Tag: rhetoric

Weekly Meme Review 01

Congratulations to the poster of the winning meme of the first Weekly Meme Review on the Darkstream. I believe I gave it 9/10. Effective implementation of a classic meme structure, solid art, subtle but comprehensible message, relevant, points toward truth, and definitely amusing.

Don’t send me any more memes now, as we’ve got enough for the next two weeks. When I’m ready for some new submissions, I’ll let you know. Subscribe to UATV so you won’t miss the next review; we laughed, we cried, much better than CATS.

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Release the Memes

I’ll be doing the inaugural Weekly Meme Review on the Darkstream later this week. Therefore, please send me your best, or your worst, memes to be reviewed and rated for rhetorical effectiveness. Send one (1) meme only; sending more than one meme will ensure that ALL of them are ignored.

Email the meme, in JPG or PNG format, to voxday AT gmail DOT com with the subject header WEEKLY MEME REVIEW. And please email it today, I don’t want to have them coming in sporadically at any time during the week. These can be, but do not have to be, memes of your own construction. They can be old or new, relevant to the weekly news cycle or not.

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How to Trigger Trauma

It’s ever so much easier than you would tend to imagine.

High school is a difficult time for most kids. They’re becoming self aware. Exploring who they are, what their place in society is and what their interests are. If that’s not bad enough they also suddenly get raging hormones and have to learn how to deal with their sexuality.

High school is a period in which everyone feels insecure. Fitting in and being popular are very important. It is a place of navel gazing where everyone is constantly trying to see where they stand in the human hierarchy and where the opinion of others is super important.

In hindsight we know all of this is silly, but during high school we all feel the pressure. We’re placed in a lot of uncomfortable positions and we develop coping mechanisms to deal with them.

In hindsight we know all of this is silly, at least objectively we do. But humans aren’t really objective. They’re emotional. High school is a time of many emotions and most of us never process them. We never learnt healthy ways of processing things as kids so high school doesn’t get processed.

For many high school was not a good time. They weren’t a popular kid. They didn’t get the girl. Nobody looked up to them. Perhaps they even got bullied or excluded from the group (the worst thing that can happen to any 15 year old).

That’s a lot of repressed trauma/issues. So when I posted that photo of the stereotypical popular couple, it stinged for a lot of people. The couple on the photo represent the archetypical popular kids. They’re good looking, athletic, popular, probably from wealthy families, etc. They’re the kids everyone wishes they were. They seemingly had it all, and worst of all, it didn’t even seem to cost them any effort.

Which is why I tweeted that this photo invokes primal reactions in people. They are the couple everyone wishes they were in high school They represent the summun of popularity and success in high school. Those who fell short this ideal cannot help but feel the sting of envy. Even if they are way past their high school years.

Simply because they never dealt with their teenage emotions. Their self image took serious blows during their high school period and left wounds which never properly healed. My tweets resonated with their pain and it caused them to become very upset.

One of the things I’ve found fascinating about online culture is the way that damaged people not only don’t hesitate to expose their psychological scars to complete strangers, but more often than not, are completely unaware that they are doing so. As with the physical martial arts, it is very, very difficult to attempt a psychological attack on someone else without opening up and exposing your own psychology to them.

Hence my amusement when a self-appointed critic calls me “fat” or an “incel”, asserts that I’m insecure about my intelligence, or claims that Spacebunny doesn’t exist; the less an attack is focused on observable attributes or behaviors, the more likely it is that the attacker is engaging in psychological projection and revealing their own insecurities.

A psychologically healthy individual will tend to have a response to the image of a pretty cheerleader kissing her football-playing boyfriend that ranges from the positive to the indifferent. But a psychologically unhealthy individual will be readily traumatized by the mere sight of that which is good, that which is beautiful, or that which is true.

So, if you find yourself tending to react with negativity towards that which is positive, it would probably be a good idea to contemplate why that is, and what youthful trauma is troubling you.

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They Still Believe

Steve Kirsch says that according to his CDC source, the bureaucrats at the CDC still genuinely believe the vaxx is safe and effective:

He believes that everyone at the CDC is drinking the Kool-Aid. In other words, as far as he knows, they all truly believe the vaccines are safe and effective, just like my blue-pilled friends. Even the top people. If there are any dissenters, they aren’t speaking up internally. How does this happen? It’s group-think. What happens to critical thinkers? They leave. I thought for sure people like Tom Shimabukuro and John Su knew what they were doing, but they are clueless. They are just like my academic doctor friends: they truly believe that vaccines are safe and I’m nuts. Wow. Just wow. I still don’t know (yet) how they can just brush off my point that they never point out the VAERS under-reporting factor during their presentations. However, it’s true they really believe there is no corruption and no need to protect whistleblowers. Check out this comment.

My Substack is blocked at the CDC. It is considered “unsafe.”

This isn’t even remotely surprising, because MPAI. Once you are successfully programmed, whether it is in childhood or adulthood, it is very difficult to break the programming through mere exposure to the actual facts of the matter. Remember that most people speak rhetoric; Aristotle explained this more than two thousand years ago.

It’s not until the guilt and shame over inflicting massive amounts of harm and death begin to affect their emotions, and the fear of repercussions and consequences to their actions begin to sink in, that the CDC bureaucrats will be able to rationally contemplate the situation.

This also applies to your friends and family who are vaxxed, particularly parents who vaxxed their children. They will go through any amount of mental gymnastics to avoid accepting the truth about what they have done to harm those they loved most.

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Effective Rhetoric

“I hope you’re vaccinated” has been appearing in my DMs lately and I’m starting to think it’s the latest hate speech propaganda from the right. They’re essentially saying “I hope you experience severe suffering and death.” Even though the vaccines are safe, the way that they’re saying it is hateful.

Twitter, 9 September 2022

This is interesting because it demonstrates two things. First, people are gradually beginning to understand that being vaxxed is harmful and is linked in some way to a risk of dying. Second, the utilization of vaccinated status as a curse triggers an emotional reaction, thereby demonstrating the effectiveness of the rhetoric.

Most of the vaccinated are still coping more or less successfully, hence the statement about the safety of the vaccines. But the cracks in their neural programming are beginning to show. We’ll know the breakdown of that programming is complete when they start crying about how it’s not their fault that they’re vaccinated, how no one should be permitted to discriminate against the vaccinated, and complaining about the unfair advantages possessed by the unvaccinated.

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Play Stupid Energy Games

Win the prize of a cold, dark winter and an angry citizenry:

Russia is deliberately sabotaging the Nord Stream 1 natural gas pipeline to spite the EU, European officials have claimed, questioning Moscow’s explanation for an indefinite delay in restoring service.

State-owned energy giant Gazprom informed its European customers on Saturday that it could not safely resume operations until it had fixed “oil leaks” discovered in a major turbine during a maintenance operation.

Nord Stream was set to come back online just after midnight Saturday morning after three days of maintenance. The leaks, reportedly affecting “cables connected to speed meters of a rotor,” were discovered during a technical inspection with the turbine’s German manufacturer Siemens. Moscow had earlier warned that the pipeline’s operation was threatened by sanctions, which had created a shortage of spare parts.

However, Siemens argued the company had alternate turbines at the compressor station where the leak had been discovered and could use one of those in case of a real emergency. “Such leaks do not normally affect the operation of a turbine and can be sealed on site,” they claimed.

European Commission spokesman Charles Michel condemned what he called Russia’s “use of gas as a weapon,” declaring it would not “change the resolve of the EU” as the bloc works toward “energy independence.”

Commission press service chief Eric Mamer slammed the “fallacious pretenses” he claimed Gazprom had used to shut down the pipeline, holding it up as proof of both their “cynicism” and their “unreliability as a supplier” and suggesting Moscow “prefer[red] to flare gas instead of honoring contracts.”

German parliamentary foreign affairs committee chair Michael Roth denounced the shutdown as “part of Russia’s psychological war against us” and accused President Vladimir Putin of “violat[ing] contracts without scruples….even at the expense of his own economic interests.”

Let’s get this straight. Europe has a perfectly operational natural gas pipeline, Nord Stream 2, that it refuses to use. Russia has, quite reasonably, decided that it’s not interested in continuing to provide natural gas to the same countries that are a) sanctioning its people and b) arming and funding the Ukrainian war against Russia on the terms of those enemies.

Can you even imagine how many contracts have been violated by the European sanctions against Russia? This anti-Russian rhetoric is as ineffective as it is retarded. Frankly, I’m astonished that the Russians didn’t shut down the pipeline months ago.

Then again, it is rather amusing to see the Russians slowly dialing up the pain while simultaneously pretending that there is nothing they can do about it. As an award-winning cruelty artist, I have to say that I tend to approve of the sadistic diplomacy they have applied to this situation.

Germany’s initial Energy Saving Ordinance, in effect for the next six months:

  • Retail stores may no longer keep their doors open throughout the day to reduce electricity consumption for air conditioning when it is hot outside — and for heating on cold winter days.
  • Public buildings and monuments have to go dark at 10 p.m.
  • Illuminated advertising must be switched off after 10p.m., with only a few exceptions. If advertisements serve traffic safety, they remain switched on, for example, at railroad underpasses. Street lamps also remain on, and store windows may continue to be illuminated.
  • Monuments and other buildings may no longer be illuminated at night. At least not for purely aesthetic reasons. However, emergency lighting will not be switched off, and illumination is permitted for cultural events and public festivals.
  • In public buildings, halls and corridors will generally no longer be heated, and the temperature in offices will be limited to a maximum of 19 degrees. In places where heavy physical work is performed, temperatures will be even lower in the future. However, the restrictions do not apply to social facilities such as hospitals, daycare centers, and schools, where higher air temperatures are essential for the “health of the people who spend time there,” according to the Economy Ministry.
  • Cutting back on warm water. Likewise, in public buildings, instantaneous water heaters or hot water tanks should be switched off if they are mainly used for washing hands. Exceptions are made for medical facilities, schools, and daycare centers. Some cities go even further. There, the showers in swimming pools and sports halls will remain unheated.
  • Private pools may no longer be heated with gas and electricity, except for rehab centers, recreational facilities, and hotels. The new regulations will initially apply until the end of February.

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Dynamic Definitions

Wikipedia locks in the Fake Biden Administrations redefinition of “recession”:

Wikipedia changed the definition of recession on their website to fit the Biden administration’s redefined language. Wikipedia then locked the page preventing individuals from updating the website, which is a tool that Wikipedia has long provided. The White House changed the definition of “recession” last week ahead of the release of Thursday’s economic report, which showed that the US has had two consecutive quarters of declining GDP. This was the standard definition, but the White House declared that the definition should be tied more closely to unemployment numbers.

This obsession with appearances and word spells goes hand in hand with civilizational collapse, because reality doesn’t care what you call it. To concern oneself with the dynamic narrative is to fail to understand the very purpose of a label; the object exists regardless of what the label happens to be.

It’s not as if there was any there there in the first place. The 2001 recession has been redefined out of existence too, not by changing the definition, but by revising the numbers, thereby eliminating one of the previous quarters of declining GDP.

Ironically, the very term “recession” was created to replace the term “depression”, and for precisely the same reason that “recession” is now being redefined. It’s all about trying to maintain those animal spirits.

Ignore the Narrative. It can only mislead you.

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The Washington Post Defends Grooming

It’s fascinating that the media is so shook by the right’s opposition to child-molesting that they’re retreating right to the “no scientific evidence” about something to which science, even in its retarded narrative-defending form, cannot possibly apply.

Last year, when the state board of education proposed new sex-education standards for teaching about issues such as sexual orientation, gender identity and consent, a retired pediatrician in this central Nebraska town reached out to Gov. Pete Ricketts and state lawmakers.

“This is NOT Sex Ed as anyone knows it,” Sue Greenwald wrote in a July 16, 2021, email obtained by The Washington Post. Lessons that met these standards, she wrote, would be “ ‘grooming’ children to be sexual victims.”

It was a shocking claim, and it was catching on — repeated by Greenwald, by members of the Protect Nebraska Children Coalition, a group she co-founded to oppose the standards, and embraced by Ricketts (R) himself. The message also spread through screenings at libraries and churches of “The Mind Polluters,” billed as an “investigative documentary” that “shows how the vast majority of America’s public schools are prematurely sexualizing children.”

Grooming erupted as a national issue earlier this year, but this state in America’s heartland has been roiled by that attack on comprehensive sex education since last spring, providing a unique window into a newly inflamed debate. The unsubstantiated claim helped activate an army of self-described Nebraska patriots who rose up against the standards, took over the local Republican Party and propelled a wave of far-right candidates for local and statewide school boards, a Post examination found. Earlier this month, these activists were part of a broader, anti-establishment insurgency that toppled leaders of the state Republican Party.

The term “groomer” has become a catchall epithet hurled by the right wing against the left, particularly against advocates for LGBT people, who have become the target of a recent surge in violent threats and attacks. The Post’s examination focused on the specific claim that modern sex education — including lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity — makes children more vulnerable to pedophiles.

Greenwald and others who have endorsed that claim acknowledged to The Post that there is no scientific body of research that shows such lessons make children more likely to be victimized.

They’re leaving out the reason the “grooming” rhetoric was so effective – parents were appalled to find out exactly what the “sex ed” their young schoolchildren were receiving. The usual bait-and-switch was exposed, as parents discovered that what they believed was nothing but the basics of the birds and the bees was actually a pedo-tranny strip show.

Remember, there is no depth to which the wicked will not sink. Because millstones don’t float.

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China Holds the USA Accountable

For all that it makes Americans extremely uncomfortable and quick to cite a panoply of irrelevant tangential facts that don’t excuse their ancestors’ actions, the absolute historical fact is that the European colonists – English and Spanish – committed imperialist genocide against the various American Indian tribes. And China is now utilizing these historical facts to great rhetorical effect to undermine the USA’s false claim to the moral high ground; for all the horrific crimes of the Mao era, at least the Chinese only victimized their own people.

CRI: We noticed that a report from the US Department of the Interior last month said a large number of Native American children died at Indian boarding schools. After that, more and more survivors and their descendants have spoken out and accused the US government of genocide against American Indians. Do you have any comment?

Zhao Lijian: We are deeply sympathetic to the tragic experience of the Native American children. Those so-called boarding schools that carried the motto “Kill the Indian, save the man” were in essence crime scenes of the US cultural genocide against Native Americans. What happened at these schools is also important evidence of the racial genocide committed by the US against Native Americans. More and more facts have come to light and shown that the US committed systemic genocide against Native Americans in three dimensions, which has lasted hundreds of years and continues to this day. 

First, the US has committed physical genocide against the Native American population. Statistics show that since its independence in 1776, the US government has launched over 1,500 attacks on Indian tribes to slaughter the Indians. Before the arrival of white settlers in 1492, there were five million Indians, yet the number plummeted to 600,000 by 1800 and only 237,000 in 1900. Among them, more than a dozen tribes, such as the Pequot, Mohegan, and Massachusetts, were completely extinct. The US government also applied forced sterilization to Indians. Between 1930 and 1976, the US Bureau of Indian Affairs forcibly sterilized approximately 70,000 Indian women through the “Indian Health Service program”. In early 1970s, more than 42% of Indian women of childbearing age were sterilized.

Second, the US has committed spiritual and cultural genocide against Native Americans. They have long suffered hostility, discrimination and oblivion. The inter-generational inheritance of indigenous spirits and culture of Native Americans have long been hindered. In the 1870s and ’80s, the US government adopted a policy of “forced assimilation” to obliterate the social fabric and culture of Indian tribes and destroy the ethnic and tribal identity of the Indians. To attain the dual goal of cultural assimilation and taking Indian lands for itself, the US government began with forcing Native American children into the Indian boarding schools, banning them from speaking their native language, wearing their traditional clothes, or carrying out traditional activities. The children also suffered serious abuse and torment. US-based scholar Preston McBride estimates that the total number of deaths could be as high as 40,000, adding that “basically every school had a graveyard.” Even today, the US is still trying to deliberately obliterate the historical memory and information of the indigenous people in education and media reports. According to a report by National Indian Education Association, 87% of state-level US history textbooks do not mention the post-1900 history of indigenous people. 

Third, the US has committed deprivation of the rights of Native Americans. The US has systematically deprived Native Americans and other ethnic minorities of a wide range of their rights, leaving them mired in a crisis of survival and scarcity of rights. A report by the Indian Health Service shows that Native Americans born today have a life expectancy that is 5.5 years less than the national average, and they have the highest infant mortality rate. The suicide rate of Native American adolescents is 1.9 times that of the national average. By June 2022, the COVID-19 mortality rate among Native Americans is about 2.1 times that of the White population. From 1969 to 2009, the US government conducted 928 nuclear tests in the Shoshone tribal region, resulting in nuclear fallout of around 620 kilotons. Cancer incidence rate in Native Americans’ reservations is far higher than other areas. High levels of radioactive substance has been detected in the systems of about a quarter of Navajo women and infants. According to 2018 US Census Data, the poverty rate among Native Americans was 25.4%, far higher than 8.1% among the White population.

Genocide against Native Americans is an original sin of the US that can never be erased. The untold tragedies of Native Americans should never be forgotten. The US government has every reason to admit its crimes of genocide against Native Americans, and offer sincere apologies and repentance to the victims and their descendants. The US government should also credibly make up for the trauma Native Americans are suffering, and seriously face up to grave human rights issues and crimes of racism that exist within the US.

Zhao Lijian, Foreign Ministry, 29 June 2022

Before you react like a Pavlovian dog hearing a dinner bell, please remember this, White American: YOU ARE THE INDIAN NOW.

All of the lies and twisted truths you repeated in order to try to rationalize the sins of the past are now being told to justify your dispossession. The only difference is that the replacement peoples are unlikely to treat your great-great-grandchildren quite as kindly as your great-great-great-grandfather treated some of my ancestors. Imagine the lies and twisted truths that will be accepted as historical fact by the Post-Americans once Americans are a statistical minority similar to the American Indian population today.

Contemplate how many of your Asian and African great-grandchildren will be in my position, with most of their Asian and African peers refusing to believe that they have any European ancestors. After all, they won’t LOOK white…

What is happening today is directly traceable to the sins of the founding fathers and their abominable behavior toward “the merciless Indian Savages”, as the Declaration of Independence described them. Note in particular that the very concept of racism, upon which the entire American population has been condemned and crucified, was specifically coined by an American in order to destroy the American Indian. It is, therefore, both ironic and fitting that “racism” has been the primary weapon utilized in the rhetorical demolition of America.

I don’t remind you of these historical wrongs because I want revenge for my Indian ancestors or because I dream of Chung Kuo. What is done is done, and nothing is going to change that. To the contrary, I remind you of them because I do not wish for the American to go the way of the American Indian.

Perhaps, unlike the American Indian tribes, Americans can put all their ideological and individual differences aside in time to unite against the foreign peoples invading their lands and prevent their replacement. But most likely, as Sitting Bull and the Ghost Dancers learned to their dismay, it is already too late. It may be worth noting, in this regard, that while in 1890, the population of the United States, excluding the Indian and Negro minorities, was around 55 million, the post-1965 foreign population resident in the USA is presently about twice that number.

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