Creativehoarder

Passion is everything!

[mournfulroses]

Fyodor Dostoevsky, from a letter featured in Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoevsky to his Family & Friends

[andreasgypsysoul2020]

There is a line in the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry report, released on June 23, 2026, that ought to stop the world cold. The commission’s chair, Srinivasan Muralidhar, stated without qualification, “By targeting children, Israel is attacking the very capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future.” This is not the language of diplomatic reprimand. It is the language of genocide and the commission uses that word deliberately, having already concluded in September 2025 that Israel had committed genocide against the Palestinian population of Gaza. The June report adds the unbearable specificity: it is the children who are the primary instrument and target of this genocide.

Between October 7, 2023, and March 31, 2026 – a period spanning two years and five months – at least 20,179 Palestinian children were killed, with a further 44,143 injured. Children constituted approximately 30% of the total death toll, a proportion higher than any previous conflict involving Israel and higher than the comparative averages from the 2008-2009 and 2014 Gaza wars, when children made up approximately 24% of the fatalities.

These are not deaths attributable to the general chaos of urban warfare. The commission documents a pattern of individual children being killed by single sniper or drone shots, typically in the head or upper torso. According to doctors on medical missions, Israeli Defence Force (IDF) soldiers appeared to be engaged in what they described as a “game” of target practice, with “different body parts being targeted on different days.” The commission concluded, on the basis of forensic evidence and military analysis, that there are reasonable grounds to believe some children were deliberately attacked.

Read more on thewire.in

[andreasgypsysoul2020]

THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES: How America’s Iran War Ended In Strategic Humiliation - And The Death Of American Hegemony

Let me be brutally direct with you today.

The 14 point MOU now agreed between Iran and America is one of the most extraordinary diplomatic documents that was ever created.

Read those 14 points carefully. Then ask yourself- who won this war?

America’s stated objectives when it launched Operation Epic Fury alongside the Zionist regime it supports, on 28 February 2026 were unambiguous: destroy Iran’s nuclear programme permanently, obliterate its missile industry, neutralise its support for resistance groups across the region, and - though never officially stated - trigger regime change in Tehran.

Not one of those stated objectives has been achieved. Not one.

Iran’s Supreme Leader was assassinated in the opening hours of the campaign. Its conventional navy was largely destroyed. Its nuclear sites sustained severe damage. By every metric of raw military firepower, America “won” the battles.

And yet- here is what the peace agreement actually says:

I. The US commits to non-interference in Iran’s internal affairs and respect for Iranian sovereignty;

2. The naval blockade - America’s ultimate coercive instrument - is to be lifted completely;

3. US forces are to withdraw from around Iran;

4. All oil and petrochemical sanctions are suspended;

5. US is to unfreeze $24 billion of Iranian assets;

6. The US and its allies must present reconstruction plans for Iran amounting to at least $300 billion.

Let’s call a spade a spade.”Reconstruction fund” is a euphemism - a diplomatic fig leaf. There is a word in the vocabulary of history for when the aggressor pays to rebuild what it destroyed in a country it attacked. That word is reparations. And in the entire history of warfare, only the defeated pay reparations. It happened in the Napoleonic wars. Germany paid them after two World Wars. Japan paid them after 1945. Iraq paid them after Kuwait.

America is now being asked to pay them after Iran.

If you needed a single fact to understand who lost the war, this is it.

And more crucially - Iran’s missile programme and its support for its proxies in the region - Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis are definitively removed from the negotiating agenda altogether.

I want you to pause on that last point. America went to war - spending officially $30 billion (although I think the real figure is around $200 billion) in 3 months, depleting munition stockpiles so severely that analysts say will take 3-5 years to rebuild, triggering a global energy crisis that darkened economic outlooks worldwide - and Iran’s missiles and it’s geopolitical alliances are NOT even on the table.

This is not a peace agreement. This is a terms of surrender document, and I have been calling that for at least the past 6 weeks. And America is the one signing it.

No wonder Donald Trump has gone from calling it total victory to proclaiming that he is the first American President to sign a Peace Deal with Iran! The humiliation is total!

The great American strategic theorist would ask: what is the relationship between means and ends? You do not commit the world’s most powerful military to a campaign of this scale, assassinate a Head of state, spend $200 billion of taxpayers’ money, and have most of your bases in the Persian Gulf destroyed by Iranian ballistic missiles, and engineer a global oil crisis - only to walk away having achieved nothing that you set out to achieve.

A leaked US Defence Intelligence Agency assessment told the real story: Iran moved much of its enriched uranium stockpile before the strikes began. The underground facilities were not collapsed. The nuclear programme was set back by months, not years. Trump told the world he had “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities. The DIA said otherwise.

This is the difference between narrative and reality- and the world is now watching America navigate the gap in real time.

Compare this to Vietnam. America lost in Vietnam after years of ground war, 58,000 dead, and the shattering of a generation. That was a tragedy of attrition - a superpower slowly bled out by a peasant army.

What happened in Iran is strategically far worse and much more humiliating. This was a 100 day hi-tec air war - America at its most lethal, most technologically supreme, most unleashed. B-2 stealth bombers, carrier strike groups, the finest precision munitions on earth. And Iran - battered , sanctioned, blockaded - looked the American eagle in the eye, closed the Strait of Hormuz, struck US bases across 7 countries, and waited.

Iran did not need to win militarily. It only needed not to lose politically. And that is what it did.

The MOU is Iran’s vindication. The Islamic Republic - for all the damage it sustained - emerges with its sovereignty affirmed and strengthened. It’s reconstruction guaranteed. It’s economy unlocked, and it’s strategic programme protected. The Americans after all their fire and thunder, can’t wait to go home.

Now consider what this means for the wider Middle East - and for American hegemony itself.

For 7 decades, American dominance in the ME rested on a single proposition: that the US could compel outcomes through military force. Every ruler in Riyadh, every government in Amman, every calculation in Cairo and Ankara and Tel Aviv was made in the shadow of that proposition. America’s vast constellation of military bases - Al Udeid in Qatar, Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, installations across Kuwait, the UAE, and beyond - were not merely logistical assets. They were the physical embodiment of American will. They said: we are here, and we decide.

That proposition has now been shattered.

The bases may still exist, although most of them have been literally destroyed. The warships may still sail. But what does a military base mean when the country it was meant to intimidate has just negotiated a peace agreement protecting its missiles, its proxies, and its sovereignty - and extracted a $300 billion reparations commitment from its attacker in the process? The infrastructure of hegemony may remain. The credibility that gave it meaning has gone.

This is how empires end - not always with a single catastrophic defeat, but with the moment when the world realises that the emperor’s power to compel has reached its limits. When smaller nations look at what Iran achieved and begin to draw their own conclusions. When friends and adversaries alike recalibrate.

Iran has not merely survived American military assault. It has demonstrated to the entire Global South - to every nation that has lived under the shadow of American coercion - that resistance is possible, that sovereignty can be defended, and that the world’s most poweful military machine can be politically defeated even when it wins every battle.

This is the end of American hegemony in the Middle East. Not its weakening. Not its decline. It’s end.

History will record this as the moment the American century confronted its limits in the most direct possible way - not in the jungles of Southeast Asia, not in the mountains of Afghanistan, but in the Persian Gulf, in a war that lasted 100 days and ended with Washington agreeing to rebuild what it destroyed.

The emperor, it turns out, has no clothes.

And the world has noticed.

-copied from Lim Tean

#MAGARepublicans

[andreasgypsysoul2020]

250 years. Two hundred and fifty fucking years of the most powerful, most resourced, most theoretically capable nation in the history of human civilization and here is what we have to show for it.

Forty million people on food stamps, thirty million without health insurance, the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world, the highest incarceration rate on earth, an opioid crisis that has killed over half a million people and counting, a housing market so broken that working people cannot afford to live in the cities they work in, an education system that buries young people in debt before they earn their first dollar, infrastructure that is literally collapsing, a life expectancy that is going backwards, a political system so thoroughly purchased by concentrated wealth that the laws it produces bear almost no relationship to what the public actually wants or needs, a working class that has not seen meaningful real wage growth in thirty years, a mental health crisis so severe we normalized it, a gun violence epidemic so routine we don’t even act when preschoolers are slaughtered, and a climate hurtling toward catastrophe while the people paid to address it collect checks from the industry causing it.

Two hundred and fifty years of that. And to celebrate, we built a wrestling arena on the White House lawn.

Not a hospital, or a school, or a housing development. Not a single fucking thing that addresses a single goddamn item on the list above. A wrestling arena. With cranes and pyrotechnics and a steel arch that probably cost more than the annual budget of three rural counties combined, erected in front of the building where Lincoln and Roosevelt and every president who ever tried to make any of this mean something once lived and worked and in some cases died trying.

Truthfully, this is not a departure from American values. This is the fullest possible expression of them. Because this is what we chose. Every single time the choice was presented.

We built a culture where a football coach makes forty times what a physics professor makes and then express genuine bewilderment at the outcomes. Where a reality television star becomes president and a school district cuts its art program in the same fiscal year. Where children know every statistic of every player on their favorite sport team and cannot locate their own country on a map. Where scientific consensus on vaccines, climate, evolution, and basic nutrition gets weighed against a Facebook post and the Facebook post wins at the dinner table. Where the school that wins the state championship gets a parade and the school that produces a Nobel laureate gets a budget cut.

We chose the bomber over the teacher. The tank over the clinic. The aircraft carrier over the water treatment plant. We spend more on military than the next ten countries combined, including our allies, while veterans sleep on the streets of the cities they came back to. We built the most expensive killing apparatus in human history and then told the nurse she made too much money. We sent young men to die in wars that made defense contractors rich and called it freedom and put a yellow ribbon magnet on the back of the car and called that support. We made the soldier and the police officer into sacred untouchable symbols of national identity and then cut their benefits, denied their PTSD claims, let them die waiting for VA appointments, and sent them back for third and fourth tours because it was cheaper than taking care of them when they came home. We worshipped the uniform and neglected the human inside it because the uniform is a symbol and symbols are cheaper than healthcare and housing and the therapy that would actually help. We built bases in a hundred and fifty countries and could not build enough affordable housing in fifty states. We funded a military budget that could have ended homelessness and medical debt and student debt several times over and we did it with bipartisan enthusiasm and called the people who questioned it unserious.

We chose entertainment over education so many times and for so long and at every available level of society that we forgot there was a distinction worth making. Spectacle over substance, performance over policy, the aesthetics of greatness in place of the actual thing, and the feeling of winning instead of asking what was being won and who was paying for it and what it would cost the people who came next.

Rome had bread and circuses. We Americans have food stamps and a wrestling ring outside the Oval Office.

250 years. This is what we built. This is what we chose. This is what we are celebrating. And the most perfectly, catastrophically, irreducibly American thing about all of it is that anyone pointing at this image and asking what it means will be called unpatriotic by people watching it on a television they bought on credit they cannot afford to pay back, rooting for a sport they cannot explain, in a country they cannot describe, celebrating a birthday they cannot contextualize, for a nation that has spent two and a half centuries confusing the noise it makes with the work it never did, all while claiming to be the greatest country on Earth.

Happy Birthday America! You have never looked more like yourself!

Copied from Oliver Kornetzke

[maryflorlovyblog]

Strong trunks are formed by contrary winds, and green leaves feed on pure sun. "Luddly trees are poems that the Earth writes to the sky, supported by roots that hold the wisdom of life." 🌿🍃

— Reflection on Strength and Life

[zeezrom]

By Irina Ionesco Scanned from ‘How to photograph women’ by Dixons

Source

[maureen2musings]

Gavà Mar, Barcelona

monica.s

[andreasgypsysoul2020]

I think it’s time for vocabulary lessons because some of y’all keep using words you very obviously do not understand.

1. “Retarded”

You think this means “stupid.”

It doesn’t.

The insult comes from “mentally retarded,” an outdated medical term historically used to describe people with intellectual disabilities. So when you use it as an insult, what you are ACTUALLY doing is comparing someone you dislike to a disabled person as if that alone is degrading.

That’s why people think it’s gross.

Not because anyone is “too sensitive.”

Because you are denigrating an entire group of innocent people to try and win an argument on Facebook dot com.

But I believe you know this, and it's not funny. It's pathetic.

2. “Socialist/Marxist/Communist”

Y’all use these interchangeably because you think they all mean “thing Fox News told me to fear.”

They are not the same thing.

Socialism = systems where essential services/resources are publicly funded or collectively supported for the benefit of society.

Examples: public schools, libraries, fire departments, Social Security, Medicare, roads, public parks.

Marxism = a political and economic theory created by Karl Marx focused on class struggle, labor, and how wealth/power concentrate under capitalism.

Communism = a theoretical classless/stateless society where property and industry are collectively owned.

These are three different concepts.

Also, if you hate “socialism” so much, stop using literally every publicly funded service you rely on:

Roads

Public schools

Libraries

Fire departments

911 dispatchers

Police

Disability services

Veterans benefits

You don’t hate socialism.

You just don’t know what socialism is.

3.“Echo chamber”

This one is my favorite because some guy told me MY Facebook page was an “echo chamber” because I removed abusive people from the comments.

That is not what an echo chamber is.

An echo chamber is when people only consume information that reinforces what they already believe while shutting out facts, perspectives, or evidence that challenge them.

For example:

- getting all your news from one partisan network

- only trusting sources that confirm your worldview

- dismissing every expert, journalist, scientist, or statistic that contradicts your political identity

THAT is an echo chamber.

Removing people from MY page because they threatened me, spammed slurs, or acted feral in the comments is called having boundaries.

You are not entitled to another person’s space.

That’s like coming into my house, shitting on the carpet, screaming at my guests, and then crying “CENSORSHIP” when I throw you out.

No, babe.

You’re just experiencing consequences for your behavior and confusing accountability with oppression.

4. “Triggered”

Someone responding to your behavior does not mean they are “triggered.”

A trigger is a psychological stimulus that causes an intense emotional or physical reaction, often tied to trauma.

You calling a stranger a slur because their opinion upset you?

THAT actually sounds emotionally reactive.

But y’all watered down serious psychological language into middle school taunts because everything has to become a joke instead of an opportunity to learn something.

And then you wonder why the “dumb American” stereotype exists internationally.

You are proudly anti-intellectual.

You mock education.

You reject expertise.

You use words incorrectly and then get angry when corrected.

That’s not confidence.

That’s insecurity wearing a trucker hat.

#FactsMatter

[andreasgypsysoul2020]

This is a public service announcement to all the deplorable people who are disgusting enough to still support Trump: You're not triggering anyone. Every time you drop a "Hur hur triggered" in my comments, it just makes you look like a bigger idiot. $You wanna know why nothing you do triggers me? Because nothing you do surprises me. You've accepted your place as anti-American scum, whether due to stupidity or fear of admitting you were wrong. You have done the following: $· Celebrate a man who demeans American prisoners of war? Not surprised. · Celebrate attacks on police officers and federal agents? Not surprised. · Celebrate a president trying to get private citizens fired because he doesn't like their protected speech? Not surprised. · Salivate when a madman muses about deporting American citizens, and celebrating when he actually does? Not surprised. · Get excited about unarmed American citizens being murdered in the streets by untrained federal mercenaries? Not surprised. · Defend or ignore pedophiIia from elected officials SEVERAL times? Guess what? I WAS NOT F*CKING SURPRISED.Do you know what you do? You make me laugh. Every time I see how badly you're willing to embarrass yourself to continue supporting this man, I get a good chuckle. $The right has always been the party of stupid, but now, you'll look like a complete moron in a desperate attempt to defend everything the idiot does. It was bad enough when you decided that a draft dodging, geriatric NYC billionaire who never worked a day in his life and paid prostitutes for sex was the best leader for your "Alpha male," "working man," "Christian," "patriotic" movement. $But to keep demeaning yourself to the level necessary to pretend like he's smart, courageous, tough, or any of the million other things he's not? Dude, you're a joke to me. NOTHING you do triggers me, because EVERYTHING you do is more embarrassing than the last embarrassing thing you did. $Your entire movement is based on fear, fragile masculinity, and a desperate need to feel like you're smarter, tougher, and more important than you ever will be. You're a footnote in American history. And not a footnote like the American Nazis who gathered to support Hitler during WWII. $A footnote that the future will look at and say, "Jesus Christ, that's the literal most pathetic cult in human history. Thank God they're gone." And honestly, it couldn't happen soon enough.

#FuckTrump

[andreasgypsysoul2020]

Oh, so THAT'S what we're doing now? THAT'S the big fucking outrage? Democrats didn't stand up fast enough for the orange fucking crime lord? That's what's got your knickers in a twist?

Let me get this straight. The Republicans, the same pack of howling fucking chimps who spent years booing, heckling, and acting like absolute feral cunts during Biden's addresses, are now clutching their pearls because Democrats showed some fucking backbone and stayed in their seats?

Marjorie Taylor fucking Greene was in there screaming like she'd sat on a cactus. These Republican cockwombles were pulling stunts that'd get a toddler sent to their room, and now, NOW, they want a masterclass in decorum?

Fuck. Off.

And let's talk about WHO they're defending here. Let's just walk through this slowly so even the brain-dead MAGA faithful can follow along.

This is a man who's been convicted on 34 felony counts. Thirty. Fucking. Four. Most of us can't get a parking ticket without sweating through our shirt, and this cunt collected felonies like they were fucking Pokemon cards.

He's been adjudicated a rapist. Not accused. Not alleged. ADJUDICATED. A court found it more likely than not that he sexually assaulted a woman. And his base went, "Yeah, but the economy though."

He ran a fake university that robbed students blind. He ran a charity that he used as his own personal fucking piggy bank, including stealing from KIDS WITH CANCER. Let that sink in. He took money meant for children dying of cancer. And people are upset that Democrats didn't give this cunt a standing ovation?

He was best mates with Jeffrey Epstein. Best. Fucking. Mates. The world's most notorious paedophile ring operator. Trump said he was a "terrific guy" who liked beautiful women "on the younger side." ON THE YOUNGER SIDE. And we're meant to leap to our feet and applaud?

He was impeached. Twice. No other president in American history managed that particular achievement. Twice! He's like the all-time world fucking champion of getting impeached.

And these sycophantic republican dogs want to know why Democrats didn't stand up?

I'll tell you why they didn't stand up. Because they have a functioning fucking moral compass, that's why. Because somewhere between their first breath and that moment in that chamber, someone taught them that you don't give a standing ovation to a man who treated the American constitution like toilet paper, who caged kids at the border, who tried to overturn a democratic election, and who spent decades being the kind of human being that decent society used to quietly agree should be kept away from positions of power and young women.

Who the fuck WOULD stand for that?

What are you supposed to do, leap to your feet and cheer for a man who makes used car salesmen look like paragons of integrity? Clap enthusiastically for a convicted felon who ran his charity into the ground while pocketing money meant for sick children?

The Republicans screaming about disrespect need to sit the fuck down and have a long, hard think about what respect actually means, because right now they wouldn't recognise it if it walked up and punched them in their hypocritical fucking faces.

The audacity. The sheer, breathtaking, galaxy-brained fucking audacity of these people.

Stand up for him. Jesus Christ. Lock the fucker up and throw away the goddamn key 🗝️

[andreasgypsysoul2020]

"What if instead of breaking their wildness like a rancher tames a bronco, we taught girls the importance and power of being dangerous?

I want to bottle-feed rage to every baby girl so that it fortifies her bones and muscles. I want her to flex, and feel the power growing inside her as she herself grows from a child into a young woman.

For too long, men have called us names designed to insult, but also designed to imply we are too angry to be taken seriously: Feminazi. Ball breaker. Crazy feminist. Bitch. Hysterical. Witch. Yes, I am those things. In other words, I am an angry woman. And angry women are free women."

Mona Eltahawy, What the World Would Look Like if We Taught Girls to Rage

Art by Leticia Banegas

[andreasgypsysoul2020]

THIS IS HER ENTIRE TESTIMONY WORD FOR WORD & IT ABSOLUTELY SHOULD GO VIRAL:

WATCH HERE:

INSTA: https://psee.io/8p44tm

-

Note: I was meticulous & must have watched the video about a hundred times over the last 2 hours to ensure I got it right, I emphasised the words she emphasised

-

“Thank you members, for taking the time to be here today, and thank you staff for making this happen.

My name is Aliya Rahman and I’m a resident of South Minneapolis. I’m a Bangladeshi American born in Northern Wisconsin and I’m a disabled person with autism and a traumatic brain injury. Not all autistic brains do this, but MINE fixates on sounds, numbers and patterns.

And while what the world saw happened to me EXACTLY 3 weeks ago today, on video, was a terrible violation - it is still NOTHING compared to the horrific practices I saw inside the Whipple Center. So, I am here today with a duty to the people who have not had the privilege of coming home. And I offer this DATA, because these practices must end NOW.

-

On January 13th, on the way to my 39th appointment at Hennepin County’s Traumatic Brain Injury Center, I encountered a traffic jam caused by ICE vehicles and no signs indicating how to get around it.

I had not wanted to pull into a blocked, chaotic intersection, but verbally agreed to do so and rolled down my window after an agent yelled:

‘MOVE, I WILL BREAK YOUR F•CKING WINDOW.’

His first instruction.

Agents, on all sides of my vehicle, yelled conflicting threats and instructions that I could NOT process while watching for pedestrians.

Then, the glass of my passenger side window flew across my face.

I yelled, ‘I’m DISABLED.' at the hands grabbing at me.

An agent said, ‘TOO LATE.’

I felt immersed in a pattern, and I thought of Genoa Donald, an autistic black man, killed by police during a traffic stop in 2021. I remembered Mr. Silverio Villegas González who was killed by ICE in his vehicle last year.

An agent pulled a large combat knife in front of my face, which I thought was for cutting me, and I later learned, was used to cut off my seat belt.

Shooting pain went through my head, neck and wrist when I hit the ground face first and people leaned on my back. I felt the pattern, and I thought of Mr. George Floyd who was killed four blocks away.

I was carried face down through the street by my cuffed arms and legs while yelling that I had a brain injury and was disabled. I now cannot lift my arms normally. I was never asked for ID. Never told I was under arrest. Never read my rights. And never charged with a crime.

Approaching the Whipple Center, I saw black and brown bodies shackled together, chained together, being marched by yelling agents outdoors.

-

I continue to hear the word ‘BODIES’ because that is how the agents refer to us.

‘We’re bringing in a BODY.’

‘They’re bringing in BODIES 7-8 at a time, Where do I put em?’

‘We can’t use that room, there’s already a BODY in there.’

You have no reason to believe you will make it out alive if you are already being called a body. Agents had to repeatedly stop and ask how to do tasks. I received no medical screening, phone call, or access to a lawyer. I was denied a communication navigator when my speech began to slur. Agents laughed as I tried to immobilize my OWN neck. I asked for my cane and was told, 'No'.

Pulled up my arms and prodded forward in leg irons by agents, laughing and saying,

‘Walk, You can do it, walk!’

Agents did not know IF the facility had a wheelchair.

When I was finally placed in one to be taken to interrogation, agents taunted me,

‘You were driving right? So your legs do work.’

-

I pleaded for emergency medical care for over an hour after my vision had become blurry, my heart rate went through the roof, and the pain in my neck and head became unbearable.

It was denied.

When I became unable to speak, my cellmate pleaded for me. The last sounds I remember before I blacked out on the cell floor were my cell mate banging on the door pleading for a medic and a voice outside saying,

‘We don’t want to step on ICE’s toes.’

When I opened my eyes at Hennepin County’s emergency room, I learned I was brought there to be treated for assault. The impacts of DHS detention on my physical, mental and financial well-being and safety have been VERY severe.

But I do NOT deserve more humane treatment than anyone else US Citizen or not. And I am here today with a strong spirit and a duty to the many people who haven’t had the privilege to tell their stories, or see their loved ones come home.

I am EXTREMELY distressed by the pattern of violence from law enforcement [that] has been happening to black and indigenous communities for CENTURIES and to DHS survivors for over 20 years. We call ourselves a ‘civilized nation’ but we lack rules and accountability around what a person claiming to be law enforcement is permitted to do to another human being.

I am not afraid.

And I am not afraid to keep working on this problem even after ICE is gone.

Thank you for your time.”

-

NOTE TO #MAGA #Republicans #GOP #trumpsupporters

& ALL WHO READ THIS, FROM A STRAIGHT, WHITE, (REAL) CHRISTIAN & BIBLE SCHOLAR:

She is a powerful and extremely credible witness. Nothing in her testimony undermines that reality.

Anyone who actually watches the video can plainly see the observable effects of autism, disability, and traumatic brain injury - conditions she openly names about herself. Those realities do NOT weaken her testimony.

They make it that much MORE COMPELLING. She will be an excellent future plaintiff if she ever decides to sue the government. Which I sincerely hope she does.

For weeks, Trump and ICE supporters have called her a liar - specifically accusing her of lying about her autism, disability, and traumatic brain injury. That accusation, like so much of what you believe and repeat, is not grounded in evidence, facts, or reality. It is denial.

When people learned that she is also a software engineer and a LGBTQIA+ and racial justice activist, the attacks escalated.

The IDEA that a disabled, brown, gay woman with autism and a traumatic brain injury could ALSO be intelligent, technically skilled, articulate, and politically engaged was treated as impossible.

That disbelief does not come from reason. It comes from hate. It is rooted in ableism and the need to dehumanize disabled people so their testimony can be dismissed when it becomes inconvenient. Calling her a “liar” serves a purpose. Discrediting a disabled, brown, gay person makes it easier to excuse cruelty, violence, racism, homophobia, and a total disregard for human life while pretending to be a decent human being.

You are not.

She did not lie. She is not lying now. You are the ones lying - to yourselves first, and then to everyone else. What is happening here is deliberate self-deception, used so you can live comfortably alongside cruelty, racism, homophobia, and hate without having to confront what you have become.

There is another option. It is called repentance.

Repentance begins with honesty - honesty about who you are, what you support, and the harm you are willing to excuse. Every day, I pray you find the courage to begin that reckoning. Until you do, you remain trapped in a world built on denial and hate, and that is a far more devastating condemnation than anything I could say.

- Jenny Carter | Biblical Scholar | Activist

2/4/26

WATCH HERE:

INSTA: https://psee.io/8p44tm

#ice #Minnesota #democracy

[remanence-of-love]

[andreasgypsysoul2020]

"Saving Granny from the Maga Machine"

We all have someone we love who’s been swallowed by the MAGA machine—someone who didn’t used to talk this way, rage this way, or quote Fox like Scripture. You can’t fact‑check them out of it, and screaming matches only drive them deeper into the arms of the movement that’s rewired their brain to crave fear, falsehoods, and a 24/7 outrage. If you’ve ever walked away from a conversation thinking, “How did we lose her—and is there any way back?”, there is, with work.

Not a scream into the void, not another rant about “them,” but a serious look at how people we love get pulled into political cults—and what it might actually take to reach them without becoming raging mad ourselves.

Your parents, your aunt, your college buddies weren’t always this callous or filled with hate. They never set out to end up isolated in a high‑control group that would slowly turn them into people they never meant to become.

They aren’t stupid.

They aren’t weak.

They’ve been caught in a slow, step‑by‑step process that hijacked their minds—and, sadly, their hearts.

THEY WERE REPEATEDLY TOLD TO FEAR immigrants, crime, demographic change, “deep state,” liberals, and even education itself.

THEY WERE CONDITIONED TO BELIEVE THAT others “look down on people like you, and they hate you and wish you harm.”

THEY WERE MADE TO BELIEVE THEY ARE THE HEROES, “You are the real America; you are a part of a historic movement to save our country.”

THEY WERE FED LOADED LANGUAGE THAT CORRODED THEIR TRUST —words like “rigged,” “stolen,” “fake news,” “woke agenda,” and “liberal elite.”

THEY WERE TAUGHT TO DEHUMANIZE OTHERS by calling them illegals, animals, evil, sick, and even retard.

Once you buy the vocabulary, you’ve already bought the values that come with it. That’s the moment when Granny becomes unrecognizable from the grand lady she once was.

And sadly, she becomes almost impossible to de‑program—especially when she won’t turn off Fox News, won’t leave her empire‑aligned church, and lets a Facebook feed full of algorithm‑driven drivel keep stoking and reinforcing her hate.

The propaganda is powerful;

The task, almost insurmountable.

But you are not completely without hope.

Some people DO moderate their views. Others quietly disengage. A few even break away entirely, especially after key disillusioning events like Greenland or Alex Pretti’s death.

But it all hinges on how patient—and how strategic—you’re willing to be.

Here’s the plan of attack:

1. Empathy is key.

Understand that their fears are very real to them, the sense of rightness is very strong in them, and their identity with Trump, MAGA, or friend- and religious-groups are extremely powerful forces.

Any of us can become so vulnerable to fear, belonging, or group-pressure under the right circumstances that we join a cult or cult-adjacent group. Recognizing that you could be in their shoes someday helps you become an Alongsider rather than a Confronter.

Direct confrontation won’t save them.

2. Build a stronger relationship, not a stronger argument.

You aren’t going to be able to prove they are wrong; facts no longer matter. Whatever Trump, FoxNews, or their MAGA memes say is true, has become gospel-truth to them. Your goal isn’t to prove they’re wrong or win an argument. Your goal is to help them think more freely, feel safe questioning, and know you care more about them than about their politics.

Talk about things other than politics, a LOT.

Affirm their core good traits repeatedly.

Continually remind them that you are their friend/family, no matter what.

You are creating a safe emotional base where questioning their group doesn’t feel like they are losing all of their belonging and worth. If they feel attacked, they will retreat back into the safety of the very groups you are trying to rescue them from. The most effective deprogramming looks like relationship-building + gentle reality testing.

Your real leverage is the relationship, not your argument. You represent a real, living counterexample to the caricatures they hear, and moment-by-moment, you are breaking down the idea that “the other side” is evil or insane. You are grounding them back to reality, and away from the cult.

3. Ask lots of curious, non-attacking questions.

Instead of, “That’s insane, how can you believe that?” try things like:

“What first drew you to this movement? Was there a specific moment or event?”

“If you imagine 5 years from now and things went exactly how your movement wants, what would the country actually look like day to day?”

“Are there any parts of what they’re doing that you’re not 100% comfortable with?”

“What would count as going too far for you? Like, a red line you personally wouldn’t cross?”

“How do you decide which sources to trust? What makes one source more reliable to you than another?”

They are more likely to question things that they themselves have just spoken aloud than things that you shout at them to question. Your goal is to get them to articulate and EXAMINE their own reasoning… not replace it with yours.

When inconsistencies come up, gently explore them:

“You’ve said honesty is really important to you. How do you handle it when someone on ‘your side’ is clearly lying or exaggerating?”

“You’ve mentioned valuing freedom. How do you feel about [policy/behavior] that seems to restrict other people’s freedom?”

“Has being so involved in this stuff changed your relationships or mood? In good ways? In bad ways?”

Over time, helping them notice their own discomfort, contradictions, and personal costs is far more productive than a fact-check that puts up their walls.

4. Introduce alternative information indirectly and slowly.

Instead of, “Read this, it proves you’re wrong”:

Try: “This article/podcast made me think differently about [issue]. I’m curious what you think about it, especially the part where they say X.”

Or: “I’ve been trying to understand how people on your side see this. What would you recommend I read/watch? Maybe we can each look at what the other suggests and compare notes.”

One resource I recently discovered that has been helpful is Tangle News, a daily email summary of the best arguments from the left, right, and center on a single topic.

And then, when you sit to talk about it, start with what you each found reasonable or understandable, before critiquing. This feels more like mutual exploration than one‑way “deprogramming.”

5. Use their stated Christian values as the starting point.

Rather than starting with politics, start with core Christian themes most churches at least pay lip service to:

Love of neighbor/enemy

Humility

Truthfulness

Concern for the oppressed and marginalized

The “fruit of the Spirit” (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control)

Ask reflective questions like:

“When you listen to this pastor or political leader, do you feel more love, peace, and patience—or more fear, anger, and contempt?”

“Do you feel it’s making it easier or harder to love people who disagree with you, the way Jesus taught?”

“How do you think Jesus would talk to [the group they demonize] if he were here?”

You are not arguing doctrine, you’re gently inviting them to measure their movement against their own religious standards.

Invite them to explain the biblical basis for their stand, and rather than saying “That’s not biblical” or “You’re wrong,” invite them into a conversation:

“Which parts of the Bible make you feel this is the right political stance?”

“Can you show me the passages that feel most important for this?”

“How do you connect this specific verse to supporting [policy/leader]?”

Encourage them to read the wider context around the passages they choose. What does the rest of the Chapter say? What about the one before/after it? Who is being addressed, and why? What is the overall theme of this book/text?

And maybe most importantly: What does Jesus have to say about this… if anything?

If you’re not Christian, you can still say: “I’m not an expert on your Bible, but I’m interested—can we read a bit more around that together? I want to understand how you see it.”

The point is to slow them down and turn proof‑texts back into texts with context.

6. Highlight tensions between Jesus’ example and cult‑like behavior

When trust is there, you can delicately point out mismatches between Jesus and the group they are allied with:

“Jesus spent a lot of time with people who were looked down on. How do you think he’d react to a movement that constantly insults and dehumanizes certain groups?”

“You’ve told me you follow Jesus, who taught turning the other cheek and loving enemies. How do you feel about the language of ‘crushing’ or ‘owning’ enemies that some Christian political voices use?”

You’re not saying “You’re a bad Christian.” You’re asking: “How does this political style line up with the Jesus you say you follow?”

Let them wrestle with it.

One powerful move is to introduce other Christian voices, other pastors, theologians, or authors who take the Bible seriously, are clearly people of faith, but don’t fuse it tightly with that particular political cult.

You might say: “I heard [respected Christian figure] talk about how faith should never be tied to one political leader/party. I’d be curious what you’d think of them.”

This does two things. It shows that “real Christians” exist outside their cult‑like bubble, AND it makes it harder to write off all disagreement as “godless” or “anti‑Bible.”

If you’re not Christian, you can still ask: “Are there Christians you respect who don’t share exactly your church’s political views? What do you make of them?”

In Closing.

When you engage, you’ll make far more progress by returning to three anchors than by arguing facts or fault:

Their lived experience

Observable harm

The gap between their proclaimed values and their actual behavior

Even with all of this, some people can’t be helped—or you may not be the person who can help them.

You can’t help them if every conversation becomes abusive.

You can’t help them if you’re burning out and starting to hate them.

If your talks reliably devolve into yelling and insults, or if they keep sharing material that dehumanizes others or promotes violence, it’s time to step back. Set firm boundaries. In some cases, encourage them toward professional help or communities that specialize in cult exit and recovery.

Your role does not have to be “sole rescuer.” Often, the most powerful thing you can offer is to remain a steady, caring presence just outside the cult’s gravitational pull—someone they know will still be there if they ever decide to walk away.

[booserina]

[booserina]

[booserina]

Papillons. 🦋 I added this beauty to the door of my home studio.