Monday, November 29, 2010

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%.

4 comments:

  1. What you've been providing here since day one is exactly that: paranoid conspiracy theories about "cults" (when everything is a cult, then the word loses all meaning, is the point you seem to be trying to make here.)

    I take it as satire, or maybe experimental fiction, which is hopefully what you intended.

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  2. What you've been providing here since day one is exactly that: paranoid conspiracy theories about "cults" (when everything is a cult, then the word loses all meaning, is the point you seem to be trying to make here.)

    I take it as satire, or maybe experimental fiction, which is hopefully what you intended.


    You raise several points that, happily, I'm in the mood to take on:

    1) If you've been reading "since day one" then why are you critiquing me anonymously, when you'd also know I regard that behavior as cowardly? Just to piss me off? If that's the case, why should I trust your opinion on anything? And, if you know you're offering me no reason for trusting your opinion, then why offer it? I think it's because you're a liberal and, like most liberals, you just can't help yourself from doing the wrong thing. As I say often, liberals don't care about anyone but themselves, and this comment makes the point as well as anything I've written.

    2) One of my first posts taking the nuanced view that "Everything Is (NOT) A Cult" was from all the way back in 2007, and there have been several others on the topic since. I've written them exclusively for people such as yourself, who - as I wrote in this post - aren't bright enough to grasp the subject of cultism. From my 2007 post:

    This has been an argument I've heard from many people ("Everything is a cult") and I've always thought it was one of the most bullshit answers I've come across.

    "Everybody" doesn't do this. Only "close-minded" people get to the point of being cultish around an idea - like the suggested good in being "open-minded" to all things - just as I've become, completely and openly, close-minded to the idea there's any worth in cultish-thinking. I'm an "open-minded" person, but I've circled the wagons on this one.


    See? You've missed my whole thing, and have been reading and wallowing "since day one" in your own ignorance - but somehow judging me negatively by it - which is just lame. I've made this same point, repeatedly, on the blog about how liberals unfairly attack others - declaring me bad when it's you behaving in a close-minded manner. You can see what you're doing wrong, here, in the post "Learn How To Think (And We'll Never Argue)".

    Why don't go look in the mirror for a while and scream "I'm an idiot!" a few times to make amends? Let me help you with the answer:

    Because, like most cultish liberals, you can't admit when you're wrong - and refuse to entertain the idea - even when it's proven to be so.

    This is why conservatives, like me, are content with the idea of destroying your movement. It is worthy of being destroyed. It makes you into a hypocrite, someone who's unfair, and unworthy of respect. How your brain "works" is what you should take as "satire, or maybe experimental fiction." Whatever it is, it's definitely not right.

    If it was, you wouldn't have approached me in this manner now, because "since day one" I've been letting you know you're wrong to do so.

    Thanks for writing, I think.

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  3. As a matter of operational principle, Democrats and Republicans in Congress both put party before country with the Republicans behaving slightly worse on this account; both parties invariably promote big government, Republicans favoring empire and Democrats favoring bread and circuses but both parties will equivocate if it means undercutting its rival; in the panic that overwhelmed the government after 9/11, the interests of both parties momentarily converged.

    The Republicans got their wars, defense spending, and free hand in the propagation thereof with Democratic support; the Democrats got their bloated TSA and Department of Homeland Security with Republican aquiescence.

    The Parties won; everybody else lost. And so it goes.

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  4. Firayele,

    As a matter of operational principle, Democrats and Republicans in Congress both put party before country with the Republicans behaving slightly worse on this account,...

    It's always a nice trick when I hear an idiot let their cynicism crawl so far up their butt it comes out their mouth as political speech.

    Christ, where do you guys come up with this stuff? Do you not know any actual human beings? Are they all as cynical as you are? Are their motives as base as the ones you're projecting - meaning as base as yours? Because, you know, that's all you're saying, don't you? "I'm a shitty asshole and I assume everyone else is as well"?

    I am so glad I moved away from people who say and think things like that. I can't stop you from writing in, but - thank goodness - I'm relieved to have discovered I don't have to live around you anymore:

    You don't understand anything about your own country.

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