…whether it was by a cult, by propaganda, by an algorithm, etc…
And did the person ever recover from it?
The COVID denial was strong in so many people. I remember some stories where people would go to the hospital with extremely low oxygen saturation, be told that they have COVID, and for them to go into a blind panic about getting microchipped or tortured by experimental government treatment, and immediately discharge themselves - only to drop dead pretty much immediately after they left.
Dafuq is wrong with these people?
Well, they’re dead, so not much else outside of that.
It goes to show just how effective the brainwashing is, though. So many people were afraid of what is essentially science fiction. If we could inject nanobots into someone to control their mind and body, holy shit we’ve made one of the craziest scientific breakthroughs in a century! They were so afraid they ignored the fact that they were incredibly ill and tried to leave on the assumption that they had been attacked.
There are six companies that control a very large percentage of the media consumed by Americans. They are all mega corporations. The media Americans consume is mostly corporate propaganda, and it’s invisible to us. It’s the water we swim in.
Whatever opinions the oligarchs want us to have are dictated to us.
It is not a coincidence that all our national political races come down to a wire, that we are divided almost 50/50. We are being intentionally divided so that we don’t unite and challenge the oligarchy.
John Stewart did a great bit where station after station reads the exact same script over and over again. It’s unsettling.
It’s not just the news. It’s TV shows, movies, books, periodicals, commercials - even music. The oligarchs have massive influence over all of it and can manipulate the public at will.
Indeed. But most normies will gladly tell you they are not easy to manipulate while buying something the media has told them to. Its shocking.
You can hardly blame them. It’s a 24/7 onslaught of propaganda and it’s incredibly difficult to break out.
And even when I initially woke up out of it I frequently questioned my sanity. Is this real? Is this actually what’s happening? How can nobody else see this?
And then I wanted to go back to not knowing because of the incredible weight that knowledge puts on your shoulders, but it’s impossible. There’s no going back, at least for me.
Do you realize you just quoted the first matrix movie nearly verbatim? ;)
And yes, I get that. It feels weird af.
Ginni Thomas.
Well my mother said that she would forgive me for rejecting her religion (JWs) if I came back to the church. I was 18. I threw that letter out and haven’t heard from her in the 27ish years since.
Pro tip kids: conditional love is not love - it’s control.
You are very wise. Thanks for the tip.
Covid. People are still pretending there’s no pandemic in 2024.
I meaaan, there is no pandemic in 2024. We fucked the whole thing up and it’s just a regular ol’ endemic disease killing people every year that could have been prevented. Weeeeee!
I’m not allowed to say.
Removed by mod
What in the actual fuck are you on about?
They genuinely believe some random guy is god incarnate so they tormented him his entire life to try and get him to kill himself,
Nothing in wicca allows any of that, so far as I’m aware.
That’s SO far off base with what I understand of the basic tenets of wicca that it’d be like an humanist atheist vegan suddenly signing on to work as a halal butcher and then deciding animals aren’t enough, it’s time to butcher people instead.
I’m somewhat critical of wicca and I don’t even know what the fuck they’re talking about.
Yeah, while there are dozens or possibly hundreds of flavors of “wicca”. The first tenent is almost always some variation on “do no harm”. Normally phrased something like “as it harms none, do as thou will”… Which is odd phrasing for something written in the last century.
The main exception is those who follow Crowley. His whole deal was “do what thou will shall be the whole of the law”.
Crowley was mostly in it for the shock value.
And again, Crowley’s “ancient wisdom” is newer than the invention of photography. We even have recordings of him speaking.
In all fairness I went there to see what the issue is, the top post was about ants and most things that popped up were good memes. Which communities are you referring to? I’m guessing not c/earth or something…
Threads like this, with highly upvoted comments like
americans are more propagandized than they think citizens of the DPRK are
They also use sarcasm try to push the narrative that North Korea is actually just fine, OK?
Guys you don’t understand; the West has spoken; we MUST hate North Korea, our governments have already decreed it so.
Many of them are also seemingly physically incapable of communicating without hexbear’s custom reaction images, which is a weird behavior common to many cults. Makes it harder to communicate with the outgroup.
I think LW is defederated from them (or vice versa) so you can’t post over there, but for further examples, try making an account over there and saying that maybe, just maybe, Putin did a bad thing by invading Ukraine, and they’re defending an imperialist.
Yeah these things sound awful. Thanks for the pointers.
MAGA.
Came here to say this. Well I would’ve said Trump, but same idea.
COVID, MAGA, Q Anon, support by poor people for defunding of schools and infrastructure even as bridges collapse and water systems are becoming poisonous while supporting building new tactical nuclear weapons that the country doesn’t even have a use for unless the intend to start nuking Mexico which would mean more refugees, not fewer…etc.
My step brother got turned into a redhatter. Trying to stick magnets on my arm where I got the covid shot, the crazy pizza shop basement q thing, it’s so bad it’s like he has an earpiece in his ear being told what to say by rightwing media
Magats
Does dehumanizing them help?
Edit: From the downvotes it seems that most people here think “yes!”
Can you tell me how to say that differently? If people from America are Americans, people who believe in Catholicism are Catholics, people who believe in MAGA are what exactly? It isn’t Republican, because they are a subgroup, like Jacobites. It isn’t to dehumanize them, it is just what they would be called from what I would expect.
Maggots has a different spelling, which is what i know you are referring to, but maybe they should have choose a different name/slogan to go under
Maga is mainstream Republican now
They don’t care. They are so deep in their cult, nothing can pull them out. If tomorrow, Trump came out, completely lucid, and admitted everything was a hoax, his supporters would just shift to another cult leader.
Also, at one point, they referred to themselves as Centipedes. They probably got tricked into it, but they still did it proudly. Calling them Magats isn’t much different.
I don’t think so, because dehumanization is kind of their whole mantra, and I’d rather not stoop so low.
They’re people, just not very bright people.
My example is not the most terrible, but it’s still so strange to think about…
20 years ago, before the Iraq War began, there was a bunch of fake intelligence, aluminum tubes and the CIA, and Colin Powell got on TV saying the war was necessary, but it was all a bunch of lies, and any smart informed American would have known. I did my part and protested and spoke with dozens of people trying to convince them that they were getting played. Unsuccessfully. That’s not the strange part.
The strange part is that after the war started, it was revealed that all of the stated reasons were wrong. The facts came out, and my position was vindicated. Obviously it wasn’t just me, but I’m focusing on my personal experience. So you might expect that some people would be embarrassed or upset with the government or the media. After all, that war killed large numbers of people. But no one that I spoke with before the war started ever showed signs that they understood that they had gotten it wrong. Why not make an about face, why not blame the media or the president? It would be so easy to find some integrity, but apparently it’s easier to pretend that the past didn’t happen.
Maybe not the worst but the most recent one is my father in law. You know the type: baby boomer who had every advantage growing up but didn’t avail himself but still managed to eke out a comfortable life while working at the business his dad started and he inherited. He doesn’t take in the bucks but it allows him and my mil to own a comfortable home in an area that is only going up in value. Anyway…
As you can imagine super religious, super right wing, trump loving, gay hating (has a gay brother that he’s estranged from), you know… the usual. What gets me is remember trump did an interview a week or two ago where he said that all federal employees are “crooked and dishonest and must be held accountable”? He couldn’t agree more! Guess who my wife (his daughter) and I work for? Yeah…
Have you tried being less of a crooked, dishonest Deep State?
5G tracking chip?
My ex got radicalized on Stormfront and accused me of “muddying his bloodline”.
And yes he did eventually realize that some of that was bullshit, he is not like he was before he got propagandized but not as bad as he was in the thick of it.
Can you explain what Stormfront is? I don’t want to get put on a watch list 😅
White power nonsense. He ended up speaking a whole language I didn’t understand. Was absolutely convinced he had some deep understanding of reality that I did not. I think he still holds on to some of it but quitting alcohol helped and getting a job helped, he sort of had to hit bottom to bounce back.
Jebus! He’s lucky that you stayed IMO, that’s some crazy kill your family brain washing.
I left when he tried to choke me in bed (woke me up, not sex play), then realized what he was doing and stopped and freaked out.
When we first left my older kids said they wouldn’t even go to his funeral if he died. They have since reconciled but certainly are not close - they and I appreciate that he’s trying now, but I have to say that when I left and my life got so much better while his got so much worse I did feel a sort of happiness about it. A breakup is never one sided, I did also do and say things I regret, but time kinda proved he was the problem.
I guess everyone has a crazy ex but I honestly did not see that coming, we had over 15 good years before he lost it. And I absolutely blame the right wing fascist conversion machine.
That was super dangerous for you, I’m glad you are ok.
So dehumanizing.
