#deprogrammed

This ideology is a universal solvent and it has matured to the point where it can and will dissolve anything that lets it get in.

James Lindsay, in a very long, really interesting discussion with Unsafe Space, describing the social destruction communicated through his inbox in the aftermath of the recent wave of Woke cultism:

James: I had somebody send me something yesterday saying that [..] her sister has taken this stuff up and recently they had, you know, the other day a family gathering for the first time in a little while, and her sister -- she said the feeling was it was like she was looking straight through us, like we weren't there or that we weren't human, and is all woke now and it's all wokeness stuff and all she does is these Instagram campaigns to raise money to throw at Black Lives Matter, and other other woke charities. But somehow is managing to pull down, like six figures off of that herself as, you know, her portion.

And then I'm hearing from interracial couples -- or I was for a while a lot -- hearing from interracial couples that are telling me about how one of the -- whichever partner is lower on the oppression status hierarchy -- is being beleaguered by the one that has more oppression status. And like, suddenly, you have people married 15 years and it's "well you've always been kind of racist," and it's like "you know me I'm not racist," blah, blah, blah, we've been together 15 years. And then the person's like "well 15 years isn't really long enough to know somebody when it comes to something like this" and it's like, that's messed up.

And then I'm hearing from people whose therapy sessions with their therapists, if they're cross-racial, have just turned into like struggle sessions about white supremacy and white complicity, even to the point where people are talking about how -- they've been there, they're in therapy to work through the trauma of having been raped by say black men, and they’re with a black therapist, and we're talking about a white woman in the particular case I’m thinking of. She was gang raped by several black men at once, and the therapist knows why she chose a black male therapist, it's part of to work through the struggle. They've been together for a few years, successfully. And then all of a sudden after George Floyd died, it's all of a sudden, you know she said she's talking through whatever it is and then you're at this moment, you know, and it's like well "I haven't had the best track record, you know, experience with black men so I have these issues" and then the therapist is like, cuts her off and it's like "no, you need to understand the systemic nature of racism and what would lead people to be to be in positions, and you're not gonna blame black men." Like in that moment of vulnerability in a therapy session.

And then I'm getting emails from people -- my favorite ones, I mean it's grim not favorite in the sense like it's like I'm happy, but really shows what's going on -- are people who are writing to me about their workplaces that had Brown Fragility or White Fragility or something, or some gay sensitivity some-odd training that they're all forcing everybody to have now, and they're like "I got along with my colleagues before, and everything was really good, and you know, we work together well and it seemed like a pretty functional office, nothing's perfect, little scuffles here and there, but then all of a sudden it's like they decided we had to have this training, and so they take us and like all like the brown people have to sit there. and every white person in the room is now forced to explain how they're racist to us, so now all of our co-workers are now like telling us that they're racist all the time."

Or in the case where it's across like a sexuality thing, it's like all these people are like "you know I've never admitted it to you, but I secretly hate gay people." Like now that's a really a comfortable office to work in. And then it's like, they start with -- the sexuality ones it's crazy because it's like -- for weeks afterwards or days afterwards it's like “they come to my office, all day long and apologize for how their religion makes it so they hate gay people, but they're trying to be cool and understand.” So now it's like, they start asking really prying and probing questions about their sex lives all day long.

And it's like, holy crap, how is this helping?!

Keri: How do they get any work done?

James: Well I mean, they don't that's the other thing, that's the thing actually that really needs to be understood. That this is, like, the most navel-gazing narcissistic void ideology that I've ever seen in my life. It's like definitely designed to make people look for their self pity. And they say that stuff is only being authentically done if you're constantly looking at the issues, like racism or whatever. So nobody gets any work done. Everybody just has to talk about social issues that didn't exist two weeks ago, constantly, and nobody's getting any work done.

6 of the best documentaries about cults to watch on netflix this week

Seemingly everyone we know is obsessed with Netflix’s Wild Wild Country, the six-part documentary about the Rajneeshee cult in Oregon. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh relocated his followers there in the 80s in search of enlightenment and utopia, but in episode one we’re already being told by the FBI that the move resulted in the largest poisoning case in the USA (amongst other truly awful things). Not…

To our adored and endlessly supportive friends, family, fans and peers.

2017 marks the end for this band and the beginning of a new chapter for the three of us. Your continual support has afforded us the opportunities to travel the country more times than we care to count, play alongside some of the best bands in the world, and float our creativity for half a decade. For this, we are incredibly grateful.

We have curated an EP of sorts comprised of our favourite unreleased material recorded across rehearsal rooms and studios over the last two years - a collection of demos and pre production tracks for an album we never quite got around to finishing. Titled 'Deprogrammed', the EP will be released this Friday and available everywhere digitally. We'll be performing these tunes among others at a final Melbourne show with some dear friends on March 23rd. RSVP to the Facebook event here. Purchase tickets here.

Support the arts, support womyn in music, demand more from your politicians, be kind to the Earth and to each other.