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Friday 11 August 2006

The Packatollah

Back in the 1970s, when I was still a keen young WCG member studying at Teachers College, I came across a great kid's picture book called Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-good, Very Bad Day. I've been meaning to improvise on the title and write an entry called Dave Pack and his Huge, Immense, Gargantuan, Very Big Work.

Thankfully, Gary Scott has spared me the bother with a telling commentary on XCG dealing with the Packatollah's obsession with size. It seems the Titan is really a wiener, flatulent ego notwithstanding.

There's been some debate about the value of exposing preachers like Pack in the media, and I'm sure there would be a long line of people eager to talk about their experience. Unfortunately, any publicity is good publicity and Pack should be starved of it. The only people who know about his obscure little organization are those with a prior commitment to Armstrongism, and even this little band largely ignores his inane boasting. Those who do take him seriously are an aging, dwindling bunch. Neither he nor his work will endure.

Pack is merely a legend in his own mind, as Gary clearly demonstrates.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Like 50+ year old men driving Ferraris...Pack is overcompensating for a small...

Anonymous said...

Soon there will be enough offshoot groups of the Pack sort that we will be able to describe them with fractal mathematics. The big question is whether these groups and subgroups and sub-subgroups (ad infinitum) will possess Exact Self-similarity or Quasi-self-similarity.

I am struck with how many people entrapped within Armstrongism want to be either HWA or GTA. I am dismayed when I read about some tiny offshoot group, with a couple of small Feast sites, flying in "special speakers" -- just like in the Gulfstream and Cessna Citation days of the pre-1995 WCG. The thrill.

Neo