Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

To elaborate, in which city do you think a one-day life insurance policy (premised upon walking around while wearing a yarmulke) would be the most expensive? Hint, it is not Berlin.

Only two of those cities are places I might be. Only 3 are places Jews might be. Pittsburgh is by far the safest. Berlin or Warsaw is your point? PS I don’t need you to break down your points. Not to say ggg doesn’t benefit.

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Only two of those cities are places I might be. Only 3 are places Jews might be. Pittsburgh is by far the safest. Berlin or Warsaw is your point? PS I don’t need you to break down your points. Not to say ggg doesn’t benefit.

Which city had eleven Jews killed at a synagogue 8 months ago?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

Which city had eleven Jews killed at a synagogue 8 months ago?

And yet the Rabbi there says “stay proud,” not “hide your keppa?”

My exchange student was Austrian- he went out of his way to denounce the Nazi past- 13 years ago- he told us even saying you support Nazi thought was a crime. The differential between that and “don’t wear head covering on the street” is the biggest differential IN. THE. WORLD.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

Which city had eleven Jews killed at a synagogue 8 months ago?

The area where that shooting took place might be one of the most Jewish-friendly locations in the US. That's why the shooter targeted the biggest temple in it.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

I agree with you. That said, all things being equal, I am not going to hire or give as much credence to a Scientologist. The same applies to people who believe in more popular fantasies.

I can actually give more credence to certain Scientologists. Because you know they know it's all bullshit and they're only in it for career advancement.

Everybody with at least half of a brain knows it's a scam, and that if you're in the entertainment industry, it's a stealth guild. You join, you pay, you get hooked up with business. The calculation people apply is, "How many multiples of the tithe and annoyance of this goofy club will I reap from joining?" (I imagine that's why so many stars openly make fun of it without fear of being branded intolerant. If you're working your ass off to make it and some hack who only got a part because his dad is Travolta's accountant is on set with you, I'd say you've a right to be irritated.)

But as to the small percentage of Scientologists who actually believe in the "faith," despite the voluminous evidence that L. Ron Hubbard was a cynical conman who makes Trump look like a choirboy, and that the whole "religion" is insane science fiction (regardless of whether the rumor about its accruing from a bet between Hubbard and Isaac Asimov is true or not), those people are first team imbeciles. I mean, sincerely, demented idiots who deserve nothing more than to be laughed at and refused participation in normal society. In this regard, Scientologists are unique. Each is either a cynical operator, or a dangerously deluded moron. No gradations in between.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

Oh, and Sebby and TM still engage in interminable, paid by the word, debates. Oh, and semantics. Lots of semantics.

And you're as full of shit as ever.

TM

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I’m in a Jewish US family. No one has warned us not to wear keepas. SA has no Jews. Poland few. And Germany has proven its ability to extrapolate from its basic hatred, so yep, most.

Thought of you just now when I was behind a car with a bumper sticker that said it was driven by a "Sicilian Italian," which seems self-refuting.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I can actually give more credence to certain Scientologists. Because you know they know it's all bullshit and they're only in it for career advancement.

Everybody with at least half of a brain knows it's a scam, and that if you're in the entertainment industry, it's a stealth guild. You join, you pay, you get hooked up with business. The calculation people apply is, "How many multiples of the tithe and annoyance of this goofy club will I reap from joining?" (I imagine that's why so many stars openly make fun of it without fear of being branded intolerant. If you're working your ass off to make it and some hack who only got a part because his dad is Travolta's accountant is on set with you, I'd say you've a right to be irritated.)

But as to the small percentage of Scientologists who actually believe in the "faith," despite the voluminous evidence that L. Ron Hubbard was a cynical conman who makes Trump look like a choirboy, and that the whole "religion" is insane science fiction (regardless of whether the rumor about its accruing from a bet between Hubbard and Isaac Asimov is true or not), those people are first team imbeciles. I mean, sincerely, demented idiots who deserve nothing more than to be laughed at and refused participation in normal society. In this regard, Scientologists are unique. Each is either a cynical operator, or a dangerously deluded moron. No gradations in between.

Unique, or disturbingly similar to Trump's following?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Unique, or disturbingly similar to Trump's following?

I think Trump's followers come in a variety of flavors. One can agree with some things he's done and disagree with others on numerous bases. I think with Scientology, you're all in - a full time resident of Crazytown - or you're an opportunist. It's hard to say, "I don't believe Xenu was real, but I like the camaraderie of those who do."

But, then again, give it 2000 years and, if Scientology persists and flourishes, people will accord it some credibility. Scholars will write books about how its origin stories are rooted in shreds of fact.

Maybe that's the rule with religion: Just survive, and eventually the story will be normalized into culture. Joseph Smith's stuff is increasingly mainstreamed.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I think Trump's followers come in a variety of flavors. One can agree with some things he's done and disagree with others on numerous bases.

I don't think so. I think there are people who agree with him on certain issues (or who are happy with certain things he's doing), but I wouldn't call those people followers. They're republics who like republican things but would likely prefer a different republican.

The people who show up for his rallies are something else.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

I don't think so. I think there are people who agree with him on certain issues (or who are happy with certain things he's doing), but I wouldn't call those people followers. They're republics who like republican things but would likely prefer a different republican.

The people who show up for his rallies are something else.

This part of Sebby's description of Scientologists described a lot of Trump followers:

Everybody with at least half of a brain knows it's a scam, and that if you're in the entertainment industry, it's a stealth guild. You join, you pay, you get hooked up with business. The calculation people apply is, "How many multiples of the tithe and annoyance of this goofy club will I reap from joining?"

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

This part of Sebby's description of Scientologists described a lot of Trump followers:

Cf. Rick Perlstein's The Long Con:

In this respect, it’s not really useful, or possible, to specify a break point where the money game ends and the ideological one begins. They are two facets of the same coin—where the con selling 23-cent miracle cures for heart disease inches inexorably into the one selling miniscule marginal tax rates as the miracle cure for the nation itself. The proof is in the pitches—the come-ons in which the ideological and the transactional share the exact same vocabulary, moral claims, and cast of heroes and villains.

• Dear Fellow Conservative, Do you know which special interest has given more money to the Obama and Clinton campaigns than any other? If you guessed “trial lawyers”—well, okay, that’s too easy. But can you guess which special interest came in second? Labor unions? Nope. The Green Lobby? Nope. AARP? Wrong, again. NEA? Nyet. Give up? Okay, here’s the answer: Wall Street. That’s right. According to CNNMoney.com, Wall Street securities and investment firms have given over $35 million to Democratic candidates this election cycle. . . . If you’ve been wondering why the financial industry has been in meltdown—and taking your 401(k) or investment portfolio down with it—now you know. Let’s face it: The former frat boys who populate Wall Street today understand economics about as well as the pinko professors whose courses they snored through. . . . Trusting them with your money is like trusting Bill Clinton to babysit your underage niece. But I know someone you can trust to manage your investments. . . . His name is Dr. Mark Skousen—that’s “Dr.” as in “Ph.D. in Economics and Monetary History,” something you don’t get by playing Beer Pong with your frat buddies. For the past 28 years, subscribers to his investment newsletter, Forecasts & Strategies, have profited enormously from his uncanny ability to predict major market trends before they happen. . . . For instance: In the early ’80s, Dr. Skousen predicted that “Reaganomics will work” and said “a long decade of profits is coming.” . . . The “bottom line,” as they say? Don’t let the Democrats run the country. And don’t let Wall Street frat boys manage your investments. Do it yourself, with the genuinely expert guidance of freedom-loving economist Mark Skousen in Forecasts & Strategies. Click here to learn more.

That letter is signed by Ann Coulter—and, truth be told, it reads like she wrote it. It is a perfect portrait of the nether region of the right-wing con, figure (politics) trading places with ground (commerce) a dizzying dozen times over in the space of just these several paragraphs. There is the bizarre linguistic operation that turns “liberal” (or, in Coulterese, “pinko”) into a merely opportunistic synonym for “stuff you don’t like.” There’s the sloganeering alchemy that conflates political and economic magical thinking (“freedom”!). There’s shorthand invocation of Reagan hagiography. And then, presto: The suggestible readers on the receiving end of Coulter’s come-on are meant to realize that they are holding the abracadabra solution to every human dilemma (vote out the Democrats—oh, and also, subscribe to Mark Skousen’s newsletter for investors, while you’re at it).

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Cf. Rick Perlstein's The Long Con:

Do you know a sole soul who lives out Silicon Valley or Cambridge (rhetorical, of course not), Trumpers aren't looking for investment peeps, the actual well-heeled R voters ain't taking advice from this email.

This is effectively equal to a shot in the dark, like a Mandarin robo call to your cell phone.

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Cf. Rick Perlstein's The Long Con:

I tried to read that article but, Bejebus, he is full of word salat (Deutch, eh?) bullshit. For example:

Either deliberately or through some Reaganesque slip of the unconscious, Romney’s stump confabulations worked the same way that those legendary Viguerie direct-mail appeals did: since reality is never Manichean enough, fables have to do the requisite ideological heavy lifting—to frighten the target audience to do the fabulists’ will. That’s the logic of the pitch for the quivering conservative masses.

...

The oilfield in the placenta is another perfect mélange of right-wing ideology and a right-wing money con. It begins with a signal ideological lie: that stem-cell research represents an outrage against the right to life (but the cultivation of embryos for in vitro fertilization does not). It then pulls the mark along with the right-wing fantasy that energy independence is only one miraculous technological breakthrough away (but the development of already existing alternative energy sources doesn’t count as one of those breakthroughs). It all makes its own sort of internally coherent sense when you consider the salesman: James Dale Davidson is a founder of the National Taxpayers Union, a Richard Mellon Scaife–funded enterprise that gave Grover Norquist his start as a professional conservative. Davidson himself is a producer of Unanswered: The Death of Vincent Foster. “There is overwhelming evidence that Foster was murdered,” he told the Washington Post. “They obviously have reasons they don’t want this to come out . . . obviously there’s something big they’re trying to protect.”

I've sat next to that guy at a bar, and it is not enjoyable.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Do you know a sole soul who lives out Silicon Valley or Cambridge (rhetorical, of course not), Trumpers aren't looking for investment peeps, the actual well-heeled R voters ain't taking advice from this email.

This is effectively equal to a shot in the dark, like a Mandarin robo call to your cell phone.

Read Perlstein's article. He's not talking about your well-heeled R voters. Those aren't the suckers.