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.

Now'a'days Having More Than Two Years Of College Is Enough To Embarrass Yourself

Man, the longer we glance at Glenn Reynolds' little collective the more we understand Shakespeare's directive to "first, kill all the lawyers." Actually that's not true, but our image of lawyers - and especially those who also hold the title of "professor" - has definitely come down sharply. Sharp enough we're almost glad we didn't finish college.

See, we know we're smart but (contrary to what others think) we've never considered ourselves "all that". We've always known there are others out there who are supposed to be much, much smarter than any rock and roll artist with a hang-up for reading. But, now that we've met some of these top-of-their-class types online, we're not always so sure.

We expected brilliance and we get "meh". We wanted fighters for the American way and we get Reynolds' repeated woe-is-me interjections about trying to buy a Nissan Leaf and his fetish for the whores at Frisky. Ann Althouse's various unhinged NewAge observations in favor of feminism, special privileges for gays, and "Dancing With The Stars". And now this from Classical Values' Eric Scheie:

Perhaps I came across as being too fair to Andrew Sullivan.

Perhaps? Perhaps? Jesus, for lawyers you guys can be s-l-o-w.

We were asking back in 2008 how it was possible Sullivan even held a writing job - a fact we still don't understand. Well we do, kinda, now that we're familiar with the mindset of those who hold the unique position in American business known both as "management" and/or "Human Resources", but - other than that - no, we don't get it.

If we're losing you here (as we're also feeling kind of lost) then let's get this puppy back-on-track:

Attempting to be fair to Andrew Sullivan is wrong.

Why? Because Andrew Sullivan is a NewAger (What else?) and, as Glenn Reynolds' friends Jonah Goldberg and Bill Whittle have noticed, NewAgers are old wine in new bottle Nazis.

By the way, we can also add Neil Davenport of Spiked Magazine for writing:

"There is a peculiar paradox that while Nazi Germany is held up as a symbol of evil today, many of the core ideas and beliefs associated with Nazism, such as the mystical worship of nature and hostility towards Enlightenment modernity, are increasingly commonplace amongst today’s radical middle classes."

Fascinating, huh? Especially when you consider Reynolds' recent comment that:

Communists are as bad as Nazis, and their defenders and apologists are as bad as Nazis’ defenders, but far more common. When you meet them, show them no respect. They’re evil, stupid, and dishonest. They should not enjoy the consequences of their behavior.

We should point out, here, that it was this comment that brought Andrew Sullivan to Eric Scheie's attention, because Sullivan answered Reynolds' quote by asking, "What does that last sentence mean? Is it some kind of threat?"

Only to you, Andy, only to you.

Now we get that, for some, this NewAge = Nazi thing might seem to be a bit much, but we think we're on pretty firm ground with it, and the illustrious group of names supporting it (Goldberg, Whittle, Davenport) makes us think we're right, though we came to the conclusion on our own. The problem for most, we think, is the fact that when Naziism is mentioned, their minds go immediately to The Holocaust - the mechanized mass slaughter of the Jews - and not to what led up to that horrible event.

Let's back up a little bit and we'll show you what we mean:

After Eric Scheie considers that playing nice with Sullivan might not have a been a good idea, he tells us he's treated Andrew in such a manner because his commenters (rightly) wanted The Macho Response:

What would people have me do? Indignantly level personal attacks on Sullivan? He is a blogger, and even though he is a lot more prominent and influential than I am, it seems like a cheap shot for me to hurl insults his way. (As regular readers know, hurling insults is not my style.) But it seems that now that I am being criticized for mentioning him at all, by someone who thinks I am being a weenie for treating him as if he is sane.

What is the lesson here? To either launch a vituperative attack or just remain silent? That would leave me with nothing to say at all. 

If I see something that strikes me as worthy of criticism, I will try to address it logically.

Ooh, bad form, dude.

Trying to be logical is a major problem when confronting either NewAgers or NewAge itself. As a matter of fact, the more one tries to be logical, the more NewAgers take it as a sign you're weak and willing to be taken advantage of. They're fascists who only respect power, and (because of the peculiar make-up of their mental state) the only way they understand opposition is when it's directed at them in the some illogical manner - i.e. you must "indignantly level personal attacks", take "a cheap shot", and "hurl insults", or else you are "a weenie" for treating them as if they are sane.

How do you think we got this gig?

Sorry but it's the only way:

We didn't make the (kooky) rules.

For an example of how logical Scheie can be, he then takes on American Family Association leader Bryan Fischer, saying "Fischer is one of those 'Hitler was gay' believers, and he has gone to great lengths to tie homosexuality to Nazism." Scheie follows that by saying:

I hate to be a party pooper, but the above is not accurate. While there was a homosexual clique in the early days of the brownshirts, Hitler (using Himmler as his henchman) had them uprooted and killed in the notorious Night of the Long Knives. That was in 1934 -- years before the savagery and brutality that the Nazis inflicted on the world, and on the Jews.

Now, we think we should add that we agree with Scheie here - we don't think Hitler was gay or that gays were responsible for the Holocaust - but we would like to use this quote to suggest there were various forces put into play that came into being "years before the savagery and brutality that the Nazis inflicted on the world, and on the Jews." And, as Goldberg, Whittle and Davenport have noticed, all of them are popular in today's NewAge/Leftist/Progressive culture.

We've mentioned before that, when our ex-wife's murders happened and we were shunned by the other NewAgers around us, it was mostly our Jewish friends who stuck by us. Except for the "progressive" sorts, the Jews didn't question our ravings about cults and the like, as others do. They said this was old news to them because - specifically mentioning WWII - they had seen this all before, and have been keeping an eye on it since, as these influences continue to crawl through Western culture.

As far as the rest of you, in our opinion it's only those already under it's influence (Ann Althouse) or those too "sophisticated" to entertain that NewAge is anything but "harmless" (Glenn Reynolds) that are the biggest problem to stamping out this threat. They don't understand what a race-based government, the spread of environmentalism, the occult, divorce, quackery, etc., actually means. They appear to think these are all signs of some new liberated post-60s ideal of "progress." Nonsense.

This is where democracies go to die.

Ain't That Peculiar? And Such Nice People!

"There is a peculiar paradox that while Nazi Germany is held up as a symbol of evil today, many of the core ideas and beliefs associated with Nazism, such as the mystical worship of nature and hostility towards Enlightenment modernity, are increasingly commonplace amongst today’s radical middle classes."

-- Neil Davenport, writing in Spiked!