Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
Mike Driver
Janaina Medeiros
trying on a metaphor
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
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DEAR READER
titsay
dirt enthusiast
noise dept.
Three Goblin Art
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Today's Document
JBB: An Artblog!
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YOU ARE THE REASON
if i look back, i am lost
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@styxxus
If it ain't broke, Trump'll break it. #immigration
First, they insist that they're only going after illegals.
Then, they increase the number of people who they classify as illegals.
It's exactly like Nazi Germany. It's not similar. It's not a slippery slope. It's literally exactly the same.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about some of the people I interact with. I have a coworker who I am pretty sure is a MAGA type, and she is also a lovely woman who is dreadfully overworked and so good at connecting to patients when they call. I can see the conflict on her face when she talks to me, a gigantic tranny dork who speaks Spanish and affirms the LGBT community, but can also talk to her about her cows and knows about guns and stuff. I can see the fear in the eyes of my former Young Men’s leader when he misgenders me and realizes that I’m not an ideology but a person he has known for a long time. I can see the way my extended family stop and stutter over political discussions when they realize they are talking about me. And I don’t know why but lately it’s just made me think about my neighbor as a kid.
When we moved to Arizona, we moved next door to a lovely retired couple - John and Lucy. John was a veteran of WWII, he had an M.D. and a Ph.D. in radiology, and he LOVED us to pieces. His wife, Lucy, was a sharp and gifted woman - well spoken, very observant, and VERY clever. I just know that she used that cleverness as a mom to great effect, because with my and my siblings she always managed to find a way to send us home with candy and treats for a week despite my dad’s protests. We loved them, growing up, and even though they have long-since passed away I love them still, and I love what I learned from them.
John was, as stated, a WWII veteran. He was enlisted as a rifleman, and later as a front line medic, starting at Point Du Hoc and moving inwards to France and towards the Rhine. He let me do a report on him in 6th grade where he shared war stories with me he had kept to himself his whole life - he said it was out of respect for his friends who didn’t get to come home and tell their stories.
He said he told me because he knew I could respect the memories of his friends.
He showed me his collection of medals, and which he’d kept hidden away in a sock in his attic because he’d feel an immense grief any time he saw them. He had wanted to be a doctor his whole life, prior to being drafted he was studying medicine and had taken the Hippocratic oath to Do No Harm. He saw his medals as a reminder that he had Done Harm.
After telling me his stories he was able to convince himself that while he had Done Harm, it was only because his only other alternative was, to him, cowardice. He chose to be brave even if it meant acting against his Oath because he felt that if he didn’t do it someone else would have to go in his place and he would be responsible for the harm that befell them. I don’t think that’s true, but for him it was and that was something no being on earth could have ever dissuaded him from believing.
He shared wild stories - melee combat on the beach, clearing artillery bunkers, receiving a Purple Heart for being injured in hand-to-hand combat with a Wehrmacht rifleman he said he felt pity for because they were the same age and he had to imagine the man he was fighting had been drafted just like him.
He shared how he was awarded a Silver Star for charging a machine gun nest, but shared that he was most proud of not killing anyone in the process. He threw a grenade with the pin still in it and when the machine gunners jumped to avoid being blown up they were killed by someone else so he didn’t have to do it. He took the machine gun and shot the other machine gun in that French field to pieces so he didn’t have to kill the people operating it. He said they were giving out Silver Stars like candy but I knew he was being modest.
He told me about being redesignated as a medic, about how he crawled for about 500 yards on his belly to rescue an injured tank driver, then threw him over his back and crawled the same 500 yards back (1000 yards total) to treat his injuries. He said he met the man in an Army hospital in England after his spine was broken by a high explosive panzer shell was fired through a hollowed out French farmhouse and landed about 20 feet away from him.
He told me about all the people he helped and saved as a medic, he told me about his work in radiology and research after the war. He showed me a hallway that was quite literally wallpapered with academic honors he’d earned as a researcher. He told me about how his first Fourth of July back was a horror show for him because fireworks and German artillery make very similar sounds. He told me about how he woke up in a cold sweat well over half a century later hearing the screams of German artillery men being burned alive with flamethrowers, or hearing his own voice apologizing to the young German soldier he stabbed in the heart at Point Du Hoc.
He told me that when he was asked to present at a medical conference in Germany 25 years after the war ended that he was so scared he couldn’t step off the plane, and that his wife had to hold his hand and lead/pull him with her. He said he was not scared because he was worried about being triggered, but because he knew that someone somewhere outside of that plane had the course of their life irreparably altered by his military service. That to someone out there he was the cause of immense suffering and harm. That some unwitting waiter could be the son of the Nazi Officer he stabbed in the heart with a 12-inch hunting knife. That some woman asking questions in the audience would be the daughter or widow of a man he sent to judgement with a .30-06. He was scared that they would hate him.
He knew what the Nazi’s had done, he knew better than anyone I’d ever met. He’d watched the documentaries, he’s seen the PoWs returning from camps, he’d seen the civilians massacred and tortured by their regime, but he also knew that among the monsters were people like him - idealistic 20-somethings who only wanted to make the world better and were ripped away from that life by the Nazi war machine. And he spent his whole life mourning the loss of innocence and peace that was forced on so many people by such a corrupt power.
To be honest I don’t know if I could do that, but he could. He told me he could still feel the dead and lost with him, both when he slept and when he woke. He told me he thought he’d go to his grave never having told a word of this to anyone. That the stories of him and his friends and allies would disappear silently with him and those like him. That he had wanted that until he realized that he didn’t have to sell out to share the stories - that he could give the stories away for free to someone who would love the people in them, and not just the content of them. He didn’t want his stories to be used as Patriotic Pornography by some TV network or magazine. He wanted the people he knew to be respected, he wanted their memories to be honored and loved, and he entrusted me, a 12-year-old “boy” to do that.
He told me for years afterwards that after telling me these stories that he slept better than he ever had. That by sharing the stories with someone who could hear Him over the din of victory and glory and honor and revisionistic history. Someone who could see the man in the story and not just see the plot of a battle being won. He wanted to be human, and he wanted the people he saw die to be human too - everyone, not just the people on his side. He wanted someone to see and to know the anguish of having to look someone in the eye as heartblood muddies the ground beneath them and hope that they understand that this was not an act of love or hatred but an act of desperation. To hope that you had just taken out One Of The Bad Ones instead of a medical student or a poet who had been drafted. He wanted me to see how hard he had worked since then to build a world without scarcity, to build a world of peace. He wanted me to know SO badly that the cost of violence, any violence, even necessary violence, is always ALWAYS paid by both parties involved.
I think about the rise of the new right wing - the new Nazi movement’s traction in politics, and I feel sad and scared - the world that Johnathan J Yobaggy, my neighbor, my friend, and my hero, worked SO hard to build is being done away with by people who do not understand the cost of the path they are entering. I can see brief moments of recognition in the eyes of some of the people I mentioned - The former young men’s president who immediately regrets misgendering me and hen he makes eye contact with me and sees Me staring back at him and not a faceless “ideology.” I can hear it in the voice of my uncle who quietly comes up to me to apologize for some homophobic comment he made absentmindedly. I can see it in the eyes of racists and sexists being interviewed on TV when they realize that they didn’t vote for a concept, they voted for a real thing. And honestly, I have mixed emotions about it. Because while I understand frustration with the status quo, the importance of basic human needs like affordable good and rent, and I know the fear that comes with feeling powerless, I also can’t help but grieve the endless wheel of history bringing us back to this God Damned Fucking Place again. I hope we can avoid this fate, not just for our sake but for the sake of everyone who has ever tried to make the world safer. For everyone who has ever tried to make up for human nature, for everyone who has ever placed themselves on the offering plate to protect others from the cruelty they know lies just under the surface of mankind’s tenuous grip on progress. I want SO badly for there to be a solution to this, for the people who idolize the Nazi party and the impact of fascism to see that the price of this path is paid in more than just blood but in soul. That they’re allowing themselves to be devoured too. I want for the centrists and the fence sitters and the idealists who want to “change it from the inside” to see how dangerous our politics have become. I want them to see that they’re losing the things that make them great in exchange for a security blanket that’s now become far far far too small to ever work for them again.
Safety found in the past is already gone, and safety found in the future is only as real as a daydream. That any ideology that promises that by “joining us now we’ll make things rough so we can make things safe in a decade” is a promise made by those who will not have to fight the battles they send you to.
I don’t know if America was ever really great, but as long as John was alive it felt great to me. There is no ideology that can replace a neighbor. No tax plan that can replace a friend. No grocery bill that can replace community and connection. No amount of budget cuts that can replace kindness. No amount of suffering from people I hate that will ever make more love. I don’t know how to make America great, but I know how to make my America great and it is not by selling out integrity and compassion and community and fucking humanity to make eggs and gas cheaper. It is by seeing and hearing the people around me. I’m not Mormon anymore, but I still know the value of mourning with those that mourn and comforting those that stand in need of comfort. I’m not Christian anymore but I still have Eyes That Can See and Ears That Can Hear. I want to make this all stop but I can’t stop the collective power of tens of millions of people so instead I listen to my MAGA coworker tell me about how sick her kid was last week. I make jokes with my Young Men’s leader. I hug my uncle. I let them see me fully, as a human and not an ideology. As a woman and not the concept of gender. As a whole person and not someone who can be easily summarized or boiled down into something short and quippy. And I let them know I can see them fully too, and I can see all their humanity as easily as they can see mine. I just have to hope that this works - that enough people can See and Hear the people in their lives who matter to them to bring them out of their personal world of forms and into the real world.
I am probably, honestly, just spiraling a little bit. I took my ADHD meds today and in addition to helping me focus they make me a little anxious so I doubt things are as bad right now as they seem. But just in case there’s any truth to the way things seem to be going, remember, and I mean this seriously: Be kinder to each other, be gayer, and read more Terry Pratchett.
And for the love of god day hello to your neighbor.
Something terrifying about the way censorship is just straight up happening right now and they're barely trying to pretend that isn't what it is. The UK rolling out the Online Safety Act which forces anyone accessing 'adult' content (including discord, LGBT+ forums, various resources for drug addicts etc.) to share their face and ID with American third party companies, and refusing to debate a repeal in parliament despite 300,000 signatures on their own website to do so. Something fishy going on with Google docs suddenly deleting/restricting content. Itchio and Steam suddenly deleting 18+ games including both porn games and horror games at the behest of Mastercard.
Like. Truly in the past month the censorship is hitting like a truck and we're all just supposed to be fine with it. Like. It's genuinely making me feel sick.
well this fucking sucks
imagine having to dox yourself because you made the mistake of watching a 4 hour mighty morphin power rangers retrospective and the ai decided you were 14 and not 42 like the actual demographic for those videos. sad
like this obviously sucks if you're an adult who enjoys watching animation or doll youtube videos but also i don't think youtube should be tracking 16 year olds because they're afraid of them hearing the word "fuck".
notice how all this censorship crap is happening at once? :)
ever since that right wing religious extremist organization Collective Shout targeted and manipulated payment processors (that are already run by right wing nutjobs) to go after steam and itchio, all this shit is starting to happen at the same time
it may be a tactical "overwhelm bomb" to make people feel powerless, and yeah it may not be that, but it's kinda strange that it's happening all at once
regardless, people need to start calling the shit out of mastercard and visa's phone lines even more
yall in the US need to start calling your representatives about KOSA especially
and people in the EU need to start calling whatever equivalent of a representative they have about all this bullshit as well
companies are now going to start trying to capitalize on invading privacy that has literally been protected for so goddamn long all because of these evil fuckwads that honestly need to get a nail put through their skulls
fucking make a fuss about it. complain the fuck out of shit and flood their goddamn call lines
The famine in Gaza has reached catastrophic proportions. People collapse on the street out of hunger. They resort to going to literal killing fields for maybe a bag of flour for their family.
Please donate around 10-20 Dollars this week to any campaign of your choice. I'm donating 10 GBP to the North and South Sameer Project campaigns each. Please please donate if you can, Palestinians are dying from hunger.
Sameer Project Links:
We are a donations based aid initiative for Gaza led by Palestinians,
Donation Amounts:
If you want to support Individual campaigns, check out these websites:
Find vetted fundraisers for Gaza here
Also:
@gaza-evacuation-funds and @gazavetters
Welp.
Hey, real talk though? If you're in the USA, right now you need to call your representatives. 11.8 million people could lose health insurance because of this, as well as a lot of other shit going down, so speak up.
Go to 5calls.org, put in your location, and make the calls. Do it after business hours if you're worried about actually to a person, but do it.
We're running out of chances with this, please please do this now, while it's still possible to stop this.
Due to the amendments made, this is going back to the House to be voted on again, so yes, you should still call them.
I'm not great at talking to people, and I can't express enough just how easy 5calls makes this process. The longest call I've had with them took 3 minutes. That's it.
THEY MIGHT HAVE FIGURED OUT WHATS CAUSING LONG COVID?!?!???
In this study, the critical role of the epipharynx in managing long-term coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and in particular, how residua
SUICIDE POSTPONED INDEFINITELY !!!!!
Genuinely the only good news I got in WEEKS
there was a great study a few years that went into the whole "ppl online are bigger jerks than irl cuz theres a virtual wall and no repercussions" and the researchers were expecting to see that be the case but it turns out that people who were really angry or argumentative online were also found to just be assholes in person and people who were pretty patient and nice online were found to be patient and nice in real person as well
and it just debunked that whole cynical idea that people will naturally be mean if theres no punishment for it
source another source
the researchers found that being online didnt make people more hostile, but that being online allowed already hostile people to dominate forum conversations, and the less aggressive people were much less likely to reply or engage, ending in just the aggressive people bickering at eachother
I think a lot of autistic taking-things-literally goes under the radar because what the diagnostic tests and shit ask about is not what that generally looks like in an adult and often not in kids either and much more importantly it’s not what generally actually causes problems in real life instead of being irritating for caretakers or funny to bullies or easy to diagnose
I have absolutely no issues understanding metaphors or idioms. When someone says their heart is on their sleeve they mean they’re emotionally expressive and openly display their feelings, not that they have a chunk of cardiac tissue on their shirt. I very rarely have issues with sarcasm. I sometimes have issues telling when someone who’s said something mean is about to say “just kidding”, but tbh I think that’s more on them than me.
BUT
My grandmother asked me “Do you know when the trash was taken out last?” and I said “I think Eliot took it out yesterday” and a few hours later she yelled at me for “not taking out the trash when I asked you to” and I was like???? You didn’t ask me????
I dread filling out forms and am crap at filling out diagnostic tests or personality quizzes because there are always questions I don’t know the exact answers to (how am I supposed to know what day I got dental surgery seven years ago?) or don’t understand exactly what they’re asking or the wording’s unclear and they could mean this or the wording says this but I’m pretty sure what they actually meant was this and should I answer what they said or what they meant, and how does everyone else just whip through the form when surely they can’t know all the answers either? Does everyone else remember the day they got dental surgery seven years ago?
I get tangled up by bureaucracy because the rules on the website say that for this you need that and for that you need the other and for the other you need something else for which you need the first thing, and I go in circles for hours or days or weeks or months or years because their stated rules say there is no way to get what I need, and when I talk to somebody else they’re like “just call them?” and I’m like “how could that help? the rules say that what I’m trying to do is impossible”
And all of that? That’s how “taking things literally” ACTUALLY affects your life as an adult. It’s not “haha you think ‘getting under your skin’ means parasites”. It’s “you have real difficulty functioning in the world because everyone else is conveying things through implication and assuming that you know that rules are flexible and questions are approximate and you’re supposed to lie on job applications, and you don’t”.
ur future nurse is using chapgpt to glide thru school u better take care of urself
Yep. This is terrifying. I’ve caught nursing majors, engineering majors, architecture majors relying on ChatGPT to do their homework. These are people who need to know their field well to ensure people don’t die and they’re letting a glorified algorithm cheat them through school. It’s so dangerous
hey. hi. I work in academia. and there are a lot of student-age folks on this site.
don't do this. don't use genAI. even if your professors give you permission. even if they ask for it or suggest it. if they do anything short of directly requiring it (and I weep, because I've already seen assignments that require it) don't touch that crap. if they do require it, stick it to them. be as maliciously compliant as possible. be a nightmare.
I know it might sound easier right now -- just plug in your assignment and get the answers. you don't care about this class anyway, it's not for your major, you don't see the value of the assignment.
but for your own sake, for the sake of your education and mind, and for the sake of the future world we want to have: learn the stuff. you are not as stupid as the corporate bizzaro kings who want to rule the world think you are, so don't give them reasons to believe it.
and odds are good genAI is gonna give you corrupted info anyway -- more and moreso as the machines cannibalize themselves.
just don't do it. not even "I just do it for XYZ--" no. stop. there is no valid use of generative AI, and even using it for memes or lolz feeds the system and directly feeds the pockets of the people who want to replace you anyway.
Rage reblogging this. Yesterday i got into an argument with one of my college friends who is using chatGPT to do all her work. We're psychology students. The whole group chat laughed my arguments off as if they didn't matter because "she's an artist, of course she's anti-AI" and i had to deal with it. This is a warning. If your therapist graduated in 2023/2024, ask about their opinions on chatGPT. They might lie to you if you ask "did you use it to graduate" directly, but try to make jokes about it and play it cool. If they're into it, DROP OFF. FIND A NEW ONE. Do not trust your brain to someone who didn't bother to use theirs.
You want to call your House rep now and tell them Trump needs to be impeached immediately for defying a Supreme Court order (re: Kilmar Abrego Garcia), which functionally voids our constitution and means no one in America has rights anymore.
I am not exaggerating.
As of now, anybody can be disappeared, no due process, no recourse. Trump is openly disregarding a Supreme Court order and says he’ll send US citizens to El Salvador.
This is not a drill.
Call your House rep and tell them they must impeach. Tell them if they cannot bring themselves to impeach, they must resign. A more open and shut case to impeach is not possible. Trump and his administration are saying openly, in public, that anybody can be kidnapped by ICE, even in error, and disappeared permanently.
Call your senators, too, and tell them to support impeachment (it goes to them once it passes a majority House vote).
Find your representatives. Learn how to find and connect with them. Stay informed about their bills, committees, and contributions.
"Hello, my name is _______ and I am a constituent from _______. My address is ________.
I am reaching out today to urge Representative ______ to call for the impeachment of President Trump due to his refusal to comply with the Supreme Court's April 10th decision regarding Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was unlawfully deported and has been charged with no crime. As Justice Sotomayor stated, this inaction implies the government's ability to 'deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene.' This precedent is unconstitutional, highly illegal, and grounds for impeachment. Every individual, regardless of immigration status, must be guaranteed a right to due process.
Representative _____, I urge you to stand on the right side of history today by calling for President Trump's impeachment. This administration can not be allowed to continue unilaterally defying the checks and balances that are intrinsic to our government."
You can also find your representative and senators and their phone numbers on https://5calls.org/
Please don't be afraid of calling. Your job would just be to be a data point, not to sound perfect. Here's some info on why calling is effective.
My contempt towards a brand is directly proportional to how often they interrupt my playlists.
My late father was the one who taught me to be cynical about advertising, for all that putting up ads was literally his whole job. He taught me from a very young age that advertising is expensive, and they tack that cost onto the price. That if something is heavily advertised, you can count on the fact that there's an identical product out there, usually even manufactured in the same factory, that's cheaper because they don't spend all that money on advertising.
A German friend walked me through Lidl, turning over items to show the factories where the items were manufactured and what expensive brands they correspond to, we did taste tests on some of the more pricey food things later and they were the same product. learning about food manufacturing was a hobby for her.
European glasses and sunglasses are made in the same Italian factories that make the luxury ones, they have the same quality control and warranty. You are paying €100 for a logo.
Some things cost more because they are actually made with better quality materials and where the workers are properly compensated, others are the same product as the off brand version with the brand name markup. It takes a lifetime to learn the intricacies which is why consumer advocacy associations and legal protection by (truly) independent agencies is crucial.
Why Name Brand Products Are Beneath You: The Honor and Glory of Buying Generic
Katelyn Jetelina, MPH PhD, outlined the following back in 2022. I have a printout on my wall. It remains useful and relevant.
ERASE the idea that America saved lives by dropping two atomic bombs on Japan from your minds. ERASE the idea that it was anything more than a political move to scare Russia and also to satiate US curiosity as to the true ability of nuclear weapons. Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not military bases. They were heavily populated civilian cities chosen precisely bc the U.S. wanted to see how many people an atomic bomb could kill in one go. Japan was on the verge of surrendering, the U.S. literally wanted to test out their nuclear weapons on people that they deemed disposable. That is it. If those bombs were dropped by any nation other than the US veryone involved would have been tried as war criminals.
Also erase the idea that America was the hero of WWII and got into the war because they wanted so save people. They couldn’t have cared less about the victims of the Holocaust, proven by the fact that they turned away so many shiploads of refugees that went on to die at the hands of Nazis.
“the us wanted to see how many people an atomic bomb could kill in one go” oh really? Source your bullshit, asshole
i left out sources bc i figured most tumblr users know how to use google but ok
- Report produced by the U.S Strategic Bombing Group (employed by Truman) to survey the air attacks on Japan concluded that:
“Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945 and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.” - page 52-56
- Dwight Eisenhower future president and then Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces also said:
“I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to [the then Secretary of War] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.” - page 380
- Admiral William Leahy, one of the highest ranking officials in the US army during WW2 wrote of the usage of the bombs:
“It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. […] My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.” - page 441
- General Douglas McArthur, another high ranking US official in the war:
“[When asked about his opinion on bombing Japan] He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor.” - page 70-71
- On September 9, 1945 Admiral William F. Halsey commander of the Third Fleet publicly quoted as saying:
“The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment… . It was a mistake to ever drop it… . [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it… . It killed a lot of Japs.” - online source
- The US secretary of war, Henry Stimson, speaking to President Truman:
“I was a little fearful that before we could get ready the Air Force might have Japan so thoroughly bombed out that the new weapon [the atomic bomb] would not have a fair background to show its strength.” - diary of Henry Stimson which can be found online here
- Even those deploying the bombs questioned the decision to drop them on civilian cities:
“I thought that if we were going to drop the atomic bomb, drop it on the outskirts–say in Tokyo Bay–so that the effects would not be as devastating to the city and the people. I made this suggestion over the phone between the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and I was told to go ahead with our targets.” - online source
- Lewis Strauss Assistant to the Navy Secretary James Forrestal on the locations of the bombings:
“I remember suggesting […] a large forest of cryptomeria trees not far from Tokyo. The cryptomeria tree is the Japanese version of our redwood… I anticipated that a bomb detonated at a suitable height above such a forest… would lay the trees out in windrows from the center of the explosion in all directions as though they were matchsticks, and, of course, set them afire in the center. […] Secretary Forrestal agreed wholeheartedly with the recommendation.” - page 145
So to recap:
A lot of American generals were against using the bomb as they felt it served an empty purpose.
Those who agreed with its usage completely disagreed with dropping them on cities.
Truman went ahead and had them detonated in two highly populated civilian cities anyway. Two cities that had remained mostly untouched by regular bombings throughout the war precisely bc of their lack of value to the Japanese war effort.
Draw your own conclusions.
I hope y'all know that this is common knowledge to everyone of every other country
Its nice to know that if I ever get sucked into another cult that some of y'all will react to my exit with 'lol told you so, moron.'
People seem to ignore that when escaping a cult you are losing your community - you are cutting yourself off from everyone and everything you know, and if there isn't somewhere safe for you to land with people who care, you're going to think the cult and it's members care about you more than the people not in it, and you will go back. And usually you believe everything they tell you all the more because you think you've seen the alternative, and that alternative purposefully reached out to hurt you.
I have been involved with three cults in my lifetime- my mom joined a high-control group when I was a kid, a bible study at my school turned into one, and a group that met at the pagan shop in my hometown became a cult of personality.
My mom wasn't stupid or uninformed! Her journalistic breakthrough was interviewing an escapee of the Jonestown cult. But she went to a 'retreat' for one week in the summer and came back closer to Jesus, started wrecking relationships. She was ready to divorce my dad, take me and my brother and join their permanent program. Friends and family had to intervene. An understanding therapist was able to help. There's still some shit she's unraveling.
Same thing happened to Bible study group. Our senior member went to a weekend retreat and came back with some ideas that made me uneasy and I could feel it turning into another high control situation. But I left that because I was like... hmm.. nnn... noooooo.
Long-time followers remember the pagan shop. A predatory person turned a casual discussion and sharing group into... well... I don't want to get into specifics because it grosses me out. I got out when I realized what was happening.
So I move here later in my life and I find out that there's a prominent high-control group here as well, and I talk to a lot of survivors about it because the overlap between cults and queerness is high, and it came up frequently when I was researching conversion therapy for the ban.
And every single time I think about this constant theme in my life, I think about the support networks I had in place for when I left. I think about the people who got deeper into it because they didn't have anywhere to turn. I think about the 'true friends.' I think about the websites and the testimonials explaining with clear and certain language that 'this is a cult, this is what happened to me, this is why you should stay away.'
And I think about the guy I worked with in the summer that didn't leave the cult, who railed against anyone who said it was one, who thought that anyone who spoke negatively against it was considered an enemy or a traitor or a liar. His friends were in that cult! The only people who understood him were in that cult! That cult saved him! When his church didn't have a transitional program for 18 year olds and older, that cult was there to help him learn how to be an adult. He was so lonely. He was so angry. Why didn't anyone else see the world for the way it was? If it was so bad, why were they the first people to accept him when everyone else said 'welcome to the real world, kid.'
I hope that one day he finds friends that aren't in the cult. I hope one day he doesn't feel so lonely. I hope that one day he looks back on this and shakes his head. I hope that if he sees something like this come back into his life he's able to say 'no, I don't think I'll do that again.' And maybe later he'll say 'I should probably tell other people not to join the cult.'
And sure, I could have told him about my many friends that were in that cult and how their experiences differ from his because he's a straight, white male from an affluent family. And I could have lectured him on the way they treat women and I could have explained about the conversion therapy and I could have talked for hours about the tactics that they employed and on how he was a victim that fell for a trap.
But I think in that moment it was more useful for me to listen to him talk about it because he had a lot to say, and to nod without outwards signs of judgement and to give him advice on how to meet girls outside of church.
Because he may not understand the gay thing, but by golly did he understand that I knew how to get a girlfriend. I think a handful of the people in that thread are thinking about it in an abstract sort of way. And I think they don't realize that the person who is saying 'ex-cultists deserve praise for leaving the cult' is someone with experience in the area. Or they're taking it rather extreme. I'm not saying throw them a party. Praise for someone leaving can be as simple as: "You said some hurtful things that I have to heal from, but I'm glad you're trying to do better."
Because the fear of leaving a high control group is that if you try to leave, no one will accept you knowing what you used to do. And if you respond with belittling them, that proves it.
Some are saying that if all it takes for a person to return to fascism is being made fun of then they weren't all that serious about leaving it. I think that's somewhat unknowing of how being in a cult can really screw with your psyche.
So like... it kind of makes me sad to see the thread develop this way. I wanted this to be positive news! People who once fell for MAGA rhetoric for one reason or another are saying they no longer support it. I'd like to celebrate that. I understand that it might be difficult to accept them into your circles after things they've said and agree with. Understandable. But if I fell for the rhetoric of a cult because it claimed to fill a gap in my life, it would be easier to leave the cult and reintegrate if I knew that I wouldn't be treated poorly for something I'm trying to change from.
That's it.
I want them not to be treated poorly.
Canadian COVID-19 Forecast for March 1–14, 2025:
Severe: QC
Very High: AB, North, NS, ON
High: BC, MB, NB, NL, PEI, SK
Moderate: None
About 1 of every 52 people in Canada is currently infected.
USA people! Buy NOTHING Feb 28 2025. Not anything. 24 hours. No spending. Buy the day before or after but nothing. NOTHING. February 28 2025. Not gas. Not milk. Not something on a gaming app. Not a penny spent. (Only option in a crisis is local small mom and pop. Nothing. Else.) Promise me. Commit. 1 day. 1 day to scare the shit out of them that they don't get to follow the bullshit executive orders. They don't get to be cowards. If they do, it costs. It costs.
Then, if you can join me for Phase 2. March 7 2025 thtough March 14 2025? No Amazon. None. 1 week. No orders. Not a single item. Not one ebook. Nothing. 1 week. Just 1.
If you live outside the USA boycott US products on February 28 2025 and stand in solidarity with us and also join us for the week of no Amazon.
Are you with me?
Spread the word.
Organised by People’s Union, read more here:
When Donald Trump reentered office, one of his first calls to action was to end several DEI initiatives in the federal government.
'This won't work, this isn't widespread, nobody knows, we're in a bubble, blah blah blah' my mom, a 64 year old lady with no social media whose first language is spanish, told me about this before tumblr did, and said we are going to participate.
I've seen flyers for this in real life. Do it.
