People focus on Hitler and Nazi leaders and the atrocious lethal lies they told to justify the mass murder of Jews.
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Burnt Veggiesreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @lolonurse @lawyersgunsnmoney @Npars01 That's fascinating. I do think about how many conservatives are educated people. It's not accurate to say education is a cure for conservative viewpoints.
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Nicole Parsonsreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @lolonurse @Burnt_Veggies @lawyersgunsnmoney
Every civil war since time immemorial has seen family torn apart by the cause of a wannabe slave owning elite vs freedom
Factional violence sees neighbors & coworkers collaborate with the enemy.
American Civil War. Yugoslavia. Rwanda. Vichy France. Northern Ireland
One of the often unacknowledged motivations behind elites who defect to fascism is a desire for unpaid & underpaid labor & keeping in place the unfair systems that enforce it
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Nihl L'Amasreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @lolonurse @Burnt_Veggies @lawyersgunsnmoney @Npars01 A significant piece, but you can find lots of people talking about it.
FYI, Heidi Cuda is part of Jim Stewartson's grifty little bullshit group. You won't often hear serious misinfo researchers use the term "BlueAnon," but when they do they are usually talking about these people.
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kmetzreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy How do you suggest should people focus on people who believe those lies?
Wat I think is the best we can try to do is never to ostracise them (it would just spin the same wheel), but rather to inform about lies, to listen to their real worries and focus on what unites.
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@wdlindsy @Burnt_Veggies @lawyersgunsnmoney @Npars01 @lolonurse Thank you for this link. It is illuminating.
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@wdlindsy @lolonurse @Burnt_Veggies @Npars01 People need to be thinking about that right this second. The MAGAs are being called to arms and have been training for years. They show their red MAGA hats and engage in intimidation all over the US. IMO no different from the Nazis of the 30s or the Klan from past to present
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@lawyersgunsnmoney @lolonurse @Burnt_Veggies @Npars01 Yes, it's definitely something my spouse and I and friends talk about โ have talked about since Trump "won" in 2016. The problem is that we're getting up in years, and making a major life transition is just harder as one gets older. And this makes me think, of course, of all the stories I've heard about Jewish people knowing it was better to leave Germany and Nazi-occupied countries, but unable to do that with ease. And then horrors ensued.
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@3dogcouch @Burnt_Veggies @lawyersgunsnmoney @Npars01 @lolonurse You're welcome!
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to kmetz last edited by
@kmetz I think it's not possible to convince some people that they are being lied to and are succumbing to lies. A certain cultic mentality assures that some people are impervious to truth, fact, reason. They have ostracized themselves by placing themselves in a cultic shell where nothing beyond cultic "truth" reaches them.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Nihl L'Amas last edited by
@NIH_LLAMAS @lolonurse @Burnt_Veggies @lawyersgunsnmoney @Npars01
I subscribe to both Cuda's and Stewartson's blogs and have never seen them grifting anyone. They surely have not grifted to me. I think Cuda has valuable insights to offer as an Emmy-winning journalist and author of a number of books.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Nicole Parsons last edited by
@Npars01 @lolonurse @Burnt_Veggies @lawyersgunsnmoney Yes โ people almost never willingly relinquish power over others and the privileges that dominative power brings.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Burnt Veggies last edited by
@Burnt_Veggies @lolonurse @lawyersgunsnmoney @Npars01 I agree. People can have a string of college degrees and be seriously uneducated. And by contrast, they can lack formal education and be educated. I think the ideal, of course, is to have actual education. But possessing a college degree is no guarantee that someone will be wise, humane, insightful โ with both heart and head well-educated.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Toxy ๐ฌ๐ช๐บ๐ธ๐ช๐ฌ๐ง๐บ๐ฆ last edited by
@toxy Thank you. That looks like a book I must add to my reading list. Two similar books you may find worth reading are Julia Boyd's Travellers in the Third Reich and A Village in the Third Reich.
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kmetzreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy Yes. Trying to convince people by reason can even drive them in further. Ostracising does too, obviously, it reaffirms a โus vs. themโ cult mentality and is exactly what cult leaders are looking for. People often got trapped by propaganda, instead of having made a sane decision to join a cult. Itโs brainwashing.
What can help is expertise from cult counseling, listening to what quitters say.
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@wdlindsy What I gathered from cult experts over the years comes down toโ
Not talking about it much, other than placing seeds of doubt. Instead, talking about normal, positive things, common interests, sports, hobbies, shared experiences from the past, etc. And that members always carry a scepticism or suspicions against their cult, which grows bigger, the less โcult contentโ they are constantly surrounded with or have in mind (incl. any counterarguments). People can only leave on their own. -
CassandraVertreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy
It doesn't make sense that academics would support Hitler because fascists hate education. -
William Lindsey :toad:replied to CassandraVert last edited by
@CassandraVert But academics can be interested in power, in serving powerful people. Spend a day in a university setting, interacting with faculty and administrators, and you'll see that behavior over and over.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to kmetz last edited by
@kmetz Yes, I think there's a "gateway" aspect to cults, in which people are groomed by being shown a benign side of the cult they may eventually join. And I agree that they can get out only on their own (though often with assistance from other former members).
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kmetzreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy Yes. Former members are so important to society.
I also see real evil recruitment tactics being used by those cults. They are fishing for fearful, vulnerable people, and for that are trying to fuel any perceived vulnerability, like constantly downtalking the economy (and a lot more, I donโt even want to).
It reminds of 1920 Fascists and Marxists who believed making things worse for others would be some sort of โneccessityโ. Such movements tend to self-corrupt and thus fail, luckily. -
@wdlindsy I believe the more there is now that motivates people out of cults, the more there will be when they implode.
And I see a lot of what happens these days as a sort of stress test, as an opportunity for societal improvements overall (in computer science / cyber security itโd be โpen testingโ, one could say of democracy and our core values, which can only grow by it. Forgive me when Iโm being too technical )