The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Patriotic Progressivism’, The Moron’s Oxymoron

Posted on | January 22, 2013 | 15 Comments

by Smitty

Begins beta-male Brooks:

The best Inaugural Addresses make an argument for something. President Obama’s second one, which surely has to rank among the best of the past half-century, makes an argument for a pragmatic and patriotic progressivism.

This country remains founded upon individual liberty. That a pack of liars over the last century have sold an unsustainable falsehood is neither deniable nor right. ‘Progress’ remains the most expensive and destructive scam in history, and Brooks is truly a false prophet for peddling it.

Modern problems like globalization, technological change, widening inequality and wage stagnation compel us to take new collective measures if we’re to pursue the old goals of equality and opportunity.
Obama wasn’t explicit about why we have failed to meet these challenges. But his critique was implicit. There has been too much “me” — too much individualism and narcissism, too much retreating into the private sphere. There hasn’t been enough “us,” not enough communal action for the common good.

Oh, you Devil. And I mean that in the theological sense of a deceiver selling the very causes of the problem as solutions. Human nature remains constant, technology, the variable. It’s a fine sales pitch that the variable can be used to tweak the constant. If your audience is totally fools. Peaking out at the current 51% is not likely to cut it. The implicit critique of ‘too much “me”‘. Has any President ever been so immodest as to deploy the personal pronoun like #OccupyResoluteDesk?
Emphasis mine here:

I am not a liberal like Obama, so I was struck by what he left out in his tour through American history. I, too, would celebrate Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall, but I’d also mention Wall Street, State Street, Menlo Park and Silicon Valley. I’d emphasize that America has prospered because we have a decentralizing genius.
When Europeans nationalized their religions, we decentralized and produced a great flowering of entrepreneurial denominations. When Europe organized state universities, our diverse communities organized private universities. When Europeans invested in national welfare states, American localities invested in human capital.
America’s greatest innovations and commercial blessings were unforeseen by those at the national headquarters. They emerged, bottom up, from tinkerers and business outsiders who could never have attracted the attention of a president or some public-private investment commission.
I would have been more respectful of this decentralizing genius than Obama was, more nervous about dismissing it for the sake of collective action, more concerned that centralization will lead to stultification, as it has in every other historic instance.

What in the world are ‘entrepreneurial denominations’, you clown? Do you really think sincere sacred business is secular? Sure, people sell books, and yes, one might argue at length and in detail about the contents, but that’s peripheral to the question of faith. Come visit my Sunday School class, Brooks, for some desperately needed insight.

And what is the point of being ‘respectful of this decentralizing genius’ in a speech? Obama is more honest in his contempt for the fundamentals of American greatness than you, Mr. Brooks. He tosses our seed corn under the bus with a personal pronoun on top. You’re making some wistful nod to what, were you actually a conservative, you’d be snarling a ????? ???? and defending.

Reinvigorating a mature nation means using government to give people the tools to compete, but then opening up a wide field so they do so raucously and creatively. It means spending more here but deregulating more there. It means facing the fact that we do have to choose between the current benefits to seniors and investments in our future, and that to pretend we don’t face that choice, as Obama did, is effectively to sacrifice the future to the past.

Our first task for recovery is to ignore false prophets like yourself. Our political Winter, while cold and bitter, can be followed by a Spring of reform. But that involves understanding that the centralization of policy is the garrote about the neck. Your ‘patriotic progressivism’ piffle is absolutely not the answer, Brooks.

via Byron York

Category: New York Times

Democrats: You Can Never Hate Them Nearly as Much as They Hate You

Posted on | January 22, 2013 | 77 Comments

Last night, I saw a post at an anti-Palin blog that had more than 200 vitriolic comments about the woman they called “the Creature from Lake Lucille.” More than four years after Sarah Palin was the Republican vice-presidential candidate, she still inspires frothing rage from the Left.

What prompted that particular outburst of hatred? Palin put up a Facebook post commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Think about that for just a minute. And then think about something Erick Erickson wrote on Inauguration Day:

Congratulations Mr. President on your second inaugural.
Saying that makes some of you really enraged. I said the same on twitter shortly after his official swearing in. Several of the replies were embarrassing and atrocious. Some accused the man elected by a majority of Americans of treason. Some accused him of willfully destroying the nation.
I believe the President’s policies are destructive and will harm our economy, our nation, and our sense of national self long term. I believe his policies have the effect of turning us into subjects of the government, not citizens in charge of it. Because of his expansion of the social safety net funded through class warfare, Mr. Obama’s policies will cause too many Americans’ fortunes to rise and fall with those of the government, unable to chart a course for themselves apart from government.
But I do not think the President means to do this maliciously. I do not think he is treasonous. I do not hate him. I am not outraged by it.

As soon as I saw that, my attention focused on one sentence: “Some accused him of willfully destroying the nation.”

Yes, of course: David Limbaugh, author of The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama’s War on the Republic, a book I heartily recommend.

Erick Erickson didn’t title his post “David Limbaugh Is Wrong,” or “Don’t Listen to That Idiot David Limbaugh.” He merely dismissed as “embarrassing and atrocious” anyone who agrees with Limbaugh’s argument that Obama’s “War on the Republic” is deliberate.

As to how one should deal with Monday decorously, I took a vow of silence: I simply wouldn’t say a damned thing about Re-Coronation Day.

Didn’t watch it on TV. Didn’t blog about it until it was over. The last time I checked, I still had the right to remain silent. “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all,” and what conservative could possibly say anything nice about America’s public humiliation?

That’s what we’re dealing with here: A stain on our national honor, the negation and antithesis of everything that makes our country great.

Americans should be outraged by it, and we should not be dismissing their expressions of outrage as “embarrassing and atrocious.”

Ordinary Americans don’t always express themselves in such eloquent and measured phrases as meet with the approval of the elite, but why is it that no one on the Left ever bothers to chastise the commenters frothing with rage at Sarah Palin, whereas Erick Erickson feels the need to scold Republicans who don’t like Barack Obama? Why is Erickson embarrassed to be associated with these Republicans, when no one on the Left ever bothers to notice the non-stop messages of hate emitted by the immoral monsters who constitute the Democrat Party’s grassroots? My answer:

The problem, really, is that Republicans just don’t hate Democrats the way Democrats hate Republicans.
Most Republicans are born and raised Republicans, and are spiritually attuned to the sentiments of bourgeois respectability that are core values to the decent, honest people the GOP represents. By contrast, Democrats owe their power to the vilest dregs of humanity — corrupt union goons, Marxist academics, criminals, drug addicts, sexual perverts and race hustlers — who have no respect for the values of decent, honest people.

We do not have to lower ourselves to their level. We merely have to tell the truth about who the Democrats are. People who voted for Obama (or any other Democrat) should be ashamed of themselves.

The GOP’s ridiculous defensive flinch reflex — “Oh, no! Somebody said rude things about Democrats!” — is symptomatic of a larger problem: Republicans let liberals dictate the terms of debate.

If liberals say the problem is that Republicans lack “civility,” then the GOP is beset by hall-monitor types telling us to watch our language. If liberals say the problem is Republicans need to appeal to Latinos, we’ll hear a lot of sermonettes from the open-borders crowd. If liberals say Republicans are losing because of gay-rights issues, we’ll be told to drop our pants and bend over to demonstrate our support for sodomy.

At what point will Republicans figure out they’re being scammed? Liberals lie constantly, routinely and habitually, but never do they lie so predictably as when they’re giving advice to Republicans.

Mitt Romney lost the presidential election. His defeat cannot be blamed on “outrage pimps” (Erickson doesn’t name names, so we don’t know if he meant that term to apply to David Limbaugh or Mark Levin or Michelle Malkin). Nor can the GOP’s problems be excused by scolding people who say rude things about Obama on Twitter.

Why did Erickson feel the need to tee off on “humorless, angry opponents of the President” who “scream ‘Benghazi’ and ‘Fast & Furious'”? Was that aimed at Katie Pavlich, author of Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and the Shameless Cover-Up?

Katie wasn’t offering any “congratulations, Mr. President” sentiments there, so maybe she’s one of those “humorless, angry opponents,” eh?

Here’s the point: All Sarah Palin had to do is put up an MLK Day post on Facebook, and the haters swarmed all over her without anyone in the Democrat Party noticing or complaining. Democrats don’t get any “civility” lectures from their liberal spokesmen. They just win elections.

Democrats hate Republicans with the heat of ten thousand suns. When are Republicans going to give themselves permission to hate back?

 

 


Category: Barack Obama, Democrats, Republicans, Sarah Palin

LIVE AT FIVE: 01.22.13

Posted on | January 22, 2013 | 8 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Algerian PM: Gas Plant Worker, Two Canadians Helped Jihadis In Siege

Algerian firemen carry a coffin from the gas plant retaken Saturday

Final death toll lower than 81 previously reported

Hollande, Merkel Fete 50 Years Of Franco-German Ties
Joint celebration of the Elysee Treaty originally signed by De Gaulle, Adenauer

Inauguration Too Special To Pass Up
Smaller crowds, a more subdued tone, and fewer A-list celebrities



POLITICS
Biden: Revved Up And Ready For 2016?

President Obama and VP Biden

Is the nomination his for the taking?

Obamacare Impact About To Become Clearer

Thirty-Two Yeats After Leaving Office, Jimmy Carter Gets Big Cheer

Farm Workers Travel To DC To Keep Spotlight On Immigration

Montana Family Caught Bilking Phone Customers For $70 Million In Charges

Rapper Lupe Fiasco Escorted Offstage At Obama Pre-Inauguration Party After Criticizing President’s Foreign Policy

Files Show Cardinal Mahony Worked To Conceal Abuse In LA Diocese

Nation Honors Martin Luther King Jr. As First Black President Sworn In For Second Term

Pension Reform Act Hits California State Employees



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Crude Oil Futures Hover Above $95 In Asia: NYMEX $95.05, Brent $111.53
Bank Of Japan Adopts Abe’s 2% Target In Commitment To End Deflation
Groupon Nixes All Gun-Related Deals
Atari’s US Unit Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
$40 Lets You Board Early On Southwest
GE Profit Lifted By Jet Engines, Energy Equipment
RIM Surges Again As CEO Talks Of Partnerships
McDonald’s Settles Michigan Suit Over Halal Food
Dish To Close 300 Blockbuster Stores
A Cheap, Rugged Tablet Is Your Kid’s Next Fixation
Former Microsoft Exec’s Book Lambastes CEO Steve Ballmer
Is Cuba Finally Allowing Its Citizens Fiber Access To The Internet?
Was That Sergei Brin Wearing Google Glasses In The NYC Subway?



SPORTS
Brunner’s Shootout Goal Wins It For Wings, 4-3

Blue Jackets goalie Sergei Bobrovski makes a save in the first period as teammate Nikita Nikitin and Detroit’s Johan Franzen wait for the rebound

Columbus rallied but couldn’t hold on against Detroit

Nyets Grab A Win At The Garden

Leafs’ Home Opener Strikes Appropriate Tone

L.A. Kings’ Matt Greene Injures Back, Out For Season

Changes Give Stewart-Haas Team Optimism For Coming Sprint Cup Season

Agreement Reached To Sell Sacramento Kings To Seattle Group; NBA Owners Must Approve

Hoyas Beat #24 Irish, 63-47; Notre Dame’s Third Loss In Four Games

Cincinnati To Host Baseball’s 2015 All-Star Game

Paul Gasol Permanently Benched By Mike D’Antoni

Curry Leads Warriors Past Clippers, 106-99

Nationals Add Bulls-eye On Back As Part Of New Look



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Prince Harry “Thrilled” Over Royal Pregnancy

Harry, Prince of Wales

Can’t wait to become an uncle

Adrienne Maloof (51) Dating Rod Stewart’s Son Sean (32)

Selena Gomez Spotted Partying Until 2:30 AM With A New Guy

Taylor Swift Mortified By Mocking!

Chris Brown Gets SWATted

Jennie Garth “Smitten” With New BF Jeremy Salken

Brantley Gilbert, Jana Kramer Engaged

Barbara Walters Hospitalized After Weekend Fall

Rapper Chief Keef Sued For Child Support By Middle Schooler



FOREIGNERS
Israelis Head For The Polls, Set To Re-Elect Netanyahu’s Coalition
Arab League Tells Israeli Arabs Vote To Stop The Far Right
Delhi Rape: Supreme Court To Consider Moving Trial To Uttar Pradesh
Dutch Minister Tapped To Steer Eurogroup, Navigate Eurocrisis
Europe Snowed In
Malian Army Retakes Diabaly
French Foreign Minister Says Assad Must Leave “As Quickly As Possible”
Prince Harry Slams UK Press On Return From Afghanistan
Planes Sent To Evacuate Russians From Syria
Cameron To Give Postponed Speech On EU Tomorrow



BLOGS & STUFF
Professor Bainbridge: How Moderate Is Barack Obama?
Legal Insurrection: Obama’s Inaugural Speech – Collectivist We
Power Line: Long Day’s Journey
Weekly Standard Blog: NYT Says Only 40% Of Obama’s Inaugural Address Is Worth Reading
NRO Corner: “No Single Man Can…”
Jawa Report: Inauguration Funnies – TPM Whines “Virginia GOP Pulls Dirty Trick On Inauguration Day”
Breitbart.com: Mark Levin’s Inauguration Day Message – Fight!
Ramesh Ponnuru: Obama’s Bogus Journey
Patterico: Obama – Social Security And Medicare Are What Make Us Strong
Lonely Conservative: NYT Gushes Over Marxist Rag
American Power: Obama Raped Thomas Jefferson For Radical Collectivist Agenda
Pat Dollard: Obama Takes Office With Only Carter, Ford Having Lower Approval Ratings
Stephen Kruiser: Krugman – Obama Isn’t FDR-y Enough For Me

Category: Live at Five

Our Long National Nightmare Is Over

Posted on | January 22, 2013 | 28 Comments

By which, of course, I mean Monday. It’s now 12:01 a.m. ET Tuesday, and so I kept my vow not to say a word about Re-Coronation Day.

Others who chronicled the event now have stains on their pants from the orgasmic gush. Chris Matthews emitted his usual effusion of idiocy, and over on the Third-Place Cable News Network With Lower Ratings Than MSNBC (The One That People Only Watch When They’re Stuck in Airports), Jim Acosta was trying to out-gush Matthews:

“You know, I feel like I should pinch myself right now, Wolf. I can’t believe I have this vantage point of history in the making . . . It’s good to be the President. It’s almost like being a rock star on every street corner of Washington on this day.”

Further mockery from The Lonely Conservative, American Power and Poor Richard’s News. This stuff does not amuse me. It depresses me.

Our nation is being destroyed, and the press corps is reduced to the role of partisan pom-pom girls for The Great Destroyer. Meanwhile, the alleged leaders of the opposition have no clue of how to rescue themselves from their current condition of helpless impotence. The search for any reason to smile amid this catastrophe — which I blame entirely on the gross ineptitude of the overpaid dimwit fratboys running the Republican Party — turns up precious few nuggets of encouragement:

The bimbo was a guest Monday on Anderson Cooper’s show on the Third-Place Cable News Network With Lower Ratings Than MSNBC (The One That People Only Watch When They’re Stuck in Airports). Her “brand” is even more irrelevant than her failed father, assuming that such complete irrelevance is even possible.

It’s going to be a long 1,460 days ahead.

Category: Barack Obama, CNN, Meghan McCain

Does Lynn Messina Grasp The Damage She’s Doing To Our Culture?

Posted on | January 21, 2013 | 17 Comments

by Smitty

Bottom line up front: “XX” != ” XY”.

Anybody who thinks that the moral fiber of the United States has been diminished since feminism and the sexual revolution disgraced our shores  can find a contemporary example of the disease here, emphasis mine:

Start to complain about your preschooler adopting gentlemanly behavior and you quickly discover how out of step you are with the rest of the world. Almost everyone I mention it to thinks it’s lovely and sweet. What’s the harm in teaching little boys to respect little girls?
The implication, of course, is that I’m overreacting, and as a parent, I’ll admit to being prone to the occasional bout of hypersensitivity. For months, I grumbled that the inappropriately breathy tone of Cinderella on Emmett’s LeapFrog Princess laptop was warping a generation of impressionable young minds.
But I don’t think it’s an overreaction to resent the fact that your son is being given an extra set of rules to follow simply because he’s a boy. His behavior, already constrained by a series of societal norms, now has additional restrictions. Worse than that, he’s actively being taught to treat girls differently, something I thought we all agreed to stop doing, like, three decades ago. That the concept of selective privilege has been introduced in preschool of all places — the inner sanctum of fair play, the high temple of taking turns — is mind-boggling to me. How can you preach the ethos of sharing at the dramatic play center and ignore it 20 feet away at the toilet?
Yet as much as this double standard offends me as a mom, it’s nothing compared with how much it infuriates me as a feminist. Forty years after the tender, sweet, young thing in “Free to Be You and Me” gets eaten by a pack of hungry tigers after asserting that ladies should go first, we are still insisting on empty courtesies that instill in women a sense of entitlement for meaningless things. Many women see gallantry as one of the benefits of their sex; I see it as one of its consolations.

As we peer into the wreckage of our culture, wondering how we went from greatness to corruption, we need to point to the Lynn Messinas as the flies in the soup. Thanks to the internet, we can underscore  just how false your ideas are Messina, and share some information about the origins of your jacked-up thinking.

This ‘notion of rules’ and sense of  ‘treating girls differently’ does not end in a ‘sense of entitlement for meaningless things’, as events in Aurora tragically underscored. Without doing a thorough survey, how many of the recent spate of atrocities were undertaken by men who’d enjoyed a stable family life? How many featured a father who, understanding traditional values as pillars of strength rather than the bars of a prison, led the family in traditional roles of worship, character development, and masculine nurturing? I’d fall well short of connecting dots on anything here. I’m not making any correlation-equals-causation argument. Rather, I’m pointing out that the fundamentally good things Messina rejects are not, themselves, apparent drivers for evil at Newtown, Aurora, VA Tech, and so on.

Furthermore, if you ever want to develop the kind of men you need when the fertilizer truly hits the air circulator, you had better read every word Messina writes and proceed to do the opposite as parents. Denouncing the sort of idiocy she seems to encourage is among the minor reasons I blog at all. We, as a culture, need to stand up and oppose people that are throwing Western Civilization under the bus.  They seem comfortable making room, not only for abortion, but for the kind of barbaric cultures that can genitally mutilate girls and then dress them in a bags when grown. If Messina was worthy of the attention, one should like to drop her somewhere in Asia for a year or so, as sort of a “homeland appreciation tour”.

As a case in point, we have the World’s Youngest Blogger.

As this blessing is on loan from the Good Lord Almighty, I can affirm that he will be raised with the utmost attention to all aspects of healthy moral, mental, and physical development. He may grow to frustrate his parents mightily, but I can guarantee it won’t be from exposure to the kind of falsehoods Messina peddles without being instructed as to their diabolical source.

via Insty

Category: Culture

Could Scarborough Be A Bigger Tool? And The Answer Is None. None More Big

Posted on | January 21, 2013 | 14 Comments

by Smitty

The former Republican Congressman sneered at the National Rifle Association, suggesting that the gun group is promoting the “big lie” that government will come after most guns.
Scarborough insisted the “the big lie has worked for years.” He added, “…If they take away your military-style assault weapons, take away the AR-15, they’re going to take your hunting rifle, they’re gonna take your handgun, which of course is a big lie.”

It’s like this, you schmuck: while the destruction of liberty continues ‘at a medium pace’, no rational observers doubt that this is what is going on. Scarborough, your Neville Chamberlain-esque reassurances excite no one, with the possible exception of Chris Matthews.

If you Godless Commies want to calm the narrative, suggest you calm the narrative, e.g. lay off the attacks on law-abiders.

via JBrown. Title ref.

Category: Uncategorized

How to Get Jennifer Schuessler to Give You a Puff Piece in the New York Times

Posted on | January 21, 2013 | 28 Comments

Obviously, it helps if you’re a Bolshevik:

When Bhaskar Sunkara was growing up in Westchester County, he likes to say, he dreamed of being a professional basketball player.
But the height gods, among others, didn’t smile in his favor. So in 2009, during a medical leave from his sophomore year at George Washington University, Mr. Sunkara turned to Plan B: creating a magazine dedicated to bringing jargon-free neo-Marxist thinking to the masses.
If that hardly seems less of a long shot at fame, let alone fortune, he’s the first to agree.
“I had no right to start a print publication when I was 21,” he said in an interview in a cafe near his apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. “Looking back, I see it as a moment of creative ignorance. You have to have enough intelligence to execute something like this but be stupid enough to think it could be successful.”
The resulting magazine, Jacobin, whose ninth issue just landed, has certainly been an improbable hit, buoyed by the radical stirrings of the Occupy movement and a bitingly satirical but serious-minded style. Since its debut in September 2010 it has attracted nearly 2,000 print and digital subscribers, some 250,000 Web hits a month, regular name-checks from prominent bloggers, and book deals from two New York publishers.

When I saw the headline (“A Young Publisher Takes Marx Into the Mainstream“) at MediaGazer, it got my attention because, of course, Marxism is the deadliest idea in human history. Marxist-Leninist regimes killed 100 million of their own citizens in the 20th century but, hey, let’s assign a cheerful human-interest story about this young idiot who thinks it’s hip and cool to revive a discredited ideology.

It’s “an improbable hit” with “250,000 Web hits a month”? Guess that makes me “an improbable hit,” too, but I haven’t had any interview requests from Jenny Schuessler yet. Ace of Spades HQ has had more than 190 million visitors to date and, last time I checked, they were averaging something like 300,000 Web hits daily. However, for some reason Ace doesn’t get glowing coverage in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, and if New York publishers have been eagerly thrusting book contracts at him, Ace has been suspiciously quiet about it.

Almost like there’s a bias or something, y’know?

 

UPDATE: Ask yourself, “How does a magazine with less Web traffic than this blog merit a gushy 1,100-word puff piece in the New York Times?”

Well, left-wing journalists like Jenny Schuessler read left-wing magazines, and they watch MSNBC and it turns out MSNBC host/Nation writer Chris Hayes is a big fan of Jacobin. So it’s a “friend-of-a-friend” kind of phenomenon. Donald Douglas at American Power quotes Jacobin’s interview with Chris Hayes:

I do think there is a potential for a radicalized upper-middle class. We already see that, it’s just a question of how that gets channeled. Everything about the Netroots, the anti-war, anti-Bush sentiment … One of the interesting things about the way our certain kind of fractal inequality has manifested, the people who see it the most, have the closest proximity to it, say, the top 2 to the top 20 percent: ‘I went to law school with Joe and I have some job at a firm and I’m doing alright, but he went into a hedge fund and is making $10 million.’

Only the elite can afford to be Bolsheviks nowadays.

UPDATE II: Da Tech Guy does the math and figures to kill 100 million people in 100 years, you’d have to kill 2,739 people a day.

Eggs, omelets.

 

Category: Media Bias, New York Times

Scientology Continues Its Unwelcome Encounter With the ‘Streisand Effect’

Posted on | January 21, 2013 | 12 Comments

A week ago, the secretive Scientology cult accidentally invited closer media scrutiny by paying The Atlantic to publish a “sponsored content” article so over the top that it generated a massive backlash. It wasn’t difficult for journalists to figure out why the creepy sci-fi “religion” was trying to buy good publicity: Award-winning reporter Lawrence Wright was about to publish a new book, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief. On Sunday, the Washington Post published a review of Wright’s book on the front page of its “Outlook” section:

Newfangled religions, outre theology, secret rituals — these are threatening and titillating in equal measure; the more a religion’s leaders block or deflect reporters’ probes, the more the public wants to know (and the more sinister the faith can seem). . . .
[Scientology founder L. Ron] Hubbard was a voluble, charismatic, imaginative man, a writer who liked to spin fantastical stories. He was also a liar, according to Wright. The author builds a case that Hubbard lied about his health, his age and his military service . . .
He was married thrice and had innumerable extramarital liaisons; his second wife, Sara Northrup, accused him in divorce papers of “systematic torture” including “sleep deprivation, beatings, strangulations, and ‘scientific torture experiments.’?” . . .
Hubbard’s famously paranoid worldview is extensively documented here as well. When a negative reputation began to taint Scientology worldwide, he launched what was perhaps his most grandiose and outrageous scheme. He called it the Snow White Program. Starting in 1973, Wright asserts, Hubbard placed as many as 5,000 Scientologists as spies in government agencies all over the world, charging them with unearthing official files on the church, “generating lawsuits to intimidate opponents, and waging an unremitting campaign against mental health professionals.”
In the United States, Wright says, the spies penetrated the IRS; the Justice, Treasury and Labor Departments; the Federal Trade Commission; and the Drug Enforcement Administration. . . .

You can read the whole 1,600-word article by the Post’s religion editor, Lisa Miller. Obviously, Miller would have reviewed the book anyway, but would it have been featured at the top left on the front page of the “Outlook” section if it hadn’t been for that stupid Atlantic “advertorial”?

As of 2 p.m. today, Wright’s book was No. 9 on the Amazon bestsellers list. I’ve sold several copies via Amazon Associates, as well as copies of Janet Reitman’s 2011 book Inside Scientology: The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion. And readers can also make advance purchases of the soon-to-be-released Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape, by Jenna Miscavige Hill, niece of Church of Scientology leader David Miscavige.

When truth is cheap, secrecy becomes expensive, and Scientology simply cannot afford the price of protecting its esoteric nonsense. Thus, 2013 may become known as the year that finally bankrupted Scientology. Another victory for “The Streisand Effect.”

 

 

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Category: Books, Conspiracy Theories, Religion
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