⚡️Nice journal reference here and citation to my work on Disinfolklore.
Does two things of particular value to me as a writer:
1. Is a record that I created the Portmanteau ‘Disinfolklore.’
2. Correctly categorises ‘Disinformation’ as a particular form of ‘Disinfolklore.’
Thus giving me the whole field (which I’d be too humble to have claimed too loudly) while confining all the work focussing on Disinformation to a local province or region of my field.
Prof Yolles cites my work, the result of @peterjukes visionary decision to commission for @BylineTimes an early piece on Disinfolklore in Byline Supplement. Work now presented https://www.Disinfolklore .com in a very innovative format. Thanks @peterjukes Thanks Prof Yolles.
See Maurice Yolles, 2025. "The Psychological Impact of Technology: Narrative Memetics and Psychosocial Contagion in Digital Network," Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics, in: Patrizia Gazzola & Gandolfo Dominici (ed.), Technology and Society - Boon or Bane?, pages 16-43, Springer.
⚡️ My Munich speech: Our Disinfolklore Universe ~
Battling Archetypes
It’s appropriate to be speaking about our Disinfolklore Universe at a Pirate Party Munich Security conference event.
Those who founded the Pirate Party get what I am about to speak to you about.
There’s a flow between on the one hand culture, art, films, literature about pirates and geopolitical security.
Those whom we entrust with securing our conditions of civilised life don’t seem to understand this. This is partly why they’re such easy marks for Russian and MAGA Disinfolklore.
They get wrapped up so easily in Russian or MAGA trolls, like flies in a spider's web, it’s very hard for them even to understand they’re trapped inside Old Thinking.
Today I’m going to offer a perspective on what I call our Disinfolklore Universe. And I’m also going to offer a means to escape the troll memes wrap us up inside when we fall for MAGA or Russian Disinfolklore.
None of this is easy. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have all the answers.
Whenever you hear anyone talk about Disinformation or Disinfolklore as if it happens to other people. As if only stupid people fall for trolls. Whenever you hear chatter like that, be certain those people are easy marks for trolls. For MAGA and Russian Disinfolklore.
Today we live in a true Disinfolklore Universe.
The fabric of every dimension of our lives - work, personal relationships, life choices, fates - is infused with aspects of Druidey Don and Duncey Putin’s memetic onslaught.
Our Moods/Motivations/Intentions/Attitudes are being formed by what I call ‘Disinfolklore.’
Directly – through whichever media memes we consume.
Or indirectly, through our own minds and those of others, influencing us from archetypes created and evolving from Disinfolklore.
Batman and Robin are running America – you saw Elmo, Druidey Don, and the kid in the White House the other day?
https://t.co/lVD0q77lvT
⚡️Revolutions in Paris, DC, Berlin: Turning, Then Righting
The hero needs a damsel. If there is no damsel in distress, well, no bother. You distress one. Then you ride in.
The movement I want to bring into our minds is turning, then the straightening. I am going to keep saying it.
Turning, then righting. I want to embed it, so that when our minds are being turned by someone, in real time, we recall this little mantra.
Turning, righting.
When you see a revolution on the streets of Paris, whether in 1789 or today, that is turning. And then comes the righting of the turning.
Think of a wheel. The wheel is turning, with a Tr- in it, the consonantal pair. When it stops turning, it is righted. You have a wheelwright who fixes it. The wheel was turning, then it was broken.
There is a riot, perhaps, or an insurrection. Then someone rights it. The wheelwright rights the wheel.
So you create the chaos, which is the turning. Then you purport to save it, to solve it, which is the righting.
The riot is the turning. The strong man who says I will lock every rioter up, or indeed the strong woman leader who says it, I will lock the far left up, that is the righting.
And because the hand that offers the righting was behind the turning, the righting is his to offer.
Think of a wheelwright who plants stones or nails on the road. Think of running a business that fixes tyres. You guarantee yourself plenty of custom by putting nails on the street.
The hand that offers the righting was behind the turning, and he is ready for it, because he planned it.
The oldest shape of the trick is the damsel in distress. France is in distress. Europe is in distress. russian Disinfolklorists love the motif, and I have written about it often.
The hero needs a damsel. If there is no damsel in distress, well, no bother. You distress one. Then you ride in.
America was great. You say it is not great. You convince people it is not great. In fact you make it ungreat. You degrade America. You distress America, and then you say you are going to save it.
There is an abhorrent cultural meme I have spoken about before, the men who call themselves pick-up artists. They nag their victims.
Your nose is a bit too big. Wow, I am surprised you ever had a girlfriend, because you are pretty ugly. Then they use that vulnerability to hook the person. That is the micro level.
On the macro level we are not used to this. We are not used to it in geopolitics. We are not used to it in politics. We are not used to people arranging riots like the January 6th insurrection and then riding in to supposedly fix it. We are not used to countries carpet bombing, let us say, Syria.
Imagine a country like russia, which was having problems in Ukraine in the summer of 2015. It decides to carpet bomb Syria, which it starts doing in September 2015. That provokes millions of migrants, because nobody wants to die. The migrants come into Europe. They cause political chaos. And the people who ride to the rescue are PiS in Poland and Orbán in Hungary. Germany had a lot of problems. Merkel invited them in, legalised a million migrants and more or less absorbed them.
Now we have the AfD, supported by russia, riding high in the polls.
You cause the distress, then you purport to solve it. You cause the distress, then you sponsor political movements like the National Rally, you offer them massive loans, and then you purport to solve it. The same trick in Reform. It is a routine.
Available wherever you get your podcasts and here: https://t.co/SF34g19BLn
⚡️Revolutions in Paris, DC, Berlin: Turning, Then Righting
The hero needs a damsel. If there is no damsel in distress, well, no bother. You distress one. Then you ride in.
The movement I want to bring into our minds is turning, then the straightening. I am going to keep saying it.
Turning, then righting. I want to embed it, so that when our minds are being turned by someone, in real time, we recall this little mantra.
Turning, righting.
When you see a revolution on the streets of Paris, whether in 1789 or today, that is turning. And then comes the righting of the turning.
Think of a wheel. The wheel is turning, with a Tr- in it, the consonantal pair. When it stops turning, it is righted. You have a wheelwright who fixes it. The wheel was turning, then it was broken.
There is a riot, perhaps, or an insurrection. Then someone rights it. The wheelwright rights the wheel.
So you create the chaos, which is the turning. Then you purport to save it, to solve it, which is the righting.
The riot is the turning. The strong man who says I will lock every rioter up, or indeed the strong woman leader who says it, I will lock the far left up, that is the righting.
And because the hand that offers the righting was behind the turning, the righting is his to offer.
Think of a wheelwright who plants stones or nails on the road. Think of running a business that fixes tyres. You guarantee yourself plenty of custom by putting nails on the street.
The hand that offers the righting was behind the turning, and he is ready for it, because he planned it.
The oldest shape of the trick is the damsel in distress. France is in distress. Europe is in distress. russian Disinfolklorists love the motif, and I have written about it often.
The hero needs a damsel. If there is no damsel in distress, well, no bother. You distress one. Then you ride in.
America was great. You say it is not great. You convince people it is not great. In fact you make it ungreat. You degrade America. You distress America, and then you say you are going to save it.
There is an abhorrent cultural meme I have spoken about before, the men who call themselves pick-up artists. They nag their victims.
Your nose is a bit too big. Wow, I am surprised you ever had a girlfriend, because you are pretty ugly. Then they use that vulnerability to hook the person. That is the micro level.
On the macro level we are not used to this. We are not used to it in geopolitics. We are not used to it in politics. We are not used to people arranging riots like the January 6th insurrection and then riding in to supposedly fix it. We are not used to countries carpet bombing, let us say, Syria.
Imagine a country like russia, which was having problems in Ukraine in the summer of 2015. It decides to carpet bomb Syria, which it starts doing in September 2015. That provokes millions of migrants, because nobody wants to die. The migrants come into Europe. They cause political chaos. And the people who ride to the rescue are PiS in Poland and Orbán in Hungary. Germany had a lot of problems. Merkel invited them in, legalised a million migrants and more or less absorbed them.
Now we have the AfD, supported by russia, riding high in the polls.
You cause the distress, then you purport to solve it. You cause the distress, then you sponsor political movements like the National Rally, you offer them massive loans, and then you purport to solve it. The same trick in Reform. It is a routine.
Available wherever you get your podcasts and here: https://t.co/SF34g19BLn
"Ukraine did not reach millions of drones because they were cheap. It reached them because it built all four parts under fire, and because the people who use the drones can talk directly to the people who make them.
I see two mistakes in European procurement. The first is buying small batches of expensive systems and calling it modernisation. The second is the opposite: announcing huge orders of cheap drones without the feedback loop, the operators or the update path. The first gives you a museum. The second gives you a warehouse"
https://t.co/xBIDzq5HKq
⚡️Duty to preserve an American Republic.
All of us have a duty, and especially the Americans amongst us, to fight to retain the Republic in the jurisdiction of the United States.
France has had five or six republics.
There is no reason why there cannot be a second American republic, one that takes account of all the errors the Don and his enablers, the eparchy, have brought to the fore of so many minds… https://t.co/uR8XeSYZ6r
⚡️No Finlandisation: The Danger of Boris Johnsons
Johnson tells @KyivIndependent of the ‘impossibility’ of Ukraine expelling Russia from 100% of Ukraine. Johnson, Ukraine’s false friend, speaks of how Ukraine needs foreign forces to keep the peace. This would reward Russia for its crimes and give it time and resources to execute new crimes against us.
I can’t work out whether Johnson’s concern-trolling about Ukraine’s suffering is motivated by his lazy mind or Russian oligarch whose English media empire got Johnson into office. Johnson, like Donald, appears to be working to benefit Russian oligarchs in their campaign to persuade Putler to stop the war by giving him permanently a chunk of Ukraine.
No ‘Finlandisation’ in Ukraine.
When Russia loses wars, as in Finland and in Ukraine, Russia, as Germany and Japan experienced, must lose EVERYTHING and reform. Or, disappear, like the USSR.
⚡️No Finlandisation: The Danger of Boris Johnsons
Johnson tells @KyivIndependent of the ‘impossibility’ of Ukraine expelling Russia from 100% of Ukraine. Johnson, Ukraine’s false friend, speaks of how Ukraine needs foreign forces to keep the peace. This would reward Russia for its crimes and give it time and resources to execute new crimes against us.
I can’t work out whether Johnson’s concern-trolling about Ukraine’s suffering is motivated by his lazy mind or Russian oligarch whose English media empire got Johnson into office. Johnson, like Donald, appears to be working to benefit Russian oligarchs in their campaign to persuade Putler to stop the war by giving him permanently a chunk of Ukraine.
No ‘Finlandisation’ in Ukraine.
When Russia loses wars, as in Finland and in Ukraine, Russia, as Germany and Japan experienced, must lose EVERYTHING and reform. Or, disappear, like the USSR.
⚡️No Finlandisation: The Danger of Boris Johnsons
Johnson tells @KyivIndependent of the ‘impossibility’ of Ukraine expelling Russia from 100% of Ukraine. Johnson, Ukraine’s false friend, speaks of how Ukraine needs foreign forces to keep the peace. This would reward Russia for its crimes and give it time and resources to execute new crimes against us.
I can’t work out whether Johnson’s concern-trolling about Ukraine’s suffering is motivated by his lazy mind or Russian oligarch whose English media empire got Johnson into office. Johnson, like Donald, appears to be working to benefit Russian oligarchs in their campaign to persuade Putler to stop the war by giving him permanently a chunk of Ukraine.
No ‘Finlandisation’ in Ukraine.
When Russia loses wars, as in Finland and in Ukraine, Russia, as Germany and Japan experienced, must lose EVERYTHING and reform. Or, disappear, like the USSR.
Керівниця @azov_suprovid Ріна Рєзнік @ReznikRina в етері «Суспільне Студія» розповіла, що звільнені захисники, які пережили теракт в Оленівці, наразі не потребують термінового хірургічного втручання.
https://t.co/wkahp6ON4r
⚡️Revolutions in Paris, DC, Berlin: Turning, Then Righting
The hero needs a damsel. If there is no damsel in distress, well, no bother. You distress one. Then you ride in.
The movement I want to bring into our minds is turning, then the straightening. I am going to keep saying it.
Turning, then righting. I want to embed it, so that when our minds are being turned by someone, in real time, we recall this little mantra.
Turning, righting.
When you see a revolution on the streets of Paris, whether in 1789 or today, that is turning. And then comes the righting of the turning.
Think of a wheel. The wheel is turning, with a Tr- in it, the consonantal pair. When it stops turning, it is righted. You have a wheelwright who fixes it. The wheel was turning, then it was broken.
There is a riot, perhaps, or an insurrection. Then someone rights it. The wheelwright rights the wheel.
So you create the chaos, which is the turning. Then you purport to save it, to solve it, which is the righting.
The riot is the turning. The strong man who says I will lock every rioter up, or indeed the strong woman leader who says it, I will lock the far left up, that is the righting.
And because the hand that offers the righting was behind the turning, the righting is his to offer.
Think of a wheelwright who plants stones or nails on the road. Think of running a business that fixes tyres. You guarantee yourself plenty of custom by putting nails on the street.
The hand that offers the righting was behind the turning, and he is ready for it, because he planned it.
The oldest shape of the trick is the damsel in distress. France is in distress. Europe is in distress. russian Disinfolklorists love the motif, and I have written about it often.
The hero needs a damsel. If there is no damsel in distress, well, no bother. You distress one. Then you ride in.
America was great. You say it is not great. You convince people it is not great. In fact you make it ungreat. You degrade America. You distress America, and then you say you are going to save it.
There is an abhorrent cultural meme I have spoken about before, the men who call themselves pick-up artists. They nag their victims.
Your nose is a bit too big. Wow, I am surprised you ever had a girlfriend, because you are pretty ugly. Then they use that vulnerability to hook the person. That is the micro level.
On the macro level we are not used to this. We are not used to it in geopolitics. We are not used to it in politics. We are not used to people arranging riots like the January 6th insurrection and then riding in to supposedly fix it. We are not used to countries carpet bombing, let us say, Syria.
Imagine a country like russia, which was having problems in Ukraine in the summer of 2015. It decides to carpet bomb Syria, which it starts doing in September 2015. That provokes millions of migrants, because nobody wants to die. The migrants come into Europe. They cause political chaos. And the people who ride to the rescue are PiS in Poland and Orbán in Hungary. Germany had a lot of problems. Merkel invited them in, legalised a million migrants and more or less absorbed them.
Now we have the AfD, supported by russia, riding high in the polls.
You cause the distress, then you purport to solve it. You cause the distress, then you sponsor political movements like the National Rally, you offer them massive loans, and then you purport to solve it. The same trick in Reform. It is a routine.
Available wherever you get your podcasts and here: https://t.co/SF34g19BLn
⚡️Russia celebrates Wednesday - with human sacrifice to mythological character.
Russian ‘Wagner’ army unit sacrificed to Odin - the Shaman Trickster God of rubes after whom Whodanaz Dyeus (Wednesday) is named.
Odin/Whoden has no himself on an ash tree by the Royal mound in Uppsala, Sweden.
Here, Russian army sacrifices a Russian soldier to Baba Yaga (a kind of drone Russian soldiers named for a scary witch in Indo-European folklore) by tying him to a tree
🇷🇺 This is the first case I'm aware of involving state-aligned actors using Yggdrasil for C2 comms
It is also interesting the division of operational responsibilities between access preparation (UAC-0099) and effects delivery (Sandworm)
https://t.co/84ZNgceBt0
⚡️Russia celebrates Wednesday - with human sacrifice to mythological character.
Russian ‘Wagner’ army unit sacrificed to Odin - the Shaman Trickster God of rubes after whom Whodanaz Dyeus (Wednesday) is named.
Odin/Whoden has no himself on an ash tree by the Royal mound in Uppsala, Sweden.
Here, Russian army sacrifices a Russian soldier to Baba Yaga (a kind of drone Russian soldiers named for a scary witch in Indo-European folklore) by tying him to a tree
⚡️Russia celebrates Wednesday - with human sacrifice to mythological character.
Russian ‘Wagner’ army unit sacrificed to Odin - the Shaman Trickster God of rubes after whom Whodanaz Dyeus (Wednesday) is named.
Odin/Whoden has no himself on an ash tree by the Royal mound in Uppsala, Sweden.
Here, Russian army sacrifices a Russian soldier to Baba Yaga (a kind of drone Russian soldiers named for a scary witch in Indo-European folklore) by tying him to a tree
⚡️ I could not connect the two cultures, geographically separated by thousands of kilometres, as well as by several millennia.
I hadn’t then realised that Christianity grew out of a Roman colony so that the Roman Catholic faith was an amalgam of influences, including the Italic culture of which it emanated.
When I’d first heard the word Yama in that temple in Ulaanbaatar, Yama had seemed like an extravagantly exotic figure.
I didn’t know then that the Buddhist Yama had evolved out of India’s first self-sacrificing king – also called by that unusual name: Yama. Early India’s Yama’s twin was Manu.
I hadn’t known that the Indian Yama had begun life as the recognisably similarly named Iranian God Yima.
Or that there was a Norse God Ymir, who performed a similar role in that ancient religion as their near namesakes played in ancient Iran and India.
Nor did I know that, as mentioned, Woden, another manifestation of the Germanic God *Wodhanaz (after whom Wednesday is named), had, like Yama, sacrificed himself.
Woden, like Yama a Lord of Death, hanged himself from Yggdrasil, the cosmic ash tree as the foundational moment in Norse religion beside the three Royal Mounds in Uppsala…
💔📸 Children are burying children. There are no words for this.
“Above the small child’s coffin, the lid was lifted, and the entire crowd — the courtyard, the air itself — froze. No one could breathe.”
📸 Kyiv. Farewell to the Halych family, August 2025. Yuliya Kochetova.
⚡️Revolutions in Paris, DC, Berlin: Turning, Then Righting
The hero needs a damsel. If there is no damsel in distress, well, no bother. You distress one. Then you ride in.
The movement I want to bring into our minds is turning, then the straightening. I am going to keep saying it.
Turning, then righting. I want to embed it, so that when our minds are being turned by someone, in real time, we recall this little mantra.
Turning, righting.
When you see a revolution on the streets of Paris, whether in 1789 or today, that is turning. And then comes the righting of the turning.
Think of a wheel. The wheel is turning, with a Tr- in it, the consonantal pair. When it stops turning, it is righted. You have a wheelwright who fixes it. The wheel was turning, then it was broken.
There is a riot, perhaps, or an insurrection. Then someone rights it. The wheelwright rights the wheel.
So you create the chaos, which is the turning. Then you purport to save it, to solve it, which is the righting.
The riot is the turning. The strong man who says I will lock every rioter up, or indeed the strong woman leader who says it, I will lock the far left up, that is the righting.
And because the hand that offers the righting was behind the turning, the righting is his to offer.
Think of a wheelwright who plants stones or nails on the road. Think of running a business that fixes tyres. You guarantee yourself plenty of custom by putting nails on the street.
The hand that offers the righting was behind the turning, and he is ready for it, because he planned it.
The oldest shape of the trick is the damsel in distress. France is in distress. Europe is in distress. russian Disinfolklorists love the motif, and I have written about it often.
The hero needs a damsel. If there is no damsel in distress, well, no bother. You distress one. Then you ride in.
America was great. You say it is not great. You convince people it is not great. In fact you make it ungreat. You degrade America. You distress America, and then you say you are going to save it.
There is an abhorrent cultural meme I have spoken about before, the men who call themselves pick-up artists. They nag their victims.
Your nose is a bit too big. Wow, I am surprised you ever had a girlfriend, because you are pretty ugly. Then they use that vulnerability to hook the person. That is the micro level.
On the macro level we are not used to this. We are not used to it in geopolitics. We are not used to it in politics. We are not used to people arranging riots like the January 6th insurrection and then riding in to supposedly fix it. We are not used to countries carpet bombing, let us say, Syria.
Imagine a country like russia, which was having problems in Ukraine in the summer of 2015. It decides to carpet bomb Syria, which it starts doing in September 2015. That provokes millions of migrants, because nobody wants to die. The migrants come into Europe. They cause political chaos. And the people who ride to the rescue are PiS in Poland and Orbán in Hungary. Germany had a lot of problems. Merkel invited them in, legalised a million migrants and more or less absorbed them.
Now we have the AfD, supported by russia, riding high in the polls.
You cause the distress, then you purport to solve it. You cause the distress, then you sponsor political movements like the National Rally, you offer them massive loans, and then you purport to solve it. The same trick in Reform. It is a routine.
Available wherever you get your podcasts and here: https://t.co/SF34g19BLn
⚡️Revolutions in Paris, DC, Berlin: Turning, Then Righting
The hero needs a damsel. If there is no damsel in distress, well, no bother. You distress one. Then you ride in.
The movement I want to bring into our minds is turning, then the straightening. I am going to keep saying it.
Turning, then righting. I want to embed it, so that when our minds are being turned by someone, in real time, we recall this little mantra.
Turning, righting.
When you see a revolution on the streets of Paris, whether in 1789 or today, that is turning. And then comes the righting of the turning.
Think of a wheel. The wheel is turning, with a Tr- in it, the consonantal pair. When it stops turning, it is righted. You have a wheelwright who fixes it. The wheel was turning, then it was broken.
There is a riot, perhaps, or an insurrection. Then someone rights it. The wheelwright rights the wheel.
So you create the chaos, which is the turning. Then you purport to save it, to solve it, which is the righting.
The riot is the turning. The strong man who says I will lock every rioter up, or indeed the strong woman leader who says it, I will lock the far left up, that is the righting.
And because the hand that offers the righting was behind the turning, the righting is his to offer.
Think of a wheelwright who plants stones or nails on the road. Think of running a business that fixes tyres. You guarantee yourself plenty of custom by putting nails on the street.
The hand that offers the righting was behind the turning, and he is ready for it, because he planned it.
The oldest shape of the trick is the damsel in distress. France is in distress. Europe is in distress. russian Disinfolklorists love the motif, and I have written about it often.
The hero needs a damsel. If there is no damsel in distress, well, no bother. You distress one. Then you ride in.
America was great. You say it is not great. You convince people it is not great. In fact you make it ungreat. You degrade America. You distress America, and then you say you are going to save it.
There is an abhorrent cultural meme I have spoken about before, the men who call themselves pick-up artists. They nag their victims.
Your nose is a bit too big. Wow, I am surprised you ever had a girlfriend, because you are pretty ugly. Then they use that vulnerability to hook the person. That is the micro level.
On the macro level we are not used to this. We are not used to it in geopolitics. We are not used to it in politics. We are not used to people arranging riots like the January 6th insurrection and then riding in to supposedly fix it. We are not used to countries carpet bombing, let us say, Syria.
Imagine a country like russia, which was having problems in Ukraine in the summer of 2015. It decides to carpet bomb Syria, which it starts doing in September 2015. That provokes millions of migrants, because nobody wants to die. The migrants come into Europe. They cause political chaos. And the people who ride to the rescue are PiS in Poland and Orbán in Hungary. Germany had a lot of problems. Merkel invited them in, legalised a million migrants and more or less absorbed them.
Now we have the AfD, supported by russia, riding high in the polls.
You cause the distress, then you purport to solve it. You cause the distress, then you sponsor political movements like the National Rally, you offer them massive loans, and then you purport to solve it. The same trick in Reform. It is a routine.
Available wherever you get your podcasts and here: https://t.co/SF34g19BLn
⚡️Revolutions in Paris, DC, Berlin: Turning, Then Righting
The hero needs a damsel. If there is no damsel in distress, well, no bother. You distress one. Then you ride in.
The movement I want to bring into our minds is turning, then the straightening. I am going to keep saying it.
Turning, then righting. I want to embed it, so that when our minds are being turned by someone, in real time, we recall this little mantra.
Turning, righting.
When you see a revolution on the streets of Paris, whether in 1789 or today, that is turning. And then comes the righting of the turning.
Think of a wheel. The wheel is turning, with a Tr- in it, the consonantal pair. When it stops turning, it is righted. You have a wheelwright who fixes it. The wheel was turning, then it was broken.
There is a riot, perhaps, or an insurrection. Then someone rights it. The wheelwright rights the wheel.
So you create the chaos, which is the turning. Then you purport to save it, to solve it, which is the righting.
The riot is the turning. The strong man who says I will lock every rioter up, or indeed the strong woman leader who says it, I will lock the far left up, that is the righting.
And because the hand that offers the righting was behind the turning, the righting is his to offer.
Think of a wheelwright who plants stones or nails on the road. Think of running a business that fixes tyres. You guarantee yourself plenty of custom by putting nails on the street.
The hand that offers the righting was behind the turning, and he is ready for it, because he planned it.
The oldest shape of the trick is the damsel in distress. France is in distress. Europe is in distress. russian Disinfolklorists love the motif, and I have written about it often.
The hero needs a damsel. If there is no damsel in distress, well, no bother. You distress one. Then you ride in.
America was great. You say it is not great. You convince people it is not great. In fact you make it ungreat. You degrade America. You distress America, and then you say you are going to save it.
There is an abhorrent cultural meme I have spoken about before, the men who call themselves pick-up artists. They nag their victims.
Your nose is a bit too big. Wow, I am surprised you ever had a girlfriend, because you are pretty ugly. Then they use that vulnerability to hook the person. That is the micro level.
On the macro level we are not used to this. We are not used to it in geopolitics. We are not used to it in politics. We are not used to people arranging riots like the January 6th insurrection and then riding in to supposedly fix it. We are not used to countries carpet bombing, let us say, Syria.
Imagine a country like russia, which was having problems in Ukraine in the summer of 2015. It decides to carpet bomb Syria, which it starts doing in September 2015. That provokes millions of migrants, because nobody wants to die. The migrants come into Europe. They cause political chaos. And the people who ride to the rescue are PiS in Poland and Orbán in Hungary. Germany had a lot of problems. Merkel invited them in, legalised a million migrants and more or less absorbed them.
Now we have the AfD, supported by russia, riding high in the polls.
You cause the distress, then you purport to solve it. You cause the distress, then you sponsor political movements like the National Rally, you offer them massive loans, and then you purport to solve it. The same trick in Reform. It is a routine.
Available wherever you get your podcasts and here: https://t.co/SF34g19BLn
⚡️Revolutions in Paris, DC, Berlin: Turning, Then Righting
The hero needs a damsel. If there is no damsel in distress, well, no bother. You distress one. Then you ride in.
The movement I want to bring into our minds is turning, then the straightening. I am going to keep saying it.
Turning, then righting. I want to embed it, so that when our minds are being turned by someone, in real time, we recall this little mantra.
Turning, righting.
When you see a revolution on the streets of Paris, whether in 1789 or today, that is turning. And then comes the righting of the turning.
Think of a wheel. The wheel is turning, with a Tr- in it, the consonantal pair. When it stops turning, it is righted. You have a wheelwright who fixes it. The wheel was turning, then it was broken.
There is a riot, perhaps, or an insurrection. Then someone rights it. The wheelwright rights the wheel.
So you create the chaos, which is the turning. Then you purport to save it, to solve it, which is the righting.
The riot is the turning. The strong man who says I will lock every rioter up, or indeed the strong woman leader who says it, I will lock the far left up, that is the righting.
And because the hand that offers the righting was behind the turning, the righting is his to offer.
Think of a wheelwright who plants stones or nails on the road. Think of running a business that fixes tyres. You guarantee yourself plenty of custom by putting nails on the street.
The hand that offers the righting was behind the turning, and he is ready for it, because he planned it.
The oldest shape of the trick is the damsel in distress. France is in distress. Europe is in distress. russian Disinfolklorists love the motif, and I have written about it often.
The hero needs a damsel. If there is no damsel in distress, well, no bother. You distress one. Then you ride in.
America was great. You say it is not great. You convince people it is not great. In fact you make it ungreat. You degrade America. You distress America, and then you say you are going to save it.
There is an abhorrent cultural meme I have spoken about before, the men who call themselves pick-up artists. They nag their victims.
Your nose is a bit too big. Wow, I am surprised you ever had a girlfriend, because you are pretty ugly. Then they use that vulnerability to hook the person. That is the micro level.
On the macro level we are not used to this. We are not used to it in geopolitics. We are not used to it in politics. We are not used to people arranging riots like the January 6th insurrection and then riding in to supposedly fix it. We are not used to countries carpet bombing, let us say, Syria.
Imagine a country like russia, which was having problems in Ukraine in the summer of 2015. It decides to carpet bomb Syria, which it starts doing in September 2015. That provokes millions of migrants, because nobody wants to die. The migrants come into Europe. They cause political chaos. And the people who ride to the rescue are PiS in Poland and Orbán in Hungary. Germany had a lot of problems. Merkel invited them in, legalised a million migrants and more or less absorbed them.
Now we have the AfD, supported by russia, riding high in the polls.
You cause the distress, then you purport to solve it. You cause the distress, then you sponsor political movements like the National Rally, you offer them massive loans, and then you purport to solve it. The same trick in Reform. It is a routine.
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