It's clear that some people online, and in my personal life, can't understand how I - an avowed anti-cultist - can support George W. Bush. "Don't you know he's 'born again'?" they ask. "What about those missing WMDs?" I've even picked up a new (anonymous) friend who asked if I thought the president was a cultist. This new friend added some links (seriously) to back up his view that George W. Bush, the President of the United States, is indeed a cult leader. So, since he went to the trouble, I'm going to show them to you here, with my responses, and following that, I'll add further commentary about the public's reaction to our current Commander and Chief:
Proof of the president's cultism - His Religious Beliefs:Bush says God chose him to lead his nation.
O.K., yea, I know Bush is "born again" (Old News) but I also know he's made no effort to push his beliefs on me, or anyone else, like NewAgers have. As a matter of fact, the "born again" crowd has been pissed at him for not giving them anything but rhetoric. And we all know Karl Rove is an atheist, so, between those two facts, the idea of Georgie Boy as a cult leader starts to fall apart pretty quick, because a cult's followers ain't pissed about shit the leader does, and, of course, there's absolutely no room for non-believers in a cult. 
Proof of the president's cultism - The Bush Pledge:"I want you to stand, raise your right hands," and recite "the Bush Pledge," said Florida state Sen. Ken Pruitt. The assembled mass of about 2,000 in this Treasure Coast town about an hour north of West Palm Beach dutifully rose, arms aloft, and repeated after Pruitt: "I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my family. I care about my country. Because I care, I promise to work hard to re-elect, re-elect George W. Bush as president of the United States."
Not understanding that freedom and liberty are our heritage as Americans - and worth defending - is what's loony. Withdrawing from your family is a pretty good sign they need to call a deprogrammer. Chomping at the bit, to bring your own country low during a war, is another good sign you're a victim of cultish thinking. Not a sign of cultism in Bush.
Proof of the president's cultism - The Hitler Trick:
“See in my line of work,” Bush told students in Rochester New York on May 24, 2005,“you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”
I found this one fascinating because it implies the Bush administration is like a bunch of Nazis, who only let one idea get out there, to be repeated endlessly. Like there's no massive amount of street-level Leftist propaganda for the president to deal with. I mean, come on. All I have to do is look outside at the bumper stickers on my neighbors cars to put the lie to that idea. 
Just look at what's said about him in even a casual social setting: Bush has to deal with everything, from he's an "idiot" to he's an evil mastermind, and the Left acts like both messages are O.K. as long as they eventually get to hang him in the public square. There's no integrity in what they're saying at all, but, somehow, Bush is a bad guy for saying he's countering it by using "The Bully Pulpit"? I don't buy it. Sorry Guy, but that shit don't wash.
Proof of the president's cultism - His Blatant Lawlessness:"Bush accountability is gone".This quote is in relation to the Alberto Gonzales attorney firing fiasco - which, in my opinion, makes it bullshit as well. Gonzales had every right to fire anybody he wanted and the completion of that successful witch hunt doesn't change that fact. (Where was everybody when the same thing happened, in even larger numbers, during the Clinton administration? When it happened, then, the Republicans didn't say shit because they knew the score. But congressional Dems wanted a witch hunt and they got one, so, now, they want to crow Gonzales leaving was proof of a crime. It certainly wasn't.) Gonzales stepped down to shut the Democrats up, and give the president a break, because Gonzales sucked as a media figure. Nothing more.
If anything, that episode showed me just how craven, and hypocritical, the Democrats could become when they desperately wanted a "win". Whatever. Democrats have never played fair (and they hope nobody will notice) but that's politics for you. I hope it made 'em feel good in the short term, because election years are the days of reckoning, and everything that has happened will, most definitely, return to haunt their party on the road to the White House.
Face it: Taken together, artfully stacking all this stuff up can make it look like there's something there - not about cultism but some kind of, murky, almost-unidentified crime or another. But when you look at the real issues, it's really just so much BS. But everything the Left thinks about the president is that way - lots of murky charges, against a fictional figure, but no actual crime against a real person - and that's a big part of why I like the prez:
In the face of such nonsense, the real living breathing man maintains his integrity by heroically standing his ground, and putting something larger - like the interest of the country - above his own political welfare. And it's examples like his that remind people like me how much more important it is to be a good man than to desire being liked by an unruly mob of cowardly, relativistic, paranoid losers who, right or wrong, will do just about anything for what ultimately amounts to almost nothing.
Listen, I have friends who believe in all the major religions, but (like Christopher Hitchens, above) I've lost very few of them since revealing the extent of my atheism. (Which is a real, life-long, atheism. Not the kind where you reject mainstream religion and then replace it with some other spiritual nonsense or being an agnostic.) For me, there's been no litmus test at all from the mainstream believers in my life. But I've lost the vast majority of my liberal and NewAge friends over it. And, starting with the malicious actions of my ex-wife, the NewAgers I've known have treated me in the most outrageous, evil, and malicious, fashion I've ever encountered in my life. And I'm not alone in saying the "peace and love" crowd is capable of that. 
NewAgers are the fascists of our time, that much is clear, because I've seen they will kill, break off marriages, destroy friendships, engage in whispering campaigns, even insist others change their vocabulary, all to make themselves feel comfortable. They'll lie, cheat, steal, and do whatever else impulsively leaps into their heads to get their way. It's their 60's 'spiritual" outlook or else,...and that "or else" means they're willing to destroy you. The idea of accepting there can be depth to another point of view - or even to acquiescing to parts of another point of view - is blasphemy to them. They can't even muster up enough courage to say "I'm sorry" when they're busted doing wrong - they just try to cover it up, switch the charge, change the subject, or abandon you. But the idea of simply correcting their mistakes is beyond them.
It's clear, to me at least, these current Democratic calls for "change" are only meant for others - liberals don't believe in it for themselves, at all. As someone who did a really fierce album against the war, I know what it took to challenge my own beliefs about the president - and really change - to, politically, get to where I am today. And that's too difficult - too much work - for the average liberal to want to undertake. You've got to try - really try - to get past the willingness to demonize the president; to see the human being for who he or she actually is: In this case, a nice guy, who's kinda goofy, but still capable of being extremely brave when it comes to doing the right thing for the country in dangerous times: 
If Bush wasn't brave enough to attack Iraq when he did, we would've had to do it on someone else's timetable (probably the U.N.'s) and that would've been a sucker's bet. If Bush wasn't brave enough to attack Iraq when he did, and the WMD had been there, Americans would've said he let the country down.
If Bush wasn't brave enough to attack Iraq when he did, we never would've been able to catch Al Qaeda off guard. And on and on and on.
Those are all things to be applauded, not vilified, as Democrats, liberals, NewAgers, and other cultists, have tried to do: George W. Bush has really come through - he's truly our Harry Truman - and I'm sure, in time, history will reward him for his efforts on our ungrateful nation's behalf. Hell, I'm as sure of that as I am my own friggin' name. And who am I to talk?Baby, I'm The Crack Emcee - and this is:
Based on the main-stream dialectic, this makes sense, but based on a more complex understanding of the system, this doesn't make sense. Bush isn't a man of good character, he's made unpopular choices in the face of the democrats worrying that we're losing the respect of france & canadians, true, & there are alot of aspects of what he has done that could be good, & yes, if he did all of what he has done & was Bill Clinton, the liberals would be cleaning his feet with a smile, but the guy is a scum-bag. He's not charismatic enough to be a cult leader, he's a crap president. Most republicans agree with this as well. I don't place the blame on Bush, because it was pretty obvious where we were going in the last few years of the Clinton administration, & congress has pretty much gone along with everything he has pushed through that's non-constitutional. Also, were you really in Consolidated? Crazy!
ReplyDeleteGood point about the pledge. How does this scan, by comparison?
ReplyDelete"I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my family. I care about my country. Because I care, I promise to be loyal to the teachings of L Ron Hubbard, and to diligently work for the success of Scientology as a whole."
Only an idiot would oppose freedom and liberty. Only a villain would object to family + country.
Right?
If you stumbled upon a stadium full of 2000 people robotically raising their arms and chanting the name of someone else - anyone, really - besides George W Bush here, I think you might see the bigger picture in a way that your own enthusiaism for the man "chosen by God" to lead the US might be blinding you to a bit here.
NOt that I blame you, its always tough to admit you've been taken for a ride...
See, I don't have time for this kind of bullshit:
ReplyDeleteScientology breaks up families - not brings them together. The niece of the current leader of Scientology is talking about how they broke up her family right now.
I'm assuming this "anonymous" is the same cowardly one that's written in before, so I want to ask you a question:
Why are you so insistent on being an apologist for nonsense? I mean it: I want to know. What's your motivation for trying to lead people away from rational thought? Equating the president with L. Ron Hubbard is nutty, but you seem to think it's nutty to switch that around, why?
You make no sense.
Oh, wait - I just re-read that last line:
ReplyDelete"its always tough to admit you've been taken for a ride..."
This is, obviously, an ego trip for you. You want to bring me down for the crime of actually knowing things. (Heavens!) That's why you're willing to go so far as to equate a man who's a fraud (Hubbard) with a man who's proven his devotion to his country (Bush).
That's just sad, man. But it makes my point about how far NewAgers will go to defend their beliefs. Like that KGB agent said, no amount of proof will suffice for people like you. You think, once you've brought us down low, that you'll get something but I wonder what that is. He says you'll merely be disposed of because you're stupid.
I couldn't agree more.
Hhuh?
ReplyDeleteWho said anything about "New Agers?"
Yet more red herrings and strawmen from the Crack Emcee.
You don't think 9 month National Guard deployments "breaks up families"?
I've suggested a standard based on "rational thought" - anyone who claims they were "chosen by God" to lead humanity, who leads stadiums in robotic chantings and loyalty plegdges, who denies public accountability and who repeats himself over and over for the explicit reason that this lets "the propaganda sink in" is setting themselves up as an authoritarian cultist, and so people should be very skeptical.
And like most cultists, of course, you can see the human logic of that and agree that certain stadards should apply - to anyone, of course, but your own "Dear Leader."
Like I said, it's tough to admit when you've been taken for a ride.
***************
Why do Bush supporters possess beliefs about Bush and his positions that aren't supported by the facts? PIPA opines what others have been speculating for a while: gross and widespread cognitive dissonance.
In looking at PIPA's conclusions, it appears to me that Bush supporters are so overwhelmed by hero-worship towards Bush in the aftermath of 9/11 and so well manipulated by the White House and Fox News that they cannot conceive that their hero could hold positions at odds with their own.
"The roots of the Bush supporters' resistance to information," according to Steven Kull, "very likely lie in the traumatic experience of 9/11 and equally in the near pitch-perfect leadership that President Bush showed in its immediate wake. This appears to have created a powerful bond between Bush and his supporters--and an idealized image of the President that makes it difficult for his supporters to imagine that he could have made incorrect judgments before the war, that world public opinion could be critical of his policies or that the President could hold foreign policy positions that are at odds with his supporters."
In other words, a cult.
Who said anything about NewAgers? I did, Idiot. I know 'em when I see 'em, and you fit the bill, completely. It's the nonsensical frothing at the mouth - about your own president - that gave you away.
ReplyDeleteAnd, in case you didn't know, I served in the United States Navy during the Iranian Hostage Crisis - did over nine months in the Persian Gulf (almost a year and a half, actually) - and my family did fine, Asshole. You pussy civilians don't know shit but the propaganda the NYT tells you. Servicemen are fine - better than you, I'm sure.
And I notice you switched the president's quote from trying to "catapult the propaganda" to your own make believe quote that he's letting "the propaganda sink in". As I said, your kind couldn't play fair to save your life.
Bush is a Christian - nothing unusual about that in America - I'm an atheist and disagree with him about it (immediately putting the lie to any idea I'm goose-stepping behind him or don't have my own standards I hold him to) but, on the big issues that concern our country, he's "spot-on" (as the British say) and I'm a big enough man to give him his due.
You, on the other hand, have already proven - in a time of war - you're willing to twist the words of the President of the United States, equate him with a cult leader (Hubbard), and attempt to denigrate those that support him, merely to see things your own mixed-up way. Yes indeed, that's quite a resume you're building for yourself, there. It's no wonder you hide your name, you big baby.
Let's see, what other nonsense have you got for me? (I'm telling you, though, this is getting old fast,...) First, there's this silly quote:
"Why do Bush supporters possess beliefs about Bush and his positions that aren't supported by the facts? PIPA opines what others have been speculating for a while: gross and widespread cognitive dissonance. "
What beliefs? What positions? What facts? All you have are CHARGES and nothing more. Charges that are so outrageous, both, the Democratically-controlled Congress and the Senate won't bring them to the table because they're nothing but the wild rantings of a ignorant pack of mad dogs. THAT's where the "widespread cognitive dissonance" is occurring. You keep throwing this crap out there - and nothing sticks - but (just as I said) you're incapable of reassessing your own position; of asking yourself if YOU'VE got it wrong. No - now you've resorted to PROJECTING your own problem on to others. Bravo! You're an idiot!
"In looking at PIPA's conclusions, it appears to me that Bush supporters are so overwhelmed by hero-worship towards Bush in the aftermath of 9/11 and so well manipulated by the White House and Fox News that they cannot conceive that their hero could hold positions at odds with their own."
Yada, yada, liberal mind-mush, yada. I don't owe this to the likes of you but I'ma say it anyway:
1) There's nothing wrong with liking the guy that took the fight to our enemies. He deserves it, actually, it's the decent thing to do. Not this asshole shameless display you make of yourself.
2) I wasn't "manipulated by the White House" but, instead, moved to France and discovered those idiots didn't know anything - anything - about the United States, but still insisted on talking mucho shit about us. Pretty much, the same line you've bought, which is just NewAge Left-wing, nonsense propaganda. I rejected it as soon as I learned the facts for myself because, unlike most Lefties, I try to have integrity.
3) I never really laid eyes on FOX News until 2006 - a full two and a half years after I started liking the president - so this idea it brainwashes people is nonsense too. I haven't seen it in over a year, actually.
And see, that's why I know you're a NewAger - you fit the bill so perfectly: You're doing everything I described above, to-a-T.
You're a cult apologist.
You're hung up on mainstream religion.
You're unreasonable in a uniquely fascistic fashion.
You're apparently throwing this stuff out impulsively, without giving it much real thought.
You're willing to lie (changing Bush's quote).
You're insisting on redefinitions of reality to make yourself feel comfortable.
You don't think anyone has a right to a conservative viewpoint.
You don't apologize - or even acknowledge it - when proven wrong.
You're an ass.
"The roots of the Bush supporters' resistance to information," according to Steven Kull, "very likely lie in the traumatic experience of 9/11 and equally in the near pitch-perfect leadership that President Bush showed in its immediate wake. This appears to have created a powerful bond between Bush and his supporters--and an idealized image of the President that makes it difficult for his supporters to imagine that he could have made incorrect judgments before the war, that world public opinion could be critical of his policies or that the President could hold foreign policy positions that are at odds with his supporters."
Um, idiot, he was in office only 8 months before 9/11. Bill Clinton was in the White House for 8 years and didn't do shit but drive Richard Clarke batty but, of course, you don't give a shit about that, now do you?
And "world public opinion"? Fuck "world public opinion" - he's The President of the United States. His job is to LOOK OUT FOR US while the "world" does it's worst to get one up on us. We're having an election, right now, and guess what? The "world" doesn't get a vote, asshole! And this president's foreign policy positions aren't "at odds" with this supporter but, instead, perfectly in synch with everything I know needs to be done. Why? I've traveled the world and don't see those outside "The New World" (that's us, dummy) as being more enlightened, but as human beings, just like we are. Capable of the same mistakes, and few more too, because they can be so much more stupid without a decent education.
Now once again, "anonymous", I think I'm about done with you. I don't like this game and I'm too smart to play it for very long. Wise up or leave me alone. It's my blog and I let the comments be seen that are worth it. Yours, unfortunately, are proving not to be worth the time.
Good day.