Back on New Year's Day, I reported on the Gulenist cult that has taken over the Turkish police and is trying to overthrow prime minister Erdogan by bugging his phone calls while he discusses where to stash all the millions in cash he's skimmed. But to the surprise of Western analysts, Erdogan more or less won the recent municipal elections.
Although the business / test prep Gulen cult headquartered in the Poconos is out to get him, Erdogan is supported by the Adnan Oktar / Harun Yahya cult of Islamic creationists / plastic surgery addicts. I can't begin to understand what the Oktar weirdness is all about, but he seems to do verbal battle with Richard Dawkins on his television talk show in which he talks and talks while babes in heavy makeup laugh at his witticisms. There's something kind of Japanese about his TV shows.
Wow. Our politics is boring as all get out compared to other countries.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I know it is given that our politicians are puppets, and they sell out to the highest bidder, though occasionally indulging ideology for election purposes.
But couldn't they at least be entertaining and interesting?
What was that quote about Eichmann? "The sheer banality of evil?"
Our politicians are repulsive in the very nature of their blandness and dullness.
We get one like that one in Ohio with the way cool hair, and the machine stomps him down for having a personality (like he was doing something unusual).
Seriously, think about it. Obama, Kerry, Clinton (the female one), Ryan (Wisconsin), Eric "Dullman" from Maryland...
Boring. Dull. Radiating a metrosexual aura with the heat of a 1000 suns.
Oh well, at least Diaper Man in Louisiana is still around (thank God for Louisiana). And maybe there is another Senator Widestance waiting to happen.
I'd love, just love to have some guys like these Turks popping up on the talking head shows. Instead we get the usual recycled crew of dumbasses (Senator Graham says hi) time after time, spouting inanities and never getting asked relevant questions.
business / test prep... Islamic creationists / plastic surgery addicts
ReplyDeleteHmmm...
Geeks & Nerds -vs- Psychologically Manipulative PUAs.
I'll get the popcorn.
Here's an unintentionally amusking feminsit take on Oktar's sex kittens: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/05/building_bridges_the_sexy_kittens_of_turkish_tv.single.html
ReplyDelete*amusing
ReplyDeleteAdnan Oktar is a kook. His insanity, although now totally out-there, came over gradually, like Paul Graham's Comb-Over.
ReplyDeleteFun fact: He -allegedly- used honey traps for his sort of byzantine politics.
Also he had little influence and now has next to none, he grabs a lot of attention online because he never gets boring.
Maybe it's just the beard and the eyebrows, but damn if Adnan doesn't look like what I think a Turk ought to look like. Give him a peaked cap and a horn bow, and he'd be ready to sack Constantinople.
ReplyDeleteRE: Oktar
ReplyDelete"Oktar propagates a number of conspiracy theories, beginning with his 1986 Yahudilik ve Masonluk (Judaism and Freemasonry). The book suggests that the principal mission of Jews and Freemasons in Turkey was to erode the spiritual, religious, and moral values of the Turkish people and, thus, make them like animals, as stated in what Oktar refers to as their use of "Distorted Torah."[10][45] Oktar asserts that "the materialist standpoint, evolution theory, anti-religious and immoral lifestyles were indoctrinated to the society as a whole" by Jews and Freemasons.[10]
His theory of a global conspiracy of Freemasonry is expounded in his book Global Masonluk (English Global Freemasonry) and on his websites Masonluk[46] and Global Freemasonry.[47] According to Oktar, Freemasonry is "the main architect of the world system based on materialist philosophy, but which keeps that true identity concealed."[47] Oktar called the theory of evolution a Masonic conspiracy initiated by the Rosicrucians.
Oktar's recent publications declare Darwinism and Materialism to be conspiracies responsible for anti-semitism and terrorism.[8][48] In recent publications and interviews (since 2004[49]), Oktar qualifies his condemnations of Zionism and Freemasonry by adding the word atheist before them, as in atheist Zionists[50] and atheist Freemasons." (WIKIPEDIA)
Freemasons seems to pop up a lot in Mediterranean conspiracy thinking.
Steve:"There's something kind of Japanese about his TV shows."
ReplyDeleteYeah, watching it felt weirdly like seeing a Caucasoid version of the Japanese talk show in LOST IN TRANSLATION.
A few other random observations:
1. It's odd how the show's women seem to consist of both cleavage-showing hotties and hijab-wearing traditionalists. Of course, both groups of women on the show go in for heavy makeup and botox.....
2. Turks really, really, really like blondes.
Some info on the show's cheesecake contingent:
ReplyDelete"Adnan Hoca, Turkey's self-taught Islamic televangelist, keeps an entourage of buxom ladies by his side
What would you think if a voluptuous, sexy blonde started preaching to you about Islamic values and creationism? You’d probably be dumbfounded, right? But for some people it might very well be the best way to transmit a religious message. Certainly Adnan Oktar, a famous cult leader in Turkey, believes so.
Oktar, also known as Adnan Hoca (Master Adnan), a self-taught preacher and televangelist, peddles his views on his own satellite TV channel, A9, where he broadcasts his religious messages alongside five big-breasted women wearing tight Versace T-shirts and heavy makeup. In an interview in 2008, Oktar said, “I want to resemble the Prophet Solomon.” He added, “His palace was beautiful; there were beautiful people around him. [The] aim of a Muslim should be beauty.”
On Oktar’s nightly show, he sits around a table with his bombshells and talks about Islam, the Quran, creationism, politics and current social events, along with musings about himself. He calls his female entourage “kittens” and repeatedly asks them what they think of him. An example of the dialogue goes like this: “Do you love me?” Oktar asks. A “kitten” then answers: “I love you so much, my master.” He sometimes brings guests on the show and inquires about their love for him as well."
(http://www.vocativ.com/culture/religion/creationism-side-eye-candy/)
RE: Oktar's "Kittens":
ReplyDelete"In a recent interview with a Turkish paper, Oktar’s gals said most of them have university degrees and can speak several languages. They also claim their looks are all-natural—no plastic surgery whatsoever. When asked about their hard-to-miss painted faces, one of them claimed that wearing makeup was part of the Prophet Mohammed’s teachings and that in fact he liked blond women."
http://www.vocativ.com/culture/religion/creationism-side-eye-candy/)
My son and my brother in law say that the Turkish women who wear make up wear too much. Even the pretty ones which seriously detracts from their looks for Americans.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if it is because other Islamic women cannot wear makeup in public? They have no way of saying 'hey, that look just stinks'. Perhaps they're afraid if they criticize other women too much they might lose the 'right' to makeup. Just speculating.
Who knows, they're living in a weird part of the world and some Eastern Europeans do the same. Maybe they get much of their Western contact from Bulgaria or Romania or something?
Amazing. Gets at the heart of what motivates cult leaders in the first place.
ReplyDeleteA Joseph Smith for the year 2014.
What is most fascinating about these types in their incredible self-confidence.
The "sex cult" thing is a bit overblown since plastic surgery is more in the visual realm of the Arts, than say sexual erotica (e.g. erotic writing).
ReplyDeleteChristian Creationists are mostly concerned with STEM and the Arts, and it's probably the same for Islamic types.
Huh. Who knew you could enter the uncanny valley from the human side?
ReplyDeleteAnd what ever happened to that guy in his undershirt who wrote the book claiming Leftists and Creationists were out to censor the fact that black people suck? He used to comment in HBD-land all the time. I liked him, and now he's gone.
OT, Afghans Brace for Election Day Violence
ReplyDeleteWho could have possibly foreseen this?
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304441304579481443227591188
There's something kind of Japanese about his TV shows.
ReplyDeleteThere's something kind of Japanese about his language, too. It's this similarity you noticed that has prompted a number of people to investigate genetic relationships between Japanese and Altaic languages.
Some of the best scholarship in this area comes out of Finland.
The US president is also supported by a plastic surgery cult. It's called Hollywood.
ReplyDeleteThe blondes look like the rejects from "Drag Race". I have seen better looking trannys on North Ave. at 3 am looking for drunk down low guys.
ReplyDeleteThe women all wear too much makeup, but that's common in lots of places. The plastic surgery makes many of them look like porn actresses.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's just the beard and the eyebrows, but damn if Adnan doesn't look like what I think a Turk ought to look like. Give him a peaked cap and a horn bow, and he'd be ready to sack Constantinople.
That was my impression as well. He looks like what you'd think a Turk is supposed to look like. You can imagine seeing him in an old history book or something. He's got that Middle Eastern with an Oriental/Mongol tinge look, which is sort of what you imagine Turks are supposed to look like from reading history without actually ever seeing Turks.
Freemasons seems to pop up a lot in Mediterranean conspiracy thinking.
ReplyDeleteFreemason conspiracies were common in Catholic culture as well. Not just fringe, but mainstream Catholic culture. And the Catholics weren't necessarily wrong, because the Freemasons were anti-clerical, anti-Catholic, and tended to be Protestant and secular.
Freemasonry was connected to the Serbian nationalist/terror movement though. Belgrade was a nest of Masonic activity.
DeleteSo was Istanbul.
Worse than the heavy makeup are the awful bleach jobs. The dark haired girls look better.
ReplyDeleteIn the video shown, he "explains" that seeing beautiful women increases people's love for God, who created such beauty, and he criticizes those (unspecified) who have tried to eliminate female beauty and replace it with "women like men."
ReplyDeleteThe Young Turks revolution of 1908 was hatched inside Masonic lodges.
ReplyDeleteTristero:"In the video shown, he "explains" that seeing beautiful women increases people's love for God, who created such beauty, and he criticizes those (unspecified) who have tried to eliminate female beauty and replace it with "women like men.""
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the bleached, botoxed, and surgically modified women on his show are disturbing as hell to look at.
sunbeam: I'd love, just love to have some guys like these Turks popping up on the talking head shows. Instead we get the usual recycled crew of dumbasses (Senator Graham says hi) time after time, spouting inanities and never getting asked relevant questions.
ReplyDeleteDid we watch the same video? Granted, the fake tits of the porn-bots on our news shows are not as monumental, and their faces not quite as far down the slopes of the uncanny valley, but...well, hey, I don't speak Turkish, so maybe I'm unfairly inferring from the visuals American, not to say Italian, TV levels of dumbassery and inanity.
Back in the early aughties I used to get weird Harun Yahya creationist spam in my mailbox. How I got on that mailing list, I do not know.
What is most fascinating about these types in their incredible self-confidence.
ReplyDeleteWhen you're a sociopath, you aren't burdened by things like a conscience, or a sense of introspection, or, God forbid, any foreboding or self-doubt.
For the sociopaths, it's always full-bore, pedal-to-the-metal, 24-hours-a-day, 365-days-a-year.
Back on New Year's Day, I reported on the Gulenist cult that has taken over the Turkish police and is trying to overthrow prime minister Erdogan by bugging his phone calls while he discusses where to stash all the millions in cash he's skimmed.
ReplyDeleteMillions of new Turkish lira or millions of old ones? Because a million old lira are only worth $0.29.
Actually, it sounds like they are speaking Korean.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it kind of looks like a Japanese fantasy about Italian TV.
ReplyDeleteRohan Swee wrote:
ReplyDelete"Did we watch the same video? Granted, the fake tits of the porn-bots on our news shows are not as monumental, and their faces not quite as far down the slopes of the uncanny valley, but...well, hey, I don't speak Turkish, so maybe I'm unfairly inferring from the visuals American, not to say Italian, TV levels of dumbassery and inanity."
I don't speak it either. Maybe that put a patina on it.
But if you watch the Sunday talk shows where someone comes on to pump this or that, they say nothing concrete. They never get asked any questions that could remotely be considered tough.
So if you are going to get no information, you might as well get that lack of information this way.
Kind of like those news shows where the anchorwoman strips.
I find that strangely compelling.
Funny, I also had the reaction that he looks and sounds quintessentially Turkic/Altaic.
ReplyDeleteGotta admit, guy's seemingly distilled the televisual medium to its essence. And here I'd thought the standard Venezuelan programming was tacky...
ReplyDeleteHow would you explain the Unification Church to a Turk?
ReplyDeleteWhen you're a sociopath, you aren't burdened by things like a conscience, or a sense of introspection, or, God forbid, any foreboding or self-doubt.
ReplyDeleteThere was a radio DJ in my town like that. He was actually only good because of his co-hosts. After pissing off everybody in the business, he went off to be a Hollywood actor even though he looked awful on camera. He promptly returned and convinced some other station to give him a job in which he was just awful. No rapport with anybody, rude, un-funny and stilted. Somebody should have made a CD and played it at those broadcasting schools - what NOT to do. He was gone in a week. But I don't think the guy ever had the slightest bit of self-doubt. I wish I had that trait.
Some of the women are quite attractive, if too heavily made-up. A few of them were kind of repellent in the way that women are when they've too botoxed, collagened, and plasticized.
ReplyDeleteIt is odd, to an American eye, that the host is filmed mostly in profile. I thought the first commandment of TV was to always look at the camera.
Anyway, it doesn't seem any more stupid than the Bill O'Reilly show.
That Adnan Oktar video gives me a new understanding of Obama's Syria policy. Thanks
ReplyDeleteThe iSteve crowd think big-tittied hot womens who wear makeup are weird?
ReplyDeleteWe are living in the End Times.
The Anti-Gnostic said: There was a radio DJ in my town like that.
ReplyDeleteHunsdon said; In my experience, sociopaths/psychopaths come across as excellent "people people." It's just that they're faking it, like Michael Caine doing a Texas accent.
"Sincerity, that's the most important thing; if you can fake that, you've got it made."
Anyway, it doesn't seem any more stupid than the Bill O'Reilly show.
ReplyDeleteComments like these are so emblematic of paleoconservarism and are why paleoconservarism will simply never gain traction electorally. I despise oreilly myself but to act like it isn't immeasurably better than this turkish crap reflects the warped psyche that really hates things because they are American. Issued from above by someone like Henry James or Eiot this kind of attitude while snobbish is not repulsive. Issued from below by a movement made up of underachievers the unmarried and prom dateless it reeks of such loserdom as to doom any movement associated with it.
Basement Jax Plug It In,
ReplyDeleteThey look like the robots from that video.
Anonydroid at 3:22 PM said: Issued from below by a movement made up of underachievers the unmarried and prom dateless it reeks of such loserdom as to doom any movement associated with it.
ReplyDeleteHunsdon said: Pat Buchanan, Paul Gottfried, underachievers from the get-go!
Hey, why don't you just say that white chicks will hate hate HATE paleocons, and be done with it?
"Anonymous said...
ReplyDelete""Anyway, it doesn't seem any more stupid than the Bill O'Reilly show.""
Comments like these are so emblematic of paleoconservarism and are why paleoconservarism will simply never gain traction electorally. I despise oreilly myself but to act like it isn't immeasurably better than this turkish crap reflects the warped psyche that really hates things because they are American."
I don't hate O'Reilly because he's an American. I hate O'Reilly because he is a crass, grating, stupid a**hole, who hawks merchandise like he's a used car salesman with seven ex-wives - T-shirts, coffee-mugs, his tours, and his (probably, ghost-written) formulaic "Killing X" books. He's a smug, braying nincompoop, who - uncannily - even makes Sean Hannity look good in comparison. O'Reilly is also a shameless neocon tool, and an apologist for every kind of statist, police-state-like intrusion into our lives. And his TV show - the "Factor" (what the hell does that even mean - "The Factor"?) - is trashy, awful crap - with his slowly spelled out and enunciated "Talking Points Memos", his "Word of the day", and his other painfully cretinous attempts at didactism. It's "The Firing Line" for retards. So, no, it is not "immeasurably better" than the turkish James Doohan and his bevy of giggling porn-bots. I would say it is on a par.
"Issued from below by a movement made up of underachievers the unmarried and prom dateless it reeks of such loserdom as to doom any movement associated with it.
The usual assertions made by the anonymous about the anonymous. Anyone who disagrees with you must live in his parents' basement, and uses the meager earnings from his paper-route to buy video games and stroke-mags. Peddle it elsewhere. You have no idea who I am or what I do. And I'll wager that I'm at least as successful in life as you are, and a damned sight smarter too.
biff:"The iSteve crowd think big-tittied hot womens who wear makeup are weird?
ReplyDeleteWe are living in the End Times."
Has more to do with us thinking that women with huge silicone implants, triple-thick coats of clown makeup, and botox-paralyzed faces are weird.
Lol supported by "cult". What is happening to our politics??
ReplyDelete