Column #264

Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse or psychological manipulation whereby a person or entity manipulates an individual, or the citizens of an entire country, with the goal of making the victims question their own sanity, memory, perception, judgment, or sense of reality. It’s done by distorting the truth repeatedly with denial, misdirection, contradiction, and misinformation which sow seeds of confusion, doubt, and eventually even changes perceptions of right and wrong.1

For example, even though man has eaten red meat for millions of years, the daily mantra from “official” sources is “don’t eat red meat.” “Science” tells us beef is not only bad for our health but it’s bad for the environment too. As a result some people are eating veggie burgers, a highly processed food. Another example is that you’re never told how to determine your Omega-3 deficiency yet the importance of the 1:1 Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio for overall health and immunity has been known in scientific circles for 40 years. Therefore, by omission it mustn’t be? Those two gaslighting examples are minor stuff compared to what we’re really dealing with today.2 3 4

Maybe I was too naive in my youth, but the United States does not seem to be the same country I grew up in. It’s not that there’s no one we can look up to anymore. As David Goggins said, “We have amazing people out there doing amazing things, but we live in a world with very few leaders. If you look at those in politics and in positions of power, we have lots of selfish people, and very few leaders.”

In my humble opinion, we also have some really sinister, very powerful people out there whose personal agendas differ radically from that of our nation’s Founding Fathers. They are mostly working behind the scenes pulling strings that regular citizens can’t even comprehend. They sponsor and coach Congressmen and Senators, purchase their books, pay for their speaking engagements, piece those they want to influence into business transactions, and even destroy those who defy them. In effect they are the faceless elites that make up the shadow government. These powerful people, who assume they are smarter than everyone, want even more power to make sure “things run properly.” In America their tactic of choice is gaslighting.

George HW Bush delivered a famous speech before a special joint session of Congress on September 11, 1990 (the date is correct). In it he outlined the goals of the One World Order. They were:
●    America and the world must defend common vital interests. And we will.
●    America and the world must support the rule of law. And we will.
●    America and the world must stand up to aggression. And we will.
●    And one thing more: in the pursuit of these goals, America will not be intimidated.

Of course our nation has routinely conducted military adventures to assist major American business interests for more than a hundred years. Major General Smedley D. Butler, a highly decorated Marine, documented some of those adventures in his 1935 book titled “War is a Racket.” It was President Dwight Eisenhower, another famous war veteran, who warned us about the dangers of the Military-Industrial Complex in his farewell address on January 17, 1961. And in the past 30 years we have certainly witnessed the millions of lives lost and trillions of dollars spent in following the stated goals of Bush’s One World Order.5 6

But now we have a president who is unwinding the many conflicts, reducing foreign deployments, and bringing our troops home. And, instead of continuing policies that support foreign nations at the expense of all Americans, foreign nations are being told they must support themselves while the United States works on solving its own problems for the benefit of its own citizens. In addition, government restrictions (red tape) are being cut and taxes reduced. And now with the signing of Middle East peace treaties for normalizing relations with Israel, Trump has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

But we’re being told over and over again that those accomplishments are evil! If that sounds strange, then chalk it up to gaslighting. Every single day the MSM gaslights us with another Trump “scandal” most often by taking his words out of context. Never is there even one good word. (Is anyone that bad?) All of Trump’s good deeds are ignored or called “distractions” that keep our nation from “properly” battling COVID-19, a virus “so deadly” all Americans must huddle in fear in their basements. Even some military generals, whose reputations were built on foreign deployments, have been openly antagonistic about Trump’s foreign policies to the point where there’s open talk of a coup!

There were fears of a coup attempt during Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s (FDR) earlier years and again when John F. Kennedy (JFK) won the presidency. And didn’t President Obama want to end the wars? Why didn’t he? Was he afraid of a military coup? A little more history involving General Butler reminds us that concerns for coups are not new. In 1933 he alerted Congress about the coup attempt against FDR that was called the “Business Plot.” There’s a movie on the topic of coups, “Seven Days in May,” that was made at the personal urging of JFK. Sadly, JFK did not live to see the film he helped bring to the screen. Look it up. All this makes me wonder that if history is ignored will it be repeated?7 8

The American public has been gaslighted to an incomprehensible degree. So much so that it’s very difficult for many people to recognize that much of what they hear is based on lies, slander, deceptions, scaremongering, statements taken out of context, and omissions of facts. And what I find especially scary is that gaslighters have planted the seed that if Trump wins he will have cheated which means he must be removed from office by riots and military force.

Is that why the Atlantic magazine gaslighted the nation with an unverified claim from unknown sources that Trump disparaged the troops who lost their lives during WWII? Even the warmonger John Bolton, a first hand witness, says the Atlantic Magazine article was a scam yet the MSM keeps repeating the derogatory statements as if they were substantiated fact. What’s that about? Is it to set the stage for a military coup if Trump wins just like the coup that was planned for FDR? Crazy stuff.

The gaslighting of the COVID-19 pandemic is steeped in fearmongering not science. The mind game is that “peaceful” protests are not COVID-19 spreading events. But other activities are spreaders.
●    Schools are back in session and gaslighters tell us the number of new COVID-19 cases is soaring.
●    Church attendance is irresponsible and singing is out of the question.
●    The Sturgis, South Dakota bike rally held from August 7 to 16, 2020, attracted 500,000 visitors and we’re told it will cause 260,000 new cases.
●    Going to the beach is a spreader event so beaches must be closed on holidays.
●    Trump rallies and parades are irresponsible spreader events.
●    A resumption of social normalcy will lead to disaster—especially this fall. Some Democratic governors continue total and partial shutdowns with time lines that end after the election.
●    New cases are reported daily and, “alarmingly,” the cumulative number of reported infections keeps rising. Yet it’s never explained that millions of previously infected people are not only no longer infected but they are immune.

Typically, a person exposed to COVID-19 develops symptoms five days after being infected, but symptoms can appear as early as two days after infection or as late as 14 days. Infected people are usually cured in less than 14 days and are no longer spreaders. Therefore the number of infected people is shrinking not growing when daily new cases stay the same or decline. And, since some schools started opening a month ago and the Sturgis rally ended a month ago, according to the gaslighters, the number of newly reported cases should have soared these past two weeks.

Instead of soaring higher the seven-day moving averages for reported daily new cases and deaths are slowly going down. Obviously the Sturgis bikers’ event, people flocking to beaches, the Trump parades and rallies, and the opening of schools have not resulted in a big surge of reported new cases.

The seven-day average of daily new cases peaked on July 25, 2020 at 69,349. Therefore, the pace of new cases has declined 44.8% in the past two months! Maybe new cases will plateau or even increase a little in the weeks ahead. But the trend is currently down.

It’s a known fact that many COVID-19 cases go undetected because up to 50% of all cases, especially amongst young people, are asymptomatic. Without symptoms, most asymptomatic people do not even get tested. Regardless, infected people can spread the virus for about two days before experiencing signs or symptoms and remain contagious for at least ten days after signs or symptoms first appear. Since the virus has been around for 7.5 months, it’s quite possible that one in four Americans has already had it! If that’s the case, and since previously infected people have immunity, the nation may be approaching herd immunity. But gaslighters ridicule that theory and refuse to update us on Sweden.

Rather than explain that younger folks are nearly bulletproof when it comes to COVID-19 the gaslighters dwell on each individual child’s death as if kids are dying like flies. Gaslighters tell us that 88,000 cases were reported by 1,190 colleges! They don’t mention that’s only 74 cases per college over a period of a month or so. But what if it’s 500 cases at a college with 20,000 students? That’s still no big deal—especially when nearly all of the cases are asymptomatic and hospitalizations are rare. They just emphasize the number of new cases every single day over and over again which is classic gaslighting.9

Gaslighters certainly won’t explain that if 80 million Americans have already come down with COVID-19, the 200,000 deaths represent a 0.25% death rate which is comparable to the annual flu bug. The big difference is the flu seems to hit everyone equally while COVID-19 impacts older citizens with comorbidities far worse than it does those under 20—which is why the CDC says it’s a good reason to keep infected college kids confined to their college campuses!

So where is this gaslighting taking us? What’s the goal of the people behind it all?

In the Declaration of Independence are these words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—”

What this means is that our rights are endowed to us by God, not by governments (other men). Governments are instituted to secure the God-given natural rights, not to provide rights, restrict natural rights, or deny natural rights. Yet the gaslighters don’t want God in the mix. They say that now, because of COVID-19, church attendance must be restricted and for the past 70 years they’ve made preachers reluctant to discuss politics from the pulpit in fear of losing their church’s tax exception status. Gaslighting that ignores the fact that Christianity was a cornerstone in our nation’s founding is focused on changing rights from being God given to government allocated. That’s why today some Americans are demanding “rights” that infringe on others and legislators are seriously considering their demands.

Gaslighters do not preach self reliance, which will occur when people believe in themselves and the timeless religious truths. Nor do they encourage citizens to stand firm when the ground beneath them seems to shake. Instead they preach victimhood and encourage reliance on “government assistance.”

Gaslighters relentlessly explain that independent people who have succeeded in life, either modestly or significantly, are evil because their gain came at the expense of the less fortunate. Therefore we need more government, not less, in order to level the playing field and create equality. We must keep in mind that: “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” But that won’t work if everyone holds out their hand for freebies from the government they “elect.”

Forty years ago there were people we could admire for the values they projected. I had many favorites and one was John Wayne who many consider was a true man’s man. He died in 1979 and the Wayne family commissioned David Manuel to make a commemorative bronze statue with the simple inscription at its base that read: “John Wayne ‘American.’” Today, if we look hard enough past the haze of MSM gaslighting and political correctness there are still many independent “Americans” out there who have strong values. One of them, who is also a man’s man, is David Goggins.10

In closing I want to flag an article from the Sky Wealth Academy titled “A Guide to Avoiding the Road to Serfdom: David Goggins v. FA Hayek.” Then you need to meet David Goggins. He’s all about being self reliant, taking responsibility for your own actions, establishing goals, and not quitting. Being an American is about being centered, believing in yourself, and having faith in a higher power rather than clinging to victimhood and a reliance on government bureaucrats and their puppet masters.11

Successful small businesses, individual achievement, strong families, and being content with life just doesn’t happen. They are achievements made by hard-working, dedicated individuals—not the state.

To your health.

Ted Slanker

Ted Slanker has been reporting on the fundamentals of nutritional research in publications, television and radio appearances, and at conferences since 1999. He condenses complex studies into the basics required for health and well-being. His eBook, The Real Diet of Man, is available online.

Don’t miss these links for additional reading:

1. Warning Signs of Gaslighting by Stephanie A. Sarkis Ph.D. from Psychology Today

2. Is it a Fad? by Ted Slanker

3. “Climate Fires” a Good Excuse to Target Beef Cattle, Again. by Amanda Radke

4. EFA Education—What’s This? by Ted Slanker

5. Major General Smedley Butler from Americans Who Tell the Truth

6. Dwight Eisenhower from Americans Who Tell the Truth

7. Major General Smedley D. Butler, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history exposes the plot to overthrow FDR. Author of “War is a Racket.”

8. The Movie That JFK Wanted Made, But Didn't Live to See from Boundary Stones

9. Tracking Covid at U.S. Colleges and Universities from NY Times Updated 9/10/2020. This article updates therefore data will change.

10. David Goggins

11. A Guide to Avoiding the Road to Serfdom: David Goggins v. FA Hayek by J. Kim from Maalamalama | the skwealthacademy news site