Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Kid Berwyn
Kid Berwyn's Journal
Kid Berwyn's Journal
July 5, 2022
Let them eat photons.
Thank you for a great read, JanMichael.
Regarding our reality, in Apocalypse Now, Coppola reveals Col. Kurtz read “The Golden Bough,” an early survey of the world’s religions, mythologies and beliefs written by James George Frazer. The 1890 work was on his nightstand in the jungle.
Going from memory: Frazer found a commonality between non-Abrahamic peoples, where the shamanic high priests led society. The power was handed to successors through combat or inheritance. The parallel for the film was the young captain killing Kurtz to gain power.
The parallel for the wars in Vietnam, I believe, was that the people who believed they each could contain that power, even if they weren’t at the top of the society, or even if they knew they would die in battle for their country. They would achieve their dream state. The French and the Americans had no clue.
We are what we think. Let us share our world — and our best ideas.
July 5, 2022
Someone is influencing Ginni’: How the wife of a Supreme Court justice became part of the ‘Trump cult’
Mind control researcher Steven Hassan met Ginni Thomas after they were both de-programmed from ‘cults’ in the 1980s. He tells Bevan Hurley the January 6 hearings are a chance to pierce the MAGA bubble
The Independent
Thursday 16 June 2022 00:11
As former Moonie-turned-cult-expert Steven Hassan watched the Capitol Riots unfolding last January, there was a familiar face among the thousands of MAGA supporters clamouring to overturn the 2020 election result.
Hyung Jin ‘Sean’ Moon, head of the far-right, AR-15-worshiping Rod of Iron Ministries and son of Moonie founder Sun Myung Moon, had joined Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to protest in front of the US Capitol. The group has been widely described as a cult.
The Rod of Iron Ministries posted a clip to its Instagram page showing Sean Moon wiping tear gas from his eyes while blaming the violence on Antifa.
The clip had particular resonance for Dr Hassan: he was among a group of 350 Moonies who, on the orders of Sun Myung Moon, prayed and fasted for 72 hours on the steps of the US Capitol to protest Richard Nixon’s Watergate impeachment in 1974.
“I thought ‘if I wasn’t de-programmed I could have been there, I could have been arrested for this’,” Dr Hassan told The Independent.
“That’s how far gone I was.”
Continues…
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ginni-thomas-cult-trump-supreme-court-b2102194.html
Bush loved Moonies.
Corrupt Nutjob
Took the faux Malcolm-X-to-MAGA dickhead tour with his unctuous Moonie wife, Grunthilda.
Someone is influencing Ginni’: How the wife of a Supreme Court justice became part of the ‘Trump cult’
Mind control researcher Steven Hassan met Ginni Thomas after they were both de-programmed from ‘cults’ in the 1980s. He tells Bevan Hurley the January 6 hearings are a chance to pierce the MAGA bubble
The Independent
Thursday 16 June 2022 00:11
As former Moonie-turned-cult-expert Steven Hassan watched the Capitol Riots unfolding last January, there was a familiar face among the thousands of MAGA supporters clamouring to overturn the 2020 election result.
Hyung Jin ‘Sean’ Moon, head of the far-right, AR-15-worshiping Rod of Iron Ministries and son of Moonie founder Sun Myung Moon, had joined Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to protest in front of the US Capitol. The group has been widely described as a cult.
The Rod of Iron Ministries posted a clip to its Instagram page showing Sean Moon wiping tear gas from his eyes while blaming the violence on Antifa.
The clip had particular resonance for Dr Hassan: he was among a group of 350 Moonies who, on the orders of Sun Myung Moon, prayed and fasted for 72 hours on the steps of the US Capitol to protest Richard Nixon’s Watergate impeachment in 1974.
“I thought ‘if I wasn’t de-programmed I could have been there, I could have been arrested for this’,” Dr Hassan told The Independent.
“That’s how far gone I was.”
Continues…
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ginni-thomas-cult-trump-supreme-court-b2102194.html
Bush loved Moonies.
July 1, 2022
HOW CHARLES KOCH PURCHASED THE SUPREME COURT’S EPA DECISION
Decades of contributions aimed at influencing the judiciary bought the fossil fuel billionaire the ruling he’s always wanted.
Sharon Lerner
June 30 2022, The Intercept
Excerpt…
The Kochtopus
To ensure further growth of his riches even as science showed that the continued use of fossil fuels would accelerate climate disaster, Koch has funneled some of his vast fortune into an extraordinary network of political front groups, lobbying efforts, think tanks, and activist networks that aim to stifle climate action. For decades, the Kochtopus, as some call his many-tentacled political influence machine, has sought to undermine not just the environmental regulation in Koch Industries’ path but also the science and philosophy of government on which it is based.
Koch’s lobbyists and political operatives helped kill a 2009 bill aimed at tackling climate change through a cap-and-trade system that could have cut into his companies’ profits. While the mounting findings of climate scientists led other titans of industry to begin adjusting their business plans to lower carbon emissions, Koch-funded groups were among the first climate denialists, flatly lying about the well-documented planetary trend of global warming and then schooling lawmakers on the alternate reality they had crafted. Koch also pioneered the attack on Republicans from the right, pushing the party into its current extremism.
Today’s Supreme Court decision marks perhaps the biggest payoff yet for Koch’s decades of plotting against environmental regulations — and the most devastating loss for everyone else. Three of the extremist judges who joined the decision — Gorsuch, Barrett, and Kavanaugh — wound up on the Supreme Court in large part because of Koch’s activism and contributions.
Americans for Prosperity, an astroturf political group founded by Charles Koch and his brother David, conducted extraordinary campaigns to put all three judges on the highest bench. To support Kavanaugh’s nomination, the group reached out to more than 1.2 million Americans through mail, phone calls, and knocking on doors, according to a flyer released by the organization. The group also pushed hard for Barrett, whose father worked for Shell and the American Petroleum Institute, a powerful trade group for the oil and gas industry. And it campaigned for Gorsuch, whose mother presided — disastrously — over the EPA under President Ronald Reagan. Charles Koch is also closely connected to Leonard Leo, co-chair of the Federalist Society, a conservative organization Koch has supported directly and through his family foundation.
The case itself can also be tied directly to Koch. The challengers are 27 Republican attorneys general, who were supported by the Koch-funded Republican Attorneys General Association. At least four Koch-funded entities have filed amicus briefs in the case: the Cato Institute, which was co-founded by Charles Koch; the Competitive Enterprise Institute; the New Civil Liberties Alliance; and Americans for Prosperity. Another foundation that filed an amicus brief, the Landmark Legal Foundation, denied receiving Koch funding, though Jane Mayer reports in her book “Dark Money” that Koch helped subsidize it.
Continues…
https://theintercept.com/2022/06/30/supreme-court-epa-climate-charles-koch/
How Charles Koch Purchased the Supreme Court's EPA Decision
HOW CHARLES KOCH PURCHASED THE SUPREME COURT’S EPA DECISION
Decades of contributions aimed at influencing the judiciary bought the fossil fuel billionaire the ruling he’s always wanted.
Sharon Lerner
June 30 2022, The Intercept
Excerpt…
The Kochtopus
To ensure further growth of his riches even as science showed that the continued use of fossil fuels would accelerate climate disaster, Koch has funneled some of his vast fortune into an extraordinary network of political front groups, lobbying efforts, think tanks, and activist networks that aim to stifle climate action. For decades, the Kochtopus, as some call his many-tentacled political influence machine, has sought to undermine not just the environmental regulation in Koch Industries’ path but also the science and philosophy of government on which it is based.
Koch’s lobbyists and political operatives helped kill a 2009 bill aimed at tackling climate change through a cap-and-trade system that could have cut into his companies’ profits. While the mounting findings of climate scientists led other titans of industry to begin adjusting their business plans to lower carbon emissions, Koch-funded groups were among the first climate denialists, flatly lying about the well-documented planetary trend of global warming and then schooling lawmakers on the alternate reality they had crafted. Koch also pioneered the attack on Republicans from the right, pushing the party into its current extremism.
Today’s Supreme Court decision marks perhaps the biggest payoff yet for Koch’s decades of plotting against environmental regulations — and the most devastating loss for everyone else. Three of the extremist judges who joined the decision — Gorsuch, Barrett, and Kavanaugh — wound up on the Supreme Court in large part because of Koch’s activism and contributions.
Americans for Prosperity, an astroturf political group founded by Charles Koch and his brother David, conducted extraordinary campaigns to put all three judges on the highest bench. To support Kavanaugh’s nomination, the group reached out to more than 1.2 million Americans through mail, phone calls, and knocking on doors, according to a flyer released by the organization. The group also pushed hard for Barrett, whose father worked for Shell and the American Petroleum Institute, a powerful trade group for the oil and gas industry. And it campaigned for Gorsuch, whose mother presided — disastrously — over the EPA under President Ronald Reagan. Charles Koch is also closely connected to Leonard Leo, co-chair of the Federalist Society, a conservative organization Koch has supported directly and through his family foundation.
The case itself can also be tied directly to Koch. The challengers are 27 Republican attorneys general, who were supported by the Koch-funded Republican Attorneys General Association. At least four Koch-funded entities have filed amicus briefs in the case: the Cato Institute, which was co-founded by Charles Koch; the Competitive Enterprise Institute; the New Civil Liberties Alliance; and Americans for Prosperity. Another foundation that filed an amicus brief, the Landmark Legal Foundation, denied receiving Koch funding, though Jane Mayer reports in her book “Dark Money” that Koch helped subsidize it.
Continues…
https://theintercept.com/2022/06/30/supreme-court-epa-climate-charles-koch/
Profile Information
Member since: Mon May 6, 2019, 08:01 PMNumber of posts: 14,953