I am invoicing you for the cost of replacing the scroll wheel on my mouse, Boombats.

Good to see Boombats is doing all he can. What was that you said Rick?

happyandbored wrote:Good to see Boombats is doing all he can. What was that you said Rick?

shutupIkillyou

Eh, yikes.

Bats, I'd kiss you if I didn't think your mouth tasted like bongwater.

Anyone ever catch that series Wild Palms years ago?

Kind of Twin Peaks meets virtual reality meets scientology piss-take (albeit renamed synthiotics). Church leader/politician uses drug enhanced VR television to push his own religion and get himself elected. Very dark stuff indeed.

From today's Guardian:

German historian likens Cruise speech to Goebbels


· Footage of actor 'recalls notorious speech'
· Critics say Scientology is anti-constitutional

Jess Smee in Berlin
Monday January 21, 2008
The Guardian



The long-standing antagonism between Germany and the Church of Scientology escalated over the weekend when a high-profile historian compared Tom Cruise's performance in a Scientology video with the style of the Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels.

Guido Knopp, who has written a number of books on Hitler and his inner circle, said the video, which surfaced on YouTube last week, "inevitably" recalled Goebbels' speech in a Berlin sports stadium when he asked "Do you want total war?" and the crowd thundered "Yes!"

The Scientology footage shows Cruise, wearing a large medallion and speaking from a podium. "So what do you say, we gonna clean this place up?" he asks. He is greeted by zealous cheers.

"It may be the case that Cruise's delivery style is not uncommon in certain religious movements in the US," Knopp told Bild am Sonntag in an interview. "But for Germans with an interest in history, that scene where he asks whether the Scientologists should clean up the world and everyone shouts 'yes' is inevitably reminiscent of Goebbels' notorious speech."

Article continues
Parallels with the Third Reich remain highly sensitive here. But Scientology has generated a visceral opposition in Germany - last month security ministers tried to ban it, saying it contravened the constitution - and Knopp's remarks found few critics yesterday.

Thomas Gandow, of the German Protestant church, who has previously compared Cruise to Goebbels, said the video revealed the actor's high standing in the organisation: "He is not your average sect member but rather a propaganda minister ... I still believe it: Tom Cruise is the Goebbels of Scientology."

Ursula Caberta, who leads a Hamburg-based research group into the Church of Scientology, said the latest video was "hard evidence" that the group was anti-constitutional.

There was no immediate comment from the Church of Scientology in Berlin, however the organisation's US headquarters issued a statement in defence of Cruise. "Bild am Sonntag is grossly irresponsible for publishing horrendous and disgraceful claims about Mr Cruise," it said. "Unlike Bild am Sonn tag and other German anti-religionists, he does not discriminate against any other religion, race or colour."

The organisation has said the footage came from a meeting four years ago. It was posted on several websites last week, but some took it down after the church claimed copyright. Other footage shows the Oscar-nominated actor speaking above the "Mission: Impossible" theme music. He presents himself and fellow Scientologists as "authorities on the mind".

"We're the authorities on getting people off drugs. We're the authorities on the mind. We're the authorities on improving conditions ... We can rehabilitate criminals. Way to happiness. We can bring peace and unite cultures," Cruise tells his audience.

But such claims are treated with suspicion in Germany, where there is decades-long scepticism about anything regarded as an ideological movement.

Germany has taken a very distinct stance among European countries towards Scientology, considering it not as a religion but as a commercial organisation.

The Church of Scientology, which is thought to have about 6,000 adherents in Germany, is closely monitored by Germany's Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which also tracks the activities of neo-Nazis, leftwing extremists and Islamist terrorists. Such scrutiny has prompted criticism from the US state department.

Cruise found himself at the sharp end of German hostility last summer when the defence ministry sought to obstruct the filming of Valkyrie, starring Cruise as the German resistance hero Claus von Stauffenberg.

Although the ban on using military sites was eventually scrapped, ministers criticised the project, citing Cruise's affiliation with Scientology. Even Berthold Graf von Stauffenberg, the count's son, joined in, dubbing Scientology a "totalitarian ideology".

Earwicker wrote:You fellas are arguing over two different definitions of 'conspiracy theory' (again)

There are two types of definition:

One which sees a conspiracy theory as, by definition, something that cannot have happened. If it turns out later to have happened then it stops ever having been a conspiracy theory.

The other sees a 'conspiracy theory' as a theory to explain an event involving a conspiracy.


If an 'official version' of an event is presented and someone disputes that - even slightly - they do tend to be called 'conspiracy theorists' (under the first definition)


This just adds fuel to both types.

I would say a "conspiracy theory" is "an explanation of an event or state of affairs assuming the existence of a conspiracy", because whether or not a conspiracy really exists, the "conspiracy theory" explanation always assumes one, and then seeks to discredit the "official version" of events in the mistaken belief that doing so will strengthen the pro-conspiracy version.

The term "conspiracy theory" would not apply to a policeman working on a drug case. It's not the same as somebody promoting a "theory" (about the death of Princess Di being the work of a collaboration between the Royals and the Freemasons, for instance) from his own home without access to the actual physical or documentary evidence of the case.

As I pointed out before, the postulates and assumptions made by conspiracy theorists are not real theories in the stringent, scientific definition of the word.

My definition of a 'conspiracy theorist' is one who believes and promotes the paranoid concept of omnipotent global criminal conspiracies to explain the everyday operation of virtually every human system he encounters in every aspect of his life.

For a conspiracy theorist, everything he has ever been taught in school and every bit of information he receives via mainstream sources (conventional news outlets, etc.) is automatically considered to be a lie promoted by an evil, world-dominating cabal that promotes its own agenda contrary to the truth. On these grounds the conspiracy theorist rejects all types of authority, from governmental law to the education system. He actively seeks any bit of information that can possibly be construed to support his extraordinary claims, without any earnest pursuit of understanding the context from which he culls the information. For the conspiracy theorist, actually learning and understanding the real world takes a back seat to merely promoting alternative notions without any judgment as to their viability, feasibility or truth.

This approach is rooted in a belief system so distorted that despite its many postulates, its only firm belief is a fundamental lack of trust in the version of events promoted by established authorities in society. It's a subversive "anti-belief system" which rejects the status quo in much the same way as Satanism is a subversive anti-religion to the religion of Christianity. For the conspiracy-minded individual, the discovery of a universal Truth is subordinate to the goal of discrediting commonly-accepted notions of reality. This is why conspiracy theorists often promote a wide range of imaginative, paranoid explanations for world events which are usually mutually-exclusive or at least incompatible with one another. Conspiracy theorists operate on the assumption that all explanations merit equal warrant as long as they foment doubt about the commonly-held version.

Col. P., I don't think your definition of a conspiracy theorist has much representation in real life, at least not outside mental institutions. However I do think a lot of people are misrepresenting themselves as such without realizing it, by posting unfounded or under-researched speculations on internet message boardz.