There is No Spoon

“Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. Neo: What truth? Spoon boy: There is no spoon. Neo: There is no spoon? Spoon boy: Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.” –The Matrix

The Oracle Will See You Now

In her book: Attack from Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America, the author, Barbara McQuade says:  “Tactics in the authoritarian playbook include appealing to emotion over reason, exploiting divisions, undermining critics, dismantling public institutions, stoking violence, and creating an image of the Great Leader as both an everyman and a superman. Disinformation is the catalyst that allows these tactics to work.”

Is there a prerequisite to be vulnerable to conspiracy and fantasy versus actual reality? Why are the bulk of America’s conspiracy nuts also religious? What is it about religion that primes a person to be open to the crazy?

We have moved WAY past simple QAnon, rabbit-hole conspiracies into a very dark place in America. It is true that if you follow any conspiracy, at its core will be antisemitism. Today’s crazy is Ecumenical and fueled primarily by far-right Evangelicals (Talibangelicals). Once you start believing in invisible friends in the sky, you will be open to just about any con and/or conspiracy.

The MAGA Cult is made up of a large amount of Evangelical weirdos and Project 2025 is manned by the farthest of far-right Catholics who are members of the sect known as Opus Dei. The keyword here is ‘manned.’

First They Came for the Yoga Studios and I Said Nothing

Not only do the Opus Dei whack jobs want to force Jesus down everyone’s throats, they also plan to do away with ANY secular spirituality. Imagine your local Yoga studio is shut down because Yoga is sinful. They will ban meditation apps like Calm or Insight Timer because 15 minutes of breathing exercises are sinful.

Again, you believe in invisible sky-friends and you are told you are ‘born of original sin.’ Bullshit. Sorry Churchy McChurchface, you don’t get to dictate to the rest of the world your Puritanical bullshit anymore. The world has moved past the inane logic of sky-friends flying down to save us. The church no longer controls the masses, but that hasn’t stopped them from fleecing the fuck out of the ‘true believers.’ If religion is the opiate of the masses, the church has proven that is as lucrative as Perdue Pharma. Most of today’s tax-free churches that, weekly, sponsor political rallies in their megachurches, have “pastors” that look and sound like they are on high doses of Oxycontin.

Fifteen centuries of absolute hogwash, designed to control people and take their money.

What we have now is a dying establishment that is desperate to take back power, using theocracy as the methodology. Fueling this is the absolute flood of disinformation and conspiracy that keeps the cultists running back for “just one more hit” of validation. Turn on Newsmax or RSBN and inject another dose and get high as fuck on your righteousness. Remember the Fr. Edward Hays quote? “The oldest drug known to mankind is righteousness.”

Mother Russia

Peter Pomerantsev wrote a book in 2015 called: Nothing is True but Everything is Possible. In it, he details the insanity of the propaganda gurus in Russia (the ones now training US operatives). Elon Musk has become the largest megaphone on the planet now for Russian propaganda. Thanks to Bob Woodward, we just learned that ‘The Former Guy’ has had as many as seven conversations with his handler, Putin, in the past few years.

Nothing is True. Everything is Possible? Sure. Just blather on in superlatives. Straight out of the KGB playbook:

“We had an economy the likes of which nobody, no nation had ever seen.”

“We had the most secure border and the best economy in the history of our country, in the history of the world.”

“…the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics.”

“…happening at levels no one thought possible.”

“This type of rhetoric is not new. Vesna Mikolič, a Slovenian scholar of linguistics, analyzed the speeches of four of the original Italian fascists of the 1920s. She found that an increased intensity of their language, including hyperbole and superlatives, correlated with their detachment from reality, as well as with incitements to violence, and with actual violence. Mikolič calls this kind of oratory — as when Trump promises to “lead America to new heights of greatness like the world has never seen before” — the “fascist imaginary.”

This is the strategy the KGB implemented in Russia for a complete totalitarian takeover of the country, and they are actively training US operatives to destroy US democracy from within. “Attack From Within.”  “No puppet. You’re the puppet.” Remember Helsinki?

Now we have a massive right-wing media ecosphere that pounds the propaganda 24/7, non-stop. Fox (Faux News), Newsmax, RSBN, thousands of radio and TV stations being spoon fed propaganda by Sinclair and the Salem networks. Tens of thousands of AM radio religious channels and churches are being handed scripts to read to listeners and the congregations. The Dear Leader is right, and Yoga is evil/sinful. Ferfuxsake.

Vladimir Putin is now more popular in the far-right MAGA party than any ‘normal’ run-of-the-mill Conservative. Putin wants America, bad. The Libertarian Leninists want to hand the United States over to Putin. If an oligarch like Elon Musk thinks he will be safe, he needs to study Russia. They will take his wealth and kick him to the curb. They don’t need Elon’s megaphone or influence…they just want his money.

Disasters and the Death of Expertise

It used to be that natural disasters brought humans together. No more. Hurricanes hit back-to-back and the response is a slathering of lies and propaganda and manipulating people who are already in fear. The result has been actual meteorologists getting death threats for simply reporting on the weather. This is the heart of Leninism, the Death of Expertise.

“No, the bigger problem is that we’re proud of not knowing things. Americans have reached a point where ignorance, especially of anything related to public policy, is an actual virtue. To reject the advice of experts is to assert autonomy, a way for Americans to insulate their increasingly fragile egos from ever being told they’re wrong about anything.”

― Thomas M. Nichols, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters

Know Thyself?

What is it about humans that, a century after the worst dictators in Europe rose up in fascist movements, the American population is still so incredibly gullible? With all the technology we have. Where getting information is now easier than any time in history. And yet, here we are, an entire cult of people in the United States actively accepting the idea of a dictator in the nation that birthed self-government and helped to spread democracy across the planet.

Some of this can indeed be seen through the lens of religion and the apparent soft headedness that religion requires to follow fairy tales written thousands of years ago. But it goes deeper than this. It really comes down to what is known as EQ.

EQ is the opposite of a docile, bible-believing, Evangelical. The Church tells me how to think. The Dear Leader tells me what to think. Thinking for yourself is dangerous and it upsets the system…it is not the TRUTH. We have a culture of extremely low EQ individuals, primarily men. See my last post: A Farewell to Kings.

Low EQ people are much easier to radicalize. Throw in the sincere belief in sky-friends and you have a recipe for the insanity we have right now in the United States. Fear sells, and it is the foremost motivator of both the Church (you will burn in hell) and the Fascist Dictators of the past century (only I can save you from THEM).

High EQ people vaporize the lies, the delusions, the zombie-like adherence to the cult. High EQ people do not need to get ‘high’ on the conspiracy and the anger because they have ‘self-regulation.’

“Thought I was high

Thought I was free

I thought I was there

Divine destiny

I was wrong

This changes everything”

--Tool “Flood”