Born Suckers

In the 70s and 80s an “eastern” type of religious commune was established in Northern Oregon by Bhagwan Sree Rajneesh. In time it commanded many followers both on-site and around the world. It soon became clear that this group was even wackier than many other religious groups. Many of the followers gave all of their possessions and income to the Rajneesh and since he declared his love for Rolls Royces he eventually acquired dozens of the expensive cars used to drive around the commune grounds. His top deputy began poisoning followers she disliked, citizens in the local community and two city councilmen.
All of this would be just mildly interesting except that it was found later that the majority of his followers were professionals; doctors, lawyers, accountants; people with a high degree of education.
This baffled me for the longest time. How could these “smart” people fall for this line of bullshit to the point of giving up everything they had worked for.
Finally, after much thought, I realized a couple of things.
First: people want to be committed and will go the great lengths to prove it to themselves. Sending in five bucks ain’t going to cut it. And remember, this was the generation who, having rejected their parent’s ways, were eager to commit themselves to something with real meaning.
Second: Intelligence and higher education does not necessarily make you smarter. It is still possible to be, what is known as, an educated fool. Education is not necessarily a safeguard against stupidity. It helps but there’s no guarantee.
My point is that just because people are educated, intelligent, experienced, hold high office, speak with great eloquence, dress well and are wonderfully charming, does not mean that they know what the hell they are talking about. I have learned to maintain a healthy skepticism about everything, especially about politics, right and left; and religions, all of them.
Remember brothers and sisters, “There’s a sucker born every minute’. Amen

Bumpers

OK kids. Here are a few of my favorite bumper stickers. I welcome additions because, unfortunately, I have forgotten some really good ones. So here goes;

Jesus, protect us from your followers.

We are creating enemies faster than we can kill them.

Do you really think Jesus would be a republican?

There’s a town in Texas that’s missing its village idiot.

Here’s an old classic in case you haven’t seen it;

Imagine Whirled Peas

And while this last one is not a bumper sticker but a quote from Lily Tomlin, it’s so good I have to share it anyway.

No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up.

Drowning In Irony

Is it my imagination or are Christians the nastiest, cruelest people on the face of the planet? Recently a horrible little biddy named Ann Coulter, was interviewed by Matt Lauer on the Today show. She expressed her opinion that the widows of 9/11 victims were witches and harpies who were enjoying their notoriety and using their “fame” to push their political agenda.
Ann is a right wing author of the newly released book,”Godless: The Church of Liberalism” in which she castigates liberals, and places them somewhere between fecal matter and pond scum.
Many of us have known about Ann for some time and usually we don’t pay her any attention. She’s a clever woman who knows that if she stirs things up she will sell books, And it works.
We are up to our chins in irony lately. The Christians, represented here by George Bush, Ann Coulter, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, are people who purport to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.
The central message of this rather radical Jewish teacher was that you should love all others as if they were your brother, even your enemy. It remains a radical idea today. When this Jesus guy was confronted with people he thought to be sinners, he would take them aside and council them to help get them back on the right track. In other words, he was compassionate for the troubled, the “sinners”, and even those who hated him; quite a guy.
However, the whole agenda expressed by these modern followers of Christ seems to be attacking gays, minorities and foreigners, bombing other countries, and just generally spewing more hatred than any satan worshipper I’ve ever seen. (OK, I’ve never seen one but you get the point).
Hey, I just got an idea. Maybe they ARE satan worshippers and this is their way of destroying Christianity. You never know. It’s hard to imagine Jesus preaching all this hatred.
I’m reminded of the parade held by the Neo-Nazis a few years ago and everybody got all upset. Imagine what would have happened if they gave their little parade with their flags and uniforms and nobody showed up. Imagine if they had marched empty streets except for the occasional puzzled, stray dog. That’s what we need to do with sad little people like Ann. Ignore her parade of Christian hatred.

Suckcess

After the depression and World War II, it is understandable that the fervent goal of our parents was to attain financial security. They strove to have a home of their own, a yard, a car, a TV set and maybe even a vacation every now and then.
But what happens when you get everything you focused on for 30 years? What happens when you get the things that will make you secure, if not happy. You can’t alter your focus after all these years, especially when no one alerts you that have now “arrived” and you can slow down a bit.
So, the only thing to do is to keep on keepin on. As your pay and benefits grow, the obvious thing to do is get a bigger house, another car, more TV sets, more food, more adult toys; something to fill up the psychic hole, if you will. What else to do? As Eddie Izzard said, “The goal of all Americans is to get all the money in the world and stuff it in your ears and give the raspberries to everybody else”
We have reached a point where people have many huge cars carrying one person, numerous electronic toys, computers, ATVs, etc., etc. And above all, we have food. We buy pizzas with extra cheese in the crust because, apparently, there’s not enough in the pizza. We eat hamburgers big enough to feed a small tribe of villagers. We have become enormously fat people looking for the next fix.
Because of that, we have a list of trendy diets that grows each day. Woman’s magazines contain recipes followed by diet plans followed by recipes. What would a Somali farmer think about diet plans? Being overweight is not a problem he has considered.
The potent combination of capitalism, credit cards and resources has been Too Successful. It got us what we wanted and when we got there, there was nowhere to go, so we went for more. The hippies warned about it in the sixties but now most of them have joined the club.
I see a small percentage of Americans are attempting to be sensible about food and possessions. Generally though, if we continue on this course, we will, as a culture, rot from within like an overripe melon.