Author: HP McLovincraft

Seeker of rabbit holes. Pessimist. Libertine. Contrarian. Your huckleberry. Possibly true tales of sanity-blasting horror also known as abject reality. Prepare yourself. Veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I have seen the fnords. Deplatformed on Tumblr and Twitter.

These Former Cult Members Now Help Others Escape

Cults can get super weird. They can be abusive, destructive and even life-threatening. They can also be endlessly fascinating. 

A social group characterised by their extreme belief or reverence towards a particular leading figure or object, cults aren’t by definition dangerous. But, history has taught us time and again that people who believe violence is an act of love, or that they’re the chosen one to lead the otherwise doomed humanity, or that their leader is actually an alien, probably have issues that need resolving. 

In a world full of distress and disease, getting sucked into a cult that offers peace and the promised land is surprisingly easier than it seems. What is not easy, though, is getting out and helping others get out too. We spoke with some cult interventionists and deprogrammers on how they help people break away after having broken away themselves—and the repercussions the work has on their lives.

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‘Whites must keep quiet when racism is discussed’: Call by Paris’s deputy mayor prompts new fury over ‘American woke culture’ taking over France

Paris’s deputy mayor has prompted fury by calling to ban white people from discussions of racism.  

Left-wing deputy mayor Audrey Pulvar, 49, said white people should ‘be asked to keep quiet and be silent spectators’ during discussions around racism attended by black and ethnic minority people.  

She explained: ‘People who suffer discrimination for the same reasons and in the same way feel the need to meet among themselves to discuss it.’  

The comments made by Pulvar, who was born in Martinique, have re-sparked concerns over the rise of American woke culture in the French state.  

A collection of politicians, prominent intellectuals, and academics argued last month that France was being contaminated by American ideas on race, gender, and post-colonialism, and that they were undermining French society.       

The group have seen Pulvar’s comment as proof French society is being eroded by American ideals, The Times reports. 

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California teacher suggests that parents who want their children to return to in-person learning are WHITE SUPREMACISTS who ‘bullied a board into making schools less safe for teachers and kids’

A California teacher appeared to suggest that parents who want to send their children back to school are white supremacists who ‘bullied a board into making schools less safe for teachers and kids’.

Damian Harmony, who teaches Latin at John F. Kennedy High School in Sacramento, made the remarks to the school board.   

He later posted the content to Facebook, but as of Tuesday morning, it has been deleted from his page. 

During his remarks, Harmony said: ‘I come to you as a grateful parent. I’m grateful that I kept my children home. And I’m especially grateful for what I heard from parents last week. Until then, the only way I could measure the level of white supremacy in my neighborhood was the Next Door app.

‘The people clamoring for a district to break its legally-negotiated MOU with teachers who are going to be teaching their own children, who treat the teachers’ efforts as though they’ve not been exhausting and ever-present, while also going through a pandemic themselves, made it much easier.’

Harmony continued: ‘I’m as disappointed as I am unsurprised that last week, we all had to hear all the cynical, pearl-clutching, faux-urgency, ableist, structurally White-supremacist, hysteria, even as teachers were moving forward with an MOU that already put them in harm’s way and was asking too much of a beleaguered group of professionals.’

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Biden Urges States To Maintain Mask Mandates As A ‘Patriotic Duty’

President Joe Biden urged leaders across the country Monday to reinstate mask mandates and pause reopening efforts, claiming it’s “the only way we will ever get back to normal.”

“I’m reiterating my call for every governor, mayor, and local leader to maintain and reinstate the mask mandate,” Biden said. “Please, this is not politics. Reinstate the mandate if you let it down. And businesses should require masks as well … Look, as I do my part to accelerate the vaccine distribution and vaccinations, I need the American people to do their part as well.”

Biden said mask mandates are the “only way” Americans will be able to attend events like graduations and weddings again.

“Mask up. Mask up. It’s a patriotic duty,” he said. “It’s the only way we will ever get back to normal. To cheer together in stadiums full of fans. To gather together in holidays again safely.”

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U.S. murder rates increased by 30% in 2020

The U.S. murder rates were up dramatically in 2020 by numbers the country has not seen in decades.

“Homicides rose sharply in 2020, and rates of aggravated assaults and gun assaults increased as well. Homicide rates were 30% higher than in 2019, an historic increase representing 1,268 more deaths in the sample of 34 cities than the year before,” said a study conducted by philanthropy group Arnold Ventures and the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice.

The study also found that aggravated assault was up 6%, gun assaults were up 8%, and motor vehicle theft was up 13%. However, there was a decline in robberies by 9%, residential burglary was down 24%, and drug offenses were down 30%.

The study said that “urgent action is necessary.”

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Cops investigate Virginia teachers’ Facebook group for naming parents who were ‘against critical race theory’ and urging members to ‘gather information’ on them

Virginia police are investigating an ‘anti-racist’ Facebook group that named the parents of students who members say are ‘against critical race theory’. 

The Anti-Racist Parents of Loudoun County group – which reportedly includes teachers and school board members – shared personal details of those they say had opposed moves to teach the controversial curriculum. 

It urged followers to ‘gather information’ on them and encouraged online hackers to silence critics of the theory, The Daily Wire reports. Parent Cherly Onderchain told Fox News she was on the ‘hit list’, adding: ‘Their goal is silence.’   

According to Purdue University, critical race theory scholarship shows how racism continues to be persuasive and why it denies individuals their constitutional rights. It examines the way race and racism influences politics, culture and the law. 

But critics say it leaves people exposed to the training feeling that they are being blamed for problems which they did not cause – such as slavery and Jim Crow – and that it is itself racially divisive. 

Local teacher Jeremy Wright said: ‘Minority students are going to suffer the most from this. When you teach students that the system is against them, they have no motivation to learn.’   

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Journalists Attack the Powerless, Then Self-Victimize to Bar Criticisms of Themselves

The daily newspaper USA Today is the second-most circulated print newspaper in the United States — more than The New York Times and more than double The Washington Post. Only The Wall Street Journal has higher circulation numbers.

On Sunday, the paper published and heavily promoted a repellent article complaining that “defendants accused in the Capitol riot Jan. 6 crowdfund their legal fees online, using popular payment processors and an expanding network of fundraising platforms, despite a crackdown by tech companies.” It provided a road map for snitching on how these private citizens — who are charged with serious felonies by the U.S. Justice Department but as of yet convicted of nothing — are engaged in “a game of cat-and-mouse as they spring from one fundraising tool to another” in order to avoid bans on their ability to raise desperately needed funds to pay their criminal lawyers to mount a vigorous defense.

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In other words, the only purpose of the article — headlined: “Insurrection fundraiser: Capitol riot extremists, Trump supporters raise money for lawyer bills online” — was to pressure and shame tech companies to do more to block these criminal defendants from being able to raise funds for their legal fees, and to tattle to tech companies by showing them what techniques these indigent defendants are using to raise money online.

Amish community may have reached COVID ‘herd immunity,’ health official says

An Amish community in Pennsylvania may have become the first group in the US to achieve herd immunity, a local health official claims.

The administrator of a medical center in the heart of Lancaster County’s New Holland Borough, which is known for its Amish and Mennonite communities, estimates that as many as 90 percent of the religious families have had at least one family member infected with the virus.

“So, you would think if COVID was as contagious as they say, it would go through like a tsunami; and it did,” said Allen Hoover, an administrator of the Parochial Medical Center, which caters to the religious community and has 33,000 patients.

The Amish and Mennonite groups initially complied with stay-at-home orders at the beginning of the pandemic — shuttering schoolhouses and canceling church services.

But by late April, they had resumed worship services, where they shared communion cups and holy kisses, a church greeting among believers.

Soon after, the virus tore throughout the religious enclave.

“It was bad here in the spring; one patient right after another,” said Pam Cooper, a physician’s assistant at the Parochial Medical Center.

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