Starmer, Pope Benedict, Rishi Sunak and that gross election 'advertisement'. Bullies Exploiting Survivors.

In 2010 I took part in street demonstrations held in London. on a sunny Autumn weekend.

A demonstration, directed at The Vatican and towards Pope Benedict and his entourage, who were on a state visit to England. I was there as a Survivor. The march comprised a wide range of The Vatican's critics in Society, from Feminists to Anarchists, Atheists to Pagans, Wizards, Witches, Elves and Trolls, Queers, Lesbians, Communists, Philosophers and Physicists, and Protestants. The rally of the angry comprised all ages, all classes, it was colourful and it was witty. The atmosphere was friendly.  Then there was David Icke fan-club. Ick.
Survivor groups from across the UK, Ireland and elsewhere participated. There were many representatives of survivors concerns. As one would expect. They have work to do.

Historical Context
By 2010 the Irish State and population had already spent 20 or so years unveiling a sordid history of 'historical child sexual abuse' - so called to discern it from any child abuse still happening- a story of some seventy years of common place child abuse across multiple State and Church operated residential institutions. Somewhat hard to digest. 
Incomprehensive.
Four public Inquiries revealed widespread harm, at scale. Patterns of abuse of children, women and men held in 'care settings' where the State handed the operational care of vulnerable children and adults to the Church and their various Orders, paying the institutions fees, taxpayers cash, for the services provided. The State had oversight duties and neglected them. Both State and Church are liable.

The Irish State offered political and economic support for the Church and The Vatican before offering anything to Survivors.  "You back me, I'll back you.." and then defend themselves accordingly against living witness testimony?
Those inquiries focused on Industrial Schools, Mothers and Babies Homes, Magdalene Launderies, and the response from Church and Civil authorities to cases of child abuse in some dioceses. The people of Ireland reeled in shock, and attitudes changed swiftly. The people supported the Survivors. The Government was forced to take action, to establish recognition and redress. It drags it's heels still, pulling against the perceived leash of honesty and evidence, not understanding that honesty and evidence is what will liberate the Government and the State from it's burden, and transform it into a work of social nurture, political equity, justice and humanity. Yes, I know. I'm way too romantic, optimistic and naïve.

I am pointing at the healthy place, that's all. I know it's there.
These inquiries revealed that Church and State authorities knew of the abuse, and that they allowed the Church to cover up these crimes, to move offending clerics from site to site, often leaving them in supervisory contact with vulnerable people, only for them to offend again, and again, and again.
This enabled life long repeat offenders to subsist within the Church systems. This caused even more harm, upon harm.
The agenda was to protect the good name of the Church, justification for handling this criminal activity internally, under Canon Law, thus evading Civil and Criminal Law.

They rationalised offering survivors and their families settlement, out of court,  with confidentiality agreements in exchange for cash, as an act of Christian mercy, whilst they made sure that it was backed by setting out on an offensive, adversarial stance backed by expensive legal counsel. Nudge Theory in practice.

Impact
The impact on the children and the adults harmed due to all of this evasive action was set aside. Not considered important.

The effect was to enable widespread sexual and emotional abuse, to the extent that abusers recognised that they had a relatively free hand, that the Church convinced themselves and everyone else that the offenders were committing sins, and that was to be taken at face value by Church authorities, and their offences were not therefore treated as crimes, under the criminal code. They had been indicted by God, and absolved. God is merciful.

What that status offered the predatory ones as they operated within the Church Canon culture was real world impunity - they would not face legal, criminal accountability, and the Church's name would be protected. Penance was paid in prayer, and a new location was happily accepted.
That strategy - to protect and uphold the status of The Church and The Vatican, was fully supported, in full awareness, by the Irish State, the Irish Government and the Irish political establishment as an ethnic cultural necessity.

The Impact II

Tens of thousands of lives destroyed by predatory men assaulting vulnerable children. Degrees of repeat offending suggestive of a 'life style choice' embedded in Church mores.

Traumatised children, often over extended periods of time, multiple assaults, who grow up silenced, managed, ignored, abandoned, who somehow found the strength to live well, who succeeded, by degree, and those who did not. Those who suffered in silence or noisily. The suffering as those children aged and became parents, traumatised parents doing their best. And seeing the impact play out into the next generation. Because a true harm was covered up. A harm was not resolved, and the pain perpetuated. A lot of people. A lot of people.
For seventy years.

There's an inquiry or two yet to be had on the matter of historical institutional care of children and predatory abuse in Ireland. It's not over yet.
There has not yet been any public inquiry in Ireland, into the many Church run boarding schools and day schools across Ireland, in which the same patterns of adverse harmful behaviour have been played out, over those seven decades, from 1922 - 1992. This is a serious matter. That is a large population of children, over an extended period. Wow.
A public inquiry is being scoped out, finally - but only after three survivors spoke out on RTE's live Saturday night premium talk show, The Late Late Show, an appearance in public to unveil the story, which flowed from efforts of the past pupils of one elite boarding school, a small group of alumni who sought to listen to the voices of survivors, to hear what they knew, who reached out to the survivor community and to the wider school community to allow people to bear witness to their experience and provided a forum for those involved to share their concerns.

This was part of their process designed to try to leverage a public demand for a formal apology from the school Authorities involved.
Their efforts - and the response of survivors to their efforts, supported by other Survivors advocacy groups and individuals -finally opened to the public discourse in Ireland the reality of seventy years of Irish School systems and Clerical CSA. 
Many survivors had long been demanding such an inquiry, but have been rebuffed by Church and State, ignored by the News media, time and time again. Somehow, boarding school survivors remained invisible.
Last November, 2022,  as I wrote above there occurred live witness testimony of three survivors, to the Irish nation, presented on live TV in such manner as made it impossible for the nation to evade the matter. This public witness statement flowed from the work described above.

The courage, humility and humanity of the three survivors who presented themselves and shared some of their stories, as witnesses, was abundantly clear, as was their years of suffering, which continues and will continue until justice is fully met, until the unmet needs of the children, and the adults they are now are being materially met. 
The things they spoke of, their experiences as they were, appalled the listener, and the nation, to the core. One could sense an audience in shock, upright and angry, and determined to see this through.  "How could that even happen? They must find justice to the full!" That was the feeling at the end of that presentation, the feeling from the presenter and the audience, intensely so. The stood and gave the three Survivors a standing ovation, for eight minutes. 
Time will tell how this plays out. These matters take time, patience and persistence is our daily fare. 

Progress

It is to be hoped that justice, accountability, honesty will flow from this process. Reparations, including end of life support at every level of need, in recognition of the unmet needs of all those children at the time of the assaults, and ever since. Meeting the unmet needs of the children they were, as they present in the adults they are today. That sort of care, in detail.

They deserve no less.
Bearing in mind that this dynamic ran for seventy years, and that many Survivors have passed away, without relief, without recognition, validation or support. Every year of delay reduces the numbers of living survivors, many of whom die earlier than the average. 
There is much work to be done, and it is serious work that must stand on evidence, honesty, empathy and a robust justice that allows closure for all concerned. 
The reactionary self-defence of the institutions must be mediated and diffused so that justice can prevail, and peace be restored.
Then we can move on.
So, to go back to 2O1O and the Pope
Before the demonstrations, I met with a gathering of people, organising to make placards, preparing leaflets, you know the usual paraphernalia  of street demonstrations, to plan our demo, finding people to team up with in smaller groups for the afternoon's action. 
I gave a short talk on the story of Irish Survivors recent history from my perspective. I had read The Case of The Pope, by Geoffrey Robertson. I understood the ground I and other Survivors were standing on. Well , at least I knew what I stood for. 
I wanted the Vatican to be courageous,  to be Christ-like, to be honest, transparent and to open their files - to share what they know - to survivors, to submit all allegations to inspection and investigation, to record the accurate history as far as those records reveal - for The Vatican to stand aside from dealing with such offenses under Canon Law, to allow civil and criminal law process to proceed, unhindered, to make reparations and to make future policy commitments in areas of child protection, reporting etc. Not too much to ask, considering the scale of the criminality, historical attitudes argument set aside.
I made a small placard with the words - Protect The Children, Not The Church - written in bold type. I knew what I was doing. I knew why I was there, and what little impact I would make. I was not there alone. Those numbers held meaning and hope, a route towards correct action. Hope springs eternal in my heart and mind. I do not apologise for that. Far from it. Anyways...
While I was doing that, making my placard, I noticed one group who were making a series of signs, alleging that The Pope was a paedophile. I went over to them, and asked them if they had read any evidence that Pope Benedict was a paedophile, because I had not, and I would be really interested to read such evidence.  I mentioned there was evidence of his involvement in maintaining the policy of covering up the reality of predatory men operating within institutions caring for vulnerable populations.
They mentioned various authors, youtubers, notable writers of hypothetical scenarios. They suggested that the allegation was obviously true. 'Just look at him!'  They had read no such evidence. Some mentioned 'Illuminati,' and various other conspiracy hypotheses. Others stated the obvious - that The Vatican was corrupt, a political action religion, wealthy and powerful and guilt of many crimes - and therefore the slander was justifiable. Rage!
I told them that they were protesting against the Vatican, as a political attack, rather than demonstrating support for survivors and for the necessary work survivors are seeking help for.  Survivors work is not a political attack. Survivors have no need for that. Survivors need justice. Period.
I told them that exploiting Survivors tragedy - packaging the pain, fear, suffering, despair, the lived experienced lives and suicides of so many innocents -  as an emotional trigger to make a political point in that way confuses the discourse, introduces hatred as a political utility, makes survivors look like they make false allegations was a profound and dangerous error in their case and a standard tactic of authoritarian regimes.
"All of this undermines Survivors struggle for justice, because it does not help them. It confuses the situation."
I told them that what they were doing was therefore hindering the work of Survivors. I told them that making false allegations of that nature, in public, allegations that were blatantly un-evidenced, directed at The Pope was stupidly reckless.

"Stick to the known, evidenced verified facts or get off the pot!"
When used as a political weapon, such allegations de facto seek to exploit both the disgust of decent people and the lived experience of the harm and trauma and suffering and pain that survivors have endured, leveraging a caricature as a sensational, manipulative and false dog whistle, riding roughshod over the most pertinent  people in this matter - the Survivors. 
Making false claims undermines survivors efforts, and all survivors know this.
For a genuine survivor activist this weaponisation of child sexual exploitation is an insult to the work they are undertaking. 
Exploiting the pain and suffering implicit in the experience, exploiting the reactionary disgust of bystanders as they avoid really understanding Survivors lived experience, exploiting survivors efforts, piggy backing on their struggle, to launch a political weapon, for an entirely different agenda, making no progress for Survivors in the process.
That pissed them off
I knew in that moment, by their reaction, that they were not here for me, as a Survivor, as someone who had just given a talk on what being a Survivor means. I knew that people like that are not there for the Survivors at all. They do not have our back.
They started to argue with me and I with them. And I stopped. There was no point in this. The outrage in my heart needed a big sky.

I said to them: "You do what you want to do, I cannot associate with what you are doing. I've made my point. You now know what you did not know a few minutes ago".
And with that I left them, and went to the demonstration more or less on my own. I met up some of them later, and the Pope Allegation signs were absent.  I noted that, and lauded them for that wisdom, that understanding. Grudges held post resolution are a self dug hole.

Digging Holes
The recent ads crafted by The Labour Party, one of which is featuring Rishi Sunak, implying the smiling Rishi is not at all bothered by convicted child sexual abusers current freedoms, with Labour's empty promise of a land of Law and Order where child abusers will tremble in fear! 
Fake slur, appeal to disgust, cite statistic out of context, trigger a reactionary, gain a voter.
Here's another way to look at it, from the perspective of a Survivor - "Labour are deploying a vote chasing tactic - publishing content that exploits the reaction to the trauma of children who have been so profoundly harmed, exploited violently by adults for sexual purposes, using it as a trope to exacerbate disgust, in pursuit of a political agenda. Presenting a manipulative slur that has not one shred of evidence to it, that presents a very different proposition than the one at hand - organised child sexual exploitation is well established and pretty much has a free hand in England because neither the police nor the judiciary are on top of it, and the Legislature is clearly failing it it's core duties and responsibilities in this matter today, as it has been doing for decades.

This is not a partisan matter. Labour does not want to look at this honestly. So let's sling some mud! After all, it's what THEY do"

Actually, it is what bullies do. Period. Bullies do this kind of shite. All of them.

I'm not anti-Labour.  I am anti-bullying in politics, local, national and international. It's all bullshit.
The Labour Ad implies that smiley Rishi Sunak, the Asian PM, does not care much about prosecuting or punishing adults guilty of child sexual abuse and incarcerating them - GRRRRRRR!  and that New Clean Labour does, and will indeed prosecute and punish all those guilty of child sexual abuse. YAAAY! Vote For Labour!"

Intermixed with this is the Race card, the insinuations prevalent across English political public discourse. Systemic means systemic. Dog Whistles all over the shop.
The ad is a targeted intentional lie. It is bullshit. It has racist dog whistle overtones. It has a light blue background. Red is dead, at Labour HQ! 
It's an appalling ad. And it is one of several, a series. All doing the exact same tactic.
Public facing content targeting a known bias, vulnerability, fear, hatred, exacerbating the emotional reaction of the target, in order to nudge the target in to behaviour that can be exploited.
This is truly cruel behaviour.
1. It does nothing to ameliorate and balance the bias, the vulnerability, the fear, the hatred. It stokes emotions and misdirects attention,  it does nothing to address the reality of the issue, the problem of child sexual exploitation functioning as a multi-million pound industry across the UK.
2. The it exploits the target, not in the targets best interests, not even in the victimised demographics interest, but in the targeteers interest.
A treble cruelty.
Dodgy. There ought to be a law against this kind of behaviour.

Both Labour and the Conservatives are digging holes for themselves, in their exhibitionist bullying. They have no credibility left, whatsoever.







Kindest regards

Corneilius

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Facebook is looking more like The Vatican with every passing day.

Political Ideological Grooming Gangs are undermining our democracies, escalating social tensions, disrupting our communities, inciting hatred and fear, escalating political street violence. 

Institutions of Commercial power adopt a defensive stance, they do not target the root cause.

Update

August 3 2024

Nigel Fearage just asking questions?

We know that there is very well organised ongoing, in-depth collection of surveillance data about entire populations. Surveillance Capitalism collects data on our psychology and behaviour, every day, all day long, all the time. The platforms collect data on c.4,000 data points for every active consumer. We know too that this data and the analysis of that data is being deployed by the platforms that collect it.

The sell an enhanced capability to target very specific traits, characteristics, locations, income range, age rang and much, much more, to offer enhanced marketing effectiveness to advertisers, increasing sales to advert ratios, offering more precision. 

They call it micro-targeting, and it is fed by global data-mining.

Advertisers go to the platforms believing that micro-targeting advertising/influencing will be more effective in generating attention and sales. Influencers.

Ideological Marketing.

In marketing language then the objective of online political grooming is to locate and identify 'vulnerable' people who are then targeted with content that exploits sets of cognitive biases, insecurities, pain, fear, distress and concerns. The objective is to weaponise the targets 'heart and mind' in support of the groomers goals.

What do I think of the Southport Riots?

1. Targeting vulnerable people selected through studying their biases, insecurities, fears - psychological profiling, criminal intent 
2. Disseminating content designed to exacerbate those vulnerabilities - incitement, criminal intent 
3. Tweaking the content, increasing the tension and emotional charge to drive or nudge behaviour in a desired direction - manipulation, criminal intent 
4. Providing mechanisms for multiple small groups to form to take actions designed to inflame public political discourse - undermining healthy democracy criminal intent 

Vulnerable people are being exploited and their exploitation causes harm. 

The people who incite and orchestrate this are the ultimate criminals - the rioters are not the cause, they are the symptom. 

They have been groomed. Many willingly, admittedly. These are unhappy, violence prone people. Their emotional immaturity renders them exploitable.

By all means hold those who participate in violence to account. 

But do not allow the people who cause this to go unaccountable.

Because it is dishonest, grooming, at any level, in any relationship or setting, is not Free Speech.

Because it is manipulative and causes emotional harm, it is psychological abuse.

Because it incites hatred and fear, aimed at marginalised identified groups, it is bullying.

Because it is designed to undermine healthy public debate on democratic governance it is political.

We need to legislate ideological grooming as the psychological abuse that it is, to recognise it as a criminal activity, to define it as an offence, with a custodial sentence as a rational reasonable preventative measure, more health and safety than punishment.

We already define psychological abuse within Domestic Violence.

The legal precedent of criminalising gaslighting, bullying and other forms of psychological abuse within a relationship, human to human, exists.

The relationship of human to human in this dynamic contains a Power Disparity, the more powerful party being the sponsors of the most public figure, the funders of the ‘research’, content creation, content dissemination compared to any of the vulnerable targets.

Preventative Legislation would mean the platforms would have to shut all that grooming down, which they could do. They have total control of the platforms. They would have to uphold that legislation in order to operate.

Protecting the vulnerable from avoidable harm is a fundamental duty of care.

Update February 24 2024

Update: Paper on Cognitive Warfare 2023

"This article characterises the nature of cognitive warfare and its use of disinformation and computational propaganda and its political and military purposes in war and in conflict short of war. It discusses both defensive and offensive measures to counter cognitive warfare and, in particular, measures that comply with relevant moral principles."

Cognitive warfare has been defined in various ways.

Here are a couple of influential definitions to give the flavour of what is meant by this term: “Cognitive Warfare is a strategy that focuses on altering how a target population thinks and through that how it acts” (Backes & Swab, 2019)

“the weaponization of public opinion, by an external entity, for the purpose of (1) influencing public and governmental policy and (2) destabilizing public institutions” (Bernal et al., 2020, p. 10)

example : encouraging a cohort of voters to not vote, convincing them not voting is cool, in order to give another group an advantage ; behavioural modification driven by online and real world grooming operations informed by harvested behavioural surplus data.

example : running a decades long mis and dis-information news media campaign slandering the EU

example : encouraging a cohort of voters that their lives are at risk unless the vote for a certain candidate

example : Brexit!

example : Covid masks are Muzzles!

I respectfully suggest readers read the paper linked above, and then decide whether or not this piece is worth your time. The paper certainly is.

~ end of update ~

Facebook's 'apologia'  is looking more like The Vatican's 'apology' with every passing day.

Knowing that abuse is happening, paying lip service to addressing the situation (even as the abuse continues with no meaningful remedial action being taken) in order to preserve public status, image and income is dysfunctional behaviour and it causes more harm.

Knowing that serial egregious abusers operate within its jurisdiction, causing harm to millions of wholly innocent people, and masking any responsibility for that behaviour within one's jurisdiction or institutional setting in order to maintain status and income.

— corneilius (@coreluminous) July 11, 2020

I don't buy the apology, until I see behaviour that confronts the harms in full, openly and honestly.

Political Grooming Gangs are abusing Facebook and deliberately undermining our democracies, escalating social tensions and disrupting our communities with lies, manipulation, gaslighting, emotional hijacking, neuromarketing false narratives....

Apology is oft taken as meaning remorse, when in fact what we see with powerful institutions that it is a line of defence, a public relations exercise.

The etymology of the word 'apology' is revealing : "defense, justification," from L.L. apologia, from Gk. apologia "a speech in defense," from apologeisthai "to speak in one's defense," from apologos "an account, story," from apo- "from, off" (see apo-) + logos "speech".

The original English sense of "self-justification" yielded a meaning "frank expression of regret for wrong done," first recorded 1590's, but it was not the main sense until the 18th Century. The old sense tends to emerge in Latin form apologia (first attested 1784), especially since J.H. Newman's "Apologia pro Vita Sua" (1864).

Thus when The Church or The State apologises, it is most often adopting a position that defends it's current image, status and power. Truth and Reconciliation processes are likewise marred by competing institutional interests and the wish to avoid the most honest accounting of harms caused, the parties culpable seeking always to mitigate the costs of facing the truth, addressing the harms, accepting the punishment.

Make no mistake about this - powerful Institutions of all kinds understand the intent and the meaning of the words they use, for both State and Church and Corporation are the source of all legal language, and this language and it's use allows these and other institutions to continue to maintain their status and power. Apologies most often avoid the necessary full accounting of the consequences of their actions. Polluters pollute. get caught, are fined and continue business without ever fully confronting the externalised costs dynamics of their industries. The Vatican fights every case, yet withholds information on thousands of untried cases. Facebook was fined, and their stock rose.

Sorry, but not sorry: they paid the fine, it is a business expense.

We see this is so with the way both Church and State in Australia  have responded to the emergence of living witness evidence with regard to Residential School Systems in which poor and Aboriginal children have been incarcerated by force and brutally harmed in systemic fashion, over long periods of time. 

We see it in terms of  Institutions defence of themselves against the interests of Survivors  and the genuine demands for Justice within every State on Earth.

It is a pattern of behaviour.

Saying 'I am sorry' or 'We are sorry' has no meaning unless there is material action to back it up, unless there is a clear indication that whatever transgression occurred will not occur again and that any perpetrators will be made to account for the harms they have caused.

And in cases where the harm caused is beyond remediation, then corrective legal punitive measures against Institutions,  and judicial incarceration  of individuals who have caused harm must follow, to protect from any future harm and to provide a meaningful deterrent.

In the case of The Vatican, and Facebook, there has been no internal driven action to correct the situation where known abusers operate within and through their structures. They resist rather than putting their hands up, and admitting responsibility.

To be fair, they are not the only institutions feigning apology for allowing abusers to operate within their systems. It is a standard behavioural pattern within in every powerful institution, every gang,  every dysfunctional family - to protect their status, image and ability to operate, at all costs.

Facebook, Masks, Brexit and Donald Trump

Facebook permits micro-targeting of content that absolutely has caused harm, is causing harm and will continue to cause harm - for example, the current issue of anti-mask wearing freedom conTheory content.  We know that activists are using Facebook and other social media to organise protests and live events.

That content is helping spread the SARSCOV2 virus within the United Kingdom and The United States of America. That is causing harm.

We know that military grade disinformation and disruption campaigns are being waged on Facebook, and that Facebook is earning billions from this activity.

"Emma Briant, a scholar of propaganda at Bard College who has spent years studying SCL, says the company’s mix of work demonstrates how military-funded psychological research can be exploited to wage domestic political warfare, establishing a dangerous template for political campaigning. During elections, tactics intended for battlefields could be used to foment division and extremism or discourage voters."

We know for certain that Brexit was in large part 'won' using these techniques against an unknowing population, a vulnerable population.

"Vote Leave’s campaign director, Dominic Cummings — now a special advisor to the UK prime minister — wrote in 2017 that the winning recipe for the leave campaign was data science. And, more specifically, spending 98% of its marketing budget on “nearly a billion targeted digital adverts”.

Targeted at Facebook users."

We know for certain that Trumps election in 2016 was in large part 'won' using these techniques against an unknowing population, a vulnerable population.

Facebook's position is similar to the Vatican knowing that pedophiles and adults who beat and bullied children were operating within their ranks, and yet it did all it could to preserve it's external image and income revenue stream.

2020 US Presidential Election

Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) was Nixon's baby. I remember reading Hunter S. Thompson's scathing writings on that odious little man and that disgusting campaign.

Nixon, Johnson and Trump are not too far apart in morality.

'Making the economy scream' so it hurts the people.

Now it is online micro-targeting and political grooming gangsterism.  News media are part of the corruption.

Trumps re-election campaign has a $1 billion dollar 'advertising' budget just for Facebook in the coming months.

And it is already well under way.

"Thousands of micro-targeted ads had flooded the internet, portraying Trump as a heroic reformer cracking down on foreign corruption while Democrats plotted a coup. That this narrative bore little resemblance to reality seemed only to accelerate its spread. Right-wing websites amplified every claim. Pro-Trump forums teemed with conspiracy theories. An alternate information ecosystem was taking shape around the biggest news story in the country, and I wanted to see it from the inside.

I was surprised by the effect it had on me. I’d assumed that my skepticism and media literacy would inoculate me against such distortions. But I soon found myself reflexively questioning every headline. It wasn’t that I believed Trump and his boosters were telling the truth. It was that, in this state of heightened suspicion, truth itself—about Ukraine, impeachment, or anything else—felt more and more difficult to locate. With each swipe, the notion of observable reality drifted further out of reach.

What I was seeing was a strategy that has been deployed by illiberal political leaders around the world. Rather than shutting down dissenting voices, these leaders have learned to harness the democratizing power of social media for their own purposes—jamming the signals, sowing confusion. They no longer need to silence the dissident shouting in the streets; they can use a megaphone to drown him out. Scholars have a name for this: censorship through noise."

What the writer is describing is grooming. 

Studying populations to source vulnerable people who are then targeted with content that exploits cognitive biases, insecurities, pain, fear, distress and concerns in order to exploit them at the ballot box, by triggering and re-inforcing those biases. Truly evil behaviour and activity.

Zucked! and MindF*ck.

I have just finished reading two important books - Zucked! about Facebook and MindF*ck about Cambridge Analytica

Here's a few pertinent quotes from Mindf*ck!

“In psychological warfare, the weak points are flaws in how people think. If you’re trying to hack a person’s mind, you need to identify cognitive biases and then exploit them.”

and

“We were spying, pure and simple, with cover from Trinidadian leaders. It felt bizarre—unreal—to be observing what people were watching on a tiny, faraway island, somehow more like we were playing a video game than intruding on the private lives of actual people. Even today, thinking back on it, Trinidad seems more like a dream than something we actually did. But we did do it. The Trinidad project was the first time I got sucked into a situation that was grossly unethical, and, frankly, it triggered in me a state of denial”

and

“perspecticide – the active deconstruction and manipulation of popular perception – you first have to understand on a deep level what motivates”

So notice the terminology - psychological warfare, notice the anger and abuse that is being 'stimulated', notice the irrationality of the to and fro of online 'debate' - that is warfare!

When we have well funded, well organised entities observing people as they are manipulating content being broadcast to the people they are observing,  and when they are refining the manipulation of that content in real time to better exploit the reactions of the targeted people, all the time actively working to undermine the perceptual dynamic of an entire population, person by person, intimacy at scale, in order to exploit the people for political advantage, we have a huge problem.

Political grooming gangsterism, no less.

I had not read these two books when I wrote my first blog pieces on Political Grooming Gangsters.

Even back then I was pretty on the money in terms of the dynamics, the influence, the covert nature of the manipulation.

Now I know a little bit more, I have some extra detail, I have some witness testimony and all I can say is this - our social systems and our democracies are being undermined and harmed by the most abusive grooming type behaviours imaginable and the grooming is operating at scale. To be fair, it's not like there were not problems before this micro-targeting emerged. The dynamic of propaganda is old. It is the way that the digital online tech has created intimate access to people's psyche at scale that is new, and extra harmful.

Zuckerberg and Sandberg are allowing this to happen on their Facebook platform, and Amazon and Google likewise and others - and I cannot say it is just for the cash, because if any of them took action to prevent this abuse happening (and they could) they would make immeasurable gains in reputation, and that would translate into long term business stability, and therefore I have my questions about why they are allowing this to happen.

I cannot see into their minds nor would I want to.

That they are allowing this to happen is a best feeble, greedy and arrogant and at worst, it is truly evil.

Here's the thing, if you - the user - know and understand what is being done you can counter it. 

If you do not know, then you can be adversely influenced by this activity.

At the collective level, across a society there needs to be regulation, and intense, legal or law enforcement level active opposition to political grooming gangster activity. We need both. Now.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

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George Monbiot, Pope Francis the 'reformer' and Junipero Serra

George Monbiot, in an article in the Guardian, explores the myth of Pope Francis, the Liberal, the Reformer.

I quote from his article. It's worth reading.

For Pope Francis the liberal, this promises to be a very bloody Sunday

Francis is the poster pope for progressives. But the canonisation of Junípero Serra epitomises the Catholic history problem

"Nowhere is the church's denial better exemplified than in its drive to canonise the Franciscan missionary Junípero Serra, whose 300th anniversary falls on Sunday. Serra's cult epitomises the Catholic problem with history – as well as the lies that underpin the founding myths of the United States.

You can find his statue on Capitol Hill, his face on postage stamps, and his name plastered across schools and streets and trails all over California. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II, after a nun was apparently cured of lupus, and now awaits a second miracle to become a saint. So what's the problem? Oh, just that he founded the system of labour camps that expedited California's cultural genocide.

Serra personified the glitter-eyed fanaticism that blinded Catholic missionaries to the horrors they inflicted on the native peoples of the Americas. Working first in Mexico, then in Baja California (which is now part of Mexico), and then Alta California (now the US state of California), he presided over a system of astonishing brutality. Through various bribes and ruses Native Americans were enticed to join the missions he founded. Once they had joined, they were forbidden to leave. If they tried to escape, they were rounded up by soldiers then whipped by the missionaries. Any disobedience was punished by the stocks or the lash.

They were, according to a written complaint, forced to work in the fields from sunrise until after dark, and fed just a fraction of what was required to sustain them. Weakened by overwork and hunger, packed together with little more space than slave ships provided, they died, mostly of European diseases, in their tens of thousands.

Serra's missions were an essential instrument of Spanish and then American colonisation. This is why so many Californian cities have saints' names: they were founded as missions. But in his treatment of the indigenous people, he went beyond even the grim demands of the crown. Felipe de Neve, a governor of the Californias, expressed his horror at Serra's methods, complaining that the fate of the missionised people was "worse than that of slaves". 

As Steven Hackel documents in his new biography, Serra sabotaged Neve's attempts to permit Native Americans a measure of self-governance, which threatened Serra's dominion over their lives.

The diverse, sophisticated and self-reliant people of California were reduced by the missions to desperate peonage. Between 1769, when Serra arrived in Alta California, and 1821 – when Spanish rule ended – its Native American population fell by one third, to 200,000.

Serra's claim to sainthood can be sustained only by erasing the native peoples of California a second time, and there is a noisy lobby with this purpose. Serra's hagiographies explain how he mortified his own flesh; they tell us nothing about how he mortified the flesh of other people."

How will Pope Francis deal with this matter? The prognosis is not good.

Why? Well here's a little Irish and Australian History and current affairs for my readers and other interested parties.

When the English King Henry II invaded Ireland, in 1169, he did so with the approval and 'Authority' of the then Pope, Pope Adrian IV.

The authorising document, Laudabilter, issued in 1155, by Pope Adrian IV, noted that the Irish Christians were heretical, and that Henry's invasion was being actioned and authorised by the Pope to save their souls.

The unspoken deal worked like this : "you can take the land as long as you promise attempt to convert the heretics, bringing them back into the 'fold' and thus saving their souls; those who refuse are condemned by their refusal, and therefore annihilating them is of no consequence, as their refusal condemns them to hell."

This became a 'standard' by which colonisation and extirpation of Aboriginal 'heathen' Peoples was supported by the Holy Roman Empire for centuries. It was and remains a commercial venture, more than a spiritual one.

The Magdalene Laundries.


The Industrial Schools in Ireland.

The Indian Residential Boarding Schools in Canada and North America.

Institutions that were extant into the 1990s and that were the subject of intense Church and Government activity in terms of 'damage limitation' exercises across the globe. The story of Kevin Annets 'trial' by which he was removed not just from his ministry as a United Church Pastor in Port Alberni, but his entire career destroyed, his family disrupted and his name slandered, over a simple yet illegal land deal that if exposed threatened commercial interests, and their friends in Government as well as the Church.


There are living Survivors of these Institutions, seeking some kind of resolution and justice.


In July this year, the 4 orders of Nuns involved in the Magdalene Laundries refused to hand over ANY compensation to the remaining Survivors of those hellish prisons. The Irish Government is still indemnifying the Vatican with regard to it's liabilities, and it is still falling short in meeting the needs of Survivors in terms of services, transparency and accountability.

The same applies to the Aboriginal peoples of Canada and North America, and the living Survivors of those horrid 'boarding schools'. All the so-called Truth and reconciliation processes have been reduced to management processes, rather than genuine healing processes. Spin more than substance.

And this affects the next generation, the next, in as much as intergenerational trauma is a scientific and experiential reality. What is unresolved gets passed on. Pain is transmitted. Children get hurt.

In all these stories, there were and are commercial interests at stake, as well as a culture's very existence and peoples lives.

What would Jesus have the Vatican and other Churches involved do? What would he have the Governments do?

One can see this in some more detail in the way the Aboriginal People of North Western Australia are being 'served' by the Australian Government today.

Tony Abbot, who replaced Julia Gillard, is a good friend of Archbishop Pell, who has been 'managing' the 'scandal' of Church cover-ups of serial pedophiles who had free rein within Church orphanages and Aboriginal Residential Schools.

Julia Gillard instigated the current Judicial Inquiry underway  in Australia into these matters, her removal has suited the Church more than it has suited the Australian electorate.

 Such is the Power of the Vatican.

The 'intervention' in the North Western Territories was pushed forward after Aboriginal Leaders refused to give over their land rights in exchange for more Government help with their problems. The 'intervention' was mooted on the false charge that there was widespread sexual abuse of children within the Aboriginal Community and the Government had to step in. A cruel irony. such is the Power of the Mining conglomerates.

The reality is that anyone who expects meaningful reform in the Catholic Church does not understand the true character of this Institution. They are naive, which is understandable. Whilst it is true that it's history, and the details are well documented, they are not widely known,much less understood.

The same applies to corporate driven State Governance, wherever it exists....

Furthermore, the only way to counter this is widespread public information campaigns based on confirmed data, documented evidence and crucially, the voices of those who have been oppressed..

For example, I have rarely heard Survivors voices been given a fair hearing in the mainstream media, and this includes the Guardian, who misquoted my own words, my meaning and my intent, which was and remains wholly honourable, in this report in 2010.

My case is the rule, rather than the exception I know there are many, many voices more worthy than mine, many whose needs are far greater. I think I got away lightly compared to the horrors others have survived. Or not. So many did not survive.

I gave a full and detailed account of myself, outside Lambeth Palace, as I was waiting to see the Pope with other protesters, and activists, to Helen Pidd. Her editor 'edited' the piece and reduced my statement to farce. I have been writing on this issue for more than 5 years. I have been living with the realities on my own experience for all of my life.

The BBC gave sycophantic fawning coverage to Pope Benedict's 'tour' of the UK and it's bias did untold damage to Survivors efforts to bring their voices to the public.

It is  the media were made to account for themselves, in as much as their 'reportage' of these matters has exacerbated the problem, rather than helped to resolve it.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe