I read an article recently published by a political blogger and it occurred to me, as we see with so many other public commentators these days, that its author is afflicted with a psychological disorder I can only describe as a kind of inverted delusion of reality. CNN reporter, Kaitlan Collins, who moderated the New Hampshire town hall for the 2024 Republican primary, also embodies an example of this condition.
For purposes of this thread, let's explore this phenomenon and name those symptomatic of this disorder sufferers of Truth Derangement Syndrome (TDS)
The American Psychological Association defines a psychological disorder as any condition characterized by cognitive and emotional disturbances, abnormal behaviors, impaired functioning, or any combination of these.
In this thread I want to focus on 1) identifying prominent writers, celebrities, television presenters, or otherwise any public figures who consistently exhibit six specific symptoms of TDS and 2) the degree to which these persons fully subscribe to an inverted reality and/or are under the influence of mind-control from the ongoing psychological operations waged against the masses by social engineers and intelligence agencies, as described by Tore and others, (also here).
The significance here is the fact that influencers and prominent persons propagate and spread TDS to others, thus compounding and reinforcing the psyop, all of which imparts cognitive and emotional disturbances and impairs mental acuity en masse. The widespread nature of the psyop also brings into question what social psychologists consider normal vs. abnormal. In other words, "mind-controlled" behavior appears to be the "new normal" now, so in this thread we will focus on how TDS specifically affects cognitive and emotional disturbances, impairs mental functioning, and inverts reality to those afflicted, whether their behavior appears normal or not.
There are many uninformed people who are ignorant and unaware of truth. Indeed, we are all uninformed, ignorant, and unaware of truth to some degree. But there are also those who are fully aware of what we might call an "upright reality," or the "way things really are" outside the cave--especially within their given domains of deceit--e.g. the Anthony Fauci's and Bill Gates' of the world--but for nefarious purposes and varying agendas these actors chose to peddle a false reality. But for those afflicted with TDS, something else is going on. Something much more sinister and dangerous. TDS victims are not just ignorant of upright reality, they also believe full-heartedly in the inverted reality, much as a child believes in Santa Claus. The point being, TDS isn't just about ignorance, false belief systems, or being blue-pilled in the Matrix. Nor does it discriminate against the intelligent or prey solely on the inane; the highly educated are as prone to TDS as are the unlearned. So what's at play here?
To wit:
TDS inculcates a righteous indignation of the truth onto its victims and specifically creates a contrived paradigm of reality inverted to truth in such a way that the very thing for which the TDS victim has the most disdain best characterizes their own proclivities and worldview. In a way, it's an unwitting self-loathing program coded into the subconscious psyche of its victims. Subjects "become" or "are" what they are programed to hate, and they project this disdain and self-loathing onto others. It's really quite remarkable, and it would seem so many people in society are plagued by this condition.
In this thread I try to identify six specific characteristics of mind control and aim to take a close look at individuals who exhibit the symptoms of--and who help propagate--the TDS disease. The opening post will look at Amanda Marcotte, a Salon blogger, whose latest article covering RFK Jr's presidential candidacy illustrates a profound case of mind control and the onset of TDS. Specifically, the author exhibits each of the symptoms below:
1. TDS victims frequently use terminology incorrectly and out of proper context and do not fully understand the meaning or definition of the words they use to describe their understanding of reality, especially when those words are employed as pejoratives.
2. TDS victims adhere to Orwellian groupthink as a cornerstone to understanding reality, no matter how absurd the construct of the group. In this sense, victims are part of a Hive Cult and cannot conceive or comprehend thoughts divergent of the group.
3. The major technique to defend the Hive Mind is via ad hominem attacks against critical thinkers who question or point out the inverted nature of the victim's understanding of reality.
4. The victim repeatedly parrots CIA-programed speak, on cue, as a blatant display of hypnosis and the quasi-involuntary cognitive response to the ongoing psychological operation.
5. The TDS victim advocates for censorship and perceives information commensurate with common-sense reasoning, but which counters groupthink, as a danger to public health and democracy, especially when the divergent information points to upright reality or is essential to the well-being of public health and democracy. In this sense, Truth is Danger and Truth is Lies in a Orwellian sense to the sufferers of TDS.
6. TDS victims embrace a belief system aptly described as "religion" and maintain a blinded faith in the critical--albeit static--assessment of so-called facts that comprise their understanding of empirical reality. The crux of faith is thus based on a prima facie adherence to "the science", or more aptly the "settled science", while their idol of worship, by definition, directly counters their core beliefs. This alone creates an inverted worldview that impairs and psychologically-injures the capacity to self-recognize the sufferer's dissonance of mind.
Now that we got that out of the way, let's delve into Amanda Marcotte's article. A brief summary follows:
RFK Jr's. main motivation for running for president is to impose anti-vaccine conspiracy theories on thinking democrats; he has no chance at wining the Democratic presidential nomination (which is likely true, but not for the reasons she supposes), and therefore he is being used as a tool by the "loudest, most famous fascists" in the nation, namely Alex Jones, Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, and others, all of whom she calls the "radical far-right" with a "long term goal of destroying the value of empirical truth....and democracy" and to "undermine the reputation Democrats have as reality-based people."
If anyone is interested they can read the entire article here, but the preceding paragraph more or less sums up the author's thesis.
In the very first paragraph we see a glaring example of someone deranged by truth. Marcotte is either a deliberate agent of deception, like Fauci and Gates, or she has no practical understanding of the doctrine of fascism, which she references extensively in the first half of her essay. Bandying an entire political movement so incorrectly, and continually evoking the word "fascist" throughout the article, presumably in an attempt to cast aspersions and pejoratives onto Kennedy et. al, suggests the latter.
Here's the thing:
Regardless what one thinks of Alex Jones, Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, or other prominent figures she partitions (incorrectly) to the "radical far right", these individuals are not fascists. They are populists, or in terms of Benito Mussolini's day, liberals, what we might refer today as classical liberals. The truth is, the political doctrines of fascism and liberalism couldn't be further apart on the political spectrum, and are in fact, polar opposites.
One might be tempted to condone Marcotte's intellectual laziness because the Washington Post (and others) have also drawn a loose but factually incorrect connection between fascism and populism. The difference being, WaPo is a propaganda outlet organized to advance corporate/statist interests (ironically) and executes its agenda by programing its subscribed foot solders, like Marcotte, to the cause. Its editors know full well (and if they don't, they should) that liberal populism and authoritarian fascism are polar opposite ideologies. Quoting the manifesto written by Mussolini himself, fascism's architect, "...if liberalism spells individualism, fascism spells government." So for those in Marcotte's camp who may need a primer (including WaPo) they can learn exactly what fascism is and what it isn't from Mussolini himself, here.
This matters because Marcotte is apparently navigating through an inverted world. In sum, fascism is an anti-individualistic, totalitarian political system characterized by the merger of State and Corporate power. As anyone with even a modicum of understanding knows, Jones, Bannon, and Flynn all embody the antithesis of this construct and continually call out the very world for which Marcotte has such disdain. In this case, the author apparently has no idea what the word fascism actually means. Indicting these men on the charge of "fascism" is as equivalently absurd as indicting Ralph Nader on a "corporate raider" charge, or Bernie Sanders on a "laissez-faire philosopher" charge. The irony of the charges the author casts with such vile indignation onto proclaimed far-right individuals characterize the very worldview and political system she and her programers unwittingly embrace, providing an in-your-face example of mind control and the type of inverted reality through which those with TDS are tasked to navigate.
All this begs the question:
How and why should any thoughtful reader take her commentary seriously after reading the first couple sentences?
There is also a fascinating groupthink element to the vaccination component of Marcotte's article, which plays a large part in her diagnosis of TDS. The groupthink mentality is a direct consequence of a pernicious mind-control program imposed on the individual by the group, and ultimately inflicted on its members by powerful corporatist/statist interests with a specific agenda, be it profit, power, population management, depopulation, some unknown other, or all of the above. Regardless, no reasonable non-afflicted-TDS observer, pro-or-anti vaxx, can remove mind-control from the equation when studying Marcotte's reaction to the public discourse on vaccination. Underlying every sidebar in her article is a rant against RFK's "anti-vaccination conspiracy theories", with a emphasis on how repugnant it is for a Democrat to legitimize right-wing conspiracy theories.
Yale University research psychologist Irving Janis outlines eight distinct symptoms of the groupthink mindset. Amanda Marcotte's rant exhibits every one of them. Without going too lengthy into an analysis of Janis' work (one can read it for themselves here), suffice to say her readers receive an overdose of groupthink throughout her writing. 1) Illusion of Invulnerability (the article implies conspiracies aren't real, hence "reality-based" people are invulnerable to conspiracies) 2) Collective Rationalization (the author dismisses the dangers of vaccination outright, e.g. the high-priests of groupthink have "retracted all the infamous anti-vaccination studies." 3) Moral High Ground (mass vaccination is essential to "public health and democracy", implying a psychological permissibility to dismiss/ignore the ethical consequences of the belief system--e.g. vaccine mandates, medical tyranny, etc.) 4) Stereotypes (groupthink victims hold stereotypical views of its outliers, e.g., "right-wing radicals", "evil monsters", "cranks", "grifters", "conspiracy nuts", "stupid troglodytic masses", etc. 5) Pressure (Marcotte subtly pressures once-loyal conformists to get back in line by chastising former-groupthink acolyte Bill Meher for being "wrong about most things these days," and Noah Rothman, "Trump-skeptical" and therefore tolerable Republican, who should "know better" for wandering off the plantation) 6) Self-Censorship (at no point in her article does Amanda Marcotte present any point of view, even as a so-called spurious reference to potentially disprove, that counters the group consensus) 7) Unanimity (though entertainingly written, the tone and style assumes every reader agrees with the author's viewpoint, i.e., the article doesn't engage in convincing arguments, but rather, preaches in an echo chamber to the converted. 8) Mind Guards (the author incessantly defends and guards the group throughout the article, i.e. voters "want a chance to back a party that is bound by empirical reality," and "Democratic leaders consistently show not just respect for science but for basic reality" and Kennedy (being outside the group) is no "threat to Biden's primary chances."
In all these examples, we also see the author's incessant ad hominem attacks. Marcotte never supports her assertions, nor presents convincing arguments to counter the awful. Nor does she ever explain why her political adversaries are "monsters," "cranks", "grifters" and "repulsive". She merely attacks their character without ever presenting any rational criticism of their political positions.
Victims of TDS never attack the truth, they always attack the character of its messenger.
In a similar way, Amanda Marcotte faithfully parrots all the talking points of the 1967 CIA mind-control program countering conspiracies (document 1035-960 declassified in 1996), which the intelligence agency disseminated to the mockingbird press and to other influential propagandists in the wake of the controversial JFK assassination. Given the inroads prominent intellectuals, serious researchers, and even foreign intelligence agencies were making toward disclosing the JFK assassination conspiracy, as well as the convincing arguments that discredited the many factual inconsistencies of the Warren Commission Report, the CIA responded by creating an extensive "playbook" of talking points for its faithful "press assets" and for other "friendly elite" propagandists. The aim was to launch a campaign blitz to counter and shut down the conspiracy narrative, to which an alarming 46% of the public had already subscribed. Thus the term "conspiracy theorist" was born, as well an extensive roadmap of techniques on how to psychologically discredit and shut down the legitimacy of critical engagement in conspiracies. This mind-control program is still employed and active today, sixty years later (just tune in on any given day to MSM to confirm) and has been successfully imposed on the public to disengage on any serious discourse not only on the JFK assassination, but also the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the events of 9-11, the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the recent events of January 6, etc., etc., among many other criminal conspiracies.
It is one thing for paid propagandists to parrot the methods of action in the program manual, it is quite another to see unwitting subjects "get in line with the program" by doing the same, and on cue, as Marcotte does in her article. She evokes the CIA term "conspiracy theorist" (now tacitly and/or even unconsciously understood pejoratively in the same vein as "tinfoil hat") twelve (12) times in her short two-page article, all aimed at shutting down any serious consideration of Kennedy's political positions (whatever they may be; she never discloses them to her readers), as if perfectly wound up by the CIA and unleached on her audience.
To her credit, however, I found no open call in Marcotte's rant to censor RFK's dangerous speech, presumably because the article makes clear "there's no chance anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist RFK Jr. will ever win the Democratic presidential nomination." In other words, the author views Kennedy as but a minor irritant, so ad hominem attacks should suffice to successfully defend against dangerous truths that threaten to upright the Hive Mind's inverted reality. Her position on censorship will likely change, however, if RFK is successful at snapping the ignorant and those with only a mild case of TDS out of their hypnosis.
There is also another reason Marcotte isn't calling for censorship. TDS victims, and specifically those who have captured the levers of power, all profess to support free speech as a core value but in practice support and afflict cancel culture onto outliers whose speech threatens to upright the Hive Mind's inverted reality. Cancel culture, in practice, blatantly contradicts the core values of TDS groupthink, so while Marcotte isn't sounding the alarm bells to cancel RFK Jr. (at present, anyway), it is clear she suffers from cognitive dissonance concerning her perception on censorship. As she fervently charges the right-wing with censorship, for example, pointing out it is they who have removed pornography and revisionist history from school libraries (while she concurrently presents a convincing case that she opposes censorship) she at the same time is in complete denial about cancel culture and the Hive Mind's blatant embrace of blacklisting, shadowbanning, and censorship. In her words, "in reality, as much as a handful of over-reacting leftists on Twitter are annoying (referring to honest leftists calling out the hypocrisy of the Hive Mind), the truth of the matter is it is the right who has been doing most of the silencing and censoring of people."
This is how those with TDS view the world, through a lens that inverts reality.
Finally, and perhaps most indicative of a worldview distorted through an inverted lens, victims of TDS worship an idol they call "science", but ascribe a false meaning to it, much the same as Marcotte does when accusing her populist adversaries of being fascists. The TDS Hive Mind goes so far as to march out a mantra, "Trust the Science", a slogan validating the idolatry feature of its mindset, but which is certainly not a valid feature of real science. Nonetheless, Marcotte and her ilk self-proclaim to comprise the "party of science" and are thus the "defenders of free inquiry, dispassion, and rationalism". It is they who are its "safeguards", and only "[the democrats] can be trusted to defer to experts in a crisis [and] restore empiricism to its proper place", which apparently--in practice--is upon an untouchable throne.
There is nothing inherently inverted about "trusting" science, per se, but the social-engineering mind-control program driven by intelligence agencies and their underlying interests hypnotizes the TDS mindset to a new level, to faith-based trust, and aligns the Hive Mind into mass formation with inverted realty, regardless of credible scientific data that disproves the faith. Censoring, shadowbanning, blacklisting, and outright suppressing the credible science that questions or even discredits the inverted reality is the most common practice to defend the idol. The steadfast who maintain a measured and realistic assessment of science, however, who understand its principles (and practitioners) for what and who they are, are pushed with disdain into "anti-science", "anti-vaxx", and "disinformation/misinformation" concentration camps; here we see how the party truly perceives its idol, not by the scientific method, but through a faith-based lens intolerant of inquiry, rigorous skepticism, observation, and induction.
Many so-called anti-vaxxers and anti-science outliers, ironically, thus align more to the true spirit of the scientific method than do their anti-science accusers. For example, RFK Jr., the "anti-science crank", repeatedly points out (should any worshiper take pause to listen) that his conclusions are all based on peer-reviewed analysis of scientific studies published in the most credible and prestigious (but highly censored) scientific journals. He admits his hypotheses are open to debate, critical assessment, and further scientific study. And--shocker--that he could well be wrong. In so proclaiming, RFK Jr. cites the need for further scientific investigation, which of course is exactly the kind of investigation the high priests of corporate science will never fund or pursue, lest the results might upright the inverted reality. To quote RFK Jr. directly, "if I'm wrong, show me I'm wrong..."
Unlike those who peddle the so-called "settled science", at no point does a genuine follower of science ever associate his/her opinions and conclusions with dogma.
As far as COVID-19 was a global pandemic (let's leave that question to future historians to tackle), TDS is certainly a syndemic of equal proportion. We are all witnessing the co-occurance of TDS with a massive goalpost shift to the left. Those shifting with it are contracting TDS in droves. From the Hive Mind perspective, then, the rest of us appear to be red-shifting into a world of gun-toting, bible-thumping racists. Most of us are perceived as bigoted troglodytes, anti-science conspiracy nuts, racists, sexists, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, or otherwise just a repugnant "basket of deplorables."
It is true every demographic contains a fringe contingent who aptly characterize some or all of the Hive Mind's typical charges, but again, the accusers employ specific words without any regard whatsoever for their reality-based definitions, such as "racist", "bigot," and "White Supremacist", along with so many other aspersions cast in such a widespread and loose way and over such large swaths of the population, that the words themselves lose all meaning.
To the so-called deplorables, who understand and respect the meaning of words, the inverted appear psychotic and disconnected from reality. The truth is, society is functioning in a dangerous state of cacophony. Regardless of who is calling whom and what, the current state of dysfunction is not sustainable. Continuing on the present trajectory (apparently in line with the objectives of the psyop), threatens to shatter and break civilization itself into chaos and collapse. There is no longer any consensus on what constitutes objective reality. In such a society, civil war and hate-filled violence are real outcomes. If that is indeed the goal of this psyop--and it appears to be--we need to stop being good-little mind-controlled subjects and integrate our collective understanding of reality back to normalcy and healthy discourse, in spite of our social-engineering overlords. And though it's tempting to escalate the fight, especially when being falsely pigeon-holed by psychotic-appearing accusers ungrounded from reality, we who understand the psyop should not engage the inverted with the same kind of hate-filled contempt and disdain with which they engage us. Rather, we should deal with them with kindness and empathy and view their affliction as a disease. We need to remember we are all the victims of the ongoing psyop. Hurling rocks back at them, even while defending ourselves against their misuse of words and the deeds of their sickness, only pushes the TDS victim further into her or his inverted paradigm.
Perhaps for those of us fortunate enough to see through the smoke the only cure is to stay firm and steadfast in reality, but with kindness, patience, understanding, and love.
I don't claim to have the answer on how to achieve this, or how we can collectively break free of the Matrix. And I do recognize emotions often get the best of all of us. But if we are ever going to heal--or even survive--it seems to me we need to focus on ways to understand what's going on in the abstract and endeavor to bring the victims of the psyop and suffers of TDS back to reality with gentle hands.
Hopefully the ticking time bomb to the Great Reset, to a nuclear holocaust, or some combination of both, won't best our patience in making that happen.