provide enough “look at me, how great am I” moments, so they seek it online.

AWFLs suffering Munchausen-by-proxy with their “trans” children. Single, multi- pierced, blue haired harpies who hate men because no man would pay attention to them. Childless cat ladies who loathe their self-inflicted loneliness. Feminist adjacent “men” who think their “gurrl power support” will win them female favor.

Boring real life causes them to seek feedback online, every day. Sad.

Expand full comment
author

they are signaling tribal affinity and loyalty.

they are also expecting to get special treatment because they are aggrieved and fragile.

it's a powerful combo to actually make people want to be broken.

Expand full comment
founding

Exactly.

It is not their responsibility to deal with the disquiet/discomfort of their existence, rather the responsibility of others to change reality to make their existence less disquieting/discomforting.

I've said before the fear of losing something is a much better motivator than the prospect of gaining something. Right now these people are willing to do anything to avoid looking "defeat" in the eye because they would have to confront the fact that their search for the "divine abode" beyond the "firmament" is grounded on "astroturf".

In a way it's more of a "religion" than a cult. I mean a delusion harbored by an individual is mental illness, by small groups a cult, but by many a religion. The difference between a cult and a religion is political power and real estate (in this case the institution are all "owned" by the same ideology). This ideology provides everything religions do: meaning, purpose, community, and ritual.

Mental illness is definitely involved but i also think it's gravitational force is an over abundance of optimism in their search for some fictitious utopian future that will never exist. This is prone to exploitation because it's easy to sell a transcendent promise of something that doesn't exist to those that require having their "purpose" provided externally.

When you've "bought" that, you are not bound to the boundaries of empathy because anything/anyone who challenges that inherently challenges the ultimate sign of their fidelity to a "righteous" cause: PURITY. Given that, it is very dangerous because the most destructive of "religions" are the ones that wish to gain some ultimate "power" as a reward for tearing down and overthrowing a "morally unworthy" system. I think that's why it manifests itself individually as a patient on a mainlined drip-feed of guilt, self righteousness and intolerance.

What they've really bought is the commodity that the MSM is best at selling these days: RHETORIC. This rhetoric releases a feel-good chemical release of dopamine (literally) because it helps them interpret and remember info in a way that validates their existing belief system, while simultaneously ignoring/dismissing any information that controverts their beliefs/feelings. This allows their feelings to become not something you have, rather who you are...and in the pilgrimage to purity they not only believe they must puke out their feelings(online or otherwise) for all to see, but that it is a necessary ritual to advertise their path of purity as a acquittal for all previous "mortal sins"; a ritualistic "chanting" of sorts.

Much like a religion they have their own language, rituals, semantic "stops" and thought-terminating clichés that immediately dismiss dissent or flawed reasoning they rationalize. In this way it about the performative not informative because it goes beyond reflecting/describing who they are, rather it's creates who they are.

Some have said it's a religion/cult without a leader. I disagree,i think their "Leader" is The Almighty Algorithm that keeps them in their isolation silo by only presenting ideas/info/rhetoric that manufacture, nurture and reinforce their fanaticism, but just as importantly it keeps them from stumbling upon "adversarial" ides/POV, unless they actively search for it. And because of this their worldview is based on two sides of the same false coin. Voila, their ignorance is as good as your knowledge. BTW this only going to get worse the more sophisticated tech becomes at distilling metadata into personalized content/rhetoric because in a sense it's self-arranges in a personalized recursive function. I think this will give them a sense of "control" they may have felt alluded them previously in their lives of quiet desperation; a "personal Jesus" they manufactured of themselves. Through their personal Jesus they can become as "loud" as they want to now.

In some way they worship Trump and hang on his every word in an inverse relationship. Its like the more Trump says that conflicts with the internalized external narrative that fills the void which defines the center of gravity for their ego, the more ardent they become in their devotion to their fanaticism...because it fundamentally couldn't exist without his "words". And the media fuels this with a chameleon like arsenal of rhetoric/misinformation/diversion.

My theory is the MSM is their pope and Trump is who they worship. And since the pope is the medium by which they can commune with their anti-god, in their pursuit of purity, they must rely on the medias interpretation of the anti-gods words/behavior to chart their pilgrimage. Through this process they receive their own holy language that can only be deciphered by the pope. And because of this the first thing they're willing to change about themselves is language/ideas/speech....and, counterintuitively, it's also the LAST thing they're willingly to change because the words/language we breath literally define us.

Ultimately this is why they feel we must be silenced.

Expand full comment
founding

Sorry. That got wordy. Sitting on a tarmac with nothing else to do. Apologies in advance.....

Expand full comment

Stop apologizing for writing such great comments. Just. Stop.

But keep writing.

Expand full comment

The Librarian of Celaeno and John Carter just DMed TL/DR.

Expand full comment
founding

Lolol. Sorry, man.

Hard to edit when you're free styling on a cellphone.

Expand full comment

Let it flow.

Since I haven't listened to much in the way of the MSM for decades, most of what I heard about TRUMP was secondhand news aside from catching the occasional rally unedited. Ever since podcasts, I've been downloading and getting my news through this venue since 2004. One of the major factors was I was tired of the small bites of terrestrial programming obfuscated by commercials, and being imprisoned by whatever it was terrestrial radio/cable offered.

The problem with those who seek to maintain their echo chamber through algorithm, is because many of us were forced to live that false reality, we don't want a repeat of it, and therefore are constantly seeking it out to push against it.

"Masks don't work." is my rallying cry. And along with it "There was no pandemic."

Expand full comment
founding

Bravo, mate.

Fly right, don't let the TSA bite...

Expand full comment

I don't think the snowflakes hang on to Trump's every word because they mostly can't stand to hear him speak so they take the word of the MSM that, "Trump said (insert any Leftist lie here)". That is why they actually do beleive Trump called for a real "bloodbath" and said whats-her-face, the RINO ought to be shot, the Russian hoax, not Hunter's laptop lies, etc.

Expand full comment
founding

Read my comment again

Expand full comment
Nov 11·edited Nov 12

In a sense we have all taken swigs off of the "fictitious utopian future that will never exist" bottle over the years.

"There ought to be a law...."

"In a country as rich as ours we should never...."

"why don't they take that money they gave illegals and give it to......"

All in the same line of thinking the Uncle Federal is that rich benevolent uncle that will take care of us.

This is why we have a system where Trump and his team have literally FOUR THOUSAND political appointments to make. And so many laws on the books that we are all probably lawbreakers at some point in our lives, and thus vulnerable to the enforcers. THAT is not freedom.

Expand full comment
founding

Could not agree more.

The more laws of the state, the more corrupt the state.

I believe Tacitus said something like that.

Its true.

Expand full comment

Best explanation yet.

In the old days we’d say they have a victim mentality and a persecution complex.

All of them future ‘Grievance Studies’ students.

Expand full comment

In the old days they'd be told to grow up and fuck off.

Expand full comment

Ironically, they have no problem telling those who disagree with them to shut the f up and get a life.

Expand full comment

In my day, it'd just be 'grow up'.

Expand full comment
founding

Yes...and "why don't you just cry about it"....

Expand full comment

Hahaha - and if it was a parent or grandparent saying it that would be followed by "or I'll GIVE you something to cry about!"

Expand full comment

They are most certainly broken. Check out Karen’s responses. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Expand full comment

CATlantic City

Expand full comment

Yes the victim as victor is what has driven me the most crazy for the last ~15 years. Seems to have gained a lot of steam during the Barack "you didn't build that" Obama years, and then just kept on rolling.

Expand full comment

How about the Dems and their "we're fighting for our freedom" BS? I don't think leftists can get more delusional than they already are, but I reserve the right to be wrong because I never thought they could get as stupid as they are now.

Expand full comment

I am pushing 60, so may not live long enough to see how the history books treat this era. All of these technological advances, information in our pocket that would have required a massive library 50 years ago, and so on., And yet the culture pushes gender change, says there can be pregnant men and decries things like micro-aggressions and asks for safe spaces.

Expand full comment

Misery loves company

Expand full comment

When you put it like that - which is pretty much the brass tacks of it - it makes one wonder - will they ever pull out of it? And, if not, how does this influence others in their orbit - children, spouse, friends, etc.?

Expand full comment

I must say that the women that I have see on X who declare that 'I won't let a man come near my body' are the women that no man - possibly no woman - would WANT to come near. 😳

Expand full comment

Lacking self-awareness is endemic among them

Expand full comment

Uh, we're on here seeking feedback every day or so. What does that make us? My real life is definitely not boring. Strange as it may sound, I actually read and reply to blogs as a way to relax from a high stress job.

Expand full comment

Substack isn’t exactly X or FB or IG or TikTok. It takes time to read many of the articles here, a modicum of intelligence to understand the points being made, and then respond thoughtfully. Those other social media sites are filled with liberal screaming, both figuratively and literally. Kinda like Karen did on this string.

Expand full comment

Irony Jersey, irony.

Expand full comment

🤦🏻‍♂️ Sometimes I am way too literal minded…

Expand full comment

Not sure what you mean by 'What does that make us'?

Expand full comment

Just we need to be careful we are not pots call those kettles black.

Expand full comment

Yowza that second paragraph reads like my family album. Except me. I’m literally not in any of the pictures.

Expand full comment

And wow...the projection. This past week on twitter I ave been interacting with someone who thinks you living life normally not wearing a mask is tentamount to being a "pac man" of aerosolized SARS infected fecal matter. Because I stated "masks don't work." He thinks I am the fragile one, "coping" in fear and panic and by way of dealing with it is denying its existence. Yes, that takes some mental gymnastics.

Expand full comment

They fret about micrograms of aerosolized poisons while binging kilograms of metabolic poisons, and the more it makes them inflamed and obese, the more they call it beauty.

Expand full comment

Once again, Projection rears its ugly head.

Expand full comment

Hear me out: What if we DON’T try to fix them - and feature them instead?

What we see as politics is usually a contest of status. The left’s success, and most of its efforts, were about coding leftism as high status. In contrast, the seething, doubling down on unpopular insistences, and public tantrums are very, very low status behavior.

The more focus we put on this, and the more they help us define this picture as The Left, the faster we code leftism as low status (and very unmanly). And win.

Speaking of darker, as a substantial minority become more visibly deranged and threatening, it becomes easier to gain support for brutal solutions to said threat. I don’t want that, though; they’re too useful.

Expand full comment

Wow! You're just betting better & better as this was simply brilliant! Honestly, my subscription to you is some of the best $ I spend all year. What did Erasmus say? When I get money, I subscribe to El Gato Malo, and if there's any left, I buy food.

Expand full comment

Not sure about Erasmus but I agree with you about 'simply brilliant' & 'best investment for my money.'

Expand full comment

Mental illness is progressively degenerative if not treated, and those who suffer from it can be fairly easily manipulated by people cynical and evil enough to do it. The manipulation is also degenerative, getting worse over time and quite dangerous if frustrated. But don't take my word for it. Just look around and listen. Difficult to miss it. Trump has a seriously difficult future ahead of him, but I, for one, intend to do whatever I can to Make America Great Again. Fun is where you find it.

Expand full comment

Like!

Expand full comment

What are the most effective movements of this type in history, how did they proliferate, and what did, or could have, stopped them?

Bolsheviks, Maoists, Nazis, at times the church. I think amplification with ridicule of the obscenity of this behavior is important (if your girl is on tiktok talking about poisoning you, get out but also don’t ignore it; there should be some real consequences, just as there should have been after Kathy Griffin’s beheading stunt.

But also, and more importantly, the message that most people are NOT like this needs to proliferate. Don’t just share the crazies. Share the normals. Do business with people who don’t hate you, and don’t do business with those who do.

The isolation and silencing was effective during covid. We, the dissidents and disapprovers, were the majority, much, if not all, of the time. But they made it hard for us to find each other.

Expand full comment

Thankfully we had Substack, specifically Coffee and Covid.

My mental health improved significantly with knowing that we are a smart, savvy, funny large group.

Expand full comment

Is Coffee and Covid a substack?

Expand full comment

Coffee and Covid is a must read every day! You will love it!

Expand full comment

YES! My daily addiction of optimism and snark.

Expand full comment

Oooh, sounds perfect.

Expand full comment

Yes and a must read!!

Expand full comment

ah, just found it.

Expand full comment

Covfefe?

Expand full comment

@Dr. Linda- ty for the info! I just signe up because it sounds like my cup of t... coffee!!!

Expand full comment

Thanks, I especially love 'Sarcastically Optimistic Commentary' which is why I'm a subscriber to EGM.

Expand full comment

Luckily, I haven't run into anyone w TDS. But - behavior IS contagious - so my personal philosophy is to treat others as kindly as would like them to treat me & hope for the best.

Expand full comment

Read about the Glorious Revolution - 1688.

Expand full comment

Anyone else notice all of the Robert Reich types only allow paid subscribers to comment on their Substack posts. Thank you Gato for allowing an open forum.

Expand full comment

Just in general, I appreciate it when substack authors let people comment freely. On a few occasions I´ve liked what a substacker wrote and wanted to say something complementary but was blocked by the Paid Subscribers Only thing.

Expand full comment

This is a feature, not a bug. Pay the price and criticize Reich. What better use of $50 do you have?

Expand full comment

Elon Musk genuinely seeks to preserve humanity. He thought he would do so by colonizing Mars. But at some point he realized that before he could do that, he would first have to preserve truth itself, so he bought Twitter. And it changed history by breaking the authoritarian stranglehold on media.

Expand full comment

I'm reading his biography right now - the one by Walter Iscaason - he is a fascinating man in so many ways.

Expand full comment

Here's one of their cultists now!:

"Melissa Pxxxxx

2 hours ago

A "grab 'em'", "I could shoot somebody on 5th Ave.", twice-impeached, 91 indictments receiving, sociopathic narcissist who is still garnering enough support in the polls to be the likely "Republican" candidate is proof enough that we just can't trust voters all the time to come to the right decision."

After Trump's win, she also ranted that he won because the "price of bacon has increased.

But wait, there's more!:

""Melissa Pxxxxx

6 hours ago

Everybody deserves to vote, but they're not entitled to choose to thoughtlessly burn the country down with that vote."

This is the cultist that you so aptly describe, and she lives among us...

Expand full comment

While EGM made a terrific case as to WHY these 'cultists' rage, it still baffles me as to the amount and the quality of it.

Expand full comment

HAPPY VETERANS DAY Fellow Vets.

As a Boomer XX Female, I do not like the view. I never liked the view, I cringe when I heard anything from the view.

The good news is these are probably heavily vaxxed viewers. They are going to have serious health issues.

It is no one’s business who I voted for. My Grandparents are probably rolling on their graves because people keep babbling who they voted for. It is nobody’s business.

Expand full comment
Nov 11·edited Nov 11

“It is no one’s business who I voted for.“

Yes! Growing up, I was taught that you don’t ask people about their politics, their finances, Health, sex life or faith. it was considered the height of rudeness. One of the things I objected to during the covid times, was the audacity of strangers or even acquaintances demanding to know whether or not I was vaccinated. I wanted to respond to them, that they first need to tell me details of their last colonoscopy.

Expand full comment

Try, "when was the last time you masturbated?" Or "when was the last time you gave someone a BJ?" They shut up and scurry off real quick.

Expand full comment

Reminds me of what I saw on X yesterday:

Pssst.

I was at the Barnes & Noble the other day & asked the clerk if they had the new Donald Trump book on How to Deport Illegal Immigrants.

She looked at me and said, 'get the fuck out of here'.

I said, 'Yes, that's the one. Do you have it in paperback?' 🤣

Expand full comment

🤣🤣

Expand full comment

🤣🤣🤣Hilarious!

Expand full comment

😂😂😂😂😂😂

Expand full comment

There was a time when grace and manners and responsibility mattered. I hope we can see a return of that.

Expand full comment

Couldn’t have said it better

Expand full comment

Now it seems like these are the only topics some people CAN talk about. You try to maintain a neutral conversation but these subjects always seem to slide back in.

Expand full comment

same

Happy Veterans Day to you too!!

Expand full comment

Thank you for serving our country!

Expand full comment

"The good news is these are probably heavily vaxxed viewers. They are going to have serious health issues."

Yes, that remains the elephant in the room, doesn't it? At some point, the problem of the fracture may become self limiting in a sense as these cultists are all vaxxed to the hilt and are going to begin suffering major health problems because of it -- if they haven't already, because MAN do people look sick out there. This, in turn, is going to create another major problem for the world, because there are not enough doctors who did not take the vaxx to actually treat the ever-growing legions of seriously sick people.

Might get kinda ugly out there for awhile.

Expand full comment

The view has always been awful. Even when I probably agreed with the majority of them on some issues, it was unwatchable. Something a torturer would play on a loop to gain a confession

Expand full comment

Brilliant as always.

"the view viewers are home all day drinking this in"...among other things.

It's almost as if these deranged harridans *want* to conform to stereotypes about female hysteria and instability but are either too cynical or too stupid to realize what they're doing, I can't decide which. Incidentally I have this picture in my head of Joy Reid taking out her earpiece once the cameras are off, laughing and saying, "can you believe people eat this shit up? Where's my bourbon and Beethoven? How are my defence company stocks doing today?" What I *can* be certain of is that this is the end result of decades of the feminization of education and media infiltration; I mean not even the most anti-Nixon or Reagan male network news anchor of those eras would have indulged in this psychotic nonsense in 1972 or 1984. Howard Beale was satire for a reason.

I mentioned somewhere else that we would see a lot of "micro Jonestowns" and that's exactly what's happening.

Expand full comment
author

they value consensus uber alles.

i suspect joy reid really believes what she peddles. in her world, it's gospel truth because in her mental map, consensus means truth. i don't think she can distinguish between the two nor even wants to.

Expand full comment

Honestly, I would have more respect for her if she was an amoral opportunist who didn't believe a word she utters. This is far scarier and depressing.

Expand full comment
author

agreed.

these are mostly not grifters anymore, they are the true believers that supplant the grifters but do not know the grift is a grift.

it's why they do so much damage. they really think their plans are going to work and do not know enough not to press the clearly marked "end of the world button."

Expand full comment

I think the phenomena has always existed, but it has not been as organized, or incentivized as well as it is now. The hive mind of the Third Reich relied on male violence for power, but this hive mindedness seems to rely on female perpetual victimhood. It is suicidal aggression where they make you watch their self destruction. No thank you, TikTok.

Expand full comment

It’s an obsession with the evil “patriarchy” of the white Eurocentrists. Egalitarian ideals opened the doors and shattered the ceilings for XX and now they want to complain about the architecture. I see it with my educated, advocating Gen Z nieces who think themselves erudite but have no idea how the Federal Reserve works.

Expand full comment

CS Lewis's quote is particularly apt here: Joy is an omnipotent moral busybody, not a robber baron.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

Expand full comment

in a nut shell, it is called brain damage.

I am pretty sure it is a hell of a pit to climb out of.

Expand full comment

For Joy, she would have to admit everything she believes is wrong. What would remain? She would rather remain sitting on her "end of the world" button.

Expand full comment

I think you're right. Reid has a nasty level of viciousness that doesn't seem faked.

Expand full comment
Nov 11Liked by el gato malo

My personality and training in philosophy & mathematics leads me to follow a chain of thought to the end ... then start over from a different perspective and see where that leads.

So while I fully agree with bad cat and most of the comments ... a word of caution. We should look in the mirror from time to time for any evidence we are accepting isolation, alienation, or indoctrination.

I now get more useful information from substack than anywhere else but I still go outside the bubble. It's harder to listen to liberal rants but I still socialize with some and try to find valid points. I don't take what I read as gospel, e.g. I question how widespread the FEMA 'avoid Trump signs' discrimination was.

The path to breaking down their cult is engagement, empathy, and gentle debunking of their narrative. Cycle self-reflection into the mix to lead by example and at least a few TDS cultists will come back from the edge.

Expand full comment
author

this is an important point.

it's why i try so hard to go get information from the horse's mouth and to let people explain their own beliefs in their own words.

i world in which you get your information about people different from you purely as hearsay provided by people wo are just like you gets very insular, very fast.

if X's learn everyhting they know about Y's from listening to other X's, that's how you get entire fields of straw men.

Expand full comment

Professor Jacob Needleman wrote a great book “Money and the Meaning of Life” in which he puts his students through an exercise where they debate a topic. The rebuttor of the stated position is not allowed to counter until he/she has repeated the adversary’s argument to that person’s satisfaction. Only then can he/she present the counter argument. That strategy would go a long way towards helping us actually understand each other. Not sure how well Joy Reid would do in such an environment but her reaction to the mere proposition of such might be the true revelation.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/185521.Money_and_the_Meaning_of_Life

Expand full comment

One of the hardest things in life is keeping yourself honest and not fooling yourself. I emphasized this to my children and continue to do so with my grandchildren. I remember several times when my son was a teenager that he called me on my own bullshit and was happy he could do so even though I felt a bit sheepish. Too many take themselves so seriously they lost all sense of perspective and humor, also evidently the ability to believe their own eyes

Expand full comment

When I was in college, the late, great Philip Morison (physicist and overall renaissance man) suggested that a good rule of thumb to tell truth from untruth is to see if has what he called "the ring of truth." If something doesn't, but still seems possible--if implausible--then it's worth looking into. Sometimes weird things are right. Like relativity. But this happens pretty rarely.

That's not to say that things that pass intuitive muster are always right. In fact, they're often wrong, so testing and verifying things is valuable. As far as I know, nowhere is this truer than in medicine. Full disclosure: I'm a retired surgeon. And I still see people cling to what they've been taught in medical school as if it had been written on the tablets Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai. Even when what they've been taught is plainly wrong.

It's depressing.

Expand full comment

The fact is that most of what they have been taught is wrong because the allopathic paradigm of medicine has been wrong from its inception; the historical evidence for this is there for anyone willing to do the research to reveal how medical science was hijacked at least 150 years ago; there once were real scientists doing honest work and making genuine life-saving discoveries but who were vilified and discarded because their genius did not support the lies of the status-quo which only promoted treatments which could make money and control health care at our expense and not our well-being; this is why Trump and JFKjr have an enormous task and uphill battle ahead of them in taking on such an entrenched system with so many stakeholders who will resist any and all reforms.

Expand full comment

Wait! Doc, are you saying relativity happens pretty rarely?! Are you positing a new theorem on relativity? Lol. Ps I agree with you comment.

Expand full comment

Asking questions with genuine curiosity rather than from an adversarial presentation is a way to get people to examine their assumptions. The challenge is to relate on a level they can understand which for many is a dive into a void of ignorance that superhuman patience would be required to see them through.

Expand full comment

Turn off the fricking news, avoid all social media news, boycott the MSM and then take a look around you, pay attention and make your own choices and determinations. You just might find that 99% of the news is worthless, unnecessary and to be avoided like the plague it is...even if the new Trump era, if that ever occurs.

Do not trust any MSM news, ever. It will continue to be and always has been nothing but a force for indoctrination and disruption because most people are psychologically asleep and need their fix of others telling them how to think.

Expand full comment

That's why they hate Elon with the flames of a billion burning suns. What he did acquiring X and allowing more free speech is intolerable to them. I hope he has REALLY good security! Actually anyone associated with the new administration! I think we're going to get many more would be but hopefully unsuccessful assassins!

Expand full comment

They lost total CONTROL. oops

Expand full comment

Absolutely and why it’s called “programs” lol

Expand full comment

This past year I started just saying "Jesus loves you" to everyone I came in contact with. We can love them out of their misery. Really, we can.

Expand full comment

Or how about "I love you"

I try very hard not to trigger the weak

Expand full comment

I had a positive interaction with an old friend in this vein. I drove across the country to visit him. We went out to a bar for beer and shuffleboard and got into a discussion about abortion. He couldn't fathom that I had come around to my current viewpoint, and angrily threatened to leave me at the bar (he drove). I went to the bathroom and when I came back, he was in his car waiting for me. I got in and we drove in silence. We stopped at a gas station. I told him that I loved him and would never leave him at a bar all alone. He was absolutely shocked. Since then, his attitude has softened considerably. I hope to keep up the pressure, so to speak. The poor man needs God in his life, desperately.

Expand full comment

I am so glad that worked out, Brian. Your friend has an anger problem and God is there, always.

we all get angry. I do not get angry much. disrespect angers me.

we have.... believe it or not, waaay too much churlishness and arrogance in this massive country. This sort of behavior becomes so common, it spreads.... welll much faster than the plandemic. I can think of numerous theories of how this evolved... more and more acceptance of crappy behavior.

to add (just rolled out of bed here) abortion is such a tiny stupid dumb thing to argue about. The left can not let go. We should be getting REALLY angry about the funds cut from our military bases, that are now undesirable prison like conditions for soldiers, care of our veterans young and old. Spend all of that illegal immigrant money on creating more housing for military families and those in retirement. Nice stuff, not shit holes.

Expand full comment

I´m sure you mean well but that statement doesn´t come across as loving to everybody. To non-Christians it can feel preachy, smug, condescending. If you really want people to have a warm, loving feeling in your presence, I wouldn´t use that phrase with "everyone."

Expand full comment

All week, I’ve been sending screenshots of the meltdown in my Facebook feed to my sister. They’re exactly what you’re describing—“I have removed all Trump voters from my life and if you’re one of them who is still lurking, please remove your hateful self from my life and die a painful death” kind of stuff. It’s sad and scary and disturbing.

Expand full comment

I had an interaction with an old high school friend last week. He posted that he was sad.

I reached out and asked what was wrong.

Well,you can guess. He was complaining about Trump winning.

I told him I vote for the Constitution. He then said Trump was racist and misogynistic.

I asked for references. The only thing he could provide was the incorrect statement that Trump was found guilty of rape. I alerted him to the truth.

Crickets now.

Expand full comment

We can only keep trying. I keep a folder of fact references on my phone for quick access. Every so often I get someone to actually read them.

Expand full comment

Post them. Good idea.

Expand full comment

Yes! If you can, please post them!

Expand full comment

"anyone who gets their news from TV or NYT is living in a parallel universe, one where the cult still reigns. [] and these outlets have an actual, vested interest in keeping their viewers from understanding or even experiencing reality."

That stunning reality alone explains so much, as does this great piece.

I suppose we should not be surprised at the lengths to which these people will go now that they've been exposed. They'll smash the mirror on offer as a result of the election and cut us all with the shards to avoid looking into it. We must be mindful.

Expand full comment

Cognitive Dissonance should be added to the DSM-5. This post is so true and watching it play out is, frankly, fearsome. Thank you, gato.

Expand full comment