#karen berg

[ex-cogtfi]

For the month of July, we will be calling out the cult through its own words.

COG-TFI has long claimed that there was never institutionalized abuse in the cult, that cult leaders never condoned or encouraged abusive practices, and that such assertions are simply lies perpetuated by former members.

So don't take our word for it.

Take theirs.

Read it for yourself IN THEIR OWN WORDS.

Throughout mostly internal publications, COG-TFI’s leaders past and present have shown their true values - the twisted thinking of serial abusers. Our goal in sharing these direct quotations is to expose not only the truth of The Family International’s history and its current leadership, but also the organizations that continue to provide public fronts for the cult and its operations, such as Activated Ministries (California) and Aurora Productions (Switzerland).

Trigger Warning: The cult writings we will be highlighting may be extremely offensive and / or disturbing. Please view at your own discretion.

[dragonroilz]

lore written by Ccmaci:

She used to be your typical low brow Karen, but then she tripped into the rabbit hole of really fringe conspiracy. She didn't trust America to train her for the coming thermal nuclear crisis cause they put steroids in the military's food that down the line will turn their children into sleeper-agent-zombies, and she doesn't go to foreign governments because when you get your picture taken for a passport, the flash from the camera imprints your Social Security Number into your brain, a number she believes decodes the subluminal messaging in fast-food commercials that make you want to not question the yearly 0.50 cent price raises for a burger (burgers which are laced with micro-pathogens that cause you to love the concept of being called in for jury duty, obviously).

The only place that was safe place to acquire military training was [insert fake county name here], a legally unrecognized country off the coast of Alaska, with a population of less than 200 people. Obviously, all boats are rigged with ice-berg attracting magnets which go off incase an American hasn't had their daily intake of jury duty micro-pathogens, so swam the coast of Canada as to avoid crossing the boarder where she'd likely be asked to give the Canadian government a sample of her blood (cause we all know what horrors Canadian's can commit with 2 liters of blood from a woman born south of the global hemisphere).

Anyways, so she makes it to the unrecognized country, and thankfully they let her into their militia cause SHE GOT JACKED FROM LITERALLY SWIMMING FROM WASHINGTON TO ALASKA. Obviously she did her homework before this, and was already pretty knowledgeable on basic military concepts like rocket jumping, so this was really just to round out the edges on her proficiency's (that's what she thinks, in reality she really needed this training to be competent lol).

Sadly, after discovering the unrecognized country was literally planning thermal-nuclear-warfare, she decided to leave Alaska, which strangely after she did, all evidence of that legally-unrecognized country ceased to exist. She was later picked up by Mann-Co after being coerced into thinking that she was stopping the enemy from furthering the goals of the shadow-government-fast-food-conglomerate, and as been working with the fem-mercs ever since.

similar to how the mercs lie to normal soldier about all being american, the female mercs lie to female soldier about various beliefs like how they're totally not all vaccinated and all of the rations delivered to them are definitely not inspected by the government. shes particularly distrustful of the scout and medic, the former being a borderline material gorl, and the latter being involved with more than questionable medical practices.

[bitter69uk]

“Why does everybody think I’m so wild? I’m not wild. I happen to stumble onto wildness. It gets in my path.” Cookie Mueller

"Cookie looked like Janis Joplin-meets-Jayne Mansfield, a redneck hippie with a little bit of glamour drag thrown in. She never led a safe life, unsafe was her middle name. She lived on the edge, always." John Waters

Born on this day 75 years ago: vivacious bad girl, writer, go-go dancer, advice columnist, art critic, drug dealer, globe-trotter and avant-garde New York scene-maker Cookie Mueller (née Dorothy Karen Mueller, 2 March 1949 – 10 November 1989). She’s a fiercely charismatic presence in early John Waters "gutter films" like Multiple Maniacs (1970), Pink Flamingos (1972) and Female Trouble (1974). Her close confidante, photographer Nan Goldin would describe Mueller as “the most fabulous woman I’d ever seen ... She was the starlet of the Lower East Side: a poetess, a short-story writer, she starred in John Waters’ early movies. She was sort of the queen of the whole downtown social scene.” (Unsurprisingly, Goldin has an eye for vivid detail. In the wrenching 2022 documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, she recalls that the first time she met Cookie in Provincetown in the 1970s, Mueller was wearing vintage Springolator heels held together with safety pins!). I highly recommend investigating Mueller’s wry and elegant autobiographical musings like Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black or Garden of Ashes (recently reissued) – or Chloe Griffin’s excellent 2014 biography Edgewise: A Picture of Cookie Mueller. Pictured: portrait of Mueller by Bob Berg.

[singeratlarge]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Desi Arnaz, Benedict of Nursia, Moe Berg, Ed Bournemann, Dale Bozzio, Larry Carlton, Karen Carpenter, John Cowsill, Daniel Craig, John Cullum, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Maxwell Street, Jimmy Davis, Becky G, Rory Gallagher, John Gardner, Mikhail Gorbachev, Laird Hamilton, Sam Houston, Bryce Dallas Howard, John Irving, Jennifer Jones, Léon Jongen, Jon Bon Jovi, Orrin Keepnews, the 1933 film KING KONG, Papa Lightfoot, BarBara Luna, Madonna’s 1989 single “Like a Prayer,” Chris Martin, Gates McFadden, drummer-producer Tony Meehan (The Shadows), Method Man, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Lauraine Newman, Jay Osmond, Ethan Peck, Elvis Presley’s 1956 single “Lawdy Miss Clawdy,” Luke Pritchard (The Kooks), Dottie Rambo, Red Saunders, Dennis Seaton (Musical Youth), Shostakovich’s 14th Symphony (1969), Bedřich Smetana, the 1995 musical SMOKY JOE’S CAFÉ, Ludovico Spontoni, the 1965 film SOUND OF MUSIC, composer-trumpeter Derek Watkins (James Bond films), Kurt Weill, Tom Wolfe, "Théo" Ysaÿe, and the creative provocateur, poet, and singer-songwriter Lou Reed. He was the principal songwriter for The Velvet Underground and his solo career spanned 5 decades. 

Velvet Underground were not commercially successful but are now regarded as one of the most influential bands in the history of rock. Brian Eno said that everyone who heard the first VU album wanted to start a band. Reed had a deadpan voice that, for me, required forgiveness as singers go (though he did step up on occasion, particularly when he sung with The Blind Boys on THE RAVEN album). Eventually I connected with his noir fiction, transgressive “eyewitness reporting” lyrics and songcraft. He neither approved or disapproved of the subjects he sang about and, in the end, he just wanted to write catchy rock’n’roll. Over the years I’ve performed at least 6 Reed/VU songs—recording 2: “What Goes On” and “Sunday Morning,” on which I was joined by members of The Badlees (who did a splendid job in one afternoon). Reed himself commended our cover and promoted it on his website in the mid-90s. HB and RIP Lou.

#loureed #velvetunderground #sundaymorning #singersongwriter #bretalexander #thebadlees #blindboysofalabama #raven #edgarallenpoe #noirfiction #poet #guitarist #eyewitnessreport #johnnyjblair #singeratlarge #birthday

[wouldadepressedpersonmakethis]

top portrayals:

LIZZY

[12] Lily James

[9] Keira Knightley, Jennifer Lawrence

[5] Imogen Poots

[4] Maisie Williams

[3] Sarah Bolger, Jenna Louise Coleman, Romola Garai, Bella Heathcote, Amber Heard, Saoirse Ronan, Emily VanCamp, Alicia Vikander

[2] Rose Byrne, Nina Dobrev, Taissa Farmiga, Sarah Gadon, Karen Gillan, Eva Green, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Anna Kendrick, Katie McGrath, Leighton Meester, Sophie Turner

[5] Matthew Goode, Jared Padalecki

[4] Jude Law, Aaron Paul

[3] Nathaniel Buzolic, Bradley Cooper, Hugh Dancy, John Krasinski, Landon Liborion, Miles Teller

[2] Jonas Armstrong, Justin Bartha, Douglas Booth, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Sam Claflin, Charlie Cox, Chace Crawford, Charlie Day, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Downey Jr., Martin Freeman, Ryan Gosling, Tom Hardy, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Hunnum, Jake Johnson, Harry Lloyd, James McAvoy, Mads Mikkelsen, Julian Morris, Colin Morgan, David Morrisey, Dylan O’Brien, Evan Peters, Michael Pitt, Eddie Redmayne, Andrew Scott, Bill Skarsgard, Ben Whishaw

KATE THE GREAT

[ 3 ] Astrid Berges-Frisby, Bella Heathcote [ 2 ] Sarah Gadon, Felicity Jones

KATE AA

[ 8 ] Michael Fassbender [ 8 ] Keira Knightley [ 7 ] Tom Hardy

[ 6 ] Emilia Clarke, Phoebe Tonkin [ 6 ] Jensen Ackles, Richard Armitage, Henry Cavill

[ 5 ] Emily Blunt, Nina Dobrev [ 5 ] Nathaniel Buzolic, Sam Claflin, Luke Evans, Chris Hemsworth

[ 4 ] Jenna Louise Coleman, Michelle Dockery, Margot Robbie, Emma Watson [ 4 ] Ben Barnes, Benedict Cumberbatch, Chris Evans, Liam Hemsworth, Jared Padalecki, Bill Skarsgard, Sebastian Stan, Toby Stevens

[ 3 ] Candace Accola, Natalie Dormer, Jessica Brown Findaly, Claire Holt, Scarlett Johanson, Freya Mavor, Katie McGrath, Natalie Portman, Charlize Theron, Emma Watson [ 3 ] Robert Carlyle, Nikolai Coster-Waldau, Jaime Dornan, Theo James, Joseph Morgan, Julian Morris, Evan Peters, Aidan Turner

[ 2 ] Chloe Bennet, Shelley Hennig, Lena Headey, Amber Heard, Lily James, Leighton Meester, Emilie de Ravin, Krysten Ritter, Sophie Turner, Evan Rachel Wood [ 2 ] Aneurin Barnard, Douglas Booth, Charlie Cox, Charles Dance, Hugh Dancy, Scott Eastwood, Mark Gatiss, Tom Hiddleston, Michiel Huisman, Harry Lloyd, Richard Madden, James Norton, Colin O’Donoghue, Daniel Sharman, Milo Ventimiglia

LAUREN

[ 7 ] Natalie Dormer [ 6 ] Romola Garai [ 5 ] Emma Stone [ 4 ] Crystal Reed, Holland Roden [ 3 ] Karen Gillan, Rosamund Pike, Emilie de Ravin, Eleanor Tommilson, Charity Wakefield

TINA RAE

[ 5 ] Ben Whishaw [ 3 ] Billie Piper [ 3 ] Dylan O’Brian, Colin O'Donoghue [ 2 ] Alexis Bledel, Laura Carmicheal, Sarah Paulson, Lara Pulver, Taylor Swift, Anna Torv [ 2 ] JJ Field, Freddie Highmore, Josh Hutcherson, Gabriel Mann, Dan Stevens, Max Theriot

JENN

2: Cava Delevingne, Zoey Deutch, Phoebe Tonkin, Lea Seydoux, Kristen Stewart, Suki Waterhouse, Emma Watson

3: Tom Hiddleston 2: Daane Dehann, Chris Hemsworth, Luke Mitchell

[batboyblog]

LOUISVILLE — She wanted to hear Henry’s voice again. So she went to her son’s room on an overcast February day and started digging through the boxes he left behind, looking for something he’d written to give her guidance.

Henry Berg-Brousseau always knew what to say.

Eight years had passed since he’d told Kentucky lawmakers how it felt, at 16, to be the only transgender student at his high school. Eight weeks had passed since he’d killed himself, at 24, at his Northern Virginia apartment.

It was Henry who’d inspired his mother, Karen Berg, to run for Kentucky’s state Senate, helping her win a seat in an overwhelmingly Republican legislature now contemplating a pile of anti-trans bills.

All morning long, the doctor turned Democratic lawmaker had been pacing around her Louisville house, trying to figure out what she could say to stop them.

“Don’t shake. Don’t cry. Don’t let your voice waver,” Karen, 61, muttered to herself as she did the laundry. “Short and sweet is better.”

Henry, who’d worked as a press secretary for a major LGBTQ advocacy group, often reminded her to speak in sound bites, to repeat phrases so listeners could absorb the message.

But would the people with power in Frankfort pay attention?

It was an election year in Kentucky, and amid America’s widening cultural rifts, Republicans were pouncing on gender identity issues. Already, almost a dozen new anti-trans laws had been proposed in Kentucky: censoring books on gender, barring doctors from providing hormone therapy to trans teens, banning them from certain restrooms and locker rooms.

Five days earlier, a senator running for lieutenant governor had stood a few feet from Karen and introduced legislation to allow teachers to use students’ birth names and pronouns against their wishes. He was greeted with thunderous applause from colleagues.

Karen, one of just six Democrats in the Senate, couldn’t believe it.

Now she headed down to the basement and sat among the 30 boxes that had arrived from Henry’s apartment in Arlington.

“I keep searching for his smell, but I can’t find it,” she said, rooting through his old shirts.

She found herself returning to his childhood bedroom.

“God, I could use his advice right now,” she said quietly, as she leafed through his high school yearbooks.

It was in ninth grade — when Henry came out as transgender to his classmates — that the cruelty and isolation peaked. Parents Karen had known for more than a decade called to say they didn’t want Henry talking to their kids anymore. Bullies hacked his Tumblr blog and repeatedly sent him messages telling him to kill himself. The first of several suicide attempts followed soon after.

From one crate, she pulled a thick stack of binders from Henry’s time at George Washington University in D.C.

“These must’ve been from his classes when he came home during covid,” she said. As she flipped through them, the neatly penciled handwriting on one college-ruled page jumped out at her.

“Oh my God,” she whispered as she made out the first words on the page.

“What am I living for?” it read. “Why? What is keeping me?”

Underneath, her son had written out in tidy columns across two pages the apparent pros and cons of killing himself.

“I can’t,” Karen said, struggling to breathe. “I didn’t expect this. I’m not ready.”

She laid the pages down.

She thought about the hour-long drive to Frankfort the next morning and the eight-week legislative session still ahead. She thought about the fellow state senators she planned to plead with in private. And about the floor speech she was still composing to persuade them to back away from more anti-transgender laws — for her sake, for the sake of her son, for the sake of others like him.

“If they’re going to pass these bills,” she said, “I want them to see me and my dead child and know that they are killing other Henrys out there.”

Continue

every single line of this is heart breaking.

[mariacallous]

By Wednesday night, a sweeping anti-trans bill appeared dead in Kentucky as lawmakers debated whether it went too far. So it surprised Democrats, transgender activists, and their allies when Republicans managed to hold a committee vote, then rush the bill through approvals in both the state House and Senate the following day.

Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear isn’t expected to sign the bill, which passed mostly along party lines, into law, but the GOP has enough of a majority to override his veto.

People in the gallery were furious when the measure passed and yelled, “You’re all fucking pieces of shit!” at lawmakers on the floor, according to Courier Journal reporter Joe Sonka.

Democratic state Sen. Karen Berg, whose transgender son died by suicide in December, cried after the vote, Sonka reported. Berg had delivered powerful testimony as the bill was being debated.

“[This bill] is viewed as the single worst anti-LGBTQ legislation that has come out of a statehouse in this country,” she said during a floor debate.

“This is absolutely willful hate for a small group of people that are the weakest and most vulnerable,” she added.

The bill that passed this week expanded upon one that Republicans in Kentucky first introduced in February, which would have allowed students to misgender transgender students despite the detrimental impact it would have on trans youth.

The new version of the bill still allows trans students to be misgendered. But it goes much further: It also bans gender-affirming care, like puberty blockers or hormone therapy, for trans kids and requires doctors to begin detransitioning any of their trans patients who are children. It mandates that schools create policies that will not allow trans students to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity. It does not allow educators to discuss sexual orientation or gender identity in any grade and forbids discussion of human sexuality until sixth grade. After that, parental consent is required.

The Kentucky GOP’s last-minute push to advance the bill is following a disturbing nationwide trend. Hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced just this year in states dominated by Republicans as part of the broader culture war on trans Americans and the push for “parental rights” — a catchall term that centers the wishes of conservative white parents when shaping policies in public schools.

Gender-affirming care for minors is appropriate and not dangerous, according to the American Medical Association. And genuine mental health risks come with widespread discrimination and health care bans: Transgender youth are at higher risk for depression and suicide.

Instead of serving the most vulnerable among us, Berg said her fellow lawmakers ignored the science behind gender-affirming care for trans children and only rushed this bill for one reason.

“My child came up here 10 years ago,” she said on Thursday, referring to her son’s 2015 testimony against a bathroom bill in the Kentucky statehouse. “You had time to understand the science… this is absolute, willful, intentional hate.”

[bubbleteycosplay]

All actresses/actors we have already considered for the role of Sigyn in the Marvel films/series:

Jessica Alba

Meryl Streep

Lily James

Emilia Clarke

Angel Coulby

Holliday Grainger

Rebecca Ferguson

Imogen Poots

Katie McGrath

Zawe Ashton

Amy James Kelly

Jennifer Connelly

Olivia Cooke

Natalie Dormer

Evan Rachel Wood

Ellie Bamber

Alana Boden

Phillipa Soo

Anne Hathaway

Ritu Arya

Sandra James Young

Niamh Walsh

Emily Carey

Romola Garai

Perdita Weeks

Britt Lower

Georgie Henley

Sophia Lillis

Sofia Wylie

Naomi Ackie

Alia Shawkat

Karen Fukuhara

Gratiela Brancusi

Gina Stiebitz

Joanna Douglas

Moses Ingram

Dilraba Dilmurat

Zoe Boyle

Freida Pinto

Charlotte Riley

Penelope Wilton

Jing Tian

Annabelle Wallis

Sophie Rundle

Alicia Vikander

Gemma Arterton

David Lindstrom

Isla Fisher

Gabriella Wilde

Hannah Dodd

Deepika Padukone

Marion Cotillard

Ksenia Solo

Denée Benton

Mia Wasikowska

Julia Lester

Ginnifer Goodwin

Malina Weissman

Naomi Scott

Ashley Johnson

Àstrid Berges-Frisbey

Millie Bobby Brown

Tamla Kari

Dianne Doan

Aisling Loftus

Pedro Pascal

Jessie Buckley

Felicity Jones

Lucy Martin

Sadie Sink

Lana Parrilla

Katheryn Winnick

Golshifteh Farahani

Vanessa Kirby

Kaley Cuoco

Alicia von Rittberg

Rachel Shenton

Meryem Uzerli

Jeanne Goursaud

Sophie Skelton

Léa Seydoux

Claire Holt

Sophie Turner

Nicola Coughlan

Sophia Myles

Regé Jean Page

Sara Gadon

Kelly Marie Tran

Hugh Dancy

Lydia West

Amanda Seyfried

Oona Chaplin

Billie Piper

Charithra Chandran

Keira Knightley

Elizabeth Debicki

Bella Heathcote

Savannah Steyn

Jodie Comer

Eleanor Tomlinson

Clémence Poésy

Jodie Turner-Smith

Charlotte Hope

Madeleine Mantock

Simone Ashley

Georgia Tennant

Jessica Williams

Daisy Head

Ana de Armas

Jessica Brown Findlay

Mimî M Khayisa

Lolly Adefope

Amy Adams

Jessica Chastain

Bryce Dallas Howard

Kirby Howell-Baptiste

Susan Wokoma

Aiysha Hart

Sophie Okonedo

Imelda Staunton

Anna Shaffer

Emilie de Ravin

Elle Fanning

Ruth Wilson

Anna Popplewell

Nathalie Emmanuel

Freema Agyeman

Rose Leslie

Halle Bailey

America Ferrera

Jeanne Goursaud

Drew Barrymore

Sogol Faghani

[leregirenga]

La bondad nunca debe ser confundida con la debilidad. Se necesita valentía para permanecer bondadoso en un mundo que suele ser cruel.

Karen Berg

[ex-cogtfi]

TW child abuse, religious abuse

February 18th. On THE DATE that the cult of COG-TFI is still celebrating as the "birthday" of the cult and its late pedophiliac founder David Berg, COG-TFI survivors are speaking out in The Sunday Mail and on Episode 2 of the explosive documentary series Prayed Upon by the Courier Mail.

We are incredibly proud of these brave survivors for speaking out, as it is an emotionally intense, vulnerable, and demanding experience to go public with such personal and painful stories. Please support COG-TFI survivors and help us raise awareness by sharing this post and signing our petition to bring COG-TFI cofounder and current leader Karen Zerby to justice (link in bio).

[ghoultalks]

books i've read this year (2023)

reading goal: 30 books

total read so far: 29 (last updated: 10/31/23)

MARCH 2023

1. And I Do Not Forgive You by Amber Sparks

APRIL 2023

2. Nine Liars by Maureen Johnson 3. Vladimir by Julia May Jonas 4. Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata 5. Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica

MAY 2023

6. Brutes by Dizz Tate 7. Pretty Girls by Karen Slaughter

JUNE 2023

8. The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon 9. Blackmail and Bibingka by Mia P. Manansala 10. Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang

JULY 2023

11. All’s Well by Mona Awad 12. Dykette by Jenny Fran Davis 13. A Touch of Jen by Beth Morgan 14. The Grownup by Gillian Flynn 15. The Guest by Emma Cline 16. Sarahland by Sam Cohen

AUGUST 2023

17. Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova 18. Pure Colour by Sheila Heti 19. Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter 20. Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder 21. All-Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky

SEPTEMBER 2023

22. The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz 23. My Husband by Maud Ventura 24. I Hold a Wolf by the Ears: Stories by Laura van den Berg 25. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

OCTOBER 2023

26. The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi 27. Slewfoot by Brom 28. Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica 29. Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

[americangeophysicalunion]

In our next #AntarcticLog, Karen Romano Young is providing some super helpful tips on... ...how to be an iceberg? Check it out! https://blogs.agu.org/sciencecommunication/2023/02/24/antarcticlog-being-berg/ 

[zenaidamacrouras1]

Absolutely fucking heartbroken over the loss of this shining light to PTSD from a childhood full of hate. Literally his death can be linked in part to these fucking lawmakers. Shame on them.

Listen cis people: if you aren't vocally for trans kids they have very good reason to assume you are against them. Show up.

He finished by flashing a soft smile at the senators. “If you don’t know a transgender kid already, you do now. You know me, Henry. And I’d be honored to continue to work with you,” he said. “I’d even be more honored to call you all friends.”

The Republican senators gushed over him afterward.

“Henry, thank you,” said Sen. Max Wise. “I educated myself a lot today.”

“Henry, I love you man,” said then-Sen. Alice Forgy Kerr. “I can’t really imagine that anyone else in this room has the kind of courage that it took for you to come and testify.”

Then, one by one they voted for the bill anyway.

Sitting beside her son, Karen felt a fury welling

“Why do these a-holes,” she wondered, “get to decide where my child pees?”

During Henry’s testimony in Frankfort, which went viral after being featured on “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver,” the teen didn’t mention his suicide attempt or the ugliness that fueled it. But his mother couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d been through at school as she gazed at the senators on the dais above them.

Learn more in this article:

She lost her trans son to suicide. Can a Kentucky lawmaker make her colleagues care?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/03/25/transgender-suicide-karen-berg-henry-brousseau-kentucky/

[cruelsister-moved2]

Henry Berg-Brousseau took his own life on the 16th of December as a result of the toll transphobia took on his mental health. He has been publicly fighting for trans and LGBT+ rights in Kentucky and across the US since he was 16 years old.

You can donate to Human Rights Campaign, the LGBT+ advocacy organisation he worked for, here (link)

May his memory be a blessing 💜