“I’ve heard the truth, Mulder. Now what I want are the answers.” – The X Files
My favorite conspiracy theory: everything is going to be okay.
One feature of the Soviet Union was the constant propaganda that was used against the Soviet citizens, they called it PTSD – Post-Tsarism Socialism Disorder. Of course, they used propaganda externally, but most of their efforts in controlling reality were focused internally. Everyone was expected to sing the praises of the government when they knew that they were nothing but lies. This wasn’t a bug, but a feature.
Imagine: being required to deny the very truth of a matter, just so one could continue to live in society. Imagine: having to parrot the lines of official government in order to maintain what little income you had to make it from day to day. It’s almost a bad as working at CNN®.
I often blog about Truth. I believe that there isn’t “your truth” and “my truth” but there is an objective, verifiable Truth in almost every case. Physics (except for some weird quantum events) demands it. For instance, if I put my left foot in a sock, no matter where in the universe it exists, the other sock becomes the right sock.
Bears don’t wear socks. They prefer bear foot.
But Leftism demands that you reject Truth. Leftism demands, on the most basic premise, that Truth be the very first thing sacrificed. Compliance with this is required on a daily basis. Otherwise? You weren’t Politically Correct. They even had Politically Correct comedians – no matter if they were funny or not you were supposed to laugh.
That’s the origin of the phrase Politically Correct: the Soviets. They’d use that to remind each other that truth belonged to the state. Truth that didn’t follow the state’s dictates? Politically Incorrect, and those people didn’t last very long.
Why was Political Correctness important?
Every day, citizens had to be reminded that they were controlled. Not only controlled, the citizens had to be humiliated. This is the course of history: conquerors had to remove the will to fight of the vanquished. How better than to break their will than to remind them every day of their humiliation?
Break the primacy of the family. Take children from the family and raise them with the values of the state. Let everyone know that, at any minute, they could be made an enemy of the state. It’s so bad in that the football team in D.C. had to change their name out of shame. Now they just go by “the Redskins” so their name is less offensive.
But Italians don’t like Jehovah’s Witnesses. It’s not religious. They just don’t like any witnesses.
But when the Soviets took over, that’s what the Soviets did. They lied. They encouraged children to betray their family. They came in the middle of the night with armed secret police to enforce arbitrary laws with (more or less) impunity.
Many Soviet citizens were fine with this. I (personally) can’t imagine why, but I think there’s some fraction of the population who has as their primary operating mode, “go along and get along.” They’d be fine with whoever was in charge, as long as they told them what to do. They’d rather lick a boot than complain about their entire culture being destroyed, value by value.
Guess who isn’t getting a new laptop for Christmas this year? Hunter Biden.
What are we seeing today?
A similar victory lap from the Left in the United States is taking place right now:
- LGBTQRSTUV positivity. It’s June, which used to be known as, “June.” But now it’s known as Pride Month. Pride used to be a sin. Now? Pride has been used as an excuse to cram children too young to read as “Trans” kids.
- An “election” that had more anomalies than Joe Biden’s latest Alzheimer’s test is demanded to be taken seriously. Why? That’s why.
- “Laws” and a “border” that are, at best theoretical constructs. As in Alice in Wonderland, laws are what the rulers say they are. And laws can change from day to day, and person to person. Borders? We don’t need no steenking borders.
- A definition of being “American” that includes all people living in the world right now, and probably any intergalactic beings as well, as long as they can be counted on to vote for the Leftist candidate. I’m sure the Arcturans need to be treated as refugees, too.
- The primary prerequisite to being in the military isn’t that you’d have honor, duty, and service to country as goals. Can you put the current policy of the current administration at the top of your agenda?
Every day this is what people see. The news articles are filled with one humiliation after another.
The idea is simple. Values must be turned on their head, especially the most cherished ones. In our society, what has come to be regarded as the highest value is our children. Therefore, the values we had built up the most have to be destroyed.
When the Greeks sacked Troy, the children of the leader, Priam, were all killed. All of them. That’s what conquerors do to the conquered. One thing is certain in this world – not a trace of Priam’s DNA survives. The Greeks made sure of that. The Greeks devastated everything that was Troy, and left it a burning hulk that was lost to history except in the songs of the Greeks for thousands of years until a weird German found them while searching for the Indiana Jones set.
My body is like a temple. One that the Romans destroyed 2,500 years ago.
That’s what the winners do. They pull down the statues of those they beat. They eradicate their history, or make the losers out to be the bad guys. And, finally, they have the children of those they beat forget the faces of their fathers and emulate the values of the winners.
This century has been unusual, in that the Revolution has been (more or less) a bloodless one. The idea of actual warfare has been replace by the subversion of culture and the inversion of values.
I had hoped for a long time that the idea of a cultural swing back to the Right would show up. It has not. Trump was one attempt at such a swing, and the lasting value of his administration approaches, well, zero. “Cthulhu swims slowly, but he only swims Left.” Almost – not all – but almost all of the changes in values during my lifetime have been a ratchet, and a Leftward ratchet. *Click* – a Leftist point has been won.
No, we can’t turn that clock back, because, (for instance) Rowe Vs. Wade is now settled law. The ratchet has clicked. According to the Left, it simply can’t turn back.
If H.P. Lovecraft got rid of cable, would he sign up for Cthulhu?
But we have examples of societies that have explicitly rejected the Leftist ratchet by pulling so hard that the gears stripped, and have turned back. The best examples are Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. If you ever want to find people that hate Leftism, wander off to Poland or Hungary.
The reason that I’m not a pessimist is that we, humanity, have beaten the horrors of Leftism every time it has arisen. The battles haven’t been short, and they have numbered in decades of oppression and hundreds of millions of lives.
The propaganda is strong out there. It’s in television. It’s in the news media. It’s in the schools.
Don’t give up.
Keep the fire of Truth alive.
Everyone should spend some time deciding if they have a ‘red line’ somewhere, and if so, exactly where it is. If you can’t come up with the idea of “I will resist _____ at any and all costs”, then you will eventually be as a member of Soviet or Nazi Germany society. The left are expert at turning up the heat so slowly that most people will go along to the end. To resist a person needs to have the idea ingrained that ‘if they try this, I will meet them with whatever force I can muster’. I have several red lines, and I will not allow them to be crossed while I live.
Kids are the red line for a lot of people. I wonder what stories the media is NOT covering?
Let the comrades run off of the cliff in their wild goose chase quest for the glorious utopian world of next Tuesday.
Reality doesn’t give a rip about faculty lounges, group hugs, struggle sessions or great leaps backward build Babel back better circle jerks on the neo-feudal rainbow serf plantation
You didn’t vote for it?
How about that Jonestown democracy, comrade.
Forward! Yes we can.
And the faculty lounges will be the first they turn out into the GULAG.
Yes, they can.
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PS:
Achilles was a wuss.
Thank you so much for the keen eye.
I thought Achilles was a heel?
Men are basically optimists. Despite being turned down by most women, they persevere. And, those that do, are the ones that pass on their genes.
Same with the people of America – those that dared to have children, are the genetic winners of the next generation. And, once the Left is no longer in charge, the financial incentives that allow bums to continue passing along their seed will vanish. (I have no problem with SHORT-TERM help. But there has to be a time limit, and a plan to get that person back on their feet and supporting themselves).
One of Ricky’s excellent references, cross-referenced to the “The Rooster’s Egg: On the Persistence of Prejudice” by Patricia J. Williams. She strongly disagrees with your welfare time limit or any other attitude toward the persistently short-sighted, shiftless, or lazy. She is part of the CRT crowd that will burn the world down with their stupidity and actual racism.
How racist is it to categorical say that blacks and other minorities are apparently incapable of any STEM subject including rudimentary math and science. That such things are constructs by whites to oppress minorities (and some lump women in). Hardcore racists from 70years ago did not publicly say such crap. And now college professors are openly publishing this rubbish.
Some groups have a culture that are destructive and that includes bunches of whites. The CRT idiots actually seem to be reinforcing this destructive culture and adding a heavy dose of inter-race hostility. No way will this mix will work out well. The US borders on civil war as it is. CRT will guarantee it with a strong racial aspect. Due to the economic differences between the groups, minorities will not fair well. So the people setting the crap up will lead to the destruction of the very groups they propose to help and that’s even if civil war does not break out.
Apostle Paul says that CRT is false, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”, Galatians 3:28 (thanks to a timely article from the BabylonBee, https://babylonbee.com/news/far-right-apostle-paul-bans-teaching-critical-race-theory-in-churches) .
Apostle Paul was apparently not a Southern Baptist (the religion in which I was raised):
https://www.chron.com/news/article/A-great-reckoning-in-the-Southern-Baptist-16246027.php
Another article on this week’s upcoming SBC power struggle. No matter who wins, there’s gonna be a lot of alienated Baptists. This is a lose-lose political situation leading to increasing splintering and division among a block of 14 million people.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/southern-baptists-meet-amid-controversy-leaked-letters-78250307
Thanks for the references. I’m absolutely shocked that Southern Baptists would support CRT. A cursory overview of CRT finds it grossly racist and derogatory to blacks. It point blank states that blacks are too stupid for a STEM education.
The cultists don’t care which foot of the Goddess Sancta Racisma you lick : left or right, so long as you are on your knees before her.
There’s not a single crime or act of ill-will toward one of our fellow human beings that is not amply covered by PEGLAWs or the 10 commandments. There is not a single race on the planet not covered by brotherhood with the risen Christ.
Racism, anti-racism, CRT, cultural marxism, white supremacy, anti-Semitism, race realism : Left or right none of that stuff matters; all of it is a distraction to allow men to justify some form of vice or folly.
None of which, were you attempting de imitatione Christi or eschwing pride, envy, gluttonous selfishness, wrath, callous indifference or lazy neglect of your fellow man, would be tolerable.
Fight over coke v. pepsi; figure out that soda itself is the problem: but never bother to secure a clean water supply.
I’ve been foolish for so long. Better late than never, I hope.
All are one in Christ Jesus, but here on Earth, God made the nations to separate man from man.
Linda S Fox,
I agree.
And I believe the temporary help should come from local family, local church, local neighbors.
I believe this gives the helpee local incentives to get off help, and be productive.
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I believe the ‘general welfare’ is illegitimately manipulated into ‘specific welfare’ benefiting a named individual.
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PS:
I have a lot of beliefs; few encourage ‘help’ beyond a couple meals, clean socks, and a boot to the fanny accompanied by a firm “Grow up!”.
Yup. Though how much of the optimism is related to the guts it took to leave everything behind, cross an ocean, and then leap into the wilderness?
Yup. Short term. And funded by and adminstered by private local charity.
Positive attitudes get positive results.
You just can’t give up. Ever.
“Every day, citizens had to be reminded that they were controlled. Not only controlled, the citizens had to be humiliated.”
Yes, exactly. As Theodore Dalrymple noted, “the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better.”
THIS is why we have Dr Rachel Levine as Assistant Secretary for Health. Does anyone on the left, anyone in FedGov, seriously think that this person is the best person for the job? Of course not. The purpose of having a stout, jowly woman — who was obviously a stout, jowly man not long ago — in national office and frequently on TV is to humiliate normal people. Everyone is required to go on about how stunning and brave this individual is, and anyone who fails to do so is not only a dreaded transphobe (a bad bad sin) but anti-Semitic (the greatest sin imaginable) to boot. A transsexual who was “passable” [1] would not do for these purposes. It had to be someone like Dr Levine.
[1] e.g. former Deputy Asst SecDEF Amanda Simpson, or computer scientist Lynn Conway, to take but two examples from STEM fields.
Yup. I’ve seen info on Lynn Conway. Nobody would have guessed.
The propaganda is strong out there. It’s in television. It’s in the news media. It’s in the schools.
Don’t give up.
Keep the fire of Truth alive.
This.
With bells on and a honking brass band.
Every day, in every way, communists are hard at work destroying the culture that made our nation great. Their stated goal is the destruction and dissolution of our country, and the extermination of our nation.
Resist or perish.
And they want to destroy our history, myth, and heritage.
The Fire Of Truth burns best and brightest when fed the bodies of the Professional Lying Classes, and their Useful Idiots: that would be politicians and their whoring media minions, and the under-80-IQ crowd that listens to either of them for anything but target identification.
Just saying.
Well, that warms the cockles of my heart. And the other parts of my heart, too.
The savages are destroying as they always do. It takes a civilized man to build something lasting.
I found the following on a page for journalists of all places:
Immanuel Kant – the categorical imperative. As human beings we have certain moral rights and duties. We should treat all people as free and equal to ourselves, and our actions are morally right only if we can apply them universally. In other words, are we willing to have everyone act as we do? It’s an absolutist view – right is right and must always be done, regardless of the circumstances.
from: http://faculty.bucks.edu/rogerst/jour275morals.htm