Novato Republican Women

NRW Presents

Ann Hsu,
Founder, Bert Hsu Academy

April 9, 2024

11:30  a.m.- 1:30 p.m.

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Novato Republican Women

presents

"Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Legislation" 

George Radanovic
Tuesday, November 14, 2023

 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.

Marin Country Club, 500 Country Club Dr., Novato

$35 | $30 members and their guests

RESERVATIONS by November 7:

RESERVE HERE

Call  415-878-6220 to see if there is room

If you cannot attend, please make your cancellation by noon Sunday, November 10. 

OUR SPEAKER:  

George Radanovich, a Mariposa native and candidate for California StateAssembly District 8, will share his ideas on strengthening California families andhelping children. He’ll speak to us about his ambitious plan to introduce legislationto help children overcome adverse childhood experiences and to strengthenfamilies. 

In 1996, Kaiser Permanente and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)conducted a study of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) It identified thepersonal and social costs of dysfunctional and broken families, and the widerbreakdown of our culture. Democrats like to use ACEs to promote victimhoodand more government spending, but Mr. Radanovich believes we can use the issueto rebuild families and re-instill conservative values. 

Mr. Radanovich believes that with this legislation, we have the opportunity tofocus the entire State on the one issue that matters, rebuilding families. The long-term result is a conservative dream: Less crime, emptier prisons, better schools, nomass murders, fewer abortions, less gender confusion and smaller government. Hebelieves we can get the unwitting support of Democrats, while reserving the optionof a statewide ballot initiative to protect its integrity. 

Mr. Radanovich is not only focused on the family. He is also a strong supporterof Prop 13, believing that the tax burden on middle income families and smallbusinesses, including the ever-increasing gas tax, is too high. Our state’s problemsalso include soft-on-crime legislation that has made us more vulnerable to crime.We also lack water storage infrastructure and modern water delivery systems toallow farms and communities to have a reliable water supply each and every year.To find out more, go to www.George2024.com 

Here an interesting tidbit. George Radanovich opened his own winery in 1986and was the first winemaker to serve in congress since Thomas Jefferson. I saycheers to that!

Monday, 25 March 2024 22:41

April 9 Speaker Luncheon

Written by

Novato Republican Women
present

Ann Hsu,
Founder Bert Hsu Academy

Tuesday, April 9, 2024

11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.

$32 Members | $37 Guests

Marin Country Club 

Our Speaker:  

Ann HsuAnn Hsu, A San Francisco resident and a Chinese American immigrant wha has lived and worked in both the U.S. and China, is the founder and co-leader of the Bert Hsu Academy. This non-profit K-12 school is a new educational model providing quality foundational, bicultural and character education. The Academy opened in the fall of 2023 and provides an educational alternative for San Francisco and Bay Area parents seeking quality, rigorous, affordable, and bicultural education for their children. The target is to expand to 50,000 students nationwide within ten years.

Anne's mission was fueled during the pandemic as she and other concerned parents pushed back on SFUSD's failing schools, due to the deteriorating quality of education, indoctrination in education, attacks on merit, and its focus on politics instead of education. This pushback eventually let to the recall of three school board members in early 2022.

Hsu served as Chair of the SFUSD Citizens' Bond Oversight Committee, as President of the Galileo High School PTSA, and was appointed by San Francisco's mayor to serve on the school board where she gained first-hand knowledge of how the public schools function. An entrepreneur in the technology and consumer products industries, Ann let her own companies in both Silicon Valley and China. She holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Penn State University, an MS in Electrical Engineering and an MBA from UC Berkeley.

Tuesday, 21 May 2013 00:00

North Bay Children's Center

Written by
Our reading program at North Bay Children's Center has been very much appreciated and an integral part of life at North Bay Children's Center for 10 years now.
Thank you to all the dedicated and caring NRWF members who have been reading on Tuesdays from 10:30 - 11:15 to three and four-year-olds at the North Bay Children’s Center. Because of our wonderful volunteers, we continue to be able to fulfill our commitment. A few of our loyal readers are no longer able to participate and we welcome new readers. This is your opportunity to read your family favorites to an enthusiastic audience.
IMG 3585To celebrate Flag Day and the 4th of July, our club presented 40 copies of the book "Sweet Land of Liberty" by IMG 3587Calista Gingrich to the children in the classes to who we read and one copy for the school library. The book, written in verse, stars an elephant names Ellis who visits a library and learns about American history and special places to visit, and it ends with a fireworks celebration of American Indpendence Day. In addition, we presented the school with two new American Flags for their classrooms.
If you can help or have questions, please contact Bonnie at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 385-5202.


National Federation of Republican Women Recognizes NRWF for the North Bay Children's Center Reading Project.

We received a third place award from the NFRW Literacy Committee for their "Readers Become Leaders" literacy program.  We will receive a beautiful children's book about Alaska, 'Puffin, A Journey Home" in honor of Sarah Palin.

 

Musings on Accountability vs. Blame

By: Anne Doherty

“Who am I dealing with?” my husband asks when he’s trying to sort out a problem with a bureaucracy. He asks this because if he’s not dealing with someone with authority who can be held accountable, he’s wasting his time.

Today, on the anniversary of the incident at the Capitol, it’s helpful to remind ourselves to focus on accountability and steer far away from blame.

Google “January 6” for 30 seconds and you will find that there are two opposing storylines and just about no way to know the facts about that event. Even people who were there know only what they personally experienced. Examples of contradictions include the number of people arrested, sentenced, and held without bail, plus whether or not prisoners are being abused. The January 6 incident is probably the best example today of what those in power will do to control the narrative, and control Americans by proxy.

In today’s speech, Joe Biden peppered blame amongst obvious half truths and misleading verbiage. But his administration, though they’ve charged upwards of 500 people, has stalled accountability in an open public court because the charges they’ve levied against those in custody (some for as long as a year) are small potatoes – no insurrection, no treason, no murder – mostly trespassing and, for a few, assaulting police. But they also stall for fear of revealing the whole truth and end the power they get out of keeping the story alive. 

So what do we know and who should be held accountable? We know that many of us feel the 2020 election was stolen. We’ve seen legislatures stall or drop looking into it fully. Despite what most of us consider hard proof of large scale manipulation, we’ve seen state and federal courts – and the Supreme Court – largely shun their responsibility to address it. In fact, corruption seems so vast in some counties/states that it seems as if virtually every public official is accountable from the county clerks on up. Yet Joe Biden today said that there was no proof the election had been stolen because no one has been held accountable.

The “Stop the Steal” protests were an outcry for accountability, not only for the election, but for a political system that releases illegals into the country, that doesn’t prosecute many types of crime (San Francisco car break-ins, for example), and that labeled “peaceful” the burnings in Oregon and Wisconsin.

While we may not know all the facts of January 6, we do know to trust our common sense. Just as we “know” that, if 10,000 people attended any rally anywhere, probably 100 may have temperaments (or mental issues) that could lead to violence, we also know that if one or more people erected a gallows at the Capital with the intention of hanging Mike Pence, that we’d know by now who erected it – in short, we’d know who we were dealing with. And we don’t.

Many years ago, when I first started my musical theatre company, I got a call from a guy who not only wrote musicals but he made his living creating political theatre – not the kind you buy tickets for. Apparently, the Democrat party and other groups would hire him to stage things. He told me to look for his handiwork that weekend. It was 2003, and there was an anti-Iraq war protest at the Civic Center. His handiwork was the “Republicans” holding misspelled signs with pro-war and racist content. The “political artist” died about 6 months later, but I believe he probably wasn’t the only one making a living that way.

So while we can’t tell the facts for the theatre, we do know our people. We know our people usually can spell. Images of the more outrageous January 6 protestors simply don’t ring true.

We also know the world is changing fast – in a millisecond compared to other turning points in history. We are becoming a world in which we hardly need government at all. When the Industrial Revolution took off after the Civil War, and then again during and after World War II, we needed bigger government; and yes, we even needed unions, because the playing field was so uneven. But we live now in the world of iPhones and Bitcoin, in which a rural Indian woman can support her family using her phone, and we can see that all the social unrest is just the powerful trying to justify their existence. We can surmise that the powerful men who went to Jeffrey Epstein’s island had so much prosperity and time on their hands, they dared test the limits of their power. While none of the powerful have been held formally accountable, they have in the court of public opinion.

People on the Right tend to believe in accountability, while those on Left lean into blame. They do because, deep down, Leftists believe human beings can’t take care of themselves; conservatives tend to believe we can. Both sides are right. But unnecessary politicians and other public servants take advantage of our fears to create a co-dependent relationship with us. They want us to think we need them when we don’t.

In the face of uncertainty and unrest, I believe the one thing that can save us is to avoid blame and focus on accountability. You will know when you are blaming because it’s the same as complaining. Blaming denies our relationship to and participation in our own lives. Complaining robs us of joy. Without these two, life is liberating. It’s easy to see yourself and others more clearly. You will know who you’re dealing with, even when you look in the mirror. This kind of knowing inspires fearlessness, develops compassion, and connects us to our family and neighbors.

It will give us the strength to weather the storm until those wrongly held for the Capital incident have justice.

Nobody Cares if He's Smart 

By Anne Doherty

Back when Gavin was still San Francisco mayor, I wrote a show called “Absolutely San Francisco” in which the main character, a homeless woman, was in love with him. She crooned:

“It must be hard for the guy to be so darned good lookin’ When nobody cares if he’s smart.
311, Care Not Cash...He knows wine and cookin’
But when folks look at him, they see art.

Has he good common sense, or clear ideas? They just see his sleek shiny hair.
I’m in love with the man running San Francisco But he’s just too darned cute to be Mayor.”

One goal of the song was to write something controversial about Gavin that Gavin himself would agree with. After all, the time I met him (doing voter registration for SFGOP), women from both parties were throwing themselves at him, greasy hair and all. The lyrics rang so “true” they were quoted in The San Francisco Chronicle.

Not quite realizing it at the time, I had hit on what made Gavin a leader in identity politics. Just like those seeking special protection for race or gender, he got to be mayor, then Lt. Governor, then Governor, by his looks and his connections, in his case to the politically powerful Getty family. According to my then contacts in City Hall, he was a front man.

When Gavin side-stepped the will of Californians to make gay marriage legal, a picture in The Chronicle showed his arm wrapped around a lesbian...but with the hand against her shoulder balled in a fist. That’s when I knew he wanted to be President and that he’d say and do anything to achieve that. In fact, he’d even be willing to destroy the next generation or two.

In the world of LGBTQ+ rights, Gavin found a source that would buoy him for the rest of his career: rich, childless, angry, bitter homosexuals. This sad conclusion is inspired by what was said at the event where my husband and I were spontaneously blessed by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The Sisters - and most the folks there - voiced the desire to see the visceral destruction of anyone wholesome, straight or Christian. We left in shock, suspecting that in our lifetimes we’d experience a cultural roller coaster that would go far beyond sexual orientation - that this wild ride would become a tool for the wealthy to gain world power.

Years later, we see it playing out - for members of the Getty family are not only darlings of the World Economic Forum, they’re LGBTQ+ activists. Ditto members of the Pritzker family. Ditto so many other Silicon Valley and Hollywood elite.

Now that Gavin’s knocking on the door of a presidential run, he’s vacillating a degree. On one hand, he promotes sexually explicit material in the public schools, and signs bills that both include protections for “queer” children in foster care and require LGBTQ “cultural competency” training for staff working in public schools. On the other, he vetoes a bill requiring judges making custody decisions to take into account a parent’s willingness to affirm a child’s gender identity.

Newsom’s decision to sign some pro-LGBTQ bills but reject the one about custody shows him walking a fine line. He doesn’t want to seem totally in the pocket of the gay lobby - not before debating Ron DeSantis in November. One wonders why this debate is even happening. Have the powers in Washington decided that Gavin will be Joe’s successor should Joe one day fail to rise after one of his increasingly frequent falls? Have the powers decided DeSantis is the preferred candidate over Trump if they succeed in taking him off the ballots in enough states? In any case, the California branch of the World Economic Forum are the oligarchs and tech titans that cast a blithering Kamala Harris as VP, allowed Diane Feinstein to drive around with a Chinese spy chauffeur, have her daughter help cast votes (“Say ‘yea,’ Mom), and drop the name to Gavin to replace Feinstein with a black lesbian who doesn’t even live in California.

How did THAT happen? The answer I’m afraid lies in those lyrics from years ago: “Nobody cares if he’s smart.” This is high theatre played out to audiences following their confirmation biases. As with good theatre, we enjoy our hero’s looks and follow the story as if we’re in a dream. The US is still profitable and comfortable enough for citizens not to wake up - but they’re starting to. After all, what California is doing to generations of our children is a nightmare.

Casualties of the Civil War

by Anne Doherty

Anyone who is paying attention and over age 40 would likely agree with the statement that the United States is engaged in a cold Civil War. I say over 40 because people in their 30s are Millennials, and those Millennial age and younger have had such poor history education that they might not be able to spot a Civil War when they see one.

One thing that makes this period of history a war is the number of casualties. Even Millennials are starting to feel the threats to their future and their livelihood. However, the fact that so many Americans have died since 2020 and even a few years before that is astounding.

Some victims are obvious, with Ashley Babbitt, Rosanne Boyland, and the J6 prisoners being easiest to recognize as victims of a political attack. That one Capitol Police officer and another D.C. Metropolitan police officer died by suicide within days of January 6 is notable. Victims of Covid 19 and/or the multiple shots and boosters also come to mind, especially if you view the lockdowns as unnecessary and the vaccines as prematurely tested on the public. If you believe that Covid 19 was introduced to the world by the Chinese as a kind of bio-war test, the number of casualties, really fatalities, sky-rockets to 1,127,258, in the US, according to the World Health Organization.

Most victims are less obvious. “From 2011 to 2022, over half a million lives (539,810) were lost to suicide, with 2022 showing the highest number of deaths on record. Within this period, the adjusted suicide rate increased by 16%.” (KFF.org) According to the CDC, suicide rates significantly increased between 2020 and 2021 for males aged 15–24, 25–44, 65–74, and 75 and over. (So…all men except those between 45 and 65.) From 2020 to 2021, suicide rates increased significantly for non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White females. From 2020 to 2021, suicide rates increased significantly for non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native, Black, and White males."(cdc.gov)

The reason that so many would take their lives made some sense during Covid. The fear, confusion, isolation and disruption of the economy would naturally have exacerbated depression in the vulnerable. However, the suicide rate was rising before that. Would it not be true that the following are also factors? 1) The attack on traditional gender identity, 2) the perception of toxic masculinity, and 3) the disproportionate rise in housing and gasoline costs to actual wages (meaning it’s difficult to live independently, let alone marry and have children). Add in what Europeans call the Climate “Crisis.” The despair that comes with believing the world will end in 25 Page 5 years may have killed few, but in fact has handicapped many. The fact that the bureaucracy has been pushing that narrative for far longer than 25 years escapes most people, especially the under 40 crowd who accept this hope quelling “Crisis” as fact.

Also among the casualties are those whose lives have been turned upside down because they’ve been cancelled or wrongfully accused. I know several people who have been let go from their jobs just because someone randomly accused them of racism or sexism or, for that matter, voting Republican. To be wrongfully fired feels like being shot in the leg. It takes a while to heal from the trauma and shock of the accusation, and then one must face up to a less bright future than before.

Two generations have been wounded from the lies and indoctrination our children have been exposed to. That a man could actually become a woman or vice versa is a lie so great that Stalin or Hitler would have been afraid to float it. If anything proves that we’re in a war, it’s that statement. The people who believe it or say they do are offered a seeming protection from the Left for supporting the lie. The people who don’t are shunned, cancelled or ostracized.Their sanity is questioned. In short, they are taken out, just like soldiers on the front line.

This war is unlike any other in that, even though there are sides, it’s hard to know who the enemy really is. That’s how totalitarianism works; it’s a system that outlaws individual or group opposition to the ruling party. It’s a system that asks individuals to uphold big lies. It wounds, but only indirectly takes credit.

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The Gift of Living in Interesting Times

by Anne Doherty

"May you live in interesting times,” is an expression falsely attributed to an ancient Chinese curse. In fact, it was coined in 1936 by a British statesman in response to the German violation of the treaty at Locarno. Whether the origin of the curse was fake news or not is beside the point. Those words resonate today, just as much as they did on the eve of World War II.

However, I see living in interesting times as more of a gift than a curse because interesting times cause us to live more fully and recognize, if not appreciate, the impact our lives have on others.

As I write, many of us are still hashing over how the anticipated “Red Wave” that was supposed to sweep the country resulted in our just barely gaining control of the House. Explanations range from poor voter turn out in key counties to various levels of Democrat cheating. No doubt the truth varies from state to state and precinct to precinct. Thanks to the Internet, we know too much and too little; we are left with emptiness and doubt.

When I moved to San Francisco more than 20 years ago, I began to recognize carrying the flag for conservative values would be something I would be required to do for the rest of my life if I valued our democratic republic. I saw the Left’s money, power and determination to undermine average people. I tried to warn friends in the rest of the country about some of the things I saw or heard, let alone the destructive, often hateful, designs of powerful people I met in both the Bay Area and Hollywood. My friends didn’t believe me – even my Republican friends.

Today, average Republicans nationwide are finally on the same page. They understand what we are up against, and they are finally stepping up to do something about it. They are running for school board and city council; they are training as poll workers and poll challengers. They actually know the election laws in their state. In short, they understand the impact their lives have on others and see the folly of creating impact through reluctance and ignorance.

Republicans, who have always claimed to value personal responsibility, religious faith, the rule of law and the Constitution, are once again living their values.

And this is something to celebrate – for we do not have faith if we are afraid to stand our ground, and we are not taking responsibility for ourselves, our families or our communities if we turn a blind eye to what’s happening around us. We can only uphold the rule of law if we know the law and if that law makes sense to us, for the law must serve to strengthen our communities rather than tear them down.

Sure, what we’re fighting is complex and confusing. Our enemy has multiple faces: the WEF, China, big tech, big pharma, mainstream media, the entrenched Democrat bureaucracy we call the swamp, and even some of our own elected Republican representatives who gain from the chaos. But our solution is simple and elegant: embrace what we know and defend it.

Whether the solution is homeschooling our kids or running for office, whether it’s talking to our neighbors or writing an op ed, we know that sooner or later destructive, non-sensical woke-ness will bump up against reality and, when it does, our people will be ready with calming common sense and laws worth respecting.

The other thing about interesting times is that they come to an end. The status quo that survives depends on the nature of the conflict itself. Just as little children need boundaries to become moral adults, one could argue that revolutionary forces need boundaries so that they don’t destroy their cause in the process of fighting for it. Society has indeed become more compassionate and open minded since the 60’s; but in trying to make their legacy permanent, leftist idealists now oppose the same free speech and tolerance they once prized.

Republicans are the voice of compassion and reason, and that is also something to celebrate. If we think of history as a kind of pendulum and interesting times as the far reaches of that pendulum before it turns back the other way, we can see that twenty, forty, sixty years from now, Republicans could be the stewards of compassion, reason, faith and law. If we hang in there – the way President Trump, Governor DeSantis and our other shining lights do – we will make our mark on history again, just as we did when Lincoln freed the slaves.

So, being alive today, participating in history as we are, is indeed a gift. It’s a gift to be awake, alive and doing good. It’s a gift we can give to ourselves, to our children, to our neighbors and to generations to come.

Thursday, 24 February 2022 14:54

ELECTRIC VEHICLE SITUATION

Written by

What is the truth about where we stand with electric vehicles? A detailed explanation follows.


 

Tuesday, 15 December 2020 16:29

Trump's Trials: Voter Fraud

Written by
 
By the time you read this, the election may be settled. Then again, this drama may extend through the inauguration and beyond. It's a nail biter. I’m not going to guess the end.
 
But one thing’s for sure–if President Trump is victorious, he has an opportunity to change the destinies of all voting nations by exposing worldwide corruption and creating the most honest, election system ever. If he loses, there may never be an honest election in the United States again.
 
Voter fraud is nothing new. Anytime someone wants power badly enough, and the path to power is an election, fraud will happen. In the old days, when Mayor Richard Daley, Sr. delivered Illinois for John Kennedy, he and his cronies did it the old-fashioned way. One ballot at a time.  My father, as a young lawyer at a major Chicago firm in the 1950s, was approached by a man wanting to expose a massive city-wide voter fraud scheme. Apparently, hundreds of men were given false IDs and instructed to go from polling place to polling place, posing as a new man each time – often someone dead. My father's life was threatened once he got involved, so he declined the opportunity to play "Clark Kent,” as he put it. All that trouble for a few thousand votes. Now we’re hearing about fraud over millions. 
 
The old ways were personable - roundup busloads of voters and buy them lunch, or pay people to bring in immigrant grannies who don't speak English and then “help” fill in their ballots (both of which I saw in 1990s San Francisco.) Old school techniques apparently took place in 2020 Nevada, as Democrats issued gift cards in exchange for the Native American vote. 
 
Void of technology, old school fraud relies on people knowing people, as well as people - with strong loyalties, wanting favors or power of their own - banding together to make an impact. There’s honor among old school thieves: it takes genuine effort to create fake IDs, hand them out to willing stooges, and co-ordinate their movements. 
 
But with technology, the limits of fraud are bounded only by the imaginations of people who know how to use it. Far fewer need to be involved. And with the world being such a small place today, the international elite can easily buy these services. 
 
We’ve all heard about Dominion and it’s connection to Pelosi, Feinstein and the Clintons. We’ve all heard no one knows who really owns it, and about the Dominion minions who adjusted the machines before and during election day.  In 2016 San Francisco, my husband and I both experienced what may’ve been a dress rehearsal for other 2020 tech fraud. My husband, who votes in person, arrived at the polls only to hear he had voted by mail - as happened to thousands in 2020 swing states. And I was told that I had moved out of the precinct. “Oops, that’s been happening all day,” a woman told me as she handed me a provisional ballot. I complained to the Party and the city election board - but no one looked into it until days later, when the fraud pixies magically corrected my voter registration record and moved me back home. Asking tech and political friends how that could happen, I learned one knowledgable person could do it - precinct lists are public record and messing with online records is child’s play. 
 
Technology was used in other creative ways. The four women at Georgia's State Farm Arena funneled suitcases full of ballots into scanners that counted them faster than fingers could fly. Thousands of voters received absentee ballots without requesting them, or as with my own daughter, two - which were addressed to her at our address in another state. Surely, whatever machine sent these duplicates was programmed to think a "decline to state" Asian female under 30 would be more likely to vote Biden. (Wrong! FYI we sent her one and shredded the other - should’ve save both for evidence.)
 
Computers know a lot about individual voters – up to 42 pieces of information, as I was told by one Party representative. Since both sides know your voting history, the anonymous ballot is also history. 
 
What's the solution? As the president said in his remarks on December 3 - paper ballots and voter ID (and I would add thumb prints.)  Look up “Tom Scott - Voting” on YouTube and treat yourself to a sweet, neutral explanation of what can go wrong with machines - and why paper is better.  Another possible solution is blockchain technology. Because every vote would have a unique electronic signature, it would be impossible to create duplicate ballots or count them twice. 
 
If the president emerges victorious, he has until 2022 to fix the system. But if he doesn’t, the world’s power elite - who backed Joe Biden, the BLM riots, and all the rest of it - will ensure we never know what hit us. Donate. Get involved. Pray. 
 
Friday, 24 September 2021 14:01

It is All Hypnosis

Written by

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.

 

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