Thursday, August 13, 2009

Boyle and The Dream

No offense to Susan Boyle but this is THE performance of "I Dreamed A Dream" you need to hear.

In fact, if you listen to the lyrics you might begin to think about your own dreams, how they changed and why.


And for comparison, here's Susan Boyle's version of "I Dreamed A Dream". It's nice. Really nice considering Susan is an amateur. She came in second place in "Britain's Got Talent" losing only to a dance group (they were tough to beat, actually). So, that's pretty good. Susan even got a makeover thanks to a magazine and is looking forward to a career in music. I think it will be a long and successful one.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

How to gaslight for fun and profit.

Gaslighting is a form of intimidation or psychological abuse in which false information is presented to the victim, making them doubt their own memory and perception.

Bill Duby, founder of the Spiritual Rights Foundation, undertook several tactics to keep his followers confused in doubt of their own memories and distrustful of their own good judgement.

Bill would frequently resort to sophomoric, juvenile behavior liberally peppered with racial epithets and sexual behavior to throw people off-guard and to induce them to doubt their "tired, old morals and ethics". Bill loved gaslighting. In fact, he'd gaslight us so damn much our sense of self, our ability to engage in rational and clear thought became impaired. Bill's antics were so outrageous, incendiary and anti-social he could put someone in apoplexy nearly at will.

Imagine this: if Bill were to see you with your (female) spouse, he'd sneak up behind her, and while honking her boobs in your full view, lovingly coo in her ear "Would you rather suck my dick or his stinky dick?" while you stood there mouth agape. Your formally loving spouse was now smitten with attention from Bill while you were forced to re-double your efforts to drag her back to earth. Soon after this disgusting display, he would usually call your spouse a "whore" who only wanted sperm and money and you a "loser" for not providing enough of either.

Bill gave one newlywed man the sage advice: "Take your goddamn (epithet for African-Americans) to the big house and fuck her like you're her slave master." Later, after the newlyweds performed as instructed, Bill berated and humiliated the man in front of the entire congregation for being "addicted to pussy juice" then turned on the wife, scolding her for "mothering" her husband's desire for intimacy. Hell, be beat her up for wanting intimacy too!

Frequently, Bill would espouse: "God doesn't let the left hand know what the right hand is doing". Obviously, that sentiment sets up deception, obfuscation and concealment.

Here is only one example: Bill would often tell one spouse one thing, then immediately tell the other spouse contradictory or confusing information before the first spouse could deliver his message. It should be no surprise that situation would never fail to result in marital conflict and rancor.

Husbands were told they were the "head of the woman". Wives were told "control your men". "Make her WORK and don't let her stay home eating bon-bons" we men were told. "Make him PAY for wanting sex or children (or food or any damn thing)" the women were told. "Turn off to the bitch so she won't get in your head" we men were told. "Use your womanly charms to get what you want" the women were told.

When the wife controlled her man as instructed, she were hauled in front of the SRF Kangaroo Kourt for judgement and compelled to conduct self-criticism for the crime of being a capitalist roader before being perp-walked to community service answering the SRF phone and cleaning SRF floors.

In the man's case, well we never were deemed successful in being the "head of the woman" and were alternately sent to live alone in motor homes, trailers with no running water or dumped in the back yard of the SRF tenement building with a sleeping bag. Good thing we "turned off to the bitch" as our penance was "reform through labor" for an indeterminate period. Usually years of "reform through labor". "reform through labor" performed on the SRF Farm. Uh, actually that wasn't SRF's farm, it belongs to Angela Silva and Robin Dumolin, the heads of SRF. But it's all the same because we all worked on it for free while they made money selling animals and skimming the take for the retreats we paid to attend there - no discounts for our "reform through labor". [p.s. I stole that little tag line from Bill and Hill's new "friend" Kim Jong Il]

Anyway, you worked hard to earn a reform that never came. You worked hard and endured the pain and grief of humiliation in front of your peers. You suffered through the betrayal of your friends as they abandoned you until the day Bill and the leaders believed you can have them back.

But that day never happened. Bill changed his message as often as a teenage girl re-loads her iPod. He would forcefully exclaim his hate for a particular person in the morning then proclaim his love for them at night. His rules and expectations of conduct for anyone changed like the wind.

Bill's mood swings, his violent hatred of anyone or anything in opposition or even in sight doubt of his maniacal and delusional outbursts finally got the best of him. Bill dropped dead of a cardiac arrhythmia in front of his Clairvoyant Training Program students in December 2001.

His successors have carried on his evil tradition in honor of his memory.

We were fed "filtered" information. This information may be an opinion of a person or event. The information would change from day to day, depending on the mood of the day or the requirements of the leadership. The result of the constantly changing information was we lost our ability to perceive the events around us and thus became completely dependent on the leadership for all but the most basic decisions. Of course, no information source but the leadership would be considered as valid, exacerbating and continuing the gaslighting.

An example: One young man brought into the SRF fold was faced with a dilemma: his new girlfriend became pregnant. This young man thought a quickly arranged wedding was in order, but he needed advice to be sure. His best first step was to ask his parents. However, his parents (long time SRF members) declined to provide it for some reason and surrendered their parental responsibility and privilege to the wise counsel of the SRF president.

This president is a 5th grade dropout (seriously), has little experience with the outside world (apart from the drug addicts and petty criminals she met on the street) and had been called "brain damaged" by Bill Duby himself. Well, she did spend many years as a drug addict, so I guess that is a great qualification to counsel the life of a young man.

I hope they didn't share a needle.

Anyway, a marriage was recommended and the union was blessed by the wise and enlightened president of SRF. I'm not sure what substance provided the enlightenment but the marriage was hastily conducted with the intent of providing the child a father and to instill a sense of responsibility upon this young man. The young man was also given the "gift" of a church-owned ghetto apartment (managed by an SRF president who gets a piece of the revenues - before taxes) at a rent only slightly higher than it's worth.

The Spiritual Rights Foundation was abuzz with the excitement of a wedding and aglow with the pride of watching a fine young man do an honorable thing by seeking out the sage advice of the SRF president. A new family for the pleasure of the SRF faithful would sprout from the heavenly blessing provided by God's own servant and holy body of the church herself, Angela Silva.

However, there was one problem: the baby was NOT his. The young man's now-wife admitted that to him after arrangements were made and plans were set. No backing out of that one, I guess.

Obviously, the wise and enlightened president of SRF neglected to ask the first thing the rest of us would: "So, how in the hell do you know this goddamn kid belongs to YOU?" Followed by: "Look kid, no offense but you have got to run a DNA test. We will help you and her through the pregnancy, but if she squirts out a baby who looks more like your third cousin twice removed than YOU, we are cutting her loose. So, don't marry her until we know who the baby daddy is."

I mean, would any parent, much less any MATURE ADULT want a young man to make a mistake that could haunt him for a lifetime? And would you want your son saddled with a lifelong responsibility while letting the real perpetrator get off (so to speak) scot free?

Well this young man's parents are more than capable of acting in a reasonable and sensible manner - if they were not members of the SRF cult. However, years of gaslighting, years of being set up to distrust your own memory, thoughts, common sense and natural initiative left them and their son utterly vulnerable and submissive to the whims of one who has little interest in their best interest.

I'll bet there is one other person happy with that advice: the real father. He's either breathing a sigh of relief or more likely, laughing his ass off.

And if that wern't enough, I've been told the spouse of the young man I wrote about had put the child up for adoption. The baby was whisked away to its new family soon after birth.

So now, that young man has nothing to show for his honorable intent. Well, a lease on an apartment that's now too big is something, I suppose.