What's Happening? It? (TRIGGERS UPON TRIGGERS)

[Heaven Swan]

Re: Twinks for Trump, etc,
Is Podesta gay? I know the restaurant owners are. I think this was touched on earlier by Slomo, but to get at the truth, looking at gay male culture would seem important.

I'd need to know more context for those two photos above. Who is the pro-Trump guy speaking with all those teenage boy pics in the background?

I do get a bit of a gay vibe from Tony Podesta (as much as one can get from a few photos), and he is reported in at least one news article to be friends with James Alefantis. Not that having a gay friend means that you are gay, but there is quite an age difference between the two of them so one wonders what the common interest is.

But, yes, there are elements of depravity in gay male culture. There are people who wear their "transgressive" behavior as a badge of honor.

Also, there is an ephebophile streak in gay male culture, I've certainly encountered it. Although I will also say that there is more complexity to it than meets the eye. One guy I met when I was a teenager, and remained friends with for quite some time, pretty much exclusively preferred teenagers (16 to, say, 22). One could say I was one of his "victims"; however, I never felt particularly abused or victimized, as he was a bit of a mentor to me and my impression was that he tended to be generous (financially) to some of the down-and-out teenagers with whom he had sex. None of it was coercive, although certainly it could be viewed as opportunistic (and in many cases probably mutually opportunistic). I always had the impression that his biggest victim was himself, as he seemed rather lonely, being incapable of having a romantic relationship with someone his own age.

I hope it's ok that I say this and I'll delete my response if you ask but this sounds like typical pedo M.O. Have you looked into therapy or peer support for emotional healing? To heal requires getting underneath the thinking and into the feelings.

Forgive me if I've overstepped my bounds here but it's hard to hear about potential abuse and not say anything.

[Heaven Swan]

the key to rooting out this seemingly intractable problem of collusion and corruption at the top

i consider it an at war situation. cern? pedophilia? what comes next? can all be forgiven under the democrat and republican label?

A good analysis precedes effective political action.

Pizzagate is not a good analysis.

[dada]

Is a cult a product of the culture it functions within, is my question. A malevolent sub-culture. In this view, the cult is a deviation from the norm that crosses a point of no return.

While understanding the unnatural inner workings of the sickness we're dealing with is helpful, making the cult the sole focus of study becomes a morbid fascination with a malignant, unredeemable force. Answers and solutions would be found by studying the culture that creates and enables the cult.

The other view leads to the idea that culture is a product of cult. Then what do we do, the entire structure would be fucked at its core. I prefer to think it isn't all bad. There's a ray of hope that way.

[Elihu]

A good analysis precedes effective political action.

i'm going to take that as a yes.

[divideandconquer]

[the more esoteric goals of soul-control, psychic possession, energy-harvesting through violent sexual abuse and torture, and so on, may well precede those of ordinary mundane graft and greed which HeavenSwan wants to make the primary motivation for these power-abuses.

Considering some very rich people - billionaires - I've often thought that, past a certain point, business is really about soul control and energy-harvesting for them. Well into their seventies, they're still working six-day weeks, and bringing in young people and giving them insane workloads. Paying them very well, but what's it to them? Screaming down phones, firing the ones who try to maintain balance, sidelining the ones who argue, marrying their daughters to bright young men who'll do what it takes. But first you must learn how to smile as you kill, if you want to be like the folks on the hill.

The fact that they work so hard, way past the age of normal retirement, makes me believe you are right. Most people relinquish their attachment to material wealth and power as they approach the end of their lives. Yet, they've already made their fortunes and gained enough power to last hundreds of lifetimes. What could possibly motivate them once they've reached the golden years? They must believe that, in some way, they can take this power and wealth with them, so to speak. They're still crusading, like you said, recruiting as many people as they can to their...what? Who or what are they working for? It seems to me that just as, let's say, Christians work toward salvation, that they're doing the same, yet, unlike Christians, who try to separate themselves from materialistic, worldly values, the older these people get, the harder they work to "gain the world".

[Heaven Swan]

A good analysis precedes effective political action.

i'm going to take that as a yes.

Could you please make an effort to explain better?
Is this a provocation? I haven't read enough of what you've written in the past to guess at your motivations. Could you please enlighten us?

[Elihu]

A good analysis precedes effective political action.

i'm going to take that as a yes.

Could you please make an effort to explain better?
Is this a provocation? I haven't read enough of what you've written in the past to guess at your motivations. Could you please enlighten us?

not a provocation except to a different way of looking at things. the people contemplated for help are perpetrators. the social compact as i understood it is broken because this is not ameanable to political action.

[guruilla]

A good analysis precedes effective political action.

Pizzagate is not a good analysis.

How exactly is Pizzagate an analysis, at all?

There are countless analyses of "Pizzagate" so to say it is not a good one would require saying which analysis. As I just posted at another thread: Pizzagate is nowhere near as cut & dried as Watergate was; in fact I'd say Watergate is to Pizzagate what a drive-by shooting is to the JFK assassination, in terms of the complexity of angles and media and individuals involved in bringing whatever-TF-it-is to light. Watergate could be summed up in a couple of lines; the only way to sum up Pizzagate in a couple of lines, IMO, is to talk about "it" as a fake news conspiracy theory about a pedophile ring operating out of a pizza restaurant (or whatever the handy manufactured simplification-designed-to-be-dismissed is).

I am not sure when the term Watergate started being used, but it certainly wouldn't have assumed the meaning it now has until all the facts were in and the case was more or less solved, i.e., once it was confirmed that a conspiracy was involved from the highest level on down. To stick the name "Pizzagate" onto an amorphous and constantly changing body of evidence (including pseudo-evidence, theories, etc) right at the start of the "investigation" (which is occurring via a million computer screens, not just two guys doing the press beat ~ I'm sticking to the official version of WG now, tho I realize it's probably full of BS too), it's more than just premature, seems like a kind of process-hijacking to me, one that we are all complicit with (shit I use the tag myself).

I think "Pizzagate" needs to be separated from the many different strands of evidence, otherwise how do we even know when we are talking about the same thing? What is clear (to me) is that some of the evidence that's included in the catch-all term Pizzagate at this point is solid. Some of it is circumstantial. Some of it doesn't even deserve the term evidence at all.

This occult element is capable of giving a group of people a feeling of tight brotherhood and superiority through possession of "secret knowledge", and this sense of superiority above the masses can serve to kill their humanity and sense of empathy. I say this based upon personal experience in several groups/cults in the past, including a cult that I discovered was sexually deviant at its center.

There is a quote out there which says something like "Good people will do good things and evil people will do evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

This phrase brought the term "archetypal possession" to mind, which I guess was Jung's version of Freud's superego (or at least has many similarities in its behaviors & effects). To be possessed by an archetype, like Crowley say, requires "killing one's humanity"?

Glad to see you posting here, BTW. I was just saying to someone that we needed some more intuitive voices here to balance out the rigor and rescue the site from mortis.

[Cordelia]

A reasonable question:

Was race a factor in the calm arrest at Comet Ping Pong?



"Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, is alleged to have entered the Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C., and terrorized the place with a semiautomatic rifle. He was reportedly on a mission to break up a juvenile-sex-trade operation that he'd read about on the Internet.

Instead of becoming a hero, however, Welch was arrested and charged with committing assault with a dangerous weapon. He may have been duped by a "fake news" website, police say. Nevertheless, when it comes to the criminal justice system, he can still expect to get a certain amount of preferential treatment.

Just being a white man pretty much guarantees it.

In surrendering to police Sunday afternoon, Welch walked backward out of the pizzeria unarmed and with his hands up. Hands up, unarmed, standing with your back to police - that's generally recognized as a nonthreatening stance. Police did not shoot him.

But that didn't work for Terence Crutcher, 40, who was shot and killed by Tulsa police in September. Crutcher had his hands up and back turned, and he was unarmed, according to police. But Crutcher was also black - a fact that studies have shown can affect a cop's reflex, cause an already itchy trigger finger to twitch just a bit quicker.

"Research shows that people associate 'blackness' with 'threat' in study after study," says Stanford professor Jennifer Eberhardt. "It's not something that is just about the police. It's not something that is just about white people. It's a function of how we're socialized."

A Washington Post report on police shootings last year found that black Americans were 2.5 times as likely to be shot and killed by police as white Americans. Unarmed black men, such as Crutcher, were five times as likely to be shot and killed by police as unarmed white men."

Continued...

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/poli ... black.html


From "Neighbors Organizing for Power and Equality " (NOPE)

An Invitation to Vice-President Elect Pence



"Dear Governor Pence,

On behalf of your new neighbors in Chevy Chase, Washington, D.C., we invite you to join us for pizza at Comet Ping Pong. In doing so, we hope that you will help us quell the damaging impact of a bizarre “fake news” story that has put us all in harm’s way.

As we are sure you are aware, Comet Ping Pong, a beloved neighborhood restaurant, has been under a savage attack as the result of a detestable “fake news” story, claiming that the restaurant and its owner are involved in a child exploitation ring tied to Hillary Clinton. This falsehood first appeared on so-called “alt-right” news sites and then quickly spread across the Internet. Although it is preposterous on its face and has been repeatedly debunked by law enforcement, the story has provoked a deluge of death threats, menacing visits, and other threatening conduct aimed at the restaurant and its employees. It appears that the threats have now spread to other small businesses on the block.

Governor, you have chosen our neighborhood as your own. You have chosen wisely. We are a terrific close-knit community that represents the best of America. You have campaigned during much of your career as a “small town boy” who believes in the virtues of family, faith, and freedom. Our families, faiths and political beliefs may differ, but we are a family neighborhood with the same hopes for our children and love of our country as those in your home state of Indiana.

We are a small town in the city, rich with small neighborhood businesses like the Politics and Prose bookstore where children and seniors gather for readings, and Comet Ping Pong which just celebrated its 10th anniversary. Along with Politics and Prose, Comet anchors the business district on our Main Street, Connecticut Avenue. Families come together along the Avenue to buy books, ride scooters, walk dogs, and enjoy meals beside their neighbors."

Continued........
https://medium.com/@NopeNeighborsDC/an- ... .uh4wn2958

(A 'small town America neighborhood' ambience--with the major thoroughfare Connecticut Ave. as 'Main Street'-- applied to any district in Upper N.W. /Chevy Chase/Bethesda/Friendship Heights is a depiction I find very difficult to imagine....)

[guruilla]

We are a terrific close-knit community that represents the best of America.

That clinches it then.

Odd that CPP is denying the allegations while repeating them:

As we are sure you are aware, Comet Ping Pong, a beloved neighborhood restaurant, has been under a savage attack as the result of a detestable “fake news” story, claiming that the restaurant and its owner are involved in a child exploitation ring tied to Hillary Clinton.

[In Lying, Sam Harris writes how] Most of us tend to remember the statements we first hear on any given topic, even if those statements are subsequently shown to be untrue. A really astonishing aspect of this predisposition is that a majority of people will remember “facts” as true, even when they first hear about them in the context of their debunking.
http://smallbutkindamighty.com/2012/08/ ... he-latter/

Surely good a PR agent knows never to repeat the story you are denying is true?

[Wombaticus Rex]

Surely good a PR agent knows never to repeat the story you are denying is true?

Surely - when the charge is embezzling or adultery or hacked emails. But in this case, the content of charge is the best inoculation against it.

I reckon we've all seen how normal English speaking folks react to the whole "organized pedophile groups in positions of power" concept.

If that were my client, I'd be advising them to repeat the charges every single time they answered a question about it. "Hillary Clinton is running a pedophile sex ring out of a Washington, DC Pizza parlor." Keep saying it. Get that in print. Win the war.

[Cordelia]

We are a terrific close-knit community that represents the best of America.

That clinches it then.

At first I thought the letter/invitation must be a satirical piece; I mean, a community' coalition called 'Neighbors Organizing for Power and Equality' with the acronym 'NOPE'? (These days it's getting harder to separate reality from fantasy. But, whatever.)

[guruilla]

Surely - when the charge is embezzling or adultery or hacked emails. But in this case, the content of charge is the best inoculation against it.

I reckon we've all seen how normal English speaking folks react to the whole "organized pedophile groups in positions of power" concept.

Yeah; and no; and I dunno. How much are people just signalling back what's being signaled to them to signal? The signal is here "high-level child trafficking ring uses Pizza restaurant as front=laughably ridiculous," so the content of the charge is second to the, ahem, charge of the content, i.e., that it IS laughably ridiculous, and if you don't agree, and signal that you do by laughing along (if you take it seriously), then it's YOU who are laughably ridiculous.

Not to sound like a broken whiny record, but the same thing happens here a lot, to me and others who take, you know, CERN rituals or After School Satanism or "Pizzagate" seriously. It's damn hard to resist that pressure and refuse to agree to be "in" on the "joke" or to imitate the laughing ridicule when the alternative is being ridiculed.

So how many normal English speaking folks are genuinely reacting with disbelief, as opposed to a pretense of disbelief? There must be at least a few pretenders, right?

It reminds me of the well-known perceptual experiment with the two lines (can't find link, most folk here will know the one): people go along with the dominant voices, or tones of voice, in a room, especially if it's a superior, scathing one that thinly hides the threat of violence.

This is a long way of saying that I've actually heard the opposite recently, that most normal English speaking people know all about high level pedophilia by now; they just don't know what to do about it.

So maybe the answer to that last is ~ agree to pretend it's all a joke?

[BrandonD]

Is a cult a product of the culture it functions within, is my question. A malevolent sub-culture. In this view, the cult is a deviation from the norm that crosses a point of no return.

While understanding the unnatural inner workings of the sickness we're dealing with is helpful, making the cult the sole focus of study becomes a morbid fascination with a malignant, unredeemable force. Answers and solutions would be found by studying the culture that creates and enables the cult.

The other view leads to the idea that culture is a product of cult. Then what do we do, the entire structure would be fucked at its core. I prefer to think it isn't all bad. There's a ray of hope that way.

The definition of a cult as a malevolent sub-culture holds a hidden premise that "normal" culture is benevolent, which is an opinion that I definitely do not hold.

From my perspective, a cult originates when a group of people share beliefs that deviate significantly from social norms. Since social norms are not necessarily benevolent, the deviation is not necessarily malevolent, it could be better or worse with respect to ordinary society.

The problem is that, because of our primitive herd mentality and hostility towards any deviance from the norm, these groups are always compelled to remove themselves from ordinary society into isolation and secrecy. It is this secrecy and isolation that is the fertile soil where the malevolent qualities grow.

So in my opinion it is not the beliefs of a cult itself that are malevolent, because the beliefs underlying ordinary culture are themselves just as warped and malevolent. The main reason it doesn't appear this way to most people is because of our familiarity to our own cultural norms, and we always feel more comfortable and safe with what is familiar.

What fosters such depravity as we have seen in religious cults is the secrecy and removal from the eyes of the public.

This point of view is based upon an overarching belief of mine that people are ultimately all the same, there are no inherent bad guys and good guys. Certain circumstances make it much easier for people to descend into their darker sides, and other circumstances help a person to live upright and morally. Secrecy and power over other people is a very dangerous combo, and only a morally unshakeable person is able to wield these two things in any benevolent way.

[BrandonD]

Glad to see you posting here, BTW. I was just saying to someone that we needed some more intuitive voices here to balance out the rigor and rescue the site from mortis.

Thanks! That means a lot coming from you - author of one of the VERY few blogs that I actually follow.