Scapegoating and Other False Flag Deceptions

Since I first went online in 2005, I have watched the rapid decline of free expression, not so much through censorship but something much more insidious along the lines of mob psychology and emotional entrapment. While assuming a nick offers some degree of anonymity it also easily becomes a subterfuge of consensus manipulation through multiple identities. Given this, social networks readily degenerated into popularity contests, where anyone who didn't sycophant the consensus views of the wannabe gurus, soon found themselves either shunned or bullied in the most insidious ways. Nonetheless, the terror tactics are always the same. One sock puppet or minion tries to win your trust as an ally, while another tries to work you down psychologically with their disguised attacks. Never directly, so they can easily deny it all as some figment of your paranoid imagination. The only problem with that argument is their persistent urge to keep getting in your face, like the bully that blocks the door or the dog that pisses on your leg when you're trying to focus on more important things. There is no limit to the means of sabotage and public humiliation when it comes down to that....and all the while you're bleeding your heart out to that alleged ally, they're already setting you up for the next drop kick. Being quite fearlessly independent-minded, I've always been a target of such ploys, which I was more apt to see as an opportunity to develop my own counter-strategies. It was amazing how readily these blighters fell for their own fail traps, thinking they had me sold on their paltry. Still, for all their vain-glory, they could never accept they had been outwitted by something so far removed from that self-defeating paradox.



I've also had a great deal of professional experience with all levels of society in real life. Quite frankly, I find very little difference between the power struggles there and what you find in cyberspace, no matter how trivial or unreal the objectives. The bottom line is that humans are no less opportunistic than their simian cousins, when it comes to sexual displays, harem building and other territorialisms. So-called civilization has really only beguiled us into more elaborate charades, ever more inconsequent to the dangers of self-deception. Indeed it's wonderful to have the whole information highway at your finger tips, but without any real-life experience, how will you tell truth from lie? How many have been taken in by the cleverly worded congenialities of sexual predators? How many have been misled by the promises of an ideal world as if it were really that simple? Think again.

The Fate of Branch 4

Altruism is a selfish mistress that comes in the guise of charity. I still can’t quite understand what my father was thinking. Perhaps they had become too dependent on the parental guidance and support they had in military life. Either way, they usually came across like the hapless victims of a Steinbeck novel. As much as I tried to get away from that scene, my father had his way of undermining that with secret plans of his own. It was bad enough that I had to answer to the authorities whenever my mother went off on a tantrum. Of course he was always conveniently absent whenever shit hit the fan. I was unemployed and they did their best not to inform me of any offers that came by mail or phone. My drunken sister-in-law also made an ugly habit of phoning prospective employers, covertly pretending to be me. This was a time before affordable mobile phones so I was pretty well sunk. Conversely, there was no end to constant calls asking for information on my father’s arrangements; things he never discussed except to leave with that suitcase and not a word at all. This would send my mother off in another tantrum, starting the whole cycle of police nuisance over again. In 2002 he started a new legion branch, for all the refugees of branch 2 that came in odds with the dubious activities going on there. Needless to say, I was coerced into taking over as secretary, without a clue as to what the job exactly entailed. Just the usual threat to throw me out on the street if I didn’t comply. Well, that turned out to be a right idiot farm. The president and co. had their own dubious schemes; some shooting club in Mahlberg that had gone bust because of them drinking up the assets. They actually thought I had some kind of cash stashed away, and should get them a grant from the VA through my father. Naturally my father said no, but did nothing about this lot trying encroach me at every opportunity. Did they even care when I shattered my ankle? My father didn’t even have the decency to tell them when I was in the hospital, nor did anyone help me try to get around without expecting my complicity in return. When push came to shove, I tried to get the instigator banned from the premises, but of course the committee couldn’t get it through their heads that I was literally being stalked, and for what? Some shooting club locked down by court order that wasn’t going to be opened without someone paying a few hundred thou up front, say nothing of the licensing costs and all...and certainly far removed from anything the Veterans Association would endorse. Not even my father tried to understand the abuse I went through at that job in Mahlberg thanks to their hate campaign.



When my father finally had that stroke trying to open a branch in Holland, they didn’t have the common decency to rush him to a hospital, at least via ADAC. The only help I had caring for him was his partner Reg. When Reg saw just how messed up the situation had become, he too made enemies in branch 4. When election time came I threw them my resignation while making sure the president’s rival took over. I knew his rival was just as dogged to dictate his own regime. These guys definitely have a problem taking anything a woman says seriously, so I though I’d even the score. Mind you, instead of putting up a good fight against each other and learn something, they hid their tails and fled, which is just well. These sheeple just want to be led to their familiar pastures, even if it meant giving up their charter for some branch in Quebec. I just don’t get what makes some think I should be so obliged as to give their pipe dreams precedence over my own responsibilities. Either way, I just didn’t have the time for such tomfoolery while having to home care two seriously damaged parents. Now that all is over and done, it’s not like I miss any of it, let alone have any regrets.

Some people are just not your friend at all

I remember one who married when she was 15 and spent most of her life sheltered, raising 4 kids while her husband worked 60 hour weeks to afford such an existence. Well, when the kids grew up and left home, I guess the husband became the focus of her matriarchal fixation. It’s not uncommon that such relationships wear out at that point, especially if both partners take too much for granted. She came home one night to find him in bed with another woman. Needless to say it ended in a fist fight and immediate divorce.

I got to know her after she collected around 70 thou for half of the property. I intended it to be a casual acquaintance, nothing too involved, as it was apparent she never really learned how to interact with people outside her domestic life. She had looked me up to read her cards, but before long, it became obsessive. It was very hit and run, throwing money at me, though I refused to take it. Her attempts to make new friends never ended well because of that ugly habit of giving what SHE liked as a form of emotional blackmail, practically trying to take over your life, albeit, what you wear, eat or drink, where you should go and what to do. I would get calls in the middle of the night, demanding I do a reading because some person in her life just couldn’t take it anymore and had to tell her where to get off. When she’d come on with that “people abuse my generosity” I’d warn her that it’s not something you can enforce on people to see things your way. It is the right of every responsible adult to make their own choices, but she not only missed that lesson in life, but absolutely refused to learn it.

When I broke my ankle, she tried to exploit that in every way of imposing dependency. She dragged me to the mall in town, a place I preferred to avoid like the plague, especially on crutches. She insisted on breakfast on the gallery way up without an elevator, then argued with me over what I should eat, though I persistently warned her about my allergies. When I needed new underwear, she dragged me to the next city, parking in the middle of a huge parking lot and that in 35°C weather. She drags me into this shop that had nothing in the way of briefs. Failing that, she sits me on a stack of carpets then buggers off. After waiting a half an hour in the sweltering heat, my leg swelling up, I decided I better leave for the next store. There I found what I needed then went back to search for her but couldn’t find her, so I went back to the car. There I waited another 20 minutes in the burning sun. She finally arrives and gives me hell, though I told her I just couldn’t take the pain anymore.

At some point she realized I wasn’t buying into her dependency schemes, so she comes on to my close mate, complaining that I’m being difficult. Mind you, before long he began to feel just as cornered...and when that wasn’t enough she went and joined the Legion Branch where I was secretary, then tried to take over that show with her decorum and trinkets.

One day I had an appointment with the employment office and she insisted on driving me. I knew it would go wrong so I made alternate arrangements. It didn’t interest her that showing up late would have lost me my unemployment money. Needless to say, she went into a screaming tirade regardless, when she found out. Though we never spoke again, it didn’t stop her from trying to weave her web of influence around me.

Weeks later another friend phoned up utterly gob-smacked at the trail of hostilities this woman was leaving behind every broken relationship. I told my friend, forget it, just be glad she’s left you, because I don’t think she’ll stop until she’s landed in an institution. Not surprisingly, when I quit the legion, she disappeared into anonymity. As for the cards, I hid them away somewhere, never to be found again.