Motus Mentis

12 Comments

1. Adam says

   All of Bezmenov’s interviews and lectures are worth watching.

   His prescience is utterly terrifying.

   “Exposure to true information does not matter anymore.”

   Posted June 7, 2020 at 12:48 pm | Permalink
2. Dave says

   What motivated Bezmenov, a KGB agent stationed in India, to defect was seeing how many fervent Communists were on the list to be shot after the takeover. There were many conservative businessmen and landowners on that list too, but they all knew it, and would be safely out of the country before the Communist death squads came calling.

   Posted June 7, 2020 at 2:55 pm | Permalink
3. Malcolm says

   The problem for us, which Bezmenov pointed out in this video, is that we have nowhere left to defect to.

   Posted June 7, 2020 at 4:52 pm | Permalink
4. Dave says

   From last October…

   Him: You mentioned a gentler solution of progessivism falling apart internally. How could this possibly happen? When the Soviet Union fell apart, there was a widely know alternative state religion. It is easy to sell the idea of copying an existing system that is successful. People need something to defect to in order to even consider defecting.

   Me: A rotten tree does not remain standing for lack of a safe direction to fall. The USA could become a cartel terror state like Mexico.

   Him: When cartels take power that is not progressivism falling apart internally, but rather conquest.

   Me: A distinction without a difference. A firmly united elite whose official religion demands weakness and stupidity is an open invitation to conquest.

   Posted June 7, 2020 at 7:49 pm | Permalink
5. Malcolm says

   I wrote three years ago about a way that progressivism might break into pieces, using a metaphor from astrophysics.

   I’m not sure yet how to assess the long-term effect of this latest mass psychosis over the past couple of weeks. It was very artfully orchestrated to summon up the most powerful, most sacred emotions of our new secular religion. It all works very strongly against fragmentation and apostasy; i.e., against the tidal forces I describe in the linked post.

   It’s worrisome. Feels like another click of the ratchet.

   Posted June 7, 2020 at 8:54 pm | Permalink
6. Adam says

   Malcolm-

   Here is a tweet containing a podcast that touches on the idea that there is nowhere for liberty-loving Westerners to defect to:

   https://twitter.com/RLopezMission/status/1269130251105439745

   Posted June 7, 2020 at 9:57 pm | Permalink
7. Dave says

   Your 2017 essay concludes with:

   “If, as the process accelerates, the Left continues to delaminate and disintegrate, perhaps only a smaller and smaller core will tumble into the abyss — as others, such as Mr. Deresciewicz, find bedrock, at last, below which they cannot descend.”

   When the editor of a respected liberal newspaper suggests that the death in police custody of a black suspect a thousand miles away does not justify the burning and looting of buildings in his fair city, and is by mass public outrage immediately forced to resign, it is evident that the entire Left has tumbled into the abyss.

   Instead of bedrock, there is something more like the event horizon of a black hole. There is no change of scenery or sensation upon crossing this invisible boundary, but once past it, your fate is sealed, though inside a colossal black hole like M81’s, you might live several more days as you plunge toward the singularity.

   Posted June 8, 2020 at 12:09 am | Permalink
8. Malcolm says

   Dave,

   When the editor of a respected liberal newspaper suggests that the death in police custody of a black suspect a thousand miles away does not justify the burning and looting of buildings in his fair city, and is by mass public outrage immediately forced to resign, it is evident that the entire Left has tumbled into the abyss.

   It does look that way. It’s interesting, and diagnostic, that this issue has the power to glue the entire Left together as it has (and drag it into the abyss). That deserves some unpacking; it’s what they would call “a teachable moment”.

   The event-horizon metaphor is a good one; I used it myself just yesterday. From a post a while back:

   Surrounding a black hole is what’s called the Schwarzschild radius. In a sense it’s the “surface” of a black hole; it’s the distance from the singularity at which the gravitational pull becomes so intense that the escape velocity equals the speed of light. Once you cross it, you can’t get out: nothing, not even light or information, can escape. All spacetime paths within the Schwarzschild radius must pass through the singularity itself. But this fateful boundary isn’t a hard surface of any sort — in fact, if you are falling into the black hole yourself, you might not even notice as you cross it. It’s just that once you have, you are headed for that singularity, whether you like it or not. There’s no turning back.

   What all this means is that it’s too soon to know what species of civil war the next one will be, or whether it might still be avoided.

   Posted June 8, 2020 at 1:10 am | Permalink
9. Malcolm says

   Adam,

   Well, then we won’t let ourselves be pushed out.

   Posted June 8, 2020 at 1:21 am | Permalink
10. Adam says

    Malcolm-

    I understand what you are saying. However, there has been next to no pushback against this lunacy from any quarter.

    Posted June 8, 2020 at 7:40 am | Permalink
11. Whitewall says

    It is very possible that “push back” will come from within the ranks of these Dem/Leftist/Progs first. Not all of that population is in the streets. Not all want the police defunded or disbanded. These people like anyone else have to live there, so to speak.

    Posted June 8, 2020 at 10:52 am | Permalink
12. Malcolm says

    Adam – yes, this latest outbreak of mass psychosis has even gobbled up some fringes of what used to be called the “right”. And capital, with its finger up to test the wind, is all in:

    

    We are in the grip of a self-immolating collective hysteria without precedent, as far as I’m aware, anywhere in human history. It’s horrifying.

    Posted June 8, 2020 at 12:11 pm | Permalink