The hopes of the Anti-Buchanan Brigade are pinned on one man:
John Hagelin, the presidential candidate of the "Natural Law Party" –
who has somehow managed to get on the Reform Party presidential
primary ballot. He is running on a platform of universal training in the
art of "yogic levitation" – as a follower of the Maharishi Maheesh Yogi,
Hagelin and his followers believe that they can levitate (and cure all
diseases) through the power of meditation. Of course, the Path to True
Enlightenment could cost you as much as $100,000 – that's what they
charge for a full course of instruction into the higher mysteries of
Transcendental Meditation – but hey, what the heck, money's no
object when it comes to gettin' a piece of the Godhead. What would the
"Harvard trained" Hagelin do about Kosovo? Send "coherence teams"
to the area to chant the natives into a state of transcendental bliss. The
KLA would be so stoned on the good vibes emanating from the TMers
that they'll forget all about their four-hundred-year old grudge against
the Serbs and will suddenly turn as tractable as little lambs. Now why
didn't Clinton think of that? Oh well, it's better than dropping cluster
bombs at 30,000 feet.
A GRUESOME GAGGLE
In his calculated nuttiness, Hagelin is the natural
candidate of the Anti-Buchanan Brigades – a
gruesome gaggle of "yogic flyers," followers of the
leftwing psycho-cultists Lenora Fulani and Fred
Newman, and a dwindling band of Perotistas without
Perot. Led by Jim Mangia, the Reform party national
secretary (but not for long), and stage-managed by
Foolani and her robotic minions, the Hate Buchanan
faction of Reform has held a press conference every
other day: when they aren't threatening violence
(Mangia has said he expects the national convention
to be "a bloodbath") they are touting their own
"tolerance" and the political correctness of their
candidate.
Hagelin is held up as the only alternative to
Buchanan, whom they invariably describe in
mono-dimensional terms as a "social conservative."
Hagelin accuses Buchanan of being "divisive" and
"hateful" and poses as a social liberal. But what is the
real ideology of the Natural Law Party, whose
spokesman Rob Roth has described as "the
Transcendental Meditation party"? The Vedic
scriptures from which the TM/Natural Law crowd
draws its ideology are not exactly a product of the
European Enlightenment. Never mind the
Buchananites: we know about them. What about the
Natural Law Party? Are they really levitating liberals?
IN THE CLOSET
Airbone reactionaries is more like it. It turns out
the TMers are somewhat to the right of Buchanan on
such issues as abortion, homosexuality, the family,
and the role of women. The "Laws of Manu" which are
the Holy Bible of the TMers, condemns women who
"cause an abortion" and considers it a sin on a par with
a wife killing her husband.
If Hagelin is now claiming
to be "pro-choice," he must have gotten a special
dispensation from the Maharishi. But one can only
wonder if the Giggling Guru – as the Maharishi is
called, for his annoying habit of giggling "blissfully"
while dropping pearls of divine wisdom – can afford to
give him much more leeway on a whole host of other
issues on which the Vedas are quite explicit. On
homosexuality, for example, Jim Mangia will be
chagrined to learn that his new-found allies are not
about to sponsor a float in the Gay Freedom Day
Parade. According to the text that is sacred to virtually
all Natural Law Party members:
"A twice-born man who commits an unnatural
offence with a male, or has intercourse with a female
in a cart drawn by oxen, in water, or in the day-time,
shall bathe, dressed in his clothes."
UNNATURAL ACTS
So Hagelin and the flying carpeteers agree with
Buchanan that homosexuality is an "unnatural act."
Naturally, the openly gay Mangia, who likes to whine
about Buchanan's "gaybashing," has no problem with
this – since Hagelin keeps his "homophobia" in the
closet, so to speak. If Mangia shows up in Long Beach
drenched to the skin in his best suit, we'll know he's
converted – but then again we always knew he was all
wet.
Yeah, those TMers sure hate queers. If you think the
punishment for "unnatural acts" is just a
good-natured soaking, then getta loada this:
"Giving pain to a Brahmana (by a blow), smelling at
things which ought not to be smelt at, or at spirituous
liquor, cheating, and an unnatural offence with a
man, are declared to cause the loss of caste
(Gatibhramsa)."
SAY, WHAT?
Smelling at things that ought not to be smelled at?
No, no, we don't want to go there – in any case, no
matter how you look at it, things don't look too good
for the Gay Caucus of the Natural Law Party. And the
feminists aren't going to fare too well, either.
According to the Laws of Manu, which Hagelin and
his fellow levitators hold up as the equivalent of
natural law, "Though destitute of virtue, or seeking
pleasure (elsewhere), or devoid of good qualities, (yet)
a husband must be constantly worshipped as a god by
a faithful wife." Now that is harsh. Buchanan, as a
Catholic of the traditionalist mold, is not big on
divorce, but he is a veritable pussycat compared to the
swamis.
SOUNDBITES
Virtually every news story on Hagelin neglects to
describe the candidate's views other than in very
vague terms: he is simply the Anti-Buchanan, and
Transcendental Meditation is mentioned only in
passing if at all. These same stories echo every
complaint, every accusation, every soundbite retailed
by the wrecking crew that is out to derail Buchanan
and the Reform party, all to the same effect:
Buchanan is a "social conservative" – period. He has
no other views, if we are to believe Mangia, Fulani,
and the rest.
But these people – particularly Fulani –
discredited themselves by latching on to the flying
fruitloops and their loopy candidate, Hagelin. What is
funny, in a pathetic kind of way, is that they didn't
even bother to investigate whom or what they were
getting in bed with – like whores in a crack house,
they were ready to do anything for the first one to stick
a pipe in their mouths.
CORRECTION
A previous edition of this column
erroneously reported that Rob Roth, the
Natural Law Party press secretary, had been a
member of the Weather Underground in the
sixties, went underground, and was on the
FBI's "wanted" list. This turns out not to have
been the case, and I want to take this
opportunity to publically apologize to him.
The two guys were the same age, had the same
middle initial, and from their pictures I could
have sworn it was the same guy: It wasn't. I
am red-faced -- but perfectly willing to set the
record straight. I talked to Roth on the phone
this morning, and he seems like a nice guy. I
hope there are no hard feelings, Bob. Please
accept my humble apologies.
THE DEBATE
What really gets me is that Hagelin has been
demanding that Buchanan debate him – and can you
imagine that? I can see it all now: Hagelin would start
in about how we need to send teams of TM meditators
to sing mantras to the Kosovars, and get them signed
up for few courses in yogic flying. Can't you just hear
PJB's triumphant laugh, at once good-natured and
disdainful? "Are you suggesting that we should get rid
of our air force?"
CARRIED AWAY
The practice of "yogic flying," Hagelin and the
TMers claim, is achieved by deep meditation: one
reaches such a state of concentrated enlightenment
that one is literally carried away by the sheer power of
it, lifted straight up into the air. They claim to be able
to do this, and Hagelin's followers say they have
photographs supposedly proving it. What they
actually do, however, is bounce up and down on their
haunches, launching themselves into the air in short
(and, I imagine, rather painful) bursts: they are prone
to injuries in certain parts of their anatomy, often
severe, as a result.
Another drawback is that their
brains rattle around inside their skulls, bumping into
the hard cranium with such force that they begin to
lose brain cells almost as quickly as they lose most of
their money to the Maharishi to pay for courses,
magical "teas," and special mantras. But the national
media has been squinting so hard that they have been
taken in by the "yogic flying" illusion. Instead of
wacked-out cultists whose politics have a sinister
neo-medievalist cast, they see socially liberal
"centrists" righteously appalled by Buchanan's views
on abortion, homosexuality, and other hot-button
issues. The near-sightedness of American journalism
is no secret: they see what they want to see, nothing
more.
CULTIC MARRIAGE
A band of political hucksters and con-men (and
women: I didn't mean to slight you, Lenora) is trying
to take over the Reform party and split up the public
campaign funds between them. The Maharishi's
minions in other countries have taken up the same
line as the Natural Law Party, with some success, and
that is the use of state funds to spread their religious
beliefs, i.e. the alleged benefits, including medical
benefits, of TM.
Fulani, too, has been implicated by
her numerous critics in questionable schemes
involving federal matching funds, and so these two
weird cults – one based on a mix of Marxism and the
psychological theories of an obscure Russian crank,
and the other based on a hybrid of Hindu
fundamentalism and the ravings of an Indian crank –
have joined forces with Jim Mangia and other would
be Reform Party bosses.
A couple of rip-off artists, and
the embittered remnants of a party that was never
allowed to get off the ground – this is the alleged
"centrist alternative" to Buchanan. The "scientific"
Marxism of Lenora Fulani meets the blissful beatitude
of the Giggling Guru Hagelin, the physicist who is a
mystic, is the perfect embodiment of this cultic
alliance: the scientist on a flying carpet.
