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panglossesanddiadorims · 3 months

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The final solution for aircraft design

Having worked for over 20 yrs designing, testing, and supporting the certification of more than a dozen aircraft programs, as a system engineer and authority delegated representative, I have often felt like Private Witt, the character in The Thin Red Line, when he says he had seen another world, one he sometimes thought as just part of his imagination.

Before being forcibly dragged into the horrors of war, he was stationed in a village by the Pacific, where he swam in the ocean, played with the children, dated, laughed, danced and celebrated and embraced life as people should. I can relate.

Working in the aerospace industry has been a pleasant experience, one whose work encompassed designing and re-designing systems like crew and passenger oxygen, ECS, CPCS, Avionics Cooling, Fire Suppression and Detection, participating in equipment qualification and aircraft ground and flight testing, developing safety assessment for SFHAs, FTAs, ZSA, and PRAs, providing responses to IPs, Special Conditions and CRIs, and system design calculations and simulations. And the best of all is that it all was achieved with people who became close colleagues and friends. As in Henry the 5th's speech, a band of brothers.

Then it all has changed, making it seem like part of my imagination.

Little by little a technocrat mentality slowly seeped in by spreading its corporate language like a tumor, marring critical thinking as negative, subversive and counter-productive, hampering technical discussions, implementing schedule-driven mindsets, toxic optimism and good for nothing approaches like Lean, 5S and Scrum, and replacing experienced and knowledgeable professionals with technocrats, sycophants and enablers. Transforming a respected and admired industry that was built with decades of research, learning from errors, and compliance with requirements with a money-oriented one, managed by individuals with no moral compass or remorse who do not know to fly a kite, or even how it flies.

It is like sperm count exam substituting for masturbation. One is done by oneself - naturally and pleasantly ; the other an obligation, with action items and milestones (fill the cup), schedules (when and how fast can you deliver it?), tracking and meetings (knocks asking if you are finished) and performance evaluations.

In addition, no doubt these people would applaud the approach used, how it was conducted and especially the and results it achieved during a certain meeting that took place in a room in the house in the picture above, when 15 individuals gathered to discuss and approve a new plan.

In sum, it met with flying colors the corporate mindset criteria of how a meeting should occur:

It started on time.

The meeting objectives and milestones were clearly established.

Each person's role was identified.

Digressions, criticisms or doubts were dismissed.

Focus on the main goals was enforced.

Milestones and schedules were established.

Action items were properly assigned.

It lasted the time for which it had been set.

It all paid off, for the milestones and results were not only achieved but largely surpassed.

At the end of the day, the meeting attended by 15 sociopaths and sycophants in that house on January 1942 addressed the Final Solution for the Jewish Question (die Endlosung der Judenfrage), which set in motion a state-of-the-art mass genocide machine.

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panglossesanddiadorims · 3 months

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panglossesanddiadorims · 3 months

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Memorable movie quotes- Part 5

"I remember"

" That is why it is so empty out there.

We cannot have it both ways."

"Is it safe?"

"What did it feel like?

It was something that had to be done. A door had been opened and could not be shut down."

" Now, if that is a fact, tell me, am I lying?"

" But who's gonna plan the robbery?

I will.

You?

Yes, me! Did you forget my nickname in jail? BRAIN!

It was sarcasm!"

" That's about him. That's all about him. That's got nothing to do with you."

" I am a good friend of number 3"

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panglossesanddiadorims · 3 months

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https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other/a-neuroscientist-explains-why-stupidity-is-an-existential-threat-to-america-opinion/ar-AA1gOee1?rc=1&ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=2b3aace9fca2441298306a7a51b98733&ei=13

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panglossesanddiadorims · 3 months

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The Apt Pupils

In one story in the comic strip Hagar the Horrible, by Chris Brownie, Hagar's son, Hamlet, asks his mother why the sun always rises in the east and sets in the west. Helga, overwhelmed with house chores, tells him to stop bothering and go ask his father. When posed the question, Hagar does not falter and explains a long time ago only the gods were entitled to have light in the form a bright shining star while the mortals were compelled- even destined - to live in darkness.

One day a village man decides to steal the star from the gods, but is caught during the attempt. After deliberating, the gods decide to grant him the star but not without inflicting a harsh punishment. From that day on and for all eternity, he was sentenced to carry the star on his shoulder while running from east to west around the globe. Then, said Hagar, that is the reason the sun, the robbed star, always appears first in the east and sets in the west.

When Helga asks Hamlet if his father answered his question, he simply says, " No, he doesn't know either."

If only we could behave more like Hamlet, who craves knowledge and new discoveries but never relinquishes his ability to question an information and confirm its verisimilitude. See the brave new world through the lenses of the glasses given to Miguilim, rather than through a myopic blurred one provided by an ignoramus captain.

No doubt it is easier to be in a reality that fits one's ambitions, expectations, fears, mindsets, dogmas and idiosyncrasies; to anathemize the messenger than debate his ideas; to assassinate characters by spreading fallacies, and as fanatical simpletons to wave banners with messages (photos taken in 1959, but it could be today) conceived by sectarian catatonic minds, than flying over the cuckoo's nest and away from the grip of Nurse Ratchet.

But, for a moment, let's allow her – in fact all she symbolizes - to be our tutor and we, her apt pupils. It will be an opportunity for me to, as Hamlet, learn something…or not.

#1:” Paulo Freire, an educator and philosopher, fought to eradicate illiteracy among adults and formulated the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, based on people’s social conditions and history to contextualize the language to teach them to read and write while developing critical thinking, something good in real democracies. Since his methodology used people’s lifetime experiences, it could not teach - or as some patriots claim, indoctrinate - children.

Indoctrination should be associated with far-right and far-left dictatorships, influencers, French movie lovers, football fan’s organized groups, religious leaders, and social media. A child’s life experience is still little, even if many have worked as adults, sought food in landfills and migrated in huddled boats and deadly caravans.

Answer: You are wrong. He was a Communist, period. Every student in every school should, after prayers, videotape teachers to inform on them and prevent the spread of subversive, atheist ideas.

#2: But isn’t informing on teachers a tactic used by the Gestapo, Stasi, NKDV, Securitate, KGB, Hitler’s Youth and Mao’s Red Guards? Besides, why is it ok to videotape teachers in classrooms but not ok to install cameras on police uniforms? What about filming priests when left alone with children, for evidences have shown they can harm kids in far worse ways than a school syllabus.

Answer: Next Communist question, please.

#3: The 1964 Coup d’état succeeded because of several factors. First, the Cold War atmosphere prevailed; second, president Joao Goulart (the 1946 Constitution set voting for both president and vice-president separately; Milton Campos, the contender, was Janio Quadro's’ official running mate. Had he won, hardly ever would Janio tried a coup by resigning in 1961) was never a Communist, but a left-wing populist, a " getulista", whose erratic behavior, sectarian attitudes and irresponsible actions convinced even legalists, both military and civilians, to adhere to the coup to curb the political upheaval, never to implement a fascist regime; third, the conservative (nowadays reactionary) middle class, the Church and industrialists opposed Jango’s social reforms and really believed the country was heading towards communism (radical left-wing groups, people like Brizola and infiltrated right-wing agitators, trained by CIA, helped to contribute to this mindset). Finally, the military, who instituted the Republic through a coup, had tried to seize power in 1922, 1945, 1954, 1955, 1958 and 1961; 1964 was just the perfect storm.

After the coup, the military promised constitutional disrupt was temporary and kept the 1965 presidential elections. Then, it all went wrong. But not to the far-right wing branch of the military and their civilian lackeys. They overpowered Castello Branco, abolished popular elections for president, governors and mayors of capitals, exiled critics and opposers and first-time coup defenders like JK and Lacerda. When in 1968 even the Church, middle class and industrialists joined intellectuals, students and unions in huge demonstrations against the regime, they used the lame excuse of Congress not allowing the prosecution of a House representative to enact AI-5 that legitimized a Police State, one that also exists in Communist countries. Later they disregarded their own 1967 Constitution when the three military commanders, nicknamed the Three Stooges, arrested vice-president Pedro Aleixo, preventing him from being sworn in as president after Costa e Silva suffered a stroke, making him more mentally incapacitated than he already was. Then, the three gathered in an apartment in Copacabana and decided to use their intellectual abilities, despite military intelligence being an oxymoron, to write another Constitution, for, after all, they knew better how to keep power privileges.

Eventually, the FEBEAPA ( Stanislaw Ponte Preta) disrupt spawned for another 17 years, during which radical left-wing guerrillas fought not to reinstate democracy and Jango, but to implement a Communist dictatorship (read Combate nas Trevas, by Jacob Gorender), and also military and right-wing paramilitary groups fought to maintain the status-quo by acting as terrorists by plotting to explode the Gasometro and the Rio Centro Convention center, estimated to have resulted in tens of thousands of victims.

Is there a contradiction in defending the 1964 coup, the AI-5, and the military dictatorship and all the damage it entailed, socially, economically and politically, and at the same time preaching for freedom and democracy?

Answer: I don’t know what the word contradiction means.

#4: Why didn't the same indignant and revolted people in the demonstrations in the past gather again to protest and make choreographies and shout around a duck like mobs during public executions when the government was accused of COVID vaccine overprice, rachadinhas, the rigging of public offices and agencies, the use of Federal agencies for family and personal interests, fake news spread and attack on opponents, State property smuggling, collusion with militias, State ministers' association with Pentecostal pastors, illegal miners and timber loggers, money laundering, the Secret Budget, the purchase of properties (but not the Triplex) by the family in cash?

If Haddad had been elected and accused of not only of all of that, but a video showed his governments intents to disrupt the election and foster a revolution if he lost the election, how would the 'patriots" behave?

Had the other candidate been re-elected, would he, his military henchmen and supporters still doubt the electoral process even after its inner circle itself admitted to spreading fake news and not finding a single evidence the system was rigged?

If after the election results, instead of truck drivers blocking highways and bridges, terrorists planting bombs near airports, mobs making riots by burning vehicles and confronting police officers, people camping for weeks (don't they work, that used to be the motto) while blocking streets, marching like idiots and begging the military to intervene (its like fetish for people in uniforms), instead of pathetic infantile sectarian imbeciles wearing yellow shirts wrapped around flags, if, instead, there had been pathetic infantile sectarian people wearing red shirts and caps wreaking havoc and mayhem, what would their opinion be?

After storming into to official buildings, vandalizing the properties, including destruction of objects and defecation on furniture, participating in an attempt to overthrow a constitutionally elected government and mocking the institutions like criminal delinquents, they were appalled for being arrested for breaking the law (do you who you are talking to or why aren't you arresting street criminals?), horrified at the precarious sub-human conditions of our jails (seriously?), vehement to associate their arrest with draconian dictatorial measures (I thought they liked it) and not feeling any remorse or guilt, would they also condone the attitudes as legitimate if the other side had acted the same way?

No need to answer. It was never about ending corruption or fighting for democracy.

Just like Hamlet, one must learn to reason and not open the door to evil and expect to not to end up devoured by the ogres as happened with the American psychiatrist Douglas M. Kelley and Hermann Goring and the character in the movie The Apt Pupil and a former SS officer; both obsessed to understand how and why the most educated, law-abiding, and civilized people in Europe could have worshipped a deranged sociopath and enabled him and his inner circle of criminal delinquents, homicidal thugs and sycophants to transform them in a nation of murderers.

It is simple. All it takes is to start thinking collectively and accepting any explanation, even if it means believing in Hagar’s story.

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panglossesanddiadorims · 3 months

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youtube

#Youtube

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panglossesanddiadorims · 3 months

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Say anything, regardless of how baseless it is. At the end something will stick.

Tirinhas de Os Malvados, de Andre Dahmer e Niquel Nausea, de Fernando Gonsales

Fake news, false accusations, baseless claims and fabricated evidence have always been part of mankind. Social media has just propagated exponentially and cemented in people's mind more efficiently and made it more difficult to be rebutted.

In 1144 the English monk Thomas de Monmouth used his divine abilities (and likely delusional voices) to solve the case of a dead child by accusing the local Jews of sacrificing the kid in a ritual to mock Jesus’ crucifixion. The monk’s false accusation had a devastating rippling effect throughout the centuries, generating the Blood Libel, blaming Jews of murdering children to use their blood in religious rituals. It enticed anti-Semitic ideas and fueled persecution and execution of millions throughout centuries.

In the 14th century, King Philip IV of France's reign was undergoing dire economical troubles, so the wealth of the Knights Templar's assets were a fast-track means to balance the budget deficit. For years his echelon gathered false testimonies and fabricated materials accusing the Templars of lewd behavior, heretic and pagan activities, and the desecration of the image of Christ while spreading the rumors to the public in a relentless campaign of falsehood and defamation, not through telegram or twitter, no doubt, but with equal destructive results. Most knights were arrested, tortured, and eventually burned at the stake and their assets confiscated. Regardless of the infamous and false claims, the Order was dissolved when the Church realized how tarnished their image was.

During the Czarist rule in Russia, the fabricated hoax The Protocols of the Elders of Zion described a plan of Jewish global domination. The apocryphal publication was also used by the Nazis in their rabid antisemitic propaganda, adding it as another "evidence" of a Jewry plot to loot the world riches and dominate the world (maybe competing with the Nazis, who really tried world domination) in cohorts with the Bolsheviks, though most Jews were bankers, business owners and liberal workers.

Julius Streicher, one of the most fanatical Nazis, managed to spread these lies and falsehoods through his magazine Der Strummer, which depicted Jews as evil, insidious, conniving and treacherous creatures lurking in the dark and awaiting to destroy the German values - not those of Goethe, Beethoven, Kant or Kepler, of course- but those based on his beloved Fuehrer's ideals.

During the Weimar Republic, he took advantage of a democratic State to claim his accusations and rumors were protected by the constitutional freedom of speech. Does it sound familiar? He never cared of being fined or arrested for his fabricated information and character assassination, for his goal was to make it public regardless it was true. Does it also sound familiar?

He even found time when he was not lying, raping children or burning synagogues to write the child's book Der Giftpilz (The Poisonous Mushroom), distributed to every German elementary school to indoctrinate the infants and cement the idea the Jews were a pest to be eliminated. During a speech he said, " Teach the children to have a healthy (??) hatred and anger. Provoke that hatred."

Imagine a Reich where the two best-sellers were a child's one written by a maniac pedophile and the other Mein Kampf, written by a deranged sociopath; and when they burned books, they chose the likes of Thomas Mann, Goethe, Jack London and Hemingway.

Streicher accomplished the goal by dehumanizing a people and contributing for the German people and soldiers, if not directly involved, to turn a blind eye to the murder of millions. Before being hanged for war crimes in Nuremberg, he kept spewing his delusional and paranoid lies by accusing the Nuremberg tribunal judges and prosecutors, and prison warden and its guards to be working for the Jews. Yes, perhaps those very few who managed not to die from slave labor or in the gas chambers.

If there is a case when greed, covet, resentment and jealousy were so deeply intertwined with religious fundamentalism , it was during the witch hunting in Salem. It began with a bunch of girls enjoying life and the discovery of love and pleasure while dancing around a bonfire in the forest. I will not say it was a pagan ritual, because the right of many who believe in a single God cannot define the belief of others. History in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and East Prussia are examples of how this mindset meant no harm but brought intolerance and destruction.

But many did not think like that in Salem and accused the girls of conjuring the devil. After all, it was the 17th century in a theocratic society, not our modern, enlightened , tolerant and scientific one where political leaders never use religion and faith to get in power...

In order to not be tried - and hanged- as witches, they first accused of witchcraft and worshipping the devil one person, then another two, then ten people, then a whole part of the community. Many, using the banner of self-righteousness and Christian values, but less interested in the evil entity than acquiring farmland, ending law suits, getting rid of a troublesome neighbor, and curtailing influence of opposing leading families took advantage of the girls' power to destroy those they held resentment or rivalry.

It escalated to total mass hysteria. Even those who tried to bring some sense were arrested and tried for witchcraft. A simple false remark sufficed to send someone to prison. In order to not be accused of witchcraft, many condoned the paranoia by spreading rumors, silencing during false testimonies, and cheering in public hangings.

When the hysteria and hatred waned and finally subsided, hundreds had been unjustly executed, their names smeared and their families destroyed. Arthur Miller wrote the play The Crucible using the Salem Witch hunting as a metaphor to McCarthyism, another period when mass hysteria, greed and falsehood prevailed. The play was brilliantly adapted to a 1996 movie - whose screenplay was done by Miller himself- and featured majestic performances and direction.

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panglossesanddiadorims · 3 months

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Memorable movie quotes- Part 4

" You make me want to be a better man"

"I would say, for God's sake, let me be a prisoner again."

" I have forgiven him; No one who could compose such beauty could ever mean any harm."

"Because justice comes for all."

" Miss Claythorne, what a beguiling woman you are"

" You can't handle the truth."

"I'm not alone. I'm with Muriel."

" Do you think we can still control them?"

" I wish I knew how to quit you."

"Go ahead. Make my day."

" Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another one in my life! I have given you my soul, leave me my name!"

" It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logical reason can be found."

" I never thought there could be such beauty inside these walls."

" Do you know Jamal Wallace?"

" Somebody called Ab...Ab Normal."

" Well, nobody's perfect."

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panglossesanddiadorims · 3 months

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Cicero's book "Murder Trials" describes a case during which he defended a Roman citizen named Sextus Roscius who had been framed for a murder. By reading it one can see how an inquisitive, bright, critical, argumentative and open mind, driven by validated evidence, and not manipulated - or contaminated - by risible fake news is capable of not only reaching a fair verdict but also enlightening the audience with the truth. A truth we all often choose to ignore because we either fall victims to the the simpler explanation or are lured by our own desperate need of social acceptance or biased mindsets.

Had mankind behaved differently, women would not have been burned as witches; societies' cultures, history and identities would not have been decimated by conquest, slavery, colonization and faith conversion; intellectuals, dissidents or anyone posing as a threat to autocratic, sectarian and despotic agendas (disguised as revolutionary causes) would not have been persecuted, tortured, executed, and their lives and careers marred during Stalin's Purges and Collectivism, Mao's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, Hitler's Nuremberg Laws, Kristallnacht, Final Solution and Holocaust, McCarthyism's HUAC, black lists, unfair and fabricated allegations and investigations. The Latin American dictators' political and economical agendas (yes, both far right and left wing dictatorships, before the dichotomic myopic mind flares up) would not have prospered, and corporations would not be managed sycophants, passivists, technocrats, and motivated idiots.

In sum, it would not be mankind, but a Von Trap family with singing, mountain climbing, strawberry picking and growing Edelweiss, a community with only Elois, never Morlocks, who do exist, and they are humans. Rudolph Hoess and Reinhard Hendrich and all his fellow criminal SS comrades were exemplary family men and Stalin and Mussolini loving fathers.

To be a monster, one needs to belong to the human species. To be a Mr. Hyde, one just needs to be a Dr. Jekyll.

Well, despite all mayhem and bedlam, it would be insufferably boring, like a Woodstock without Jimi Hendrix, The Who, and Santana, only with Joan Baez performing and unwashed naked hippies.

Going back to real mankind, all those historical facts were made possible by two factors: someone to embody the idea and spirit of the cause and those who embraced it for belief, complacency, oblivion or personal ambition.

The former opened the gates for the agenda and the latter were instrumental to keep it open even when its closure seemed the reasonable action.

I will outline some people - and facts - in history wrongly assigned feats and achievements, seen as champions of uncorrupted moral values, and whose conniving attitudes were ignored or even condoned to conveniently fit our dogmas and ideologies. Or perhaps we see the world as a TRUE or FALSE Quiz, a Manichaean one whose answers we select not because they are correct, but because we will be liked and accepted by others, even if when we know our choices are incorrect.

Because we prefer to believe Sextus is guilty instead of questioning the validity of the evidence or those who created them.

Today my pick is Ronald Reagan, seen as a president whose legacy encompassed the defeat of Communism, a sustained economical growth and the vehement fight for justice, democracy and moral values.

Well, indeed his anti-Communist rabid hatred contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union, but also helped him, despite his horrendous acting, to get roles in Hollywood movies by eliminating the competition when he endorsed the fabricated accusations against other actors and directors during McCarthyism.

Second, his financial support, often withheld from Congress and the general public, of paramilitary guerillas and corrupt dictatorships in Grenada, Angola, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Cambodia resulted in rape, kidnapping, torture and murder of tens of thousands of civilians in these countries and entailed eventually endless economic ruin. Not that the other side was not as murderous, but at least they never pretended to be the good guys.

The Contras, who cared far more of profiting from their connections with the Colombian Drug Cartels than overthrowing the Sandinistas, allowed cocaine to flood the US market, making it accessible to millions of other Americans – poor and middle class- other than the usual economical elite consumers, with devasting effects on poor and low-middle class families and communities, with a rapid surge in violence and and deaths . However, only the poor were likely to face harsh sentences, even from selling one gram, increasing the incarcerated population from 500,000 thousand in 1980 to over two million, while the drug consumption and market has hardly suffered a dent.

And the Reagan administration lent a huge hand to the Contras when secretly financing the Iran-Contras plan, which made the drug smuggle soar, while Reagan’s wife and former actress Nancy played her worst and most pathetic role out of a movie by fostering a “Just Say No” campaign, whose results speak for themselves.

His policy against communism basically consisted of calling the USSR the Evil Empire and raising exponentially the budget on the military and weapon industry and even on unattainable projects like the Star Wars Programs. In fact, only after the movie “The Day After” was watched by tens of millions did the American public demand the US to negotiate with the USSR an end to nuclear weapons.

At the end of the day, the factor that made it possible for the Cold War to end is the election by the Soviet Politburo of Mikhail Gorbachev as the General Secretary of the Communist Party in lieu of the usual technocratic and homicidal mummies. He improved Soviet-US relations, implemented reforms such as the Perestroika and Glasnost, allowed the countries of the Communist regime to decide their own fate by not intervening (different from 1956 in Hungary, 1968 in Czechoslovakia and in 1979 in Afghanistan) when countries of the Soviet Block like Hungary and Eastern Germany opened their borders to Western countries.

Communism would have collapsed eventually because it is an economic theory written in the 19th century when urban and rural workers, including infants, suffered inhumane and exploitative labor and social conditions and death rates. It is a flawed design and unless imposed under a dictatorial regime, it cannot prosper.

However, after the Bolshevik revolution, many European capitalist countries adopted liberal and effective social and work regulations, some derived from Marxist ideas, to refrain drastic political and social ruptures and upheavals.

The truth is that if a hardline bureaucrat had been elected by the Soviet Politburo instead of Gorbachev, a hundred Reagans and Thatchers would not have thrived and perhaps the Cold War would have been replaced by a real nuclear one.

The Reagan administration was also responsible for the vast deregulation of the financial sector, claiming the State was an obstacle for economic growth and a source of corruption. This is true if one believes the business mindset is based on fairness and integrity and corporations are run by the Smurfs and the Partridge Family, not the Ewing, Madoffs, Trumps and Musks.

The government can be a major source of personal interference, political intervention, bureaucracy and corruption, but so are corporations, whose ultimate goal is profit. In addition, the free market ends once the big corporations break the law, withhold illegal activities, ruin small businesses, merge into huge conglomerates and standardize salaries and prices, a contradiction of free market. A competitive market should be pursued, but believing that the common citizens and tax payers will have their interests and rights protected by corporations is trespassing the borderline between naivety and stupidity.

That is done by democratically elected individuals who propose and discuss bills openly, pass laws and enforce regulations. One thing is to surmount obstacles that refrain economic growth and free competition, the other is to do away with laws and regulatory agencies that exist to protect society’s interests. For example, when sectors like transportation and energy are privatized, that does not mean the private sector’s services will improve continuously. It may occur in the beginning, especially if companies’ assets were dilapidated to allow its sale at low prices and high profits. The quality of services will eventually drop and Government Agencies have to investigate, enforce and even sue the private companies and the financial market to assure services are satisfactory and legal.

Remove the police’s and judicial system’s from enforcing the law and prosecuting offenders and witness society plunge in a Lord of Flies chaos. Deregulate the financial market to an extent that agencies and Congress are hampered from investigating, and you will see the 2008 disaster and the Boeings and Volkswagens disdain to consumers and criminal decisions.

Reagan’s deregulation of the financial sector indeed provided a boom to the economy and prosperity, but much limited to rich and middle-class families. The open market was not combined with social programs, which were seen by the Reagan administration as a form of parasitism, which of course never happens in hedge funds and banks. In fact, the drastic reduction in funding for welfare programs, education and scientific research widened income inequality.

Reagan's - and his echelon's- feverish and fundamentalist belief that religious dogmas and moral values are intertwined into one single concept led to administrative decisions like proposing a constitutional amendment to allow prayers in public schools, considering abortion not a public health concern but women’s criminal offense against God and, finally, the catastrophic one of not preventing AIDS from becoming an epidemic outbreak. Instead of paying heed to the scientific community’s first alerts on the disease signs and implementing its proposed measures to curb it and stopping its spread to all segments of society, he preferred to embrace the Christian Coalition's and other conservative religious groups' intolerance and twisted interpretations of the scriptures (which can be adjusted to meet any criteria) that claimed AIDS to be God’s punishment on homosexuals (yes, because God is good and loving, but he can be ruthless, vindictive and mean too).

Finally, the Reagan administration paved the path of divisiveness, intolerance and narrow-mindedness that permeates today's society when it ousted the Fairness Doctrine created in 1949.

This doctrine promoted an unbiased agenda by requiring broadcasting networks to provide time and space to opposing views on issues of importance to the public.

The abolishment of the doctrine enabled media corporations to become politically biased, forge alliances with ideological movements, many of which extremists, become the speech platform of political propaganda and divulge one-side and manipulated news, therefore helping to seep in indoctrination in society and propel fake news rather than independent, realistic and true information.

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panglossesanddiadorims · 7 months

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Theories, conspiracies and delusions

Sometimes life make us question our beliefs, creeds and comprehension of facts, so, as characters from Plato’s The Cave, the citizens Class Y from Huxley’s Braved New World, Parson in Orwell’s 1984, Mildred in Fahrenheit 415 or the “Burn the Witch” mob in Monty Python’s The Holy Grail, we desperately cling to biases as some sort of life raft to not plunge in the depths of the unknown and fossilize them as the only true, acceptable – and comfortable- reality. It seems as if truth either does not matter anymore or it is only truth what we want to believe in. We even create alternative facts to destroy validated facts so our twisted reality can fit in. It seems as if all were confined in a dark environment but if one tries to light a candle, the others blow it out, for darkness appears more soothing.

Sometimes it’s because we just can’t get it no matter how hard we try; it can be the fear to be exposed to the contradiction or to engage in a debate on ideas not character assassination; a religious creed, a superstition, a prejudiced upbringing, a crippled cognitive system, or just sheer ignorance. In fact, sometimes, we just want to adhere to our bias, ridicule dissent, be accepted in a niche, and just too lazy to be curious, listen to different ideas and have a real scientific perspective. We become Galileo’s inquisitors rather than accepting the Earth maybe revolves around a star.

When I was a teacher, I had a student who would always erase the correct answers to write wrong ones instead in Reading and Listening & Comprehension sections of a test. The True and False were replaced until wrong answers were eventually chosen. After a while, I asked if she could not understand the tape excerpts from the audio, if she would like the tape be played one more time, whether she could not focus on the text context. I even said most times she had got the answer correctly, so it could be a source of insecurity. She said she was not responsible for the wrong answers, but “The Voices” (plural) who ordered the change of her answers, not subsiding until she wrote what they had determined. Since I do not either dabble in the occult or have a major in psychiatry, I advised she ask the voices to also attend the classes, because only showing up on the day of the test did not make them prepared to provide correct answers.

The student never came back. I was informed by the administrative staff she had decided to not finish the semester by claiming financial reasons, but I suspect the voices hampered her from finishing the semester because they were perhaps reluctant to have to both attend class and pay attention to the lessons, besides, of course, the doing homework assignments, which I can completely understand.

I admit I am inclined to understand the voices; in life, sometimes just guessing or embracing alternative facts, conspiracy theories and pseudo science, or not having to study seem far easier and simpler. Per my life experience in seeing idiots and morons being elected and appointed corporate positions or becoming coaches, I must agree the world favors stupidity and shallow speeches. On the other hand, this dishonest behavior and egotistical false sense of moral superiority, which prevents people to talk analysis, that enables the belief that a validated fact is not true bring dire consequences to society.

The moment we decide to only accept what we want to hear, to question not the hate and lack of empathy of sectarian groups, the obscurantism of non-scientific “findings” but the facts, then we embrace ignorance; to apply sophistries, biases, and dogmas, whatever fits our narrow-minded idea of comprehension to comfort a reactionary mindset and throw away centuries of scientific and historical facts, we relinquish our ability to evolve. Imagine where we would be if Galileo, Mendeleev, Da Vinci, Darwin, Tesla, Santos-Dumont, Newton, and Kepler and many others chose to accept an event because it is what it is or it was conceived by a Supreme entity.

On another occasion, while attending a class of Numerical Calculus at the university, after developing an interaction through the Ronge-Kutta method, the professor said, per the results, one could conclude the result varied. The problem is that he did not use the word VARIED, but something like VARIATED, if I can roughly translate it. In Portuguese, he said “o resultado VAREIA”, instead of “o resultado VARIA”, which sounds horrible, one of those cringy grammatical mistakes. When I asked the person sitting next to me if I had heard correctly the affirmation the result variated (VAREIA), he chortled, adding it was absurd. When I was about to agree with him, he added he had calculated it by himself, and the result was a constant. Well, at least the professor could say he knew Calculus because the result indeed did vary (or variate…).

Finally, another time I took a taxi home after watching the movie From Hell adapted from the graphic book on the story of Jack the Ripper. The driver asked me about the movie and said he preferred Western movies (Note: He used the word Bang-Bang, which is how in Brazil we refer to Western movies due to the sounds of the gun shootings) and said his favorite Western movie was TITANIC.

I thought I had misheard him, but he confirmed it.

Perhaps because the ship indeed banged-banged against the iceberg, there was some gun shooting during the ensuing mayhem, and most immigrant women and children died as would have the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Apache ones in Western movies, he could be right. He liked the movie so much he had watched it 8 times! However, there was one part he never understood, so he asked if I could tell him who the old lady was, the one aboard the ship equipped to locate the Titanic wreck, the one who had tossed the worth-a-fortune diamond necklace into the depths (instead of bequeathing it to her granddaughter as a token of gratitude for her selfless devotion looking after the old lady). I said it was Rose, the character played by Kate Winslet, who had aged. Because she was on the floating plank, the one she never cared to share with Jack, the love of her life, she did not drown or die from hypothermia.

It was a breakthrough for the driver. He seemed so relieved to lift a burden he had grappled with for so long that he did not charge me for the ride. Glad I could help him, more than the old Rose did for her granddaughter or Jack.

I intend to use these 3 examples as an attempt to illustrate my perception of how Orwellian, delusional, obtuse, and uncouth we became as a society whose truth is based on social media biases, sophistic approaches and totalitarian speeches created by sectarian rabid groups and ignoramus individuals.

A society who only listens only to what it accepts as an absolute truth, who misuse sophistry by claiming to be using democratic ideals or freedom of speech, who embrace conspiracy theories and fake news by coaches and influencers (Hitler, Mao and Stalin were influencers, if we give it a thought),who fosters mass hysteria, who mars one’s character because of his ideas instead of debating the ideas, and who behaves like Chinese Cultural Revolution Red Guards and Hitler’s Youth members, believing all their leaders say and detesting anyone who does not, becomes a tyrannical and autocratic one.

The pathological need to believe in fake news and conspiracy theories has been well-studied in academic research, just look it up in the decent sources. In fact, we have always steered towards that direction, social media just helped, a lot, by dosing fuel to the bonfire of the ignoramus, intolerant, and sick society. As Carl Sagan feared and rightfully foresaw, a demon-haunted world.

I will limit myself to historical facts with which I am familiar or, at least, I believed I was. I will disregard bizarre ideas or paranoid delusions about Lizard men in government agencies, the Moon landing hoax, a harp (?) designed to control the climate, the pedophile rings sponsored by Democrats located in pizza parlor basements, vaccines causing autism, the Holocaust denial, immigration disrupting societies, rigged elections (especially if their politicians lose them), or the US government 9/11 plot to implode the WTT.

I am sorry, but every time one of these creatures tries to persuade me to believe in his ideas, my ID drops as if their stupidity were a virus. Their language stenches with rabid, shallow, incoherent, delusional, risible and vague arguments, their speech so focused on key words such as the media, the elite, racist, homophobic, communists ( anyone who thinks differently from them, not necessarily Marxists), the atheists, the feminists, etc. their beliefs so biased and never scientifically validated by peer-reviewed and based on empirical evidence, their conversation so self-centered and condescending, their approach on those who point out flaws in their analysis so belligerent and hateful by attacking the character and dehumanizing the individual, I feel like talking with one who believes ETs built the pyramids, the universe time is established by the Bible, and the Earth is flat.

Just as a parenthesis, for the 9/11 conspiracy theory, indeed there was a 9/11 one fabricated, sponsored, and led by the US government, but it was not aimed to happen in NYC, but in Chile; and it was not in 2001, but in 1973. It was also conceived and developed by terrorists and war criminals, not Al-Qaida ones, but by ones like Kissinger who were part of a democratically elected government, the crooked Nixon administration, to sabotage and obliterate another democratically-elected government, the Allende one, by toppling down - not buildings - but the pillars of a solid democracy, and to institute a homicidal dictatorship run by sociopaths who murdered, tortured, and exiled tens of thousands of people regardless of age, sex and ideology. Its ideals still fester in many hearts in minds of those who, like Shakespeare’s The Tempest character Caliban, prefer to destroy others rather than accepting his own deformed reflection in the mirror.

As a metaphor how sectarians fanatically adhere to fake news and conspiracy theories think, imagine a fake news believer gets a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle (I hate puzzles) of a Monet painting and starts assembling the pieces until the final one is placed. When the montage is completed, another person comes and realizes the outcome has not coherence because the picture in the mounted pieces does not resemble the image printed in the box cover. The pieces had the exact format and shape necessary to mount the puzzle, but few really belong to the Monet one. All the others should belong to puzzles portraying different images like animals, other paintings, and city skylines, but were mistakenly included in this box. When indicated this irrefutable fact, he refuses to accept it. He says that if all the pieces matched and fitted one another, then the puzzle must be true. The difference in the images is a small detail and reflects the people’s inability to think outside the box (this time, a puzzle box). Finally, he bellows the outcome is a proof of his freedom to create and question rules, instructions and facts imposed by the tyrannical society. He then frames the picture and hangs it on the wall as a symbol of his resistance against those who want to abolish his freedom of speech. Finally, as a means to show the other one is wrong, he dehumanizes the person by mocking his personality, thought development and character.

But let’s go to the NewTruths (remember 1984?) that have drawn my attention and made me question what I had considered to be realistic and true. The first one is in this blog’s next post. It is about a person conspiracy theories claim did not die as History says. Not Elvis Presley, but a WWII big personality.

See you there.

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panglossesanddiadorims · 7 months

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One flew over the Bunker's Nest

World War II: I must forget what I’ve learned in books by historians such as Richard J. Evans, Edward Roberts, John Lukacs, Joachim Fest, Gerhard L. Weinberg, Margaret MacMillan, a major expert on WWI, and Hannah Arendt; or available in documentaries by Mark Felton, the Time/Life Apocalypse WWII, the BBC series The World at War, the movies The Architecture of Destruction and Downfall or even those directed by Hitler’s favorite cineaste Lenie Riefenstahl. It is all lies, fallacies and verbosities.

For the NewTruth, tune in on YouTube channels (easier than reading, no doubt) to listen to scholars like Monark and Allan dos Santos or to watch videos that prove (?) through validated evidence (?) the following about Der Fuehrer:

He saved Germany from communism and had the courage to defy the Treaty of Versailles.

He raised Germany economically.

He was not aware of Die Endlösung der Judenfrage, the “Final Solution for the Jewish Question” because no evidence, like signed documents, associated him with it.

He was a military genius.

He was a thoughtful, selfless, and kind person who loved children, the arts, and Germany.

He never committed suicide in the bunker but succeeded in fleeing to Argentina in a submarine.

Despite the fact self-proclaimed experts associate Nazism with a left-wing ideology because of the word Socialism in its Party name (yes, and it also preached Buddhist principles of love, empathy and understanding because it used the swastika as its symbol), it was a far-right autocratic, and racist ideology stemmed from victimization and rooted on both hate of anyone not belonging to their demented concept of a superior race and the disdain to liberal democracy and parliamentary regimes, with the main purpose of conquest, expansion, looting, enslavement, subjugation and genocide.

Per Wikipedia excerpts, “ it was an attempts to create a nationalist redefinition of socialism, as an alternative to Marxist international socialism and free-market capitalism. Nazism rejected the Marxist concepts of class conflict and universal equality, convincing all sectors of the new German society to subordinate their personal interests to the "common good" and the main priority of economic organisation, which matched collectivism rather than economic socialism.’

Finally, Hitler and the Nazis hated and despised, besides Jews and Slavs, democracy, conservatives, social-democrats, and communists, who also had a special abhorrence for the social-democrats and democracy. Hitler made it clear - in fact he never lied about his real intentions- in his speeches before and after becoming Chancellor and in his best-seller Mein Kampf the principles that would pave the path of persecution and destruction when the Nazis seized power. If many thought he was bluffing and it was just a political speech to win votes, well, he was not.

In 1932, Hitler gave a campaign speech (available in decent history documentaries like the one directed by German historian and writer Joachim Fest, “Hitler: A Career”) before tens of thousands saying nobody should ever doubt the Nazis real intentions of implementing a one-party dictatorship, suppressing liberal democracy principles, and eliminating political adversaries, Jews and all designated as Untermensch once they seized power.

In an interview to the press, at the stairs of the Reichstag in 1928, when the Nazi party elected 12 representatives in the German parliament, Josef Goebbels clearly said no one should be deceived to believe the Nazis, by joining the parliament through free elections, had embraced principles of democracy and diversity of opinions and ideas. It was a means to achieve their final target, the rise of Nazism. He said it when the Weimar Republic was experiencing the mid-twenties economic boom, a period when the Nazi party and his bizarre leader were ridiculed, not taken seriously and their existence hanging by a thread.

After the 1929 Crash, the Nazi party went from 12 members to 107 members in 1930 elections, the second most-elected party, then to 230 members in July 1932, becoming the mostly voted, though they dropped 4% in the November 1932 election. However, even after being appointed Chancellor in January 1933, in the last federal elections held in March 1933 and despite massive oppression, persecution of other parties and voters’ intimidation, the Nazi Party got 43% of the votes, still not the majority. Perhaps if the Nazis had not taken advantage of the burning of the Reichstag to convince the Parliament and President Hindenburg to allow Hitler to rule by decree, the Nazi consolidation of power may have taken longer. We will never know, because History is not made of "what ifs".

No doubt many voted for Hitler because they were fanatical Nazis, embraced the cause feverishly and considered Hitler as Germany’s savior.

Many other Germans voted for the Nazis not because of Hitler’s delusional speeches, calls for conquest or pathological racism. Despite antisemitism having been embedded in the European society for centuries, many Germans, especially in the urban and industrialized areas, saw the persecution of Jews as an insanity and purely a campaign speech. Many had Jewish friends and colleagues, shopped in Jewish stores, had Jews as teachers, lawyers and doctors and were aware that thousands of Jews had fought and died for Germany during the Great War (WWI).

Only through the indoctrination of the new generations and the Nazi propaganda (but also from the fear, inaction, and complacency of many others) were the Nazis able to make it happen.

Many others voted for other reasons. First, the Crash of 1929 wreaked havoc in the world, but was particularly mostly devasting in Germany, plunging the country in an economic recession that left tens of millions unemployed, and families in absolute poverty and famine; not only did the population blame the regular parties for the social and economical upheaval but also did not believe in these parties’ ability to tackle it. In fact, they acknowledged the Nazis as the only Party who had alerted the Germans for years about the infamous Treaty of Versailles and the other parties’ betrayal and political and economical erroneous decisions.

Second, Hitler promised to restore order and stability and Germans were tired of the daily confrontations between radical groups and the uncertainty about the future. The streets bawling, the riots, the strikes, the daily showdowns and chaos fleeced many Germans to see in Hitler the means to restore order and tranquility, after all, it is what any society desires at the end.

Third, the radical alternative was the Communists, whose speech was also based on hate, destruction, one-class party and universal class equality. In addition, their leader was the equally sociopathic Josef Stalin, who, after murdering his rivals and exiling his opponents, concentrated on murdering millions of his own people in the mane of a cause. No doubt the German political and economical elite and the middle-class saw in Hitler and his Nazi party the means to prevent the Communists from seizing power. Especially because they thought he was bluffing and would be capable of controlling him.

Finally, Hitler was able to conquer many Germans’ hearts and minds by giving them a sense of belonging and pride, long lost by the population after years of humiliation and despondent, an idea of being part of a strong, sovereign, independent and united nation.

One movie, a master piece by Bob Fosse, Cabaret, conveys in one single scene all this idea of pride, nationalism and sense of belonging enveloped and conquered the hearts and minds, and also succeeds in showing the latent fanaticism that loomed ahead.

Anyway, at the end of the day, Hitler’s acts and decisions eventually put half of Germany under Soviet control after the war, making millions of Germans live under the regime he so much tried to defeat.

He did raise Germany economically, but the fruits of his harvest were also based on supressing opposition, favoring corruption, bankrupting dissent business owners, engaging in heavy re-armament, condoning slave labor, and relentlessly looting Jewish families and especially other conquered countries’ riches. On the other hand, at the end of the war, Germany was economically devastated (its borders had never been penetrated during WWI nor its cities bombed), morally defeated, personally humiliated and humanely ashamed, and carrying an anathema that has marred generations, being a nation who constantly seek atonement for their atrocities. Well, at least they do, being an exception.

All decisions and orders had to be verified and endorsed by him, since he was a paranoid autocrat. The “Final Solution for the Jewish Question” was not only conceived but endorsed by him. Or perhaps, there was never a Holocaust like both YouTube geniuses and Holocaust deniers claim, but a fallacy propagated by the Jewish media and the Elders of Zion for world domination (something only the Nazis had the monopoly). Yes, sure.

Every German victory in the first years of the war was the result of the military strategies conceived by the formidable group of German Wehrmacht generals and field-marshals and that the disastrous outcomes the result of Hitler’s compulsive micromanagement, his erratic behavior, and delusional orders, all seconded by an inner circle of ambitious and sycophantic enablers.

Finally, he did love children, especially those who mirrored the Nazi image of the Aryan race. He even allowed Josef and Magda Goebbels to shelter their 6 children in the bunker, which eventually became their tombs. The children did not commit suicide in the bunker – their parents did - but murdered by their own loving sociopathic dad and mom with cyanide pills to spare them from the agony of living in a world without Nazism. Indeed, it would have been a nightmare.

The children’s age ranged from 4 to 12 years old, so , yes, based on this Nazi rationale, their knowledge, memory, cognitive system and reasoning were concluded, so it would have been inhumane and particularly impossible for them to learn new things like to live in a world with freedom of speech and press, free elections, to read books rather than burning them and to co-exist with Jews, blacks, gypsies, homosexuals and Slavs; most horribly, they would have to endure a world without a Police State, Hitler’s Youth, Nuremberg rallies, the Gestapo, collective mentality, racial superiority and concentration camps with gas chambers and ovens where one million children not worthy of the Fuehrer’s love were slaughtered. (Sarcasm….)

By the way, Hitler showed his affection not only to children but also to young German women like his half-niece Geli, who did commit suicide out of despair and agony, for whom he nurtured a romantic obsession.

He did show spasms of affection to others besides his ego as any human being would; and as any human being, he could also be remorseless, manipulative, perverted and amoral. Being a human being does not mean one cannot be a monster and raising a family does not mean one is not a potential sociopath. The SS, Stasi and NKDV officers were exemplary husbands, fathers, and neighbors. Stalin, Mussolini, Idi Amin Dada, and Somoza, all Hitler’s roommates in Hell, were loving husbands (to some of his wives, at least) and caring fathers.

He also loved the arts provided it comprised his own hideous paintings, the marble statues of Aryan naked men, Albert Speer’s megalomaniac architecture, his shallow best-seller Mein Kampf (maybe best-seller and self-help books do suck), the antisemitic graphic caricatures in the tabloid Der Stürmer and the risible cinema and toxic propaganda produced by the Ministry of Public Enlightenment. Nothing of the decadent works by degenerates such as Roberto Wiene, F. W. Murnau, Cezanne, Miró, Dali, Van Gogh, Picasso, Chagall, Fritz Lang, Matisse, and Thomas Mann. The Nazis’ resolve to rid the Germans of this “horror” (no relation to Kurtz in Heart of Darkness) was so intense that they burned tens of thousands of books and paintings, like the Berlin Fire Brigade, which burned 4,000 paintings and drawings in 1939, a real-life Fahrenheit 451. In addition, representatives at the top hierarchy of the Nazi echelon plundered hundreds of thousands of paintings from Jewish families to museums in occupied countries, like the Louvre. For instance, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring himself amassed over 1,000 pieces and kept them at his house in Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, never as his own private art collection , but to prevent others from being exposed to such horror and degeneration. Yes, sure…

Finally, Hitler did love Germany, at least the twisted concept of a nation whose people was destined to conquer and rule the world; until he changed his mind and, before committing suicide (ops, escaping to Argentina), he issued the Nero Decree ordering the destruction of all German infrastructure to prevent its use by the enemy. When advised it would entail the annihilation of the German people, including the Aryan-race children he loved so dearly, through the depravation of basic needs like water, food, electricity, transportation, and heating, he said they deserved the fate, since they themselves had chosen it by not being real Germans, certainly based on his demented ideal of a superior German race, which did not include Germans like Beethoven, Goethe, Thomas Mann, Einstein, Kant, Hesse, Brecht, Martin Luther, Bach, Kepler or Marlene Dietrich.

For the first quest to find the Holy Grail of the New Truth, I will use the examples of the friendly taxi driver and ask questions about aspects I could not understand on the claims that Adolf Hitler did not commit suicide in the bunker but escaped in a U-Boat to Argentina and lived for decades, anonymously and inconspicuously, until the day, I hope at least we concur on this undisputable fact, the Grim Reaper dragged him away for good.

Please just explain to me one thing I cannot understand: in a city under siege and heavy and relentless Soviet bombardment, managed to travel by road or air incognito (luckier than his mate Mussolini) through a devastated country whose roads and air space were overwhelmed by Allied and Russian troops until he reached the closest -and not under enemy occupation - sea harbor likely hundreds (in Germany) or thousands of kilometers away (in a foreign country), boarded a U-Boat (better than a bunker at least) and lived another decades anonymously and inconspicuously in South America despite his deteriorating health due to both the absurdly insane cocktail of medications and drugs that included barbiturates , oxycodone, methamphetamine prescribed for years by Doctor Morell, a quack Hitler considered a genius, and afflicted with physical and mental illnesses like coronary arterial disease, syphilis and Parkinson's?

In addition, why did he not go to the Berghof, his retreat in Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, a few miles from the Austrian and Swiss borders, a haven which would provide him and his inner circle hundreds of means to evade capture. Martin Borman, for instance, proposed it but Hitler denied, preferring to remain in Berlin at the grasp of a people who hated him the most. As a matter of fact, why did his closest acolytes and sycophants, Goering, Himmler, Goebbels and especially Borman! were either arrested, committed suicide or were killed if the idea was to escape and not be in bunker until his last days.

Finally, how come he managed to not be found by the Mossad, the Wiesenthal Center and all nazi hunters who succeeded in finding and bringing to trial hundreds of other notorious Nazis like Adolf Eichman and Klaus Barbie?

Well, maybe in his case, the resultado vareia.

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panglossesanddiadorims · 8 months

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Extracted from Raw Story, article by Matthew Chapman

Have you considered that the dystopian societies from the novels 1984, Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World may have become true?

'Killing neighbors over politics': Expert warns extremism is tearing apart communities (msn.com)

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panglossesanddiadorims · 9 months

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Inherit the Wind trial scene

youtube

#Youtube

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panglossesanddiadorims · 11 months

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The sectarian mentality and its appropriation by radical ideologies

Comic Strip by Angeli, Brazilian cartoonist

The word sect definition in Wikipedia is “a subgroup of a religious, political, or philosophical belief system. Although the term was originally a classification for religious separated groups, it can now refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and principles.” Also, per the definition, it derives from the Latin noun secta which means "a way, a road”. Figuratively, it refers to a (prescribed) way, mode, or manner. “

Antonio Machado, a Spanish poet, and supporter of the República, who died at the end of the Spanish Civil War while trying to evade capture by the Franco’ s falanges, wrote a beautiful poem whose verses are the following, “Caminante, no hay camino,se hace camino al andar.” Another poet, the American Roberto Frost, wrote the following verses on his famous poem The Road not Taken, “two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” These two poems, despite describing roads, ways or secta, differ completely from the idea of the sect as a set of rules and principles. Machado’s verses show that we learn as we walk along the way; that we can build our life on our own, learning as we take steps ahead. Frost describes the road and its obstacles as our life and the choices we make once we live on, or move on, and how these choices shape us as individuals.

In my opinion, the difference is that, despite describing a manner or way of thinking and living, the sect with its sectarian mentality does not accept any different or dissent opinions. In fact, ideas or thoughts that have not been validated under the obtuse scope of rules, dogmas and beliefs of the sect are simply not tolerated, respected or and even represent a threat to the existence of the sect. This intransigence is indeed a secta, but towards collective thought, religious fundamentalism, pseudoscientific mentality, mass hysteria, delusional intolerance and utter stupidity.

Because of their narrow-minded, self-centered and inflexible rationale (lets be nice and call it that way), even topics that represent advancements in society or those that should foster further debates are hampered because the sectarians are able to transform everything in a speech of indoctrination and hysterical cleansing.

For instance, only a simpleton would not recognize that women grapple with far more obstacles and challenges to be accepted, respected and trusted in societies; that they have to struggle far more to achieve goals, realize dreams and earn benefits we men take for granted. The suffragists, women who rallied in the end of the XIX and beginning of XX centuries for the basic right of vote were scorned, marred as “badly-loved wives and lousy housewives” (in Brazil in the XXI century, this very intelligent statement is still applied), disruptive and subversive. The Feminist movement of the 60s and 70s fought basically for women to be accepted as an equal being in society and not be discriminated, for example, in workplaces. Still, in many countries, they are relegated to second-level citizens, their salaries can be half of men who perform identical duties, are compelled to marry against their will, subdued by families and husbands per religious dogmas (religious institutions are without a doubt the most misogynist; amazing how they do anything to curb pleasure and curtail rights of women), are humiliated and assassinated in crimes of honor, held responsible for being raped and criminalized for having an abortion.

The only difference is that, at least in Western Societies, they are no longer burned at stakes or stoned to death. In my opinion, for rape, we are still in Medieval times when rape cases among women of the nobility (forget the peasants) were considered not rape if the woman became pregnant, for conception meant the woman had attained sexual pleasure. Only through orgasm would a child be conceived. We have evolved a bit to saying that if the woman did not want to be raped, she should not have dressed vulgarly (yes, because there never been cases of nuns being gangbanged in History) or been with other guys in a party. They saw it coming, after all. Well, first rape has nothing to do with sexual relationships, but with power and the subduing of a weaker being. In many rapes, who are perpetrated by sick, frustrated, coward or narcissist individuals, there is not penetration. Second, a woman is also entitled to have sexual fantasies. It does not mean she has to accept to grovel, be tortured and submit to the guy’s lousy parenting background.

When a guy says that a woman is responsible for her rape, he should relinquish all benefits and luxuries modern society has provided, go live in a medieval hut, fight in a Crusade, defecate in a hole and die of bubonic plague or syphilis.

However, the sectarians use the Feminist movement to voice their limited and resolute mentality by accusing every man as a potential oppressor, misogynist or rapist. A woman is always a victim in the society. In their sectarian attitude, they give voice to other sectarians who see the women’s fair movements as a threat to society stability.

One interesting aspect is that sectarism is a kind of Rosemary’s Baby of the ideologies. People who are sectarians (like the character Madame Defarge in a Tale of Two cities, by Dickens) are seen as the majority, but at the end of the day they are just like the baby demon we cringe away. They are in fact a minority, but their radical speech and cult-like mentality is disturbing and annoying, which rippling effect is also destructive.

Many label sectarians as right-wing or left-wing individuals, usually because the political ideas and concepts that sectarians embrace are usually related to ideological causes. The politically correct, culture cancelation and gender equality movements have more sympathizers in the left spectrum; the anti-abortion, death penalty and anti-immigrant movements attract those of a conservative mentality. Nevertheless, it is good to understand that the many liberals abhor the toxicity and radicalism of these movements as well as conservatives of the democratic spectrum acknowledge the damage far-right discourses.

Albert Camus was a left-wing guy, who always fought for equality in society. But he was never a sectarian. His friend Sartre, on the other hand, was a big one. Dostoevsky denounced the inequalities and inhumane conditions in Czarist Russia in his novels, but also denounced the sectarians and nihilists in his book The Demons, anticipating decades before the sectarians Bolsheviks, who sabotaged and obliterated the democratic Provisional Government of Kerensky, who despised the Romanov’s tyranny but was not a destructive sectarian.

A sectarian will always use a movement, an idea or a cause as a means to propel his limited - and many times - lack of identity, badly managed individual life, without ever admitting the damage inflicted on the cause or society. They need to indoctrinate and lecture on either left or right-wing causes, or topple statues, or cancel people or books, or interrupt university lectures as SA stormtroopers, or accuse anyone of any phobia, or pray in front of Supreme Courts or abortion clinics as Salem judges, or ask for deportation of immigrants, or accuse the media and immigrants for all their misery and lack of success, or whatever else because, otherwise, they would have to start dealing with themselves, listening to others, recognizing there are shades of different colors and leaving their comfortable bubble.

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