The Reason Why We Do What We Do (Doo Doo)

TMR has always been very aware of how difficult it is to get a clear "meeting of the minds' with others - especially in a world filled with "believers" in one bit of cultish nonsense or another.

We noticed it from the very beginning of the blog, when we started investigating what and how cultists believe, and many readers assumed those were our beliefs - or (after actually catching our drift) started defending those outrageous beliefs themselves.

Their reactions confused us so much (and, too many times, depressed us so badly) that - for our own mental well-being - we've pretty much abandoned the oh-so-serious goals TMR started off with, and have happily settled into the role of giving believers of all kinds a home for what they really deserve:

Shameless wisecracks and free-floating ad hominem attacks.

Now, sure, occasionally we will still tell you what's going on, straight, ostensibly for the purpose for "snapping" a few of you, but - let's face it - we're under no illusions, seeing the situation as basically hopeless, and any progress as so incremental it might as well not have happened at all.

(We now prefer the 9/11 approach, where some massive act of stupidity allows something really, really bad to happen so - overnight - everyone gets a clue and starts letting old people have a seat on the bus for three or four days.)

We got to thinking about all this as we read an article in The Telegraph about those "new" WikiLeaks disclosures.

The article is by someone with the cool-assed honorary TMR name of Praveen Swami, and he basically says - as we repeatedly point out - that there's nothing "new" in the "news" we're getting about America's diplomatic cables, except that the politicians we're reading about are all essentially barking mad:

In a thoughtful interview, Chip Berlet, a political researcher, noted that both the political Left and Right in the US were increasingly prone to “Manichean thinking: there are evil forces in the world and good people have to expose them, and everything will be fine once they are exposed. This is a magical explanation of how the world works.”

Paranoiacs who claim that the world is run by conspiracy – and a 2006 essay written by Mr Assange raises fears he is among them – are evidence of the regrettable lack of access some in genuine need have to psychiatric care.

But the fact is that the paranoiacs are gaining strength because of the diminishing time both the media and its consumers are willing to devote to real knowledge about the world around them. In recent years, conspiratorialist thinking has led to the exercise of state power being cast as a dark art practiced by sorcerers in the service of evil power. Wikileaks’ media partners have done a real disservice by having pandered to this delusion. The answer, though, isn’t outrage: its information.

And check out the graphic the paper uses to illustrate the mindset of our political class:

That could be said to be the same one we use, day after day after day. But no one "believes" us - though we've provided multiples of examples - because they're still not sure what we're asking them to "believe" in, instead.

Here's a hint:

We don't even "believe" in the concept of "believing".

Anyway, we're sure, one of these days you'll get it (and give us lots of money) but we're not going to hold our breath, because - when even "the best and brightest" can be sucked into a mental landscape that's no better than a "spiritually" political Pee-Wee's Playhouse in Space - we're getting far more enjoyment from pointing and calling you names than we ever could from saving you from yourselves.

So, keep up the good work, Losers. We're with you, 100%.