I hit send accidentally. I was writing I also want to listen to the other two podcasts you mention in this writing. I was involved in a cult with Bill Gothard and the Institute in Basic Life Principles. After 22 years I divorced my husband and moved on with healing from the Trauma of being in IBLP and the type of authoritarian beliefs it instilled. Thank you for your work.
Wow, so glad you're covering this. I look forward to hearing his story.
I come from a family where my father was Jewish and my mother came from a white, American Protestant background.
When I was in high school, I took an elective in Holocaust Studies, and for my final project, studied Neo-Nazism and white nationalism. I discovered the National Vanguard, Kevin Alfred Strom, and also heard about William Pierce's book in passing, though I never read it. Something about an end-times race war or something like that.
I remember learning about all of this stuff, and it hurt knowing that they saw me as "polluted" because of my mixed-status.
So glad to hear that he's out.
During this time, I also watched "The Believer". That was a good film, and one that I've revisited in recent years. Not a film for the faint of heart.
wow, cool! Yes it's kind of heavy. I like the overall arc of the film, its message, but the middle parts are very vulgar and derogatory. Like I said, it's not for the faint of heart. The director did an interview about it.
What makes it so hard to get people to listen to reason? For example, why was it so hard to get the scientific community to listen to reason as the AIDS crisis emerged in the 1980s?
For years, leading AIDS activist Larry Kramer (1935-2020) referred to Anthony Fauci, who was then the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as an “incompetent idiot” and a “pill-pushing” tool of the medical establishment. Why? Because the scientific community had been repeatedly and reflexively eliminating the gay community’s suggestion that the FDA incorporate a compassionate use component to shorten its lengthy drug approval process.
Kramer ended up referring to Fauci as “the only true and great hero” among government officials during the AIDS crisis.
What changed? In Fauci’s own words, “Probably one of the best things I’ve ever done in my career was I just started listening … and what they were saying was making absolutely perfect sense.”
How does an idiot suddenly become a hero? What do you think happened? I’ll tell you my answer when I decide that the language I’m using in an essay I’m working on now is understandable to a general audience, and I’m almost there. Meanwhile, if you want a hint, it involves my idiosyncratic interpretation of Benjamin Libet’s famous brain science experiment.
Will my interpretation make sense? There’s only one way to know.
I hit send accidentally. I was writing I also want to listen to the other two podcasts you mention in this writing. I was involved in a cult with Bill Gothard and the Institute in Basic Life Principles. After 22 years I divorced my husband and moved on with healing from the Trauma of being in IBLP and the type of authoritarian beliefs it instilled. Thank you for your work.
Thank you. I had six kids so it was not easy. But I couldn’t live like that any longer.
I'm glad you escaped 🫶
Wow, so glad you're covering this. I look forward to hearing his story.
I come from a family where my father was Jewish and my mother came from a white, American Protestant background.
When I was in high school, I took an elective in Holocaust Studies, and for my final project, studied Neo-Nazism and white nationalism. I discovered the National Vanguard, Kevin Alfred Strom, and also heard about William Pierce's book in passing, though I never read it. Something about an end-times race war or something like that.
I remember learning about all of this stuff, and it hurt knowing that they saw me as "polluted" because of my mixed-status.
So glad to hear that he's out.
During this time, I also watched "The Believer". That was a good film, and one that I've revisited in recent years. Not a film for the faint of heart.
I am going to watch the film soon - thank you for sharing your experiences.
wow, cool! Yes it's kind of heavy. I like the overall arc of the film, its message, but the middle parts are very vulgar and derogatory. Like I said, it's not for the faint of heart. The director did an interview about it.
Another white supremist conversion story: https://onbeing.org/programs/derek-black-and-matthew-stevenson-befriending-radical-disagreement/
What makes it so hard to get people to listen to reason? For example, why was it so hard to get the scientific community to listen to reason as the AIDS crisis emerged in the 1980s?
For years, leading AIDS activist Larry Kramer (1935-2020) referred to Anthony Fauci, who was then the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as an “incompetent idiot” and a “pill-pushing” tool of the medical establishment. Why? Because the scientific community had been repeatedly and reflexively eliminating the gay community’s suggestion that the FDA incorporate a compassionate use component to shorten its lengthy drug approval process.
Kramer ended up referring to Fauci as “the only true and great hero” among government officials during the AIDS crisis.
What changed? In Fauci’s own words, “Probably one of the best things I’ve ever done in my career was I just started listening … and what they were saying was making absolutely perfect sense.”
How does an idiot suddenly become a hero? What do you think happened? I’ll tell you my answer when I decide that the language I’m using in an essay I’m working on now is understandable to a general audience, and I’m almost there. Meanwhile, if you want a hint, it involves my idiosyncratic interpretation of Benjamin Libet’s famous brain science experiment.
Will my interpretation make sense? There’s only one way to know.
Thank you so much. I read you substack and in the morning I will listen to the podcast along with the other two ths as
Listening to this now
Maybe you should interview the Gaede twins, too. That was interesting.
💙💙💙