* ! — Site will be down for a while tonight.
Nice. A weapon against the SJW phenomenon
As I have said from the beginning: virtue signaling is primarily driven by the need to “Impress people at Dinner Parties”. Money matters, but status matters even more so. (What do people spend all that money on — gaining status…) Popping this phenomenon is a “must have” on the bucket list of rescuing civilizations and here it is — a nice new pointy social tool.
They/Them is an insider voice from the glitterati elite who got fed up with the emptiness and hypocrisy of the uber famous game and is whistleblowing on the shallow self interest that drives the virtue signalers. These are the celebrity SJW’s who pretend to care about the downtrodden while they send each other selfies on high tech boxes made by slaves in china. What They/Them is doing is not just exposing the hypocrisy, and adding a new vocabulary — like the Fameoisie — but also opening a safe path for those trapped in the bubble to start that conversation. Right now, bullying and fear keep them silent. They/Them is planting a seed. I’ll explain more soon about how we use this tool.
Introducing Wokeyleaks
The Spectator
My disillusionment with the Social Justice ‘left’ was less a road to Damascus moment and more death by a thousand cucks. It was when a friend told me that ‘people are concerned about your use of POC hand emojis on Instagram’. Apparently, it’s ‘the equivalent of blackface’ (it’s really not). It was after a star-studded fundraising dinner when I watched a group of activists so engrossed in their cokey soliloquies on the refugee crisis that they left their guest — a Libyan refugee — alone outside an expensive private club unable to get in. It was witnessing the cowardice of an entire social group who completely abandoned a close friend when he became the subject of a #MeToo allegation that they all knew to be bogus. They were so afraid of being on the wrong side of a trendy cause that they all watched in silence as he was mauled by social media mobs and lost his career.
Ultimately — the thing that drives the righteous indignation of the Social Justice Warrior is not any desire to help the less fortunate but their own of fear bullied and excluded.
I have been complicit in this hypocritical wokeness, but I never called it out. I was scared of being unpopular. In my community of social justice warrior friends, popularity (measured by social media followers) is everything.
The “Fameoisie”
Status is conferred by many things, but the cheapest and easiest route to high status is fame. It’s harder to get rich, to be top of the class, to win actual meaningful awards, to invent something new, to save real people. Collecting followers is the fastest road to Damascus:
It’s the CEOs and board members of the social justice movement who are the problem: actors, musicians, models, journalists and professional campaigners who have benefited from structural inequalities but have decided to adopt woke principles because it is fashionable. They are wealthy, but money is not what motivates them most. They derive their power and privilege not from dollars but from an arguably more valuable form of currency: fame.
Because of social media, never before have so many people been famous. Many friends of mine have 40,000-plus followers; many of them have close to a million. Of Instagram’s one-billion-plus users, only 9.1 percent have fewer than a thousand followers, whereas 30 percent have between 1,000 and 10,000, 36.7 percent have 10,000 to 100,000, 19.5 percent have 100,000 to a million and 0.5 percent have over 10 million. This is a large and entirely new social demographic: a ‘famous-class’, or ‘fameoisie’, if you will.
Paul Joseph Watson explains it all so well:
It’s a sickness created by social media
Social media is like opium for people with any kind of narcissistic personality disorder. It amplified and reinforced unhealthy tendencies.
The character trait that typically accompanies fame is extreme narcissism. Many friends quickly went messianically deranged when their social media accounts exploded with followers.
Great quotes:
We are so trapped within the algorithm that we’re blind to the fact that social justice is no longer a political movement but a branding exercise. We are not activists and revolutionaries but consumers, liking and sharing videos and memes about democracy and equality on phones built by serfs in faraway fiefdoms.
The Spectator calls for more leaks: To any would-be Edward Snowflakes out there: leak your woke-culture war crimes to [email protected].
h/t Chris D
Matthew 6 Giving to the Needy
6 “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
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🙂 🙂 🙂
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2-4-21 mathematician Solomon says PA election results very impossible to happen w/o algorithm employed to rig. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/02/mathematician-edward-solomon-determined-2020-election-results-precinct-level-impossible-cannot-occur-naturally/
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Agreed, agreed agreed, BUT ! but but but but – IF you don’t, you or your family, may be ostrasized – for not ‘fitting in’ with the locals – ” ‘cos that’s wot the locals do”. we do live in difficult times. Companies have to be SEEN to be doing things ADVERTISING, or is tax-averted as business expenses, to help / aid others ? I despair at being dragged into such conversations of conscience.
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Saighdear,
Kim has described the ideal state, you’ve shown the existing situation.
The question we are trying to solve is; how do we “transition”.
If everyone had their feet on the ground, so to speak, we would be de-woked.
The creeping problem of living in a woke driven society was brought home to me by a friend.
While waiting in a queue at the supermarket checkout he was confronted by the image of the person in front of him.
It was something he couldn’t avoid and on paying for his goods walked out to his car.
That day and over the next week he was amazed to see that he was now noticing the number of “large and very large” people in our city.
Some are so large that they use the motorised wheelchair to get around to buy their food.
Are these people victims of a woke society which has lazy politicians who see it’s easier to give people world class “Social Security” than make an effort to structure society so that everyone can have meaningful, dignified work.
Sadly it’s easier to be woke than real.
KK
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Yes, thanks for elucidating. ‘Easier to be woke than real’ – haven’t sat in the tractor seat long enough ( too frosty to plough anything this now) to hear that one and then to think it over. Maybe my Education came too easy, OR .. I was hungry for good education ( would say , that’s what it was ) and like Ethics, do / DID not think like the woke cohorts.
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“Sadly it’s easier to be woke than real.”
With the caveat that I have no special wisdom.
I think the best path to being ‘real’ is to recognize that we are not our own creation.
Ramana Maharshi said “Karma yoga (doing good) is that yoga in which the person does not arrogate to himself the function of being the actor. All actions go on automatically.”
Only God is righteous and surrender of the Self is the only righteousness.
Faithful Christians say the same in a different way.
Nothing to brag about.
The biggest obstacle to being real is trying to be real.
Or trying to be anything.
As I’ve said before, I was raised a Methodist, was influenced a lot by Advaita Vedanta. Maharshi a personal fav.
Nowdays I’m just hoping to meet my father in Valhalla.
(With the way things are going here in the US, there might be a chance.)
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Well I think that is / WAS the psyche of us, Scottish Highlanders, – and NOT simply from a few miles up the road from Glasgow or Stirling, but from the more remote areas, so forgotten about by the MSM and politico elites. Unfortunately, successive governments have pandered to a multitude of demands from Democracy campaigners who only have ONE thing in mind:that ALL pay for ONE and ONE takes ALL in the name of share and share alike when you need it – which we don’t.
I read a lot but do not regurgitate it:being of mechanical disposition, Engineering and working with nature comes easily to mind: conforming to stupid laws to do the same, DOES NOT.
so true ” Nothing to brag about. The biggest obstacle to being real is trying to be real. Or trying to be anything. ” Social networking…..
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I’d agree. Ive always been the expetion and not the rule, so being not part of the “in crowd” while as a child it can be a bit isolating, as an adult its a blessing now.
The other thing is that now with all the AI algorythms crawling all over your social media data, chances are the chinese and the gummint ( is there a separation? ) know more about you than you think.
In the US, the chinese were offering whole States to build and run covid testing places, with what appears to be the unspoken aim to use the covid testing as a way of capturing as many peoples DNA as possible. Of course it will be used for “peaceful purposes”. The Chinese appear to be leaders in DNA-based bioweaponry. Make of that what you want.
So, limiting your personal data reduces the surface are for attack from any direction. Leaving home without your phone, using cash ( every wondered why the push for card only payments ) and using VPN for all internet activity, is a good start. In our local area, the speed cameras have all been recently upgraded, no doubt photographing every car that passes by for ANPR purposes, and most speed cams can do facial recognition. China perfected the techno-tyranny, and Darwin appear to be running a cell-phone based geo-fencing to track people within the city. Welcome to littel beijing. Of course Darwin is out of mind out of sight “up there” so people dont care, but I also have been told by someone who worked in facial recognition, that FR is running live in Melb, Sydney and Canberra full time. Yay….not.
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It’s a blessing and a curse being independently minded. But I’m quite sure that all of us are now flagged, even through association, even if.we don’t use fakebook.
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KK. I agree but would add that one of the problems is the silencing of comments which may offend. I do not condone offending people but a little honesty could go a long way. When people were able to say to aunty Susan that she had been living in a good paddock there was a chance that aunty would take a good look in the mirror and take steps to lose weight. Doctors are hesitant to tell patients they are fat, rather they suggest a heap of pills to keep their heart going and writing a reason for the patient to gain some sort of taxpayer payment.
As an aside. Since humans are mammals they have mammal instincts. When there is lots of grass and lots of animals the mammal kingdom put on weight. It then uses that accumulated fat when the drought kicks in and food is short. Makes sense. The trouble for humans in places like Australia is that Coles and Woolworths do not have droughts so some mammals keep preparing for a food shortage that never comes. It is also a sign of a lack of self control but we can’t mention that either just pony up to keep them alive. Nature usually takes them out early which shows it is still in control.
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Indeed, so we now have the woke attacking McDonalds and any providor of food which is supposedly too fat or sugar laden.
Having done product development for years in food people like to have something that actually tastes nice. Only a small number will exist solely on a diet of lettuce leaves and lentils.
People need to have the bad news delivered to them and to fail to say something is not helping. We are killing with kindness.
A work colleague I have known for years has moved from being slim and muscled to something the size of a small house. I really like him but its a serious problem for him now which he is trying to address. At least he is owning up to the problem and not trying to blame others.
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🙂
I avoided that word, but now it’s out in the open.
Our memories are what helps us navigate through daily life and it’s only unusual or extraordinary events that cause our guiding framework to be refreshed.
Since that conversation I’ve not been able to go out anywhere without being confronted by the sheer number of fat people and, unlike the few large people of fifty years ago, these people are of incredible width and depth.
Leadership has failed these people.
Australia needs a reboot.
KK
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Good manners once had it all in hand:
https://www.cardcow.com/139126/two-stools-fat-people/
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That’s exactly what I was going to post. Matthew 6 is great. It always seemed to me that the catholic rosary goes against Matthew 6, being merely the “multiplication of words”. In my mind, the Lord’s Prayer was Christ demonstrating how to speak to God in your own words. The repetition of this prayer seems to me to go against the whole point of what Christ was saying.
I’m an agnostic by the way.
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‘Salvation by words’ an old priest friend of ours used to call it!
A bit of quiet thought and reflection doesn’t go amiss, says she who doesn’t manage it very well. 🙂
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“Skull and Bones is a secret fraternity at Yale University which restricts their membership to only fifteen per year. . The society was formed in 1832 by General William Russell, whose shipping firm later dominated the U.S. side of the China opium trade. Yale University was founded by Eli Yale, who made his fortune working for the opium smuggling British East India Company.
“Skull and Bones became the recruiting grounds and preserve of the most important New England-centered families–families who also made their money in the opium trade. These families, whose sons regularly join Skull and Bones, include the little known, but powerful, Coffins, Sloanes, Tafts, Bundys, Paynes, Whitneys. They are a dominant element of the U.S. ‘Eastern Establishment’ to this day. The Bush family is one of a cluster of lower-level Establishment families controlled by these interests.
“George Bush, the first U.S. diplomatic representative to the People’s Republic of China back in 1973, was a member of Skull and Bones. So was his father, brother, son, uncle, nephew, and several cousins. Winston Lord, the Reagan-Bush administration Ambassador to China was a member; so was his father and several other relatives. James Lilley, the current Ambassador to China, is a member of Skull and Bones, as was his brother. With the exception during the Carter administration, every U.S. Ambassador to Beijing ,since Kissinger’s deal with Mao Zedong was a member of the Skulls and Bones.
In 1903, Yale Divinity School established a number of schools and hospitals throughout China that were collectively known as ‘Yale in China.’ It has since been shown that ‘Yale in China’ was an intelligence network whose purpose was to destroy the republican movement of Sun Yat-sen on behalf of the Anglo-American Establishment. The Anglo-American “Establishment” hated Sun, because he wanted to develop China. On the other hand, they loved the Chinese communists because they intended to keep China backward, and were committed to the production of drugs. . One of ‘Yale in China’s’ most important students was Mao Zedong.
“During World War II, ‘Yale in China’ was a primary instrument used by the U.S. Establishment and its Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to install the Maoists into power.
‘Yale in China’ was run by OSS operative Reuben Holden, the husband of Bush’s cousin, and also a member of Skull and Bones. “The Maoists made China into the world’s largest opium producer. http://mygen.com/users/ufo/Mao_was_a_Yale_Man.html
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I have a feeling of dread. The US is lost to reason, even the Pentagon is cleansing itself of Trump appointees. A politicised Military is 100% anti constitution. The Framers put the remedy to a despotic Presidency in the hands of the people, not the Army. The second amendment was never about hunting.
I don’t believe the rank and file service personell are in tune with the Generals but what can they do short of a genuine insurrection?
I have no idea what Biden stands FOR, just what he is against: America. And I feel vulnerable without big brother.
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The US military have no choice. They have to take orders from the US government. So, it’s pretty much a moot point as to whether the military are politicised. The Constitution does not allow for the military to take matters into their own hands and depose a despot government. The Constitution does allow for the people do do that by one of two means, elections or force. The former option is now broken and the latter is not viable given the military would be on the side of the government, unless say half the US went to war with them in which case there is the possibility some in the military will change sides even though it’s against the Constitution. If the government does ever become despot enough to warrant some drastic reaction, and it appears it will, then the only viable and peaceful option is for the states to secede from the Union and end up with two or more nations. Of course the people could decide to put up with the despot rule for much long due to their slumber but eventually a revolt will rise up as always in such circumstances.
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The thing is, no State will be allowed to secede, even if the people of that state vote overwhelmingly to do so. The central government won’t “allow” it. Which means a civil war again.
The other thing to remember, the military personnel won’t be quick to attack their own society. That’s their friends and relatives in that community. They government would need to bring in peacekeepers in order to fight a civil war, the UN?
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[SNIP. Off topic]
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We’re in a psychological battle, one we can still win. That’s what the post is about. The Woke momentum and psychological energy is dependent on bullying and shallow hypocrisy, that’s why “They/Them” is so useful. It’s a fragile coalition created by nothing productive or healthy. It’s in danger of collapse if word gets out that exposes the empty vanity and intellectual vacuum it depends upon. That’s why they have to censor so violently. They know they are vulnerable.
Calling it what it is saps the moral and competitive energy — a weak self serving fashionthink powered only by hypocritical cowards too spineless to speak up.
Let’s stick to the topic, (and the right battle).
In an information war, what we need are new lines of communication.
We must absolutely strictly be disciplined about winning this peacefully and legally.
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Think you say “Struth” or “strewth” to your comment . anyway I searched for ‘ fameroise’ ( am still none the wiser) but came across this website in Belgian https://www.cumuleo.be/nl/mandataris/18064-marie-francoise-dehard.php Had the Slogan ‘ Transparantie is de brandstof van de Democratie’ Now depending upon how you translate/understand Brandstof :as the fuel / food to keep the Democracy alive, OR the BURNING Material (the Transparantie) which would kill the democracy !! n’est pas ?
Now Discipline is a difficult horse to train: With hard discipline, there is no investigation into alternative avenues ( voyages of discovery). With no discipline it is a Helterskelter, Trick is: to sow VIGOUROUS SEED with a good supply of Information nutrients. You’d have to understand crop growing to do this. so it goes then for an army of volunteers in any campaign ( OH Noses:Dad’s Army helllpp! ) So who lays down the ground rules for a campaign – and how would one know that the camp’n is heading in the right direction: what happened with Donald’s then? all that we’d been reading “as gospel” ….say no more.
Jo, hope I’m being +ve and certainly very appreciative of all you do. Sláinte !
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It is my understanding that Texas joined the USA with a rider clause that they can leave the Union whenever they want.
That being the case the USA can not legally stop them from leaving, a few other states would likely join them.
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I’m not up with the details, but Texas joined the union voluntarily. They are the only state which can leave voluntarily for that same reason.
I’m just say, they won’t be waved goodbye so easily by those who want their money/assets.
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It’s true that Texas is the only state to join the Union as a former sovereign state (if fairly briefly).
However the 1845 Resolution did not set in law the right of Texas to leave the Union without Congressional approval. All it does is allow Texas to divide into a maximum of five smaller states … this resulted from concerns that Texas is hugely bigger and more populous than a lot of smaller states, and therefore under-represented with just two senators.
However the two-senators-per-state model is part of a bigger states rights issue than the concerns of Texas. And the likelihood of Texas subdividing itself would seem to be close to zero, one would think.
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Interesting situation. If the demorats get their way and make DC a State and gain 2 new senators, then Texas would be justified to respond to its reduced voting power by splitting to get more Red senators.
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With the SCOTUS part of the coup, who is going to enforce the constitution? If Trump gathers a following he WILL be put down, constitution be damned.
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The Posse Comitatus Act 1878 is relevant here. It severely limits the right of the federal government to use the US military in domestic issues.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
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In the Military, the Generals don’t directly command troops. Coups are carried out by
the colonels who have direct control of their soldiers. Colonel Muamma Gaddafi etc.
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The military are smarter than you make out. In a constitutional confrontation the Military is most likely to confine itself to barracks and let the Govt – antiGovt civilians sort out their differences.
One reason the Jan 6 Washington tea party so easily accessed Congress is that most of the Police just looked away because they sympathised with the protest.
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That gun confiscation that the US Citizens were worried about is about to get a whole lot worse.
https://www.blazingcatfur.ca/2021/02/03/alarming-democrats-introduce-bill-calling-for-mandatory-license-for-all-guns-universal-gun-database-banning-ownership-of-guns-by-anyone-younger-than-21/
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Registration is the predecessor to confiscation! History confirms this fact.
Some years ago, I read an in-depth research paper on the mechanism of firearms confiscation in the US. Exactly how would this process unfold. To begin with, the confiscators must know where the firearms are located (registration). Once this is known, there will be a time limit to willfully turn in your firearms. After that time expires, you would be deemed a criminal and treated accordingly. The confiscations would be conducted by SWAT teams, or similar units, at night in secret (element of surprise). But secrecy would not last long, as word of the ongoing confiscations would soon become common knowledge. At that point, any future raids would have the very real possibility of lethal resistance against the teams. These teams could not conduct more than maybe 3 to 4 raids per day, as the stress level would overwhelm them. Only the zealot members of the police and military would participate. Many would not conduct these raids against their neighbors. The zealot members have families and homes and there would soon be active hostilities against these people where they live.
Once the government openly attacks the law-abiding citizens because they have been declared to be criminals for exercising their Constitutional rights, support for government will evaporate, and those once law-abiding citizens will transition from passive restraint to openly hostile, offensive operations. At that point uniformed law enforcement ends as the uniform would become a target. Only someone as stupid as Sheila Jackson Lee would suggest such a law, as she and her ilk would be among the first to reap the wind.
California passed a law that required the registration of all “assault weapons”. It is estimated that 10% of the “assault weapons in the state were registered. Confiscation only works if the people willingly comply. But their mind set is, “You will comply or die”.
Many have sacrificial firearms, knowing when they knock on your door, they need to leave with something. The real stuff is off site…waiting.
https://www.azquotes.com/author/8662-Sheila_Jackson_Lee
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Aye indeed: as a Farmer friend once said to me afer we’d joined the EU with their blowing red tape banners: ” what they don’t know about, or of you, they can’t take away”In other words, if you don’t fly a flag over the parapets to say what you do / that there is someone actually living there, ( ie NOT bring attention to yourself ) you’ll be left in peace. But then we got Satellites and gorgel erth and in most of the free world ( notably except Germany ) you’ve got Streetview allowing all & sundry to drill down and be nosey. In the name of democracy, “for the greater good” an a’ thae Muck oot o’ Geordies Byre, we hae’ bin shoehorned intae ae leakin wullibit ! Please forgive the degeneraion: Current covid nonsense and SNP point scoring driving me round the twist and I need to escape somewhere. ‘ It’s good to talk ‘
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People will have already ( I suspect ) stockpiled hidden caches of weapons anticipating this.
Even if the globalists nuke a couple of cities in the US ( and yes, they would do it, dont kid yourself…) to try and take the fight out of people, I think will only rile the locals up even more.
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There was recently a run on the gun shop they ran out of guns and ammunition.
Good luck to those who try to subdue those deplorables.
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It’s taken a while but organised push back against woke nonsense is well under way. The most pleasing part is a lot of the push back is coming from the Left itself. For example Helen Pluckrose’s Counter Weight initiative:https://counterweightsupport.com/the-counterweight-team/
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That’s unfortunate. I was hoping the left will go harder with their draconian ideologies so that people will wake up and finally decide to stop voting for the Democrats across the board ever again such that any attempt at “tweaking” the election results would be too obvious and expose the Democrats as the real traitors.
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They already have stopped voting for Democrats/CCP. The problem is the drop off has been masked by election fraud.
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Of course that’s not true. There are lots of people who would still vote for the Democrats, just as here there are lots of people who would still vote for the ALP+Greens. Apart from a small proportion of hard core supporters, that would drop off dramatically once the left impose enough draconian rules onto the population. They are not there yet. If they were already there, there would already be a revolt that would shock the world. They )and we) are no where near that point.
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Actually I believe your wrong on both accounts.
The Dem’s have been using this method of winning elections for the last 30 years now. They take 3 to 6% of bits here and some there. Which is just enough to push up their numbers to win more often than they should.
As for the Australian Green party. From what I’ve read, about 1.5% of Australians actually vote for them, but they keep getting 6%. This is caused by preferential voting. If you vote [1] for Labor without selecting each candidate individually, you’re giving your vote to whoever is next on the ballot.
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Greg, your response suggests you’re not up to date.
In the House of Representatives (Commonwealth of Australia):
https://aec.gov.au/Voting/How_to_Vote/Voting_HOR.htm
And, in the Senate (Commonwealth of Australia):
https://aec.gov.au/Voting/How_to_Vote/Voting_Senate.htm
Hope that helps.
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They’re almost there, Trump’s landslide victory would have shocked the world had it been allowed to happen.
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Once the take-over is complete, long will be the dark night when freedom will seem extinct among men….Some men do evil and know that they do it; some men do it ignorantly and innocently. But whereas these men whose dark deeds would destroy all beauty and freedom upon earth remain entrenched in positions of power as moguls of the worlds of finance, entertainment and politics, the fact remains that they are still in the minority seeking to controls the majority….
God gave man the gift of freedom within his heart. He must nourish it and make it live in this age…that he can find the power to overcome the dark and sordid side of human nature and become imbued with the faith, wisdom, wit, joy and surety that will be his bond on the pathway to life everlasting. -a famous guy
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Going with the crowd. Running with the pack. These are phrases that describe this human weakness. The fact that humans worry about what other humans think, means they can be coerced and used by others less scrupulous.
It was Lenin who coined the phrase: “useful idiots” to describe celebrities” who casually advanced socialism as a form of virtue signaling.
There’s and old song lyric that reads: “ya gotta stand for something or ya fall for anything.”
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There’s also another element. People tend to make choices that makes them feel “safe”, or alternatively don’t make choices that puts them in harms way. It’s a natural part of being human. There comes a point though where there is no choice but to do something drastic when there is too much pain to bear. We are nowhere near that point, yet. We still live in a very comfortable life style compared to the past. In time of course that will change. When it does then we will see some dramatic changes in the way people behave.
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to bare 🙂
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🙂 If you meant carry the pain, you were right the first time.
I checked with goggle just to make sure.
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Sounds like Churchill’s “crocodile strategy”
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I’m too out-of-date for this.
” POC hand emojis on Instagram ”
I do remember when (USA) gasoline was 26 cents/gal and cigeretts were 25 cents a pack.
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I remember that too. Wages were a lot lower then too. Such matters need to be put into perspective. In proportion to the cost of fuel today to the average wage, it’s actually got cheaper. The problem though is there are lot more other expenses today. Internet, mobile phones, laptops, etc.., things that didn’t even exist back then.
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In economics there is a distinction between what is called the real wage and the money wage. The money wage is the pay check. The real wage is what you can buy with it, or purchasing power. An empirical observation is that people will not accept a reduction or stagnation of the money wage, but they unwittingly accept reductions in the real wage all the time. Politicians and bureaucrats play on this.
Keynes observed that as people obtain higher incomes and more wealth the propensity to consume does not increase proportionally. Keynes proposed siphoning off this under utilized capital through high tax rates and severely progressive taxation, and then redistributing it in the form of gov. spending and transfer payments. Keynes believed that the stifling of economic growth caused by taxation could be offset by increased economic activity from the redistribution.
Hayek thought this a pernicious evil because of what it did to the real wages of the middle class. The tax burden was in practice shifted to the middle class through increased costs of goods and services. A reduction in real wages. Energy poverty is a severe reduction in the real wage.
Politicians can buy votes this way because a reduction in real wages causes a reduction in unemployment stats (but an increase in underemployment) in addition to people thinking they are getting free stuff, and that it appears on the surface as being more fair and just. Nonetheless, it gradually destroys the middle class.
An increase in real wages is fostered by keeping taxation under control, cheap and abundant energy, and a robust private sector.
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Back when $10.00 could get you a great night out at the pub, including cigarettes.
10
Escorts and escorts for $12
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I first gave up smoking when cigs went from 3 bob to three ‘n thripence. Just married at the time, little things mattered.
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I remember of friend of mine said he gave up smoking when Blue Capstan went to 2 and 6 a packet (25 cents)
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Sport will lead WOKE demise. It takes an explosion to alert the apathetic and zealots. Maies (transvestites) breaking all the girl’s sporting records is unacceptabl to even the dumbist. Once you get the thin edge in the axe splits the wood, the door opens and the light gets in.
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Now that IS an interesting angle! … but if the eyes are not Open or the Spirit, weak, than it may as well fall on deaf ears.
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Fight for social justice? No way.
06
So you believe in social injustice? You are confusing social justice warrior with social justice. Social justice warrior is a term used for those who pretend to fight for social justice and instead support socially progressive views, which are an anathema to social justice per se.
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1. Social justice warriors fight for some perceived injustice on behalf of someone who didn’t ask for it. It’s more a self promotion exercise than an injustice exercise.
2. There’s no such thing as social justice. Everything in life is unequal. There can be no equality where nature forbids such a thing.
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That’s only the case in Capitalist societies and in the “lower phase” of Communist society which directly follows the over-throw and transition from Capitalism. In this “lower phase” Communism individuals receive from society exactly what they give to it.
However, as all good Communists know, when the Communist Nirvana is fully in place the very lucky Proletariat who have been blessed by the over-throw of the rapacious Capitalists, get to enjoy absolute equality: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”.
That’s what the SJWs are woking for :-).
No inequality there now, is there?
30
I better not do it then in case I get name called. Thanks for the heads-up PS
02
A common conversation that I have with others goes along these lines:
Me: We shouldn’t shut people up, we should let them speak and argue the case if we think they are wrong.
They: Absolutely. But [names a person] is wrong, they shouldn’t be allowed to speak.
100
A phrase come to mind here : “sacrificing freedom for safety results in losing both” . This situation in the USA is a pressure cooker and the troops in the capital are evidence of this . The media both social and mainstream are telling us we are racist , homophobic , bigoted monsters when nearly all of us are not. Equality means everyone has the same rights and responsibilities regardless of skin colour ,ethnicities or sexual orientation . We used to be able to discuss our opinions without fear or violence but this is no longer the case . The only real victims are those who think for themselves.
50
Dealing with Wokism
My strategy is to push it the other way.
So I identify as a “Teapot”.
My personal preferred pronoun is “Your Imperial Majesty”.
And anyone who refuses to use it is using hate speech.
And I’m personal pronoun fluid so I drop that for my friends.
😁️
90
Social media is like opium for people with any kind of narcissistic personality disorder.
One of our former Prime Ministers instantly leapt to mind!
80
Sorry William, I’ll up the ante. I can think of two since Howard, both gained the leadership via the Brutus principle.
30
W, I think you mean two former PMs.
30
Jo,
I think the following explanation from the late Rene Girard might be right ‘on topic’ here. The comments by Michael Matheson Miller are helpful.
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWsU5rXDFVc
Rene Girard on Peter’s Denial
By Michael Matheson Miller
Michael Matheson Miller is a Senior Research Fellow at the Acton Institute
“. . . June 29, was the solemn feast of Saints Peter and Paul. The Apostle Peter is remembered for many things: his declaration of Jesus as the Messiah; his boasting of fidelity, followed by his threefold denial of Christ; and his subsequent repentance and heroic martyrdom.
The late French anthropologist and former Stanford professor Rene Girard has an insightful discussion about the denial of Peter and the problem of scapegoating and contagion. He sees in it an archetype of the whole human race.
Girard argues that this scene is one of the most powerful stories in the Gospels, and in all literature. He says that “Peter is all man—and men cannot resist mimetic contagion. When you are in a crowd, you become literally possessed by the crowd.”
Girard warns that we should not simply think of this as Peter’s personal psychology and fear. Peter is not a “special case” or “weak individual.” He is representative of contagion and a willingness to go along with the crowd. Girard also observes that Peter’s denial of Jesus was not spurred on by a violent mob, or even first by a group. It begins with a servant girl, a young lady. This seemingly insignificant description, he says, provides “precious information” about the nature of what is going on. It is not that Peter is sexually attracted to her, but she is young; she has an appeal that an older woman would not.
Girard says that:
Peter wants to show her that he is not one of the outcasts, the bad guys. He has the right opinions. He is part of the crowd.
How do you show you are part of the crowd? You join in scapegoating.
“How can we all have the ideas of our time?”
Girard asks why we all have the same ideas. How do we become creatures of our time? We get infected by the mob phenomenon and “collective passion.”
He notes that in the past, everyone believed in God, but “it didn’t mean much.” And today everyone is inclined not to believe in God – not because of any scientific evidence, but because that is what is fashionable. The power of fashionable opinion shaping our desires plays a bigger role than we imagine.
Throughout his work, Girard explains the power of imitation, which he calls “mimetic desire.” We don’t simply want things because of our own desire, separated from everyone else. We want things, because other people want them. We see the powerful influence of the crowd. We are all susceptible to it all the time.
Peter thought himself immune. In his “second conversion,” he becomes humbler. He no longer responds with overconfidence. When Jesus asks him three times if he loves Him, his self-awareness has matured. He declares his love but is modest. And in his modest love, he is able to make the ultimate sacrifice.
Girard notes that this short passage about Peter’s denial is “infinitely more powerful to tell you about what society is, more than any other text.”
It is only when one starts to think for him/herself that the truth becomes so obvious.
20
It’s actually not about fashion, it’s about science.
04
My understanding of “woke” and virtue signalling goes something like this (bearing in mind I haven’t fully thought this through – I am on holidays beside a beach).
Over the last century (or thereabouts) the liberal class – educated, centre-lefties, those who believed in a wide range of progressive reforms, and above all believed that good laws and a wholesome government would care for its citizens – lost the plot, lost power, and in fact became handmaidens to the corporate elites.
The liberal class were craven, and too scared about losing their positions of prestige and security – in politics, the bureaucracy, the churches, academia, mainstream media, the media, and the arts.
They basically stood by and watch the US be totally taken over by the corporate state – totally taken over – to the extent that almost every institution is now there to serve nothing but corporations, the elites, and their global partners.
Workers were disposable commodities, and millions have been thrown onto the garbage pile, and millions more live hollowed out and dead-end lives. In short, the political and social power and influence of those who would consider themselves sophisticated “liberal” progressives has been cut almost to zero.
SO on the one hand they take the considerable crumbs thrown at them by the corporate elites, and do their bidding. I think the worst example of this is the Democratic Party, which sold itself to the corporate elites many decades ago.
Neither Bill Clinton nor Barack Obama – despite all the trappings of being liberal democrats – achieved nothing in terms of helping the working class and the lower-middle class – and worse – they aided and abetted the corporate elites in their power and wealth accumulation.
One result of this was Donald Trump, who “spoke” to these millions of disaffected. I didn’t like him, and 90% of what he said was bulldust, but he was good at it for a few interesting years.
Joe Biden is deeply into the same mold as Clinton and Obama – he is beholden to the corporate world, and the current Democratic Party pretends to itself that it is the friend of the lower 75%, while the Republicans are painted as the tool of the elite.
Neither position is correct – the deep divide in the US is not between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party – that’s just a puppet show – the real divisions are between capitalists and workers.
As a result of all this, modern “liberals” and many Democrats (and their colleagues in the academy, media, Hollywood, etc) have dived into wokism, identity politics, and all manner of small-beer political correctness. These are self-satisfying replacements for real influence and real power.
They don’t do anything for the dispossessed millions because they have no power to do so – and I dare say it does little for the minorities and marginalised they are attempting to support either. But it feels virtuous at dinner parties, in the faculty staff room, in NYT opinion pieces, and during Academy Award speeches. My view anyway.
34
” the real divisions are between capitalists and workers.”
On this planet?
A capitalist saves assets, and employs them to increase the value of his work; or participates in an organization that does the same.
A large number of those who toil for a living are actual participatory capitalists.
Many who toil as ‘wage slaves’ do so with open eyes, and saving accounts, and capitalist ideals, and retirement accounts in a not totally fraudulent
stock market (in that there is still opportunity for fundamental investors).
I would submit that the basic division is between those who work, and those who don’t, won’t, or purport to speak for the interests of those who purportedly can’t.
There are vulture capitalists with outsize fortunes and influence. They are permitted, and even admired, under the circumstance that the tiny toilers live good lives;
the innovations in the capital world of our titans of tech have enabled many smaller fortunes. They will soon be as hated by the current political group as any
robber barons are by any political class; there can be only one top dog. Heretofore the pols have always beaten the robbers; do we now have a technostate?
“capitalists and workers” bespokes a rather quaint prior century view of the dynamics at play.
10
It is not unusual to see those who support the corporate state (such as the US has ruthlessly become) believe they know where the problems lie, and what the “solutions” are, and in particular who to blame.
Rather than see the divide between those who work and those who do not (an old-fashioned Ayn Rand trope), it is more useful to understand how work has been totally commodified, and made extremely unpleasant for the large majority.
Unions have been demolished by the corporate elites (“Capitalists”), and their handmaidens in federal and state government, and the courts.
And look how the US has engaged more or less in permanent war since 1942, and literally since 2003. War is a massive technique by the capitalists class to transfer even more wealth to themselves, subdue the populace, and to minimise criticism – with their hollow calls for “patriotism” and “national security”, and vehement attacks on anyone who criticises them as “soft on terror”.
It is indeed workers versus capitalists – everything else is a chimera and a distraction from this reality. Perhaps read some Noam Chomsky (arguable America’s greatest ever social and political critic), or even some Karl Marx 🙂
01
The idiocy is summed up by an article outing a BBL cricketer for not taking a knee. You can actually treat people according to their character and not their colour but you’re a racist for not participate in some ritual.
That’s a cult.
70
Agreed RB. Kneeling to anything is wrong. Unfortunately the woke-left think this is the way for the future. God Help Us All
30
I disagree – it’s fine for those who wish to do it. What is wrong is being ostracised if you do not do it, or punished if you do do it. A “free country” must mean something.
12
Well well well…it looks like Tilba loves to knuckle under to The Man. Love to live in a dictatorship, Tilba? Seems so. Then why don’t you go and live in a dictatorship? Y’all have fun now, y’hear?
10
This woke obsession with feeding their fame shouldn’t have surprised anyone. It is only an extension of the schoolyard ‘like’ system setup by social media where bragging about the number of ‘friends’ became the easiest form of school bullying for the pretentious as they grew up with Faecesbook.
The astute amongst society knew from the start that the wannabe on the periphery of the cool kids would say they believe in anything to be accepted and gain the keys to the promised land of admiration and all social media is, is an extension of that. Hardly surprising then that as the next fad – wokeness – is blanket covered by media activists, that the wannabe will say and do whatever will give them cache among their ‘followers. Really, 1m followers is like saying there are 25m walkmans still in people’s homes! Maybe true, but noone has looked at it for years. Just because an impressionable kid pushed the like and follow button because of an outrageous action which ‘went viral’ 12 months ago, doesn’t mean that same kid has ever looked at their feed again! That’s why SJW’s keep trying to be controversial, to get one time followers to come back and feed their egos…….and brand endorsement number requirements.
10