Regarding Drudge and The Knockout Game, I told you guys, you're too easily led:

"A column on Slate.com reports that while the game does exist, there is no hard data to support the notion that it is a growing trend that has reached epidemic levels. It also refutes the suggestion by some news organizations that some of the attacks have been racially motivated.

The Slate piece makes reference to another piece on the patheos.com website that says, 'Nobody seems to have any evidence that it's spreading, or that it's new, or that it's racially motivated.'

The piece continues, 'Most sources claim that it is spreading, and a number of sources claim that it is racially motivated. But how do they know? Where are they getting their data from?' 

 Um, a silly (but crafty) fedora-wearing dude, who's into chain-yanking "whitey" waaay more than disseminating news? (Like that word? "Disseminating." Yep, that's a three billion dollar word, right there. "He's so well-spoken,...") Matt Drudge is an instigator. 

The Drudge Report stirs up trouble, at the expense of both blacks and whites, but knowing full-well blacks can least afford it - and, generally, blacks don't read it.

Run by America's current genius of journalism, proving what that's always meant at it's best,... 

I told everybody this was "a pretty shitty thing to do" but - hey - NewAge do-gooders loovvve believing whatever they see on the internets, don't they? 

"The homeless Grand Rapids veteran whose time-lapsed, videotaped makeover became a viral hit has been locked up again, for trespassing and creating a disturbance at a Burger King restaurant.

James Allen Wolf’s fall was not unexpected."

Because Alcoholic Anonymous' success rate was still not available,...

 

Having suffered under this weight for so long, as a black American, there's something about the truth, and boots - and running around the world - that seems relevant to my predicament. Never you mind. I wrote a blog about it, and it goes a little something like this:

"France Remains Most Racist Country In Western Europe"

Cue the accordion music - for the always-enamoured American press:

Unlike TMR, they've told us everything,...

 

 Getting a Vet all cleaned up to join a cult is a pretty shitty thing to do. But, by focusing only on this physical "transformation" and not the mental mindfuck they've pushed this poor schmuck into, people are patting themselves on the back and calling it applause.

It's creepy, is what it is,...

 

£20 fine wine or £5 plonk? Most of us just can't tell... eight out of ten people prefer cheaper bottles in blind taste tests

"We have issues in this country with telling stories of suffering that don't result in uplift."

"I wonder if you and Sandy thought about how cruel it was to John to lead him to think that all of you were a happy (if strangely occasional) family during the years you were illicitly getting together. So now John is collateral damage. Here's a rule for cheating: Have sex with your lover, and leave the kids out of it. Instead, Sandy allowed you to be a surrogate father for her son, all the while surely thinking your emotional tie to him would draw you closer to her. You apparently were unable to imagine the likely scenario that your wife would stumble on your secret, and so promised John you would always care for him. Poor John that two such deluded people are his mother and 'father.'

Now you say your wife is the villain,..."

“The atrocities in North Korea reached another peak on November 3, as roughly 80 people were publicly executed in seven different cities for crimes such as watching films made in South Korea, dealing in pornography or possessing a Bible.

The executions were the first mass executions of the Kim Jong-un regime,...

Wonsan’s executions were carried out by binding a group of people to stakes, putting white sacks over their heads and blasting them to pieces with a machine gun in front of thousands of witnesses at a stadium, among whom were many children. Families of the executed victims were sent to prison camps along with the victim’s accomplices.”

He documents this journey in his book “Escape: My Lifelong War Against Cults,” a thrilling read that’s also educational. It links half a century of mental manipulation, violence, and legal warfare waged by controversial totalistic movements.

Chapter after chapter details the similarities of cults and their megalomaniacal leaders. It’s revealing to see the same elements in Charles Manson’s “family,” the Symbionese Liberation Army, Synanon, Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple, Werner Erhard’s est, the Unification Church, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s commune and even Scientology.

Many of these cults have their own version of forced abortions, extreme hours with little to no pay, sleep deprivation, and constant ego-smashing abuse combined with praise and reassurance. Also common are disconnection from families, and diabolical legal strategies intended to ruin reputations and cripple outside interference.

But Paul’s heroics have come at a steep price. In 1978, his fiancé left him out of fear for her children. And then 10 years ago, Paul was diagnosed with a serious blood disorder linked to rattlesnake venom. Paul’s forced to live on bi-monthly transfusions. (He jokes, “I’ve developed simpatico with Dracula.”)

In “Escape” Morantz skillfully traces Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung’s theories of brainwashing he used on his own people and also on American POWs during the Korean War. Paul lays the groundwork for showing how many controversial groups here at home, particularly those coming out of the 1960s human potential movement, shared the same ideas, methods and, all too often, the same tragic results.

The other political operatives - manipulating and exploiting their viewers - are keeping their mouths shut:

    “The most important thing to every person is the truth and today the truth is we made a mistake. That’s very disappointing for any journalist.

Nobody likes to admit that they made a mistake, but if you do, you have to stand up and take responsibility and you have to say that you were wrong. And in this case we were wrong.”

Yeah, you, Glenn Win-From-Losing Reynolds, and all the rest.

The cowards don't talk about who's been right all along, either.

Because they know - KNOW - it (probably) won't be them,...

 

“Pupils told me that during drama classes Miss Black would talk about sex and she turned the lessons on to a sexual theme. 

She said she wanted to cheat on her fiancé once before getting married and that she fantasised about having sex on a table in the drama class.

They played a game called I Have Never where she would ask them things [about sex]. She would then get the pupils to act out the acts in question.”

“After my mother died eight months ago, my dad, being all alone, went to the elders in the congregation he attended to see if he’d be allowed to visit with me. They said that since I was his son, he could visit with me at his house. But he could not discuss religion - nor could he share a meal with me at the same table.”

How many times must a child assure you it's O.K., as an unprovoked aside, before you understand someone's been repeatedly assuring them of it?

I hate when people lied to me as a child.

I hate watching them lie to other kids even more.

It's exploitation, and manipulation, pure and simple.

Leave the fucking kids out of it,...

It's a shame only anti-cultists feel this way:

 "He just really loathed the way these groups and people manipulated people and ruined lives."

Everyone else is used to looking the other way, I assume,...

When conservatives started acting like liberals - best exemplified by electing the NewAge Romney - I knew I'd lost who I was conversing with, too,...to NewAge. Listen to the language of advice, spoken now (red emphasis mine) all of it right out of the TMR Playbook:

The Tea Party started this war on Obamacare with no chance of success and no idea how to end it — similarly intoxicated by a self-image of heroic “resistance.” And just like Nasrallah, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas engaged in magical thinking, declaring that the House vote to defund Obamacare — although rejected by the Senate — was “a remarkable victory.” But most of his Republican colleagues aren’t buying it. They see only ruin.

***

But the tea party has a lot to learn, and quickly. “It’s not enough to feel, you need strategy. They need better leadership, not people interested in money, power and fame. Public service requires sacrifice. I see too many self-seekers there…

Most important? “I don’t like saying this but be less gullible. Many of your instincts are right but politics is drowning in money. A lot of it is spent trying to manipulate you, by people who claim to be sincere, who say they’re the only honest guy in the room. Don’t be the fool of radio stars who rev you up for a living. They’re doing it for ratings. Stop being taken in by senators who fund-raise off your anger. It’s good you’re indignant, but they use consultants to keep picking at the scab, not to move the ball forward, sorry to mix metaphors. And know your neighbors: Are they going to elect a woman who has to explain she isn’t a witch, or a guy who talks about ‘legitimate rape’? You’ll forgive politicians who are right in other areas, but your neighbors and the media will not. Get smart about this.

"Get smart," in this case, can only be an admonishment to watch a TV show detective. When it comes to real Americans, I have more confidence that traffic in India works better:

“From what I can tell, a law was passed, people didn’t like it, and they thought they could reverse it by shutting down the government,” said Elizabeth, a 33-year-old Romney voter. “But to me, it’s like, something already passed. Let’s work to fix it. Holding everybody hostage is not the way.”

The women compared politicians’ behavior to kindergarteners or toddlers. “The guy reading—Cat in the Hat? What was it? Green Eggs and Ham?” said Cass, a voluble 40-year-old restaurant worker who voted for Obama. “That summed up the government right there. You’re talking about Dr. Seuss? This is the first intelligent thing I’ve heard out of your mouth right there.”

A few were personally affected by the shutdown: One had a brother who was a furloughed federal worker; another had a friend with terminal breast cancer who couldn’t reach anyone at Social Security to plan for her family’s future without her. They used words like “powerless,” “frustration,” “disgust” and “anesthetized” to describe their feelings. “It’s a sinkhole,” Julia said. “You can keep throwing in dirt to fill it back up, but it’s never going to be level.”

Rather than throw up their hands at the mess, the women said they’d pay more attention to politics and try to get more involved to fix the problem. “We’ll be smarter next time. We won’t vote for somebody sitting next to a tractor just because we like tractors,” said Karyn, a 25-year-old who voted for neither major-party presidential candidate in 2012.

...Jaclyn, a 30-year-old Obama voter, corrected her. “We’re the ones who voted,” she said. “It’s our fault.”

 And no one could talk these new “powerless” folks out of doing it (don't call them anybody's "victims"). They were all so sure and positive, they'd bury anyone who disagreed - including their friends. 

 And don't tell them to look at what they've done to their allies - they'll bury you with them. That's how cultish thinking "works": 

It kills compassion for those you abuse - merely because you don't want to admit you were wrong - and can't face you wronged them.

 

No, there's been no place for me, amongst such people - and nowhere to run from their madness - for a long, long time,...