Tags for this video have been changed from 'the, family, street, christian, mafia, congress, senate' to 'the family, jeff sharlet, real time, maher, street, christian, mafia, congress, senate' - edited by kronosposeidon

The Family does seem to be at least a secretive, powerful, religious fundamentalist organization, but nobody has any idea how accurate Sharlet's claims are. Authors routinely embellish things or make stuff up completely, and they have strong incentive to do so.

It seems to strain credulity that such a powerful organization that "fetishes secrecy" wouldn't do a background check on Sharlet before letting him view their innermost meetings.

A background check would have revealed that Sharlet is clearly a liberal who's against everything the Family stands for. Sharlet's uncle, who shares the same name, Jeff Sharlet, was a prominent Vietnamn peace activist, and Sharlet himself co-founded a clearly liberal religion magazine called "Killing the Buddha"(Wiki).

All I object to is media figures who don't respect how difficult it is to actually know something free of bias and inaccuracy. http://www.videosift.com/video/Richard-Feynman-on-Social-Sciences

>> ^Throbbin:
>> ^chilaxe:
This just in: mediocre guy makes stuff up in a book, becomes rich, and gets called "brave!"

Did this hit close to home or what chilaxe?


I like Maher, but he's not exactly a scientist. Jeff Sharlet saying a bunch of stuff without any proof or data isn't journalism, and Maher isn't doing his job as a media figure or as an intellectual by just assigning 100% truth to everything that comes out of peoples' mouths.

Sharlet does appear to have some credentials, so maybe there's something more to his claims than just him 'saying stuff,' but if there is, it's not present in this appearance, meaning Sharlet and Maher aren't doing their jobs.