The problem is that the people who know better put their heads down and keep their mouths shut, because there are severe personal consequences for speaking up. Who’s willing to tell CA that we can’t keep the lights on with only wind and solar? Who spoke up when their unvaccinated colleagues were fired in 2021? Who spoke up when the Jews were rounded up and sent to the death camps? Human nature tends towards one’s own survival.
Yeah, there is a limit for most people. They are continually ostracized for warning people and telling them the truth. Eventually, most of us wipe our hands of it; especially when it has divided our families and loved ones tell us to lay off and stop talking about it.
That's me. Now, when I see problems in the work space I don't say anything if it's not my responsibility to fix those problems. If that problem hinders my own performance, I'll bring it up to my leadership and explain why it's a hindrance. If they tell me "live with it" then I live with it. Lazy leadership gets antagonized when you keep bringing up fixable problems that they're too lazy to fix.
Man, jowls I know this feeling all too well. Nowadays, instead of trying to wake people up it is more enjoyable sitting on the sidelines tossing in little verbal molotov cocktails and just watching people's reactions. There is no way I'm sticking my neck out these days. Being a card carrying member of America's most hated class (blue collar white middle aged male) I no longer see the point. Aside from fanning flames. It's equally fun tossing barbs at Republicans as it is democrats nowadays. But then again, they are the same filth. Just their approach to tyrrany is different.
When I first heard ucla was naming their med school after David geffen I laughed my ass off. I don’t care how much money he donated, he got most of it as a scumbag record executive. Just gives you an idea how much the school actually cares about medicine.
Every "open door" organization I've ever been part of has punished anyone who spoke up and pointed out problems or inefficiencies of policy.
They would never come down on someone directly. It would always be something like a bad performance review citing poor teamwork or negative attitude. Or it would be a slamdunk promotion you're passed over for. In one office I worked at they told an employee that spoke up too much that they needed him to transfer to a satellite office about 1.5 hours away, which would have given him a 2.5 hour commute every day. Naturally, he had to quit instead.
Or they simply put you first in line for layoffs during the next round of restructuring.
Yes! The ubiquitous "poor teamwork" and "bad attitude." Of course, after your being correct about how to fix things and being berated for it, for years, can become a bad attitude, because why would you want to work in that type of place?
Plenty of people were willing to speak up - at some point you realize the futility of speaking to the deaf and dumb.
Those who knew better and didn’t speak or nor resist did so for one reason - their lives are over leveraged. Aka codependency. And that is the real scourge of socialism.
Our elite universities are totally dependent on uncle sugar - the grants received are 80% of their revenue. They only dip into the endowments when they have a major, unnecessary building project in the works.
The institutions are called elite because of how much money they handle and how many people they control. Opt out as often as you can.
Good points. To your first paragraph, of course it’s futile but sometimes you need to speak anyway so that you, or your kids, know that at least you did SOMETHING. Also so the people ramming things down our throats can’t say “no one objected”.
Codependent is a good way to describe the situation. You lose your license to practice in your field or your tenure, then how do you eat. That’s the great personal cost.
This is true. But also tends towards one's own comfort. We live in a world where principles are malleable and convenient things to be shed the moment a situation becomes difficult and requires even a modicum of sacrifice.
Yep. Being yelled at for everything you point out gets old. It's not appreciated when the boss is "always right." That's why they're the boss! Then when it all goes to to he🏒🏒, "Well, how come you never said anything!" 🙄
Exceptional insight. We currently exist.. and that’s the only fitting description in a nation of bifurcated tyranny. A battle of two factions without any tolerance for dissent on any issue. And of course, both ideological platforms are unsustainable. Where once was a center inclusive of ideas, criticism, solutions and concern for “ We The People” is now an enormous crater bragging us all into the abyss.
Ever attempted to reach an “ elected representative”, only to be met with “ the person you are trying to reach cannot receive messages at this time”. Without any instructions as to what might be a better time, a different number or any avenue to reach someone who might offer assistance? Or on the rare event a human answers the call, they really don’t give a rat’s ass as to why you are calling? Or become annoyed, combative, tell you your issue is not their problem or just hang up? You know, the very same “ vaunted” elected “ representatives” who blow up your phone, text messages, emails and postal box begging for your dollars?
Overturning Roe was a , no pun intended, death sentence for the GOP. I didn’t support it ,but I told myself they wouldn’t go that far. I’m pro-life by choice. Choice being the key word. What another decides ( within sane parameters) is not for me to decide. And if the overturn wasn’t enough to fully determine the results of the midterm elections, it became a contest of who was the most fundamentalist in the personal embrace of Christianity. Outdoing each other with draconian restrictions, segueing to absolute banning, then restricting out of state travel, eliminating any availability of abortifactant pills ( which are only effective in the very early stage of pregnancy and finally, criminalizing the act of a woman receiving an abortion, charging her with murder. In some states, punishable by 100 years in prison or death.
The restrictions were so inhumane, Pat Robertson , the evangelical pastor and founder of the 700 Club was appalled. Calling it cruel, overreaching, devoid of empathy and crossing the line. He assured the Conservative politicians who were enacting these laws that desperate women would be forced to take desperate measures. Resulting in far worse outcomes. As well as sweeping electoral losses.
DeSantis won his second election by the largest voting margin in purple Floridian history. Florida swept the election , picking up 15+ congressional seats and a second Senate seat. It was cause to celebrate. The bluest districts flipped red. How did it happen? Because not a single candidate ran on restricting abortion. Then DeSantis enacted a 15 week ban. It was met with major pushback, but he was doing so well on every other issue. Covid, the education curriculum, cutting regulation, rebuilding infrastructure, including our sea walls, no state income tax, easy to start up businesses, expand small businesses,welcoming big business relocation and expansion. Dramatically lowering crime,banning government and business entities from engaging in BDS, ending CRT, DEI, sexualization of children in grades k-3, making the history of Communism requisite in high school , offering therapeutics to COVID infected, all but banning the harmful mRNA vaccines, eliminating mask mandates, opening the state much earlier the 90% of the nation… even Bill Maher, Joe Rogan and other notable liberal entertainers loved him.
And then, in the middle of the night, without any input or forewarning, signed the six week ban, the only exceptions, rape or the threat of certain death of the mother. In one pen stroke, he assured the loss of nearly every Republican seat in the upcoming election. And I’m unable to have my voice heard. No matter how many calls , emails or attempts to express my dismay to ANY Florida Republican representative. Even though several office workers agree, but dare not advocate
Where it becomes incredibly hypocritical is that all of the zealots outdoing one another are the same ones who decried the vaccine mandates. Calling it an invasion of privacy, violation of bodily autonomy, religious freedom, doctor patient privilege and the right of self determination. Alabama legislated an embryo as a child. Two cells are a child.N.Dakota,Mississippi,Wyoming,S.Dakota,Arkansas,Missouri,Louisiana,W.Virginia,Georgia…Ohio Oklahoma and Kansas were forced to reverse the rulings. Texas, which enacted a “ citizen deputy” ruling, offering a 10,000 reward to tattletales fights every effort to overturn these insane policies in court. Several times, before the Supreme Court. SCOTUS returns it to the State and each time the same State Senate tightens the noose. But the lunatics in Arizona were not to be outdone, enacting a Civil War era law naming women cattle. More insane still, California was not yet a state. Finally a couple of Republican representatives spoke out against it. They were removed from their state committee positions.Mike Pence, in his own words said he would rather lose every election than allow any “ murder of the unborn”. Even if it means enslaving the already born, ensuring a New World Order of transhumanism in a vastly depopulated world.
But you MUST pledge lockstep loyalty to this platform to run for office as a Republican And you must pledge loyalty to supporting full term abortion on demand, including during labor, delivery and in some cases, a baby, ex-utero, who refused to die.
This is only one example of how both parties are. crushing any form of dissent on any issue. I’ve been called both a “ baby killer” and a “ Right Wing Christian Nationalist”. A Commie-Dem and a Misogynist Al Qaeda extremist. A godless heathen anti-Christian and a Far Right Fundamentalist Bible Beating Redneck. I’m none of the aforementioned Can’t win for losing.
Tulsi Gabbard, who I really like and align with, isn’t Christian enough or traditionally Conservative enough to qualify as Trump’s running mate. Nevermind her qualifications, messaging skills or determination to shred the Deep State… and she knows exactly how corrupt and anti-American, pro-Communism , Islamism, Fascism they entire cabal, infiltrators and planted puppets , their goals, machinations, money flow within every agency and public/private entanglement. Nevermind she is outspokenly pro-Israel, vocally adamant regarding the very real threat of Islamism. Nevermind she served in Iraq and Afghanistan and continues serving. Nevermind she was a 2 term member of Congress, confronted Killery in the most direct, unflinching and eloquent verbal ass kicking ever, took Kamala down in one fell swoop. Nevermind that she’s devout in her Hindu faith, believes God is paramount and is opposed to the interventions now bringing us to the brink of WWIII. Nevermind she has done more to advocat and campaign for Republican candidates, has exposed the Democrat Party and is appearing on every imaginable venue to get her message across. Nevermind her broad spectrum appeal across every faction.. including Conservative, Republican, Moderate, Centrist, liberal, leftist, Independent, Libertarian, Suburban women, millenials, Gen-Z, men, Jewish. Hindu,Buddhist, Catholic, evangelical, Protestant, agnostic, atheist, black, Latino, , white, immigrants who fled the Iranian, Afghani, Lebanese regime changes … Nevermind she can near guarantee defeating the Dem Death Cult, Nevermind she has the endorsements of Wayne Allen Root, Bill O’Reilly, Dennis Prager,Joe Rogan, Michael Savage, David Horowitz, Laura Ingraham, Gutfeld, RFK Jr, Lew Rockwell, Walter Block, Tammy Bruce, Bill Maher, Jack Posobiec, Dick Morris,Michael Shellenberger, Frank Gaffney, Anthony Tata, Jeanine, Ron Paul, Ben Shapiro, Andrew Bet David, Russell Brand, Jimmy Dore, Asra Nomani, Glenn Beck, Robb Schmitt, Viva Frei, Lex Friedman, Doug Murray, Huckabee, Independent Women’s Forum., Frontpage, Tablet,the owner of OAN, Bannon. Batchya Ungur, Ben Stein, Log Cabin, Scott Pressler, Veteran’s Orgs…. And on. She was a Democrat, identifies as Independent, is Hindu and reasonably pro-choice within reasonable parameters. You know, she appeals to 75% of Americans including those diaffected and disgusted with both parties. Ergo ,” The Party” won’t have it!
To pursue the navigation instruments metaphor, the idiots who are running the ship are convinced the only way they can stay in charge is if they make it impossible for their staff to input information into the bridge.
There's no way to enter a destination or a course or even ask "where are we going." And no one is available for escalation of the issues. They don't want any input, any questions, any suggestions. When the ship -- the institution -- goes off course, they'll insist otherwise. They're in command, so they're convinced everything's running as it should.
The very act of disagreement is bad. Those who disagree are bad. A lexicon is created to label them as such, and we all understand.
The staff know better, but they have their own self interests to consider, so after a brief, weak resistance, they're content to ride it out.
So true. Perhaps the grimmest instance of this was when Mao told all of China's hundreds of millions of peasant farmers "OK so from this day forward you are all steel producers". Next thing; the ploughs and farm implements, even pots and pans started to get melted down.
So, essentially, it was less that the peasants could *not* deliberate and more that they had *no time* to deliberate due to the urgent delivery—and seeming importance—of a message broadcast by an authority who supposedly knew better.
The past four years (at the very least) have been all about just that:
Every time the average Joe got a second to get his bearings, he was whiplashed by a new piece of information—and a new Next Thing—that threw him off balance . . . again.
Yes...but the Maoist Cultural Revolution was way worse than that. It's a story of what happens when a dictator's arrogance knows no bounds. What happened in the example I gave was - in simple terms - this: Mao saw that Western capitalism had produced great industrial dynamism and he was JEALOUS. He saw that the West was capable of producing vast quantities of steel and even though he had not the faintest idea how this had happened, he decided that China must have it too....now....right now....this instant. Just extreme hubris and arrogance-on-a-stick. The result: many millions of peasants needlessly died of starvation.
You mistake my meaning mzlizzi. My point was not about Mao "acting alone". Quite the reverse in fact. My point was about man's groupthink tendencies and ...Yes... especially under the influence of 'charistmatic leaders'. I've lost count of the number of times I've posted Substack comments along the lines of this one: "it is an almost universal conceit that the horrors of The Cultural Revolution were all about Mao and his gang. The truth is much darker. Mao would have been nothing without tens of millions of biddable, favour-seeking, grudge-bearing followers."
One of the lessons oft ignored is "Don't create legions of grudge-holding people" - the foundation for the communist revoloutions were after all laid by the oppressive and abusive capitalists of the 19th century.
Except in nations such as Sweden. Here, they instead realised that agreeing to wages that could not only allow a man to support a family but allowed him to set something aside meant loyal and dilligent workers able to afford the products they produced.
Kind of the same idea Ford had: his assembly-line workers should be able to afford his cars.
But Russia and China wasn't and isn't the USA or Sweden or Spain or... culturally, and the underlying culture as Doctor Hammer points out was what directed how the various revolutions turned out.
He didn't act on his own, but he had extremely high amounts of decision making power that was not to be contradicted under fear of punishment. As others have pointed out if those who know better keep their mouths shut because challenging the authority figure gets you punished (killed along with your family in Mao's case) everyone starts to act as an extension of the authority figure's will.
The peasants did what they were told because they knew they would be killed, and the Chinese culture puts a lot of emphasis on submission to authority besides. The soldiers did what they were told because their officers could have them killed. The officers did what they were told because showing disloyalty to the cause and the crazy man leading it got you killed. That's the how of these situations: a cult of personality and ideology gets created, weeds out those who disagree, and totalizes the will of the leadership/ideology (the word of the leader is always right) to prevent challenges to its rule. Then if it manages to take power over anything there are no feedback loops and in fact presenting information that is contrary to the official reality is seen as treason, which gets you killed. Breaking the hold of the cult takes either an outside force to end that structure (military invasion/rebellion, or market forces in the case of companies) or an eventual replacement of True Believers with skeptics who risk talking amongst themselves and deciding to off the cult leadership.
I wasted my early to mid 20s burning bridges in corporate offices by making the mistake of thinking they actually wanted valid feedback on inefficient or pointless processes.
Turned out those processes were the creation of middle-managers still occupying their positions, and pointing out the negative parts of their processes were apparently a personal attack on those managers.
So I learned to just hold my tongue and only fix problems I was given orders to fix.
Sadly, I am my father's child and have his ability to NOT hold my tongue, on most things. So, I'm always in trouble, always harrassed, always bitched out, always at fault, etc. BUT, when THEY change the things I have pointed out, it's THEIR idea, THEY get the credit, THEY get the raises, THEY get the promotions and I get the shaft.
Spent twenty years in Kodak, watching the games play. As I moved up to more responsibilities, and gained favor of “ the big bosses” which ultimately was my downfall. They used every trick in the book to get me fired,and then my immediate supervisor best friended my wife at the time, who was a drunk. We were only together for a year, and in that year I had to drive my drunken boss home from many gigs, and then I made a bad corporate decision to leave that horrid wife. Oops.
Right! That's why it is critical for the state to normalize the manifest idiocy of AI. They need a reliable mechanism to answer your local medical mafia outlet call for help and say, "Well don't do that." in any of the official languages of the WHO (as determined by your IP address, of course).
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: I first saw this video when it was originally posted, to the best of recollection, in 2021. This transcript was made from this 2023 repost. In the video, the security guard wears a black mask.
0:12
NURSE [filming herself]: I am being escorted out of Kaiser Permanente Hospital for my religious beliefs because I don't want to get the jab. And I asked all day for someone to explain to me why my sincerely held religious beliefs are not good enough for Kaiser. And no one was able to do that for me.
[to someone off camera]: Bye.
So now they're escorting me out because I wanted an answer and I'm not leaving without an answer. And I have some nurses here who are standing with me in solidarity. And I appreciate that. And I just want all of you to count the cost. I want you to watch this and think, what really matters to me? Because I am willing to lose my safety and security, my house, everything, for my freedom. And I want you to think about that.
[entering elevator] [inaudible]
RECORDED VOICE: Going down.
NURSE: Let me ask you. Do you believe in religious freedom?
SECURITY GUARD: I do.
NURSE: Well Kaiser doesn't. Do you believe in religious freedom?
WOMAN'S VOICE: One hundred percent.
NURSE: Do you believe in religious freedom?
ANOTHER WOMAN'S VOICE: [inaudible]
NURSE: OK. Well Kaiser doesn't believe in religious freedom because they are not accepting my religious exemption based on my sincerely held religious beliefs. So.
RECORDED VOICE: Going up.
NURSE [exiting elevator]: That's a problem.
WOMAN'S VOICE FROM HALLWAY: Love you.
NURSE: Love you.
[to camera, as walking down hall of hospital]: All day I've been asking for someone from HR to come talk to me about why my religious exemption was not good enough for Kaiser. So I've been asking and asking, and no one will give me an answer. So that was at 10:45 this morning that I was told I'm now being placed on unpaid administrative leave for no reason.
I showed up to work this morning. Happy to work. All I want to do is work. All I want to do is work. Since the beginning, I've been a covid nurse since the beginning when we didn't know what was going on. When we didn't know what kind of rooms we were walking into. But that's what we do. We're nurses. And I'll keep doing that, just somewhere else.
But I want you all to think about what matters to you. Because this matters to me. Freedom matters to me. Because it's a slippery slope when you start taking away freedoms. Slippery slope.
So Kaiser, thank you, thank you for the money. Kaiser pays well. It's pretty much, you know, the devil's in the details.
[tp security officer]: I'm on the seventh floor. You good to walk the stairs?
MASKED SECURITY OFFICER: Hey. [laughs] I'm on the [inaudible].
NURSE [to camera]: We're taking the stairs.
[to someone off camera]: Bye, girl.
NURSE: Bye. [she hugs her]
WOMAN'S VOICE: I'm so sorry. It's not right.
NURSE: It's not right.
WOMAN'S VOICE: Totally inappropriate.
NURSE: It's not right. Thank you.
[walking again, speaking to camera]: We're taking the stairs. I'm on the seventh floor. You game? OK, let's go.
So since I have, since I you, um, what would you do if you were in my shoes, if they were telling you that you had to violate your sincerely held religious belief or lose your job, what would you do?
SECURITY OFFICER: I don't know. [inaudible] that so I don't know how to respond to that.
NURSE: Yeah. Well they will, I mean, if it's not the vaccine it'll be something else. So for me, I didn't want to do that. And I'm taking a stand because I know that this is not the end. Because there'll just be one other thing.
Here we go. Floor one. [Climbing the stairs— reading placard] "Climbing the stairs is a free workout built right into your day. Kaiser Permanente."
The security guard's walking with me. Seven floors. I don't think they were ready for that.
[Climbing the stairs— reading placard] "Helps shrink your waistline by building healthy muscle and pumping your metabolism."
It's a sad day. I don't know what kind of pandemic it is if they're firing nurses who are willing to work. I don't know! Doesn't make sense to me.
So you got to ask yourself a question. What kind of world are we living in when we have a pandemic where my kids have to wear masks at school and they have to get a vaccine for something that they're not at risk of dying for at all? What kind of a world are we living in if they're firing nurses who don't want to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs. Right? That's crazy.
[Climbing the stairs— reading placard] "Taking the stairs burns steam and relieves stress. Kaiser Permanente"
[aims camera at view out to trees tops and sky] Hey that's the view.
[camera on masked security officer, still in his mask, then camera back on herself]: We're there. We're there, sir. Seven flights, that's right, I follow the rules. I park on top. That's the kind of nurse I am.
And I saw that Kaiser just sent out a letter to those fired saying come back, the covid vax requirement is no longer a requirement. No apology, just saying things changed so come back . . . PUULLLEEEEEZZZEEEE
It would be interesting to know what those individuals in the video (their voices anyway) would say about it now, in May 2024. from what I've seen, both in my own circles, and in transcribing since 2021, many nurses drank the Kool-Aid, it just was beyond their Overton window to imagine that their health authorities would lie to them about the jabs being safe and effective— and lie about all the rest of the covid story. At the same time, many health care workers did know that taking the jabs was like Russian roulette, they knew they didn't need it (many had already recovered from covid), but they took their own good health for granted, and/or just didn't have the wherewithal to stand up for themselves against the heavy pressure to get jabbed. That's my take on it at this point.
My daughter is a Registered Nurse at an Arizona hospital. She managed to get her religious exemption ‘approved’ (one more example of the law being broken, as religious exemptions are NOT subject to approval or denial). I suspect it was approved only because they needed surgical RNs. Though she has suffered much poor treatment/harassment due to her refusing the mRNA injections. I guess I just wanted you to know that not EVERY nurse drank the kool-aid.
Thanks for your comment, Cathleen, and good for your daughter that she made that effort to get the exemption and managed to keep her job. No worries, I was saying that "many" did not have the wherewithal to stand up for themselves; I certainly do not mean to say "all"— I do know many nurses did not drink the Kool-Aid, Iand in fact I have transcribed a number of such testimonies. It's just heartbreaking. I can only imagine how hard this must have been, and still is, for your daughter. I admire such fortitude, and may your daughter continue to find strength.
PS I also agree 1,000% that it is not for some bureaucrat to decide whose religious beliefs are valid and whose not.
Transcriber B - thank you for the reply. My daughter is ‘hanging in there’ at work. I have asked her what the doctors (mainly surgeons and anesthesiologists) and other nurses now say about the mRNA shots: her answer is that none of the doctors ever raise the subject at all, and the few nurses who refused the shot sometimes discuss it, but always privately and carefully, as they don’t feel safe doing so openly. Overall, everyone acts as if none of it ever happened. My daughter doesn’t even want to talk about it; it causes her too much anxiety. She has told me that the last two years are the first time ever that she has no pressure to get the flu shot…she was informed that her religious exemption for the C19 shot ‘covers the flu shot, too’.
Good wishes to her. I can only imagine how difficult this must be. I don't doubt that her patients need her, and appreciate that she is there for them.
That's how our unions came about, 170 years ago: workers fed up with capitalists working people as if they were slaves united, supported each other and blacklisted capitalists that exploited and abused the workers.
That is what solidarity used to mean: people sticking together against the Abuser and Oppressor, no matter his flag, creed or the colour of his skin.
They are clearly capitalists: they own global networks of capital-increasing corporations, all driven for monetary profit over any other concern.
And that is what capitalism is: the accumulation of money (capital) for the capitalist, at any cost and risk and consequence, as long as the capitalist isn't the one suffering them.
Or put it this way: they are capitalists in the same way Lenin and his gang were communists.
Wow, thank you for transcribing this video, TranscriberB. Very few people have this kind of courage. If more people reacted like this nurse, we could have stopped this worldwide scam before it really got off the ground.
I keep wondering how I would have reacted when faced with the same vax or be fired choice back when I was 30 and had a wife and 2 young children to feed, a mortgage, car payment and meager savings. My older retired self says: "NFW". Sadly, at that stage of my life, I probably would have said "WTH, vax me" . The thought that people were faced with that scenario, is profoundly sad and angers me to no end.
Kevin, I asked my now 64 year old self and retired that same question several times during the whole Covid vaxx situation. At 30 with kids, a mortgage, other obligations and many years away from being red pilled I most likely would have lined up for the shot particularly if it was that or my job.
There would have been strength in numbers. If enough employees said no, the employer would have backed down. We saw this with LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District). They tried to implement a vaccine mandate on students, and backed down shortly before the deadline when it was clear that thousands of kids hadn’t gotten the shot. (I attribute that to the demographics, not principled stance.) The problem is that they cleverly divided us. Most people were still working from home, hard to organize, and everyone had to make their own individual choice.
Where I worked at the time there were 7,000 employees and pre-covid everyone talked about it being a “family”. About 70 employees banded together to create a “No Vax Mandate” group and try to talk to the leadership. Leadership wouldn’t talk to us. In the end, 200 employees out of 7,000 requested a religious exemption. Not a large enough number. I forget which was that hospital in Houston(?) where also they went ahead and fired the unvaccinated employees. It made the news but wasn’t painful enough for the hospital to rescind their mandate.
And Bill Barr, Gina Haspel, Mike Pence, Chris Wray, Mitch, Mitt, Milley, Bolton, Paul Ryan,Liz and Dick, Kinzinger, McMaster, W, Henry Kerner, ,Graham, Christie,Scaramucci, George Conway, Bob Corker, Fiona Hill, John Roberts, Murkowski, Flake, Jerome Adams, Trey Gowdy Pompeo, Stephanie Grisham,Brad Raffensberger, Jonah Goldberg, Kadlec, Bill Gates, Bancel, Slavek, Hur, Portman,Nick Ayres, Steven Hayes, Robert Mueller,Cippilone, Will Hurd, Mike Lee.. the most ignominious bar staff of them all… John McShitstain… were out to get Trump from Day One.
Did Trump help himself? Not too often. Many of the aforementioned were his appointments ,” inner circle and advisors”.
Trump is the reason Trump lost Georgia, despite the exponential amount of. voter fraud. Kelly Loeffler had it in the bag, was well liked across party lines, and supported Trump’s policies. Because Kemp recommended her, Trump pushed Doug Collins into the mix. He was too far religious right, took 20/ of the vote, had no chance of winning, but took Loeffler below the 50¥ needed to win in Georgia. She was at 78% prior to Collins. And Collins forfeited his Congressional seat.Trump’s feud became so publicly contentious, Perdue, a shoe in, cancelled his debate. He lost to the unknown leftist, Ossoff, who until the last minute, didn’t have a Georgia residence. Now he’s ranting and projecting in RFK Jr. and it doesn’t boost his image-instead, makes him seem small. Calling him a “ far- leftwing lunatic - a maniac-even farther left than Biden”.
The disgusting attacks on Elon Musk, Nancy Mace, DeSantis, Murkowski, LarryHogan, et al were so unnecessary. And the puerile nicknames, pre-emptive ad hominem attacks and slurs didn’t help.To “ demand” loyalty, there should be reciprocity..Calling judges “ sleazebags”, women “ horseface”, and anybody not in lockstep agreement on every issue “ losers” doesn’t bear well. And because he/she “ said nice things about me” doesn’t make them trustworthy or qualified.
I could go on and on, but to no benefit.I fear he will do it again.
Trump needs to focus on his achievements that were undeniably exceptional for all, not just the Evangelicals.
He MUST opt for Tulsi. She has the ability to stand up to him. But his ego is so gargantuan, he may fear she’ll outshine him. Which in his own lingo, would be “ sad!”.
Bravo! Completely agree (except maybe Mike Lee?) I despise the lawfare and egregious conflicts with the judges and DAs who are prosecuting him, but I resent feeling I have to vote for him as a protest. He has always been his own worst enemy. Despite the many good things he did as President, he made some really bad decisions. And his attacks on those good, decent conservatives with the temerity to run against him in a primary really was the turning point for me. Of course he’s better than Biden; practically anyone is. But in the long run, is he good for the GOP or the country?
Trump is our worst enemy. Politics is fake. Here's my prediction: Trump will win. The covid criminals will be incarcerated. We will all celebrate like we did at the end of WW2. After that, the global agenda will continue with electronic currency and the building of the bio-security state will continue. Vaxxes will continue. All the globalist agendas ('21, and '30) will continue in lockstep. Trump is a 5G and vaccine guy. He can see the future and we aren't in it. Trump is a Zionist. There are two kinds of people in the world. Zionists and everyone else. Trump gave the keys of the government to Fauci and they attacked us with bioweapons. I don't see why people are even considering voting at all, or following politics at all. It's like a soap opera you can't stop watching.
Any doctor or nurse who administers this vaccine, knowing it causes harm, is complicit in murder. Any doctor still recommending this vaccine, knowing it causes harm, is complicit in murder. What percentage of doctors are cowards? I'd say the percentage is extremely high. "If I say anything, I'll be fired." That's their excuse. Well, in the aftermath of the carnage, their excuse will be, "I was just following orders."
Yeah, the deception was far and wide and covered the corners of the earth. You're right. The carnage happened. The tale has just not played itself out yet. I wish there were medical remedies to help people and possibly mitigate some of the damage. If the truth was accepted, we could start trying to collectively find answers to these problems, but people are still under the spell of a strong delusion and I see no sign of it dissipating.
It's just astonishing. I walked around places during the plandemic and thought did I sleep through the universal mandatory castrations too? I think this more than anything may have given me Post Traumatic Disillusionment Syndrome during the scam. It is very hard for me to look at dear friends I have the same again...simply because they weren't the MEN I thought they were. Felt like betrayal.
But then it occurred to me that all this stuff we think is happening so fast, and all at one time, is really just a typhoon hitting shore that started as small concentric circles 40 years ago.
Here's an experiment I conducted:
Go ask a few people in line at airport security if trading freedom for safety was worth it. Not only do they look at you weird for asking such...they do not even know what you're talking about. Serious. Try it.
Heres why people think it's all happening fast. There is one generation prior to the Patriot Act who were too young to understand the implications of trading freedom for safety.....AND another generation born after that wouldn't have a clue. Here's the nub; do you know what the percentage of people born after 85' represent in the population?
ITS ALMOST 60%! And the increase in that percentage, going forward, is not merely linear for the obvious reasons. We're already past critical mass of inertia. Oh the irony of obtaining inertia through critical mass....hmmm...that seems to be a deliberate experiment if its own. Good luck trying to roll that ball back up hill.
What do you think is the percentage of those people who know that the TSA fails nearly 90% of the security exercises they perform? What about the children they're going to have?
I mean it's such a farce
of Inspector Clouseaus they'd miss a suicide bomber if he wore his spleen on your shoes
Seriously!...at this point, Im pretty sure the TSA's main job is to collect biometrics and to give you anxiety about your luggage being overweight.
That 60% of the population has de facto had The Founders most profound warning of trading freedom for safety eliminated from our history...they'll know nothing else because they do not have a shared reference.
And here's the whammy:
Not only do they not know how dangerous it is to trade freedom for safety; they don't even know that in that bargain they have inherented a future where the state has its most powerful form of control:
unopposed on-demand surveillance at the individual level. And for their children it will be on-demand cradle to grave.
Bottom line, if you take any significant inflection point of substantial change in a cultures history, means you automatically eliminate a generation on each side of the event who by the time they start having children there won't be much of us left who know otherwise.
(Let’s not forget the freedom-hating generations were entrained via Facebook to willingly offer up almost all of their what-should-be-private information.)
Yeah, people are continually telling me to "go to Fu(《b00《" and look at (fill in the blank)." These same a$$hat$ have been told, no less than 1 million times that I'm not on Fu(《boo《 and I refuse to be on Fu(《boo《. These are people in their 60s! The best thing they can say is, "You can delete your profile." 😑🙄
Some of us tend to challenge authority . Authority doesn’t like it very much. And after a while it doesn’t matter if you are correct, you have a sore head from banging it against a brick wall. So you opt out, you flow like water around the obstacles or some other half-baked Zen metaphor. Opting out is optimal if you can do it. But we can’t all opt out all the time. You have to pick your battles. But there will be battles. As old Trotsky said: You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.
Right now is one of those times. The idea is not to lose the battle, but to beat the cretins ruining the country and Western civilization. We can do it. But we have to fight. I actually don’t think it will take that long to overcome them. What will take time is cleaning out all the fellow travelers embedded in the system. Pick your poison. How much more do you want to put up with in order to avoid conflict?
Well spoken. Getting attacked with DOD bioweapons is a big clue that war is upon us. Yes we need to opt out of the tax based payroll model. How can we in good conscience buy Obamacare? They are killing us with the money they steal from our paychecks.
Yeah and we pay for their bad ideas without really having a say in the matter. 2000 page bills which have to be digested in 48 hours if they are shared at all before a vote. It’s a racket.
Yes, the same goes for the teaching profession that. sadly, I am about to leave. Some of us, well me anyway, know that our job is to teach academics, yes, but also to instill the importance of a work ethic, and a sense of right and wrong. No longer the case. The kids' "feelings" are all that matter. The "feelings" reign supreme, backed by counselors and parents (who run the schools.) There are no consequences, no grades. I know better, so I have to find something else to do (after many years) because I am shunned if I say anything different, and it goes against my own morals to be a part of creating monsters.
It’s truly a sad state of affairs. I hope you’re able to land somewhere where your skill sets are valued and appreciated.
My husband’s metaphor for public education is this: “The building is on fire…get your kids out NOW”. Only by mass exodus of families can it even possibly salvaged. Money talks when their funding dries up. But we may well have gone past that point now.
I’m regretting more and more the set of encyclopedias we gave away when our children finished high school. At least we have our bibles and assorted theological books, our old McGuffy Readers and an old dictionary that isn’t woke. And still more books that I suspect the average family keeps in their homes.
This makes me sad. I was lucky enough to have been taught by some very, very good teachers, people who genuinely loved their subject and inspired a lot of students to love those subjects too.
Rot, decay, social contagion, epistemic totalitarianism and - the best is yet to come - generational turnover, and already hollowed-out institutions soon to be inherited by even *more* deranged true believers. Ten years from *now* there won't be *anyone* in the room who will say, hold on a sec, because they'll have retired or been driven out by the wretched cadres attending their uni commencements as we speak.
That's what I am really worried about--what will all this be like in ten years. I don't know about y'all--actually I am curious, as to whether or not commenters here read more dystopian fiction than the normal amount (I suppose normal
would be Hunger Games). I read enough to recognize a dystopian world, but there wasn't much about the slide from a normal world to dystopian. I feel like that's what we are living.
An astute observation. I read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy books that talk about civilizations that decayed long ago and there’s a new boss in town; but for the most part there isn’t a lot of info on how they got from A to B. It’s mostly how B appears to be declining now too, and their fight to restore B.
One series of books that does talk about societal upheaval on a large scale are the Chung Kao series by David Wingrove. A great read, imho, if one doesn’t mind a large cast of characters to keep track of.
Hmmm, good thought but I'm not sure you've cracked what's going on. Let me instead suggest that a particular form of 'subversion' which allows people in a corrupt society to keep 'two sets of books' in their minds at all times. This is classic Marxist revolutionary stuff, fyi. Let me ask a simple question. Why does "Big Brother" in 1984 demand Winston say "2+5=5"? Because once his mind allows for this duality of thinking, he's changed forever. And what is the pressure used to move citizens to this point? Soft propaganda 24/7 combined with the cudgel of losing your job, getting a bad review, getting slimed on social media or your friends shunning you etc.
It's not a mystery. People have been conditioned to accept what's unreasonable, in fact they are taught that such a thing is sophisticated. The 'stick' is that they want to keep their jobs, status etc. My two cents, I appreciate you focusing on this.
You nailed it. There is this mesmerizing effect at watching 24/7 fear porn propaganda like the MSM dished out throughout Covid and now does through their coverage of war. There is mass confusion and this also causes fear. Even if you can see that the propaganda is obvious bullshit, continually taking it in on a daily basis makes you more likely to entertain that it could be true. It's truly insane how seductive it can all be.
And it's nothing new, nor is it an accident. Marxists of various stripes have been beavering away, subverting our nation and its institutions for well over 100 years. Read up on Dewey, and our "progressive" education system. Hell, Maynard Keynes was a closeted commie, lol - and not really that closeted. We fought WWII mainly for the advantage of the Soviet Union, yet Americans are still hypnotized by the illusion of the U.S. as 'the world's savior' - when we actually gave Eastern Europe to Stalin and China to Mao. Some victory...consider how long the rot has been festering. McCarthy was the first victim of Leftist cancel culture in many real ways. If you find this shocking, read Blacklisted by History by M. Stanton Evans, a legendary anti-communist writer and historian. Sigh...Thanks for caring. We need more on the right to really get how far gone we are and how late the hour is. They've just about won now, we are the 'backlash' that they predict. I think there is a very good chance this coming election will spark a civil war when the Dems try and steal it again. Brace yourself, buy gold and ammo...
excellent point. fear does this. people can't think when they're in survival mode. they've been purposefully conditioned to be in survival mode 24 / 7.
Wow, I hadn't thought of it that way exactly. It does switch the thinking mind off. I notice it in myself, and I have to admit that I see it very severely in some of my fellow conservatives. I have much empathy though as we are the ones having our culture insulted and degraded and attacked nonstop, we are attacked as people and shamed in a zillion subtle ways in our media. It adds up. I also think once this happens it becomes much easier to be emotionally manipulated and to believe conspiracy theories without inspecting carefully. We heterodox thinkers need to help each other not fall into this, me especially. Again, thanks for this.
I think the fear generation narratives are EVERYWHERE and affect everyone. All groups are being attacked by the cabal, purposefully, so none of us can feel safe enough to think. This is the entire goal. The cabal are masters at it. The "left" thinks they're the ones being insulted and degraded -- hence the righteousness -- yet can't see themselves in the mirror doing the exact same thing X 10. And, exactly, we have to become so aware of the trick that we never fall for another one again.
Once this system of oppressive malfeasance is in place, it is difficult (impossible?) to overcome. It is leveraged by a small number of people doing evil in the name of "good." The small number of people doing evil is not the problem; they are constant throughout history. The problem is the quiet acceptance by the masses.
In the case of the Soviets, the entire system had to collapse to break that cycle. And some might argue it's still in place, under a different flag.
Without people going along to get along, and thinking of their mortgage, and so on with the fully reasonable and rational material arguements - there could never be any authoritarianism.
I am reminded - of all things to come to mind - of a story in an issue of "Savage Sword of Conan" where a young and inexperienced Conan asks a companion why southerners grovel and obey weaklings like their nobility and monarchs.
The reply: "Because those weaklings can have us killed".
Perhaps not the most intellectual source, but the exchange shows two things:
Modern day Inquisition against deliberation , truth and logic. Sad maddening and crippling societally. I attribute a portion of it to social media pressures. Only a portion. But its impact on how much importance strangers’ approval is given to most avid users is sick. “Virtue signaling” and all that rot. Our brains have been rewired too due to our smart phones usage and not always in the best way either. Our memory is shorter due to our short cuts technology provides us. I remembered hundreds of phone numbers, addresses, directions, recipes (still largely intact), mental math, etc etc. before my growing dependency on this little box that stores everything now for me. Does not bode well for the generation who has never known life without one. Sorry to veer off on a tangent but there’s a link to your subject. Cheers.
Our elites believe in top-down, one-way communications and edicts.
They make a pronouncement, you obey and believe it. Otherwise you're not a team player. You're a troublemaker. Do you have a PhD? Because the team advising the dear leader had several very smart, top PhDs on it making the recommendations that you have a problem with. You're not an expert, they are. So shut your mouth and obey, prole. Your betters have spoken and they don't want to hear any lip from you.
Unfortunately, this is also the dominant form of leadership at most companies.
The cool thing about soviet politics is that you eventually get rid of everyone who isn't an idiot, so your confidence that you're being ruled by idiots only increases over time.
The problem is that the people who know better put their heads down and keep their mouths shut, because there are severe personal consequences for speaking up. Who’s willing to tell CA that we can’t keep the lights on with only wind and solar? Who spoke up when their unvaccinated colleagues were fired in 2021? Who spoke up when the Jews were rounded up and sent to the death camps? Human nature tends towards one’s own survival.
There is also a limit on the number of times someone will put up with being called a conspiracy theorist before he or she decides f’it, I tried.
Yeah, there is a limit for most people. They are continually ostracized for warning people and telling them the truth. Eventually, most of us wipe our hands of it; especially when it has divided our families and loved ones tell us to lay off and stop talking about it.
That's me. Now, when I see problems in the work space I don't say anything if it's not my responsibility to fix those problems. If that problem hinders my own performance, I'll bring it up to my leadership and explain why it's a hindrance. If they tell me "live with it" then I live with it. Lazy leadership gets antagonized when you keep bringing up fixable problems that they're too lazy to fix.
Fuck it, I tried.
🙌 Been there, done that! Shrugged my shoulders, 'cause it's their problem.
🙌 Amen!
Man, jowls I know this feeling all too well. Nowadays, instead of trying to wake people up it is more enjoyable sitting on the sidelines tossing in little verbal molotov cocktails and just watching people's reactions. There is no way I'm sticking my neck out these days. Being a card carrying member of America's most hated class (blue collar white middle aged male) I no longer see the point. Aside from fanning flames. It's equally fun tossing barbs at Republicans as it is democrats nowadays. But then again, they are the same filth. Just their approach to tyrrany is different.
"Lucero hasn't been kind to dissenters."
https://freebeacon.com/campus/a-failed-medical-school-how-racial-preferences-supposedly-outlawed-in-california-have-persisted-at-ucla/
When I first heard ucla was naming their med school after David geffen I laughed my ass off. I don’t care how much money he donated, he got most of it as a scumbag record executive. Just gives you an idea how much the school actually cares about medicine.
just added that as a comment before I got down this far lol. 💯
Every "open door" organization I've ever been part of has punished anyone who spoke up and pointed out problems or inefficiencies of policy.
They would never come down on someone directly. It would always be something like a bad performance review citing poor teamwork or negative attitude. Or it would be a slamdunk promotion you're passed over for. In one office I worked at they told an employee that spoke up too much that they needed him to transfer to a satellite office about 1.5 hours away, which would have given him a 2.5 hour commute every day. Naturally, he had to quit instead.
Or they simply put you first in line for layoffs during the next round of restructuring.
Yes! The ubiquitous "poor teamwork" and "bad attitude." Of course, after your being correct about how to fix things and being berated for it, for years, can become a bad attitude, because why would you want to work in that type of place?
Plenty of people were willing to speak up - at some point you realize the futility of speaking to the deaf and dumb.
Those who knew better and didn’t speak or nor resist did so for one reason - their lives are over leveraged. Aka codependency. And that is the real scourge of socialism.
Our elite universities are totally dependent on uncle sugar - the grants received are 80% of their revenue. They only dip into the endowments when they have a major, unnecessary building project in the works.
The institutions are called elite because of how much money they handle and how many people they control. Opt out as often as you can.
Good points. To your first paragraph, of course it’s futile but sometimes you need to speak anyway so that you, or your kids, know that at least you did SOMETHING. Also so the people ramming things down our throats can’t say “no one objected”.
Codependent is a good way to describe the situation. You lose your license to practice in your field or your tenure, then how do you eat. That’s the great personal cost.
Socialism!? Ha ha, the propaganda’s going well. This is textbook fascism we’re describing here.
"Human nature tends towards one’s own survival."
This is true. But also tends towards one's own comfort. We live in a world where principles are malleable and convenient things to be shed the moment a situation becomes difficult and requires even a modicum of sacrifice.
Pastor Martin Niemöller wrote his famous poem not for history’s sake but for the sake of future generations. And of course, we ignore it.
Yep. Being yelled at for everything you point out gets old. It's not appreciated when the boss is "always right." That's why they're the boss! Then when it all goes to to he🏒🏒, "Well, how come you never said anything!" 🙄
Exceptional insight. We currently exist.. and that’s the only fitting description in a nation of bifurcated tyranny. A battle of two factions without any tolerance for dissent on any issue. And of course, both ideological platforms are unsustainable. Where once was a center inclusive of ideas, criticism, solutions and concern for “ We The People” is now an enormous crater bragging us all into the abyss.
Ever attempted to reach an “ elected representative”, only to be met with “ the person you are trying to reach cannot receive messages at this time”. Without any instructions as to what might be a better time, a different number or any avenue to reach someone who might offer assistance? Or on the rare event a human answers the call, they really don’t give a rat’s ass as to why you are calling? Or become annoyed, combative, tell you your issue is not their problem or just hang up? You know, the very same “ vaunted” elected “ representatives” who blow up your phone, text messages, emails and postal box begging for your dollars?
Overturning Roe was a , no pun intended, death sentence for the GOP. I didn’t support it ,but I told myself they wouldn’t go that far. I’m pro-life by choice. Choice being the key word. What another decides ( within sane parameters) is not for me to decide. And if the overturn wasn’t enough to fully determine the results of the midterm elections, it became a contest of who was the most fundamentalist in the personal embrace of Christianity. Outdoing each other with draconian restrictions, segueing to absolute banning, then restricting out of state travel, eliminating any availability of abortifactant pills ( which are only effective in the very early stage of pregnancy and finally, criminalizing the act of a woman receiving an abortion, charging her with murder. In some states, punishable by 100 years in prison or death.
The restrictions were so inhumane, Pat Robertson , the evangelical pastor and founder of the 700 Club was appalled. Calling it cruel, overreaching, devoid of empathy and crossing the line. He assured the Conservative politicians who were enacting these laws that desperate women would be forced to take desperate measures. Resulting in far worse outcomes. As well as sweeping electoral losses.
DeSantis won his second election by the largest voting margin in purple Floridian history. Florida swept the election , picking up 15+ congressional seats and a second Senate seat. It was cause to celebrate. The bluest districts flipped red. How did it happen? Because not a single candidate ran on restricting abortion. Then DeSantis enacted a 15 week ban. It was met with major pushback, but he was doing so well on every other issue. Covid, the education curriculum, cutting regulation, rebuilding infrastructure, including our sea walls, no state income tax, easy to start up businesses, expand small businesses,welcoming big business relocation and expansion. Dramatically lowering crime,banning government and business entities from engaging in BDS, ending CRT, DEI, sexualization of children in grades k-3, making the history of Communism requisite in high school , offering therapeutics to COVID infected, all but banning the harmful mRNA vaccines, eliminating mask mandates, opening the state much earlier the 90% of the nation… even Bill Maher, Joe Rogan and other notable liberal entertainers loved him.
And then, in the middle of the night, without any input or forewarning, signed the six week ban, the only exceptions, rape or the threat of certain death of the mother. In one pen stroke, he assured the loss of nearly every Republican seat in the upcoming election. And I’m unable to have my voice heard. No matter how many calls , emails or attempts to express my dismay to ANY Florida Republican representative. Even though several office workers agree, but dare not advocate
Where it becomes incredibly hypocritical is that all of the zealots outdoing one another are the same ones who decried the vaccine mandates. Calling it an invasion of privacy, violation of bodily autonomy, religious freedom, doctor patient privilege and the right of self determination. Alabama legislated an embryo as a child. Two cells are a child.N.Dakota,Mississippi,Wyoming,S.Dakota,Arkansas,Missouri,Louisiana,W.Virginia,Georgia…Ohio Oklahoma and Kansas were forced to reverse the rulings. Texas, which enacted a “ citizen deputy” ruling, offering a 10,000 reward to tattletales fights every effort to overturn these insane policies in court. Several times, before the Supreme Court. SCOTUS returns it to the State and each time the same State Senate tightens the noose. But the lunatics in Arizona were not to be outdone, enacting a Civil War era law naming women cattle. More insane still, California was not yet a state. Finally a couple of Republican representatives spoke out against it. They were removed from their state committee positions.Mike Pence, in his own words said he would rather lose every election than allow any “ murder of the unborn”. Even if it means enslaving the already born, ensuring a New World Order of transhumanism in a vastly depopulated world.
But you MUST pledge lockstep loyalty to this platform to run for office as a Republican And you must pledge loyalty to supporting full term abortion on demand, including during labor, delivery and in some cases, a baby, ex-utero, who refused to die.
This is only one example of how both parties are. crushing any form of dissent on any issue. I’ve been called both a “ baby killer” and a “ Right Wing Christian Nationalist”. A Commie-Dem and a Misogynist Al Qaeda extremist. A godless heathen anti-Christian and a Far Right Fundamentalist Bible Beating Redneck. I’m none of the aforementioned Can’t win for losing.
Tulsi Gabbard, who I really like and align with, isn’t Christian enough or traditionally Conservative enough to qualify as Trump’s running mate. Nevermind her qualifications, messaging skills or determination to shred the Deep State… and she knows exactly how corrupt and anti-American, pro-Communism , Islamism, Fascism they entire cabal, infiltrators and planted puppets , their goals, machinations, money flow within every agency and public/private entanglement. Nevermind she is outspokenly pro-Israel, vocally adamant regarding the very real threat of Islamism. Nevermind she served in Iraq and Afghanistan and continues serving. Nevermind she was a 2 term member of Congress, confronted Killery in the most direct, unflinching and eloquent verbal ass kicking ever, took Kamala down in one fell swoop. Nevermind that she’s devout in her Hindu faith, believes God is paramount and is opposed to the interventions now bringing us to the brink of WWIII. Nevermind she has done more to advocat and campaign for Republican candidates, has exposed the Democrat Party and is appearing on every imaginable venue to get her message across. Nevermind her broad spectrum appeal across every faction.. including Conservative, Republican, Moderate, Centrist, liberal, leftist, Independent, Libertarian, Suburban women, millenials, Gen-Z, men, Jewish. Hindu,Buddhist, Catholic, evangelical, Protestant, agnostic, atheist, black, Latino, , white, immigrants who fled the Iranian, Afghani, Lebanese regime changes … Nevermind she can near guarantee defeating the Dem Death Cult, Nevermind she has the endorsements of Wayne Allen Root, Bill O’Reilly, Dennis Prager,Joe Rogan, Michael Savage, David Horowitz, Laura Ingraham, Gutfeld, RFK Jr, Lew Rockwell, Walter Block, Tammy Bruce, Bill Maher, Jack Posobiec, Dick Morris,Michael Shellenberger, Frank Gaffney, Anthony Tata, Jeanine, Ron Paul, Ben Shapiro, Andrew Bet David, Russell Brand, Jimmy Dore, Asra Nomani, Glenn Beck, Robb Schmitt, Viva Frei, Lex Friedman, Doug Murray, Huckabee, Independent Women’s Forum., Frontpage, Tablet,the owner of OAN, Bannon. Batchya Ungur, Ben Stein, Log Cabin, Scott Pressler, Veteran’s Orgs…. And on. She was a Democrat, identifies as Independent, is Hindu and reasonably pro-choice within reasonable parameters. You know, she appeals to 75% of Americans including those diaffected and disgusted with both parties. Ergo ,” The Party” won’t have it!
To pursue the navigation instruments metaphor, the idiots who are running the ship are convinced the only way they can stay in charge is if they make it impossible for their staff to input information into the bridge.
There's no way to enter a destination or a course or even ask "where are we going." And no one is available for escalation of the issues. They don't want any input, any questions, any suggestions. When the ship -- the institution -- goes off course, they'll insist otherwise. They're in command, so they're convinced everything's running as it should.
The very act of disagreement is bad. Those who disagree are bad. A lexicon is created to label them as such, and we all understand.
The staff know better, but they have their own self interests to consider, so after a brief, weak resistance, they're content to ride it out.
So true. Perhaps the grimmest instance of this was when Mao told all of China's hundreds of millions of peasant farmers "OK so from this day forward you are all steel producers". Next thing; the ploughs and farm implements, even pots and pans started to get melted down.
Interesting, this one-day-to-the-next thing.
So, essentially, it was less that the peasants could *not* deliberate and more that they had *no time* to deliberate due to the urgent delivery—and seeming importance—of a message broadcast by an authority who supposedly knew better.
The past four years (at the very least) have been all about just that:
Every time the average Joe got a second to get his bearings, he was whiplashed by a new piece of information—and a new Next Thing—that threw him off balance . . . again.
Yes...but the Maoist Cultural Revolution was way worse than that. It's a story of what happens when a dictator's arrogance knows no bounds. What happened in the example I gave was - in simple terms - this: Mao saw that Western capitalism had produced great industrial dynamism and he was JEALOUS. He saw that the West was capable of producing vast quantities of steel and even though he had not the faintest idea how this had happened, he decided that China must have it too....now....right now....this instant. Just extreme hubris and arrogance-on-a-stick. The result: many millions of peasants needlessly died of starvation.
Pffft. I don’t believe Mao acted on his own.
Anyway, I was less talking about the why than the how.
You mistake my meaning mzlizzi. My point was not about Mao "acting alone". Quite the reverse in fact. My point was about man's groupthink tendencies and ...Yes... especially under the influence of 'charistmatic leaders'. I've lost count of the number of times I've posted Substack comments along the lines of this one: "it is an almost universal conceit that the horrors of The Cultural Revolution were all about Mao and his gang. The truth is much darker. Mao would have been nothing without tens of millions of biddable, favour-seeking, grudge-bearing followers."
One of the lessons oft ignored is "Don't create legions of grudge-holding people" - the foundation for the communist revoloutions were after all laid by the oppressive and abusive capitalists of the 19th century.
Except in nations such as Sweden. Here, they instead realised that agreeing to wages that could not only allow a man to support a family but allowed him to set something aside meant loyal and dilligent workers able to afford the products they produced.
Kind of the same idea Ford had: his assembly-line workers should be able to afford his cars.
But Russia and China wasn't and isn't the USA or Sweden or Spain or... culturally, and the underlying culture as Doctor Hammer points out was what directed how the various revolutions turned out.
Well, maybe you shouldn’t talk so much if you don’t want people to mistake your meaning.
He didn't act on his own, but he had extremely high amounts of decision making power that was not to be contradicted under fear of punishment. As others have pointed out if those who know better keep their mouths shut because challenging the authority figure gets you punished (killed along with your family in Mao's case) everyone starts to act as an extension of the authority figure's will.
The peasants did what they were told because they knew they would be killed, and the Chinese culture puts a lot of emphasis on submission to authority besides. The soldiers did what they were told because their officers could have them killed. The officers did what they were told because showing disloyalty to the cause and the crazy man leading it got you killed. That's the how of these situations: a cult of personality and ideology gets created, weeds out those who disagree, and totalizes the will of the leadership/ideology (the word of the leader is always right) to prevent challenges to its rule. Then if it manages to take power over anything there are no feedback loops and in fact presenting information that is contrary to the official reality is seen as treason, which gets you killed. Breaking the hold of the cult takes either an outside force to end that structure (military invasion/rebellion, or market forces in the case of companies) or an eventual replacement of True Believers with skeptics who risk talking amongst themselves and deciding to off the cult leadership.
Oh, Jesus.
I wasted my early to mid 20s burning bridges in corporate offices by making the mistake of thinking they actually wanted valid feedback on inefficient or pointless processes.
Turned out those processes were the creation of middle-managers still occupying their positions, and pointing out the negative parts of their processes were apparently a personal attack on those managers.
So I learned to just hold my tongue and only fix problems I was given orders to fix.
Sadly, I am my father's child and have his ability to NOT hold my tongue, on most things. So, I'm always in trouble, always harrassed, always bitched out, always at fault, etc. BUT, when THEY change the things I have pointed out, it's THEIR idea, THEY get the credit, THEY get the raises, THEY get the promotions and I get the shaft.
Sadly, way of the world
Spent twenty years in Kodak, watching the games play. As I moved up to more responsibilities, and gained favor of “ the big bosses” which ultimately was my downfall. They used every trick in the book to get me fired,and then my immediate supervisor best friended my wife at the time, who was a drunk. We were only together for a year, and in that year I had to drive my drunken boss home from many gigs, and then I made a bad corporate decision to leave that horrid wife. Oops.
Been there.
Done that.
Got the scars.
Right! That's why it is critical for the state to normalize the manifest idiocy of AI. They need a reliable mechanism to answer your local medical mafia outlet call for help and say, "Well don't do that." in any of the official languages of the WHO (as determined by your IP address, of course).
Relatedly, this one:
Nurse Loses Her Job For Refusing and Records Her Last Day
thatgirlkanesha, posted November 22, 2023
https://www.tiktok.com/@thatgirlkanesha/video/7304068650674195742
TRANSCRIPT
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: I first saw this video when it was originally posted, to the best of recollection, in 2021. This transcript was made from this 2023 repost. In the video, the security guard wears a black mask.
0:12
NURSE [filming herself]: I am being escorted out of Kaiser Permanente Hospital for my religious beliefs because I don't want to get the jab. And I asked all day for someone to explain to me why my sincerely held religious beliefs are not good enough for Kaiser. And no one was able to do that for me.
[to someone off camera]: Bye.
So now they're escorting me out because I wanted an answer and I'm not leaving without an answer. And I have some nurses here who are standing with me in solidarity. And I appreciate that. And I just want all of you to count the cost. I want you to watch this and think, what really matters to me? Because I am willing to lose my safety and security, my house, everything, for my freedom. And I want you to think about that.
[entering elevator] [inaudible]
RECORDED VOICE: Going down.
NURSE: Let me ask you. Do you believe in religious freedom?
SECURITY GUARD: I do.
NURSE: Well Kaiser doesn't. Do you believe in religious freedom?
WOMAN'S VOICE: One hundred percent.
NURSE: Do you believe in religious freedom?
ANOTHER WOMAN'S VOICE: [inaudible]
NURSE: OK. Well Kaiser doesn't believe in religious freedom because they are not accepting my religious exemption based on my sincerely held religious beliefs. So.
RECORDED VOICE: Going up.
NURSE [exiting elevator]: That's a problem.
WOMAN'S VOICE FROM HALLWAY: Love you.
NURSE: Love you.
[to camera, as walking down hall of hospital]: All day I've been asking for someone from HR to come talk to me about why my religious exemption was not good enough for Kaiser. So I've been asking and asking, and no one will give me an answer. So that was at 10:45 this morning that I was told I'm now being placed on unpaid administrative leave for no reason.
I showed up to work this morning. Happy to work. All I want to do is work. All I want to do is work. Since the beginning, I've been a covid nurse since the beginning when we didn't know what was going on. When we didn't know what kind of rooms we were walking into. But that's what we do. We're nurses. And I'll keep doing that, just somewhere else.
But I want you all to think about what matters to you. Because this matters to me. Freedom matters to me. Because it's a slippery slope when you start taking away freedoms. Slippery slope.
So Kaiser, thank you, thank you for the money. Kaiser pays well. It's pretty much, you know, the devil's in the details.
[tp security officer]: I'm on the seventh floor. You good to walk the stairs?
MASKED SECURITY OFFICER: Hey. [laughs] I'm on the [inaudible].
NURSE [to camera]: We're taking the stairs.
[to someone off camera]: Bye, girl.
NURSE: Bye. [she hugs her]
WOMAN'S VOICE: I'm so sorry. It's not right.
NURSE: It's not right.
WOMAN'S VOICE: Totally inappropriate.
NURSE: It's not right. Thank you.
[walking again, speaking to camera]: We're taking the stairs. I'm on the seventh floor. You game? OK, let's go.
So since I have, since I you, um, what would you do if you were in my shoes, if they were telling you that you had to violate your sincerely held religious belief or lose your job, what would you do?
SECURITY OFFICER: I don't know. [inaudible] that so I don't know how to respond to that.
NURSE: Yeah. Well they will, I mean, if it's not the vaccine it'll be something else. So for me, I didn't want to do that. And I'm taking a stand because I know that this is not the end. Because there'll just be one other thing.
Here we go. Floor one. [Climbing the stairs— reading placard] "Climbing the stairs is a free workout built right into your day. Kaiser Permanente."
The security guard's walking with me. Seven floors. I don't think they were ready for that.
[Climbing the stairs— reading placard] "Helps shrink your waistline by building healthy muscle and pumping your metabolism."
It's a sad day. I don't know what kind of pandemic it is if they're firing nurses who are willing to work. I don't know! Doesn't make sense to me.
So you got to ask yourself a question. What kind of world are we living in when we have a pandemic where my kids have to wear masks at school and they have to get a vaccine for something that they're not at risk of dying for at all? What kind of a world are we living in if they're firing nurses who don't want to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs. Right? That's crazy.
[Climbing the stairs— reading placard] "Taking the stairs burns steam and relieves stress. Kaiser Permanente"
[aims camera at view out to trees tops and sky] Hey that's the view.
[camera on masked security officer, still in his mask, then camera back on herself]: We're there. We're there, sir. Seven flights, that's right, I follow the rules. I park on top. That's the kind of nurse I am.
Thank you.
5:44
And I saw that Kaiser just sent out a letter to those fired saying come back, the covid vax requirement is no longer a requirement. No apology, just saying things changed so come back . . . PUULLLEEEEEZZZEEEE
Yes, I saw that, too, and it's what prompted me to finally finish that transcript. The dumb bunny arrogance of that letter... no words.
https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/are-you-a-good-german-or-a-badass
and they all should 1) tell them to fuck right off, 2) sue.
What really sucks there is the others who were saying “Goodbye” instead of, “Hold on a sec! Wait for me! I’ll join you!”
It would be interesting to know what those individuals in the video (their voices anyway) would say about it now, in May 2024. from what I've seen, both in my own circles, and in transcribing since 2021, many nurses drank the Kool-Aid, it just was beyond their Overton window to imagine that their health authorities would lie to them about the jabs being safe and effective— and lie about all the rest of the covid story. At the same time, many health care workers did know that taking the jabs was like Russian roulette, they knew they didn't need it (many had already recovered from covid), but they took their own good health for granted, and/or just didn't have the wherewithal to stand up for themselves against the heavy pressure to get jabbed. That's my take on it at this point.
My daughter is a Registered Nurse at an Arizona hospital. She managed to get her religious exemption ‘approved’ (one more example of the law being broken, as religious exemptions are NOT subject to approval or denial). I suspect it was approved only because they needed surgical RNs. Though she has suffered much poor treatment/harassment due to her refusing the mRNA injections. I guess I just wanted you to know that not EVERY nurse drank the kool-aid.
Thanks for your comment, Cathleen, and good for your daughter that she made that effort to get the exemption and managed to keep her job. No worries, I was saying that "many" did not have the wherewithal to stand up for themselves; I certainly do not mean to say "all"— I do know many nurses did not drink the Kool-Aid, Iand in fact I have transcribed a number of such testimonies. It's just heartbreaking. I can only imagine how hard this must have been, and still is, for your daughter. I admire such fortitude, and may your daughter continue to find strength.
PS I also agree 1,000% that it is not for some bureaucrat to decide whose religious beliefs are valid and whose not.
Transcriber B - thank you for the reply. My daughter is ‘hanging in there’ at work. I have asked her what the doctors (mainly surgeons and anesthesiologists) and other nurses now say about the mRNA shots: her answer is that none of the doctors ever raise the subject at all, and the few nurses who refused the shot sometimes discuss it, but always privately and carefully, as they don’t feel safe doing so openly. Overall, everyone acts as if none of it ever happened. My daughter doesn’t even want to talk about it; it causes her too much anxiety. She has told me that the last two years are the first time ever that she has no pressure to get the flu shot…she was informed that her religious exemption for the C19 shot ‘covers the flu shot, too’.
Good wishes to her. I can only imagine how difficult this must be. I don't doubt that her patients need her, and appreciate that she is there for them.
That's how our unions came about, 170 years ago: workers fed up with capitalists working people as if they were slaves united, supported each other and blacklisted capitalists that exploited and abused the workers.
That is what solidarity used to mean: people sticking together against the Abuser and Oppressor, no matter his flag, creed or the colour of his skin.
The feds established the mandates and those tyrants and their oligarchs ain’t capitalists. Ketchup.
They are clearly capitalists: they own global networks of capital-increasing corporations, all driven for monetary profit over any other concern.
And that is what capitalism is: the accumulation of money (capital) for the capitalist, at any cost and risk and consequence, as long as the capitalist isn't the one suffering them.
Or put it this way: they are capitalists in the same way Lenin and his gang were communists.
HAHAHA
ok
My, how things have changed, huh?
Wow, thank you for transcribing this video, TranscriberB. Very few people have this kind of courage. If more people reacted like this nurse, we could have stopped this worldwide scam before it really got off the ground.
She's a hero. She's one for the history books. I wish I knew her name.
I keep wondering how I would have reacted when faced with the same vax or be fired choice back when I was 30 and had a wife and 2 young children to feed, a mortgage, car payment and meager savings. My older retired self says: "NFW". Sadly, at that stage of my life, I probably would have said "WTH, vax me" . The thought that people were faced with that scenario, is profoundly sad and angers me to no end.
Kevin, I asked my now 64 year old self and retired that same question several times during the whole Covid vaxx situation. At 30 with kids, a mortgage, other obligations and many years away from being red pilled I most likely would have lined up for the shot particularly if it was that or my job.
When I wore a younger man's clothes, family and all, I was never faced with that that kind of choice. (I was ranching!)
But I suspect that given the option of supporting my family, or not, I would have taken the bloody shot.
I might have if it weren't for the masks. No way after that.
There would have been strength in numbers. If enough employees said no, the employer would have backed down. We saw this with LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District). They tried to implement a vaccine mandate on students, and backed down shortly before the deadline when it was clear that thousands of kids hadn’t gotten the shot. (I attribute that to the demographics, not principled stance.) The problem is that they cleverly divided us. Most people were still working from home, hard to organize, and everyone had to make their own individual choice.
Where I worked at the time there were 7,000 employees and pre-covid everyone talked about it being a “family”. About 70 employees banded together to create a “No Vax Mandate” group and try to talk to the leadership. Leadership wouldn’t talk to us. In the end, 200 employees out of 7,000 requested a religious exemption. Not a large enough number. I forget which was that hospital in Houston(?) where also they went ahead and fired the unvaccinated employees. It made the news but wasn’t painful enough for the hospital to rescind their mandate.
Yup just 5-10% and it would've been unenforceable
And Bill Barr, Gina Haspel, Mike Pence, Chris Wray, Mitch, Mitt, Milley, Bolton, Paul Ryan,Liz and Dick, Kinzinger, McMaster, W, Henry Kerner, ,Graham, Christie,Scaramucci, George Conway, Bob Corker, Fiona Hill, John Roberts, Murkowski, Flake, Jerome Adams, Trey Gowdy Pompeo, Stephanie Grisham,Brad Raffensberger, Jonah Goldberg, Kadlec, Bill Gates, Bancel, Slavek, Hur, Portman,Nick Ayres, Steven Hayes, Robert Mueller,Cippilone, Will Hurd, Mike Lee.. the most ignominious bar staff of them all… John McShitstain… were out to get Trump from Day One.
Did Trump help himself? Not too often. Many of the aforementioned were his appointments ,” inner circle and advisors”.
Trump is the reason Trump lost Georgia, despite the exponential amount of. voter fraud. Kelly Loeffler had it in the bag, was well liked across party lines, and supported Trump’s policies. Because Kemp recommended her, Trump pushed Doug Collins into the mix. He was too far religious right, took 20/ of the vote, had no chance of winning, but took Loeffler below the 50¥ needed to win in Georgia. She was at 78% prior to Collins. And Collins forfeited his Congressional seat.Trump’s feud became so publicly contentious, Perdue, a shoe in, cancelled his debate. He lost to the unknown leftist, Ossoff, who until the last minute, didn’t have a Georgia residence. Now he’s ranting and projecting in RFK Jr. and it doesn’t boost his image-instead, makes him seem small. Calling him a “ far- leftwing lunatic - a maniac-even farther left than Biden”.
The disgusting attacks on Elon Musk, Nancy Mace, DeSantis, Murkowski, LarryHogan, et al were so unnecessary. And the puerile nicknames, pre-emptive ad hominem attacks and slurs didn’t help.To “ demand” loyalty, there should be reciprocity..Calling judges “ sleazebags”, women “ horseface”, and anybody not in lockstep agreement on every issue “ losers” doesn’t bear well. And because he/she “ said nice things about me” doesn’t make them trustworthy or qualified.
I could go on and on, but to no benefit.I fear he will do it again.
Trump needs to focus on his achievements that were undeniably exceptional for all, not just the Evangelicals.
He MUST opt for Tulsi. She has the ability to stand up to him. But his ego is so gargantuan, he may fear she’ll outshine him. Which in his own lingo, would be “ sad!”.
Massie. His attacks on Thomas Massie.
Could have saved a lot of typing if you had just confirmed, as many have, that Trump is his own worst enemy.
Bravo! Completely agree (except maybe Mike Lee?) I despise the lawfare and egregious conflicts with the judges and DAs who are prosecuting him, but I resent feeling I have to vote for him as a protest. He has always been his own worst enemy. Despite the many good things he did as President, he made some really bad decisions. And his attacks on those good, decent conservatives with the temerity to run against him in a primary really was the turning point for me. Of course he’s better than Biden; practically anyone is. But in the long run, is he good for the GOP or the country?
Trump is our worst enemy. Politics is fake. Here's my prediction: Trump will win. The covid criminals will be incarcerated. We will all celebrate like we did at the end of WW2. After that, the global agenda will continue with electronic currency and the building of the bio-security state will continue. Vaxxes will continue. All the globalist agendas ('21, and '30) will continue in lockstep. Trump is a 5G and vaccine guy. He can see the future and we aren't in it. Trump is a Zionist. There are two kinds of people in the world. Zionists and everyone else. Trump gave the keys of the government to Fauci and they attacked us with bioweapons. I don't see why people are even considering voting at all, or following politics at all. It's like a soap opera you can't stop watching.
Any doctor or nurse who administers this vaccine, knowing it causes harm, is complicit in murder. Any doctor still recommending this vaccine, knowing it causes harm, is complicit in murder. What percentage of doctors are cowards? I'd say the percentage is extremely high. "If I say anything, I'll be fired." That's their excuse. Well, in the aftermath of the carnage, their excuse will be, "I was just following orders."
Yes… and the “I’ve got a wife, kids, mortgage “ is the accepted excuse.
Well.
And the carnage happened, they followed orders.
And everyone thought it was the Men with guns who’d kill us .
Well it was the Women with syringes.
Yeah, the deception was far and wide and covered the corners of the earth. You're right. The carnage happened. The tale has just not played itself out yet. I wish there were medical remedies to help people and possibly mitigate some of the damage. If the truth was accepted, we could start trying to collectively find answers to these problems, but people are still under the spell of a strong delusion and I see no sign of it dissipating.
We collectively found 2 answers.
They won.
Others bitched.
The problem is lack of ballz.
THIS.
It's just astonishing. I walked around places during the plandemic and thought did I sleep through the universal mandatory castrations too? I think this more than anything may have given me Post Traumatic Disillusionment Syndrome during the scam. It is very hard for me to look at dear friends I have the same again...simply because they weren't the MEN I thought they were. Felt like betrayal.
But then it occurred to me that all this stuff we think is happening so fast, and all at one time, is really just a typhoon hitting shore that started as small concentric circles 40 years ago.
Here's an experiment I conducted:
Go ask a few people in line at airport security if trading freedom for safety was worth it. Not only do they look at you weird for asking such...they do not even know what you're talking about. Serious. Try it.
Heres why people think it's all happening fast. There is one generation prior to the Patriot Act who were too young to understand the implications of trading freedom for safety.....AND another generation born after that wouldn't have a clue. Here's the nub; do you know what the percentage of people born after 85' represent in the population?
ITS ALMOST 60%! And the increase in that percentage, going forward, is not merely linear for the obvious reasons. We're already past critical mass of inertia. Oh the irony of obtaining inertia through critical mass....hmmm...that seems to be a deliberate experiment if its own. Good luck trying to roll that ball back up hill.
What do you think is the percentage of those people who know that the TSA fails nearly 90% of the security exercises they perform? What about the children they're going to have?
I mean it's such a farce
of Inspector Clouseaus they'd miss a suicide bomber if he wore his spleen on your shoes
Seriously!...at this point, Im pretty sure the TSA's main job is to collect biometrics and to give you anxiety about your luggage being overweight.
That 60% of the population has de facto had The Founders most profound warning of trading freedom for safety eliminated from our history...they'll know nothing else because they do not have a shared reference.
And here's the whammy:
Not only do they not know how dangerous it is to trade freedom for safety; they don't even know that in that bargain they have inherented a future where the state has its most powerful form of control:
unopposed on-demand surveillance at the individual level. And for their children it will be on-demand cradle to grave.
Bottom line, if you take any significant inflection point of substantial change in a cultures history, means you automatically eliminate a generation on each side of the event who by the time they start having children there won't be much of us left who know otherwise.
Time to start shaking the shit out of people.
(Let’s not forget the freedom-hating generations were entrained via Facebook to willingly offer up almost all of their what-should-be-private information.)
Yeah, people are continually telling me to "go to Fu(《b00《" and look at (fill in the blank)." These same a$$hat$ have been told, no less than 1 million times that I'm not on Fu(《boo《 and I refuse to be on Fu(《boo《. These are people in their 60s! The best thing they can say is, "You can delete your profile." 😑🙄
Some of us tend to challenge authority . Authority doesn’t like it very much. And after a while it doesn’t matter if you are correct, you have a sore head from banging it against a brick wall. So you opt out, you flow like water around the obstacles or some other half-baked Zen metaphor. Opting out is optimal if you can do it. But we can’t all opt out all the time. You have to pick your battles. But there will be battles. As old Trotsky said: You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.
Right now is one of those times. The idea is not to lose the battle, but to beat the cretins ruining the country and Western civilization. We can do it. But we have to fight. I actually don’t think it will take that long to overcome them. What will take time is cleaning out all the fellow travelers embedded in the system. Pick your poison. How much more do you want to put up with in order to avoid conflict?
Well spoken. Getting attacked with DOD bioweapons is a big clue that war is upon us. Yes we need to opt out of the tax based payroll model. How can we in good conscience buy Obamacare? They are killing us with the money they steal from our paychecks.
Yeah and we pay for their bad ideas without really having a say in the matter. 2000 page bills which have to be digested in 48 hours if they are shared at all before a vote. It’s a racket.
Yes, the same goes for the teaching profession that. sadly, I am about to leave. Some of us, well me anyway, know that our job is to teach academics, yes, but also to instill the importance of a work ethic, and a sense of right and wrong. No longer the case. The kids' "feelings" are all that matter. The "feelings" reign supreme, backed by counselors and parents (who run the schools.) There are no consequences, no grades. I know better, so I have to find something else to do (after many years) because I am shunned if I say anything different, and it goes against my own morals to be a part of creating monsters.
As a retired teacher, I can only agree with you and click like.
It’s truly a sad state of affairs. I hope you’re able to land somewhere where your skill sets are valued and appreciated.
My husband’s metaphor for public education is this: “The building is on fire…get your kids out NOW”. Only by mass exodus of families can it even possibly salvaged. Money talks when their funding dries up. But we may well have gone past that point now.
I’m regretting more and more the set of encyclopedias we gave away when our children finished high school. At least we have our bibles and assorted theological books, our old McGuffy Readers and an old dictionary that isn’t woke. And still more books that I suspect the average family keeps in their homes.
This makes me sad. I was lucky enough to have been taught by some very, very good teachers, people who genuinely loved their subject and inspired a lot of students to love those subjects too.
I had a lot of good years of that, so I am grateful
Rot, decay, social contagion, epistemic totalitarianism and - the best is yet to come - generational turnover, and already hollowed-out institutions soon to be inherited by even *more* deranged true believers. Ten years from *now* there won't be *anyone* in the room who will say, hold on a sec, because they'll have retired or been driven out by the wretched cadres attending their uni commencements as we speak.
That's what I am really worried about--what will all this be like in ten years. I don't know about y'all--actually I am curious, as to whether or not commenters here read more dystopian fiction than the normal amount (I suppose normal
would be Hunger Games). I read enough to recognize a dystopian world, but there wasn't much about the slide from a normal world to dystopian. I feel like that's what we are living.
An astute observation. I read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy books that talk about civilizations that decayed long ago and there’s a new boss in town; but for the most part there isn’t a lot of info on how they got from A to B. It’s mostly how B appears to be declining now too, and their fight to restore B.
One series of books that does talk about societal upheaval on a large scale are the Chung Kao series by David Wingrove. A great read, imho, if one doesn’t mind a large cast of characters to keep track of.
Hmmm, good thought but I'm not sure you've cracked what's going on. Let me instead suggest that a particular form of 'subversion' which allows people in a corrupt society to keep 'two sets of books' in their minds at all times. This is classic Marxist revolutionary stuff, fyi. Let me ask a simple question. Why does "Big Brother" in 1984 demand Winston say "2+5=5"? Because once his mind allows for this duality of thinking, he's changed forever. And what is the pressure used to move citizens to this point? Soft propaganda 24/7 combined with the cudgel of losing your job, getting a bad review, getting slimed on social media or your friends shunning you etc.
It's not a mystery. People have been conditioned to accept what's unreasonable, in fact they are taught that such a thing is sophisticated. The 'stick' is that they want to keep their jobs, status etc. My two cents, I appreciate you focusing on this.
You nailed it. There is this mesmerizing effect at watching 24/7 fear porn propaganda like the MSM dished out throughout Covid and now does through their coverage of war. There is mass confusion and this also causes fear. Even if you can see that the propaganda is obvious bullshit, continually taking it in on a daily basis makes you more likely to entertain that it could be true. It's truly insane how seductive it can all be.
And it's nothing new, nor is it an accident. Marxists of various stripes have been beavering away, subverting our nation and its institutions for well over 100 years. Read up on Dewey, and our "progressive" education system. Hell, Maynard Keynes was a closeted commie, lol - and not really that closeted. We fought WWII mainly for the advantage of the Soviet Union, yet Americans are still hypnotized by the illusion of the U.S. as 'the world's savior' - when we actually gave Eastern Europe to Stalin and China to Mao. Some victory...consider how long the rot has been festering. McCarthy was the first victim of Leftist cancel culture in many real ways. If you find this shocking, read Blacklisted by History by M. Stanton Evans, a legendary anti-communist writer and historian. Sigh...Thanks for caring. We need more on the right to really get how far gone we are and how late the hour is. They've just about won now, we are the 'backlash' that they predict. I think there is a very good chance this coming election will spark a civil war when the Dems try and steal it again. Brace yourself, buy gold and ammo...
excellent point. fear does this. people can't think when they're in survival mode. they've been purposefully conditioned to be in survival mode 24 / 7.
Wow, I hadn't thought of it that way exactly. It does switch the thinking mind off. I notice it in myself, and I have to admit that I see it very severely in some of my fellow conservatives. I have much empathy though as we are the ones having our culture insulted and degraded and attacked nonstop, we are attacked as people and shamed in a zillion subtle ways in our media. It adds up. I also think once this happens it becomes much easier to be emotionally manipulated and to believe conspiracy theories without inspecting carefully. We heterodox thinkers need to help each other not fall into this, me especially. Again, thanks for this.
I think the fear generation narratives are EVERYWHERE and affect everyone. All groups are being attacked by the cabal, purposefully, so none of us can feel safe enough to think. This is the entire goal. The cabal are masters at it. The "left" thinks they're the ones being insulted and degraded -- hence the righteousness -- yet can't see themselves in the mirror doing the exact same thing X 10. And, exactly, we have to become so aware of the trick that we never fall for another one again.
Cowardice is the new courage.
🎯 victimhood the new hero.
This is the thesis of The Gulag Archipalego.
Once this system of oppressive malfeasance is in place, it is difficult (impossible?) to overcome. It is leveraged by a small number of people doing evil in the name of "good." The small number of people doing evil is not the problem; they are constant throughout history. The problem is the quiet acceptance by the masses.
In the case of the Soviets, the entire system had to collapse to break that cycle. And some might argue it's still in place, under a different flag.
I don't think we'll be any different.
Without people going along to get along, and thinking of their mortgage, and so on with the fully reasonable and rational material arguements - there could never be any authoritarianism.
I am reminded - of all things to come to mind - of a story in an issue of "Savage Sword of Conan" where a young and inexperienced Conan asks a companion why southerners grovel and obey weaklings like their nobility and monarchs.
The reply: "Because those weaklings can have us killed".
Perhaps not the most intellectual source, but the exchange shows two things:
That authority rests, always, on willing lapdogs.
And:
A free man is only as free as he acts.
Modern day Inquisition against deliberation , truth and logic. Sad maddening and crippling societally. I attribute a portion of it to social media pressures. Only a portion. But its impact on how much importance strangers’ approval is given to most avid users is sick. “Virtue signaling” and all that rot. Our brains have been rewired too due to our smart phones usage and not always in the best way either. Our memory is shorter due to our short cuts technology provides us. I remembered hundreds of phone numbers, addresses, directions, recipes (still largely intact), mental math, etc etc. before my growing dependency on this little box that stores everything now for me. Does not bode well for the generation who has never known life without one. Sorry to veer off on a tangent but there’s a link to your subject. Cheers.
Our elites believe in top-down, one-way communications and edicts.
They make a pronouncement, you obey and believe it. Otherwise you're not a team player. You're a troublemaker. Do you have a PhD? Because the team advising the dear leader had several very smart, top PhDs on it making the recommendations that you have a problem with. You're not an expert, they are. So shut your mouth and obey, prole. Your betters have spoken and they don't want to hear any lip from you.
Unfortunately, this is also the dominant form of leadership at most companies.
Push back takes too much effort/costs too much so it’s just the softer, easier way to stay quiet and comply. You’re so correct.
The cool thing about soviet politics is that you eventually get rid of everyone who isn't an idiot, so your confidence that you're being ruled by idiots only increases over time.