Anne Frank and the paradox of human nature: idealism and harsh reality

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“Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.” —Anne Frank, born 12 June 1929.

If this sentiment — and many others like it in her writings — is tragically naïve, we must first remember hers was an extraordinarily gentle and innocent spirit. Though demonstrably wise beyond her years, she was still but a child. Such words should be read not as a mirror of reality, but as an aspiration.

The stark reality? Bloody hell no, people are most certainly not inherently good. ‘Goodness’ is not innate in humans, it must be taught — arguably the central aim of child-rearing — and one person’s ‘good’ often clashes with another’s. It is why laws are necessary, and prisons equally so. At heart, humans are wicked, but reason compels us to suppress those baser instincts for society to function. When these restraints fail, the social contract is broken and all manners of tyranny and depravity are allowed to play out. This is what happened in Nazi Germany, and is playing out today in the former United States.

One thing, however, is beyond dispute: the Nazis were pure evil, and their modern ideological heirs are no less so. Somewhere in this world right now is an Anne Frank, and the cycle of senseless death and suffering continues without mercy. —Arthur Newhook, 12 June 2025.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 on X-TWITTER, and at the same handle on FACEBOOK. BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. REDDIT - https://www.reddit.com/r/StopTheIdiocracy/new/. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

Cognitive decline & the cult of the blithering idiot: how Trump and his #MAGA mob won infallibility as the world burns

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{Daily Beast 29 May} Noted speech expert declares that Trump is in cognitive decline.

And where are all the media and general public that were hand-wringing and panicking over President Biden’s (real or perceived) feebleness now? Once again, this orange motherf**ker gets a pass from the American populace. The most privileged American to have ever lived – and who, precisely, is responsible for allowing that? As H.L. Mencken said all the way back in 1920: “On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” Another quote of his: “The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.” Even he’d shudder at today’s cult of a blithering idiot, where white masses worship a conman and rage at any hint of dissent.

Ten bloody years, the remaining sane folks of this country have been harangued and harassed by this conman and his legion of followers. Not one single person in the entire history of this polyglot nation has ever been granted such consistent immunity from accountability. Indeed, no other person would have ever gotten away with fomenting an insurrection. And he got away with it because, I believe, the halls of power are scared to death of a violent uprising by rednecks, hillbillies, theocrats, and other assorted right-wing factions. Nobody has ever been more coddled than Trump, and the ordinary goobers who dominate these former United States, who are all around us, are to blame. When this is all said and done, I pray every last one of them faces some measure of accountability for being so deluded, even if their leader never does. —Arthur Newhook, 29 May 2025. 

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 on X-TWITTER, and at the same handle on FACEBOOK. BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. REDDIT - https://www.reddit.com/r/StopTheIdiocracy/new/. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

Elon Musk: The epitome of our self-destructive and malevolent age

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It still boggles my mind that the ‘richest man in the world’ is such an unholy idiot. Either that, or he is a sadist. I am offended that he has ruined what was the single most effective communications platform we had. Post-Trump and post-COVID, it really should no longer surprise myself or anyone else the lengths some will go to in order to hurt and control others. Elon Musk literally spent $44 billion - many times what Twitter was worth at the time of the transaction - in order to declare himself King of the Trolls, to play mind games with people, and quite possibly to deliberately destroy the platform altogether (if it was deliberate, he is succeeding in grand fashion.) Millions in #Cult45 routinely vote against their own economic interests because their hatred of fellow Americans and foreigners is all consuming. None of it makes any logical sense, but logic and common sense no longer live here and ours is not an age of reason. No, we really should not be surprised that the likes of Musk and Trump will hurt themselves, and their acolytes will hurt themselves, in order to hurt the rest of us worse. Never, however, can people of goodwill allow all of this insanity and degradation around us to be normalized. We must continue speaking out against it, for however long as necessary - which is going to be the rest of our lives, I am afraid. (Follow my new account on Threads, @arthurnewhook.)

Copyright 2023, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on TWITTER, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, and @arthurnewhook on POST and THREADS.

Confessions of a former evangelical and die-hard Republican Trump supporter

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Essential reading in trying to understand the brainwashed mind, and how intertwined the Republican Party and radical (re: perverted), fundamentalist Christianity in #Murica are. FTA: ‘I wasn’t looking to destroy the Conservatism that had surrounded my life since birth. I wasn’t looking to blow up the very thing that brought comfort, protection, and insulation from the outer chaos of the world. Conservative fundamentalism does that. It’s (sic) offers safety. It promises to bring law and order to chaos and messy things.’ Many of us - myself included, and I am trying - need to learn to stop seeing the world through a ‘conservative lens,’ and instead through a ‘Jesus-centric’ lens. {Kevin Young 4/27} 

Copyright 2023, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on TWITTER, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, and POST - @arthurnewhook.

Cult leader, and master at projection, Trump uses damning footage from his time in office to smear President Biden in campaign ads

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The gaslighting only gets more cruel and absurd, but never less effective: ‘Donald Trump’s 2024 election campaign paid to promote an ad on Facebook last week that used dystopian images to paint a dire picture of a U.S. in “decline” under President Joe Biden. Just one problem, two of the key images used in the ad turned out to be from Trump’s time in office.’ - Not a gaffe, done deliberately. It is what manipulative people do, project their own failings onto others. Scapegoating is at the heart of most everything #Cult45 does and believes, and Trump is their master because nobody (in modern U.S. history) has ever been more masterful in fostering fear, resentment, and outright hatred. Or at projection. And let’s not forget ignorance, for Trump knows his acolytes will not question anything he presents to them. {Mediaite 5/03}

Copyright 2023, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on TWITTER, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, and POST - @arthurnewhook.

Anti-Semitism on the rise in ‘Murica. Louisville, KY: Jewish mayoral candidate narrowly escapes assassination attempt

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Echoes of Nazi Germany are all around us. In Louisville, KY, an unidentified gunman opened fire at the campaign offices of a Jewish mayoral candidate, who was present and managed to evade the bullets. This was just one individual, apparently acting alone (at least as far as is known), but oppression and tyranny is not the exclusive domain of governments and organized institutions. In Nazi Germany, Hitler and company liberated large segments of German society to freely express their various hatreds, and many individuals committed crimes against Jews, gipsys, and other outcasts without direct orders from authorities. We are increasingly seeing the same effect in America in the years since Donald Trump has been a political cult leader. Nobody has been more effective at blowing those various ‘dog whistles’ than Trump, and even as he has been deposed from high office, the fallout is only just beginning in earnest. All Jews in America would be wise to take all precautions, and to alert the world to what is coming. Via Algemeiner - 

A Jewish Democratic mayoral candidate in Kentucky was left miraculously unharmed after multiple shots were fired at him in his campaign office on Monday morning. 

Craig Greenberg, who is running for the post of mayor in Louisville, Kentucky, was guided to safety along with members of his staff by police officers after an unidentified gunman opened fire at around 10:15 am. None of the shots hit Greenberg, though one bullet did pierce his clothing. 

“We consider ourselves very fortunate,” Louisville Metro Police Chief Erika Shields said at a press conference following the attack, the Courier Journal reported. 

Shields said that a motive behind the shooting was yet to be established. (Read more)

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Abandon all hope: U.S. COVID death toll surpasses 900,000

AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes

It was only in mid-December that the 800,000 mark was passed, and less than two months later we are at 900,000. To avoid reaching that one million mark would require a miracle, I.e. no more variants emerging, but alas we are all out of luck on that front as BA.2 is coming. I do remember, toward the start of the pandemic, that even some of those who were taking the threat seriously – taking the proper precautions - scoffed at predictions of upwards of 250,000 dead. Now, nearly two years later, we sit at close to four times that number, and it barely seems to phase most anymore. The psychological and societal fallout has been immense in just two years, and we'll be dealing with that fallout for decades to come. America is going to be an extremely dark place to live for decades to come. Abandon all hope; the little Fascists and other assorted misfits all around us destroyed it. From the AP -  

Propelled in part by the wildly contagious omicron variant, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 hit 900,000 on Friday, less than two months after eclipsing 800,000. 

The two-year total, as compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is greater than the population of Indianapolis, San Francisco, or Charlotte, North Carolina. 

The milestone comes more than 13 months into a vaccination drive that has been beset by misinformation and political and legal strife, though the shots have proved safe and highly effective at preventing serious illness and death. 

“It is an astronomically high number. If you had told most Americans two years ago as this pandemic was getting going that 900,000 Americans would die over the next few years, I think most people would not have believed it,” said Dr. Ashish K. Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. 

He lamented that most of the deaths happened after the vaccine gained authorization. 

“We got the medical science right. We failed on the social science. We failed on how to help people get vaccinated, to combat disinformation, to not politicize this,” Jha said. “Those are the places where we have failed as America.” 

Just 64% of the population is fully vaccinated, or about 212 million Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Nor is COVID-19 finished with the United States: Jha said the U.S. could reach 1 million deaths by April. (Read more)

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Americans in their 40s, 50s, and 60s suffer worse ‘depression and worse memory recall than older Americans did when they were the same age,’ a phenomenon not seen in better-educated countries

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Well, I’m 43, and have had the misfortune of spending my entire life in this rotting cesspool. And I’m not a happy man. Nor am I even able to recall what my name is half the time, and that is only somewhat of an exaggeration. I suppose I am not the only one beyond frustrated with all the noise, gaslighting, and degradation we must endure for the ‘privilege’ of being an American. Via Arizona State University - 

Middle-aged adults in the United States today experience worse mental health than older generations of Americans and also their European and Asian peers. 

To understand what is happening with middle-aged American adults, a research team led by Arizona State University scientists compared middle age across different cultures and periods of time. 

The study examined how physical and mental health in midlife changed over time and in different countries. American adults currently in their 40s, 50s and early 60s have more symptoms of depression and worse memory recall than older Americans did when they were the same age. This pattern was found in Australian middle-aged adults but not in those living in Germany, South Korea or Mexico. 

Years of education was associated with better mental health in midlife, but the strength of this buffering effect has waned for Americans currently in their 40s, 50s and 60s relative to older American generations and to middle-aged adults in Australia, Germany, South Korea and Mexico. 

This work was published on Dec. 16 in American Psychologist. (Read more)

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Covidocy in the UK: America is not the only country where people have lost their bearings

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Our inane country is not the only one where belligerence and conspiracism have taken hold of large numbers of people. I would submit, though, that America will always be the loudest and most obnoxious about it. Still, Michael J. Stern visited Great Britain recently, and his findings do not offer much hope for humanity. Willful ignorance is more contagious than even the virus itself - 

I thought COVID-19 anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers were a unique phenomenon of American stupidity, but having just returned from a two-week trip to England, I fear that the reckless response to a virus that has killed almost 5 million people worldwide is not an American thing — it’s a human thing.  

Many of us who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 and who have committed to the discomfort of wearing masks in indoor public places, have spent the better part of a year fuming at the estimated 93 million Americans who are eligible to receive the vaccine but refuse it — and the people who ignore mask requirements and walk through indoor public spaces with their mask hanging off one ear. 

I figured this callous disregard for the safety of others had its genesis in the wave of anti-science paranoia that was stoked by our 45th president, but I witnessed the same wanton negligence an ocean away. 

When the United Kingdom finally lifted its quarantine requirements for vaccinated American visitors in August, I quickly planned a trip to visit my partner, a Brit, whom I had not seen for 20 months.  

I knew that Prime Minister Boris Johnson had lifted virtually all vaccination and mask requirements to access public places, but I was confident that British common sense and courtesy would prevail. Boy, was I wrong. (Read more)

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The biggest threat to one’s personal safety, well-being, and sanity is our fellow citizens

The biggest threat to one’s personal safety, well-being, and sanity is our fellow citizens. Yes, to an even greater degree than the government. Always knew this deep down, but lived in blatant denial for as long as I could; which was for all too long a time. COVID-19 made acknowledging this reality unavoidable. Human beings are not basically good, as we all are demanded to believe; it is exactly the opposite that holds true. Human beings are evil by nature, and the entire point of civilization itself is restraining and taming this innate evil. Everybody wants their rights, but they don’t give a damn about the rights of others. Hence, we are seeing it play out in real time that libertarianism is no more humane an ideology than any form of autocracy. Trust nobody, for the biggest tyrants are all around us; they are us.

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One meme displays why reason and logic is useless when it comes to combating fanaticism

I think this explains our predicament with these folks, and the psychology behind their thinking, about as succinctly as could be said ...

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‘(T)oo inundated with information to take the threat seriously.’ All is not well with the collective psyche of America

Paullee Wheatley-Rutner via Storyful

AP - As flood alerts lit up phones, did 'warning fatigue' cost people their lives? 

The alarm was sounded on COVID before it reached our shores in earnest in March 2020, and millions of Americans refused to take it seriously. More than 600,000 deaths and 39 million cases later, millions still stubbornly refuse to follow protocol and some still believe it’s a hoax even as people are dying all around us. So, what chance did the National Weather Service have when they sent out warnings of the catastrophic flooding that would engulf New York City and surrounding areas this past week? People shrugged their shoulders, or got annoyed, or otherwise didn’t take the warnings seriously. They couldn’t be arsed to take heed, and a few of them likely died as a direct result of their apathy, stubbornness, and willful ignorance. I am honestly beginning to believe that an imminent warning of a nuclear bomb heading our way wouldn’t move people to action anymore. What a pathetic country of losers we are becoming. 

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