Men are not women — at last the US is united

[RoyalCorgi]

Great article from Hadley Freeman. Good to see this in addition to Sonia Sodha's brilliant piece in the Observer - we're being spoilt.

https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/men-are-not-women-at-last-the-us-is-united-zlmf790db

https://archive.is/jOJ24

Great article and lots of engaged comments. Thanks for the link.

Thank you for link.

Thanks, that's very good, although I don't think describing what's happened as an 'overreach' quite nails it for me. But then I've yet to read anything that captures my feelings of utter rage and despair about the Democrats.

The biggest kicker so far has been reading (Kara Dansky and Abigail Shrier) about how much of this goes back to Obama. I honestly don't know how to process that information.

It has been said that Biden's term in office was actually Obama's third. He didn't leave the Capitol like every other president had done - at the end of his second term in office. Instead he hung around pulling the strings and directing the ship.

https://www.tabletmag.com/feature/rapid-onset-political-enlightenment

"......The permission structure machine that Barack Obama and David Axelrod built to replace the Democratic Party was in its essence neither modern nor conservative, though. Rather it is totalitarian in its essence, a device for getting people to act against their beliefs by substituting new and better beliefs through the top-down controlled and leveraged application of social pressure, which among other things eliminates the position of the spectator. The integrity of the individual is violated in order to further the superior interests of the superego of humanity, the party, which knows which beliefs are right and which are wrong. The party is the ghost in the machine, which appears to run on automatic pilot, using the human desire for companionship and social connection as fuel for an effort to detach individuals from their own desires and substitute the dictates of the party, which is granted the unlimited right to enforce its superior opinions on all of mankind......."

Share token link for those who would like one:

https://www.thetimes.com/article/8af285ab-382a-4d90-b346-ab03df6d9219?shareToken=68298b9998022a7efa9e0c32b914d4f2

It's worth remembering that Hadley Freeman used to work for The Guardian. I think we can all guess why she doesn't now.

Good piece. And clearly, people like Hadley just have to keep saying it.

Brilliant article. And what an absolute shame we Americans can't get a woman writer publishing similar in our mainstream press.

It's sobering to read this account and compare them to Lifton (either the 8 Criteria or this work). Items 1, 5, 6, 7?

Excerpted from Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism by Robert Jay Lifton,
Chapter 22 Ideological Totalism

1. Milieu Control. This involves the control of information and communication both within the environment and, ultimately, within the individual, resulting in a significant degree of isolation from society at large.
2. Mystical Manipulation. There is manipulation of experiences that appear spontaneous but in fact were planned and orchestrated by the group or its leaders in order to demonstrate divine authority or spiritual advancement or some special gift or talent that will then allow the leader to reinterpret events, scripture, and experiences as he or she wishes.
3. Demand for Purity. The world is viewed as black and white and the members are constantly exhorted to conform to the ideology of the group and strive for perfection. The induction of guilt and/or shame is a powerful control device used here.
4. Confession. Sins, as defined by the group, are to be confessed either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group. There is no confidentiality; members’ “sins,” “attitudes,” and “faults” are discussed and exploited by the leaders.
5. Sacred Science. The group’s doctrine or ideology is considered to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute. Truth is not to be found outside the group. The leader, as the spokesperson for God or for all humanity, is likewise above criticism.
6. Loading the Language. The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand. This jargon consists of thought-terminating clichés which serve to alter members’ thought processes to conform to the group’s way of thinking.
7. Doctrine over person. Member’s personal experiences are subordinated to the sacred science and any contrary experiences must be denied or reinterpreted to fit the ideology of the group.
8. Dispensing of existence. The group has the prerogative to decide who has the right to exist and who does not. This is usually not literal but means that those in the outside world are not saved, unenlightened, unconscious and they must be converted to the group’s ideology. If they do not join the group or are critical of the group, then they must be rejected by the members. Thus, the outside world loses all credibility. In conjunction, should any member leave the group, he or she must be rejected also. (Lifton, 1989)

archive version: https://archive.is/42Gd2

It’s tragic. I’m happy for American female athletes, but needing Trump to sweep out gender ideology is like having to bulldoze your house to get rid of dry rot. He will be so destructive — to Ukrainians, to Palestinians, to Americans themselves — and the left allowed this to happen, simply by denying reality. So when I hear the American left — still — insisting that males should be in women’s sport and prisons as, all the while, Trump causes havoc around the world, I think of what the lawyer Joe Welch said to the fanatical anticommunist Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954, finally breaking his reign of reality-denying terror: “Have you no sense of decency?”

Deftly written and powerful. Even when someone is a professional writer, I'm still in awe of their clarity and ability to convey ideas with relative economy of words.

I am, however, about to dissent in re: McCarthy and who broke his reign of terror. The accolade of the beginning of the end of McCarthy is often conferred on Margaret Chase Smith and her June 1950 Declaration of Conscience.

In the controversial aftermath of Joseph R. McCarthy's speech at Wheeling, West Virginia, Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith was initially impressed with McCarthy's accusations about subversives in the State Department. "It looked as if Joe was onto something disturbing and frightening," she decided, refusing to join with those senators taking issue with McCarthy. But then she asked to see the documents he was citing as evidence. Reading through McCarthy's materials, she failed to see their relevance to his charges. The more she read, and the more she listened to McCarthy, the less comfortable she felt. Smith began to question the "validity, accuracy, credibility, and fairness" of his charges and came to believe that McCarthy was creating an atmosphere of political fear in Washington, particularly among federal employees.

https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/Speeches_Smith_Declaration.htm

https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/investigations/mccarthy-hearings/a-declaration-of-conscience.htm

Text of Declaration of Conscience: https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/SmithDeclaration.pdf