Tea at Trianon: Deprogramming the American Mind

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, August 4, 2017

Deprogramming the American Mind

On the Trump Effect. From Front Page Mag:

“The Trump effect,” Jarvik begins, “is the deprogramming of the American mind, and Trump is the Deprogrammer-in-Chief.” Since the traumatic terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Jarvik notes, “Americans have somehow been programmed, indoctrinated, sort of fed a lot of fantasy ideology, whether it’s in schools, whether in the media, whether in politics,” and the brainwashing and fear induced by this PC totalitarianism is similar to being immersed in a cult. The process of breaking free from its grip is not unlike the process whereby a cult follower is deprogrammed.

Jarvik is hopeful that Trump can break this spell; indeed, he is already doing it. “The techniques Trump is using are the same techniques used by deprogrammers,” he argues. “First they have to discredit the cult leader… [Trump] did it with the Clintons and the Bushes, and he did it with President Obama.”

“The second step is to show the contradictions between what they say and what they’re going to do on a policy or action level. Again, he did that,” and “that’s where the tweets come in.” Jarvik notes that Trump uses Twitter to constantly bombard the public with information and attacks on leftist hypocrisy and policy failures. (Read more.)