Gersande La Flèche rated Operation Mindfuck: 1 star

Operation Mindfuck by Robert Guffey
Mind control. Satanic rituals. Unspeakable sexual perversions. Supervillains eating children’s brains. A divine mandate to keep Donald Trump in the …
💬 they/them ; iel/lo
🍵 Lots of nonfiction, literary fiction, poetry, classical literature, speculative fiction, magical realism, etc. English, French, and many translations.
📖 Beaucoup de non-fiction, de fiction littéraire, de poésie, de classiques, de spéculatif, de réalisme magique, etc. Lecture en anglais et en français, et beaucoup de traductions.
💌 Find me on Mastodon: silvan.cloud/@gersande
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92% complete! Gersande La Flèche has read 13 of 14 books.
Mind control. Satanic rituals. Unspeakable sexual perversions. Supervillains eating children’s brains. A divine mandate to keep Donald Trump in the …
When we thought of language like a book, perhaps it was natural that we were worried and careful about what we enshrined in it. But now that we can think of language like the internet, it’s clear that there is space for innovation, space for many Englishes and many other languages besides, space for linguistic playfulness and creativity. There’s space, in this glorious linguistic web, for you.
— Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch (99%)
Love the conclusion of this book!
Content warning CW for QAnon; Conspiracy Theories
Despite being perceptive enough to identify the medieval origins of QAnon’s fanatical obsession with the notion that innocent children are being kidnapped from their bedrooms and harvested by the “elites,” [Barbara] Fister concludes her piece by saying that that the best way to combat QAnon is to change “how education approaches information-literacy instruction.” After the destructive events of January 6, 2021, Fister’s wide-eyed approach to the problem seems both charming and dangerous. It was partly this dangerous naivety among entrenched political commentators that convinced me to begin writing about QAnon from a perspective slightly different from what I was seeing in mainstream publications during the first few months of 2020.
— Operation Mindfuck by Robert Guffey (Page 6)
Barbara Fister wrote in the Atlantic on February 18, 2021:
. . . QAnon is something of a syncretic religion. But its influence doesn’t stop with religious communities. While at its core it’s a 21st-century reboot of a medieval anti-Semitic trope (blood libel), it has shed some of its Christian vestments to gain significant traction among non-evangelical audiences. ("The Librarian War Against QAnon")
Queer people know that risk is a continuum and not a binary. We know the activities that bring us joy and fulfillment can turn, in a moment, to danger, violence, ridicule. Many of the things we do are on a spectrum of risk: holding hands on King Street, coming out to our colleagues, booking a stay at a bed and breakfast. Even ordering a cake carries the risk of rejection and shame. One of the great gifts queer people have given the world has been to translate our intimate knowledge of risk into public health policy. The spectrum of risk was visible from the early days of the AIDS crisis, when we started distributing condoms and refusing to preach abstinence. It is equally visible in the work of drop-in centres, needle exchange programs, sharps boxes, and supervised injection sites.
— Park Cruising by Marcus McCann (Page 53 - 54)
Remember again, the systems live within us. The punishment mindset is very hard to get out of. And it's normal and healthy often to want vengeance against people for causing you great harm. That's not going to get addressed in an accountability process. If you are the one who is rushing after that, and that's really what you're seeking, an accountability process really would not help. You're always going to be feeling as though it's "not working" because it's not doing the thing that you really would like. And I really want to make people understand that. Not everything should be in an accountability process. Not everything can be resolved in an accountability process. Accountability processes often feel terrible to the people while they're in it. It's not a healing process. It might put you on the road toward your own personal healing.
— We Do This 'Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba, Tamara K. Nopper, Naomi Murakawa (Page 141)
In Necropolitics Achille Mbembe, a leader in the new wave of francophone critical theory, theorizes the genealogy of the contemporary …
Content warning CW: Scientology; High-Demand Religious Movements and Cults
Sincerely, I thought I knew L. Ron Hubbard was a bad guy. I did not know how much of a bad dude this man was.
Holy fucking smokes.
Content warning CW: Scientology; High-Demand Religious Movements and Cults
I don't know why I'm surprised to discover a connection between Alister Crowley and Ron Hubbards but yes, there is a religious/magical connection between Alister Crowley and Rob Hubbards through Pretty Gross Dude John W. Parsons, and Hubbards wanted to become the Beast and dominate the earth after Crowley's passing.
When you embark on a journey, you have already arrived. The world you are going to is already in your head. You have already walked in it, eaten in it; you have already made friends; a lover is already waiting.
— A Map to the Door of No Return by Dionne Brand (Page 115)
Content warning CW for the US and Israeli killing of civilians (including children) with drones
The exact number of people killed by US (or Israeli) drones since September 11, 2001, is unknown. The first US drone strike was a botched effort to kill Taliban leader Mullah Omar in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. Some estimates put the number of individuals killed by the US military and CIA between 9,000 and 17,000, which includes at least 2,200 children. The UK-based transparency organization Airwars released a report on the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 and found that the US had unleashed at least 91,340 strikes across seven major war zones in the previous twenty years and that the civilian death toll was between 22,679 and 48,308. It is arguable whether drone attacks, launched by drone pilots against people who have no idea what's coming, are even war at all but something more grotesque; dehumanization of those targeted because there is no real, human contact between attacker and victim. Israel and the US celebrate these killings by releasing drone footage to the media.
— Palestine Laboratory by Antony Loewenstein (30% - 31%)
"Battle-tested over Gaza" was a badge of honor. Canada under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau purchased Elbit-made Hermes 900 drones worth US$28 million in late 2020. This drone was first tested during the 2014 Gaza war. Canada claimed that the drones would be used for surveillance purposes in the Arctic "to detect oil spills, survey ice and marine habitats." The equipment would help "to keep our waters clean and safe." The deployment of the Hermes was for civilian purposes, but a leading Israeli arms manufacturer benefitted from the deal.
— Palestine Laboratory by Antony Loewenstein (29% - 30%)
Quick mention of a Canadian connection to the Palestinian occupation, muddying Canada's claims to being "a big friendly green" country.
The unstated goal of the IDF information strategy is weaponizing Jewish trauma in the service of perpetuating occupation. Through countless posts and memes, the IDF believes that highlighting the sacrifices that Israel makes in its never-ending battles with the Palestinians is a winning way. In this logic, Palestinians have no right to be angry about their plight and their trauma is nonexistent. Resisting the occupation is thus rendered illegitimate. (...) There was hope at the birth of the digital revolution that being able to film and disseminate photos and videos of Israeli abuses in Palestine might help the Palestinian cause. There is no doubt that global awareness of the occupation has soared, and that this has been partly assisted by the raw, unedited vision of Palestinians interacting with settlers or the Israeli army. Yet there is also a large body of evidence that hard, visual imagery has been co-opted by the Israeli state to deny the reality of what Palestinians say they are experiencing. The Israelis claim that Palestinians are lying about their circumstances despite what we're all seeing. Being able to see Israeli atrocities against Palestinians doesn't work with people who do not view Palestinians as human beings (...). As the Israeli population has moved to the right, moral discomfort is rare.
— Palestine Laboratory by Antony Loewenstein (28%)
Dehumanization starts by morally wounding oneself, morally hindering one's senses.