Monday, August 29, 2011
"The Hierophant in the Living Room"
Fear has always been used as a motivator in the sales world.
Now, governments have mastered the technique and use it for their own purposes (or their brother-in-law's)...
Now, governments have mastered the technique and use it for their own purposes (or their brother-in-law's)...
Richard Fernandez wrote this as part of his very thoughful article at PajamasMedia.com:
"Oops.
When broadcaster Harold Camping predicted the End of the World would take place on May 21, 2011, his failed prediction was widely reviled by the media. When the fatal day came and went without incident, Camping was ridiculed ceaselessly. That’s natural, because getting blamed for predictions that don’t come true are the occupational hazard of mystics and prophets.
But official fortune-tellers have a special get-out-of-jail card. They can soothsay and be proven wrong time and again without consequence. Like Myers they can be absolutely mistaken by several orders of magnitude and in the sign of his coefficient to boot, and yet emerge with their scientific and academic reputations intact. But the official warlocks are far more dangerous than men like Camping, who was a private individual with a private flock. He at least never spent tax money to prepare for a doomsday which never came. Nor did he use government authority to enact regulations to designed to forestall their fake prophecies.
That’s his bad luck. If Camping had been in the Global Warming rather than the religious business he would even now be making his next prediction before an official UN body. He might even be advising President Obama."
