Sadly, my own mom is one of HCR’s victims. She’s the exact target demographic - older, female, lifelong Democrat who spent most of her adult life only loosely following politics until 2016.
She has had actual mental breakdowns, severe panic attacks, thinking the country is on the verge of a civil war and looked into ways to smuggle her grandchildren out of the country if Trump wins.
She has recommended HCR to me several times and even back when I was a Democrat I couldn’t stomach her writing.
It breaks my heart to watch her and other people, especially women, with their hearts in the right place get sucked into her doomsday nonsense.
Then again, my mom probably feels the same way about me since I’ve “left the left” as they say.
They really do — my mental health was at its worst when I was part of that camp. I wish I knew what would help. I try to avoid political discussions with her because it not only hurts to argue with her and see her this way, but I have a husband, a toddler and one on the way to take care of, work full time, so I just don’t have the mental and emotional capacity to handle it. She has started coming to Mass with us recently though, so I hope that makes a difference.
Hi Britt: In 1971-73, I participated in lots of in-service training (individual & family counseling, group dynamics, etc.) as a member of the small staff at a newly formed drug abuse prevention/counseling center. That training has been invaluable at various times over the years. In a situation like the one you describe with your mom, there is no point in discussions per se.
The only chance one has of breaking through is to engage her with gentle, polite questions formulated to eventually corner her, to bring her to a point where it "might" become obvious to her that her beliefs don't hold up under scrutiny. You don't need to comment or otherwise respond to her answers. Just ask the next, most obvious why-type question.
Start broadly with the goal of gradually becoming more and more specific. By now, you probably know what most of her responses will be, so you can work out in your own mind the process, and probable questions, in advance. I don't have an example off the top of my head, but if you present a typical beginning scenario, I can use it to show you what I mean.
The problem is that so many in American society are engaged in what I call "superficial thinking driven and controlled by emotion." Don't know when it began or how it got started but suspect it stems from the influence of two elements: (1) taking to extremes the early Boomers' "love-in" trend of being more open about sharing and discussing "feelings" ad nauseam (in contrast to their parents' denial of feelings) and (2) post-1970(ish) education reforms, especially in the critical K-6 yrs., that failed miserably and still are failing --- failure that's been particularly damaging to laying the foundation for language mastery that's required for cognitive development.
Britt: This is the rest of my comment that seemed to be cut off from the above comment:
If your mom is under 65 (give or take a few years 'cause it's hard to know when the failure began in each school district), she may not have received the superior K-6 education I and my peers received. And the younger someone is, the worse the damage can be (though not always by any means) because, with the assigning of homework in K-6, they took away after-school play time that studies have proven improves every child's ability to learn.
I can't claim to be some great authority on this and lack the means to conduct the necessary studies, but it's the only thing that explains why both my cognitive development and writing ability are so much better than what I'm seeing online in spite of being a barely average student.
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and insights. I appreciate your suggestion and will definitely try to approach the situation with my mom using gentle, polite questions to help her reflect on her beliefs.
I also appreciate the additional context about the education differences and how they might have impacted cognitive development. It's interesting to consider how changes in the education system and societal trends have influenced thinking and communication skills over the years. My mom just turned 60, so on the cusp of what you mentioned.
All of the grifters, including feminists, that hijacked "social justice" stuff from the 1960s/70s to spread their neo-communist/neo-marxist ideology had to create whole categories of lies to try to make their nonsense palatable to the popular project of promoting victim narratives. (underlying that was the "2nd Constitution", the 1960s Civil Rights laws that created a vast surveillance state.)
To protect the lies, potential critics had to be "dumbed down".
Look at the mental sewage that teachers' unions promoted.
Feminism is a disaster.
Education is a disaster.
Relationships are disasters.
Marriages are disasters.
Families are disasters.
Wokeism is a disaster.
Digging deeper, the entire sense-making system is a disaster because it is not anti-fragile to disruption, and it became a stagnant cultural dead-end that stopped evolving decades ago:
"laying the foundation for language mastery that's required for cognitive development"--THANKS.--In my 2009-10 ESL training program, discovered that in 1963, Amer Council Tchrs of English determined that Eng. grammar should no longer be taught, not necessary for writing ability. ?? I posit that thinking about grammar, about how words are used to accomplish the goal of clear communication, develops also an ability to think logically. I taught Latin. I saw my students practicing logical thinking (apol.--one handed typing, broken wrist)
When you trust in God completely and know He is ultimately in control of everything that happens. God will turn what was meant for evil into His use. And anything 'bad' that happens is necessary to achieve God's will.
Most of my peer group has been taken in, so I hear you. They do think they are the "good" people which is partly what makes them so annoying and easy to caricature. It's easy to hate, but many of us have loved ones on different sides theae days. What we need is leadership to bring us together, to channel that desire to do good in positive directions. Making HCR followers the flip side of deplorables does sell copy but does nothing to reunite our country.
Around the time Schindler's List was released, PBS broadcast a documentary - interviews of Jews and Nazis at the time. You cannot find this documentary anywhere now.
The part that is seared into my brain:
Interview with 80+ year old mistress of one of the death camp leaders. The documentary showed a picture of her, another woman and two Nazi officers having a fine picnic, dressed in fine beachwear out fits and a large umbrella shielded them from the sun. In the background were emaciated Jews walking around.
The interviewer asked her if she knew Jews were being killed (yes). And asked her how she could accept it.
Her response - she looked ashamed - and kept repeating, something like, "Everyone was doing it."
Agreed. Unfortunately our choices in leadership are not ideal and we are left basically voting against one or the other, at least from my point of view.
All I know is the past four years have been worse than the four before them, however, so I’m going to vote accordingly and hope for the best.
I'm kinda new to all this political stuff, but won't that depend more on the composition of Congress? If so, doesn't it then behoove us to do our best to vote in objective, in-depth thinkers who can work out logical, workable compromises based on two indisputable facts: (1) ya can't legislate morality so abortion, as an example, has to be about health care; and (2) we're imperfect beings living imperfect lives in an imperfect world, so the driving principle behind legislation has to be the greatest good for the greatest number of citizens?
BTW, is it female bashers or bashers bashing women? Are they men or other women and what rights do they want to repeal --- Title IX?
Sure, any thinkers above the 6th grade level would be a welcome change to Congress. I don't trust the right wing element that wants to punish women for feminist excesses (like MeToo cancelations without due process, clearly wrong), because that impulse seems to be motivating too many. Vengeance isn't a force for good. The power of social media click popularity is pandering to the devils of our natures. Those on the right who say they want to repeal the 19th Ammendment and no fault divorce are not my allies, but neither are those on the left who want to redefine women to an opt in category and repeal 2nd Ammendment rights. The center right is looking like the adults in the room to me right now, but I'm keeping my mind and my options open.
The evolutionary archetype is that beta males are programmed by evolution to be willing to fight and die in direct combat (or on hunts) for the common good and survival of the gene pool (kinship group) and whatever warrior/hunting cult they are in.
Beta females evolved to mostly stay at/near the hearth and care for family, including whatever wounded beta male survivors dragged themselves back home.
The brutal reality of primitive human kinship groups was that because of inbreeding, the genes of alpha males were almost the same as their beta male cousins, so beta males were not strictly needed for their genes to be retained via reproduction. One alpha male could breed with many females, but not vice versa. Loss of females was much more catastrophic to the gene pool than loss of beta males.
The feminist destruction of male honor leads to the destruction of civilization, purpose and meaning.
Well said. I’ve become disgusted with the modern left and have been leaning towards Trump, but then I give pause because he’s so divisive. We truly need a uniter as president and at the moment the best option for that seems to be RFK Jr.
Can you clarify the "divisive" notion? I ask because, since getting more involved in this with my own research, I've gotten the impression that it's the press that's caused all the chaos and division. I know Trump made lots of changes early in his presidency, but isn't that b/c he wasn't a D.C. insider and didn't know the people well? Isn't it better to get rid of those who don't work out? Similarly, if Biden cared about his responsibility to us, wouldn't he have fired Mayorkas his first year, for instance, b/c of the guy's failure to keep borders secure and his perpetual lie that "the border is secure" and "the border is closed"?
For the past year or so, I've been tuning in to CNN and MSNBC so I can compare their "reporting" with reporting and commentary on Fox and the now-defunct One America News. The differences are startling. I ignored T's presidency 'cause he always made my skin crawl (less so now), but I remember a friend complaining constantly about the inaccurate and negative treatment of Trump by the press during that time.
So, maybe the question is: Was the chaos and division caused by the media's endless barrage of negative reporting or by Trump's response to it? Where would the country be today if the DEM media had respected the office of the presidency by sticking to objective, factual reporting? Where would we be had Trump either ignored all that or responded to it using more dignified language and a more refined demeanor? What do ya think?
Honestly, I agree with you. I feel the media and Biden & Co. are the leading cause of the divisiveness. (That “red MAGA” speech by Biden in 9/22 was the definition of divisiveness.)
But Trump doesn’t exactly help heal the division IMO. He has a penchant for firey rhetoric in his speeches, constantly blaming the Dems and “looney Left” for much of our problems. (though I mostly agree with him). He doesn’t exactly come across as a “heal the divide” type, but hey that’s just who he his. I do think the assasination attempt may have humbled him a bit, we’ll see.
I think if he wants to unify more of the nation, and pull more disillusioned folks from the left to his side, he should soften his stance a little. I think his persona is a huge turnoff to many, even though it doesn’t bother me much. If he could act a bit more dignified and presidential, he may get more support from Dems/left. Anyway that’s my 2 cents. 😊
So, how do we convince Trump of this? Over the past few years, I've heard him described as very controlling and unwilling to take anyone's advice about anything, yet Vivek Ramaswamy, on "Gutfeld" (FOX) the other night, described Trump as being very receptive to and interested in/curious about other ideas/thoughts.
So, which is he? And, as for sharing the advice we're talking about, I can write the letter, but to whom do I send it for the greatest chance of his reading it when the chances of that are slim to none and "Slim" left town long ago --- LOL?
Know any DEMs who watch FOX --- like "The Five" and/or "Gutfeld" --- where one gets a better sense of what to accept but ignore about Trump and what to laugh about and then forget? I often write in comments that my research indicates that, though both candidates lie routinely, Trump lies to feed his overblown ego while Biden lies to deceive us, but DEM commenters don't respond to that unless it's just to attack Trump's personality as if that's the only thing that matters.
What happened to the ability to think deeply in this country, especially among supposed journalists and the younger Americans who believe their biased "reporting"? Sent an email to MSNBC last week asking whether they see their mission as entertainment or news and, if the latter, would it be possible to add some intelligent, objective thinkers to their shows. Ha! Like they were ever going to respond to that. Maybe sending it weekly will eventually trigger some attention --- a bigger ha! ha!
Maybe you can take her out somewhere so she can see the world isn't really what she is being sold. Not your mom, but a ton of these older women need a man. Haha!
I started reading Heather Cox Richardson last month after a few of my liberal friends lauded her. I enjoy reading left-wing lunacy as a type of intellectual Schadenfreude.
You hit the nail on the head. She should be #1 in comedy if she weren't so dangerous - because the snowflakes bathe in the snake oil she sells.
"... raised in Maine, Heather ["Nettles" would be a more appropriate name] Richardson attended Phillips Exeter Academy [NH] ... B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University... 2017 and 2018, ... co-hosted ... NPR podcasts...":
Sarah Stockman (07/08/24): "NYT Admits Trump Was Right --- Seven Years Later." Issue: European NATO members must pay higher % of GNP.
Stockman, member NYT editorial board, wrote the Op-Ed; refused to credit Trump with getting it right seven years ago.
A) The New Nepotism:
Minority: Yep. Check box.
University Parents: Of course! Check box.
Ivy League School: Y.G.I. Toyota! Check box (Harvard).
Media Incest Circuit (works for the "right" media): But Of Course, Darling... Check box (Boston Globe; NYT).
Married To The "Right" Person: Lead pipe cinch! Check box (husband is a former Harvard assistant dean).
Bubble-wrapped residence (immune from differing opinions): Dare we run the table?! WE DO!!! Check box (residence Cambridge MA. WP 07/08/24).
B) They are CLONED!
Less than 24 hours later, what do we find?
"Nicholas Kristof ... American journalist ... raised in OR ... son of two professors (Portland State University)... Harvard graduate... interned at The Oregonian... [hired by] NYT in 1984" (WP 07/09/24).
I don't know where he lives, but Trump lives in his head.
Our Brahmin Left clerisy, having lived every second of their cossetted lives inside the suburbs-to-university-to-elite perch pipeline, have to be the stalest most boring ruling class in history—never fought in any wars, never missed a meal, never broke a rule or flunked a test, never dropped out and hitchhiked for awhile, never risked their skin in any kind of conflict a la Hemingway in Spain.
All these people are the same people with the same beliefs, opinions, experiences, values etc with their single overarching belief being that their class deserves to rule unimpeded because of their golden educations and credentials and their sentimental commitment to egalitarianism, which usually means that the rest of us get to have our lives and communities rearranged yet the Brahmin Left somehow always remains at the top of the social pyramid.
It's funny how much they play at being radical and transgressive, because with just a change of wardrobe they are no different from the moralistic Puritans who preached and ruled from their pulpits since New England was founded.
America seems doomed to always have a caste of New England Puritans hectoring the rest of us about our moral failings and our insufficient devotion to Justice and Equality (meaning more or less: our fealty to their ideas and willingness to be sheep for their shepherding). It's just now they're professors instead of priests.
Well said, although the actual Brahmans are no longer what Richardson et al (ensconced in their dreadful dreams) think they are. Nationwide, they are now the New, Multi-Racial American KKK.
Personally, the guy gives me the creeps. I'd forgotten about that episode. Somehow his wife was a big factor in the circus event (and not to his benefit). Wasn't there a residency issue that blew up in their faces?
I think it comes from people with insanely boring lives yearning for some sort of excitement, like that old Stanhope bit about how people are excited at the thought that the mole on their shoulder might be cancer or how they want to believe that Al Qaeda is coming to blow up their Ford Focus in particular.
HCR and every other woman in academia and HR jobs -- and pretty much every boomer woman -- has had everything handed to them on a silver platter for decades now. In grad school, I knew an Indian girl who was handed a tenure-track job (each one typically receives 400+ applicants) before defending her dissertation -- the same girl once asked in a Hobbes seminar if a feminist reading of Hobbes was possible. Complete retard, but the system affirmative actioned her right in. Nothing is earned, it simply comes to them. No real earning, no real excitement, and no real joy (since they either don't have kids or weren't active in their upbringing, prioritizing their nonsense careers instead).
Now, all of a sudden, there's the excitement of some "dire threat to women and democracy!" being sold to them. It's the first, albeit fake, hint of a "fight" or "cause" that they've ever experienced. They hold onto it because the boring sham of a life that was given to them was so unfulfilling, that now this hysteria makes them feel like they're actually part of something important and exciting.
yeah, that wasn't my experience. My experience was that as you start standing up to the people "in power," you get shown the door. Likely a lot of what you're seeing "come to them" happens because people in power recognize yes-women when they see them. Women who aren't don't get anything handed to them.
The cabal is excellent at controlling and manipulating the entire population. They dictate the rules. I see HCR and any who'd get mentioned in the NYTimes 🙄 as agent puppets doing what they're paid to / rewarded for doing.
It's not boomer women, at least not the earliest --- now the oldest --- boomer women of which I am one. We received a superior K-6 education that subsequent generations have not received, so our cognitive skills are better developed yet no one handed us a dang thing.
First, no one ever asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up 'cause we weren't expected to much of anything. Second, growing up in a "privileged" environment, which even my less affluent friends were a part of, meant you were expected to attend college primarily to meet your future husband. Third, though we grew up in a meritocracy and expected to be assessed on merit, that would take us only so far --- and maybe we'd been trained to not expect more of ourselves or the workplace.
When my freshman year at Ohio U. didn't go well --- the biggest party school east of the Mississippi back then --- my father announced I was being sent to live with my grandparents to attend the business school there to study secretarial science --- no one asked what I'd like to study --- in his words: "...so you'll have something to fall back on just in case." The rest of that sentence is: just in case the man you marry ends up unemployed at some point.
Well, I was fired from my first "just-in-case" job at a national accounting firm less than 30 min. after telling them I was pregnant. The next 20 yrs. of working pretty much went downhill from there 'cause there were no mentors, no appreciation for my abilities and gifts (not even from my husband), no mentoring, and certainly no benefits. As a late-blooming law school grad in 1990, the placement office suggested I look for a job in sales. That I turned out to be an extraordinarily good writer was of no value. I never got a single interview and didn't have a competitive nature sufficient to fight my way through it. And by 1993-94, the workplace culture had changed so much that one mistake was enough to get one fired. Unbeknownst to my naive self, the "cancel culture" and deference to the "feelings" of others had already taken over.
The rest of the above comment that didn't seem to post:
It wasn't being female that got the incompetent Indian girl her job. It was being Indian. In the late 70s, my teacher-husband and his colleagues were told that their Black principal (a nice but fundamentally illiterate man whose memos to staff/parents were the topic of many jokes and much laughter) was handed his Ph.D. because he still hadn't completed his dissertation after seven years.
If American society doesn't return to the pursuit of excellence, I don't believe America can survive as we once knew her.
Thank you for voicing what I was thinking. As a true “boomer woman,” I can attest that not much was expected of us in terms of careers. Sure, the powers that be may have noticed we were intelligent, and the Ivies finally all accepted us in the ‘70’s, but it was the boomer women who fought for spots in those schools and later in the business/science world…many just assumed those jobs would be place holders until we got married and started a family.
OK, wait a minute! Enough with the agism. The only thing boomers have in common is age. We are male. female, rich, poor liberal, conservative, religious, atheist, black, white, Asian, Hispanic and all the other things common to EVERY generation.
There was (is) nothing wrong with women being expected to marry, bear children and raise them in the home, but, as can be seen by the replies, you will not get women to agree that Feminism (of any wave) was and is of negative benefit to society. As long as they were individually allowed to 'express themselves' or take/be allowed the opportunity to enter mens' spaces, they will champion Feminism as God's gift to women and refuse to acknowledge the destruction left in their wake.
The roots of our current chaos can be traced to allowing the vote to folk beyond land owning men, the refusal to acknowledge or protect racial cohesion and the tenets of liberalism, which cannot tolerate absolute truth 🤷
The prioritization of career over family (even the belief that both are possible) has led to the boredom and unfilled lives.
You're right about women embracing the role they were created to fulfill. It's just that no one ever explained the value of that and never in relation to the role men are created to fulfill and why together we accomplish far more in every way than we can without each other. That understanding comes from the Bible, but back in the 50s and 60s, no one shared the wisdom of Judeo-Christian values, so I didn't find it until nearly 50 yrs. old. By then, all the damage of extreme feminism had been done.
Seems to be human nature to take every good idea, every positive change, to such an extreme it becomes both unrecognizable and destructive. Officially, Boomers are from the birth years of 1946-1964. I'm at one end on Valentine's Day; Heather Cox Richardson is at the other. Other than both being female, we seem to have little in common other than being raised with some advantages that many of our peers didn't have.
Maybe evaluating the Feminist Movement (and other major movements?) requires standing in the middle of a circle to which are attached, like the tentacles of an octopus, the factors that affect and influence its development as a movement and one's response to it --- nature of early education; exposure to Biblical understanding of human nature; what the males in our respective lives have been taught, if anything, about their role (the wisdom in and necessity of honoring, valuing, and respecting the females in their lives); family dynamics in childhood; the extent to which each of us is valued and respected as an integral member of the workforce; and maybe other factors you recognize.
Last night, I listened to Christiane Amanpour's July 3, 2024 interview of Heather Cox Richardson. Both are scary people made dangerous by their global influence, but HCR is really scary.
Based on my research and studies, two facts about her stood out, in addition to being too partisan, that adversely affect her ability to engage in in-depth thought: (1) she didn't receive the superior K-6 education of the 50s with its mastery of language that builds the necessary foundation for cognitive development and (2) by never being a parent and not marrying until a few yrs. ago, she's missed all the life lessons and a broader understanding of human nature that only those experiences can teach.
She has all this knowledge about American history but, absent an in-depth understanding of human nature and the effects of experiences, that knowledge is useless. Her supposed analytical thinking is driven the same hate for Trump all die-hard Democrats are controlled by. Her thinking is myopic at best, and her writing is done in pursuit of a Democrat agenda.
History is controlled by the victors....always. I saw a mural in Egypt in the "bribe the guard $20" tour of the back room at a temple in Luxor. On the wall was an image of the former Pharaoh, carefully chipped away to erase him from history. They had chipped everything carefully, so you knew it wasn't the Muslims (they usually do the face). Think about how they control history by removing confederate generals statues, revise textbooks, etc. The guard told me it was the next Pharaoh that did this, he erased his predecessor.
The biggest lie of our history is the hiding of the prior civilization(s). Where did they go and what happened to them? Evidence is found in museum basements, the off limits parts of ancient sites and of course reburied because it's inconvenient information to the narrative. You can call these people Communists or whatever, they are the controllers and history and this news narrative (via substack) are only one way they maintain control.
And this "historian" seems too dumb (to be fair, she may simply be following the money) to understand that history will be history if these fine upstanding protectors of democracy have their way, helped along by useful idiots like her.
My belief is they are under a spell. The 6-6-6 spell is very powerful and it's everywhere in this dimension. It takes someone with a strong main consciousness to break free. If you've ever spoken with people like this and pointed something out, they immediately fly into a rage. That's the demon controlling them speaking, not them, themselves.
The manner in which most of these influencers whether on Substack or X speak with the same language suggests to me that there is coordination either at the party level or above. Operation Mockingbird was entry-level propaganda compared to what has been on display post-debate.
I do find it amusing as someone who is open to entertaining and looking into “conspiracy theories” that usually when I broach a controversial subject with friends on the left and offer some alternative possibilities they are quick to say that they don’t believe in conspiracy theories. However, the speed at which Project 2025 has become the Trojan Horse for the reinstitution of the Third Reich amongst those same friends is astonishing.
They seem confident that Rs are being brainwashed (since the 90s at least) but cannot wrap their minds around the notion that they may be, too. By the same mechanism.
I find it is helpful to reflect on the time period in my life when I was brainwashed so to speak. I was a sophomore in high school on September 11th and it was that event that lead me to take an interest in the news. I happened to come across Bill O’Reilly’s program and was a faithful watcher of his show for roughly eight years.
I believed the following:
“We have to fight them over there, so we don’t fight them here.”
“Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.”
“France was being a wuss not wanting to get involved. The pentagon was right to start calling French fries freedom fries.”
“George W Bush was a good man. Faithful conservative. If there hadn’t been opposition in congress to the war in Iraq we would have brought freedom and democracy to Iraq.”
“Torture was good and necessary and if the government deemed someone a terrorist they should have no legal rights whatsoever.”
Why did I believe those things? Because various retired generals and colonels came on his show and other programs and said so. Foreign policy experts did the same. Legal scholars did too. I was a teenager going into my twenties. I was a product of public schools. Why would I question an expert?
It wasn’t until I listened to and considered the arguments of former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit Michael Scheuer and Judge Andrew Napolitano, bought some of their books and read them, that I began to change my thinking.
Key to that was that both of those men made sound, respectful arguments. It wasn’t an immediate change either. I didn’t quit cold-turkey. It took about two years to make the full break from the beliefs I had held as sacrosanct.
All of my brainwashing was the result of watching an hour-long show Monday through Friday. Today’s 24-7 social media propaganda is far stronger in my view. During those years I wasn’t aware that I was brainwashed, I really believed those things and defended them fiercely.
Here is an example I came across today on X of the kind of delusion that exists now:
I was swayed, too, in the 80s and 90s to go along with TV presenters, guests, and print media explaining things in ways that seemed rational to my inherited belief system. But I was deeply skeptical by the time 9/11 happened (age 33.)
The best thing I did to break myself from the media spell and my own biases was to stop watching commercial television. By 2009 I was all the way out, and I've been off social media for at least 10 years. Print can be horrible, too, of course. But reading at least engages one's critical thinking skills. Unsupported statements, the overuse of anonymous sourcing, the "he said this but she said that" garbage reporting, the lies of commission and omission...these are much easier to decode when reading; separating honest reporting from "The Bullshit" as Walter Kirn calls it is much easier. (Side note: when my mother asked me what stopped me reading the NY Times (and therefore no longer sharing her worldview,) I answered, "reading the NY Times.")
Even here on SS there's a pull toward mob rule by the cool kids, and I don't always feel I get things right. But what I do experience reading various authors here (and elsewhere) is a general move in the direction of the truth about what is actually happening in our world and how we got here and a moving away from the false righteousness and safety-ism my lazier intellect craved decades ago.
It ain't easy sifting through The Bullshit. But it is humbling. And rewarding.
Doesn't it also reflect an inability, or a refusal, to engage in in-depth, analytical thought? Their focus on "feelings" allows them to parrot each other with superficial assessments of everything and everyone. Why peel away the layers of an issue or statement when you can get away with attention-getting one-liners?
Digging up the lies that are woven into leftist thought is almost an archeological project.
Elite medieval artists and intellectuals held to a model of the poor, starving, diseased and illiterate peasants having an earthy, spiritual purity. The crass materialism and commercialism of the more literate, better fed urban commoner classes was seen as a violation of divine order.
The literacy and information processing technologies (printing presses) of the urban commoners was a direct threat to the social privilege and power of the old elites and their intellectual and artistic servants.
Somehow that attitude (hate of the middle classes) survived actual class wars for 100s of years, and resurfaced when the more anti-liberal (anti-rational, romanticist, Rousseau type) "left" emerged in the late 1700s and turned into full blown hatred of the (classically liberal, property owning) middle classes that evolved out of the literate medieval urban commoner class.
The "woke" "left" has simply returned to something that has been around for at least 300 years, hatred of the middle classes.
Digging down further into the layers of history, classical liberalism, high-social-trust, the nuclear family, literacy, scientific innovation and market economics (expanding middle class wealth) were all loathed by clannish (or dynastic, aristocratic), illiterate, inbred societies that were ordered not on constitutions, but honor systems. The cultural-left's weird, postmodern, multiculturalist preference for non-western, pre-modern societies fits that model.
Yes! Protesters can be carrying signs proudly printed by revolutionary socialists and tagging buildings with anarchist symbols, but people still say it's a conspiracy theory that they are gunning for revolution. Can't happen here hubris will be our downfall.
We are in for a cat-lady plague of biblical proportions. Imagine two-three generations of Miss Havershams creating legions of young female clones, poisoning the well of civilization for the next 1000 years. I'm mostly interested in solutions at this point. Of course, we must continue exposing the group ultimately responsible ... but then what?
As the narrative control system, "sense making" system, of a civilization collapses, it disintegrates and regresses (Koestler, Ghost in the Machine) along with a general collapse of society. The result: totalitarianism, censorship, propaganda, Idiocracy.
The good news is that some opportunities for new types of sense making might have an opportunity to emerge when the "dark age" ends.
I subscribed to this propagandist back when I identified as a liberal and still receive her emails. As you noted, the level of propaganda is off the charts and the comments are truly next level. These are some very unhappy and frightened people. I’m so glad I broke out of that insane mindset.
It did not happen overnight. Unhappiness with COVID, Newsom, my home state of CA, neoliberalism, and the realization during the Johnny Depp trial that the media was pushing a narrative and not being honest. I started following independent journalists like HouseInhabit, the Free Press, Glenn Greenwald, and Matt Taibi. My deceased father, a staunch conservative, always told me I would become more conservative once I got older and I guess he was right.
I was literally thinking this morning about how my brain is just not strong enough to process the nonsense I see from writers like her (and RBG - how are these people still talking when they are WRONG ALL THE TIME?). My applause to those who read her drivel for fun and keep their breakfast in their stomachs. I keep thinking common sense will eventually prevail. Our current moment is just too stupid to continue.
Nailed it! I love this line: "She serves as a fentanyl grade copium dealer to millions of AWFLs like her, whose brains have been broken by decades of MSM consumption."
I love the scene in Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.'' Clementis lends his hat to a party leader, as they pose for a picture; years later, having fallen out of official favor, Clementis is airbrushed out of the photograph; all that remains of him is his hat, sitting on another's head.
Thanks for posting. I visited friends I’ve known for 40 years near Burlington VT for the 4th of July. The wife is now into HCR and has consumed an ocean of koolaid. A week later, her lack of any critical thought and eager consumption of the left’s failing narrative leaves me wondering what happened to the person I knew. To open a conversation on current events is to invite dismissive condescension. She had no use for logic and facts because she parroted left narratives, in rapid nonsequitor fashion. This article provides necessary context. Thanks.
I’m incredulous when I read some of their columns (and add Dan Rather’s Steady) for good measure - it’s like they reside on a different planet - any every one of them finds a way to work a cheap Trump shot into every column - the “end of democracy’ - what a load of crap.
It is ultimately bullshit funded by globalists, international financiers and tech oligarchs. See NS Lyons' substack article on "Virtuals vs Physicals".
These people are the irredeemable. They are the dumb b*tches (take it easy ladies, I use that term for men too, especially the betas and castrati) that are championing and pushing the child grooming, trans-ing and mutilation - as well as all those new, misogynistic penis-sisters invading women's spaces.
Yes, these types and their psychophants are the intelligentsia that has been crumbling society, for centuries.
I've often thought shibboleths will become more relevant as we ramble along this road of societal destruction, simply because it will be harder to identify your enemy who's not carrying spears and swords to use to kill you, but demoralized and deranged brains and minds.
These types are society destroyers - you let them in at your own peril.
Never read HCR and never will. I certainly don't need liberal lunacy to get my kicks. But it is a laugh a minute for sure. It's rather quite sad that so many millions buy into this socialist rubbish. All socialism systems have failed like clockwork and the current US version will also.
Not saying the retardicans have anything much better, but capitalism if done correctly does merit further exploration and implementation. I'd rather have no government and let the markets go where they may. Better and fairly priced goods and services will flourish while overpriced junk will not.
Sadly, my own mom is one of HCR’s victims. She’s the exact target demographic - older, female, lifelong Democrat who spent most of her adult life only loosely following politics until 2016.
She has had actual mental breakdowns, severe panic attacks, thinking the country is on the verge of a civil war and looked into ways to smuggle her grandchildren out of the country if Trump wins.
She has recommended HCR to me several times and even back when I was a Democrat I couldn’t stomach her writing.
It breaks my heart to watch her and other people, especially women, with their hearts in the right place get sucked into her doomsday nonsense.
Then again, my mom probably feels the same way about me since I’ve “left the left” as they say.
I am sorry to hear that. Pray that she will come to her senses. Poor information diets have devastating consequences on mental health.
What do you think would help?
They really do — my mental health was at its worst when I was part of that camp. I wish I knew what would help. I try to avoid political discussions with her because it not only hurts to argue with her and see her this way, but I have a husband, a toddler and one on the way to take care of, work full time, so I just don’t have the mental and emotional capacity to handle it. She has started coming to Mass with us recently though, so I hope that makes a difference.
Hi Britt: In 1971-73, I participated in lots of in-service training (individual & family counseling, group dynamics, etc.) as a member of the small staff at a newly formed drug abuse prevention/counseling center. That training has been invaluable at various times over the years. In a situation like the one you describe with your mom, there is no point in discussions per se.
The only chance one has of breaking through is to engage her with gentle, polite questions formulated to eventually corner her, to bring her to a point where it "might" become obvious to her that her beliefs don't hold up under scrutiny. You don't need to comment or otherwise respond to her answers. Just ask the next, most obvious why-type question.
Start broadly with the goal of gradually becoming more and more specific. By now, you probably know what most of her responses will be, so you can work out in your own mind the process, and probable questions, in advance. I don't have an example off the top of my head, but if you present a typical beginning scenario, I can use it to show you what I mean.
The problem is that so many in American society are engaged in what I call "superficial thinking driven and controlled by emotion." Don't know when it began or how it got started but suspect it stems from the influence of two elements: (1) taking to extremes the early Boomers' "love-in" trend of being more open about sharing and discussing "feelings" ad nauseam (in contrast to their parents' denial of feelings) and (2) post-1970(ish) education reforms, especially in the critical K-6 yrs., that failed miserably and still are failing --- failure that's been particularly damaging to laying the foundation for language mastery that's required for cognitive development.
Britt: This is the rest of my comment that seemed to be cut off from the above comment:
If your mom is under 65 (give or take a few years 'cause it's hard to know when the failure began in each school district), she may not have received the superior K-6 education I and my peers received. And the younger someone is, the worse the damage can be (though not always by any means) because, with the assigning of homework in K-6, they took away after-school play time that studies have proven improves every child's ability to learn.
I can't claim to be some great authority on this and lack the means to conduct the necessary studies, but it's the only thing that explains why both my cognitive development and writing ability are so much better than what I'm seeing online in spite of being a barely average student.
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and insights. I appreciate your suggestion and will definitely try to approach the situation with my mom using gentle, polite questions to help her reflect on her beliefs.
I also appreciate the additional context about the education differences and how they might have impacted cognitive development. It's interesting to consider how changes in the education system and societal trends have influenced thinking and communication skills over the years. My mom just turned 60, so on the cusp of what you mentioned.
All of the grifters, including feminists, that hijacked "social justice" stuff from the 1960s/70s to spread their neo-communist/neo-marxist ideology had to create whole categories of lies to try to make their nonsense palatable to the popular project of promoting victim narratives. (underlying that was the "2nd Constitution", the 1960s Civil Rights laws that created a vast surveillance state.)
To protect the lies, potential critics had to be "dumbed down".
Look at the mental sewage that teachers' unions promoted.
Feminism is a disaster.
Education is a disaster.
Relationships are disasters.
Marriages are disasters.
Families are disasters.
Wokeism is a disaster.
Digging deeper, the entire sense-making system is a disaster because it is not anti-fragile to disruption, and it became a stagnant cultural dead-end that stopped evolving decades ago:
https://metarationality.com/stem-fluidity-bridge
"laying the foundation for language mastery that's required for cognitive development"--THANKS.--In my 2009-10 ESL training program, discovered that in 1963, Amer Council Tchrs of English determined that Eng. grammar should no longer be taught, not necessary for writing ability. ?? I posit that thinking about grammar, about how words are used to accomplish the goal of clear communication, develops also an ability to think logically. I taught Latin. I saw my students practicing logical thinking (apol.--one handed typing, broken wrist)
When you trust in God completely and know He is ultimately in control of everything that happens. God will turn what was meant for evil into His use. And anything 'bad' that happens is necessary to achieve God's will.
Then you have no fear.
That's me. And it's so good to be in that place.
That's wonderful! <3
Me too. I used to be so scared of the future all of the time. But then God found me and I have no fear.
"Poor information diets have devastating consequences on mental health." Nice one, Yuri!
Most of my peer group has been taken in, so I hear you. They do think they are the "good" people which is partly what makes them so annoying and easy to caricature. It's easy to hate, but many of us have loved ones on different sides theae days. What we need is leadership to bring us together, to channel that desire to do good in positive directions. Making HCR followers the flip side of deplorables does sell copy but does nothing to reunite our country.
Around the time Schindler's List was released, PBS broadcast a documentary - interviews of Jews and Nazis at the time. You cannot find this documentary anywhere now.
The part that is seared into my brain:
Interview with 80+ year old mistress of one of the death camp leaders. The documentary showed a picture of her, another woman and two Nazi officers having a fine picnic, dressed in fine beachwear out fits and a large umbrella shielded them from the sun. In the background were emaciated Jews walking around.
The interviewer asked her if she knew Jews were being killed (yes). And asked her how she could accept it.
Her response - she looked ashamed - and kept repeating, something like, "Everyone was doing it."
(edited for punctuation)
Women were the most enthusiastic enforcers of conformity. They always are, in any social contagion.
Yes, that could be true.
Maybe the Communists started their takeover of the US by organizing women to vote.
Agreed. Unfortunately our choices in leadership are not ideal and we are left basically voting against one or the other, at least from my point of view.
All I know is the past four years have been worse than the four before them, however, so I’m going to vote accordingly and hope for the best.
Agree too! I'm leaning in the same direction but if the right panders to resentful woman bashers who want to repeal our rights, I'll be out.
I'm kinda new to all this political stuff, but won't that depend more on the composition of Congress? If so, doesn't it then behoove us to do our best to vote in objective, in-depth thinkers who can work out logical, workable compromises based on two indisputable facts: (1) ya can't legislate morality so abortion, as an example, has to be about health care; and (2) we're imperfect beings living imperfect lives in an imperfect world, so the driving principle behind legislation has to be the greatest good for the greatest number of citizens?
BTW, is it female bashers or bashers bashing women? Are they men or other women and what rights do they want to repeal --- Title IX?
Sure, any thinkers above the 6th grade level would be a welcome change to Congress. I don't trust the right wing element that wants to punish women for feminist excesses (like MeToo cancelations without due process, clearly wrong), because that impulse seems to be motivating too many. Vengeance isn't a force for good. The power of social media click popularity is pandering to the devils of our natures. Those on the right who say they want to repeal the 19th Ammendment and no fault divorce are not my allies, but neither are those on the left who want to redefine women to an opt in category and repeal 2nd Ammendment rights. The center right is looking like the adults in the room to me right now, but I'm keeping my mind and my options open.
The evolutionary archetype is that beta males are programmed by evolution to be willing to fight and die in direct combat (or on hunts) for the common good and survival of the gene pool (kinship group) and whatever warrior/hunting cult they are in.
Beta females evolved to mostly stay at/near the hearth and care for family, including whatever wounded beta male survivors dragged themselves back home.
The brutal reality of primitive human kinship groups was that because of inbreeding, the genes of alpha males were almost the same as their beta male cousins, so beta males were not strictly needed for their genes to be retained via reproduction. One alpha male could breed with many females, but not vice versa. Loss of females was much more catastrophic to the gene pool than loss of beta males.
The feminist destruction of male honor leads to the destruction of civilization, purpose and meaning.
Please don't elide...
Well said. I’ve become disgusted with the modern left and have been leaning towards Trump, but then I give pause because he’s so divisive. We truly need a uniter as president and at the moment the best option for that seems to be RFK Jr.
Can you clarify the "divisive" notion? I ask because, since getting more involved in this with my own research, I've gotten the impression that it's the press that's caused all the chaos and division. I know Trump made lots of changes early in his presidency, but isn't that b/c he wasn't a D.C. insider and didn't know the people well? Isn't it better to get rid of those who don't work out? Similarly, if Biden cared about his responsibility to us, wouldn't he have fired Mayorkas his first year, for instance, b/c of the guy's failure to keep borders secure and his perpetual lie that "the border is secure" and "the border is closed"?
For the past year or so, I've been tuning in to CNN and MSNBC so I can compare their "reporting" with reporting and commentary on Fox and the now-defunct One America News. The differences are startling. I ignored T's presidency 'cause he always made my skin crawl (less so now), but I remember a friend complaining constantly about the inaccurate and negative treatment of Trump by the press during that time.
So, maybe the question is: Was the chaos and division caused by the media's endless barrage of negative reporting or by Trump's response to it? Where would the country be today if the DEM media had respected the office of the presidency by sticking to objective, factual reporting? Where would we be had Trump either ignored all that or responded to it using more dignified language and a more refined demeanor? What do ya think?
Honestly, I agree with you. I feel the media and Biden & Co. are the leading cause of the divisiveness. (That “red MAGA” speech by Biden in 9/22 was the definition of divisiveness.)
But Trump doesn’t exactly help heal the division IMO. He has a penchant for firey rhetoric in his speeches, constantly blaming the Dems and “looney Left” for much of our problems. (though I mostly agree with him). He doesn’t exactly come across as a “heal the divide” type, but hey that’s just who he his. I do think the assasination attempt may have humbled him a bit, we’ll see.
I think if he wants to unify more of the nation, and pull more disillusioned folks from the left to his side, he should soften his stance a little. I think his persona is a huge turnoff to many, even though it doesn’t bother me much. If he could act a bit more dignified and presidential, he may get more support from Dems/left. Anyway that’s my 2 cents. 😊
So, how do we convince Trump of this? Over the past few years, I've heard him described as very controlling and unwilling to take anyone's advice about anything, yet Vivek Ramaswamy, on "Gutfeld" (FOX) the other night, described Trump as being very receptive to and interested in/curious about other ideas/thoughts.
So, which is he? And, as for sharing the advice we're talking about, I can write the letter, but to whom do I send it for the greatest chance of his reading it when the chances of that are slim to none and "Slim" left town long ago --- LOL?
Know any DEMs who watch FOX --- like "The Five" and/or "Gutfeld" --- where one gets a better sense of what to accept but ignore about Trump and what to laugh about and then forget? I often write in comments that my research indicates that, though both candidates lie routinely, Trump lies to feed his overblown ego while Biden lies to deceive us, but DEM commenters don't respond to that unless it's just to attack Trump's personality as if that's the only thing that matters.
What happened to the ability to think deeply in this country, especially among supposed journalists and the younger Americans who believe their biased "reporting"? Sent an email to MSNBC last week asking whether they see their mission as entertainment or news and, if the latter, would it be possible to add some intelligent, objective thinkers to their shows. Ha! Like they were ever going to respond to that. Maybe sending it weekly will eventually trigger some attention --- a bigger ha! ha!
"Making HCR followers the flip side of deplorables does sell copy but does nothing to reunite our country." 100%!!!
We should absolutely ridicule their ideas, but not the people themselves.
Maybe you can take her out somewhere so she can see the world isn't really what she is being sold. Not your mom, but a ton of these older women need a man. Haha!
I started reading Heather Cox Richardson last month after a few of my liberal friends lauded her. I enjoy reading left-wing lunacy as a type of intellectual Schadenfreude.
You hit the nail on the head. She should be #1 in comedy if she weren't so dangerous - because the snowflakes bathe in the snake oil she sells.
Substack needs an unintentional comedy category, she would be #1 with stiff competition.
07/11/24: The Human Centipedes:
"... raised in Maine, Heather ["Nettles" would be a more appropriate name] Richardson attended Phillips Exeter Academy [NH] ... B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University... 2017 and 2018, ... co-hosted ... NPR podcasts...":
Sarah Stockman (07/08/24): "NYT Admits Trump Was Right --- Seven Years Later." Issue: European NATO members must pay higher % of GNP.
Stockman, member NYT editorial board, wrote the Op-Ed; refused to credit Trump with getting it right seven years ago.
A) The New Nepotism:
Minority: Yep. Check box.
University Parents: Of course! Check box.
Ivy League School: Y.G.I. Toyota! Check box (Harvard).
Media Incest Circuit (works for the "right" media): But Of Course, Darling... Check box (Boston Globe; NYT).
Married To The "Right" Person: Lead pipe cinch! Check box (husband is a former Harvard assistant dean).
Bubble-wrapped residence (immune from differing opinions): Dare we run the table?! WE DO!!! Check box (residence Cambridge MA. WP 07/08/24).
B) They are CLONED!
Less than 24 hours later, what do we find?
"Nicholas Kristof ... American journalist ... raised in OR ... son of two professors (Portland State University)... Harvard graduate... interned at The Oregonian... [hired by] NYT in 1984" (WP 07/09/24).
I don't know where he lives, but Trump lives in his head.
In all their heads.
Forever.
Our Brahmin Left clerisy, having lived every second of their cossetted lives inside the suburbs-to-university-to-elite perch pipeline, have to be the stalest most boring ruling class in history—never fought in any wars, never missed a meal, never broke a rule or flunked a test, never dropped out and hitchhiked for awhile, never risked their skin in any kind of conflict a la Hemingway in Spain.
All these people are the same people with the same beliefs, opinions, experiences, values etc with their single overarching belief being that their class deserves to rule unimpeded because of their golden educations and credentials and their sentimental commitment to egalitarianism, which usually means that the rest of us get to have our lives and communities rearranged yet the Brahmin Left somehow always remains at the top of the social pyramid.
It's funny how much they play at being radical and transgressive, because with just a change of wardrobe they are no different from the moralistic Puritans who preached and ruled from their pulpits since New England was founded.
America seems doomed to always have a caste of New England Puritans hectoring the rest of us about our moral failings and our insufficient devotion to Justice and Equality (meaning more or less: our fealty to their ideas and willingness to be sheep for their shepherding). It's just now they're professors instead of priests.
Well said, although the actual Brahmans are no longer what Richardson et al (ensconced in their dreadful dreams) think they are. Nationwide, they are now the New, Multi-Racial American KKK.
Kristof - LOL. Wanted to run for Oregon Governor last time around, but didn't get up on the ballot. I'm betting he will try again.
Personally, the guy gives me the creeps. I'd forgotten about that episode. Somehow his wife was a big factor in the circus event (and not to his benefit). Wasn't there a residency issue that blew up in their faces?
I think it comes from people with insanely boring lives yearning for some sort of excitement, like that old Stanhope bit about how people are excited at the thought that the mole on their shoulder might be cancer or how they want to believe that Al Qaeda is coming to blow up their Ford Focus in particular.
HCR and every other woman in academia and HR jobs -- and pretty much every boomer woman -- has had everything handed to them on a silver platter for decades now. In grad school, I knew an Indian girl who was handed a tenure-track job (each one typically receives 400+ applicants) before defending her dissertation -- the same girl once asked in a Hobbes seminar if a feminist reading of Hobbes was possible. Complete retard, but the system affirmative actioned her right in. Nothing is earned, it simply comes to them. No real earning, no real excitement, and no real joy (since they either don't have kids or weren't active in their upbringing, prioritizing their nonsense careers instead).
Now, all of a sudden, there's the excitement of some "dire threat to women and democracy!" being sold to them. It's the first, albeit fake, hint of a "fight" or "cause" that they've ever experienced. They hold onto it because the boring sham of a life that was given to them was so unfulfilling, that now this hysteria makes them feel like they're actually part of something important and exciting.
Nailed it.
yeah, that wasn't my experience. My experience was that as you start standing up to the people "in power," you get shown the door. Likely a lot of what you're seeing "come to them" happens because people in power recognize yes-women when they see them. Women who aren't don't get anything handed to them.
The cabal is excellent at controlling and manipulating the entire population. They dictate the rules. I see HCR and any who'd get mentioned in the NYTimes 🙄 as agent puppets doing what they're paid to / rewarded for doing.
It's not boomer women, at least not the earliest --- now the oldest --- boomer women of which I am one. We received a superior K-6 education that subsequent generations have not received, so our cognitive skills are better developed yet no one handed us a dang thing.
First, no one ever asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up 'cause we weren't expected to much of anything. Second, growing up in a "privileged" environment, which even my less affluent friends were a part of, meant you were expected to attend college primarily to meet your future husband. Third, though we grew up in a meritocracy and expected to be assessed on merit, that would take us only so far --- and maybe we'd been trained to not expect more of ourselves or the workplace.
When my freshman year at Ohio U. didn't go well --- the biggest party school east of the Mississippi back then --- my father announced I was being sent to live with my grandparents to attend the business school there to study secretarial science --- no one asked what I'd like to study --- in his words: "...so you'll have something to fall back on just in case." The rest of that sentence is: just in case the man you marry ends up unemployed at some point.
Well, I was fired from my first "just-in-case" job at a national accounting firm less than 30 min. after telling them I was pregnant. The next 20 yrs. of working pretty much went downhill from there 'cause there were no mentors, no appreciation for my abilities and gifts (not even from my husband), no mentoring, and certainly no benefits. As a late-blooming law school grad in 1990, the placement office suggested I look for a job in sales. That I turned out to be an extraordinarily good writer was of no value. I never got a single interview and didn't have a competitive nature sufficient to fight my way through it. And by 1993-94, the workplace culture had changed so much that one mistake was enough to get one fired. Unbeknownst to my naive self, the "cancel culture" and deference to the "feelings" of others had already taken over.
The rest of the above comment that didn't seem to post:
It wasn't being female that got the incompetent Indian girl her job. It was being Indian. In the late 70s, my teacher-husband and his colleagues were told that their Black principal (a nice but fundamentally illiterate man whose memos to staff/parents were the topic of many jokes and much laughter) was handed his Ph.D. because he still hadn't completed his dissertation after seven years.
If American society doesn't return to the pursuit of excellence, I don't believe America can survive as we once knew her.
Thank you for voicing what I was thinking. As a true “boomer woman,” I can attest that not much was expected of us in terms of careers. Sure, the powers that be may have noticed we were intelligent, and the Ivies finally all accepted us in the ‘70’s, but it was the boomer women who fought for spots in those schools and later in the business/science world…many just assumed those jobs would be place holders until we got married and started a family.
The observation about the hysteria and the excitement is spot-on.
OK, wait a minute! Enough with the agism. The only thing boomers have in common is age. We are male. female, rich, poor liberal, conservative, religious, atheist, black, white, Asian, Hispanic and all the other things common to EVERY generation.
There was (is) nothing wrong with women being expected to marry, bear children and raise them in the home, but, as can be seen by the replies, you will not get women to agree that Feminism (of any wave) was and is of negative benefit to society. As long as they were individually allowed to 'express themselves' or take/be allowed the opportunity to enter mens' spaces, they will champion Feminism as God's gift to women and refuse to acknowledge the destruction left in their wake.
The roots of our current chaos can be traced to allowing the vote to folk beyond land owning men, the refusal to acknowledge or protect racial cohesion and the tenets of liberalism, which cannot tolerate absolute truth 🤷
The prioritization of career over family (even the belief that both are possible) has led to the boredom and unfilled lives.
You're right about women embracing the role they were created to fulfill. It's just that no one ever explained the value of that and never in relation to the role men are created to fulfill and why together we accomplish far more in every way than we can without each other. That understanding comes from the Bible, but back in the 50s and 60s, no one shared the wisdom of Judeo-Christian values, so I didn't find it until nearly 50 yrs. old. By then, all the damage of extreme feminism had been done.
Seems to be human nature to take every good idea, every positive change, to such an extreme it becomes both unrecognizable and destructive. Officially, Boomers are from the birth years of 1946-1964. I'm at one end on Valentine's Day; Heather Cox Richardson is at the other. Other than both being female, we seem to have little in common other than being raised with some advantages that many of our peers didn't have.
Maybe evaluating the Feminist Movement (and other major movements?) requires standing in the middle of a circle to which are attached, like the tentacles of an octopus, the factors that affect and influence its development as a movement and one's response to it --- nature of early education; exposure to Biblical understanding of human nature; what the males in our respective lives have been taught, if anything, about their role (the wisdom in and necessity of honoring, valuing, and respecting the females in their lives); family dynamics in childhood; the extent to which each of us is valued and respected as an integral member of the workforce; and maybe other factors you recognize.
Last night, I listened to Christiane Amanpour's July 3, 2024 interview of Heather Cox Richardson. Both are scary people made dangerous by their global influence, but HCR is really scary.
Based on my research and studies, two facts about her stood out, in addition to being too partisan, that adversely affect her ability to engage in in-depth thought: (1) she didn't receive the superior K-6 education of the 50s with its mastery of language that builds the necessary foundation for cognitive development and (2) by never being a parent and not marrying until a few yrs. ago, she's missed all the life lessons and a broader understanding of human nature that only those experiences can teach.
She has all this knowledge about American history but, absent an in-depth understanding of human nature and the effects of experiences, that knowledge is useless. Her supposed analytical thinking is driven the same hate for Trump all die-hard Democrats are controlled by. Her thinking is myopic at best, and her writing is done in pursuit of a Democrat agenda.
History is controlled by the victors....always. I saw a mural in Egypt in the "bribe the guard $20" tour of the back room at a temple in Luxor. On the wall was an image of the former Pharaoh, carefully chipped away to erase him from history. They had chipped everything carefully, so you knew it wasn't the Muslims (they usually do the face). Think about how they control history by removing confederate generals statues, revise textbooks, etc. The guard told me it was the next Pharaoh that did this, he erased his predecessor.
The biggest lie of our history is the hiding of the prior civilization(s). Where did they go and what happened to them? Evidence is found in museum basements, the off limits parts of ancient sites and of course reburied because it's inconvenient information to the narrative. You can call these people Communists or whatever, they are the controllers and history and this news narrative (via substack) are only one way they maintain control.
And this "historian" seems too dumb (to be fair, she may simply be following the money) to understand that history will be history if these fine upstanding protectors of democracy have their way, helped along by useful idiots like her.
My belief is they are under a spell. The 6-6-6 spell is very powerful and it's everywhere in this dimension. It takes someone with a strong main consciousness to break free. If you've ever spoken with people like this and pointed something out, they immediately fly into a rage. That's the demon controlling them speaking, not them, themselves.
The manner in which most of these influencers whether on Substack or X speak with the same language suggests to me that there is coordination either at the party level or above. Operation Mockingbird was entry-level propaganda compared to what has been on display post-debate.
I do find it amusing as someone who is open to entertaining and looking into “conspiracy theories” that usually when I broach a controversial subject with friends on the left and offer some alternative possibilities they are quick to say that they don’t believe in conspiracy theories. However, the speed at which Project 2025 has become the Trojan Horse for the reinstitution of the Third Reich amongst those same friends is astonishing.
They seem confident that Rs are being brainwashed (since the 90s at least) but cannot wrap their minds around the notion that they may be, too. By the same mechanism.
Fascinating. And infuriating.
I find it is helpful to reflect on the time period in my life when I was brainwashed so to speak. I was a sophomore in high school on September 11th and it was that event that lead me to take an interest in the news. I happened to come across Bill O’Reilly’s program and was a faithful watcher of his show for roughly eight years.
I believed the following:
“We have to fight them over there, so we don’t fight them here.”
“Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.”
“France was being a wuss not wanting to get involved. The pentagon was right to start calling French fries freedom fries.”
“George W Bush was a good man. Faithful conservative. If there hadn’t been opposition in congress to the war in Iraq we would have brought freedom and democracy to Iraq.”
“Torture was good and necessary and if the government deemed someone a terrorist they should have no legal rights whatsoever.”
Why did I believe those things? Because various retired generals and colonels came on his show and other programs and said so. Foreign policy experts did the same. Legal scholars did too. I was a teenager going into my twenties. I was a product of public schools. Why would I question an expert?
It wasn’t until I listened to and considered the arguments of former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit Michael Scheuer and Judge Andrew Napolitano, bought some of their books and read them, that I began to change my thinking.
Key to that was that both of those men made sound, respectful arguments. It wasn’t an immediate change either. I didn’t quit cold-turkey. It took about two years to make the full break from the beliefs I had held as sacrosanct.
All of my brainwashing was the result of watching an hour-long show Monday through Friday. Today’s 24-7 social media propaganda is far stronger in my view. During those years I wasn’t aware that I was brainwashed, I really believed those things and defended them fiercely.
Here is an example I came across today on X of the kind of delusion that exists now:
https://x.com/cmclymer/status/1811369016998408677?s=46
I was swayed, too, in the 80s and 90s to go along with TV presenters, guests, and print media explaining things in ways that seemed rational to my inherited belief system. But I was deeply skeptical by the time 9/11 happened (age 33.)
The best thing I did to break myself from the media spell and my own biases was to stop watching commercial television. By 2009 I was all the way out, and I've been off social media for at least 10 years. Print can be horrible, too, of course. But reading at least engages one's critical thinking skills. Unsupported statements, the overuse of anonymous sourcing, the "he said this but she said that" garbage reporting, the lies of commission and omission...these are much easier to decode when reading; separating honest reporting from "The Bullshit" as Walter Kirn calls it is much easier. (Side note: when my mother asked me what stopped me reading the NY Times (and therefore no longer sharing her worldview,) I answered, "reading the NY Times.")
Even here on SS there's a pull toward mob rule by the cool kids, and I don't always feel I get things right. But what I do experience reading various authors here (and elsewhere) is a general move in the direction of the truth about what is actually happening in our world and how we got here and a moving away from the false righteousness and safety-ism my lazier intellect craved decades ago.
It ain't easy sifting through The Bullshit. But it is humbling. And rewarding.
Doesn't it also reflect an inability, or a refusal, to engage in in-depth, analytical thought? Their focus on "feelings" allows them to parrot each other with superficial assessments of everything and everyone. Why peel away the layers of an issue or statement when you can get away with attention-getting one-liners?
Subjective vs Objective "reality".
Digging up the lies that are woven into leftist thought is almost an archeological project.
Elite medieval artists and intellectuals held to a model of the poor, starving, diseased and illiterate peasants having an earthy, spiritual purity. The crass materialism and commercialism of the more literate, better fed urban commoner classes was seen as a violation of divine order.
The literacy and information processing technologies (printing presses) of the urban commoners was a direct threat to the social privilege and power of the old elites and their intellectual and artistic servants.
Somehow that attitude (hate of the middle classes) survived actual class wars for 100s of years, and resurfaced when the more anti-liberal (anti-rational, romanticist, Rousseau type) "left" emerged in the late 1700s and turned into full blown hatred of the (classically liberal, property owning) middle classes that evolved out of the literate medieval urban commoner class.
The "woke" "left" has simply returned to something that has been around for at least 300 years, hatred of the middle classes.
Digging down further into the layers of history, classical liberalism, high-social-trust, the nuclear family, literacy, scientific innovation and market economics (expanding middle class wealth) were all loathed by clannish (or dynastic, aristocratic), illiterate, inbred societies that were ordered not on constitutions, but honor systems. The cultural-left's weird, postmodern, multiculturalist preference for non-western, pre-modern societies fits that model.
Yes! Protesters can be carrying signs proudly printed by revolutionary socialists and tagging buildings with anarchist symbols, but people still say it's a conspiracy theory that they are gunning for revolution. Can't happen here hubris will be our downfall.
The irony being that the "protests" ae funded by billionaire capitalist-oligarchs like Soros.
We are in for a cat-lady plague of biblical proportions. Imagine two-three generations of Miss Havershams creating legions of young female clones, poisoning the well of civilization for the next 1000 years. I'm mostly interested in solutions at this point. Of course, we must continue exposing the group ultimately responsible ... but then what?
As the narrative control system, "sense making" system, of a civilization collapses, it disintegrates and regresses (Koestler, Ghost in the Machine) along with a general collapse of society. The result: totalitarianism, censorship, propaganda, Idiocracy.
The good news is that some opportunities for new types of sense making might have an opportunity to emerge when the "dark age" ends.
https://metarationality.com/stem-fluidity-bridge
hilarious description of a scary reality
I subscribed to this propagandist back when I identified as a liberal and still receive her emails. As you noted, the level of propaganda is off the charts and the comments are truly next level. These are some very unhappy and frightened people. I’m so glad I broke out of that insane mindset.
Glad you broke free. What led you to see the propaganda and improve your information diet?
It did not happen overnight. Unhappiness with COVID, Newsom, my home state of CA, neoliberalism, and the realization during the Johnny Depp trial that the media was pushing a narrative and not being honest. I started following independent journalists like HouseInhabit, the Free Press, Glenn Greenwald, and Matt Taibi. My deceased father, a staunch conservative, always told me I would become more conservative once I got older and I guess he was right.
I was literally thinking this morning about how my brain is just not strong enough to process the nonsense I see from writers like her (and RBG - how are these people still talking when they are WRONG ALL THE TIME?). My applause to those who read her drivel for fun and keep their breakfast in their stomachs. I keep thinking common sense will eventually prevail. Our current moment is just too stupid to continue.
Continue the good fight, comrade. 😉
Nailed it! I love this line: "She serves as a fentanyl grade copium dealer to millions of AWFLs like her, whose brains have been broken by decades of MSM consumption."
I love the scene in Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.'' Clementis lends his hat to a party leader, as they pose for a picture; years later, having fallen out of official favor, Clementis is airbrushed out of the photograph; all that remains of him is his hat, sitting on another's head.
Thanks for posting. I visited friends I’ve known for 40 years near Burlington VT for the 4th of July. The wife is now into HCR and has consumed an ocean of koolaid. A week later, her lack of any critical thought and eager consumption of the left’s failing narrative leaves me wondering what happened to the person I knew. To open a conversation on current events is to invite dismissive condescension. She had no use for logic and facts because she parroted left narratives, in rapid nonsequitor fashion. This article provides necessary context. Thanks.
HCR obviously has a permanent case of mentalpause.
I’m incredulous when I read some of their columns (and add Dan Rather’s Steady) for good measure - it’s like they reside on a different planet - any every one of them finds a way to work a cheap Trump shot into every column - the “end of democracy’ - what a load of crap.
It is ultimately bullshit funded by globalists, international financiers and tech oligarchs. See NS Lyons' substack article on "Virtuals vs Physicals".
Well done Yuri.
These people are the irredeemable. They are the dumb b*tches (take it easy ladies, I use that term for men too, especially the betas and castrati) that are championing and pushing the child grooming, trans-ing and mutilation - as well as all those new, misogynistic penis-sisters invading women's spaces.
Yes, these types and their psychophants are the intelligentsia that has been crumbling society, for centuries.
I've often thought shibboleths will become more relevant as we ramble along this road of societal destruction, simply because it will be harder to identify your enemy who's not carrying spears and swords to use to kill you, but demoralized and deranged brains and minds.
These types are society destroyers - you let them in at your own peril.
In a way I’m almost kind of jealous. It must be nice to just create your own reality and genuinely believe in it.
There used to be asylums for those people.
Never read HCR and never will. I certainly don't need liberal lunacy to get my kicks. But it is a laugh a minute for sure. It's rather quite sad that so many millions buy into this socialist rubbish. All socialism systems have failed like clockwork and the current US version will also.
Not saying the retardicans have anything much better, but capitalism if done correctly does merit further exploration and implementation. I'd rather have no government and let the markets go where they may. Better and fairly priced goods and services will flourish while overpriced junk will not.