I voted against Gavin Newsom's recall but can no longer be silent about his hypocrisy

At the end of 2020, I became certified in hypnotherapy. Hypnosis, as a healing modality, is actually a surprisingly conservative pursuit because it encourages personal responsibility in all aspects of life. But hypnosis as a concept provides striking insights into the minds of Americans today.

If you think the country is suffering from mass hysteria…if you can’t understand how your friends, even conservative ones, have faulty memories and believe ideas unsupported by fact, you’re about to have some idea why. 

Hypnosis employs trance, a natural state of mind, to reprogram the subconscious, resulting in desired behaviors and outcomes. We drift into the brain wave frequencies for trance multiple times a day—we’re in mild trance watching TV, for example. The subconscious makes up 90% of our thought process, and we use it to interpret the world. Once a belief is programmed into the subconscious, it stays there until another programming event replaces it. There are six ways to program the subconscious:
authority figures, peer pressure, high emotion, repetition, the meditative state (the brain waves I referred to), and when one says “yes” to an idea. Hypnosis can’t make people go against their values, yet it can help people who want to believe a thing believe it without proof. 

For example, the September 13 Wall Street Journal article “Covid Faces Complicated Path to Become a Routine Illness” begins: “Covid might become a routine illness like the common cold…virologists and epidemiologists say, but it will take a lot to get there, and the ferocious spread of the Delta variant that has filled hospitals shows how challenging that path could be.” Think about how the words are used. “Ferocious” and “filled hospitals” are unnecessary to the sentence’s meaning, but add emotion to an already emotional topic as well as repetition to something we’ve been hearing for almost 2 years. “Filled hospitals” also suggests peer pressure. And, what does “filled” mean? (I learned twice this year “filled” really means “staff shortage.”)  Lending an air of authority are the unspecified “virologist and epidemiologists.” That the story was printed in the WSJ also lends authority. In fact, some would say “yes” to the article simply because the story is printed in a trusted source. Add to it that the reader is likely in mild trance, absorbing the front page over morning coffee. So, despite the fact that these first two sentences are poorly written and contain no hard facts, every box has been ticked that might program the reader to
fear Covid. The article goes on in the same fashion, ignoring provable facts until the page turn.

So, if one fears illness, death, and rejection from friends, if one puts too much trust in authority and agrees with certain sources without thinking, one is likely to forget that statistics show deaths from Covid are comparable to deaths in a bad flu season. One is likely to believe WSJ that Delta Variant (scary new name) is “supercontagious” (is that a word?) and “virtually impossible to get rid of.” 

The article’s content loses power when I compare it to practical experience: the virus is smaller than the holes in N-95 masks, so the masks don’t help much; and while I know about a dozen people who’ve had Covid, I know no one first hand who has died of it. Certainly others do, and certainly Covid is risky for specific populations—the elderly and the obese, for example. But if this was the worst pandemic ever, someone my age should know at least one who died, and those who know one or two should know many. Statistically, our aged Congress should include a few Covid deaths, and yet not one Congress person has died. 

I chose my example from the WSJ to show that conservatives can be hypnotized by conservative sources as easily as liberals by CNN. If we “want” to believe fake news, we will. So it’s extremely important to stay open minded about all topics until actual facts have been weighed. It’s important to remember that politicians and celebrities are humans who not only make mistakes, but usually aren’t authorities. It’s important to keep emotions to a minimum and observe situations until truth reveals itself. Some people feel emotions motivate them—as if hating Joe Biden proves he’s senile and corrupt. (In fact, he proves it when he opens his mouth.)  But emotions create a false sense of connection between people and greater ideals. We see that in Trump-hating liberals who can’t let their hate go even though Trump is out of office. Their hatred gives them purpose. Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels said, “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.” So repetition does not make something true. Research news and compare it to your practical experience before believing. 

You and everyone you know are experiencing hypnotic assault: that’s what good propaganda does. That we can’t be persuaded to go against our core values is reassuring; we will always recognize our own truth. But seeing our neighbors lose both civility and reason is scary. If it seems as if they’re living in a dream, it’s probably because they are.

We are at war.

Socially and psychologically. 

The Biden administration and Leftist organizations attack any who disagree with their policies more brazenly than ever. These attacks on our culture, and our psyches, amount to a civil war, which not only divides the nation but cripples it, in service of the Left achieving permanent power. They hope to win by makingus too distracted, overwhelmed, or emotionally disturbed to fight back. 

Sexual identity, pronouns and birth certificates: The American Medical Association recently recommended birth certificates no longer identify sex at birth. This move reflects the long, slow attack on personhood as well as the cooperation of corporations and NGOs in depersonalizing society. Our sexual identity is the greatest human identifier short of being alive. Even transexuals identify themselves by sex in that they declare transitioning from one sex to another. Men playing women’s sports, pregnancies in women’s prisons, and transitioning 9 year olds aside … Because people can now label themselves any sex (and there are now more than two), it’s as if our primal identity has ceased to exist. 

Anti-racism, CRT, and BLM: While we hopefully judge others by the content of their character, we literally identify each other by physical traits—hair and eye color, and yes, skin. Without these, we can’t describe ourselves, our loved ones, or those who hurt us. Not only has identifying as male or female come into question, now it’s wrong to be “white,” unless one is a member of an “oppressed minority.” Moreover, it’s wrong to identify people of color by their color, especially if crime is involved. The goal is to hamstring the majority by making them ashamed of their own existence. 

COVID-19: masking and vaccine passports: Obviously, the shutdowns disrupted church and school, and closed small businesses with the goal of the public identifying less with relgion, education and local business. Now in San Francisco, the government mandates restaurants and the like to check one’s vaccination status, restricting our freedom and our right to decide what’s best for our own bodies. But masks have provided the deadliest weapons against personhood. Masks hide facial expressions, likening us criminals. Afraid, we quickly forget the virus is so small it can pass through the masks. All we notice is who minds the rules: Is the mask pulled up? Is so and so 6 feet away? We become paranoid, valuing basic survival above our humanity. Lest a teacher inform junior Mommy is a science denier and a bad person, parents masks their kids—even little ones—abdicating parental authority to the state. (see Brown University study showing 20% drop in IQ of babies born during COVID. https://tinyurl.com/4x7pxy2f)

War on Personhood Explained
(or War on Humanity)

Economic “support”: The government not only extended unemployment benefits to those who lost work, they give Covid relief money, too. It’s more profitable to stay home than have a low paying job. This both undermines the economy and creates government dependence. It also destroys the self-esteem of every person formerly working up the ladder. Many young people now see capitalism as evil and government (and manipulating it) as the source of life. 

Illegal immigration: Since January, over one million illegal immigrants have invaded. Many arrive with Covid. 

The government not only allows this, but relocates illegals by bus and plane all over the country. If the government ever stops paying workers to stay home, there are now one million more bodies in the marketplace and more to come. But the real purpose of illegal immigration goes beyond padding Democrat voter ranks; it’s to further destabilize culture. Unlike past generations of immigrants, these folks aren’t encouraged to assimilate. Many aren’t even given court dates. They come here for free services and money, which many send home; meanwhile they are discouraged from obeying the rule of law which unites all citizens. Their illegality calls into question what it means to be American. 

Cancel culture: Speaking out against any of the above, one risks getting fired from work and/or cancelled on social media. In Orwellian manner, big tech both keeps track of our movements and encourages neighbors to snitch - whether against “radical” Trump voters or the “Unvaxxed.” The collusion of government and business occurred in Nazi Germany; it’s called Fascism. 

Trump’s presidency revealed how easy it is to reverse this and Make America Great Again. That he made America energy independent in just a few years is one of many reasons why the Left, China and his myriad enemies cheated to win. As Biden said, “We have put together the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.” Now, we wonder if we’ve lost the Republic and feel alienated. 

This is war. Reclaiming our humanity is what this war is about, and restoring common sense on the most primal levels. But what can we do? Recently, I discovered a prayer, one line of which is now my mantra: “Lord, protect me from all forms of self-centeredness.” Meditating on these words, I realized that fear is self-centered. If I succumb to fear, it means I lack faith—not just in God, but in my own abilities, in my beliefs, and in conservative principles. With faith, however, I don’t need courage, because the fear just goes. Join in this mantra, and you too may discover how easy it is to step up and join the fight—whether it’s cheerfully persuading neighbors, writing our representatives, or participating in local politics. This is war, and whether we join the fight or not, we’ll all play a part in the outcome. 

By Ann Doherty

San Francisco is the first major U.S. city to require proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 for certain indoor activities.

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