Moderates United

I don’t think you can teach people to hate directly.  I don’t think Hitler, for example, taught the Germans to hate Jews, or that Lenin taught people to hate whoever he told them to hate, such as the “Kulaks” (which proved a very mutable term, like “Capitalist”).

I think the primary emotion is shame.  Hitler drew on the shame felt by Germans at their ignominious defeat in WW1, an emotion buttressed by the Versailles Treaty.  The Germans were ready to hate.  They just needed a target.

Likewise, the Bolsheviks (always a minority party) drew on both the Russian defeat in WW1, coupled with centuries of humiliation at the hands of the various power elites.

For his part, Pol Pot learned that you CAN teach children to hate, if you get them before they develop the emotional capacity for empathy, a capacity you can permanently stunt if you get your tricks inside them early enough.

But psychologically normal people will not and cannot carry true hatred in them.  Anger and mistrust, to be clear, are very different from hate.  Hate is a word which has been used so reflexively in recent years that it means nothing.  It is like racism in this respect.  It has been ruined.

True hate, though is the combining of shame and anger.  The two must go together.  In order to hate someone, you must first feel yourself inferior.  This triggers a survival instinct, a survival urge, which enables the orderly expression of aggression via anger.

For myself, I find myself saying “I hate everybody” whenever I feel shame.  I think most people can relate to the sentiment “fuck everyone”.  I think most of us–except the happiest among us–have felt this.

I don’t really hate everyone.  I don’t know everyone, and I know there are people out there who are good.  What I do is hate myself, then direct it out as unbearable, and to use language more precisely here, shame is the equivalent of self hatred.  It is a lasting, pervasive emotion in those of us who got stunted at some point through trauma and lack of emotional nourishment.

Ultimately, it is shame I am trying to deal with in my neurofeedback.  Here is the thing: anger and fear tend to be social emotions.  Most of the time, they happen when you are out and about.  You overreact both with excessive anger, and excessive paranoia about people and their intentions.  I do, in any event.  But shame backgrounds everything.  It is the water in which this fish swims.

I am going through some hard times right now.  Thick emotional mud.  This is what I understood from the Tibetan Kun Zhi, although my scholarship is insufficient to know if I am using this term properly.

Roger Waters always spoke of carrying a stone.  This is where the stones live.  This is where you find them, and discard them, after which you are much lighter.

I was thinking this morning that one of the obvious blessings of having a body is that your body can continue when your psyche cannot.  It can just keep putting one foot in front of the other, when you can’t imagine it.  I think anyone who has reached a state where they could not go on, but they went on, will have felt this.

Imagine the alternative: pure consciousness, flitting around the universe.  When you felt despair, you would go there and stay there.  The increase in capacity for learning made possible by being able to get in the game and stay in the game is inestimable.

I may just be human soon.  Stay tuned.

The real, true enemy of  American democracy is, to my mind, very obviously the CIA.  It is odd reading that Phillip Corso viewed the CIA as a de facto KGB mouthpiece as early as the first part of the 1960’s.

John Brennan, in my view, almost certainly masterminded the Steele Dossier.  Getting things done behind the scenes without leaving too many obvious fingerprints is the MO of the CIA, and I’ve never seen any reason at all to doubt his intelligence or competence.  Merely his loyalty, and I think he has shown that his loyalty is neither to the Constitution nor our way of life.  Once you view the CIA as a KGB organ, the fact that he voted Communist in 1976, admitted it, and STILL rose to direct the Agency makes perfect sense.

And this “whistleblower”: all the accounts I read fail to mention how this individual came by the details of a private conversation our President had with a foreign leader.  He (or she) does not seem to have been in the room, leaving me with the obvious conclusion that our spy agency is not only operating domestically, and not only are they eavesdropping on our President (and presumably other senior leaders), but they are actively MINING that data for politically damaging material.

Nothing farther from the spirit of representative democracy could be imagined.  This agency probably needs to be abolished and rebuilt from the ground up.  The FBI has become the means, but the CIA dictates, so it seems to me, the ends.

If this stuff doesn’t make you a bit dizzy, then I don’t think you are understanding what I am saying, or the wealth of evidence in support of my views which is already in the public and undisputed domain.

It occurs to me this word is used roughly the way “conspiracy”: to make a direct demand for ideational conformity lest one risk being cast out.

“Motherfucker IT IS DEBUNKED”. Claim otherwise, and suffer condemnation.

As one obvious example, I am—against my will—watching CNN in a restaurant. The headline is “Pence repeats debunked Joe Biden conspiracy theory.”.

Now we know Hunter Biden was dishonorably discharged from the Navy—where he spent his spare time whoring and snorting coke—and a month or two later was earning $50,000/month. We know Joe Biden told them to fire a prosecutor who was subsequently fired.

But none of these things can be discussed by anyone who values their social standing once debunked and conspiracy have been applied.

It more or less amounts to a conditioned response which happens so quickly among the compliant they literally think they are evaluating the evidence for themselves, when all they are really doing is parroting.

I would like to make a brief post pointing to a role the FBI has seemingly evolved to play: a killer of investigations.  They killed the Epstein investigation, which was initiated by local law enforcement, after they had failed, many years ago, to make the obvious case which needed to be made.

They have the cameras from Epstein’s holding facility, which were obviously tampered with.  We will most likely never hear about them again.  The media will keep doing what it does, and the short memories of most Americans will do what they do: cause the memories of this horrible case to disappear. 

Epstein was murdered, almost certainly, and almost certainly on the orders of a power elite who were guilty of we have no idea what crimes, but almost certainly pedophilia and rape.  The FBI is actively covering it up.

You have to look at the FBI’s history.  J. Edgar Hoover more or less ignored the Constitution.  He did whatever he wanted to.  It would absolutely not have been beyond his moral compass to commit political murders.  He certainly framed people, incited people, and ran all sorts of covert and unscrupulous operations.

FBI history is not one of honesty but the abuse of authority.  The same with the CIA, obviously.

But any time the FBI assserts jurisdiction, all local law enforcement, which may well be, and probably usually is, honest and diligent, is cut out of the loop.  They seize all evidence.  They arrogate to themselves the right to interview witnesses.  They arrogate to themselves the right to arrest or ignore anyone they like.  Local cops have no more say.  Legally, they cannot interfere.

This situation is absurd.  Maybe States need to pass laws asserting the right to retain primacy in criminal investigations.  The FBI is not referenced in the Constitution, and most of their authority rests on a trust they really cannot claim to have earned.

In some sorts of cases–bank robbery, serial killers, kidnapping–yes, maybe they are the pros.  But it was an FBI agent who shot Randy Weavers wife.

These people, in aggregate, are not to be trusted with the impartial enforcement of justice.  Their acquittal before investigation of Hillary Clinton–who was OBVIOUSLY guilty of hundred of felonies–should alone make this obvious, along with all the grants of immunity to everyone involved.

I wish our system could be trusted.  It remains much better than those in much of the world.  But all honest people who value peace, freedom and dignity, need to be on their guard.

1. Antifa is already filled with Joker wannabe’s. They already have masks on and are mainly there in the hope of fucking up people and things. It’s one degree of separation to face paint and ceasing to even pretend a valid political commitment is present.

2. This thing has Martin Scorsese all over it. Scorsese is someone who thinks violence is deep. In his own cameo in Taxi Driver he wanted to shove a big pistol up his wife’s pussy and blow her up from the inside. Arguably, his character is who got Robert DeNiro rolling.

Violence is only profound compared to numbness. That it is so common in our media, though, bespeaks muted emotionality, muted authentic empathy (versus the ubiquitous sentimentality which is SO easy to manipulate.)

3. We don’t live in the early 70’s anymore, when Clockwork Orange—to which I’m seeing many compare Joker—came out. We did not have the pervasive conditioning then which will cause many to cheer Joker in his own ultraviolence. I read today some theaters are banning cosplay, since many of them are assuming many of us will see the a Joker as a role model worth emulating.

Back in 1971 (or whatever) we didn’t have grotesque horror films with very realistic violence on every corner. If memory serves Texas Chainsaw Massacre came out in 1974, Halloween and Friday the 13th later in the decade.

Now we have a whole genre called torture porn. We have I think 3 Hostel movies and 7 Saw movies. Hannibal Lector has been made into a hero of sorts.

I continue to wonder how wonderful things would be if, to take example, the resources and energy put into developing the iPhone had been dedicated to building a comprehensive, effective and replicable mental and emotional health program. IPhones don’t make people more emotionally intelligent, and I would argue they sap memory: why memorize anything when you can just look it up?

I do t know where all this is going. Obviously.  But it does seem that many useful and needed taboos are being consciously destroyed, by people who can’t see beyond destruction, who have no truly positive vision for anything.

I know little about mirror neurons other than that they exist and that they play an important role in socialization, but I would suppose those of a narcissist would react in measurably different ways to images of themselves relative to anyone else.

It’s highly unlikely this has not been proposed before, but I think this is the first time I have proposed it.

I would add: what is a selfie but an affirmation you exist, at least in the “eyes” of a camera you can control?

Further question: do they arise from narcissism, build it, both or neither? How important a role do they play in the mental health of those who take a lot of them? Do they help, hurt, or a bit of both?

Four nights ago, I was doing some myofascial release work, and it hit me that I will never be connected to my mother in this life, and there is nothing I can do about.  She exists stranded on an island I cannot reach.  She can and will suck the life out of me, but she cannot be comforted.  All I can do is watch, from a distance.

And this thought made me deeply sad.  I’ve thought this thought, but never processed the related feelings.

Three nights ago I was dreaming I was in a flooded home, my childhood home.  I was on the second floor, but everything was drenched in water.  One of my favorite books was soaked and unrecoverable.  And in the dream I started to weep.  Everything was gone, and there was nothing I could do.  I felt the presence of my father, who died, and who I also could not reach in any way, and who was quite frequently mean to me.  He belittled me nearly every chance he got, while pretending it was a joke.  But none of the jokes were funny.

And it occurred to me that the point of therapy is reaching a point where there are enough tears for your pain.  For many of us, there is pain which cannot be cried out.  It is a deep, dull–sometimes sharp–ache for which there is seemingly no cure, and no true relief.  People like that become drunks, or addicts of some sort.  Some kill themselves.  All live reduced lives.

Two nights ago, I dreamed a kind old woman was mixing medicine for me, and saying “there is no cure without a home.”  A kind presence in my dreams is a new thing for me.  I felt very, very little kindness in my own actual home.  None, that I can recall, if I am honest, even if perfunctory and almost ritual things were done, like buying me Christmas presents.  There was little open hostility, but very little thoughtfulness.  My own mother, after all these years, does not understand me at all.  I am a thought to her, an abstraction.

Last night, I was in a public space doing something or other, contemplating that my life has lacked love, and it is such a sad thing that people live and die all the time without ever really feeling love.  They never find that person.  They never find that group.  You live and die and never really feel like you have anything figured out.  Life, if I might indulge in cliche, is unkind, very often.  I could die today, and do so without feeling like I have anything “sussed”.  I hope I don’t.  I need more time.  I still have work to do.  But many die with unfinished work.  So it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut memorably put it.

I can honestly say I have done my best to face my life with courage, and with a determination to figure this thing out.

And I continue with my visions of a solution, of a church which works, of the creation of countless ersatz, but more real than real, families.  I continue with my vision of making connection easy, obvious, and nearly inevitable for nearly everyone.  I dream of new forms of “home”.  It’s not just me who is hurting.  It’s almost everyone.

I thank God for giving me a robust body, and the sense to take reasonably good care of it.  I am on a river, and there is no telling what is possible for me.  I place my faith in the rejection of self pity, perseverance, and curiosity/wondering.

I spoke within the past few weeks of dissociation being a feeling of being separated from the world of the living by a pane of glass.  I would like to extend this metaphor to assert that narcissism is a defense mechanism for the severely dissociated, one which turns that glass into a mirror, to reduce the pain of separation.  In effect, you become your own companion.  Life finds a way.

I would assert that principle, that life finds a way, would apply as well to actual psychopathy.  I would assert that psychopathy is an organism defaulting to a lower level of existence, to the reptilian brain, as a means of survival.  It only does this in the face of severe assaults, which would otherwise lead to suicide.  The violence, cruelty, and emotional lability and superficiality all act to blunt emotional pain, and thereby to keep that person alive.

Some years ago I made a study of serial killers.  They are, obviously, a popular topic, with creative serial killers being an almost sure-fire way of getting ratings on TV, and an audience in theaters.  Here is the thing: in actual fact, most of them are suicidal and most of them have to engage in some form of substance abuse to keep going.  Most of them also have organic brain damage, in areas responsible for impulse control.  I think it was Henry Lee Lucas who was thrown so hard against a wall, by his mother when he was a child, it knocked him out.

But life finds a way.  That person becomes a predator, an alpha, a user who is not used.  Patterns emerge which protect that person from killing themselves, or succumbing to depression caused by radical separation from the human race, and the possibility of peace and tranquility.

And societies can mirror these patterns at a macro-level.  When everyone feels uneasy, when everyone finds it impossible to fully relax, to fully trust the people around them, that social system develops an urgent need to find a scapegoat.  This is the root, as one glaringly obvious example, of Trump Derangement Syndrome.  It is certainly possible to dislike him personally, and disagree with his politics, while still recognizing that none of the horrific predictions made about him have come true, and that in many respects, on many fronts, he has been innovative, creative, and successful in leading this nation to prosperity and peace. 

But this necessary rage, this socially necessary rage, brought on by the depressing conformism of the Left, makes it more and more important, every year, for them to find a shared target for their personal violence.  This chronic anger is in fact an important survival mechanism, because most of these people otherwise feel impotent and disconnected.  They lack a church.  They lack a human family outside of their political engagements.  They lack a social order which will ALLOW them to deviate in any way from the defined boundaries.  This would make anyone angry, even if they don’t allow themselves to consciously admit it.  Your “friends” are always watching you, for signs of deviancy.  They are watching. They are always watching.  You–random inhabitant of Portland, Seattle, San Francisco and other places–are the subject of a totalitarian god, who lacks the slightest shred of mercy or forgiveness.  There is no coming back, once you are ejected.

And there is no coming back because the belonging is everything.  The conformity is everything.  There is no principle which would allow anyone to forgive.  All anyone can do is watch their disgraced friend drift away into the fog.

I was sitting in a small cafe in a small town in West Virginia when I posted that.  I wasn’t sure why, but I could feel the past heavy in that place particularly.  It turned out that the couple who owned the place had lost a child 5 months previously to cancer.  He was 18.

He said “I’ll guess we’ll never be the same”.  I said no, I didn’t think they would.  She said “it’s made all of us weird”.  I said there’s nothing wrong with that.

When I am feeling good, and I was feeling good then, I constantly find people sharing things like that.  I am an asshole a distressingly large percentage of the time (particularly as seen from other people’s perspectives), but I am also at times capable of genuine kindness, and gentleness.  That is all my children saw most of the time, although I was unable to keep the asshole completely out of view, and they would not hesitate to get on my case about it.

I am still not warm.  That is a growth area.  I grew up in the frost, and it left a mark.  Warmth requires, I think, a deep seated faith in people which I don’t have.  That, or perhaps a deep seated faith in myself, and my own ability to generate positive emotions in conditions of darkness.  There is more hope for me in that latter possibility, because I am unlikely to develop a faith in people any time soon.  I do think most people instinctively try to do what is right most of the time, but I also think most of them are weak and stupid a distressingly high percentage of the time, and easily manipulated into damn near anything.

As Doris Lessing commented in one of the quotes I excerpted a week or so ago, your friends of today might easily be a part of a ravenous mob tomorrow.  This is the zombie metaphor, or at least a part of it.

I am calming down, though, which is good.

There is a certain rootedness living in the past. The same would apply to “living” within ideology, one form of which, I would assert, is most forms of conventional religiosity.

We are all, I think, always seeking shelter from the wind. It both blinds us and comforts us.

This line of thinking, I suppose, roughly matches  the Existentialist ethos. Where I would differ is in supposing, based on personal experience, that a deeper peace lies hidden behind the curtain, not meaninglessness.

Everywhere I look, though, I see comforting nests. I am realizing as well that pointing out these nests/cocoons, is a form of self important cruelty. They have a vital place in most peoples lives.

I have to wonder if Christ, whoever he was, erred in bringing a sword. In the event, a powerful new cocoon was created which we call the Christian Church, within which I would include its core theological claims.