TMR's Christmas Gift To You - An Extended Explanation With Links: (Just Like) Starting Over

The links in this post will tell you the whoooole story of this blog:

We want you to consider an alternate universe, where John Lennon was a passionate black artist, living in San Francisco, and Yoko Ono was his French NewAge bride and actually liked.

And, instead of John cheating on Yoko at a New York party and she sends him away to California, Yoko cheated on John while in France and, upon discovery, ran back to that country to join her lover - a Dr. Timothy Leary/Charles Manson type.

And finally - rather than this change of events leading eventually to Mark David Chapman killing John - this new trajectory led Leary/Manson and Yoko Ono to killing others.

What do you think John's reaction would've been? Do you think he would've taken the advice of most NewAgers and just "moved on", or do you think he would've gone the primal scream route to exorcise his pain and call attention to the murders?

Do you think he would've attacked the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi/NewAge hippie culture that led to this turn of events? (For instance, do you think he would've stayed shy, or become emboldened enough to call the song "Sexy Sadie" by it's real name, "Maharishi"?)

And how virulent would've been the reaction of the hippies - now siding with Dr. Timothy Leary/Charles Manson and the likable Yoko - if John had done so?

This is kind of the situation TMR found itself in, not long after it started in 2005. (The blog did not begin in 2007, as it appears now, but was sabotaged - twice - by NewAge "friends" upset with the direction it had taken, and the attention it had garnered.)

And just as we're surprised that - in this universe - even Charlie Manson has supporters after all he's done, and everything he (apparently) is, we're even more surprised at the level of hostility we've received over the years for suggesting there's something wrong with the culture that produced him - and a coming reckoning for the many crimes that culture's bestowed on the rest of us.

We've admitted, many times, that we know we're probably not the best representative for our position.

But honestly - because of a cultural acceptance of the views and positions that's produced the many crimes we've documented - there are very few attempting to bring these issues to the public, and even they don't have the up-close-and-personal experience (or insight) that someone who's been intimate with a believer - or been a believer themselves - carries.

So we're kind of stuck.

Fortunately for us (if not our readers) the immediate problems we face in this work are pretty self-evident.

We think The San Francisco Chronicle's Mick LaSalle sums it up nicely in his review of the new (former Scientologist) Nicole Kidman movie, "Rabbit Hole":

The movie's area of inquiry is essentially undramatic, a tale told in a minor key, but it's sensitive and illuminates areas of experience that usually go unexplored. What happens to the couple, each one grieving separately, each one associating the other with loss? How do friends talk to them? It's easy to console people when you don't think their misfortune is all that bad, but what do you say to somebody experiencing your own worst nightmare? "Rabbit Hole" depicts the isolating nature of grief, a self-isolation that is also, to some degree, community enforced.

In other words, no matter what you may think of us, divorced and/or broken - or how we're choosing to alert others to the dangers of cultism in general, and NewAge culture in particular - like those Charlie Manson fans, many of you are part of the problem as well.

Believe it or not, despite our apparent glee at saying something is cultish (or someone is in a cult) it still tears us up, as much as the accused, to discover this is the situation we live currently in; realizing it's the Western World's 21st century. The difference is only in our comprehension of it all.

You have to understand, though we knew nothing of cultism, homeopathy, quackery, or numerology, or any other such things, we do remember what life was like before our wife's murders and we were forced to grapple with them.

We remember what it's like to think of NewAge, and it's many tentacles, as "harmless".

We remember what it was like to unabashedly admire Oprah Winfrey, and her many accomplishments, including the legion of women who listen to, and "follow" her.

We remember what it was like to vote Democrat, to side with environmentalists, feminists, and gays.

We remember what it was like to admire aspects of socialism, and communism, and multiculturalism, and to reject sexism, and racism, and all the other "isms" that have been brought to our attention from our first days growing up in the ghettos of South Central, Los Angeles.

But now - since replacing all of that with the glory of being an un-hypenated American - we just can't stomach any of it any longer.

Now, eschewing conspiracy theories (and conspiracy theorists) and all those words imply, we stand with those who have examined this entire social phenomena anew - Christopher Locke, Jonah Goldberg, Bill Whittle, Neil Davenport, Barbara Ehrenreich, and others - and who have found a sinister threat to all we hold dear.

We stand with those who have called for a new Nuremberg Trial for it's ringleaders - and for many of it's fellow travelers.

And we stand with those who have called for a new emphasis in our schools (and especially our media) on real science, critical thinking, and common sense, for the common good.

We embrace the American Founder's "enlightenment" - and no one else's.

We have stood before you, for five long years, as merely a betrayed artist with a certain insight - and, yes, a lot of anger and resentment - that we've refused to abandon until it's acknowledged as accurate, right, and good.

We are John Lennon - across the universe - declaring, "the dream is over".

And "Merry Christmas" from The Crack Emcee.