Deprogramming to Bridge the Divide

 

        Have you ever felt surrounded, out-gunned, and overwhelmed by the loud insanity yelling over you constantly online, and think your head might explode? Have you ever wanted to just shut the world out, singing loudly, Lalalalalala with your fingers in your ears?

        You are not alone, despite pandemic isolation making you wonder.

Life has not felt normal for about seven years now.  Thank you, Trump, MAGA, QAnon, KKK, Proud Boys, Boogaloo Bois, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, militiamen, white supremacists, anti-vaxxers, and just plain old GOP, the most dangerous organization in US, etc.  

Our pandemic isolation, that has caused a lot of psychological and financial woes, could have been cut far shorter, with fewer deaths, and businesses and schools remaining open, if we hadn’t had such an influx of misinformation, disinformation, and crazy conspiracies. And thank you, anti-vaxxers, for bringing back polio, too, BTW.  Gee. We missed it.

And now there is a new COVID variant for this winter, due to its mutating, also thanks to anti-vaxxers. We owe them so much. Dogs have to have all their shots before they can get together with other dogs.  But, you can’t even explain that to that anti-information group.

I’ve read and heard a lot of the disinformation was Russian propaganda.  Nothing Putin would rather see than US citizens dead from a virus, and/or at war with itself, to divide and conquer US.  Putin has been spreading disinformation and fomenting division and violence in US, at least since the orange con man formally launched his campaign, June 16, 2015 on that escalator with his paid audience. 

I want to blame the Trumpers for buying into the lies and conspiracies, and spreading them along with all their prejudices and hatred. Trump gave conspiracy cockroaches permission to come out of the woodwork and wreak their havoc.

It’s worse right now, of course, because it’s that voting time again.  So much more propaganda and so many more lies are swirling about US in election season. So many loud and obnoxiously opinionated and ignorant folks are feeling their oats. And, too, again, there are probably a lot who are Russian bots.  

The wrong-headed stuff I’ve been reading and hearing lately are staggering.  They are projecting Trump’s worst attributes onto Biden. There is so much hatred of Biden online.  None of the things that they accuse him of are true. But, they are true of Trump. Trump is the pedophile, sexual predator, con man criminal, and traitor the misinformed MAGA crowd says Biden is.

And you can’t make sense to any of the purveyors of this garbage. They yell over you.  Republicans and Democrats used to be able to debate and argue in Congress, and go out for a beer after. The good old days. Now Dems need to wear Kevlar jackets to Congress. 

And Republicans continue on the smear campaigns. The Neanderthal blonde with the voice of a Velociprator in Congress, told the orange con man’s mob at his last rally the other day that Democrats are killing Republicans. She lied and made up stories and they believed her.  She was stirring up more violent insurrections.  How is that legal? Free speech does not covering yelling fire in a theater. It should not cover trying to start a violent overthrow of the government.

Is MTG now just MT with the impending divorce?  As Stephanie Miller said on her radio show when she heard about the divorce, “Her husband wants a Greene New Deal.” MT is a Q crazy and Q is eating her and all their brains. 

They accuse Dems of drinking babies’ blood.  I mean, really? Remember the pizza parlor in DC, with the basement where supposedly Hillary Clinton was sex trafficking children? Remember the man who took a gun into that pizza parlor to shoot them? The pizza parlor has no basement. Innocents out for pizza that night could have been killed due to these lunatics.  How do deal with the gullible? Again, you can’t talk to them.

And sadly, I am related to some, not Q, but Evangelicals who think Biden is Satan and Trump is the second coming.  I got tired of hitting a brick wall with them and being accused of only reading “fake news.” The more I reasoned and gave them facts and stats, the more I heard I was fake news.  

So, I decided to read an article on deprogramming the brainwashed.  Turns out I’ve been doing it all wrong all along. I was creating an armed camp on the other side by disagreeing with them and trying to get them facts.

The article said we should pretend to understand and even be on their side. Get on their good side, so to speak. Contradicting and arguing with brainwashed subjects is spitting in the wind.  One must get their trust, not get their hackles up.  I’m not good at this.

But, after nearly losing family members and friends, (Well, I did lose a few along the way.), I decided to try the professionals’ advice.  Get their confidence by agreeing with little things.  And when you get them to let down some of their defenses, ask questions about stuff they believe. Using the Socratic method.

But, you need to ask questions in a way that does not sound like you are putting them down or belittling their beliefs.  Not as easy as it sounds.  Because when I hear or read the things they believe, I have to breathe deeply, and try to see things from their POV as to why they have accepted such outlandish ideas.

Sometimes they have some stuff right.  Sometimes I have some stuff wrong. So, I figure I can start there and let them correct things I say and say, oh, I didn’t know that, or concede a point or two.  Take them off guard and then ask them questions that may make them question what they have accepted as true.  Then if you can get a little trust, gently throw in a few facts that they can check.

Maybe ask them questions that make them see why the other side is saying what they are saying, as in who is to gain from that?  For instance, I have relatives who really believe Biden is corrupt and his family is a crime family.  They think Trump is just misunderstood and has been attacked forever.

Where do you start with that? I used to give them titles and authors of books to read. They didn’t read them.  They just said the authors were anti-Trump or they had Trump derangement syndrome.  They tell me I have Trump derangement syndrome. 

Gotta hand it to that con man. He’s good. They really believe his victimhood stories.  They are the ones with  Trump derangement syndrome, and it goes deep.

So, how does one get through that wall of brainwashing? Not easily.  I’m a work in progress.  I only read one article on deprogramming so far. And I’ve only begun work on one relative.  But, I am hoping that I am learning that my tactics were not working at all, and I’m hoping that by adapting my tactics, language, behavior, etc., I can affect a change in their thinking.

I’ll keep you posted.  This could take a century or two.  The misinformation and disinformation is very ingrained.  Between the pervasive Russian propaganda going around social media, and the grifter in chief having gotten so many people’s confidence, and still being allowed to hold rallies where he continues his big lies, and so many Republicans willing to repeat the lies to win elections with his ignorant base, it is a Sisyphean task.  

I’ve never seen the nation so divided as it is now since the country was taken over by probably the best con man America has ever seen.  There’s a new book out by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, The Divider, Trump in the White House 2017 - 2021. I haven’t read it, yet.  I have lived it, though.  Those years left me, and so many of us, with such angst and dismay about how far we have fallen, fearing for the future of democracy.  

I should probably also read the book, Talking Across the Divide, How to Communicate with People You Disagree with and Maybe Change the World, by Justin Lee.  Maybe that should be my next non-fiction book in my deprogramming education.  

We saw the culmination of the divide and the lies on January 6, 2021, and the committee hearings are still going on.  But, many of us fear that that insurrection was not the culmination, but rather a dress rehearsal for those who would overthrow our government and install a fascist dictator.  Fingers crossed.

Jacosa Puella

October 3, 2022

None Call It Justice

 

As long as Fox “News,” OANN, NewsMax, Breitbart, Truth Social, Washington Examiner, et al, are on the air, online, or in print, spewing lie after lie, and Donald Trump, (TFG), is allowed to keep inciting his brainwashed, hypnotized, and heavily armed, supporters to violence, the country, democracy, nor any of us, are safe. 

TFG exposed the names and addresses of the FBI agents who carried out the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago Monday, August 8th, and the name, etc. of the federal magistrate judge who signed it.  He threatens to release his own surveillance footage of the search, which will expose agents to more threats.

Last I heard the judge was still deciding about releasing the affidavit with redactions. I’m hoping that if/when it is released, (after nine million appeals), it will show everyone that TFG stole top secret documents from the WH, which FBI was searching to recover, but not show agents names again, and not give the cult more reasons to be angry.  

BTW, for any TFG fans out there who think this is a political persecution of him by Biden, or Dems, or lefties, as I keep reading on Twitter, the judge and the head of the FBI were appointed by TFG. 

But, of course, his cult, being what it is, can’t be reasoned with using facts, evidence, or even proof positive.  As Mark Twain said, “The truth has no defense against a fool determined to believe a lie.”

The judge and the FBI agents have already been receiving death threats. In the interest of sanity, I have not paid as strict attention to all the breaking news lately.  But, because FBI agents’ addresses were shared with Breitbart, I imagine some have had to move out of their homes and go into hiding, like Christine Blasey Ford did after the debacle of the Kavanaugh hearing. 

I think the cost of increased security, safe houses, or moves for all agents and the judge should all be billed to TFG. He does not pay his bills, but we could just let the charges add up, and then confiscate his properties after the trials to pay the huge bills.  

  Of course, we also know, that he learned from Roy Cohn to delay and postpone justice by appealing over and over.  So, it’s rather hard to see TFG actually going to trial, serving time, or ever being held accountable for any of his innumerable crimes.  He has gotten away with his constant criminal grifting all his professional life.  If you can call him professional. 

He peddled his stolen election scheme to 61 courts?  He lost in 60. I think his one win was some small technicality. I don’t recall.  But, he never stops. Losing doesn’t stop him from announcing a win.  It’s what he does. Con the gullible by repeating and repeating the lies.  He just tries again and tells his cult that he’s a victim, so that they want to protect the poor, persecuted prince.

So many people I hear, do not believe he will ever be held accountable for any of his never-ending crimes. Even while one crime is being investigated, he’s committing more. He’s gotten away with them all his life. We have no precedent here to hold onto.  He figures no one will ever get to him.  Best con man US has ever seen. We just have to hope his old playbook is going out of print.

I heard he was on Fox saying that he didn’t think Merrick Garland would investigate him. I guess he was trying to intimidate him by implying that his violent mobs would start a revolution to defend him and Garland wouldn’t risk it.  We have seen that they will. January 6th being case in point.

I’m sure you saw the long parade of trucks flying you know who flags in Long Island over the weekend after the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.  Shows ignorant fools aren’t just in the south. It very was sad, seeing how many deluded, misinformed, misguided, misled cult members are willing to go to any length to protect a guy who would never protect them. But, it’s even sadder what that power-hungry, greedy grifter and traitor has done to America.

Do any of his fans understand that he’s been a con man all his business life, maybe even earlier?  Do they understand that he’s using them for their violent support?  Do they realize he thinks they are lowlifes he would never associate with? 

They think of him as the second coming of Jesus, their savior, and he thinks of them as people he would, not only never allow in his private golf clubs, but also would never even speak to, if they weren’t cheering for him at rallies, and sending him money.  He is a completely transactional, self-serving narcissistic sociopath.  

Ask psychiatrist, Dr. Justin A. Frank.  Read his 2018 book, Trump on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President. Or ask Bandy X. Lee, the Yale Psychiatrist, who along with 27 psychiatrists and mental health workers, wrote a book in 2017, called The Dangerous Case Of Donald Trump. 

So many experts have observed what a very sick and dangerous man TFG is and has always been. I read in one of the many books on TFG, that he was throwing rocks at his next door neighbor’s baby who was in his playpen in the neighbors’ backyard when TFG was maybe 12 or 14. 

The astounded and frightened neighbor banned her children from ever associating with the Trumps again after she caught TFG.  She probably also got bullet-proofed netting to drape around the playpen.

It just seems as though he’s getting worse with age. Dementia? Desperation? Fear of being cornered and finally being forced to pay for all his bad deeds?

I heard Dr. Frank recently on Thom Hartmann’s radio show.  He suggested, and I agree, that TFG should be confined while we await the investigation. He is too dangerous to be free.  I can see him in prison in that Hannibal Lecter face mask, only with duct tape over his mouth, too.

TFG was on air and online inciting more violence right after the FBI searched his hotel golf club in Palm Beach for the highly confidential documents he stole from our White House.  In fact, he was announcing the FBI search, as a “raid,” to his “fans,” while the FBI was still inside the hotel and were still conducting the search for documents.  

FBI never said a thing about the search, and sent plain clothes agents, so as not draw attention or embarrass the ex-POTUS. TFG made the search public, hoping to incense his brainwashed angry mob to show up and harass the agents.

Dr. Frank and I know it won’t happen.  But, TFG is such a clear and present threat to everyone, we should make an exception.  Maybe a mental health hold.  We can dream. 

Don Jr was on Twitter telling the angry hordes not to go to Mar-a-Lago, that they needed to keep it “clean” for “important people.” I laughed. As I said, good enough to cause the violence they want, but not good enough to be in his highfalutin club.

But, sadly, it was a parody account, not Jr’s.  But, I have to say, they got it right. The Trump crime family does not want their lowlife supporters messing up their “beautiful” private club. 

It certainly wasn’t legal to take classified documents there and leave them in an unsecured location in the basement of the hotel, where many people were seen coming and going over that period of time.  I heard an expert say, on Ian Masters’ Background Briefing podcast, that the FBI is investigating a cell of Russian spies in South Florida who have been seen coming and going from Mar-a-Lago.  

But, TFG does and always has considered himself above the law.  Let’s hope this time is different.  He’s broken so many federal laws.  Surely we can get some to stick.  Surely, TFG doesn’t have kompromat on everyone.

And maybe Merrick Garland is, as I heard him described, that slow moving freight train that will finally take that traitorous mobster out of our lives. A girl can dream and maybe have sweet dreams again. 🙏🏻

Jacosa Puella

August 21, 2022

Things That Go Boom

     It’s July 7th.  Bombs are still exploding over LaLa Land. I was especially fond of the one that went off, what sounded and felt like, a matter of feet from my bedroom, at 12:50 this morning. 

After I got my heart started again, and climbed from the floor, back into bed, I was so grateful I don’t live in Ukraine. And then I felt even worse for the Ukrainians. Putin is an evil, monstrous terrorist. But, that is another topic.

Is giving people heart attacks in the middle of the night a sign of American patriotism?  Is that celebrating the birth of our democratic republic?  And do we still have a republic? 

The guys who are trying to get rid of all their leftover fireworks from the 4th seem to think they are still celebrating freedom. Freedom to blow up things.  And maybe they just like to hear things go boom!  Is that a guy thing? And why a late at night thing? Early this morning, that bang had more of a ring of revenge to it. But for what and against whom?

The love of things that go kaboom makes more sense to me.  They are probably the same guys who take the mufflers off their cars and race around our residential streets as though they are in a competition with other muffler-less drivers for their lives. Between those ear-splitting drag racers, the ubiquitous helicopters and sirens, it’s a wonder we aren’t all more sleep-deprived.

Probably, also, the same guys who are constantly flipping over cars in our streets.  I did read that deaths due to car accidents are on the rise. Is it that deafening (male?) speed-demon urge, or is it due to our devices we can’t seem to put down for a minute, even while driving, possibly on top of sleep-deprivation?

Those drivers and midnight firework bomb throwers are probably, also, part of the 54% (130 million) of 16-74 year olds in our country which has a below the equivalent of a 6th grade proficiency in literacy and reading, (per US Dept. of Education).  

Our country has been dumbed down to make it easier for the greedy and power hungry to get US citizens to vote against their own interests and to give them tax breaks, or no tax bill at all. I have known people who were poor, but felt one day they, too, would be wealthy, argue angrily for tax cuts for billionaires. Sucker born every minute?

Donald Trump being the consummate con man, convinced his brainwashed “suckers” that they were right to hate, bully, and even murder those who don’t look like them, have different skin tones, speak other languages, or belong to a different religion, etc.  He and his GOP henchmen convinced them that those “others” were trying to “cancel their culture.” And meanwhile, while they were distracted blaming those others, DT and GOP were stealing their money, their rights, and installing an autocracy.

This is why DT on his campaign trail told his audiences that he loved the uneducated, or was it the poorly educated? It is far easier to convince a non-critically thinking 6th grader that he needs to fear, hate, blame, and scapegoat others than it is to convince an educated and informed citizen. 

It’s also easier to use religion to make people fear and hate the other.  Go figure. Nothing says “God” like hate and fear and guns.  Go figure, too, that his “Christian” followers also put him in the same category with their Jesus, as the Second Coming. Fear and hate sell better than sex, apparently.  

DT got his cult followers to violently act out against their own country to save their country from “them.” Them, the educated?  The brown or black people? Democrats? Progressives?  Women? He got them fearing that if he was not in our White House, they would soon be forced to the back of the bus as they become the irrelevant minority. 

And in the back of the bus, their guns would be confiscated and their “power” and freedom would be robbed from them. The “Christian” SCOTUS is ending access to abortion and possibly to birth control soon, because they want more white babies born. Unwanted, poor, uneducated, easily controlled white citizens.

He and GOP have created very dangerous, heavily armed, under-educated, under-informed,  or completely lied to, mobs.  Take a look around.  Is this the America we grew up loving, celebrating, and thankful to for our freedoms? And I almost forgot to mention the 220 people shot and killed over the July 4, 2022 weekend. Thank God for the 2nd Amendment, NRA, SCOTUS, and the Republican party which protects our right to own, and carry everywhere, weapons of war on the streets of our country.

Is, as we keep being told, America on the verge of its second civil war? I’d vote to let the south and other brainwashed and/or ignorant states to secede this time. Why stop them? The blue states support the red states.  We will save a fortune and get our rights back. I think it’s time to say farewell and tell them not to let the doorknob hit ya where the good lord split ya on your way out.  And, oh, take your Christofascist form of repression with you. Thanks. 

Jacosa Puella July 7, 2022

Don't Agonize, Organize.

Been thinking what I want to say about the dangerous insanity of this current SCOTUS. What can one say? So many things, mixed with outrage, flood the mind. And, also, words become hard to form with tears flowing from your eyes and smoke billowing from your ears. I needed a few days. Crying with protestors in the streets after that ill-fated decision to overturn Roe, (after undoing NY's gun law), while I was not actually out there in the streets with them, was helpful. 

We have four justices who should not even be on the court. Let's work on impeaching them for lying under oath during their confirmation hearings as a start. Mitch McConnell, who owes his allegiance ($$$) to Leonard Leo of the Federalist society, a Catholic Opus Dei member, (I think he has placed 5-6 justices on the court, most are Opus Dei?), installed Neil Gorsuch into the seat he stole from President Obama. 

Scalia had suddenly died leaving the vacancy during Barack Obama's last year in office. Obama nominated Merrick Garland. Mitch thought, no way is this black Democratic president going to appoint three justices. So, he created his new rule: POTUS can't nominate a justice to the court within 10 months of a POTUS election. And, go figure, it worked. Dems are just too polite. To understand what a cold, rather heartless rightwing justice Gorsuch is, look up his record. And read, too, how even the other justices think he's an arrogant, patronizing know it all.

 

Then, about five minutes before the end of the reign of Donald J. Trump, (orange Caligula, as I refer to him), Mitch shoved Amy Coney Barrett into RBG's seat when RBG made the unforgivable mistake of dying before Joe Biden could take his place in our Oval Office. Because Amy's a woman and so was RBG, women will be happy, MM figured. A woman is a woman is a woman, to bastardize Gertrude Stein's poem. Of course, women knew that ACB did not smell as sweet as RBG. But, MM got away with it. Again, Dems were too polite. And meanwhile, Amy isn't even qualified to be on the court. She's the least experienced justice in 30 years, I read, (I guess the last least qualified was Thomas 30.). She never tried a case, and her opinions showed her to not care about justice or people's rights. She signed an anti-abortion ad and said she forgot about that, while avoiding abortion questions, just saying precedence is precedence. And she was literally, a "Handmaid" in her Catholic cult, People of Praise, where men make the decisions and women serve the men and God. Sounds like judge material to me.

Kavanaugh should have been left by the side of the road with a beer keg and a box of Kleenex. Lied and cried and yelled at his confirmation hearing about how much he loves beer. In that confirmation hearing, Beer Bong Kavanaugh's behavior also just screamed Supreme Court Justice material. Didn't it? It had to make you as proud as it made me. What a shocking performance. Witnesses came forward to shed light on his past sexual assaults. Christine Blasey Ford did the right thing to try to save the court and the nation. But, to no avail, and she suffered for it, even having to move out of her home due to threats. And he got onto the court. And who paid off all his very large debts remains a mystery. And another mystery to me, is why didn't Kavanaugh's wife pack up the kids and get the hell away from that snivelly little fool? 

Clarence Thomas, Uncle Tom or Peeping Thomas, as he's been referred to, had a similar problem with his past. Anita Hill was a hero back then, too, but also to no avail. It remains a white man's world, after all, due to gerrymandering and cheating and voter suppression. And few are whiter than that black man.

 

So, two sexual assaulters helped undo Roe v Wade for women who are raped, or are victims of incest, and become pregnant. Even if your doctor says you will die in childbirth, you will be forced to die in childbirth now, or be charged with murder. Stranger than fiction. Life always is. Isn't it? About 30 years after Thomas' confirmation hearing and Anita Hill's testimony, "Gin" Thomas, that lovely MAGA insurrectionist, called Anita very early one morning, demanding that she apologize for the things she'd said about her husband back then. Bit of a delayed reaction, I'd say. I figured Ginni had been tippling all night long, and got more enraged with every drink until she drunk dialed her husband's old nemesis and dumped on poor, unsuspecting Anita Hill.

 

We are losing our democracy and sliding into a theocracy. A theocracy which gives more rights to guns than to women. I still do not understand the guns and god thing or what makes "Christians" think Jesus would be into any weapon. Have they ever actually read what Jesus purportedly said? To me it is an unholy alliance from hell. 

Leonard Leo's long range plan has been to unravel our democratic republic and replace it with a theocracy. And he's been very good at it. He is well funded by Koch brothers and others and because Dems are just too polite. 

Let me amend myself. US is not becoming a theocracy. It is fast becoming a Christofascistic state. QAnon Christofascism. Women in the Jewish religion have the right to an abortion. They believe life begins at your first breath and ends at your last breath. I guess they will have to demand a religious exemption to this Christofascist ban to receive their God given right to reproductive healthcare.

The world is astounded and frightened to see what America, the democratic country they looked up to, is becoming. I think they fear for us and laugh at us by turns. I think the world is still dumbstruck by how uneducated Americans are and how many guns US has, (393.3 million guns to about 330 million citizens.), and how many mass shootings, (at least 250 so far in 2022), and how many children are murdered in their classrooms. How does any civilized nation comprehend, explain, or defend it? 

And I hope those who are applauding that now public funds have to pay for religious schools, too, and that coaches are allowed to pray on the field, enjoy when a Muslim school demands taxpayers support it, and an Islamic Imam spreads his rug out and prays to Allah to bless their games, or asks Allah to kill America, the Great Satan. Or the Church of Satan prays that their team wins. Go Satan!

What a world. I'm back where I started. What can one say about the state of the union today? Stop the world, I want off? My suggestion is that Dems stop being so freakin' polite! And that everyone of voting age, get off their asses and get out and vote in November like their country and their lives depend on it! They do! It's not too late to reverse a lot of the damage done.

 

We can stop our downfall by taking more control of Congress, ending the filibuster, and expanding SCOTUS. While we’re at it, let’s set term limits, too.  This justice for life is not working, either. The generic post Roe reversal poll I read recently, had Dems up by 10 points. We can do this! 

As the phrase, the Afro-American woman civil rights activist, Florence Rae Kennedy, coined, and many, including Gloria Steinam and Rosi Braidotti, quoted, and Occupy Wall Street movement turned into a bumper sticker, said: "Don't agonize, organize!" 

And Rosi Braidotti is right. "Violence, pain and resentment are conducive to paralysis, not to change." Don't go down with the ship, yet. Remain positive and fight like hell. Re-radicalize! VOTE!

Lost in time and space

Have not had time to write. Very frustrating. I apologize to followers, if you're still out here. It seems that followers are not alerted to new posts via email, so I don't know what being a follower means, actually. At any rate, I'll be back. In the meantime, keep thinking and here's a lovely quote on woman from Ghandi in 1930 as a place holder :-)

"To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?"