Friend Infected With Right Wing Brain Worms - What to Do?

i'm still furious about all those SJW's swaying Lucas to call them "Sand People" and not "Sand Men"

I can't even find the Bitches & Hoes section of my local DIY store these days.

This is an interesting article by a woman who went to high school with someone I'm not familiar with, but who is apparently a fairly prominent alt-right/neo-Nazi spokesmodel. Sort of a "how did my friend go insane?" piece.

I got through most of that but she doesn't seem like much of a mystery really - a sociopath with daddy issues

reminds me of this twitter thread by someone who went to school with Lena Epstein, the now-defeated candidate who invited a messianic jew to speak following the recent synagogue shooting

This ad with my name on is going out in today's metro-Detroit Jewish News. We include Dems, libertarians, even an aide to a GOP rep. I wanted to explain why we purchased it, why most of us who grew up with @LenaEpstein are strongly urging voters to choose anyone else. pic.twitter.com/EmclPCkTQN

— Seth M. Fisher (@Misopogon) November 1, 2018

My extremely pro-brexit cousin now thinks that there may be some 'short term' economic issues, and maybe a recession but

a) This can lead to a short period of 'crisis capitalism', which is good because thats when disruption occurs
b) The EU is going to fall apart anyway

The second seems a more typical run of the mill viewpoint, its not enough for us to get our thing, our enemy must also suffer in some ways or the victory is hollow. The first feels out of the remit of this thread. Really doesn't sound like the language of the brainworm infected footsoldier at all! More the language of the infector than the infected! Though in some ways it reflects it. He, as one of the 'good ones', believes he will not suffer any of the ill effects. Its a change though, from 'there will be no ill effects' to 'there may be some ill effects but in fact this is actually good'

sounds like he's ready for you to cut him off for his own good and bring about the hallowed disrupting time

The EU is going to fall apart anyway....and the UK will rise like a phoenix from the ashes

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/i-gathered-stories-of-people-transformed-by-fox-news.html

That article is really something. All these Fox News orphans.

I called my mother two weeks ago and funerals, wills, things like that came up. She was very upset that I have absolutely no intention of returning for anyone's funeral. I People are alive now; any sentiments or changes can be made now. When you're dead, who cares.

This is really for the other thread, but this backs up my view that Bernie should absolutely go on Fox news (and that Katie Halper, Kyle Kulinski etc are right to do so as well - as long as you're going on there to push your message and not shit on the left like Greenwald did/does)

This is unfettered mainline access to a huge audience. We're so obsessed with no-platforming we do it to ourselves and encourage people to pass up one of the biggest platforms there is). If it is brainwashing people, then damn get on there asap!

yeah, the upside may be fairly small but I think the downside is even smaller. if Fox wants to demonize you they're gonna do that regardless. and I agree this is a separate issue from Greenwald types and also a separate issue from the argument over whether the DNC should let Fox host one of its debates, which I don't think it should do.

should probably murder them

I've got a cousin who has always been conservative, but was very, very vocally anti-Trump. Not sure what changed, but in the last two months he's turned into a super Trump booster and shares the most ridiculous anti-Muslim memes and talking points at a frantic pace. I just don't understand what happens to make these things happen so rapidly and so intensely.

if Fox wants to demonize you they're gonna do that regardless

Sure, but they don't have to do so with your permission and active participation.

I can barely understand it too. I haven't had cable tv since the early 2000s and only use youtube for music. I can't even imagine choosing to surround myself with conspiracy, bigoted trash all day long. The small amount of cable news videos I see online are enough. But of course I've been brainwashed by college.

I just don't understand what happens to make these things happen so rapidly and so intensely.

How often have I heard these same sentiments after some loser has carried out a terrorist attck.

Like those excerpts in the article about people choosing to be alone, in the dark, in their hate and misery instead of making another choice is so spot on.

I just don't understand what happens to make these things happen so rapidly and so intensely.

It isn't quick, it takes a long time, its happening in them without you noticing it. Its true in reverse too, people coming away from Trump and/or conservatism. Trump does something ludicrous and his polls numbers stay unchanged, then they seem to drop for no reason at all in a quieter period.

Fox works because of absolute hammering repetition. The only thing that matters is exposure and attention. A lot of the Fox audience are on that trajectory but they aren't all TooFarGones, and we shouldn't treat them as such - unless we want more TooFarGones. Fox plays the long game with its audience, and we don't notice. We think its overnight, it isn't, thats not how this works

my father-in-law just suggested on Facebook that the US begin the process of deporting Rep. Omar. rad.

How can you be fb friends with him without trolling the shit out of him all the time?

can't lie i'm actually a little shocked that politically motivated murders and attempted murders by fever swamp white nationalist trump fans have coincided with a solidifying of his popularity/ double-downing of yr avg republican voter in this country.

nope nothing bad'll come of that.

I thought this was a good look at how kids are getting groomed into the alt-right:

https://www.washingtonian.com/2019/05/05/what-happened-after-my-13-year-old-son-joined-the-alt-right/

first they're terrorized by the liberal state

First few paragraphs read like this story is entirely made up.

aw but anonymous stories are usually so reliable!

Short essay. “Then I had no son.”

So you guys are just fake-newsing this? Ok.

no, i dont doubt that her son had this dalliance with the alt right, but anonymous memoir pieces like this are susceptible to distortion

So you guys are just fake-newsing this? Ok.

― DJI, Monday, May 6, 2019 9:37 PM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol i sure as hell am

the part i didn't believe was the happy ending.

maybe nagle wrote it to sell books to normie parents with shitty sullen teenage boys who won't shut the fuck up about rare pepes

/r/creativewritingprompts

"How I left the alt-right" seems like its becoming something of a cottage industry.

I saw the Faraday Speaks video, half a million views in 6 weeks. It was well done but alarm bells ringing. I've read people suggesting he's a troll/plant - 'be welcomed by the libs to own the libs'?, but I can't see to what end. A more likely reason is he is just a grifter

But also, I don't really see 'right-wing brainworms' and 'the alt-right' as quite the same thing. Overlapping, sure, but distinct enough

One morning during first period, a male friend of Sam’s mentioned a meme whose suggestive name was an inside joke between the two of them. Sam laughed. A girl at the table overheard their private conversation, misconstrued it as a sexual reference, and reported it as sexual harassment. Sam’s guidance counselor pulled him out of his next class and accused him of “breaking the law.” Before long, he was in the office of a male administrator who informed him that the exchange was “illegal,” hinted that the police were coming, and delivered him into the custody of the school’s resource officer. At the administrator’s instruction, that man ushered Sam into an empty room, handed him a blank sheet of paper, and instructed him to write a “statement of guilt.”

what

At a meeting two days later with my husband, Sam, and me, the administrator piled more accusations on top of the harassment charge—even implying, with undisguised hostility, that Sam and his friend were gay. He waved in front of us a statement from the girl at the table and insisted that Sam would need to defend himself against her claims if he wanted to prove his innocence. But the administrator refused to reveal the particulars of the complaint (he had also blacked out identifying details, FBI-style) and then hid the paperwork under a book. He declared that it was his primary duty, as a school official and as a father of daughters, to believe and to protect the girls under his care.

i would be surprised if this really happened like this

but who knows

I absolutely believe that there are overzealous public school administrators who arbitrarily target kids over small stuff. I have an annual tussle with the attendance committee that has been enough to make me joke about voting Republican. However, I'm suspicious about this 'misconstrued meme' - was it as harmless as she claims? I would have appreciated the opportunity for the reader to take it to Meme Court.

it just fits too neatly into the narrative

Everything fits in too neatly, every single reference reads like "I just spent a couple of hours researching this" or even "I just read the Angela Nagle book" - I mean, much of it could be true, but it's so polluted by this bullshit that it doesn't matter.

I mean look at it, is she quoting her 13-year-old son?

“I liked them because they were adults and they thought I was an adult. I was one of them,” he said. “I was participating in a conversation. They took me seriously. No one ever took me seriously—not you, not my teachers, no one. If I expressed an opinion, you thought I was just a dumbass kid trying to find my voice. I already had my voice.”

it would be interesting to read a real account by a parent who lost their kid to 4chan or whatever--and what they did about it.

I absolutely believe that there are overzealous public school administrators

oh for sure. i had a couple of weird encounters w admins and a school counselor in 9th grade that kind of shook my faith in the ability of adults in charge to properly adult. even my folks (who ALWAYS ALWAYS took the side of adults in authority) met with them and were kinda like "eh, keep your head down summer's almost here. they actually do seem kinda crazy."

i've shared this story way too many times but in high school circa 1999 me and a few of my friends shared a website that functioned as a protoblog/livejournal kind of thing, where we (esp me) overshared way too much about our depression and how terrible life was. the website got popular at school and the school counselor and admin decided to tell my parents, along with the parents of everyone involved with the site, that we were all suicidal and possibly homicidal, then contacted the true owner of the domain (my best friend's mom) to make her shut it down, all on the same day

i would be surprised if this really happened like this

I believe it. I’ve shared my story about a very similar situation. It was horrible. Especially since the report was made-up in retaliation.

I guess I lucked out by thinking “some people are bad” rather than “society is bad because of cucks.”

That story gets a little too florid toward the end but the part with school administrators being clueless authoritarians with a heavy hand lines up with my middle/high school experience. That was twenty-five years ago, now, and I'd like to think things are better, but progress isn't evenly distributed across the board.

Kids getting dealt with harshly for small or nonexistent offenses definitely makes them want to push back. I think "my son is moderating an alt-right messageboard" is something that's more of a real offense, though

The reason the story seemed false to me had as much to do with the combination of narrator omniscience (iirc she literally tells us what her son is thinking at one point) and lack of detail (as mentioned, what was the misconstrued meme? what subreddit? who are these people?) as the just-so narrative of the overreaching liberal state Kavanaughing a young person into the arms of the alt-right.

history is just the way we craft events into a narrative to sell good feelings

this story didn't ring true to me at all. the bit about how "the reporters and the nazis needed each other" struck me as especially bogus.

Later, my son and I shared a viewing of Christopher Nolan's 2009 The Dark Knight. "You complete me," snarled Heath Ledger's iconic Joker to his foil and counterpart, Batman (the titular Dark Knight). In a flash of excitement my son paused the UHD 4k Blu-ray. "Mother," he exclaimed, "this is a precise expression of the dynamic we observed playing out on the Mall between a cynical and nihilistic press and the brainwashed cultists I now renounce! I feel like such a dumbass."