Today begins the Senate Trial whether or not to find the former President guilty of inciting insurrection on January 6, 2021 at the United States Capitol building. Each side will present their case. Will each side truly listen to what is being said without an answer running?
Listening with an answer running is not really listening. How often in our own lives in conversations with others do we listen to the person speaking, then when they say something that triggers that spark we want to respond to, we have the human tendency to stop listening, We find ourselves biding our time until it is our turn to speak, then continue on with our different perspective.
The brain can only think of so many things at one time. It is hard, if not impossible, to listen to someone talking to us, while at the same time, trying to mentally hang on to the thought we want to say, if only the other person would stop talking.
This is not listening.
Truth matters. Our democracy is at stake. It is not about changing the subject. It is about honesty, integrity, and accurate facts, not politically expedient truth-twisting until it resembles nothing of the truth.
It is not about fearing a particular base of voters, especially those voters who have been lied to and do not understand that the 2020 Presidential Election was not stolen, and President Joe Biden, in fact, won.
If the politicians we vote into public office do not stand for the truth, then they stand for nothing at all. Wimps do that all the time.
No, now is the time for honesty, integrity based on accurate facts. It is time to have the moral fortitude, moral fiber to the core of their being, and the strong backbone of truth.
This is not about the political agenda.
Now is the time for all our Senators to do the job of caring for the citizens, all of the citizens of the UNITED States of America. Some say the United States is broken. This is not true. We will only become broken if the Senators refuse to listen to truth, and continue to propagate the lies and conspiracies. There is no need of REUNITING the United States, since we are all still UNITED.
It is time to tell the truth. All the Senators know the truth, but will they have the courage to stand up for truth?
The time to stand up for truth with courage and conviction, against high-powered political bullies and sabotaged citizenry, is now. But it requires listening.
It requires listening with the ears of hearing, but also with the ears of the heart of conscience, knowing the difference between right over wrong, despite any seeming threat of ignorant voters who have been lied to so much that they cannot see the forest for the trees.
This is not a game, political, financial, or otherwise. Now is the time to make the truth known to all sides of this issue. The time for lies and deception is over.
I encourage everyone to pray and pray hard for truth and justice to prevail.
I will add one more quick note here about the arm of the religious right. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that any human leader of any country will be the savior of the world. That actually would be the sign of the antichrist.
Listening can begin the healing process for the manmade divisions currently taking place. The art of listening is truly an art. It takes time to master. It appears that when we are caught in a trouble spot, that it would be so much easier to lie our way out of the situation. But anyone who has tried this method to squirm out of an embarrassing or complicated situation knows, this is not the case. It also makes you look bad.
It would seem so much easier to twist the truth, cast doubt on what can actually help, and present lies as truth. This only works until more people than not finally know the truth. That time is now.
Now is the time to listen. Now is the time for truth.
When you are part of a modern-day political cult, the cult leader pulls your strings, fuels what to think, calls real news fake, and incites violence for the cult leader’s self-serving goals, but does not take responsibility for the results. Rather, believing the lies of the cult leader, the mob mentality takes over, rioting over democracy.
Democracy will triumph in the United States of America, the land of freedom, the land of law and order. However cult followers do not follow freedom for all people of all skin color, races, creed, genders and ages. Their allegiance goes to the cult leader, believing the lies out of the cult leader’s mouth.
Beware of modern day cults, especially those that tell you they are not a cult, political or otherwise.
I am writing this for the many people in these modern times, who were looking for political answers for that something more in life, and got caught up in a contagious web of diversion and dark human inspiration, a political cult.
Getting drawn into the political cult mindset usually happens slowly and insideously. It begins with well-meaning reasoning to better yourself or humanity, and looking outside of yourself for the answers, as if some other person or group possesses that which you do not think that you have.
A trip many good people fall on is the concept, “It’s just my opinion. I have a right to my own opinion.” While it is true that everyone has a right to his or her own opinion, rabid political cult followers are not free to think anything other than what the political cult leader tells them to think. This gets permeated throughout the entire group culture like the leaven in the dough.
All cults have tell-tale markers. Once these are recognized, it becomes easier to separate our beliefs in politics, or anything else, from the mind-controling guru at the top who has spread the common cult-misinformation lie, that only he is the answer to the current situation in the country, or church, or any other cult group. They are all the same in this trait. The guru touts that only he, no one else and no other thing could possibly resolve today’s proposed crisis in health, wealth, justice, and law and order.
Political cult leaders usually have a militant mindset, baiting their conversations to the general public with salted words inciting their cult followers to do illegal, underhanded and/or conniving actions, while stoking violence towards those they wish to suppress.
Suppression is the tool political cult leaders use for organizing people into certain groups or sections of cities under their control, such as red-lining districts, rigging the mail system, and suppressing free and fair elections. If political elections were actually held freely and fairly they could possibly lose, so manipulation, coercion, extortion become acceptable tactics to the political cult leaders. Once judges, juries and courts have been bought and compromised, it becomes harder for free and fair elections to take place.
Suppression is also called cheating.
A political cult leader, like every other religious cult leader, beats the drum of fear. The lowest common denominator that motivates followers of any kind is anger. Fear is the only fuel that stokes the constant rage; fear of losing power, fear of losing wealth, fear of the fake kingdom they have carved out for themselves at the extreme expense of the duped followers who chant his praises and pour their hard earned money into the poltical cult leader’s pockets.
It is not only the duped followers who follow political cult leaders. It is also the greedy corporations, acting as if they were people rather than huge conglomerates of wealth and power which seek to promote the political cult leader in order to maintain or grow in more wealth and power, without any boundaries, regardless of ethics, morals or any negative effect on the citizens of the country.
RECOGNIZE THAT YOU CAN BREAK FREE FROM ANY POLITICAL CULT. NOT BREAKING FREE FROM A POLITICAL CULT IS THE BEGINNING OF BREAKING AWAY FROM DEMOCRACY. CULT LEADERS TRANSFORM A DEMOCRACY INTO AN AUTHORITARIAN, FASCIST LEANING OLIGARCHY POWERED BY LARGE CORPORATIONS. PERSONAL AND POLITICAL FREEDOM ERODES.
There is more than one cult present in the world today. All of them deny that they are a cult. But there are 14 tell-tale marks present in all cults. The following post points out these life-altering pitfalls to watch out for.
Political cult followers who are unaware that they have fallen into the cult mentality, can find themselves carrying the cult flag, following the political leader as if this one person is the only person to lead the country, as if he were a god. This political type of cult leader is transformed by his “followers” into a god-like leader, when in fact, he is merely just another human being. Any rebutal is met by his faithful, political cult followers, no matter how much truth there is in the facts, with the cult-like wave of resistence. They support the political cult leader, no matter what truth and facts point out.
Another tell-tale tip of the political cult mindset is that it is closed system. No outside information nor influence is regarded as truth. Only the political cult leader proclaims “truth.” A poltical cult leader proclaims anything other than the lies he is spewing is “fake news.” There is no comparing both sides of any issue. The very idea of considering any other political viewpoint is considered as traitorous, when it is actually the political cult leader who has hijacked his base, who is the traitor. In this case, political cult followers’ minds have been sufficiently and successfully conditioned. These minds are no longer free to think what they want to think. It is George Orwell’s 1984 all over again. It is worth reading again.
People’s Magazine sponsored a television show in 2019 on the cult, Word of Faith Fellowship, (under the disguise of religion) which oddly enough is attracting modern day men, women and children into its criminally abusive practices, in my opinion, since I believe whacking any man, woman or child for 14 hours straight with an 18 inch wooden mallet without reprieve while simultaneously screaming at them, and/or withholding food from the apparent victim is criminal. This cult is one of many popping up these days. While this show revealed the aspects of cults to watch out for, the guidelines to follow in order to get out of any cult are the same for political cult followers as it is for religious cult followers. Both are unhealthy.
Whether you have been involved with this or any other cult-like religious or political group, reclaim your mental, physical and spiritual self as soon as possible. Fear of being abused in any or all of these forms is not the path to the loving God, nor a democratic government. Fear of being abused is a faulty human-manipulation-tactic used as political-social-structural, social-psychological, inter-behavior patterns to get you to submit your will to the misguided will of the cult group, in this case, the political cult group.
Fear is the ultimate weapon cults use.
You were never intended to become a slave to someone else’s idea of how to know and/or follow a political leader. A political cult leader, nor any religious cult minister, is not more worthy of being human than you. They do not know more than you about the noble qualities you want instilled in your political leaders despite what their forceful words erroneously imply. One day in the presence of political or religious cult leaders of any title they use to inflate their own self-worth, is enough to shine a light on the soon to erupt volcano of emotional, physical and spiritual harm they eventually unleash.
Physical abuses can be seen. But the seemingly invisible mental abuses political and religious cult leaders inflict on their unsuspecting subjects is not God-inspired nor politically productive for a democratic nation, nor any healthy congregation of believers. Political and religious cult leaders cling to an un-holy god of deception, by the use of manipulation, fear, obligation and guilt.
Listen to that inner voice inside yourself, your conscience, and realize you are right to escape the cult. Political and religious cults are evil personified, no matter what they say to the opposite. Cults are heavy into guilt motivation, but that does not make them right. You already know this.
What political and religious cult leaders do know is how to exert concerted effort to influence, bully, control, manipulate, exploit, and in the worst cases to abuse your body, mind and spirit in their unholy aim. This is abuse. This is mental abuse. This is physical abuse. This is spiritual abuse.
ESCAPE FROM THESE ABUSERS AS SOON AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE.
Abuse in all these forms is criminal and must not be tolerated by any human being on earth.
All cults have similar characteristics. Here is a list of 14 characteristics that help to define a cult:
“• The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader, and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.
• Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
• Mind-altering practices (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, or debilitating work routines) are used in excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
• The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (e.g., members must get permission to date, change jobs, or marry or leaders prescribe what to wear, where to live, whether to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth).
• The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and its members (e.g., the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).
• The group has a polarized, us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.
• The leader is not accountable to any authorities (unlike, for example, teachers, military commanders, or ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream religious denominations).
• The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group (e.g., lying to family or friends, or collecting money for bogus charities).
• The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt in order to influence and control members. Often this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion.
• Subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends, and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before joining the group.
• The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
• The group is preoccupied with making money.
• Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities.
• Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.” Taken from the online article Characteristics of Cults,” by Janna Lalich and Michael Pantone.
“The most loyal members (the “true believers”) feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave — or even consider leaving — the group,” say Janja Lalich and Michael Langone in their online article Characteristics of Cults.
Excerpts are from the book, Take Back Your Life: Recovering From Cults and Abusive Relationships by Janja Lalich and Madeline Tobias at Bay Tree Publishing.
Stand up for your God-given gift of free will. Use your free will to get out. Use your free will to vote. No one owns the rights to your mind, your voice or your life. Your life, body, mind and soul belong to you.
God loves you. God forgives you. You are a child of God here on earth. Only you can live your life. Only you can vote your conscience. If you have given over the rights to your mind, body or spirit to other religious or political groups, or any other group claiming rights over you, use your free will to walk away. Those are not your friends. Neither your political affiliation nor your friends can usurp your God-given rights.
CultAntidote: Never hand over your personal power or relinquish your free will to any person, place or thing at any time for any reason, ever.
The Fairness Doctrine made the important distinction between broadcast and cable news. Now the FCC says it is OK for the media to lie to us and pretend they are telling the truth. How do you like being duped?
Appearances and momentum capture the attention so easily that we sometimes confuse what we see, hear and think to be the truth of what we are seeing, hearing and thinking. Magicians know this and use this when they trick their audiences about what they are seeing and hearing, ultimately affecting their thinking.
No, this is not a comical bit from a Friends TV episode. The reality is, sometimes we delude ourselves into thinking that what we are seeing and hearing is real because we literally saw someone doing something, and heard them say it. No one would ever lie to us, right?
We need to be smarter humans. Whether the subject is religion, finance, or politics, it is never advisable to listen to only one side before we make important decisions. Look past the drama, the popular mantra of the group, the wishful thinking and look clearly at the facts, the real and accurate facts.
Many of us have allowed others to confuse our thinking. At these times, we are choosing to step out of our own personal power by listening to others because they seem to be louder, more sure of themselves, or seem to be in the know. If they are pontificating erroneous fictions as if they were facts, how is anyone to know without personal investigation?
Television, radio and social media does not serve the public like it used to do before the days of President Reagan when he vetoed the regulation that the news media had to profess the truth in what they reported. How many of us know that the television news media and some of its counterparts are more interested in the advertising dollars they attain over telling the actual truth which they have consciously decided not to tell?
Keep in mind that it is the conservative entities (not liberals), usually Republicans (not Democrats) who own most of the media who are pushing hardline, rightwing spin to appease the huge corporations and conglomerates who pay for the advertising that makes the TV, radio and print media possible. No one ought to lose their jobs for telling the truth.
We do not help ourselves nor our country when we focus on the fictional reality, such as Fox News with its many hosts, and quote the deception they promote as if that was real. Anyone with a grammar school education, who can read, is able to get to the bottom of the truth of the matter. We do not need to take someone else’s view point, then say, “There are so many confusing viewpoints out there. I do not know what to believe.”
Stop watching fictional news. Go to reputable sources. How do you know the difference?
Go to mainstream news outlets: Reuters, AP, NPR, New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Bloomberg News, The Atlantic, and Politico. All these news outlets tell the truth based on facts of actual events and history without spin of a particular political party.
Don’t choose ignorance and confusion over accurate facts. We know fact and fiction are different things, but when people in high profile places tell us something, and we have something to gain by listening to them, we can easily fool ourselves into believing what we want to believe over what is true and factual.
It is better for us all, and for our country, to base all our decisions on real and true facts. Facts do not have opinions, they just are what they are.
It is time to move past choosing sides, as if we are ordering our favorite Kentucky Fried Chicken meal, or picking our favorite sports team. Facts are not interchangeable with fiction.
This is a critical moment in our history, between the Presidential Election of 2020 and the Inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris, who won in a free and fair election. No one stole the election. Voters in every state as well as the electoral college have certified on this President-elect. These are provable facts.
On January 5, Democratic Senator Candidate Jon Ossoff is challenging incumbent Senator David Perdue earlier in the day in the first runoff election, followed by a second runoff election between Democratic Senator Candidate Raphael Warnock and incumbent Senator Kelly Loeffler.
Georgia voters will be the ones to decide which political party controls the U.S. Senate, since the protracted vote count in the previous election did not result in winners in either race.
Democrats need to flip both Senate seats to have unified control of the White House and Congress. Again, every vote in these elections matters.
Stagnation and the inability or unwillingness to work together works against the democracy this country has long fought for. Perhaps it is time to step out of the molasses and take a new breath sweeping through our land at this time.
Since we are a country of law and order, now is time for us to be lawful and orderly and do what all government officials and everyone in the military have sworn their oath to do, which is to serve and protect the Constitution of the United States of America, not any particular person.
Remember, the Constitution of the United States of America was written because of the abuses of King George III of Great Britain usurping the rights of the people of the 13 colonies. Our Forefathers, representing all citizens then and now, shunned an autocratic king ruling over the USA.
Recognize that this past Presidential Election was run as all previous elections have run, with in-person, and absentee ballots. Absentee ballots include provisional and mail-in as our military have always used and been counted after the election, since they voted on Election Day, often out-of-state or out of the country and required being mailed in to be counted after that day. This is nothing new.
Absolutely no one stole the 2020 Presidential Election. It’s called counting all the ballots because every vote counts. As mentioned above, there were no illegal votes/ballots. This has also been documented by Republican appointees of Homeland Security.
When it comes to counting ballots, ballots that have been cast for one side or the other are not illegal ballots, nor are absentee ballots illegal. This is perhaps the biggest lie being touted today, as if only Republican or in-person votes are legal. That assumption is false no matter who says it. Facts are facts, and history is history.
However, if we do not align ourselves with democracy we will be aligning ourselves with non-democracy, with a ruler who is an autocrat, a tyrant, a dictator, a king and the like.
Saying the economy is great because the stock market is doing well, while ignoring the rest of the 90 percent of the citizens who are lining up in countless food lines, losing their jobs, their homes, their very lives, is not the real test of how “great” the economy is.
Now is the time to stand on accurate facts while we can. It is possible to lose democracy. I believe most of us do not want to do that.
The Virtue of Virtues, first published in 1999, is coming out for its second printing. The world at large, and the United States of America in particular, are at one of those pinnacle moments in time when how we, individually and collectively, make decisions with huge ramifications for the future of everyone. On what do we base our decisions on?
Virtues are the missing link in today’s society, and are the life support necessary to revive a near-death moral human experience.
The Virtue of Virtues is not only a seven lesson, sixth-grade CCD curriculum that has been taught in the Worcester Diocese, taught my me, once a month from October to December at the start of the CCD year. It can also be taught by parents one hour a night for one week, once a week for seven weeks, or once a month for seven months as parish programs have been taught. Parents have the opportunity to teach their children individually or in a comfortable setting with other parents and children.
The Virtue of Virtues, subtitled A CCD TEXTBOOK, is now available online at:
The eBook ISBN #978-1-5320-9462-0 for $3.99, is currently in production. I will let you know when it is ready.
Virtues have been replaced with other value systems, like greed, lust, anger, envy, excess, laziness, arrogance. These other value systems are also known as the seven deadly sins: covetousness, lust, anger, envy, gluttony, sloth and pride. We seem to be operating on automatic pilot, blinded by unbridled selfishness at the helm.
With the rise of these other value systems, virtues have slipped by the wayside. But is it possible to recover our senses before it is too late?
In the process of trying to be kinder to humanity, we tossed out the notion of sin, instead preferring to call our sins shortcomings to our personalities. Now we have psychological and emotional reasons for the way we are. Now our counseling centers have full waiting rooms rather than our confessionals full of repentant sinners.
How often have we tried to alleviate sin with a prescription drug?
Did we throw God out too when we threw out sin?
With all the help our counselors, doctors and nurses can offer us with failings of our body and mind, they are not equipped to help us with defects to our souls. Imagine a tripod holding us up; one leg is body, one leg is mind, and one leg is soul. Soul is built on virtues, that is how we build it back up.
Drugs are not always the answer when we feel bad. How is our walk with God?
What can help us to help ourselves?
Bring back the virtues. Faith, hope and love are the three theological virtues to begin with. All other virtues are based on these three. Get back to faith. Seek faith and do not stop looking to bolster your faith, faith in God. The world will tell you there is no God and there is no sin. Do not listen to these lies. Seek hope even when all seems lost. There is always hope. We are not made solely for this earth. We were made for heaven and for earth. Don’t settle for only half of the reality. Know there is more. Seek love. God is love. Seek love. The greatest of these three gifts from God is love. Seek and you will find.
Once you acquire faith, hope and love into your life; faith in God, hope in God and love of God, that is, you can begin adding the four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. With these four cardinal virtues, you can begin to grow in charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, endurance, mildness, faith, modesty, restraint and chastity. By using these twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit, you can begin to answer the world’s problems in your corner of the world with ethics and virtue.
Virtues and moral courage are the solution for the world’s dishonesty, immorality, brazen corruption, and political unrest. It does not take complicated rocket science to resolve what has gone wrong with humanity’s development in the world today. It takes getting back to virtues and moral courage to do the right thing. Right still matters.
world at large, and the United States of America in particular, are at one of those pinnacle moments in time when how we, individually and collectively, make decisions with huge ramifications for the future of everyone. On what do we base our decisions on?
UNIVERSAL WISDOM ENLIGHTENMENT MASTERY 