58 Comments
Nov 29, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

Thanks for drawing attention to this, Greg. I made a video about it back in May.

https://youtu.be/RZqNFhYqJJs

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Thanks, Vince, and thanks for sharing!

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Excellent

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Nov 29, 2022·edited Nov 29, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

How come every time I read about real pedophiles not named Epstein they are either Catholic priests or evangelical youth pastors? Why don't Republicans rant about them? Oh, right...

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Martin Luther in 1340+- nailed a proclamation to the Bishops door, saying they should limit the number of little boys they kept for their pleasure.

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Wow, I didn't know that.

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The Maryland Office of the Attorney General,

April 2023, Published report on Child sexual, physical and mental abuse at the hands of Priests, Nuns, staff and workers of the Catholic Church, over 450 pages.

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It's one of the mysteries...

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Or coaches. Think Gym Jordan for example.

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Far-right provocateurs & Republican politicians want whatever it takes to take the pressure/negative attention off them!

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jose.delreal@washpost.com?utm_campaign=wp_must_reads&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_mustreads&subject=Must+Reads+feedback

Nearly 80 percent of suicide deaths in the United States are among men, with White men being the highest risk group in the country. Many of the suicidologists and therapists I spoke with pointed to “cowboy culture” and the “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality as a driving force of those high rates. CDC data showed Wyoming, “The Cowboy State,” had the highest rate of suicides per capita in the United States.

The story was about how “toxic masculinity” — male entitlement and violence — can turn inward, how it might hurt men themselves.  

the second story in my series, centered around a single mom in cowboy country who had been a victim of partner abuse and was trying to raise her sweet boy to be a good man despite her own brokenness. Through dozens of hours of conversation, by telephone and in person, I got to see Sarah rebuild her life with her son and all the attendant despair, hope and resilience. 

Sarah has seen firsthand how violence, exaggerated masculinity and misogyny can reinforce one another. Can she find a way to break the circle as she raises her son?

By Jose A. Del Real 

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Jackbooted thugs, whatever headgear they prefer, need *patsies* -- an easily identified out-group to hate and bash on. Works the same all over

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Nov 29, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

It’s ignorant, deliberate and evil to the core. They are just looking for a scapegoat for their self-righteous evil actions. There is no excuse to follow the Hitler path to hell. It ensnares us ALL

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Evil is exactly what it is.

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Nov 29, 2022·edited Nov 29, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

Children have far more to fear from "heterosexual" men, who suffer from toxic masculinity & a distorted sense of self, than they ever do from the Trans & Gay community, imo.

Where you have sexual entitlement prevailing in certain distorted ( often "Christian" cultures, where women hold a narrowly defined position & power) & deep rooted insecurity is exposed, especially when relating to adult women who will challenge their falsely held perceptions of themselves/ masculinity; when you throw in an unhealthy mix of religion based sexual repression or sexuality in general & add often times an unhealthy dose of exposure to not so garden variety porn (especially accessible today on the net or elsewhere - not talking your Daddy's old Playboy magazines here) I believe this can easily set the stage for certain hetero men feeling it's safer & preferable ( for them emotionally) to approach children/ teens (female or male). I think there is a sense that they can't, or won't be rejected, which is stronger than their fear of being exposed. This notion may hold especially so, if you add the sway of money, position & power to the mix. The question is which is (most often) the political party, where this toxic mixture most often appears to prevail? Which party appears to be most focused on the topic of sex & sexuality? I think we know the answer.

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Thanks, Bonnie. That's a very astute explainer.

The irony is, they seem to know there are issues with quote-unquote masculinity. Josh Hawley wrote a book about it. But they approach it backwards.

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Greg, I've done a good deal of reading on the topic of aberrant behavior over the years, and particularly the topic of pedophilia, which is largely ( but not solely) to do with hetero males. As a psych major, abnormal behavior & its underpinnings fascinated me. Wrote a few papers on sociopathology & disassociative identity disorder as well, after doing some volunteer work. But ended up remaining in the insurance profession as an agent & underwriter. Go figure.

The "me thinks thou doth protest too much" quote certainly does apply here. Sadly, I've thought that same thing, too many times when it came to this party & certain " respected" religious leaders. Far too often it has proven itself true, when people were finally exposed for who they were underneath the facade.

I have not read Hawley's book, (as I don't want this person to earn a cent from me) but I would take your word for it. But I suspect there's a good deal more about that guy, that if we scratched the thin veneer on that man, we'd find some scarey " stuff" as well. He appears to be a little too quiet as of late; which makes me wonder why...

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♥️

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Thanks, Bonnie. I didn't want to get into the individual motives for why there is such hate among these individuals, and why pedophilia is such a trigger for them, but you're right on all of this. I didn't read Hawley's book either, for the same reason, but I am a bit curious about it. Someone should make a book trailer where all the manly virtues are read in a deep baritone, while on the screen is a loop of him running away...

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…. or raping or murdering a woman.

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Christian and Muslim and Chinese and Japanese …….

Male entitlement and the suppression and persecution of women is a global phenomenon, as I see it.

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Agreed Roland, and overall appears to have been the status quo since the beginning of time, with few exceptions.

But sadly, what does it say about "mankind" when people always seem to need others to "victimize" or deem " less than " them?

In my 20's, I took my young son & left an angry, abusive, alcoholic husband, divorced & moved us & my ex's mom 1,200 miles away. I don't subscribe personally to the "victim" mentality & I knew my son " got it" when he said to me when he was about 12, that he never saw himself/ us as victims, but as overcomers. And perhaps that's how we as women have to view ourselves. As "overcomers." And then move forward to overcome the " roadblocks" that others ( and even some other women) may put out here for us. Unfair, sure. But that's life and mom said life wasn't always fair. Just can't let the b@$+@rds keep you down. Be well. :)

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PT Barnum was right, wasn’t he. There’s a sucker born every minute. Jenna Ellis seems a little too anxious to me--she’s hiding her own homophilia behind false religiosity, misusing, once again, Christian principles of love to condemn those she wishes she could be like. Sigh. What suckers. We should probably be aware that some of this comes from Russian provocateurs. Discord always leads to disorder, sigh. Thanks, Greg. You knock it out of the park. Again.

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Thanks, John. It's insane to me that someone who went to college, and then to law school, and thus has had exposure to a wide array of people, cultures, and ideas, would say something that ignorant and dumb.

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Nov 29, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

Thanks for writing about this. It is painfully depressing, but needs to be said and felt.

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Thank you. It IS depressing, and enraging. But we have to try and frame it as it is.

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Nov 29, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

"Gays Against Groomers". Now there's a real niche hate group.

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Totally. I wonder if they are called by the acronym...

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Nov 29, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

I honestly could not believe what Alex Jones ACTUALLY said about the Clintons.

I think you hit the nail on the head with the term stochastic terrorism. The provocateurs are trying to make it all seem random but it is targeted at two vulnerable groups, the trans community and children, to motivate people with emotion & not rationality. Childhood is arguably the most vulnerable time in your life. If Tim Pool or whoever he is was truly concerned about kids he'd be calling on parents to monitor their device usage (an actual problem) & keep it out of their rooms, especially at night.

But in the end it is about body autonomy & control. Kat Tenbarge was 100% correct when she said, "when people love each other outside the confines of heterosexuality- THAT is the problem." The hate posters on twitter can't control or confine love, no matter how many likes or retweets their posts generate.

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"Lone wolf" is not really a thing, not when the overwhelming majority of violence is done by rightwing white men. Tim needs teenagers on their devices, because that's how he gets them to listen...

https://weaponizedspaces.substack.com/p/violent-extremism-in-america-is-a

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Nov 29, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

Fcking GOP. Power regardless of death. "An evil GOP enemy will burn his own nation to the ground .. just to rule over the ashes."

- Sun Tzu

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author

[shakes head sadly]

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Nov 29, 2022Liked by Greg Olear

This is important. I shared it on my FB page. I hope the friends there who are trans will read it. I have two and both are in emotional turmoil, living in fear. One has been disowned by her family; the other is about to be.

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That's just heartbreaking to hear, Ellen. I will never understand families who turn their back on kin when they are most vulnerable. It's awful. And about as un-Christian as it gets.

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Damn, what percentage of this countries denizens are so peerless in vacuous idiocy? America has certainly become a very grim joke, between the christian fascist, homophobes, racists, misogynists et al.

Thank you Greg, for opening the aperture and bringing focus to such abhorrent behavior!

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Thanks, Patrick.

Well, it's not like Europe was some hotbed of religious tolerance. I'm reading a book about the extermination of the Cathars. Good Lord, the things people would do, and for the silliest of reasons.

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You are the first person I e come across who knows anything about the Cather's. It is illuminating to visit the remains of their Castle/forts in France. A reading list 25 years ago from a gay friend who decided not to become a priest :

Destiny of Fire, 1961

Heirs of the Kingdom 1972

by Zoe Oldenbourg

Jude the Obscure - Hardy

The Abyss 1976 by Marguerite Yourcenar, translated from the French by Grace Frick,

The Cathars 1995 by Lucien Bély

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Would love to see you write about the Cathars. Maybe compare what happened to what is happening to some groups today?

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“What percentage ….”

Here is the yardstick I use:

In 2020 74 million voted for Trump, 81 million voted for Biden. That’s 74 divided by 155 = approx. 48%

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Thank you. Important. Shared.

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Thanks.

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