NYC Letter: Today's Big Stupid -- Louis Farrakhan

Day 1,279 of CHOPE
D-minus 177 Days

Department Of "Say What?" Edition

Any day of any week Louis Farrakhan is busy race-baiting, vilifying Jews, damning Israel, or leading gays to sanity. So you are probably curious, what took him so long to make the cut for big stupid? [Pause to consider the delay.] Mr. Farrakhan has been spewing his race hate, Jew hate, and lower-order insults for years, but it's always the same tired spew. Nothing new to report.

That is until today's entry.

FARRAKHAN: ALL WHITE PEOPLE SHOULD
BECOME SCIENTOLOGIST TO STOP BEING
'DEVIL CHRISTIANS' AND 'SATAN JEWS'
July 26, 2012 (BreitbartTV)

Video at the headline link.

But it's not primarily white people Mr. Farrakhan wants to snug into Scientology, a tax shelter tricked up as an ersatz religion. It's black people in general and his own congregation in particular. Behind the above bizarrerie is the even more bizarre story of Mr. Farrakhan's improbable embrace of Scientology.

SHOCK ALLIANCE: FARRAKHAN PRAISES INTEGRATION
OF SCIENTOLOGY INTO NATION OF ISLAM THEOLOGY

July 8, 2012 (Blaze) - According to media accounts, it was only a few years ago that Farrakhan first began promoting Scientology, the religion founded by Hubbard, a science fiction writer who died in 1986 (some sources, though, claim that the relationship’s roots were set in the late 1990s).

... Based on the Times initial reporting, the affiliation between the two faith systems initially focused on Scientology’s controversial drug rehabilitation program, which was first brought to NOI mosques in Los Angeles around that same time (the drug program is known a Narconon).

NOI Minister Tony Muhammad had much to say in 2006 about the growing Scientologist influence in the NOI. He claimed that the connection comes from Farrakhan’s deep interest in any programs or ideas that will advance African Americans and that Scientology is simply one mechanism that will truly enhance the NOI community.

... At various times, Farrakhan and his associates have reportedly visited Scientology establishments and the fiery preacher has touted the benefits of Hubbard’s techniques during numerous sermons. ... [Leah Nelson of the Southern Poverty Law Center writes:]

Although both the Nation of Islam and Scientology embrace extraterrestrial theories as well as self-improvement programs aimed at lifting members to higher and higher levels, they nevertheless make for extremely surprising partners. NOI is a racist hate group that holds that white people are intrinsically, biologically evil — "blue-eyed devils", in the group’s parlance. Scientology’s followers, who include several well-known celebrities and other wealthy people, are overwhelmingly white (although membership is open to all) and its founder reportedly was a racist who long defended South African apartheid.

... While he hasn’t given many specific details, Farrakhan has been more than open about the overarching relationship. In an April 2011 article, The Final Call proudly touted its connections to the Church of Scientology, claiming that Farrakhan has "introduced Black America and the world to modern equipment." This "equipment", of course, is the use of Dianetics and auditing — tools that NOI claims will "help in the salvation and liberation of Black people in America and others who are poor, downtrodden and oppressed." Mr. Farrakhan:

We are Muslims but if Scientology will help us be better, then I want the technology of this to help us to be better Muslims. Christians can accept it and be better Christians. I don’t care who gets it. Just get it and be better at who you say you are.

... But what about Hubbard’s allegedly racist past? Wouldn’t it be too much for Farrakhan to bear? Nelson continues, providing more background on the odd nature of Farrakhan’s support for the father of Scientology (and here’s a list of allegedly racist comments that Hubbard once purportedly uttered):

Astoundingly, L. Ron Hubbard, the late Scientology founder for whom Farrakhan has nothing by praise, reportedly was a notorious racist who supported South African apartheid and described black Africans as barbarous, savage and primitive, and once allegedly wrote his wife, "You shouldn’t be scrubbing the floor on your hands and knees. Get yourself a nigger; that’s what they’re born for."

Somehow, Farrakhan is tuning this out – along with the fact that Hubbard himself was white, which should be an insurmountable problem in itself. Central to NOI theology is the idea that whites are devils, created 6,000 years ago by an evil scientist for the sole purpose of oppressing blacks. They are seen by NOI members as so inherently evil that they cannot be redeemed unless they commit "mental suicide" and "erase the mentality of white supremacy", according to scholar Mattias Gardell, author of the 1996 book, In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.

Mr. Farrakhan's one forgiving moment for white people has been reserved for Scientology’s founder Lafayette Ron Hubbard. That's some tune-out, but Mr. Farrakhan is convincingly tuned out.

Last Sunday, July 1, Farrakhan doubled-down on his support for Scientology’s teaching, dismissing critics and denying that he has convoluted NOI theology through his Dianetics endorsement. He also addressed claims that Hubbard, a Caucasian, was racist, while also dismissing any critics who would see it as a conflict of interest that he would be using a white man’s teachings. Mr. Farrakhan:

You know the critics are saying ‘Aww, Farrakhan talking all this black talk and went over to that white man L. Ron Hubbard’…if it weren’t so silly. I am you. I haven’t changed my religion. You know all the prophets taught us to seek truth from the cradle to the grave. They said wherever knowledge is you should seek to be a possessor of it.

Islam is magnificent. It’s beautiful. We search the scriptures…and we come up with wonderful teachings from the honorable Elijah Muhammad and God himself has guided us — but I found something in the teaching of Dianetics of Mr. L. Ron Hubbard that I saw could bring up from the depth of our subconscious mind things that we would prefer to lie dormant. But the auditing process brings it up and it’s like bringing up demons out of us and just as this book Bible says that was the work of Jesus. How can you say you love Jesus the Christ when he was an exorcizar of demons out of the people? And when the demons were coming out, they were screaming. They didn’t just come out peacefully.

How could I see something that valuable and know the hurt and sickness of my people and not offer it to them. So the criticism 'Mr. Hubbard was a racist.' I don’t know that…and I wouldn’t care. You don’t have a good understanding of racism — you don’t. So, I found a tool that I know can help us and I thank God for Mr. L. Ron Hubbard and I thank God for his research and teaching.

He’s gone on now. So if he was a racist, that went in the ground. But I didn’t find racism in his book. If he was a hater, that went in the ground, but I didn’t find hate in his books. If he wanted nothing to do with black people, well maybe that’s in the ground. But his word was that this teaching that he had would find prominence once it was exposed to black people and black people lay hold to it. I’m not in disagreement with that. So you can continue to criticize me…all evil said and done to Farrakhan does not bother me.

There's more in the article, including a quick history from the LAT of Scientology's fanciful in principio:

Seventy-five million years ago a tyrant named Xenu (pronounced Zee-new) ruled the Galactic Confederation, an alliance of 76 planets, including Earth, then called Teegeeack.

To control overpopulation and solidify his power, Xenu instructed his loyal officers to capture beings of all shapes and sizes from the various planets, freeze them in a compound of alcohol and glycol and fly them by the billions to Earth in planes resembling DC-8s. Some of the beings were captured after they were duped into showing up for a phony tax investigation.

The beings were deposited or chained near 10 volcanoes scattered around the planet. After hydrogen bombs were dropped on them, their thetans were captured by Xenu’s forces and implanted with sexual perversion, religion and other notions to obscure their memory of what Xenu had done.

Soon after, a revolt erupted. Xenu was imprisoned in a wire cage within a mountain, where he remains today.

Who wouldn't want to "lay hold" of some of that teaching?

CHOPE.

Nation Of Islam, now two celebrity religions in one.