.jpg)
"Joan Walsh of Salon and Joe Klein of Time debate the Democrats' troubles."You, too, can start your day out right by listening to these much-admired crackpots here (I just heard Joan actually ask Joe, above, how liberals can be "feared" - suggestion: lay off the granola and soymilk,...and, oh yea, "no bed-wetting".)
I'm not sure, but in all my days of watching and participating in American politics - which started back around 1979 - I don't think I'd ever heard anyone mentioning anything about cult involvement before, had you? I mean, was anybody discussing "The Cult of Nixon" during the feverish days of Watergate? Yet check out today's quote from Gawker's sources about the followers of John Edwards:
"[Andrew] Young's devotion was typical of the 'cultish' fervor Edwards brought out in his staffers. This is why, says our source, who is close to [Rielle] Hunter, major media organizations could not stand up the affair story despite well-intentioned efforts. 'They [staffers] would do anything to stop it coming out — they lied, they bullied, they called reporters' editors and bad-mouthed them, they exchanged access.'"Even further, take a look at another of today's quotes, this time from James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal:
"One can see why Obama might have been overly impressed with himself. Here's a guy who became president of the United States just four years out of the Illinois Senate, and along the way developed a cultlike following. It sounds as though Obama became a follower as well as figurehead of his own cult of personality."
In the same column, Taranto describes Barack Obama's reaction to a challenge as the same as Edwards' "cultish" staff: "Obama spoils for a 'fight' when self-reflection is in order." Is that knee-jerk behavior the result of cultish thinking? It's exactly the same reaction one gets when they go against the "church" of Scientology,...
Anyone who's been following this blog knows I've got lots of quotes regarding the president and cultism. What I don't have is a lot of quotes from folks attempting to get to the cultural heart of the matter. They're not even interested. Oh, they'll gladly describe all the signifiers of cultism and/or cultish thinking, but they can't be bothered to ask what's going on within our society to produce such large dollops of this phenomena. They'll gladly lay it out there, but there's been absolutely no follow-up - from anybody - as far as I can tell. Let's look at another interesting quote from today, this one from Bret Stephens and also from The Wall Street Journal:
"Stockholm Syndrome: 'A term used to describe the positive bond some kidnap victims develop with their captor.'
Copenhagen Syndrome: The peculiar psychology of Barack Obama's first year in office.
Let's expand on that a bit. In September, Mr. Obama paid a semi-impromptu visit to Copenhagen to make a personal appeal for Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid. It failed. The nice way to think about it: The president was trying to win one for Team America. Less nice: It was a feckless and unpresidential errand on behalf of the Chicago political machine to which he remains beholden.
And then there's the possibility that Mr. Obama really believed that he alone could pull the rabbit out of the hat. Not Dick Daley, not the First Lady. This one would require the full Barack abracadabra."
Hmmm. That third suggestion - an even worse one, coming totally out of the blue - clearly says The Wall Street Journal thinks the President of the United States might be engaging in magical thinking ("the full Barack abracadabra") but, still, no alarm bells go off in anyone's mind that magical thinking (or delusional thinking) is a key component of all this cultism everyone's mentioning in passing. They definitely aren't responding like they did when Tom Cruise was discovered on video saying that only a Scientology cultist, like Cruise, could really respond in a crisis. Same thinking as Obama's, totally different response from observers - even though everyone's aware Obama was assisted into office by Oprah Winfrey, a known NewAger, who not only specializes in selling magical thinking, but also famously brought us The Secret, the "spiritual" musings of the mentally disturbed Eckhart Tolle, and, of course, James Arthur Ray, the NewAge leader, now under investigation for multiple murders. Is this all a coincidence? Including the fact no one's talking about what it means, in light of the decline we see happening in our country? Considering what we know of Oprah's beliefs, why was her endorsement of Obama, as "The One", credible?
Last night, as I was driving home, I was listening to a conversation some radio personality was having with Ram Dass, and at one point, while discussing the effects of LSD, Dass started talking about how we're all capable of becoming one with everything - including trees. "Look, I'm a tree" he said, but the announcer he was discussing his drug use with never said that's crazytalk. No, they just went right on talking in this vein, like it's totally normal and logical for two adults to think Ram Dass is a plant that lives by the process of photosynthesis. 
Think about how much of this nonsense our society is inundated with. Since the '60's - let's say, starting with The Beatles infatuation with the "teachings" of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, which, by the way, has led many to jump around on their behinds declaring they're "flying" - American society has been bombarded with this stuff: is it really that outlandish to think that now - as the Baby Boomers have finally attained power - all that muddled thinking has had an effect? That one of the "mantras" of Werner Erhard's est, "What's So is also So What?" (which was taught to many major corporations and government agencies throughout the western world, to motivate they're workers) could've reduced our current leader's minds to a state that would make their social contributions worthless? I mean, is it just me, or (beyond gobs of government control - with already-indoctrinated Boomers in charge) don't they seem to have run out of practical ideas? And the groupthink (now labeled as partisanship because such lunacy has received a negative reaction) is incredible. Again: is this just an accident - or is it the natural progression of a decades old ideology, known as NewAge, running amok on, and through, American society?
Senator Tom Harkin was led to think bee pollen cured his asthma - and he still can't be talked out of it. So he and Bill Clinton (another Boomer enamoured with NewAge ideas) have since saddled us with the $29 billion (but, based on their results, still almost worthless) National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. [Kimball C. Atwood IV, M.D., via Wikipedia again:] "The NCCAM continues to fund and promote pseudoscience." 
Even more startling than knowing our leaders are keeping this money-sucking House of Malarkey going, even during a recession, is the fact that so few saw anything wrong with it from the beginning. But why should they? Even Yale University has spoken of constructing a "more fluid concept of evidence" for the "magic water" known as Homeopathy. (Sold in fine NewAge-oriented stores, like Whole Foods, nation wide.) The New York Times writes credulously of NewAge "Pet Psychics". The entire culture is saturated with it. TIME Magazine (which has been known to promote more-than-a-bit of NewAge nonsense themselves) wondered if Jim Carrey had lost his mind by the time cultish thinking got him. Now he's acknowledged as one of the leaders - along with Jenny McCarthy, his porn star girlfriend - of the dangerous and wrong-headed movement to stop children from receiving vaccines. 
"There was nothing legit,...about [Reille] Hunter’s behavior. It was freaky, wildly inappropriate, and all too visible. She flirted outlandishly with every man she met. She spouted New Age babble, rambled on about astrology and reincarnation, and announced to people she had just met, 'I’m a witch.'"
But for some reason - out of all the women in the world - this is the charmer John Edwards cheated on his wife with, while also sacrificing a first tier political career. The quote, above, is from John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's book, Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime . [Wikipedia:] "According to the book, Edwards angrily rejected requests by his advisers to distance himself from Hunter." Given the description, above, such devotion between two Boomers begs the question: why - exactly? Considering the many foolish precepts supporting NewAge beliefs, is it really too "out there" to suggest that astrology, reincarnation, and witches are '60's occult affectations that John Edwards - and many, many others - have grown so comfortable with, such foolishness can slip right by the critical faculties, just as easily as Ram Dass' imagining he's a tree?
Mr. President, I've got some terrible news,..a man by the name of "Barack Obama" has just launched an attack against a room full of school children using a teleprompter: 
Sir, we must get the nation to a secure location,...
"There is a paradox at the heart of the debate on aging. All the recipes for averting the effects of senescence— the anti-wrinkle oils, the vitamin supplements, the testosterone shots, the strict dieting regimens—are plainly little better than snake oil."-- Matt Ridley, spitting some of that good ol' common sense for life's runway - though it's completely out of fashion - like his listeners are from the Barbizon School of Modeling, instead of The Wall Street Journal.
"In the wake of losing Teddy Kennedy’s Senate seat, in an electoral rebuke for the ages, liberaldom has a new catechism. These articles of faith may seem strange and implausible to the outsider, but they give comfort to the believer in these times of trial."-- Rich Lowry, explaining how delusional thinking works (in politics and out) as long as you're willing to believe in anything - except giving up belief itself - and The National Review.
"I don't want any more than I've got coming to me, and I don't understand those who do. Like, why would anyone want to undergo a heart transplant? A person would have to have led a pretty empty life to be that frightened of dying. How would you like to be walking around with a 17-year-old broad's heart in your chest, just to live a few years longer? You wouldn't know whether to menstruate or to ejaculate. Jesus, give me my span of years and knock me down when it's all over. You've got to make room for the other guy. I know that when my ashes are blown away or they stuff me in a sewer, it's not going to hurt. I've had the simple pleasure of being present when the sun was shining and the rain was falling. I've had mine, and nobody can take it away from me."-- Lee Marvin
"Jonathan Lair stood in the middle of Bethel Church's Healing Room on Dec. 5 and joyfully got straight to the point: 'I'm going to get new feet today.'-- Amanda Winters, reporting on some crazy church somewhere - promising some damned crazy thing or another - and also the crazy people who flock there, like blind DJs clamoring for The Record Searchlight.
A pastor at a church in San Diego, Lair said he came to Redding so he could go to the Healing Rooms at Bethel and be cured of a painful condition that has caused his feet to be flat his whole life. Lair, 27, was barefoot and had rolled his jeans up above his ankles, exposing his flat, calloused feet.
'I will see my arches healed,' he said just before two women on Bethel's Healing Rooms Ministry team approached him. 'I really believe that.'
As Lair closed his eyes and bowed his head, the two older women stood on either side of him and began to pray quietly, tapping him on the chest and back. They motioned for another woman, one with a ram's horn known as a shofar, to come to where they stood. She began to blow the shofar at Lair's feet and in moments he fell to the ground, shaking.Back in the Healing Room, Jonathan Lair lay peacefully on the floor, covered in a dark green blanket, while the three women continued to pray over him and blow the shofar at his feet. At one point he got up and hopped up and down in the middle of the room where people were painting pictures on easels, before lying back down again. Eventually, one by one, they walked away and left him lying still on the floor.
Lair slowly sat up 10 minutes later and looked around. He looked at his feet, then stood up.
He said he had expected bones to crack and form an arch but his feet were still flat.
'I look at them, and they don't look healed,' he said.
But his faith was not shaken,..."
"It took John Edwards two years to tell the truth. I was surprised; I thought it would take longer."-- David Perel, the editor in chief of the National Enquirer from 2006 to January 2009 - and who directed its coverage of the John Edwards affair - displaying an understandable cynicism, in The Wall Street Journal.
"Yes, Edwards cheated on his wife who had cancer at the time. Yes, he lied about it when he was caught. Yes, he lied about it again when she was found to be pregnant and had the child. And yes, he lied one more time after being caught by a tabloid photographer with said woman and the child he sired. And oh, he paid a loyal staffer to pretend that he was the dad, too, thereby ensnaring yet another innocent in his web of lies.-- Eric Alterman, attempting to muster up a bit of sympathy for Edwards - the hard way - which is about the best one can expect, from The Daily Beast.
Thing is, if adultery is going to happen, then lying is a given."
"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.-- Frank Furedi, "The Age of Unreason", November 18th, 2005, in The Spectator.‘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."
"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.-- David Brooks, "Politics in the Age of Distrust", January 21, 2010, in The New york Times.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."
"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."-- Rush Limbaugh
"One thing I need is his briefcase. It was taken out of his office. It is important to me, my church, and it is religious material and I want it now! Even if you looked at it and read it, you would not understand anything in it. Because it is way above a normal person and you would not know what it meant."-- Jan Fowler, Scientologist and wife of fellow Scientologist, Rex Fowler, who killed his friend and business partner after they argued about Rex embezzling between $150,000 and $250,000 - to donate to the cult - Jan's efforts appear to be in the service of a lame attempt at retrieving evidence from the police, in a Colorado story from good ol' channel 9 News.
"I don't feel that I have to support him just because I'm black. There's this expectation that because he's black and I'm black, I have to run to support him,...I'm trying to get people thinking beyond race."-- Carl Heastie, The Bronx's Democratic Chairman and a Democrat I can support, because A) he's not supporting Harold Ford, Jr., B) he's showing he knows more about living post-racially, in the here-and-now, than everyone who still (wrongly) claims it's something we have to aspire to in the future - and saying what, I thought, I should've heard a lot more of during Obama's election - and C) he's, also, probably opening himself up for a world of hurt, if I can trust The New York Daily News.
