Monday 10th of March 2025
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a cascade of deranged opinions entrenched in bad faith.....

SINCE THE INCEPTION OF THIS SITE, WE HAVE TOYED WITH THE CONCEPT THAT THE MOST SUCCESSFUL HUMAN SPECIES INVENTION WAS DECEIT. WE HAVE ALSO OFTEN DEMONSTRATED THAT OUR MOST POPULAR INVENTION WAS STUPIDITY. 

COMBINE DECEIT AND STUPIDITY AND WE INVENT BELIEFS (THE TRUTH)....

FROM THEN ON, THESE BELIEFS APPLIED TO OUR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS MORPH INTO OPINIONS WHICH FOR ALL INTENT AND PURPOSES ARE STYLISED BELIEFS, SOMEWHAT IN SEARCH OF THE TRUTH WHICH HAS BEEN A DECEITFUL PHILOSOPHICAL PURSUIT SINCE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN SELLING SNAKE OIL.

COMPLEXITIES ARISE WHEN WE OUR HUMAN SPECIES GETS DIVIDED INTO GROUPS THAT DECIDE TO FIGHT EACH OTHERS FOR SURVIVAL. ENTER THE ANIMALISTIC INSTINCT OF DOMINATION… FOR HUMANS, THIS IS A BATTLE OF STYLISTIC BELIEFS — INCLUDING SELF-CONTRADICTORY BELIEFS.

SUDDENLY, AFTER 100,000 YEARS OF HUMAN EVOLUTION, WE ARE AT THE DOOR OF WORLD WAR THREE… 

 

ENTER A MAD CLOWN CALLED DONALD TRUMP WHO DECIDES TO PREVENT THIS… THE THRUST IS THE FUTURE, STILL FULL OF DECEIT, STUPIDITY, BELIEFS AND OPINIONS… BUT WE NEED TO MAKE CRAZY DEALS TO AVOID THE DESTRUCTION OF THE PLANET...

OUR MEDIA LOVE OPINIONS. WE USED TO GO TO CHURCH AND BE PREACHED AT… THE NEWS CYCLES, FULL OF OPINIONS, HAVE NEARLY REPLACED THE PULPITS… BUT NOW, THE PANDORA JAR OF BELIEFS HAS BEEN CRACKED OPEN — AND OPINIONS APPEAR EVERYWHERE, FROM TIKTOK TO YOUTUBE, INCLUDING HERE, ON GUS LEONISKY'S SOAP BOX…

 

LET ME INTRODUCE ONE OPINION FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES, WHICH ACCORDING TO SCOTT RITTER’S OPINION SHOULD BITE THE DUST, FOR HAVING BECOME A STUPID RAG… 

 

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BY MICHELLE GOLDBERG 

Opinion | The Right’s Trump Derangement Syndrome - The New York Times 

During the transition, Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, acted indignant when Democrats asked Pam Bondi, now Trump’s attorney general, if she and the president-elect might consider blanket pardons for Jan. 6 insurrectionists. “I was the last member out of the Senate on Jan. 6,” said Tillis. “I walked past a lot of law enforcement officers who were injured. I find it hard to believe that the president of the United States, or you, would look at facts that were used to convict the violent people on Jan. 6 and say it was just an intemperate moment.” 

Just last month, Representative Dan Crenshaw of Texas, who is both a Trump apologist and a supporter of Ukraine, insisted that when Trump trashes Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, it’s actually a sign of affection. “Trump tends to talk that way to his friends,” said Crenshaw. “He tends to talk nicer to his enemies. So if he’s talking to you that way, it still means you’re his friend.” 

Some of these men may have been deliberately dishonest, but I suspect there’s also a degree of self-deception at work here. In the four years Trump was out of office, an eerie amnesia about his erratic rule settled over the country, allowing people to project onto him hopes that were utterly untethered from reality. You might call this phenomenon, to appropriate a phrase, Trump derangement syndrome. 

The right invented the term Trump derangement syndrome to dismiss analysis of Trump’s autocratic tendencies, compulsive lying and generally detestable character as liberal hysteria. For conservatives who don’t want to engage with substantive criticism of their leader, it functions as a thought-terminating cliché, a term often used by people who study cults to describe ideological formulations that short-circuit critical thinking. “Trump derangement syndrome” implies that if someone tells you something about Trump that you don’t want to hear, that person must be crazy. 

But the real derangement lies in either the refusal or the inability to see Trump clearly. A few months ago, if people had predicted that Trump would cut off intelligence sharing with Ukraine, destroy U.S.A.I.D., free all the Jan. 6 convicts, put his lackey Kash Patel in charge of the F.B.I. and turn us into a despised enemy of Canada, they’d have been accused of unhinged political hatred. As Nick Catoggio wrote in The Dispatch, Trump’s second term is “shaping up to be what doomsayers thought his first term would be.” 

I’d argue that the doomsayers were also right about Trump’s first term, which was full of sadism, incompetence and corruption, and culminated in a coup attempt. But if it wasn’t as catastrophic as it could have been, it was because establishment figures often restrained him. The periods of relative stability provided by the adults in the room lulled people into complacency about how much damage an unfettered Trump could do. 

Now the adults are gone, but Trump’s defenders are still pretending — perhaps to themselves as well as to the rest of us — that there’s order amid the chaos. After Trump berated and tried to humiliate Zelensky, the radio host Glenn Beck explained that he was really playing five-dimensional chess against Russia. 

Trump’s plan to end the war, said Beck, lets Vladimir Putin “go home while declaring a win, but everyone else knows he actually lost,” because he conquered only a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, and America, not Russia, will get Ukraine’s rare earth minerals. A message had been sent to Putin, said Beck: “Cross into Poland and see what happens to you if you do that. The idea that Russia can just plow into Europe has now been proven to be false!” 

In some ways, it’s understandable that Republicans would impute secret virtues to Trump given both his historic political successes and his rapidly increasing wealth. Trump’s opponents have repeatedly underestimated his connection with a large segment of the American electorate, and his improbable victories have made him seem, at least to his allies, like an almost mystical figure. And if you truly believe that America’s capitalist system rewards merit rather than audacity and grift, the riches Trump has extracted from his office imply a measure of genius. He keeps winning. Surely he must know what he’s doing? 

It should be obvious, however, that extraordinary skill as a demagogue does not necessarily translate to wisdom as a ruler. If Trump’s lickspittles refuse to see that, it could be because facing up to reality — that they are party to the deconstruction of a once-great superpower — is at once shameful and frightening. Far easier to invent a Trump who isn’t there, a canny savant whose policy lurches are driven by some unseen strategic logic. 

Speaking at the New York Times DealBook summit in December, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said Trump had grown over the past eight years. “What I’ve seen so far is he is calmer than he was the first time — more confident, more settled,” Bezos said. Sounds like Trump derangement syndrome to me. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/07/opinion/republicans-trump-derangement-syndrome.html 

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

 

SEE ALSO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NVJx1Pezmg

“Make War Not Peace!” – Hilarious Parody Video

ingrained.....

 

BY MILICA VUJOŠEVIĆ

 

I remember watching animals fighting on the TV channel Animal Planet: two “kings” fighting for survival with terrifying expressions, full of anger and fear at the same time. I felt as if I was watching monsters fighting not only against each other, but also against an inner pain and their fear of death.

I thought I would never see that expression again, but it didn't take too long. It was lurking right where I least expected it: in the park where I was sitting and witnessing an unpleasant sight. Two benches, placed opposite each other, and a group of kids, who are younger than me throwing something at each other. I could feel the tension in the air, and then like two lions, the two groups of children went for each other. The scene reminded me of the bloody lion fight from which only one emerges victorious.

Suddenly, there was a commotion around me. Some people quickly rushed to break the fight up and make a truce, an agreement concluding with the words that we are not animals that fight to the death, but reasonable people.

Have we taught them that it is human to err, to be angry, but also to control one’s emotions, to talk and try to find a compromise, to apologize, to make up for any harm done to others, and to forgive? 

But how reasonable are we?

Have we just missed the opportunity to teach these children how to control their anger, how to control themselves and resolve this conflict reasonably using “words”? Did we let them try this approach? Or did we merely separate them? Will they “resolve” similar situations in the same way when we are not around?  And are we being calm then, since we are not being responsible by not being present? When we find out, we will punish them, of course – no video games for a week. Hmm.

Have we taught them that it is human to err, to be angry, but also to control one’s emotions, to talk and try to find a compromise, to apologize, to make up for any harm done to others, and to forgive?

And how many times have we told them, from their earliest age, “Fight for your own, whatever it takes.” Whatever it takes? Really? We teach them from their earliest age that the end justifies the means. So ethical and reasonable.

And then we are shocked when we read that one in every ten children aged 9–17 years in Montenegro has been present at a fight between peers, recorded by one of their friends who then posted it on the internet. One in five children watched such a video online. One in six children commented on it.

And how many of them managed to resolve that conflict with words instead of by fighting? 

Where are the videos and stories of such compromises? 

And where are all the adults to promote them?

https://www.voicesofyouth.org/blog/fighting-your-own-whatever-it-takes

 

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.