The first thing we have to do, today, is reach out - ALL OF YOU - to the incredible but too often silent, great @Anonymo94924320. If you haven't followed him, do. And check out this meme he sent me!
2) We have a lot of work to get done today. A lot. It may take more than my now-standard 30-Tweet limit. We'll see. To dive in, we're going to go deep. Seriously. Ready? Okay. Hegel - yes, the so-detested philosopher - has something we need.
3) Please bear with me. Hegel was likely the very WORST writer in the history of Western Philosophy. His students rarely do any better. Hegelian Philosophy may best be compared to language as spaghetti. And no tomato sauce either. Just boring, bland, cooked spaghetti.
4) "For Hegel, recognition is the mechanism by which our existence as social beings is generated. Therefore, our successful integration as ethical and political subjects within a particular community is dependent upon receiving (and conferring) appropriate forms of recognition."
5) Rewrite:
You don't exist in your own mind, heart, and psyche if other people do not recognize you. In ancient times, there was the tribe, the village, and the forest or desert, etc. Your tribe killed you by...ostracism...if it decided to.
6) Ostracism? Oh yeah. It is a very technical thing. People, the group you live in, very literally STOP seeing you. They look right through you. You stop existing in their eyes. And when that happens, you simply die. You leave. You starve. You die.
7) This is NOT a merely ancient thing. Oh no! High school bad girls ostracize good girls every day of the world. Corporate executives ostracize their enemies every day of the world. Getting fired is almost like getting shot at dawn. There is a death involved.
8) ABC Corp is a thing. It has a culture. It has a code. And by the way, I'm a business coach. I very likely LOVE ABC Corp. If they're not my client, they're my prospect. I love businesses. Without them, neither I nor my family eat. My family waits for my next client. Literally.
9) At ABC Corp, you're either in or out. That is the law of the world, and it has in NO WAY evolved OUT of the Law of the Jungle. Only the strong may lead. The pack rules all. The individual is SUBJECT to the pack. And that's how the REAL world works. Sorry. But not really.
10) In the real world, executives fail constantly and predictably. They're NOT hired because we expect perfection or non-failure. Not for a minute. Rather, we hire them to toe the corporate line, the pack line, the tribe line. That's what we're looking for, and we're not wrong.
11) No one is failure-free. Everyone fails. In the business world, we know that. We don't say it, believe me, I know we don't say it. I've been saying it for many decades and getting fired by clients for doing so. Fie on them. It's real, and we really do know it.
12) But there's a line that CANNOT be crossed. Scorn. The very moment an executive becomes scorned by his followers, it is ALL OVER. He can fail constantly, no problem. What he CANNOT do is be scorned. Scorn is the single most powerful weapon in the world.
13) Atom bombs. Hydrogen bombs. Space-based laser beams. They're child's play compared to scorn. Why? Go back to our hellaciously bad writer Hegel. Recognition. It is the one thing humans need more than any other thing. More than air, water, or food. Recognition.
14) Here's the formula:
Scorn = 0 Recognition
No!
Scorn = - Recognition (Negative Recognition)
That is how scorn kills people.
15) Part of WHY I supported Trump was Low Energy Jeb! And I have confessed many times, until 2016, I supported Bush 43 and his hellaciously wrongful Iraq War. I was wrong. Trump schooled me. And he scorned Low Energy Jeb!
16) Let's get Libertarian. I do NOT believe in NOR support speed limits. I detest the fact that policemen in $80,000 squad cars trail and detain good citizens who have every right to drive safely by THEIR OWN definition of safety. And yes, I confess. I speed. I break that law.
17) I do NOT scorn the policemen who enforce the wrongful law. I scorn the politicians paid by evil interests who break our free rights. I am always kind and respectful to policemen. And they most often let me go with no ticket. Why?
18) Partly because they love my car. It has 425 horses in the engine. Traffic cops love cars like mine. They also love the I instantly stop the moment they flash siren. They also love how I respect them which I truly do. Cops are my friends. I never blame them. Never.
19) Did you see what I did there? I wrapped us back around to high occupancy lanes and what I consider the 100% illegal enforcement of them. Poor traffic cops. What Constitutional power enables HOC lanes? Which of our freedom amendments gives cops that power, or obligation?
20) Let me give you the bottom line. Over the past 100+ years Congress has so happily, and so profitably to Congressmen, ceded Constitutional Powers to Federal Agencies. They write "regulations" which are NON-Constitutional Laws.
21) Our entire traffic structure with speed limits is a 100% breach of our Constitutional Rights. They have NO right to impose them on us. Period. Zero right. But they also have 100% power to do so. Why? Because we fell asleep, we Americans. We abandoned Common Sense.
Little Pasquale is going to take a coffee break now. I'll be back. But I need caffeine to give me the strength to face the utter stupidity of it all.
I'll be back...
22) What a day! While I was drinking my coffee a call came in, and it's been non-stop ever since...and that was a 6:30 this morning. Not whining, it was all good. Now we have to finish up this morning's work, though. Whew.
23) Reviewing, that old @Anonymo94924320's scorning meme got us rolling. The meme uses the choice - the personal pronouns that liberals so love, now - against them. That was so closely connected to our ongoing work with Gene Sharp I had to share it.
24) We then fell down the bad-writing rabbit hole of Hegel, on topic of recognition. And that factor, recognition, is the exact opposite of scorn. Even paying no attention is an act of profound scorn. Scorn is the greatest weapon in the social arsenal.
25) Our work now gets a bit trickier. You or me scorning some aggressive, attacking, scornful, leftwing stalker troll does not count. Sure, you scorn them, but it has no impact or meaning. They love your scorn. Wrong weapon.
26) For our side, we have to scorn ONLY that which we oppose so strongly we'd make real sacrifices to excise it from the world. There's more. Individual scorn only succeeds when we persuade others to do the same thing.
27) And we can't just talk scorn, we must do it. As in for real. As in the same way the left would stop at nothing to obstruct us - who remembers the Vast Russia Hoax? - we must be read to take action. This can't be just about words.
28) We have to go full Extreme on this one. Take a moment and listen to this amazing, beautiful, love/action song.
29) That's exactly where we'll go tomorrow. We're going to focus on the Governor's race for the state of Virginia. In fact, the Democrat Primary, which you can check out here:
30) We'll walk through the scorn in action we need to employ right here. I pledge to be in the thick of it, engaged in action as hard hitting as I'm able. This will be fun.
Thread ends at #30.
You know we're going to be talking smack about the Dems and RINOS over at telegram. Come hang out and talk some smack with us. Tell us your story, and let's figure out how to make it better.
Since my encounter with the good volunteers at the local Voter Registration Office last Monday, a strategy has been brewing. If it is birthed, it will be my very first state-level analysis.
2) It's a familiar emotion, now. I feel itchy. A new clarity is emerging, and when it is born, it will mean action. While I've never felt this at the state level before, I felt it for my nation continuously since 2016.
3) Before I can walk through the little almost-baby strategy, I have to talk a bit more about scorn itself. Here in the great state of Virginia, it is not possible for me to not feel scorn for the Republican Party I'm trying so hard to join.
This chapter (and especially page 44) has truly slowed my 2nd reading of this book, dramatically. I won't fully know why till I'm on the other side of the speed bump.
2) Perhaps part of the answer comes from this quote on the next page: "Nonviolent struggle is a much more complex and varied means of struggle than is violence."
Let's ponder what that means.
3) Complexity and simplicity can be defined by very simple math. It can be reduced to more than (>) vs less than (<) each other. A pencil with graphite and wood is a simpler thing for its 2 parts, than is a pen with its tip, ink source, casing, etc. The pencil is simpler.
Here's a list from page 45. It isn't an easy list to unpack.
The Categories of Weapons in Political Defiance:
1) Psychological 2) Social 3) Economic 4) Political
2) I think what I have to do is make it very personal. I know a great deal about psychology. For instance, I know how be respectful on the path to earning respect, and I can do this with enemies at will. I also know how to agree and disagree, gently yet forcefully.
3) Further, I also know how to introduce myself and initiate friendships. I have a list of local sheriffs I've been procrastinating reaching out to. I must STOP procrastinating. I can be a powerful friend. I will reach out to a minimum of 1 per day till my list is complete.
Young fool that I was, I had NO idea of the power of showing my work when I was in school. I just hated rules and authority and rebelled over every little thing.
2) For instance, how do you know how to note the day? Is it month first, or date first? I don't know, do you? As you can see in my pictures, I got it wrong, but, AHA!, I corrected my error. In this school, where we show our work, that's a badge of honor!
3) Another thing we do is quote our authors. We do NO plagiarism here. None. We attribute. And that's what we're going to do right now. I'm going to quote the points I underlined and dated. We love our authors here, and credit them every chance we can.
Let's discuss the scientific method. And we're going to discuss truth. Gene Sharp's work demands this. We must know the truth. Truth is what we cooperate with.
2) Within the scientific method, there is a single most powerful moment. It is the moment we've discovered "proof of case." A vaccine for polio is possible. Heavier than air flight is possible. Birds are heavier than air. Leonardo Da Vinci made that case. The Wrights proved it.
3) A dictatorship can be defeated. It has weaknesses. It has vulnerabilities. How is it, I ask, that YOU comply? How do you allow our current dictatorship its power? How do you help it cover for its weaknesses?
If there's a single fact we need Sharp to give us, it is the title of this chapter. Dictatorships have weaknesses. A moment from sci-fi will illustrate.
2) Be it an alien invasion or some creature from beyond like Godzilla, the question is always, does it bleed? If the poor creature can, then its doom is already in the can. Monsters bleed and that means humans can kill them.
3) This is 100% true of all dictatorships. They bleed and they can be taken down. The simple fact that dictatorships DO, in fact, HAVE weaknesses is one of Sharp's greatest points. Tyrants do NOT enjoy the cosmic powers they wish us to believe they do.