"Do you think there was a kind of desire, to believe in a conspiracy of the liberal elite, all misbehaving in gross ways that ordinary folks could never think about?"
"Certainly, rationality is beleaguered these days. This is one of the last major newspapers in the country not to publish a horoscope,...non-science, nonsense, the elevation of emotion over fact, is on the rise, whether it's the extraordinary faith in homeopathy or the voodoo economics of the neoliberal right or the healing power of crystals. To read here of Tony and Cherie Blair's rebirthing experience in a Mexican mud bath in 2001 is to be torn between contempt and hilarity.
That our leaders for the past 25 years or so have been as cretinous as anyone else who believes there are fairies at the bottom of their garden is not exactly consoling. The powerful are protected from the consequences of their credulity; we are not."
Folks, were you scurred of Mitt Romney? How about Sarah Palin? Well there's another scary monster laboring under logic well below even their Down Syndrome love child:
"Tony Blair says murder of Lee Rigby PROVES 'there is a problem within Islam'"
Yessireebob, here we go again!
What Lee Rigby's murder PROVES is the "educated" West still can't take a fair look at something and - from that one look alone - know when it's definitely wrong and should be stopped.
We're told we're too "unsophisticated" for that, got to get a bit more history and cult-cha.
We've not enough century's old circular thinking to cause further movement.
So - brilliance - somebody's gotta die.
That's so the bright apes see (cough) "there is a problem".
I think that's too late.
I know, like most people, the dead guy isn't even agreeing with me - right now - but probably thinks I'm just another crazy "recording artist" with no intention of ever meeting him (or anyone else) half way.
Not true:
And I'm doing 360s on everybody, first chance I get, just to make the point,...
We talked about all this years ago - British royalty and politicians having their toenails analyzed, to predict the future, being the worst of it - but The Daily Mail has some new stuff from Alastair Campbell's book, on the hideous beast above, so here it is:
Tony Blair allowed his wife Cherie to wear a pendant to ‘ward off evil spirits’ because she needed to be ‘slightly mad’ to cope with life at No 10.
The revelation comes in the latest installment of diaries by Mr Blair’s former spin chief Alastair Campbell.
In the volume, which covers the first two years of Mr Blair’s premiership and will be published later this month, Mr Campbell tells how he warned the ex-prime minister about Cherie’s ‘madder stuff’, such as her support for alternative therapies.
In a section on Cherie, Mr Campbell discussed a report in a newspaper about a ‘bioelectric shield’ pendant ‘that was supposed to ward off evil spirits and harmful rays’ she had been pictured wearing.
He writes: ‘I said to Fiona (Millar, Campbell’s partner and an adviser to Cherie), she had to get a hold of all this madder stuff but she said Cherie never raised it with her because she knew she would disapprove.’
Mr Campbell also discussed Cherie’s interest in alternative therapies with her husband.
‘TB said they had to be slightly mad to cope,’ he wrote.
‘He was very sympathetic to Cherie doing this alternative b******s because of he thought it was her way of coping.’
In December 1998, as he was poised to order a bombing of Iraq – four-and-a-half years before the full-scale invasion – Mr Campbell’s diaries reveal how Mr Blair relied on his Christianity to help him decide what to do.
‘TB was clearly having a bit of a wobble. He said he had been reading the Bible last night, as he often did when the really big decisions were on, and he had read something about John the Baptist and Herod which had caused him to rethink, albeit not change his mind.’
Except that Cherie got the pendant from Hillary Clinton - now our Secretary of State - and (for the billionth time) Republicans should use this knowledge, we have nothing more to add but "AAARRRGGGUUUHHH!!!!"
Once you assume a creator and a plan it make us subjects in a cruel experiment,...celestial dictatorship, a kind of divine North Korea.
Religion forces nice people to do unkind things, and also makes intelligent people say stupid things.
It's very touching for Tony to say that he recently went to a meeting to bridge the religious divide in Northern Ireland, where does the religious divide come from? Four-hundred years and more in my own country of birth of people killing each other's children depending on what kind of Christian they were.
Is it good for the world to worship a deity that takes sides in wars and human affairs, to appeal to our fear and to our guilt — is it good for the world? To terrify children with the image of hell ... to consider women an inferior creation. Is that good for the world?
"What are we to make of a world where our political leaders make obeisance to the New Age guru? For some time now political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic have shown a proclivity for embracing the guidance of mystics. It is well known that former US President Ronald Reagan relied on an astrologer to draw up horoscopes to guide his diplomacy. For example, before the 1985 Geneva summit the astrologer Joan Quigley was asked to study the ‘star charts’ of Gorbachev in order to anticipate his likely behaviour. Apparently, she also determined the exact time at which Reagan had to sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty in December 1987. The Clinton White House preferred more psychologically oriented superstition. Bill Clinton has frequently consulted self-help gurus to help him find his way and Hillary frequently hooked up with Jean Houston — who describes herself as a sacred psychologist — and other psychic mentors.
‘New Labour, Old Superstition’ is the slogan that best describes the lifestyle of the Blairs. Although there is as yet no lifestyle guru in the Cabinet, the influence of superstition is ubiquitous. Tony and Cherie Blair’s Mayan rebirthing ritual during a holiday in Mexico in 2001 represents a statement about contemporary authority. As they smeared watermelon and papaya over each other in a perfumed mud bath, possibly a new policy initiative was born. Maybe it was this experience that encouraged the government to recruit a feng shui consultant to advise the NHS. When the Prime Minister and his family employ someone to tell them how to dress, exercise, relax and eat, what we witness is the emergence of a new form of authority.
Through their behaviour and practices, public figures and the cultural elite have served to legitimise the status of the life expert. This development has been amplified through the activities of the media. It has contributed to the normalisation of makeover and celebrity culture. That is why, increasingly, the authority of the lifestyle guru and celebrity assumes importance in public life. Back in January, Cherie Blair’s former lifestyle guru Carole Caplin took it upon herself to urge the public not to vote for Labour unless it withdrew proposals to ban vitamin and food supplements. A few months later, Jamie Oliver succeeded in transforming the traditionally disgraceful school dinner into a major election issue. This intervention was followed by the spectacle of the Gleneagles summit during which the leaders of the world were told off for being naughty as they sat at the feet of former pop brat Sir Bob Geldof.
While it is unlikely that lifestyle and celebrity gurus will make poverty history, they have proved effective in marginalising critical thinking, rationality and moral literacy. When in the middle of a general election campaign the nation forgets that there is a war going on or that public services are in a state of disarray, and engages instead in a conversation with a celebrity chef, then something has clearly gone wrong."
-- Frank Furedi, "The Age of Unreason", November 18th, 2005, in The Spectator.
"The Obama administration interpreted the political climate in an entirely different way. As John F. Harris and Carol E. Lee wrote in a smart piece in Politico on Wednesday, the administration interpreted the 2008 election as a rejection of not only George W. Bush-style conservatism, but also Bill Clinton-style moderation. The country was ready for a New Deal-size change. It had a leader in Barack Obama who could uniquely inspire a national transformation.
As happens every four years, hubris defeated caution, and the administration began its big-bang approach.
As always, it backfired. Instead of building trust in government, the Democrats have magnified distrust. The country already believed Washington is out of touch with its core concerns. So while most families were concerned about jobs, Democrats in Washington spent nine months arguing about health care. The country was already tired of self-serving back-room deals, so the Democrats negotiated a series of dirty deals with the pharmaceutical industry, the unions and certain senators. Americans already felt Washington doesn’t understand their fears and insecurities. So at the moment when economic insecurity was at its peak, the Democrats in Washington added another layer of insecurity by threatening to change everything at once.
Instead of building a new majority, the Democrats have set off a distrust insurrection (which is not the same as a conservative insurrection). Republicans are enraged. Independents are furious. Democrats are disheartened. Health care reform is brutally unpopular. Even voters in Massachusetts decided it was time to send a message."
-- David Brooks, "Politics in the Age of Distrust", January 21, 2010, in The New york Times.
"We've got a bunch of NewAgers in there,...and if we don't understand who these people are, we're never going to defeat them."
"The good news: They exceeded their fundraising target by 2,700 percent. The bad news: They totally wussed out by tossing 'probably' in the slogan. The worst news: They couldn’t think of anything better to do with £135,000 than buy dopey ads on the side of a bus."
-- Allah Pundit, getting to the pink, red and yellow Richard Dawkins and Co. before TMR did (but coming to exactly the same sad conclusions) on Hot Air.
Really - if those English twits had donated even a bit of that money to TMR the whole world would be different now. TMR figues they just want publicity, because this sure isn't helping,...nor are they making way (or a way) for anybody else.
"Mr Blair says he did not convert [to Roman Catholicism] in office because,...he feared talking about his religious beliefs would lead to people dismissing him as a ‘nutter’."
-- Simon Walters, who claims Tony Blair's sad clown of a wife, Cherie, is a devout Catholic as well, though - between the two of them - Cherie (who has been called crazy - and worse) and Tony have engaged in almost every bizarre NewAge behavior known to mankind, which has all been followed "religiously", here, and by The Daily Mail.
"Half a century ago Crawfie, the Queen's nanny, shocked the nation by penning a Buckingham Palace memoir.
[Cherie Blair's] tale reads like Crawfie with added contraceptives.
Her enemies will exult.
If I was one of the Blair children, I would not think much of the book.
Their mother presents herself pretty much as most of us imagined her — a "me" person with bells on, obsessed with self-fulfilment, oblivious of the impact of her words and actions upon others."
-- Max Hastings, columnist, reviewing NewAger Cherie Blair's memoirs for The Daily Mail
