This Talk Would Be *Much More Effective* If Phil Plait Wasn't A Dick

Conservatives Want MLK (But MLK Repudiated Them)

I've been covering Dr. King and the Teas today because I figured - since the Tea Party's rude and awkward show of embracing the great man's legacy on his birthday - their barely-hidden triumphalism (a slap in the face to black's enjoyment of the celebration) would soon backfire.

And, sure enough, my interest has already started to pay off, because somebody's found Martin Luther King, Jr. - in his own words - on conservatism, Barry Goldwater, and the Republicans:

  "It is both unfortunate and disastrous that the Republican Party has nominated Sen. Barry Goldwater as a candidate for the presidency of the United States. On the urgent issue of civil rights Sen. Goldwater represents a philosophy that is morally indefensible and politically and socially suicidal. While not a racist himself, Mr. Goldwater articulates a philosophy which gives aid and comfort to the racists.

His candidacy in philosophy will serve as an umbrella under which extremists of all stripes will stand. In light of these facts and because of my love for America, I have no alternative but to urge every Negro and every white person of goodwill to vote against Mr. Goldwater and withdraw support from any Republican candidate that does not publicly disassociate himself when it comes to Goldwater.”

That sounds about right.

 I guess all that talk the Democrats do - about how Republicans "switched sides" to the nation's racists - isn't so far-fetched, is it?

Hey, if they'll lie about Martin Luther King, the color of their skin -  and the content of their character - say they'll lie about anything.

 ADDED:

 

This Tea Party/Martin Luther King charade should end now,…

 

The Nazis Were Just Like You & Me (Well, You, Anyway)

With the obvious exception of Oprah, white people love NewAge:

"Many of us have had our hearts broken by infidelity; for others, open relationships are a delight. Setting aside judgment and suspending beliefs about whether one or the other is moral and ethical, right or wrong, leaves an open doorway for discussion and exploration."

It's little wonder, since whites allowed "spirituality" to influence American culture, there's a lot of innocent people getting traumatised.

Notice the literary slight-of-hand, when "infidelity" and "open relationships" are equated as similar, even though one is the ugliest of betrayals and the other, an agreement.

Notice the (very popular) requirement of "Setting aside judgment and suspending beliefs" in order to merely talk with candor - a talk that's obviously a monologue because you won't be saying much without your mental faculties.

And, without a "moral and ethical" framework, you're being told,  openly, not to acknowledge "right or wrong" - knowledge which forms the basis for your own protection, and the protection of those you love.

Yep, NewAge "leaves an open doorway for discussion and exploration" alright, but mostly about where this evil, bankrupt, broken, and cowardly "nature-loving" philosophy has came from:

And where it's led before,...

 

Don't Be Afraid Of Change (It's Never Really Happening)

"It depends on your mind. If you’re that stupid or it can control you like that then probably, but I don't think like that and people around me don’t think like that. Well, I hope not! I look at it as a movie. I don’t look at it like, 'yo, he’s really gonna go shoot somebody.’ I don’t think the people that rap like that are living like that. It’s just painting images you know. I don’t ever see any of that going down. You got to treat it like you’re watching the Godfather. If it was really true they probably wouldn’t be making records they would probably be out there doing that."

"In 1825 a fugitive slave named William Grimes wrote an autobiography in order to earn $500 to purchase freedom from his erstwhile master, who had discovered his whereabouts in Connecticut and was trying to remand Grimes back into slavery. At the end of his story the fugitive makes a memorable offer: "If it were not for the stripes on my back which were made while I was a slave, I would in my will, leave my skin a legacy to the government, desiring that it might be taken off and made into parchment, and then bind the constitution of glorious happy and free America." Few literary images have more vividly evoked the hypocrisy of a nation that exalted freedom while legitimising slavery."

"Harriet, now seeing the necessity for a tremendous effort,...sent out some little boys to cry fire."

"They are held in bondage, generation after generation, deprived of mental improvement, and who can expect them to possess much knowledge? … If they are baboons, or stand no higher in the scale of intelligence than such animals, you and men like you will have to answer for it … Talk about black skin, and black blood; why, how many slaves are there on this bayou as white as either of us? And what difference is there in the colour of the soul? Pshaw! The whole system is as absurd as it is cruel."

"I am not suggesting that these couples (mainly heterosexual, Caucasian and ages between 23 and 35) are being deceived and don’t know the history of the buildings. Rather that they simply don’t appear to give a damn. What are the murders, rapes and forcible removals of children of black people when it happened in such pretty surroundings? It reminds me of when some people were trying to get justice from my old school when it was revealed the headmaster had been abusing pupils. One man wrote online: 'Yes, but if only state schools had grounds like this!'”

"He tells of a young slave doing a task as instructed, then sent on another task, only to be whipped for not finishing the first, despite having been ordered to interrupt it. 'Maddened at such injustice,' the young slave seized an axe and 'literally chopped the overseer in pieces'; he continued to justify his action even as the rope was put around his neck."

“All that ought to be is grounded in what is. The Good is what conforms to reality. Whoever wants to know and do the good must turn his gaze toward the objective world as it is, not toward his own thoughts, or to conscience, or to values, or self-determined ideals and models. He must disregard his own act and look to reality.”

– Josef Pieper

“I don’t like Niggers, but I don’t believe in slavery, and Ben shan’t be taken away unless he chooses to go.”

"It is not the fault of the slaveholder that he is cruel, so much as it is the fault of the system under which he lives,…the influence of the iniquitous system necessarily fosters an unfeeling and cruel spirit."

"Though the Nazis had exhibited unbridled ambition, excessive patriotism and ethical deficiency, they were not monsters. Large numbers of ordinary people had the potential to act like them in certain circumstances,...

What alarmed Kelley was the thought,...Germany’s problem could become theirs, too, he told them. It was not a popular message."

"Slave-owners,...responded savagely to any slave's attempts to learn to read or write; a common punishment was amputation."

"That Study Saying Nearly Half of Black Males Get Arrested by Age 23? It’s Wrong"

"There ain't nothing to that old book. Pure fiction."

"Many,...repeated the century-old charge that the narratives were exaggerated or fabricated,...Unfortunately, much of the US coverage,...has rehearsed these invidious questions, but the underlying truths,...are beyond dispute,..."

"Slaves don't have to be saints or their masters monsters in order for slavery to be an atrocity: our stories will remain trapped in simplistic pieties until we can admit that a man could be a rogue and still have been martyred by a barbaric system in a land that has yet to accept the terms of William Grimes's offer, and admit how bound its constitution is by the flayed skin of its victims."

Back To Pure Blogging: Getting Together/Coming Apart

What else is TMR supposed to do with this?

"The single greatest task for conservatives is to fix their own leadership problems. In so doing they must avoid the single greatest mistake Obama has made, which is to rely on fantasy. The facts, however unpalatable. The truth, no matter how bitter.”

 So they're back to slapping themselves in the face - like it's instinct - admitting they can't stay rooted in reality.

"Fully considered, it becomes obvious that Rand’s views congeal into a fatally flawed philosophy. Even when stripped of its atheistic elements, Objectivism’s focus on radical individualism cuts it off from reality and causes it to wither under scrutiny. And as much as we might admire Rand’s deep-rooted hatred of collectivism, her philosophy is still just another utopian dream, a transvalued Marxism.

Ultimately, Rand’s egoism is irreconcilable with both Christianity and capitalism. In fact, since the system fails to have any true explanatory value, it’s difficult to find any reason to adopt Objectivism at all. Fortunately, we don’t have to buy into Rand’s philosophical errors in order to appreciate her fiction. We just have to keep in mind that instead of reading a 'novel of ideas', we are reading a work of fantasy."

 But they still can't admit they're doing it again. And this time, because they've lied to everybody - including themselves - so many times before.

"Rob Ford drug use leaves Conservatives uneasy, MP suggests

Immigration Minister Chris Alexander says federal Conservatives 'not fans' of hard drug users"

 Spoiler Alert: 

I think the betrayal of Benghazi line is done now.

"The French position on race is that you can come from anywhere and become French, as long as you speak French, adopt French customs, and act French.

That’s great, but they have a hard time with difference, people who maintain customs, dress, or religion that makes them appear different. And, in the case of black people, we are conspicuously different no matter how French we feel."

 "The facts, however unpalatable. The truth, no matter how bitter” is, conservatives have reduced the enterprise of governing to soap opera, displaying all the signs of bad actors (pun intended) who - like the French - are fun to watch, but still deserving of contempt and comeuppance.

  “People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.”

 History shows the answers devised, for even the country's obvious flaws, were always long in coming, and most only after a long fight - why, that has to be so, is the question.

  “These Negroes, they’re getting uppity these days. That’s a problem for us, since they got something now they never had before. The political pull to back up their upityness. Now, we’ve got to do something about this. We’ve got to give them a little something. Just enough to quiet them down, but not enough to make a difference. If we don’t move at all, their allies will line up against us. And there’ll be no way to stop them. It’ll be Reconstruction all over again.”

 I've always voted for nailing things down with facts.

  “I’m thinking about making a new cult for some extra cash on the side. What sort of preparations should I make?”

 That conservatives are back to adopting my position makes the question, of whether they are highly deliberative or of low I.Q., very real.

  "I love his premise that because Oprah is African American and successful, that means racism doesn’t exist.  If you want to talk about ignorance, that is absolute ignorance.  Seriously, racism doesn’t exist because there are successful African Americans?

During segregation there were successful African Americans.  Does that mean during segregation racism wasn’t an issue? This is the simple-minded ignorance that’s rampant throughout the entire Republican party.  It’s the kind of shallow talk that gets conservatives to stand and applaud because it sounds right—when in fact it doesn’t make any damn sense whatsoever."

I assumed they'd know how to pop a clutch, you know what I mean?

 

You Jump First (I've Been Burned On THAT One Before)

“Sober facts bring us together. Unchecked fantasies drive us apart.  This should be our focus as we move toward trying to fashion a way forward,…We need facts now, more than ever, to get our country — and our government — working again.”

The Ones

"There are reasons why films of this vein are more readily produced than others. Both economic and social values influence the resurrection of historical accounts like the Amistad while Gabriel Prosser, Harriet Tubman and Charles Deslondes suffocate in obscurity.

One thought is that white audiences should never be left feeling guilty about their ancestors’ sins. Many can walk out of the theater and say to themselves: 'I would’ve been more like Brad Pitt if I was alive during Slavery,' even though residue of the system still permeates around them today — and one could argue that there’s a shortage of mass white outrage over the fact.

In essence, the Prossers and Tubmans of our past deny Hollywood this safety net. They resisted oppression and sacrificed their lives to liberate others.

But more importantly, they don’t leave much room for white saviors. They are the black Bravehearts. And for many of us, we hope to see the day when they’re finally seen in full heroic form on the big screen."

Why This NewAge Hallmark Card Fantasy World Fails

“Affirmation feels good. But it doesn’t prompt you to summon the resources and strategies to actually accomplish the task.”

Our First Problem: People Are Willing To Be Followers

Truth is not measured by the number of its followers.

Ignore The Religious/Spiritual Battle Behind The Curtain

As Silicon Valley tech companies boom (with heady talk about paradigm shifts and disruption), the Bay Area's yogis, natural healers, therapists and philosophers want in.

Scratching Has Replaced Guitars (And Everything Else)

When informed I'm working on an album - alone - most people ask, "What instrument do you play?"

I see dead people.

And I'm embarrassed for them, revealing they understand so little about what's happened during the last 40 years. And, considering music production styles are changing - which means music (and the world) is as well - I know they're totally lost. And represent, to me, why things they've insisted on don't work.

An NHS hospital offering acupuncture has been slammed by watchdogs for making bogus claims about how the technique can cure a remarkable range of ills. 

The Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine (RLHIM), which offers alternative treatments from hypnosis to homeopathy, has been told to stop misleading patients. 

The hospital, which is part of the NHS, issued two leaflets boasting about the efficacy of the ancient Chinese therapy,  which involves inserting pins into pressure points on the body. 

It claimed that acupuncture could treat a long list of ailments, ranging from gynaecological and urinary disorders to fertility issues, stress, depression, back pain, asthma and high blood pressure. 

However, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) consulted medical experts and found there was no robust evidence to back up the vast majority of the cures claimed. 

It has ordered the hospital to withdraw the leaflets and to stop making claims for acupuncture that cannot be substantiated by good and independent evidence. 

The ruling raises questions as to why millions of pounds taxpayers money is being used to fund alternative health treatments where there is little or no evidence that they work.

Whether in music, politics, or spirituality, my job is figuring out what's what, and what doesn't belong, and doing so long before everyone else. You don't need an instrument for that. See DJ Shadow above? Every time he reaches into his record crate (at the right of the screen) that represents 6 months of his life, doing research, that even the "hip" crowd behind him was idle. Most DJs figure 6 months are about how long it takes them to discover a forgotten sample, figure out what's possible with it, and the correct pieces it might go with, where it might go within those pieces, etc.. All the while, their fans were in the club, on Twitter, or watching TV. Either that or plotting against each other.

Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are a big draw for narcissists, but the ego-boosting tools are used in different self-aggrandizing ways by different generations, a University of Michigan study suggests. 

The study details how young adults of college age and their adult counterparts use social media in differing ways to bolster their egos and control perceptions of others.

"Control perceptions of others." Can you imagine? That's behind the "others" backs, of course. 

AKA The Cowardly Approach. 

Ann Althouse, Glenn Reynolds, Hot Air, James Taranto - they're talking about you!

But there's nothing cultish going on. Full support for Mitt Romney's cult or not, perish the thought. I'd love to read what those on "my side" have written about me, because I know they have - they're cultists by training. They gang together just like in South Central, Los Angeles. Want to be in Glenn Reynolds' clique? I bet - Stupidity's Stormtroopers Are Go! Go! Go!:

Libertarians: Still a cult 

Simply note libertarianism's fatal flaw and you'll get an enraged, hysterical response. They still don't get it

It's simply too much fun (and profitable) not to - they're building cults to fuck people over - not working for, or to define, to teach or expand the limits of freedom.

Ann Althouse assumed I wanted in.

But what I want sounds totally different,...

There Might Be Another Tea Party Brewing (Below,...)

 

 Wow - except for on this blog - I have rarely seen our current culture summed up as well as the other guy, who bailed on Mitt, has done here:

"Vapid, paranoid, philosophically incoherent nonsense."

I have got to get this guy on speed dial,...

 

Acting (On Impulse)

I never go to the theatre. I watch a lot of DVDs, many of plays, but I've got a nagging feeling I also gotta go see a few for myself sometimes.

Not only will it open up the blog but - added bonus - it may even make my life Complete:

Complete is a comic, time-splitting wrangle over the power and perversion of language. When Eve (Bishop) finds out that Micah (Kruse) is doing "The Training," she risks their careers, their relationship and their safety to prove just how destructive the notion of self-creation can be. 

"Complete is inspired by both the language of est and the scientific study of syntax and semantics," explained Kuchlewska in an interview. "I did the est training at age nine. The use of language in that subculture was specific and differed in important ways from the English I had been speaking up until then. This was a potent combination for me as a child-using language to empower myself, but also being confused at times by what I and others were saying. It forever changed the way I think and how I speak." 

Developed by Werner Erhard, est is a system of experiential philosophy that was popular in the 1970s and '80s and was accused by some of being a cult. Inspired by her childhood experience and aided by the deeper understanding of language she gained as a linguistics major, Kuchlewska constructs a fictional "Training," a world in which phrases like "I intend to create a parking space" and "You can create yourself being any way you want to be" are normal statements, even in the mouth of a child. 

As a graduate of and former coach at the Ford Institute for Transformational Training, Jennifer Chambers brings an insider's understanding to the project. 

"There is a very specific language that the self-help industry uses, and it can be viewed as either very helpful or very manipulative," she says. "I want to go back and explore that world now that I have some distance from it."

Can you hand me a better give/take-away line than that last one? 

I'm hearing she's snapped - and now sees an "in" and "out", "before" and "after". 

Well Hell, that's worth grabbing my coat all by itself,…

 

This Is The Darkest Place The NewAge Has Ever Been Today And It Will Get Darker As We Keep Heading Down

The Crack Emcee and "Mike" (in the hat) 1/1/13 at Justine's Brasserie:

Actually, it's alright to quit now. Kick back, watch a zombie movie, pretending love is real. 

Smile to yourself, since there will be no one else. Squander.

That's fine. It's your time. Go with the flow. Why make waves?

Since there's nothing you can do, about an accident, can't your existence be an accident, too? Doesn't it explain always being outnumbered? NewAge? You can believe what you want to believe. 

Somebody said so.

Really, go ahead. We're alone and need entertainment.

BREAK.