Gaslighting

There was a brief hiccup of indignation last week regarding the French police choosing to downplay the fact that the dead hostages taken by Islamist terrorists at the Bataclan music hall had been viciously tortured and their bodies mutilated. There was the same brief hiccup of indignation when it appeared that the German police likewise chose to downplay those instances of sexual abuse perpetrated on local women by so-called Syrian “refugees.” A commenter on one particular thread discussing this observed, acidly, that we were now well into Pravda and Izvestia country, where the published news stories must be carefully scrutinized and parsed to tease out the actual facts; what is released regarding certain occurrences is not meant to inform us. Instead, such reports are meant to appear as if we are being informed, but the actual intent is to conceal and not to offend those in political power.

I’ve begun to believe, though, that our establishment media and those elements of the Ruling Class (in the Anthony Codevilla sense) who control or collude with them are going well beyond simply obscuring current events – but are deliberately practicing a kind of mass-gaslighting on us all. Gas-lighting? Oh, yes; this is a definition, courtesy of the Urban Dictionary:

A form of intimidation or psychological abuse, sometimes called Ambient Abuse where false information is presented to the victim, making them doubt their own memory, perception and quite often, their sanity … A more psychological definition of gaslighting is “an increasing frequency of systematically withholding factual information from, and/or providing false information to, the victim – having the gradual effect of making them anxious, confused, and less able to trust their own memory and perception.

False information presented – making us doubt our own memories and perception of events. Systematically withholding factual information from us. Having the gradual effect of making us anxious, confused, less able to trust.

Yep – we’ve been gas-lighted all right; and some of us more than others. I’d say that the African-American community is being royally gas-lighted by the Black Lives Matter organizing cadre, and the Democrat party has also been gas-lighted in a grand scale into believing (or pretending to believe) that Hillary Clinton is the most qualified presidential candidate evah! Barack Obama takes the absolute prize, though – in having gas-lighted himself into believing that he is the very best US President in our history.
Discuss.

40 thoughts on “Gaslighting”

  1. What will you bet that the first time another muslim “refugee” attack is responded to by deadly force from bystanders that the “elites” go into hysterics about lynch mobs and vigilante justice????

  2. After the guy in Dallas shot 12 police officers killing five the Dallas Police Department was criticised for not risking the lives of more police officers in an attempt to capture him alive. I suppose any soldier or sailor who returned fire against the Japanese planes at Pearl Harbor should have been given a dishonorable discharge for endangering the lives of Japanese pilots. We’re just supposed to quietly surrender and be slaughtered.

  3. Well, of course, Joe – this is an element of the gaslighting; deflecting and blaming the subject, ensuring that we doubt our own perception and sanity.

  4. There are three absolute essentials to the maintenance of a free society: trustworthy communications; widespread, factual education; and mass ownership of weaponry. We surrendered education to the almighty State long ago, and have reaped the consequences. Communications is steadily being corrupted as well, through propaganda and induced paranoia. And yes, they are reaching for our guns. The inferences are left to the reader.

  5. “We’re just supposed to quietly surrender and be slaughtered.”

    Read Dakota Meyers’ book “Into the Fire”

    The reason he survived was because he was being punished for shooting at Taliban who were firing mortars into the base. He was told he could only fire at uniformed soldiers and the Taliban do not wear uniforms. He was outside the village with a jeep driver when the civil affairs team was ambushed. He and the driver ran the jeep into the village along a dry creek multiple times to rescue wounded. If he had been allowed to accompany the team into the village, he would probably not have survived. But he was being punished.

  6. Just for reference, this morning there was another attack in France of unknown provenance. At a church in Normandy, France as morning Mass was being conducted, 2 males of a background we are not allowed to discuss entered and took the people hostage. The 84 year old priest was either decapitated or had his throat cut at the altar. A nun also had her throat cut, and in critical condition. Witnesses who escaped said that the males of ABWANATD proceeded to give what appeared to be a sermon in a language that we are not allowed to mention.

    The police arrived shortly and the two males were shot and killed.

    One of the males was wearing an ankle bracelet as part of his parole for twice attempting to join ISIS. The other may have been in contact with the Bataclan killers. It is a mystery.

    President Hollande gave a speech that might have been better if there was any prospect of any action being taken based on it.

  7. Just after the Marathon massacre, as chaos ensued in the Boston area, residents were repeatedly warned and told to “shelter in place” by public officials. At the time, I felt as though it was not so much for the general public’s safety, as much as the terrifying prospect of outraged townies finding the culprits first.

    During the Cologne New Year’s Eve rapes there were few police around, and those present were confused and ineffective. When the march to protest the outrage occurred, it’s reported that their were basically one policeman for every protester. In full battle dress, backed up by water cannons, dogs, etc.

    Those are just two examples.

    In the short span of time since these atrocities we have learned that the authorities knew much more beforehand and during than they let on, and have consistently stood on the side of the perpetrators.

  8. Sometimes the police say odd things. In Germany today a dental surgeon was shot dead by a chap who apparently was one of his patients. The police said something to the effect that it was not a case of terrorism. Why on earth don’t they say the thing that the public actually wants to know e.g. “The murderer is not a moslem”? Their silly comment makes one wonder whether the murderer was, say, a Turk.

  9. That’s what we’re reduced to wondering, Dearie. We all know that when there is some horrible, violent physical crime committed – and all that the newspapers will report is some vague and unhelpful nonsense about age and what they were wearing, then 99 out of a hundred, the perpetrator is black. Which usually comes out when they are caught and their mugshots are published. Which does indeed fall into the category of systematically withholding factual information from us. The stats on black on white crime are carefully kept from the pages of our national media, whereas the comparatively fewer cases of white on black crime … are blared 24-7. It seems likely to me that the same is going on in Europe – only that it is just that more ruling-class directed.
    All in the service of keeping us anxious, confused, and less able to trust.

  10. France and the rest of us would do well to posthumously heed their countryman:

    “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” –Voltaire

    Think …

  11. “The murderer is not a moslem”? Their silly comment makes one wonder whether the murderer was, say, a Turk.

    When no political party is mentioned with a crime, we assume Democrats.

    When “Asian men” are mentioned in Britain, we assume Muslim.

    When no mention of names or race or other characteristics are mentioned in Germany or Sweden, we assume Muslim.

    When no description of a criminal is given in Chicago we assume black.

    We are rarely wrong.

  12. The culprit, or true underlying cause, for this seeming inability to recognize obvious characteristics and trends regarding these repeated terrorist attacks is not some vague respect for islam, but a direct result of the enormous moral and cultural commitment the chattering classes, which includes most of the msm, have made to multi-culturalism.

    The elites across the west have made a huge investment in the contention that all cultures and belief systems are equally valid, and, indeed, if there is one that is lacking moral validity, it is the imperialistic capitalism of the Christian west.

    Therefore, to acknowledge the brutality and amoral content of islam’s teachings, and the collusion in barbarity of much of their religious and social leadership, would require the ruling elites in the west to reconsider their commitment to the ideals of multi-cultural policies, such as unlimited immigration from islamic countries to the EU or the US.

    This they cannot do.

    Once begun, such a critical re-examination of this fundamental tenet of the globalist ideology would, of necessity, lead to the reconsideration of several other basic ideas upon which the world that the elites desire to create requires to be true.

    The pervasive collectivist ideology of the western ruling elites is a religious system, requiring the belief in several faith-based assertions regarding how societies and cultures should be organized and ruled. If any of these pillars is allowed to wobble, then the entire edifice is threatened.

    What we are witnessing in this specific instance, or the confrontation between islam and the west in general, has little to do with islam, and very much to do with the self-protection instincts of the elites, which absolutely must believe that they have the secret knowledge that the common herd lacks, and, therefore, that they must lead, and the herd must follow.

    The authoritarian tendencies of the various ruling groups in society, academia, and politics is rooted in their desperate need to maintain the belief that they know best, that their actions are noble and moral, and that a better world will result if only the peasants would quit grumbling and do as they’re told.

    Collectivist, multi-cultural, politically correct ideology is the Pax. And the result is exactly the same.

  13. And now comes the discovery that no one died in Orlando until after team Blue breached the perimeter at 0513. Off duty team Blue members who served as bouncers did not engage the suspect. What narrative or blame shifting is behind the official version of events?

  14. “A form of intimidation or psychological abuse, sometimes called Ambient Abuse where false information is presented to the victim, making them doubt their own memory, perception and quite often, their sanity … A more psychological definition of gaslighting is “an increasing frequency of systematically withholding factual information from, and/or providing false information to, the victim – having the gradual effect of making them anxious, confused, and less able to trust their own memory and perception.”

    Now this is amusing. From my point of view this well describes the situation we have now in most of the “free” world. The press is in almost complete lockstep in fulfilling the very thing you describe here. It’s why I use my system of analyzing everything as opinion and probably badly informed opinion at that.

    Lie to me. I’ll figure it out.

  15. >>And now comes the discovery that no one died in Orlando
    >>until after team Blue breached the perimeter at 0513

    Link?

  16. Speaking of gaslighting, and what the establishment media and the Ruling Class doesn’t want to tell us – this link is from February of this year and posted at Gates of Vienna, but I didn’t see it until today when someone linked to it on another website. Truly horrifying, seeing how a European city can be overrun and terrorized by “refugees.”

    “Calais – We Are Finished”

    An excerpt: Until then one could perhaps have been able to bear it, but one cannot bear the unbearable when one sees, incessantly, every day, every night, there are riots. They come to the town centre by 2 – 3 – 4 thousand, everywhere, they bash cars with iron bars, they attack people, they even attack children, there are rapes, there is theft, it’s is unimaginable what we suffer. They enter private houses, when the people are at home, they just enter, they want to eat they help themselves, sometimes they also bash the people, stealing what they can and afterwards, what they cannot take they destroy. And when we want to defend ourselves, we have the police on our back. The police have not accepted any complaints for a long time.

  17. Link?

    Looked earlier and couldn’t find anything. I can’t figure out if Gerry Owen is with the Seventh Cavalry or F Troop.

  18. A business partner of mine’s father grew up a real boston Irishmen. One of his Uncle’s still refers to Italians as “bomb-tossers”. I think the last Anarchist bombings died with Sacco and Vanzetti! On a more serious note one has to be careful to smash the terrorists without providing fodder for leftist and others who can and will make martyrs out of them. Joe McCarthy was right (but he didn’t know the whole story). His crude tactics set back anti communist efforts for years into the future.

  19. “Orlando police chief John Mina is on record with an admission that Swat Team officers may have shot some of the victims as they entered the building to confront the shooter.”

    Just imagine for a moment how well the Israelis did to kill the terrorists and not injure a hostage at Entebbe.

  20. Perhaps SWAT did shoot hostages. Bad things happen in the fog of terror. But

    And now comes the discovery that no one died in Orlando until after team Blue breached the perimeter at 0513.

    is totally unsupported by Bob Hodges’ link.

    F Troop.

  21. I had forgotten that several hostages were killed. The raid was the beginning of my very high admiration of Israel.

    As a result of the operation, the United States military developed rescue teams modelled on the unit employed in the Entebbe rescue.[92] One notable attempt to imitate it was Operation Eagle Claw, a failed rescue of 53 American embassy personnel held hostage in Tehran during the Iran hostage crisis.

    There is a pretty good book about Eagle Claw called, “The Guts to Try” which explains how poor US planning and coordination was in the era right after Vietnam and the destruction of the US military,

    The Israelis were far ahead of us.

  22. There is a direct reason that Democrats, Progressives, Socialists, and Communists encourage third world and Muslim immigration. It is not a dedication to multiculturalism. It is to add enough Democrat/Socialist votes to keep power.

    Muslims vote 5/6ths for Socialist/Liberal governments.

    A 50-life terror attack each week in each country is a small price for keeping power, and it is a price not paid by politicians and donors.

    The political cover story is that we must tolerate some violence in order to bring about a new and loving world without discrimination, with free travel across borders and voting rights for all residence. It is the only fair thing to do.

    Meanwhile, constitutions and customs are anachronistic, irrational policies which supposedly do not fit into the modern world.

    Governments are preemtively controlling any protest against immigration because these immigrants must feel protected and grateful to the socialist parties they are expected to vote for.

    Philosophy and feel-good explanations always support those policies which will bring money and power. Socialists everywhere see their chance to lock in the good life for themselves.

    === ===
    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3064/muslim-voters-europe

    Muslim Voters Change Europe

    An estimated 2 million Muslims participated in the 2012 election, meaning that roughly 1.7 million Muslim votes went to Hollande rather than to Sarkozy. In the election as a whole, however, Hollande won over Sarkozy by only 1.1 million votes. This figure implies that Muslims cast the deciding votes that thrust Hollande into the Élysée Palace
    .
    === ===

    And, in the US:
    === ===
    http://www.independentsentinel.com/communists-socialists-plot-to-get-9-million-leftist-immigrants-voting-by-october/

    Communists, Socialists Plot to Get 9 Million Leftist Immigrants Voting by October

    A 2014 study of voter fraud by Harvard’s Cooperative Congressional Election Study confirmed the findings of Judicial Watch on the role illegal immigrants have played in recent elections. The study found that enough non-citizens voted in 2008 to potentially “turn the tide” in favor of the Democrats.
    === ===

  23. Mrs. Davis

    This link and passage at same looks to be the basis of the “F Troop” statements.

    https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/tampa/news/press-releases/investigative-update-regarding-pulse-nightclub-shooting

    Based on OPD radio communications, there were no reports of shots being fired inside Pulse between the initial exchange of gunfire between responding officers and shooter, and the time of the final breach. During this time, the shooter communicated with an OPD 911 operator and an OPD crisis negotiator, and OPD radio communications reported that victims were being rescued.

    Given that th Orlando law enforcement did not enter parts of the Pulse night club for hours. Many wounded in the initial gun fire exchange bleed to death in the interval between the initial shooting and the final assault.

  24. “dispeople resist the temptation to call it Keystone Claw?”

    There were all sorts of errors in training and execution but people died. That was no joke.

    The Israelis showed how to do it.

  25. It’s because it was no joke that it’s worth joking about. What happened to the chumps in charge?

  26. “Communists, Socialists Plot to Get 9 Million Leftist Immigrants Voting by October ”

    Andrew, it beats me how 0’s lawlessness and the Dem’s actions WRT to illegal immigration cannot be seen as treason.

  27. Will Says:
    July 26th, 2016 at 3:09 pm
    Just after the Marathon massacre, as chaos ensued in the Boston area, residents were repeatedly warned and told to “shelter in place” by public officials. At the time, I felt as though it was not so much for the general public’s safety, as much as the terrifying prospect of outraged townies finding the culprits first.

    I seem to recall after Beslan that enraged locals went hunting and only one of the terrorists they located was in any condition to be questioned. Not that said condition was that good, but it did involve breathing, unlike all its fellow thugs.

  28. To Mike K.

    This may be a bit off topic, but Hillary’s entire campaign may be gaslighting.

    At ANN ALTHOUSE’s blog they are discussing Hillary’s . . . inappropriate . . . reactions sometimes.

    http://althouse.blogspot.com/2016/07/is-there-some-reason-why-hillary-keeps.html

    one of the commenters said in reference to the picture of her, open mouthed:

    Unknown said…

    Gilbert, yes, WTF is that mark or hole? Removed a tumor maybe? I wish that fellow Mike K, the doctor, would come back and comment.
    7/28/16, 9:46 AM

    If you are the same Mike K, and being a semi-retired surgeon/professor it seems possible; could you take a look at that and comment here?

    Thanks,

    Subotai Bahadur

  29. “Zersetzung”

    I did not see her gag, but despite her lifelong talent for staying in character, she has got to be under an enormous amount of stress. I was wondering how Merkel was able to continue to remain in office, someone suggested that she was affiliated or an actual ex-Stasi agent, and possesses files on a majority of those in power in Germany.

    Reading about the notorious East German agency I came upon the term “Zersetzung” It’s amazing when we watch what occurs with the MSM and the uniparty and compare it to the tactics employed by the Stasi.

  30. I just looked it up. Xerostomia may cause tongue ulcers. It’s sometimes a side effect of anti-convulsant medications prescribed for bipolar disorder, which often has comorbidity with epilepsy. What do you think Mike K, is Hillary bipolar?

  31. “If you are the same Mike K, and being a semi-retired surgeon/professor it seems possible; could you take a look at that and comment here?

    Thanks,”

    Yes, I am the same but gave up commenting there until the election as the atmosphere is just too hostile. The same with Patterico but from the pro-Cruz side.

    I saw the black spot on one photo. Here is a list of possible conditions. I don’t know but her behavior is a bit odd.

    Alcohol ?

    Head injury ?

    I just don’t know.

  32. This story made the rounds last year about Hillary taking some ill-fated speech lessons from Steven Spielberg

    However, once Hillary’s campaign got under way it became obvious that the lessons were not working – as she still could not manage to maintain eye contact with audiences.

    Hillary is said to have told a friend: ‘I decided I had enough with the camera and the recordings and the coaches. I got so angry I knocked the f**king camera off its tripod.’

    Knocked over the camera after a brief involuntary manic epileptic episode is more like it.
    Inability to make eye contact and lack of concentration
    Did you notice her bulging eyes during her speech?

    Here’s something else Effect of transmeridian travel and jetlag on mood disorders: Evidence and implications

    There is some suggestion that transmeridian travel does appear to precipitate mood episodes with an increased rate of episodes of depression with westward compared with an increased rate of manic/hypomanic episodes with eastward travel. Individuals with a previous history of mood disorder appear to be more vulnerable if adherence to medication is compromised.

    Recall Hillary traveled almost a million total miles as Secretary of State, enough to span the globe 38 times.

    Serious questions about her fitness for office.

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