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Mick West at Metabunk.org has published a book! It's called "Escaping the Rabbit Hole: How to Debunk Conspiracy Theories Using Facts, Logic, and Respect." The early reviews at Amazon.com are brutal. I publish a fair-use excerpt from the introduction to the book published last month at Salon: How to pull a friend out of the conspiracy theory rabbit hole | It’s not a blue pill or a red pill, but a poison pill I've added highlights to parts of the excerpt that might be helpful to OLers struggling with the entailments of conspiracy-ideation --in friends, family, and perhaps in themselves ... as those of us who have read the Rob Brotherton classic understand ... "Its not THEM, it's US" ... no one wing of political or social groups is more vulnerable to the harms of conspiracy ideation than another. "Try to figure out my tricks." What good advice ...

Evil is as evil does. What is "The Fundamental Attribution Error"? The Fundamental Attribution Error. William, No, It's a fundamental fed up and pissed off identification. I despise people who kill innocents. I despise people who promote endless war for profit. I despise people who who use mankind as lab rats for profit. And the dead for these people? Oh... oops... next batch. When I look at people like that, I know for certain: They don't give a shit about good. They are evil. They know they are evil. They like being evil. Fuck them. Michael The Fundamental Attribution Error. Of course, nothing like that happened during the riots, I mean peaceful protests, right? \

No one knows at the moment how the impeachment process will end up, though OL members will generally have in memory the Nixon and Clinton impeachment efforts for use in comparing and contrasting. At the present moment, nose-counting wonks have counted noses, providing spreadsheets of current House members who have indicated they support an impeachment inquiry. There is enough to agree articles of impeachment at last count -- if the process gets that far (see also the Politico breakdown of impeachment-supporters). I'll add in links to extant discussion in varied front-page threads and beef up a rough timeline [over the next couple of days]. The so-called whistleblower's "whistleblow" has been allowed to emerge in slightly redacted form -- Dated August 12, 2019: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6430376-Whistleblower-Complaint.html -- this is what is being examined in the House right now. Previously ... I'll ask that folks who may join in commentary here keep the personal insults to a minimum, if possible. Refer to the OL Posting Guidelines, please. Keys to understanding what may come down the pike is ... what has come down the pike already. In other words, a list of names of interest from roughly 2014 until now. Ukraine is at the nexus of the foreign-policy muddle between the United States and Russia. Names and entities to keep track and/or place on a timeline range from (presidents) Yanukovych, Poroschenko, Zelenskyy to prosecutors-general Yarema, Shokin, Sevruk, Lutsenko. For a reminder of what Ukrainian corruption looks like, the palatial estate of former president Yanukovych, who fled the country during the showdown known as "Euromaidan." At the risk of alienating a few readers, I'll be referring to a few 'mistrusted' writers and outlets who have cobbled together various timelines and constellations of events. interpretations and spin. Any timeline will be necessarily limited, but the simpler ones can be double-checked for factual, 'on the record' events. There are a lot of factors to be accounted for, suggestions entertained and claims tested. The most expansive timelines will come after the first spate of tell-all books whose "pitches" will be landing on editors' desks this week. An objectivist hierarchy of conceptual knowledge is more like a database than a list or timeline, maybe. This is kind of a first wrong stab at how various states could be tied to a index/timeline. Open question: how do you best organize 'what you know' or 'what is claimed' about the last five years of Ukrainian-USA-Russia-EU events? Foreign policy and corruption Russian interests, actions, explanations Associated timeline of events Date Ukraine President Ukraine Prosecutor Person of interest Cases adjudicated, abandoned, avoided (in US and Ukraine Trump -- campaign actors / Ukraine policy Trump administration Ukraine policy Cases of international significance. Meetings, contact, employment, associated suspicions 2012-2017 Manafort-Ukraine Manafort FARA

I've mentioned the author Frederick Crews a few times on OL** ... and now I am ploughing steadily through his book "Freud, the Making of an Illusion." It's the kind of book people reserve the word 'magisterial' for, so far. The subject is Freud's story-telling, in essence, and the divergence from the actualities. Crew is the first to exploit the new availability of previously censored or suppressed materials. He has previously rubbished mythic Freud in some earlier work referred to by the lesser term "tour-de-force." What will appeal to the Objectivist or Objectivish is the hard line, the hard line for reality trumping bullshit. Crews was the first to achieve a kind of encyclopedic knowledge of the Freudian-derived Recovered Memory movement and its associated Satanic Ritual Abuse allegations, trials and injustices. He was able to 'wrap it up' like a good prosecutor, with an at-my-fingertips-knowledge of what went down where and when and how and why. A good taste of what would be to come were you to purchase or borrow the book comes from its Preface, which I quote from (you can also Look Inside at Amazon): Among historical figures, Sigmund Freud ranks with Shakespeare and Jesus of Nazareth for the amount of attention bestowed upon him by scholars and commentators. Unlike them, he left behind thousands of documents that show what he was doing and thinking from adolescence until his death at age 83. Although many of those records were placed under lengthy restriction by followers who felt both financial and emotional incentives to idealize him, that blackout has at least partially expired by now. More revelations will emerge, but they are unlikely to alter the outlines of Freud's conduct and beliefs as they appear in the most responsible recent studies. [...] Of course, hardcore partisans can be counted upon to dismiss this book as an extended exercise in Freud-bashing -- a notion that gets invoked whenever the psychoanalytic legend of lonely and heroic discovery is challenged. To call someone a Freud basher is at once to Shield Freud's theory from skeptical examination and to shift the focus, as Freud himself so often did, from objective issues to the supposedly twisted mind of the critic. Like other aspects of Freudolatry, the charge of Freud bashing deserves to be retired at last. The best way to accomplish that end, however, is just to display the actual record of Freud's doings and to weigh that record by an appeal to consensual standards of judgment. _________________________________ ** totalismCult Warning Signs william.scherk posted a blog entry in Friends and Foes ...One of the many astute chroniclers of this time wasFrederick Crews, whose "The Memory Wars" still stands out above the rest. I note in passing his most recent book, a stunning tour de force in my opinion. See Freud: The Making of an Illusion. I have mentioned his work a couple of times here... January 12 30 comments Solving a Puzzle-- Understanding Some People's Reactions william.scherk replied to Philip Coates's topic in Objectivist Living Room ...ThenFrederick Crews saved me. He let me see that crashing through the Dominant Discourse of Freudian Bullshit was a dangerous job. Those who had peddled that shit all the years were deadly opposed to being pushed off their thrones, their departmental thrones, their kingdoms of influence and tenure... January 30, 2012 358 replies Emotions as products of Ideas william.scherk commented on nealelehman's blog entry in neale's Blog ...readFrederick Crews on Freud/psychoanalysis, anything you can get by Allen Esterson, Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, Frank Cioffi, and the very interesting current-philosophical-outrages site Butterflies and Wheels , a British site that is part of my regular reading. My favourite living philosopher is Susa... June 30, 2007 6 comments

Over in the active Incel thread, there are a few misunderstandings ... here, for example, Michael notes the superiority of his position with regard to assessing the probability that Adam Schiff is a "Ruling Class Pedophile." Investigating the claims is like pulling teeth.