It is the weekend and the anti-AfD protests have started up again. Perhaps the aim is to promote them to a semi-permanent ritual, like the weekly Fridays for Future marches to save the climate in 2019. This would make sense: The climateers seem to be losing steam, with
There is definitely an American Hand here... concoct a fictional crowd of 'protestors' (Hint: Pay each individual a Lump Sum to mouth slogans they know nothing about) & then agitate for a 'showdown' where said fictional crowd tussles with the Genuine, Populist peaceful protestors.
Then engineer a 'violent incident' that will justify various Legal Minutia which will then be employed to Bar the AfD (in part or in full) from German political life. Textbook CIA-operation ongoing here!
I'm not sure the Germans necessarily need our help in doing this sort of thing. They do still undoubtedly have some people left over with the relevant expertise from the Stasi. It's only been 35 years since the "Antifascist Protection Rampart" came down. Which isn't to say that the CIA necessarily did *not* have a hand in it, but only that it's possible they were not required. 🤪
Also, this will serve as an excellent location for me to repeat my "every-godsdamned-time-they-are-mentioned" reminder that "Antifa" was founded in 1932 by the explicitly Stalinist German Communist Party to fight (physically, in the streets) not only the Nazis, but also the Social Democrats and anyone else who wanted a sane, non-totalitarian society.
And, of course, the reminder that the official name of "The Berlin Wall" as given by the people who built it (East German Communists) was "The Antifascist Protection Rampart". Y'know, to protect the East Germans from the horrors of Western Fascism. It was purely coincidence that this protection came in the form of shooting East Germans for trying to get into West Berlin.
Ahem. Sorry for hijacking your comment. I just truly despise Antifa and the cover they get from useful idiots, so I like to spread this information far and wide. 🤬
like I often tell my dad. The good things don't cross the ocean, not either way. The bad does. Europe immersed in macdonalds and other crap, and the good things stay where they are. When years ago a fraud with french wine came up, a friend said, would you export the good stuff and keep the garbage?
no belgian beer to be had here in small town GA. former Belgian here. thankfully new store carries some cheese and decent spanish wine. Saved LOL. Driving toyota
Would you all please stop already with the Belgian beer? The stores are about to close here, and it's been far too long since I sank into that Belgian nectar. Know where I'm headed first thing on Monday :)
A Guy sat on a plane next to a “protestor”, who’d just participated in a demonstration in that state, and now was being flown to another demonstration in another state - all expenses paid!
They use the phrase "Our Democracy" the way my ex-wife and I would refer to "our car" or "our house"; Proprietorship of the object in question. We meant that it *belonged* to us, not that it was some sort of community resource.
I see, SaHiB, that you are deep-level ironist. Where my ironic comments play in the shallows one or two levels down, you lurk in the timeless depths of Level Five, like Saito, in a comments-board "Inception".
I just studied enough of several versions of what its practitioners call "Judaism" to recognize a few of their tricks. "Our Democracy" (but it isn't yours!) is a projection to make the gullible idiots think the conspirators' (WEF, etc.) aims and goals be their own. Most of them don't realize "Our" does not include the listeners. (English and German need a pronoun expansion of "we", "us", and "our".)
I remember a few years ago listening to BAP's podcast and hearing him say that the CIA is and always has been a leftist organization. I thought, well OK, guess I can tune this guy out. When I was a kid, the FBI were for us the equivalent of the sheriff in cowboy movies and the other folk heroes. And today the FBI, CIA, German and British intelligence agencies ... who else ... all working diligently to undermine what is right, using the most despicable methods imaginable.
And it isn't just an anti-Trump thing; they hate all populists (not to mention any other groups who might be inclined to fire them, replace them and/or abolish them).
I'm not sure if I would agree that the CIA is "leftist" in the traditional sense, but they have always been about consolidation of *power* and looking out for their own interests, and maybe incidentally the interests of America, should those happen to align. Same for the FBI, only they were built up as J. Edgar's personal set of Praetorians. Not "leftist", but not nearly as solidly aligned with the principles of America as they'd like people to think.
Of course, by this point, and through the mechanism of Conquest's Second Law ("Any organization not explicitly and constitutionally right-wing will sooner or later become left-wing.") those two organizations may well have been fully subverted.
Finally remembered why at the time BAP's claim seemed quite plausible to me, after I did a little research. And it still does. In a hurry, so taking the following from Wikipedia and therefore do not vouch it is documented as true: The predecesor of the CIA was the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the U.S. intelligence agency during World War II. The OSS trained anti-Nazi Germans and Austrians for missions in Germany. These people included communists, Socialist party members, labor activists, anti-Nazi POWs, and German and Jewish refugees. In Asia between 1943 and 1945, the OSS helped to arm, train and supply resistance movements including Mao Zedong's Red Army and, in Vietnam, the Viet Minh of Ho Chi Minh. OSS officer Archimedes Patti played a central role in OSS operations in French Indochina and met frequently with Ho Chi Minh in 1945. And we have John Brennan, former CIA director under Saint Barack Obama. Brennan "applied to the CIA in 1980. During his application he admitted during a lie-detector test that he had voted for the Communist Party candidate four years earlier. To his surprise, he was still accepted; he later said that he finds it heartening that the CIA valued freedom of speech." Ah yes, the CIA those defenders of freedom. OK, granted, all intelligence agencies use whatever methods that work and don't hesitate to work with Satan himself. But maybe the question can be distilled down to: If we step back to look at the big picture, is it not conceivable that the OSS might have been far more or even essentially anti-Fascist than motivated primarily by genuine American patriotism?
I can't say that I'm shocked they would have worked with those folks, as you say, intelligence services will use whatever tools are at hand if they believe they're effective. There's definitely a rather significant moral flexibility that seems to characterize the CIA. And it's not like FDR wasn't basically a commie himself.
I guess I just see them as more focused on power, and America having more power means they have more power, and so they do whatever it takes to keep that going.
Yes, I agree with you. One thing I have learned, a kind of universal rule, for me at least, is that you can have the most wonderful organization, whether that be political, religious, charitable or whatever area. If it has attracted good people and becomes successful in its mission, in turn leading to expansion, attracting more followers/members/employees ... donors, especially donors ... sadly what often happens is that the dedication to the original cause is replaced with dedication to preserving and advancing the organization itself. And the original cause gradually takes a back seat. The classic "victim of one's own success" phenomenon. Once jobs, prestige, income, personal prestige enter the picture ... the cause is forgotten. Too much personal gain at stake.
The CIA can't be viewed through the partisan left/right binary. It has functioned from the beginning as America's secret government, outside of oversight, accountability or political control. The CIA believed themselves the saviors of our Constitutional system against malignant Communism. The Agency operated on the premise that our open and transparent system of democratic government was by design incapable of saving itself.
Ministry of Truth at its best. It was clear from the start, by the timing and the lock-step message from the media. We know what we are up to, and it is in its nature to try to deceive in order to control us, but how the heck so many people repeatedly fall for exactly the same type of lies. That's what's really frustrating.
They're in lockstep with their counterparts here in the US. The "protestors" here in the summer of 2020 were mostly paid actors, bussed in from as much as 1000 miles away. I know this well, as I live near Richmond, Virginia, where extra attention was paid to the city's now-removed Confederate-era monuments.
In the Richmond streets, the protestor columns were fronted by a small group of locals, followed by the larger mass of outside agitators, with the closing ranks comprised of ANTIFA types, who set things ablaze in the wee hours as everyone else went home.
Dangerous times we find ourselves in to be sure....
Our police chief here in Detroit, out of office now, said that that was happening, that outside agitators were coming from miles and miles away. In those days, before Detroit became a Center for Urban Transformation, the mayor got some old school black activists and church leaders to speak and manage the protests. Instead of a racially divisive slogan, Power to the People was painted along a downtown street. All that is transmogrified now, no doubt due to influence, and carrot and stick playbooks. I would never have believed these levels of orchestration, but now I fear it will be actors and mercenaries who instigate something scripted that will arise out of this Republican mayors versus "Our Democracy" on the border issue.
Exactly. I'm particularly entertained by "climate protests" in US and EU where the regimes already openly support what the "protesters" advocate, but the voters do not.
No kidding hey? Here the pro Hamas protesters can seemingly break all sorts of laws, commit actual violence, property damage, utter death threats, but it’s all A OK with our government. The peaceful “far right extremist” protesters advocating for our freedoms on the other hand were met with martial law being enacted and then enforced. Everyone is equal under the law but some are more equal than others.
We must save our nations and our sovereignties, we simply must! We cannot let the UN the WEF and the top 1% of the richest people in the world destroy all our nations most critically the US and everything it stands for which provided even the possibility of living proud and free for all the rest of our countries in the western world! Naomi Wolf says Biden is a traitor and the US is under foreign influence and I would have to say the same is true for Canada with Klaus Schwab openly bragging the WEF Global Young Leaders program has successfully infiltrated at least 1/2 of our federal government cabinet! Fact not fiction.
So I suppose they're "color autocoups", where leaders gain power legally and then grab further powers illegally to perpetuate their regime.
(Sorry, I don't know if "autocoup" is recognized in English yet - Spanish has an established word "autogolpe", which is gradually seeping into other languages as it increases in usefulness.)
When I was old enough to read more widely and more deeply about the horrors of WWII Germany and the surrounding nations it had invaded, what surprised me was not the brutality of the regime but the number of very ordinary humble people who found within themselves the courage and decency to risk their own lives and the lives of the people they dearly loved in order to save strangers.
And this has troubled and afflicted me ever since. Would I have such courage and decency? Would I be overwhelmed by terror at what might be done to my own child if I attempted to save someone else's?
Nothing Germany or any other Western nation has faced during this our Plague Era has reached that depth of monstrosity, though there are plenty of ersatz monsters doing their best to terrorize us.
We ought to hold weekly readings of "The 900 Days" and get people to understand what perseverance and the will to survive and overcome whatever the challenge is.
Guys like Putin were forged in the heart of families who lost children to starvation and the diseases that eat malnourished little bodies. It makes them intend to win by any means necessary.
We need to get serious about winning now. We don't need hard armaments but we sure do need hard minds.
Yes, amazing bravery ... gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. Knew a German woman, born in early 1940s and lived in Cairo Egypt in the 1960s. Was at a big cocktail party, Cairo intelligentsia scene, came a knock on the door and in come Egyptian secret police, who proceed to haul off a couple from the crowd of partygoers. And no one in the room, including my German friend or her husband, spoke so much as a word in protest. Silence. Then went back to chit chatting, wasn't that awful, how unjust. After that she never again looked down with scorn on the German population that lived under National Socialsm.
Given that the egyptian secret police (as well as their military) was trained by former Gestapo and SS-personnel, it might have been a life-saver to keep quiet.
From memory, I believe Egypt utilised old Wehrmacht, SS and Gestapo-men from around 1953-ish to the mid-1970s.
Interesting. Well I guess if you need top service providers, you hire experienced professionals :) Did not mean to in turn look down on anyone, my friend included, for not busting a move and attacking the Egyptian police with cocktail toothpicks :) Just an illustration of the very human failing of ... "if I'd been there, I would have stood up". Maybe, maybe not. We find out when the moment arrives.
Not meaning you were blaming anyone, not my intent.
I did the "stand up to uniformed authority" once or twice in my teens, and let's just say it hurt, despite the uniform in question being swedish police.
It is far better to stand up /behind/ the bully, before taking a stand or making a move.
NB: not advocating violence here, disclaimer added for legal reasons.
Thanks. But was not put off by a single word you wrote. Comedy of errors. I was just interested in not coming off like a wannabe badass :) As for violence ... it falls into the same category as rain, wind and grass ... entirely natural, ever present, can be a blessing or a curse. A blessing if you're about to get your brains knocked out or a knife in your chest, and one of those nasty ol cops happens along and saves your life. :)
Every one of us learned during this Plague Era that a Good German lives in everyone and some people really thrive on the permission to let him out. We learned during this Plague Era that highly-educated middle-class/upper middle-class women will let the schools force their little children to eat outside in the cold sitting on cement and the greatest protest they will make will be to whine to each other on Twitter.
Now, to be sure, openly opposing the Egyptian secret police, and especially if you are an expatriate who they'd really enjoy humiliating, wouldn't be smart. That's where guerilla resistance comes in. And of course leaving a job where you play stupid games and get stupid prizes.
I agree with almost att you (SCA) & the others in this side thread have written, but one point.
That of "a Good German" lives within us all."
Nope.
I agree that one alone may not be able to stop or thwart all evil acts committed in front of them....& waiting as a tactical move may be required, but even that is last on the list.
There are so many examples throughout history, of people up & down the socio-economic & level of education scales who have just said: "No, I will not comply, I will fight this evil & I will take what may." They were not being "badasses", just moral human beings that can recognize right from wrong, & simply choose to stand, rather than live on their knees.....and they have always been my heroes.
I was a late learner, but since the age of 18, I have always walked my talk, & put myself into situations that caused me to quit or be fired, or to be alienated. I am far from being the only one who refused to comply during this Dempanic Plandemic, & so I was shocked & dismayed at a couple of my friend's reactions who must've had that latent, "Good German" min them, & our former "friendships" have deteriorated (tho I have met many, stalwart "non-compliers" since Coronamania {M. Oshinskie} began, that I am lucky to now share a very strong bond with), I was shunned by family, & was even barred from contact with my 2 Gchildren for 18 months, because I simply refused to wear the face diaper of control, or take any of the experimental biological injections. I & my wife, DO know what actual Science is, & what our Laws & our Constitution say & mean, but we are labelled Conspiracy Theorists..... still.
Sanity has not returned to any of the aforementioned, & unfortunately, I don't know if I will ever be able to fully trust our son or his wife, again.....& at "only" 64, that sux for me.
We have moved, & the wife had to leave one job, but was able to write an exemption letter that was "accepted" at another..... and she's an Anesthesiologist. I work for myself, so this part was never an issue for me. ("Molon, do you wish to follow anything TPTB are attempting to force upon you?" "No Molon I don't , & please tell the Wankers that they can Piss Off!")
I do not advocate for violence, but I am a firm follower of our 2nd Amendment & practice it legally every day. The only thing that stops a bad man with a gun, is a good man with a gun, because when seconds count, the Police are only minutes away.
I have calmly smiled at a raging bully hurling invectives at me, & simply walked away, for names will never hurt me, but I have also jumped to the front of my wife & another couple when I noticed an oncoming trio of young men wearing hoodies note us late one night as we were walking back to our hotel in a large, leftist run City, & then cross cross the street to our side, & bear down upon us. I immediately told the other man to fall back with the ladies, watch my moves, & run like hell if this escalated. I then pulled my pistol from its concealed holster, made sure the oncoming trio saw it, & then put it and the hand holding it, in the pocket of the "bomber" jacket I was wearing, with it markedly pointed straight at them, while continuing to advance straight at them.
Almost immediately they stopped, exchanged words, & crossed back over to the opposite side of the street, as my eyes & stance continued to follow their movements until they were outta' sight. I had actually shocked our friends because they did not spot the danger, nor were they aware that I ever carried a gun. I never told them I carried, because I knew their stance on guns didn't agree with my own, & that neither of them, ever carried. However, the next day the husband asked me several, very apropos questions on this issue.
I did not relate that story to show any bravado, but simply to show that there is no Good German in me, & it is not bluster that I would rather die on my feet, than live on my knees.......for truly, you are what you do.
I leave you with the powerful words of a man who saw much more deeply into how we live, & how we die, than I..... he was never a "Good German" & was a man worthy of respect, from all:
“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion (Edit: exception islam, which he had never seen); respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.
When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”
“Nothing Germany or any other Western nation has faced during this our Plague Era has reached that depth of monstrosity, though there are plenty of ersatz monsters doing their best to terrorize us.”
Im not so sure. Looks like most “covid” deaths were hospital murder deaths (iatrogenic if you prefer), intentional or not.
Now there are deaths from the EAU biologic injections, ongoing.
And laws, statutes, and orders on the books on the state and federal level “legalizing” forced quarantining for those not complying with mandated biologics of dubious integrity
So, in my estimation, especially due to the global scale of all of this. I sense it’s worse than many imagine, and will far outstrip anything that happened previously.
It is a matter of degree and intent and I disagree with those who see Depopulation Satan behind every bush though the Four Horsement of Grand Idiocy, Bureaucracy, Arrogance, and Incompetence have caused plenty of carnage.
This is the same playbook the US is using against the right. The only difference here is we have the left and the faux right against a political candidate.
The only right in America is its citizens and they better wake up to this soon or all of their liberties will disappear.
The left and right is so arbitrary these days. How do I signal that I respect the worker and think that someone who devotes years of their life doing backbreaking labor for someone's project be treated well and paid equitably yet recognize that mythologizing that is part of the problem.
My only hope is the Constitution. The one I was dissuaded from writing about in college in 1985 because essays were going to some kind of 'national' and speaking about the constitution was verboten even then, even if my teacher agreed.
> "How do I signal that I respect the worker and think that someone who devotes years of their life doing backbreaking labor for someone's project be treated well and paid equitably yet recognize that mythologizing that is part of the problem."
To an extent I quite appreciate the Pajama Class nu-Left having abandoned the working class to instead heap scorn upon them instead. My background is rather diverse on that front, being a life-long American libertarian who has worked both white and blue collar jobs. And a lot of the blue collar seems to be waking up to the libertarian perspective that freedom isn't just a word, and while it's important to not let a company push you around, the government is not your friend either. And the Ivory Tower Marxist Fuckwits actively despise you and are the enemy.
"Class Warfare" isn't between the rich and the poor these days, it's between The Grievance Culture Oppressed Pseudointellectuals and The Productive.
They need us. We (The Productive) don't need them.
While integrating "Ossi" police, politicians and various functionnaires into the "Wessi" organisations during reunification made sense both practically and emotionally, I fear it is coming back to bite not only Germany but all nations dependent on the German economy and on which way Germany tilts politically.
Because I cannot shake the suspicion that many of the "Ossis" have moved German politics in the wrong direction for some time now, towards the DDR-concept of democracy: you get to vote and no matter how you vote, you still get the same politics.
And if you protest, you are publicly labeled insane, criminal, a foreign agent or evil, and are blacklisted and possibly unpersoned.
And if that doesn't help, there's always Zersetzung.
I mean... just read Merkel's biography. But yes, I agree. It's not like all of the people who had that upbringing just disappeared. Though it is interesting to note the flip side as well, it's precisely in the East that the AfD has the most traction.
Yep, and that was a major fear during reunification, that the East which didn't undergo US-led de-nazification would be susceptible to "re-nazification".
What seems to have happened instead is that germans from the East are so much more tuned into the oppressive notes of totalitarianism due to direct exposure (and them having been spared the incessant and to the point of self-parody driven flagellation over WW2 surely plays into this) that they recognise the sow despite the lipstick it wears.
While the Wester population are blind to it and shamed into obeisance by the ever-looming spectre of WW2 (notice how mongolians aren't apologising for their ancestors killing 1/6 of humanity during the Mongol Wars. . .).
The old party elite of the East probably sings in harmony with German elites in toto, while the populace who didn't reap the benefits of DDR say "Er aber, sag's ihm, er kann mich im Arsch lecken!" to the elite.
If you see what I mean? I'm a bit dazed from a muchness and richness of cream-stewed herrings with onion-sauce and potatomash.
I fear the same for Canada the establishment parties are actually now just a uniparty, or the controlled opposition. So you’re led to believe you still live in a democracy by getting to vote, but as you say no matter how you vote you still get the same politics.
The formal and technical term for it in political science is "Demokratur".¨
There's a bit of confusion as to exactly where and by whom it originated, but the late 1940s to mid-1950s is when, and it was either a swede, a frenchman or a german who was first.
It simply means that you get the rituals of democracy (Demokrati) but the state is in practice a dictatorship (Diktatur), since the vote doesn't really matter: Demokratur.
You know, it's a lot simpler and easier to assume that the N is silent in _every_ "NGO".
I used to flippantly joke about this, back when I worked in silicon valley: "Which ones of your coworkers are CIA agents? Think about it. You know at least one of them has to be, because if intelligence agencies aren't spying on the most important companies in the world, what do they do all day?"
There has been no stronger contribution in refuting this government funded disinformation campaign than yours. Rational arguments can win. But the dim need to contemplate them. That only happens with activity. Soros and the rest of the propagandists rely on wearing people down through repetition. As Goebbels defined it. 'A crowd will believe anything if it is repeated constantly.'
clowns to the left, jokers to the right... standing here in the middle. An old Gerry Raferty but very useful to describe the absurd situations going on world wide. And we will also need a serious number of industrial washing machines for all the grub that shows up.
Is there something in the water throughout the western world? What is making everyone crazy as a box of frogs? Do all these people have access to specially filtrated weirdo water?
If the AfD are "bad" then let them lose at the ballot box. Likewise, if Trump is "bad" let him lose at the ballot box. Trying to nobble the opposition (and doing it so badly and obviously) just gives them more kudos with people who are sick of the idiots currently in charge.
what is making everyone crazy is that their television sets play for them the role of the trusted loving grandparent, maybe, the genuinely good clergy, beloved and dedicated schoolteachers etc etc. who not so long ago people turned to for guidance. In a relatively short period I have lost loved ones and lifelong friends, who believe every word their TV says and follow its instructions to the letter.
Really real, I'm afraid. After I hit "Post", I thought ... should have put that in quote marks, people will for sure think I'm bullshitting. :) "I think Joe Biden is a great statesman." Only recently came to understand that humans, at least those within easy reach of western mass media, are now living in 2 completely different realities. At least 2. Not hyperbole. Maybe the most important realization I've ever had ... but often wish I had not. Trying to sway some of them, people you shared a crib with at age 2, who genuinely do love you, is like trying to convince Inuit seal hunters to leave that blubber diet and go vegan.
I agree. I think of it as model thinking. They have a model of something in their minds and they seek evidence for it. Climate change, for example. It dominates their thinking. They reject anything that challenges the model.
Most of the models are downloaded from other sources, like the media.
There is definitely an American Hand here... concoct a fictional crowd of 'protestors' (Hint: Pay each individual a Lump Sum to mouth slogans they know nothing about) & then agitate for a 'showdown' where said fictional crowd tussles with the Genuine, Populist peaceful protestors.
Then engineer a 'violent incident' that will justify various Legal Minutia which will then be employed to Bar the AfD (in part or in full) from German political life. Textbook CIA-operation ongoing here!
Spot on, comrade. All part of the GAE color revolution playbook: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-execute-a-color-revolution
I'm not sure the Germans necessarily need our help in doing this sort of thing. They do still undoubtedly have some people left over with the relevant expertise from the Stasi. It's only been 35 years since the "Antifascist Protection Rampart" came down. Which isn't to say that the CIA necessarily did *not* have a hand in it, but only that it's possible they were not required. 🤪
Also, this will serve as an excellent location for me to repeat my "every-godsdamned-time-they-are-mentioned" reminder that "Antifa" was founded in 1932 by the explicitly Stalinist German Communist Party to fight (physically, in the streets) not only the Nazis, but also the Social Democrats and anyone else who wanted a sane, non-totalitarian society.
And, of course, the reminder that the official name of "The Berlin Wall" as given by the people who built it (East German Communists) was "The Antifascist Protection Rampart". Y'know, to protect the East Germans from the horrors of Western Fascism. It was purely coincidence that this protection came in the form of shooting East Germans for trying to get into West Berlin.
Ahem. Sorry for hijacking your comment. I just truly despise Antifa and the cover they get from useful idiots, so I like to spread this information far and wide. 🤬
like I often tell my dad. The good things don't cross the ocean, not either way. The bad does. Europe immersed in macdonalds and other crap, and the good things stay where they are. When years ago a fraud with french wine came up, a friend said, would you export the good stuff and keep the garbage?
Mass migration & the rich clink glasses as they farewell them from the backseat of their limousines.
Hey now, I quite liked my old VW Jetta TDI sedan and then wagon.
And we do get some decent Belgian beer here as well. 😁
OK, to be fair, I'm not sure we've really sent much of value *back* to Europe... 😕
no belgian beer to be had here in small town GA. former Belgian here. thankfully new store carries some cheese and decent spanish wine. Saved LOL. Driving toyota
Ingrid my dear, ik drink een Westvleteren in jouw naam!
oooooooooooooooooohhhh I need to move there ROFL
Just finished a Duvel as I read this comment. Greetings from the Belgian homeland!
Belgium has great beers and the finest chocolates! Bonjour a nos amis Belges!
Would you all please stop already with the Belgian beer? The stores are about to close here, and it's been far too long since I sank into that Belgian nectar. Know where I'm headed first thing on Monday :)
Easy to make your own beer, darn easy. Give it a try. Because beer is almost as expensive as wine.
Deal: no more beery comments ‘til Monday! ;-) Be strong my friend!
(For those interested)
If you wish to read (& listen!) to more of My commentary, here is my Main Stack:
https://thefallofthewest.substack.com
Thank You Kindly to everyone!
And the color revolution tactics are being used right here in the US against all of us
Are you seriously suggesting somebody is "paying each invididual" in those brainwashed crowds?
A Guy sat on a plane next to a “protestor”, who’d just participated in a demonstration in that state, and now was being flown to another demonstration in another state - all expenses paid!
You don't need much:
Some people are willing to loot & burn an entire block for a measly 200-300 Euros.
It all comes down to Moral Character & Fibre at the end of the day!
The irony of the title: Protection of the Constitution. 😂😂
it seems that the people most interested in talking about and defending democracy are the greatest dangers to it
Well, we all know why they always say "Our Democracy" when they talk about it, don't we?
They use the phrase "Our Democracy" the way my ex-wife and I would refer to "our car" or "our house"; Proprietorship of the object in question. We meant that it *belonged* to us, not that it was some sort of community resource.
"Our Democracy" is the majority of the Sanhedrin:
Maimonides' list of 613 commandments, sorted by occurrence in the Torah
75. Ex. 23:2 - Decide by majority in case of disagreement
Wow, that must be the key to it all. How could Eugyppius have missed it?
I see, SaHiB, that you are deep-level ironist. Where my ironic comments play in the shallows one or two levels down, you lurk in the timeless depths of Level Five, like Saito, in a comments-board "Inception".
This? https://inception.fandom.com/wiki/Saito
I just studied enough of several versions of what its practitioners call "Judaism" to recognize a few of their tricks. "Our Democracy" (but it isn't yours!) is a projection to make the gullible idiots think the conspirators' (WEF, etc.) aims and goals be their own. Most of them don't realize "Our" does not include the listeners. (English and German need a pronoun expansion of "we", "us", and "our".)
I remember a few years ago listening to BAP's podcast and hearing him say that the CIA is and always has been a leftist organization. I thought, well OK, guess I can tune this guy out. When I was a kid, the FBI were for us the equivalent of the sheriff in cowboy movies and the other folk heroes. And today the FBI, CIA, German and British intelligence agencies ... who else ... all working diligently to undermine what is right, using the most despicable methods imaginable.
I would say "leftism" has morphed into a kind of delusional arrogant bureaucratic feudalism.
I think the 5 eyes intelligence agencies have totally abused their powers and are now in no position to stop and have decided to go for it.
And it isn't just an anti-Trump thing; they hate all populists (not to mention any other groups who might be inclined to fire them, replace them and/or abolish them).
I'm not sure if I would agree that the CIA is "leftist" in the traditional sense, but they have always been about consolidation of *power* and looking out for their own interests, and maybe incidentally the interests of America, should those happen to align. Same for the FBI, only they were built up as J. Edgar's personal set of Praetorians. Not "leftist", but not nearly as solidly aligned with the principles of America as they'd like people to think.
Of course, by this point, and through the mechanism of Conquest's Second Law ("Any organization not explicitly and constitutionally right-wing will sooner or later become left-wing.") those two organizations may well have been fully subverted.
Finally remembered why at the time BAP's claim seemed quite plausible to me, after I did a little research. And it still does. In a hurry, so taking the following from Wikipedia and therefore do not vouch it is documented as true: The predecesor of the CIA was the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the U.S. intelligence agency during World War II. The OSS trained anti-Nazi Germans and Austrians for missions in Germany. These people included communists, Socialist party members, labor activists, anti-Nazi POWs, and German and Jewish refugees. In Asia between 1943 and 1945, the OSS helped to arm, train and supply resistance movements including Mao Zedong's Red Army and, in Vietnam, the Viet Minh of Ho Chi Minh. OSS officer Archimedes Patti played a central role in OSS operations in French Indochina and met frequently with Ho Chi Minh in 1945. And we have John Brennan, former CIA director under Saint Barack Obama. Brennan "applied to the CIA in 1980. During his application he admitted during a lie-detector test that he had voted for the Communist Party candidate four years earlier. To his surprise, he was still accepted; he later said that he finds it heartening that the CIA valued freedom of speech." Ah yes, the CIA those defenders of freedom. OK, granted, all intelligence agencies use whatever methods that work and don't hesitate to work with Satan himself. But maybe the question can be distilled down to: If we step back to look at the big picture, is it not conceivable that the OSS might have been far more or even essentially anti-Fascist than motivated primarily by genuine American patriotism?
I can't say that I'm shocked they would have worked with those folks, as you say, intelligence services will use whatever tools are at hand if they believe they're effective. There's definitely a rather significant moral flexibility that seems to characterize the CIA. And it's not like FDR wasn't basically a commie himself.
I guess I just see them as more focused on power, and America having more power means they have more power, and so they do whatever it takes to keep that going.
Yes, I agree with you. One thing I have learned, a kind of universal rule, for me at least, is that you can have the most wonderful organization, whether that be political, religious, charitable or whatever area. If it has attracted good people and becomes successful in its mission, in turn leading to expansion, attracting more followers/members/employees ... donors, especially donors ... sadly what often happens is that the dedication to the original cause is replaced with dedication to preserving and advancing the organization itself. And the original cause gradually takes a back seat. The classic "victim of one's own success" phenomenon. Once jobs, prestige, income, personal prestige enter the picture ... the cause is forgotten. Too much personal gain at stake.
Brennan voted communist in 1976 !! ... not during the 1950s McCarthy era.
The CIA can't be viewed through the partisan left/right binary. It has functioned from the beginning as America's secret government, outside of oversight, accountability or political control. The CIA believed themselves the saviors of our Constitutional system against malignant Communism. The Agency operated on the premise that our open and transparent system of democratic government was by design incapable of saving itself.
Thanks for this more nuanced point of view. The name Conquest only rings a bell for me, but guess I'm gonna have to check him out.
So very true in all our western countries.
Ministry of Truth at its best. It was clear from the start, by the timing and the lock-step message from the media. We know what we are up to, and it is in its nature to try to deceive in order to control us, but how the heck so many people repeatedly fall for exactly the same type of lies. That's what's really frustrating.
Orwellian naming conventions are having high season for some years.
They're in lockstep with their counterparts here in the US. The "protestors" here in the summer of 2020 were mostly paid actors, bussed in from as much as 1000 miles away. I know this well, as I live near Richmond, Virginia, where extra attention was paid to the city's now-removed Confederate-era monuments.
In the Richmond streets, the protestor columns were fronted by a small group of locals, followed by the larger mass of outside agitators, with the closing ranks comprised of ANTIFA types, who set things ablaze in the wee hours as everyone else went home.
Dangerous times we find ourselves in to be sure....
Our police chief here in Detroit, out of office now, said that that was happening, that outside agitators were coming from miles and miles away. In those days, before Detroit became a Center for Urban Transformation, the mayor got some old school black activists and church leaders to speak and manage the protests. Instead of a racially divisive slogan, Power to the People was painted along a downtown street. All that is transmogrified now, no doubt due to influence, and carrot and stick playbooks. I would never have believed these levels of orchestration, but now I fear it will be actors and mercenaries who instigate something scripted that will arise out of this Republican mayors versus "Our Democracy" on the border issue.
Manufactured pro-regime protests seem to be a growth industry worldwide. Driven by subsidies from those same regimes.
As organic as George Floyd, BLM, Antifa ... .
Exactly. I'm particularly entertained by "climate protests" in US and EU where the regimes already openly support what the "protesters" advocate, but the voters do not.
"John Cougar Misanthrope" - I thought the name by itself deserved an upvote.
No kidding hey? Here the pro Hamas protesters can seemingly break all sorts of laws, commit actual violence, property damage, utter death threats, but it’s all A OK with our government. The peaceful “far right extremist” protesters advocating for our freedoms on the other hand were met with martial law being enacted and then enforced. Everyone is equal under the law but some are more equal than others.
Yep, the regime views "Animal Farm" as a how-to manual.
We must save our nations and our sovereignties, we simply must! We cannot let the UN the WEF and the top 1% of the richest people in the world destroy all our nations most critically the US and everything it stands for which provided even the possibility of living proud and free for all the rest of our countries in the western world! Naomi Wolf says Biden is a traitor and the US is under foreign influence and I would have to say the same is true for Canada with Klaus Schwab openly bragging the WEF Global Young Leaders program has successfully infiltrated at least 1/2 of our federal government cabinet! Fact not fiction.
"Manufactured pro-regime protests ..."
Like "color revolutions", but at home.
So I suppose they're "color autocoups", where leaders gain power legally and then grab further powers illegally to perpetuate their regime.
(Sorry, I don't know if "autocoup" is recognized in English yet - Spanish has an established word "autogolpe", which is gradually seeping into other languages as it increases in usefulness.)
Yes. It's as if the intelligence services had become so proficient at overthrowing other peoples' govenments that they decided to overthrow their own.
When I was old enough to read more widely and more deeply about the horrors of WWII Germany and the surrounding nations it had invaded, what surprised me was not the brutality of the regime but the number of very ordinary humble people who found within themselves the courage and decency to risk their own lives and the lives of the people they dearly loved in order to save strangers.
And this has troubled and afflicted me ever since. Would I have such courage and decency? Would I be overwhelmed by terror at what might be done to my own child if I attempted to save someone else's?
Nothing Germany or any other Western nation has faced during this our Plague Era has reached that depth of monstrosity, though there are plenty of ersatz monsters doing their best to terrorize us.
We ought to hold weekly readings of "The 900 Days" and get people to understand what perseverance and the will to survive and overcome whatever the challenge is.
Guys like Putin were forged in the heart of families who lost children to starvation and the diseases that eat malnourished little bodies. It makes them intend to win by any means necessary.
We need to get serious about winning now. We don't need hard armaments but we sure do need hard minds.
Yes, amazing bravery ... gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. Knew a German woman, born in early 1940s and lived in Cairo Egypt in the 1960s. Was at a big cocktail party, Cairo intelligentsia scene, came a knock on the door and in come Egyptian secret police, who proceed to haul off a couple from the crowd of partygoers. And no one in the room, including my German friend or her husband, spoke so much as a word in protest. Silence. Then went back to chit chatting, wasn't that awful, how unjust. After that she never again looked down with scorn on the German population that lived under National Socialsm.
Given that the egyptian secret police (as well as their military) was trained by former Gestapo and SS-personnel, it might have been a life-saver to keep quiet.
From memory, I believe Egypt utilised old Wehrmacht, SS and Gestapo-men from around 1953-ish to the mid-1970s.
Interesting. Well I guess if you need top service providers, you hire experienced professionals :) Did not mean to in turn look down on anyone, my friend included, for not busting a move and attacking the Egyptian police with cocktail toothpicks :) Just an illustration of the very human failing of ... "if I'd been there, I would have stood up". Maybe, maybe not. We find out when the moment arrives.
Not meaning you were blaming anyone, not my intent.
I did the "stand up to uniformed authority" once or twice in my teens, and let's just say it hurt, despite the uniform in question being swedish police.
It is far better to stand up /behind/ the bully, before taking a stand or making a move.
NB: not advocating violence here, disclaimer added for legal reasons.
Thanks. But was not put off by a single word you wrote. Comedy of errors. I was just interested in not coming off like a wannabe badass :) As for violence ... it falls into the same category as rain, wind and grass ... entirely natural, ever present, can be a blessing or a curse. A blessing if you're about to get your brains knocked out or a knife in your chest, and one of those nasty ol cops happens along and saves your life. :)
Oh aye, no debating that is it?
It's like with a proctologist, reall: not some you'd want to kiss on the hand regular like, but damn handy when you need'em for reasons, sort of.
"Violence is always right if you're winnin'" as someone said once.
Every one of us learned during this Plague Era that a Good German lives in everyone and some people really thrive on the permission to let him out. We learned during this Plague Era that highly-educated middle-class/upper middle-class women will let the schools force their little children to eat outside in the cold sitting on cement and the greatest protest they will make will be to whine to each other on Twitter.
Now, to be sure, openly opposing the Egyptian secret police, and especially if you are an expatriate who they'd really enjoy humiliating, wouldn't be smart. That's where guerilla resistance comes in. And of course leaving a job where you play stupid games and get stupid prizes.
I agree with almost att you (SCA) & the others in this side thread have written, but one point.
That of "a Good German" lives within us all."
Nope.
I agree that one alone may not be able to stop or thwart all evil acts committed in front of them....& waiting as a tactical move may be required, but even that is last on the list.
There are so many examples throughout history, of people up & down the socio-economic & level of education scales who have just said: "No, I will not comply, I will fight this evil & I will take what may." They were not being "badasses", just moral human beings that can recognize right from wrong, & simply choose to stand, rather than live on their knees.....and they have always been my heroes.
I was a late learner, but since the age of 18, I have always walked my talk, & put myself into situations that caused me to quit or be fired, or to be alienated. I am far from being the only one who refused to comply during this Dempanic Plandemic, & so I was shocked & dismayed at a couple of my friend's reactions who must've had that latent, "Good German" min them, & our former "friendships" have deteriorated (tho I have met many, stalwart "non-compliers" since Coronamania {M. Oshinskie} began, that I am lucky to now share a very strong bond with), I was shunned by family, & was even barred from contact with my 2 Gchildren for 18 months, because I simply refused to wear the face diaper of control, or take any of the experimental biological injections. I & my wife, DO know what actual Science is, & what our Laws & our Constitution say & mean, but we are labelled Conspiracy Theorists..... still.
Sanity has not returned to any of the aforementioned, & unfortunately, I don't know if I will ever be able to fully trust our son or his wife, again.....& at "only" 64, that sux for me.
We have moved, & the wife had to leave one job, but was able to write an exemption letter that was "accepted" at another..... and she's an Anesthesiologist. I work for myself, so this part was never an issue for me. ("Molon, do you wish to follow anything TPTB are attempting to force upon you?" "No Molon I don't , & please tell the Wankers that they can Piss Off!")
I do not advocate for violence, but I am a firm follower of our 2nd Amendment & practice it legally every day. The only thing that stops a bad man with a gun, is a good man with a gun, because when seconds count, the Police are only minutes away.
I have calmly smiled at a raging bully hurling invectives at me, & simply walked away, for names will never hurt me, but I have also jumped to the front of my wife & another couple when I noticed an oncoming trio of young men wearing hoodies note us late one night as we were walking back to our hotel in a large, leftist run City, & then cross cross the street to our side, & bear down upon us. I immediately told the other man to fall back with the ladies, watch my moves, & run like hell if this escalated. I then pulled my pistol from its concealed holster, made sure the oncoming trio saw it, & then put it and the hand holding it, in the pocket of the "bomber" jacket I was wearing, with it markedly pointed straight at them, while continuing to advance straight at them.
Almost immediately they stopped, exchanged words, & crossed back over to the opposite side of the street, as my eyes & stance continued to follow their movements until they were outta' sight. I had actually shocked our friends because they did not spot the danger, nor were they aware that I ever carried a gun. I never told them I carried, because I knew their stance on guns didn't agree with my own, & that neither of them, ever carried. However, the next day the husband asked me several, very apropos questions on this issue.
I did not relate that story to show any bravado, but simply to show that there is no Good German in me, & it is not bluster that I would rather die on my feet, than live on my knees.......for truly, you are what you do.
I leave you with the powerful words of a man who saw much more deeply into how we live, & how we die, than I..... he was never a "Good German" & was a man worthy of respect, from all:
“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion (Edit: exception islam, which he had never seen); respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.
When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”
Chief Tecumseh of the Shawnee
I think you are misunderstanding my point.
If so, my apologies, but that is how I saw it.
“Nothing Germany or any other Western nation has faced during this our Plague Era has reached that depth of monstrosity, though there are plenty of ersatz monsters doing their best to terrorize us.”
Im not so sure. Looks like most “covid” deaths were hospital murder deaths (iatrogenic if you prefer), intentional or not.
Now there are deaths from the EAU biologic injections, ongoing.
And laws, statutes, and orders on the books on the state and federal level “legalizing” forced quarantining for those not complying with mandated biologics of dubious integrity
So, in my estimation, especially due to the global scale of all of this. I sense it’s worse than many imagine, and will far outstrip anything that happened previously.
It is a matter of degree and intent and I disagree with those who see Depopulation Satan behind every bush though the Four Horsement of Grand Idiocy, Bureaucracy, Arrogance, and Incompetence have caused plenty of carnage.
This is the same playbook the US is using against the right. The only difference here is we have the left and the faux right against a political candidate.
The only right in America is its citizens and they better wake up to this soon or all of their liberties will disappear.
The left and right is so arbitrary these days. How do I signal that I respect the worker and think that someone who devotes years of their life doing backbreaking labor for someone's project be treated well and paid equitably yet recognize that mythologizing that is part of the problem.
My only hope is the Constitution. The one I was dissuaded from writing about in college in 1985 because essays were going to some kind of 'national' and speaking about the constitution was verboten even then, even if my teacher agreed.
> "How do I signal that I respect the worker and think that someone who devotes years of their life doing backbreaking labor for someone's project be treated well and paid equitably yet recognize that mythologizing that is part of the problem."
To an extent I quite appreciate the Pajama Class nu-Left having abandoned the working class to instead heap scorn upon them instead. My background is rather diverse on that front, being a life-long American libertarian who has worked both white and blue collar jobs. And a lot of the blue collar seems to be waking up to the libertarian perspective that freedom isn't just a word, and while it's important to not let a company push you around, the government is not your friend either. And the Ivory Tower Marxist Fuckwits actively despise you and are the enemy.
"Class Warfare" isn't between the rich and the poor these days, it's between The Grievance Culture Oppressed Pseudointellectuals and The Productive.
They need us. We (The Productive) don't need them.
*"Class Warfare" isn't between the rich and the poor these days, it's between The Grievance Culture Oppressed Pseudointellectuals and The Productive.*
Stealing this, in the spirit of a grieved culture oppressed PI hehehe. Brilliant
Write about it now, it's even more important than then.👍🇦🇺🏏
While integrating "Ossi" police, politicians and various functionnaires into the "Wessi" organisations during reunification made sense both practically and emotionally, I fear it is coming back to bite not only Germany but all nations dependent on the German economy and on which way Germany tilts politically.
Because I cannot shake the suspicion that many of the "Ossis" have moved German politics in the wrong direction for some time now, towards the DDR-concept of democracy: you get to vote and no matter how you vote, you still get the same politics.
And if you protest, you are publicly labeled insane, criminal, a foreign agent or evil, and are blacklisted and possibly unpersoned.
And if that doesn't help, there's always Zersetzung.
That's how it looks from the outside.
I mean... just read Merkel's biography. But yes, I agree. It's not like all of the people who had that upbringing just disappeared. Though it is interesting to note the flip side as well, it's precisely in the East that the AfD has the most traction.
Yep, and that was a major fear during reunification, that the East which didn't undergo US-led de-nazification would be susceptible to "re-nazification".
What seems to have happened instead is that germans from the East are so much more tuned into the oppressive notes of totalitarianism due to direct exposure (and them having been spared the incessant and to the point of self-parody driven flagellation over WW2 surely plays into this) that they recognise the sow despite the lipstick it wears.
While the Wester population are blind to it and shamed into obeisance by the ever-looming spectre of WW2 (notice how mongolians aren't apologising for their ancestors killing 1/6 of humanity during the Mongol Wars. . .).
The old party elite of the East probably sings in harmony with German elites in toto, while the populace who didn't reap the benefits of DDR say "Er aber, sag's ihm, er kann mich im Arsch lecken!" to the elite.
If you see what I mean? I'm a bit dazed from a muchness and richness of cream-stewed herrings with onion-sauce and potatomash.
That plus home-made apple-beer.
I have caught your drift, and am jealous of your meal. ;)
Oh, those Mongolians. They became the effete Mughal emperors in three generations. Happens to everyone.
They haven't given any kwarizmians their mule and two acres, I know that.
I fear the same for Canada the establishment parties are actually now just a uniparty, or the controlled opposition. So you’re led to believe you still live in a democracy by getting to vote, but as you say no matter how you vote you still get the same politics.
The formal and technical term for it in political science is "Demokratur".¨
There's a bit of confusion as to exactly where and by whom it originated, but the late 1940s to mid-1950s is when, and it was either a swede, a frenchman or a german who was first.
It simply means that you get the rituals of democracy (Demokrati) but the state is in practice a dictatorship (Diktatur), since the vote doesn't really matter: Demokratur.
Thank you for imparting your knowledge of this to me! The more I learn the more there is to learn! Appreciate it very much!
You know, it's a lot simpler and easier to assume that the N is silent in _every_ "NGO".
I used to flippantly joke about this, back when I worked in silicon valley: "Which ones of your coworkers are CIA agents? Think about it. You know at least one of them has to be, because if intelligence agencies aren't spying on the most important companies in the world, what do they do all day?"
If Haldenwang was doing this as a CDU member, then why were there also CDU members at this meeting? Why can they get away with smearing only the AfD?
Seems like the traffic light is all red all the time. Almost like the governing coalition is a red light district.
Eugyppius,
Thank you for this. How confident are you that these scurrilous activities will be exposed to a wider audience?
i am reasonably confident more will come out, but that it will ever reach a wide audience in current conditions seems unlikely
There has been no stronger contribution in refuting this government funded disinformation campaign than yours. Rational arguments can win. But the dim need to contemplate them. That only happens with activity. Soros and the rest of the propagandists rely on wearing people down through repetition. As Goebbels defined it. 'A crowd will believe anything if it is repeated constantly.'
'who have been running desparate stories in defence of the Scholz Clown Car'
Did you mean desperate or disparate?
Why not both at once?
Regime-loyal media are after all apt at Schrödinger's Truth.
😝
Touché.
thanks sometimes i forget how to spell
In your second language? Not to worry!
Wish I had a second language. In lieu of that I cultivated my first-english- but I have great sympathy for those not born to it. <3
Absolutely! How many native English (let alone American) speakers could come up with "identitarian activist"?
there is a not so silent segment of Germans who feel its time for Germany to end there
self imposed "sin" and become a leading nation again
As one of their former enemies, I agree. We all need this.
I'm tired of being hassled about imperialism, climate, slavery and any number of other things I care nothing about.
The time is long overdue.
clowns to the left, jokers to the right... standing here in the middle. An old Gerry Raferty but very useful to describe the absurd situations going on world wide. And we will also need a serious number of industrial washing machines for all the grub that shows up.
love that song...
Sounds like your staged 25 November setup is similar to the January 6 staged setup in the US.
Is there something in the water throughout the western world? What is making everyone crazy as a box of frogs? Do all these people have access to specially filtrated weirdo water?
If the AfD are "bad" then let them lose at the ballot box. Likewise, if Trump is "bad" let him lose at the ballot box. Trying to nobble the opposition (and doing it so badly and obviously) just gives them more kudos with people who are sick of the idiots currently in charge.
what is making everyone crazy is that their television sets play for them the role of the trusted loving grandparent, maybe, the genuinely good clergy, beloved and dedicated schoolteachers etc etc. who not so long ago people turned to for guidance. In a relatively short period I have lost loved ones and lifelong friends, who believe every word their TV says and follow its instructions to the letter.
A cousin of mine, shared the best days of our lives together as kids, just before Christmas told me that Joe Biden is a great statesman. Heartbroken.
Really? For real? Was this an actual comment from a sane human? Was he suffering from a concussion perhaps? Or is he a recreational drug user?
Really real, I'm afraid. After I hit "Post", I thought ... should have put that in quote marks, people will for sure think I'm bullshitting. :) "I think Joe Biden is a great statesman." Only recently came to understand that humans, at least those within easy reach of western mass media, are now living in 2 completely different realities. At least 2. Not hyperbole. Maybe the most important realization I've ever had ... but often wish I had not. Trying to sway some of them, people you shared a crib with at age 2, who genuinely do love you, is like trying to convince Inuit seal hunters to leave that blubber diet and go vegan.
I agree. I think of it as model thinking. They have a model of something in their minds and they seek evidence for it. Climate change, for example. It dominates their thinking. They reject anything that challenges the model.
Most of the models are downloaded from other sources, like the media.
Covid taught me the majority are anti-thinking.