My Dear Luchino…

I stumbled onto this very fucked up thread of comments…I can’t even remember what brought me here, because the language employed here by Trent (and a couple others to a lesser extent) just blew my mind.

First off, I used to teach Applied Linguistics, until I decided that working as a craftsman served my eroding sanity much better. I was also trained by the US Army as an interogations intel analyst…basically, a multi-level bullshit decoder.

So when I see a discourse like this one you engaged in, I reflexively start analyzing the semantics and signals, and wishing I could have injected 'tester' propositions in order to extract more salient intel…

But without knowing, just by being a decent human being who is honest and unashamed and self-respecting, you, sir, managed to evoke a series of responses that were expansive in their dishonesty and obfuscating, and which shifted from extremes in the negative judgement and dismissal of others to the elevating and superiority of self in a very short space. In technical terms, you revealed a reactionary and recursive discourse methodology, likely learned but certainly deeply habituated, of the general type: “2 examples and take no prisoners + defend, deny, deflect + above it all.”

Rarely does one see three separate methodologies of propaganda employed all at once in such a short interaction, and to such extremes — I would use the word 'shrill.’ I am seeing this more and more, however. My personal hypothesis is that the realities in tbe White House and executive agencies is creating a 'crisis-mode' psychology in those who have chosen to hook their cart to the Trump horse.

Your consistent politeness, your repeated references to diverse, actual events, and the real-world current effectiveness of your stated methods — if not in achieving the desired ends then certainly in helping to engender the epic fragmenting of the efforts that the propaganda seeks to support and maintain — very effectively created an isomorphic reaction from these people — a fragmentation of strategic methods, and an inconsistent, reactive focus on increasingly random tactics. And finally, the abandonment of any real agenda other than any achievable 'defeat' of the opposition, regardless of how insignificant or counterproductive to the original objectives.

I have screenshots of the entire discourse, and will archive it. This is tthe type of understanding that we must educate our citizens about in the future if we wish to move beyond an adolescent society which all too easily regresses into tribalism and violence. In order to become an adult society, one that solves problems through reasoning and cooperation for the public good, it will be necessary to teach a sizeable number of individuals how to recognize, reveal, and disarm the conceptual-linguistic methods that demagogues and con artists use to engender, manipulate, and weaponize peoples' insecurities and fears.

You, my friend, would seem to be a natural role model for how a sane and self-respecting person might interact with such attempts to manipulate the public discourse. If you would like to discuss this, please send PM. I would certainly like to have a conversation with you about how one might combine the activism you (and many good people) do with a more disciplined way of using verbal tools, so that :

A. We can minimize the counterproductive instances of people within the resistance describing these efforts in terms that are easily misunderstood or worse, easily used as weapons against the action and activists;

and

B. We can more readily recognize whenever someone who does not share the goals of a campaign is speaking about it without regard to the negative results of their words/actions. This is not just a matter of seeing agents provokators, bbut also the far more common 'unconcerned hooligans’ who only see demonstrations and protests as an excuse for belligerence. These people must not be aallowed to speak FOR THE CAUSE without significant and consistent disavowal.

And of course

C***so that the general public, the press, the people joining in, and the opposition can be well-informed if exactly what goals are being sought by organizers, exactly what behaviors are expected of participants, and exactly why the demonstration, as a petition for redress of grievances, has become the only remaining option due to an unresponsive government that has become derelict in its duties to promote the general welfare, secure the blessings of liberty to posterity, and insure domestic tranquility.