7JaJaDa

2021-01-19 01:38:21

#QAnon #cults

To understand what happens next with QAnon, it helps to look back at past cults

What’s the difference between a cult and a religion? Scale. Every religion begins somewhere in a basement or a backyard or a barn with a small group of people and some scrap of received wisdom. Most of them end that way. But occasionally an idea, a leader, a concept, just … catches fire. It spreads, and adapts, and invariably mutates as it passes from that original founder or founding group out to a larger set of believers.

When that happens, when a cult crosses over to religion, it becomes hard to kill. Just the sheer number of believers means it’s extremely unlikely that something is going to happen one day to make everyone involved just abandon those beliefs.

Before we dip into QAnon, let’s look first at another fairly recent cult, turned religion, turned cult, turned … religions...

To understand what happens next with QAnon, it helps to look back at past cults

What’s the difference between a cult and a religion? Scale. Every religion begins somewhere in a basement or a backyard or a barn�with a small group of people and some scrap of received wisdom. ...

^{www.dailykos.com}

mrd_ill_be_back

2021-01-09 15:47:56

dear follow #diasporians

i have the hint, there will soon come a wave of #maga - #trumpsters accounts to #diaspora, the older of you might remember on the #wave of #daesh - and #isis accounts yeras ago, when #twitter #silenced their accounts and i think, the #antifa -fellows here in diaspora , the diasporians who have no sympathy to trump or his #whitepower -footsoldiers, the people here, who dont sympathizes with #racism #fascism #homophobia #sexism or (yes, you read right, i wrote OR! which says a lot about this time) #antisemitism the #liberals here, we should be prepared and think about, how to counter that, i dont want diaspora to become the brown echochamber for #conspiracy-ideology, for that #qanon lunacy or this #trump -bullshit
share that, think about that, debate about that, stopping #fascism when you can, not, when its allready to late, #antifascists predicted that allready years ago and itz no #fun anymore, itz no fun, to play #cassanda and beeing right #now itz the time to defeat #fascist #hatespeech here on diaspora, not tomorow, not next week, ITZ NOW!

this is a call to your keyboards!

please share!

you get a funny, hopefully prophetic picture as reward


ps if you want to support the cause and you think i missed important points, feel free to rephrase that posting or write something in the comments or a pm, feel free to "follow"me (maybe a little warning, i am an antifa, i am really i left wing communist and i am a pro-zionist and i am a militant, we can argue about that, we can have debates or, if you dont like that, make your own post about it, if itz antifascist, i will support it, i love you!)

mrd_ill_be_back

2021-01-09 15:47:56

dear follow #diasporians

i have the hint, there will soon come a wave of #maga - #trumpsters accounts to #diaspora, the older of you might remember on the #wave of #daesh - and #isis accounts yeras ago, when #twitter #silenced their accounts and i think, the #antifa -fellows here in diaspora , the diasporians who have no sympathy to trump or his #whitepower -footsoldiers, the people here, who dont sympathizes with #racism #fascism #homophobia #sexism or (yes, you read right, i wrote OR! which says a lot about this time) #antisemitism the #liberals here, we should be prepared and think about, how to counter that, i dont want diaspora to become the brown echochamber for #conspiracy-ideology, for that #qanon lunacy or this #trump -bullshit
share that, think about that, debate about that, stopping #fascism when you can, not, when its allready to late, #antifascists predicted that allready years ago and itz no #fun anymore, itz no fun, to play #cassanda and beeing right #now itz the time to defeat #fascist #hatespeech here on diaspora, not tomorow, not next week, ITZ NOW!

this is a call to your keyboards!

please share!

you get a funny, hopefully prophetic picture as reward



ps if you want to support the cause and you think i missed important points, feel free to rephrase that posting or write something in the comments or a pm, feel free to "follow"me (maybe a little warning, i am an antifa, i am really i left wing communist and i am a pro-zionist and i am a militant, we can argue about that, we can have debates or, if you dont like that, make your own post about it, if itz antifascist, i will support it, i love you!)

John Hummel

2020-11-11 18:35:36

Escaping the Trump cult?

She fell into QAnon and went viral for destroying a Target mask display. Now she’s rebuilding her life.

[The article also contains an informative short video on QAnon and why it holds appeal for some people.]

... The Scottsdale, Ariz.-based PR professional, a self-described “type A” personality, had spent the pandemic barely eating, barely sleeping, barely socializing with friends. Instead, “I was all consumed with doom-scrolling on the Internet. I was living in these conspiracy theories. All of this fear porn that I was consuming online was just feeding my depression and anxiety.” She had found comfort in QAnon, a loose collection of conspiracy theories that touch on everything from politics to covid-19.

[The incidents]

... En route to grab the water, she noticed a display of masks, the ones to help prevent the coronavirus. “The culmination of everything I had experienced, like all that energy, just zeroed in on the masks. And I just snapped,” she said.

She took videos of what happened next and streamed them on Instagram Live. They quickly spread to other platforms, reported on by publications such as USA Today. She was labeled a Karen — and far worse. She thought her career was over. She thought her marriage was over. She thought her life was over.

... You’ve probably seen the videos. According to Lively’s PR firm’s tracking software, more than 100 million people around the globe have. One version, which has more than 10 million views on Twitter, features a rack of facial coverings and Lively’s voice. [The article contains a link to the video.]

... A later video shows her in the garage of her home, after her husband has summoned the police. She’s telling them that she’s the “QAnon spokesperson” and explains that she has been on the phone with President Trump “all the time.” They detain her to bring her to a nearby psychiatric facility, as she yells, “You’re doing this to me because I’m Jewish.”

[The role of QAnon]

... she said... “It kind of sent me in a tailspin, searching for answers.”

She found those answers in QAnon, which she discovered through some of the natural wellness and spirituality spaces she inhabited online. She spent her nights, then her days, scrolling through them as her mind wandered further away from reality.

“It basically purports to have all the answers to the questions you have. The answers are horrifying and will scare you more than reality, but at least you feel oddly comforted, like, ‘At least now I have the answer,’ ” she said, adding, “They tell you the institutions you’re supposed to trust are lying to you. Anybody who tells you that QAnon is [wrong]is a bad guy, including your friends and family. It happens gradually, and you don’t realize you’re getting more and more deep in it.”

[In other words, it's a cult.]

[The aftermath]

... Lively remembers the lead-up, but she doesn’t remember what she termed a “mental breakdown episode” at Target, saying it was akin to being “blacked out.” Watching the videos now is an “out-of-body experience.” She has no idea what she was trying to say, either at the store or to the police.

“I was living in a fantasy land in my mind,” she said. “But I take full accountability. I know I scared a lot of people. I know I angered a lot of people.”

That anger became evident when she came home from a week-long involuntary hospitalization to hundreds of furious emails and phone calls.

... “You obviously learn who your real friends are fast. I found out that I didn’t have very many,” Lively said through tears. “This is why this whole cancel culture is so scary. What happens when a human being gets canceled? They don’t want to exist anymore.”

[A reference to "cancel culture". Clearly, she's not quite ~~back to~~ normal.]

... After trying to repair her marriage and figure out the help she needed, she attended an eight-week trauma program at the Meadows, a rehabilitation facility in Wickenburg, Ariz. She swore off QAnon. She sent an apology letter to the employees of Target. She started a YouTube channel to discuss topics like mental health and conspiracy theories. Finally, in mid-August, a former client called to hire her, the first since the incident.

... She became a PR professional to help people get their voices heard, to tell their powerful stories. “Ultimately, it’s in my nature to be a helper, and in the business of PR you have to have the kind of personality that is always willing to think big, do more and push harder.”

[Hmmm... From QAnon nut job to self-help guru. Are we sure this is a step up? It will be if she can help anyone, I suppose.]

[QAnon: We are mystified by the fact that some people believe QAnon. "How could people believe this crap? It's clearly crazy! It contradicts the reality right before their eyes!" May I remind you that people have a long, long history of believing comforting stories -- especially us vs. them stories -- in the absence of any evidence whatsoever? The right to believe such things is enshrined in the Constitution of the USA, in the separation of church and state. QAnon is no different; it's no surprise. It's just another religion: us vs. them; belief without evidence; good guys and bad guys; secret plots and unseen powers. In what way does this differ from any other religion? It doesn't. (Except possibly the Quakers, and that's barely a religion.)]

#QAnon #Trump #Cult #Escape

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/11/11/masks-qanon-target-melissa-rein-lively/