The Weirdness Known As The Macho Response Is Moving (Off The Beaten Track)

The Macho Response is now blogging for our chronicle of NewAge cultism, The Coal Train, and so - after 3 million visits here - all further updates will be there. 

Thank you,

The Crack Emcee

Blinded By The Light

Instead of saying "If You Watched This Elizabeth Holmes TED Talk From 2014, It Was Clear She Was a Fraud From Day One." they could have said "This was before Trump, and anyone - with common sense - could see it from a mile away":

"She used plenty of interesting factoids. She said words like engagement, knowledge, and access. She shifted to a personal story. She lulled us, she calmed us. She talked about things we care about. That are quite serious.

And yet, we were not really listening.

She never really said anything about the science.

Or the tests.

Or the clinics.

Or anything concrete.

She mentioned a few notes here and there about blood tests and fingers. The word nanotainer should have been like a neon sign to all of us, a blinking light at an adult book store eliciting scrutiny and skepticism. Really? Nanotainer? You might as well use the phrase Theranos wellness center. (Wait, she did use that phrase.) 

Words matter. 

But not back then.

Whenever the public's ready to blame itself, I'm ready for their apologies. Promise.

Jordan Peterson vs Peter Jordanson

HARSH

Seeing karma in action leaves the U.S. cold. It leaves China that way, too.

Is Beyonce A Witch?

Normally, I wouldn't even trip on this article, but I am because, right before I saw it, I had just been turned on to this interview with Fat Joe (below) who had some pretty creepy things to say about the Queen Bey's posse, which ain't like him to do, so....I don't know. That "illuminati" chatter has always followed Jay-Z around, but, maybe, it was Bey who bought into it. Go to 16:20 and see what you think:

 I know it's not much, but it's enough to make me wonder.

Is This The Face Of A People On Some NewAge Search For How To Be "Happy"?

Pharmacists In Germany And The UK Agree: Homeopathy Is A Load Of Bollocks

Well, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s verdict on homeopathy has come to town, and it's almost identical to the Krauts', so we can only conclude one thing:

If you've ever licked a homeopath's balls, you couldn't aim lower.

Unless, of course, you worked at GOOP...

Hooray!: "James Randi - An Honest Liar" Is Now Online For Everybody To Watch

If America, and it's people, were who we say we are, this man - and his work - would be much more famous. As it is, he's known just well enough to be my hero.

Sexy Time

"It's not like the signs weren't there. It's just I wasn't wanting to put them together and understand them, because I just wanted to keep doing it."

I'm Just Going To Let This Comment Sit There A While For Your Personal Perusal

Everything Seems To Be Up-In-The-Air At This Point

Boy - for a time and place that's said to have been going fine and dandy - I sure can find a whole bunch of "looks like a cult" newspaper-type columns out there:

"The video is weird almost beyond belief, and it makes Google appear like a cult in the rigidity of the doctrines held and inculcated by its leadership. At one point, everyone is instructed to hug the person next to him, as at a human-potential movement weekend. It’s enough to make a reasonable person of moderate temperament gag."

And - Hey! - I'm now "a reasonable person of moderate temperament" - while y'all are weirdos, still awaiting your "Oh shit, it's a cult!" moment. Now THAT'S new!

A New Movie About The Oregonians Sacrificing Kids To Beat Death Or Good Men Trying To Do The Best They Can To Please Their God For Their Heavenly Reward

You've Eventually Got To Learn You Must Take It (If There's Nothing Pinned Down)

What happens in a country that knows psychics don't have powers, but lets them operate anyway? The authorities start to make it really easy for others - like a company of NewAge bullshit artists who became worth half a billion dollars:

Goop to Pay $145,000 Settlement for 'Misleading' Claims About the Effectiveness of Vaginal Eggs

Ouch. That's not gonna hurt. I can see how this plays out elsewhere in society:

One reason the break-ins have become so common is that almost no one is ever arrested in these cases. Back in January, the San Francisco Chronicle reported there had been 81,000 reported break-ins over a period of seven years, but only 13 cases resulted in arrests.

So, the NewAge is a criminal heyday. But that's what happens in a country that knows psychics don't have powers, but lets them operate anyway. So now what?

A Little Breeze

I wanted to make sure I recorded that I saw these words, in print, somewhere else:

This is insanity.

That is all. You can go back to pretending now.

"I Hate Your Face!"

GOOP: Stephen Don't Know, Gwyneth Don't Know: Nobody Knows, But The Hoes

Once I Discovered The Matrix I Was Doomed To A Lifetime In This Dystopian Hell

Almost two decades later, this sounds like kind of a familiar - rather than unique - experience, for some overseas at the time (as I soon was) watching 9/11 unfold:

I had just gotten back from a year in France....In the weeks that followed, I watched the American news with one eye, and its European counterpart with the other....The one time my country could side with the U.S. was when America was on its knees, but when it refused to stay down it quickly went back to the smug relativism of World War II, the icy efficiency of a country never having to fight for either ethics or its existence.

Soon enough, the narrative was clear....Bush was a moron and a puppet. America was killing innocent people for oil. It went on and on, and all I could think was that if I know that these things are not true, then what other lies have I accepted as truth throughout my life?

So I pulled at the thread of my ideology, and it all unraveled before me.

If, instead of "a European Upper-Middle-Class Radical", this woman had been poor and black - here or in France - then she would've really had a problem.

Hello, Dalai - News Flash: He's Not Reincarnated And Tibet's Now Going To China

Of course, just like The Pope, he said nothing to anyone and let the kids suffer:

Dalai Lama: I knew of sex abuse by Buddhist teachers since 1990s

You can still worship him, if you want, but - if his position wasn't much help when it comes to reporting child abuse - I doubt it'll work, in any other context, either.

Black Bird Singing (In The Dead Of Night)

Paul McCartney did a song declaring Trump "mad" and the media - including the conservative media - makes sure the world knows and hears it. But, make a song about the Democrats - and even promote it to conservative outlets - and they'll make sure A) it will never see the light of day, and B) the artist is ignored, or destroyed, if they haven't conformed to their ideological image of conservatism.

Just a warning to any black artists considering a switch: The Right hates you, and will make life as miserable as any Democrats - unless you suck their dicks, too.

The Way The NewAge "Works" Is Always In Direct Proportion To How It Does Not

Long before Trump was president, and Steve Jobs died, the madness was real:

In spite of pleas from family and friends, he tried to cure himself through acupuncture sessions, drinking special fruit juices, visiting "spiritualists" and using other treatments he found on the internet....Mr Jobs told [Obama] that the US was too unfriendly to business, and that companies would rather build factories in China than in America, where they were frustrated by "regulations and unnecessary costs".

Steve died: Problem solved.

Life Starts When Cultists Say "Don't Tell Nobody" (And Seems To End There, Too)

No one still talks like this but me - and other victims of cults and child abuse, who've been through it, somehow - and can still smile sweetly for the camera:

These cultists created a cultural lore of people being able to read minds and use super mental powers. They supported this belief by living in their echo chambers. Really though, they were weak, desperate people, easily overcome by my basic psychological strategies. I developed them simply by...just observing. All I needed to do then was rise above the pain and emotion, at least temporarily, and deliver the payload in words. Their robotic minds react in a predictable fashion.

What's weird is, while "living in their echo chambers" could be describing almost anyone in our politically-partisan era (but especially the Democrats) cultists - by definition - can't see they've formed cults, because they're the ones "in" them (How do you assist someone, who doesn't know they're sick, so waves away all interventions as wasteful hypochondria?). They're even turning down pot, y'all.

You can't "help" the insane.

It Might Just Be Past Time For The Democrats To Abandon Their Own Judgement

First, after kissing the con artist, Elizabeth Theranos Holmes, former Democrat President Bill Clinton said "the country is in good hands." And now we hear this:

"Cynthia Nixon, who in July called Ms. [Julia] Salazar “the future of the Democratic Party,” never wavered,...No matter how many things Ms. Salazar makes up,..."

If con artistry and lying are qualities Democrats hate (for instance, when seen in President Trump) it sure doesn't show, because they're promising it for the future.

Animals

At least now they're noticing:

"When nearly the whole company right up to the CEO is on the partisan left (as we just saw at Google) you are risking your job to disagree."

When it's a whole city (like San Francisco or Berkeley) you're risking your life.

A True Story: Dan & SF's Fab Four - Jim, John, George & Harvey (Who Milked It)

In November of 1978, immediately after San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were murdered in City Hall, the police asked their assassin, former police and fireman (and, now, former Supervisor) Dan White when he'd previously ever brought his firearm to the federal building:

"I guess it was a few months ago. I, I was afraid of some of the threats that were made and I had a committee hearing coming up where some of these people were going to appear and I, and I know they had a history of violence..."

Who were "these people" with "a history of violence" making "threats" but still openly "going to appear" at an upcoming committee hearing? Back in 2003, the late Michael Bellefountaine's work in the article "Research on Harvey Milk Renews Calls for Reappraisal of Peoples Temple" hinted at one possibility:

"If there were any connection between the City Hall murders and Peoples Temple, it would clearly have been because Milk and Moscone were too closely tied to Jones and the Temple."

You think? And what did "too closely tied" even mean? Could it be what the cult leader himself, Jim Jones, once told Peoples Temple member Deborah Layton?

"Don't think you can get away with bad-mouthing this church. Mayor Moscone is my friend and he'll support my efforts to seek you out and destroy you." 

Michael Bellefountaine seemed to think so when he also wrote:

"One story has it that Milk asked Peoples Temple to remove his name from the church’s list of supporters when reports of violence and theft first came to light, and that he was outraged when the Temple failed to comply with his demand. Eventually, history settled on an official story: Jim Jones was a master manipulator who used unwitting local politicians to gain power for himself. The politicians, including Milk and Moscone, used Jones for volunteers and votes, while remaining personally distant and blissfully unaware of rumors of Temple violence, abuse, theft and even murder."

But were they "personally distant and blissfully unaware"? Dan White certainly didn't think so - which seems to be entirely why Harvey Milk got himself killed:

I didn't agree with [Harvey] on a lot of things but I was always honest, you know, and here they were devious and then he started kind of smirking cause he knew, he knew that I wasn't going to be reappointed. And ah, . . . .it just didn't make any impres­sion on him. I started to say you know how hard I worked for it and what it meant to me and my family an then my reputation as, as a hard worker, good honest person and he just kind of smirked at me as if to say, too bad an then an then I just got all flushed an, an hot an I shot him.

Which sounds too guilty, until you ponder political life in San Francisco, under cultism. Consider another resident of the wrong persuasion, John Barbagelata (March 29, 1919 – March 19, 1994) San Francisco's last Republican Supervisor and the 1975 mayoral candidate, who lost to George Moscone by 5,000 votes:

Barbagelata...opposed labor unions, hippies, and leftist radicals, which made him a target...He received numerous death threats, a bomb was exploded outside his house, a gun was fired through the windows of his West Portal real estate office, and two mail bombs were sent to his house, eventually requiring 24-hour police and FBI protection for his family....Barbagelata ran for mayor in 1975 against progressive candidate George Moscone,...For the rest of his life, Barbagelata maintained that the Peoples Temple far-left religious cult, led by Jim Jones, committed election fraud in the 1975 election by busing in out-of-town church members to double- and triple-vote for Moscone under the names of dead voters.

That sounds like devious behavior, if you ask me. But no one asks. Nor cares:

"After the mass suicide at Jonestown in 1978, Temple members revealed to The New York Times that the Temple arranged for "busloads" of members to be bussed from Redwood Valley to San Francisco to vote in the election. A former Temple member stated that many of those members were not registered to vote in San Francisco, while another former member said "Jones swayed elections." Another former Temple member stated of Jones that "he told us how to vote." She stated that Temple members were required to produce booth stubs to prove that they voted, and members that could not produce such stubs were "pushed around, shoved and physically abused." When asked how Jones could know for whom they voted, the member responded "You don't understand, we wanted to do what he told us to."

They like the pretty little Leftist lie, instead: The pretty lie that they're our heroes.

"San Francisco District Attorney Freitas set up a special unit to investigate election fraud charges. He named Temple member Timothy Stoen, whom he had hired as an assistant district attorney, to lead the unit. Stoen employed Temple members as volunteers to help with work on the investigation. The Temple was not mentioned in the proceedings that followed."