Don Swift : Rick Perry and the New Apostolic Reformation

Rev. Tom Schlueter, a New Apostolic Reformation pastor, shown laying his hands on Rick Perry in front of a painting of the Battle at the Alamo. Image from Right Speak.
A threat to American liberties:
Rick Perry and the New Apostolic Reformation

Two years ago, two NAR ministers explained to Perry that Texas had been anointed by God to bring America to Godly rule.

By Don Swift / The Rag Blog / September 28, 2011

[This is the third in a series on Dominionism by Don Swift.]

The most vigorous branch of Dominionism is the New Apostolic Reformation. Rev. Dr. C. Peter Wagner of Global Harvest Ministries in Colorado Springs, is the “convening Apostle” or leading light in New Apostolic Reformation, and he says the reformation or New Apostolic Age began in 2001.

A former professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, Wagner is famous for helping develop the “growth model” that was to produce the huge megachurches that now dot the land. He and his followers aim for a post-denominational Christianity shaped by them. Their leaders are God’s new apostles and prophets who have greater power than the original apostles and prophets.

Spiritual warriors must convert adherents of other churches and seek political power. They think the end times will see the perfection of Christianity and they will have a perfected religion to turn over to Christ, when he returns. They will be given great power and crush evil with a “rod of iron.”

These NAR Dominionists look to the day when they and, above all, their clergy take over society. Dr. Wagner advocates a pragmatic theology which justifies acting in a way whereby the ends justify the means. His followers tend to be Charismatics and Pentecostals, and they are post-millennialists rather than pre-millennialists. That is, they believe that Christ must return to earth before they can complete the work of establishing his Kingdom. Of course, not all Charismatics or Pentecostals are Dominionists.

The New Apostolics are busy in worldly affairs because they believe they are destined to rule. In addition they want to expel demons, witches, and sorcerers, and they claim the power to physically heal others and raise people from the dead.

They believe they have the world’s only valid religious belief system. They want a post-denominational church, but it will not be warm and fuzzy as some think. People can be forced to join the new non-denominational Christianity for their own good, and other churches can be forced to stop teaching false doctrines. One official of Morningstar Ministries admits that life under their theocratic rule “may seem totalitarian at first.”

They target youth to be members of Joel’s Army (a distortion of an illusion in Book Joel 2) to seize political power and force non-believers to accept their version of Christianity. In addition to Joel's Army, they have used other names like Shepherding, Latter Rain, and Manifest Sons of God.

These churches engage in “spiritual warfare” as was depicted in the movie Jesus Camp. In the film, young people were trained to “take dominion” over the world. They will also purge the Christian church of elements that strongly disagree with them.

These sincere Christians believe that the world is inhabited by all sorts of demons and that the powers of demons even get passed down in families, just as curses are passed down. Some demons run territories; others inhabit some of their enemies, and still other very powerful demons run churches they dislike. The reverse side of believing in evil demons is the teaching that the New Apostolics have the power to heal, raise the dead, and successfully combat the forces of darkness.

NAR Dominionists seriously think some people are sorcerers or demons and must be fought. They think sorcery runs in families. They see themselves as being involved in continual spiritual warfare. NAR people see themselves as spiritual warriors and “prayer warriors” who constitute the “Army of God.” It seems we heard that name in some other context of late.

They are out to destroy the demons and evil spirits that cause problems in a territory so that the truly saved can take over and rule. Congress has helped the movement by giving it millions in grants for abstinence sex education and anti-AIDS projects.

They see secularists as members of satanic armies and demonic enemies of religion and freedom. Bill Bright, founder of the Campus Crusade for Christ, believed that demons were active agents that could take over institutions and political entities. Many Dominionists share this belief. Lou Engle, of the Family Research Council, who has also prayed with Michele Bachmann, frequently said that the people supporting health care reform were guided by demons.

Rick Perry, a Pentecostal, also has strong ties to Dominionism, but he does not seem to go as far as Rep. Bachmann. He is particularly attractive to a group of Pentecostal Dominionists who are members of the New Apostolic Reformation movement. Rev. Tom Schlueter, a New Apostolic Reformation pastor, is close to Perry. Schlueter has said that God called the NAR to infiltrate government: “We’re going to infiltrate [the government], not run from it. I know why God’s doing what he’s doing ... He’s just simply saying, ‘Tom I’ve given you authority in a governmental authority, and I need you to infiltrate the governmental mountain.”

NAR pastors call the Lone Star State the "Prophet State,” meaning it was foretold that it was to be a template for the rest of America. Two years ago, two NAR ministers explained to Perry that Texas had been anointed by God to bring America to Godly rule. They had been instructed to visit Perry by one of their prophets, Chuck Pierce of Denton, Texas.

Eight NAR leaders were deeply involved in Perry's recent prayer rally, called “The Response.” Not everyone who attended that event was a Dominionist or even knew what that term meant.

Few note that Governor Perry sent invitations on official stationery and promoted it on a state government web site. Dominionist Mike Bickle of the International House of Prayer also played an important role at the event. He claims that demons have repeatedly attacked him and is known for his address “Authority of the Believer, Exercising Our Dominion in Christ.”

[Don Swift, a retired history professor, also writes under the name Sherman DeBrosse. Read more articles by Don Swift on The Rag Blog.]

Also see:

• "Perry, Bachmann, and the Threat of Dominionism" by Don Swift / The Rag Blog / Sept. 14, 2011
• "Dominionists and the 'Kingdom of God" by Don Swift / The Rag Blog / Sept. 21, 2011

And:

• "Leap of Faith: The making of a Republican front-runner," by Ryan Lizza / The New Yorker / Aug. 15, 2011

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Ed Felien : The Consecration of Rick Perry

Warrior for Christ. Image from The Crazy Crusades.
A warrior for Christ:
The consecration of Rick Perry

By Ed Felien / The Rag Blog / August 30, 2011

Governor Rick Perry concluded his prayer in Houston on Saturday, Aug. 7:

You call us to repent, Lord, and this is our response. We give it all to You. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen and amen.

Why do we need to repent? What is our sin? Earlier, he had said,

As a nation we have forgotten Who made us. Who protects us. Who blesses us, and for that we cry out for Your forgiveness.

Perry has accepted our sin of forgetfulness, and he has assumed our repentance, and he has offered it up to God. It is the sin of the Israelites who lived wantonly and forgot God when they were chastised by the prophets. He has cleansed us in the blood of the sacrificial lamb. He is the minister, the priest, the substitute sacrifice.

How do we know we have offended God? “We see discord at home. We see fear in the marketplace. We see anger in the halls of government.” According to Perry, these signs are proof that we have sinned against God, that our government has angered God and incurred his wrath.

But let us look at this “discord at home,” this “fear in the marketplace” and this “anger in the halls of government.” Who has caused it? The most disruptive faction in American politics today is the Tea Party, Perry’s own group. It was their antics with the debt ceiling legislation that caused fear in the marketplace. It is their anger that has poisoned government.

By offering to quiet this discord, calm this fear, and soothe this anger, Perry’s offer to intercede for us seems a lot like Hitler’s offer to restore order after his Storm Troopers burned the Reichstag.

Father, our heart breaks for America.

He remembers the 30 U.S. soldiers killed the day before in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan:

We pray for our military and the families who love them. Father, especially for those special operators who lost their life yesterday in defending our freedoms.

One of the women whose husband had been killed told CNN that her husband “was a man with a deep Christian faith. A wonderful husband, and fabulous father to two wonderful children. He was a warrior for Christ.” A warrior in the Christian crusade against Islam? Is that why no Muslims were invited to the prayer rally?

Perry quotes extensively in the earlier part of his short speech from Chapter 2 of the Book of Joel from the Old Testament. He ends with verse 17:

Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God?

Are we at war with the heathen? Is this a crusade?

Just before, in verses 15 and 16, Perry read:

Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly: Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts [he actually cut this last part -- clearly he didn’t want to offend his audience by mentioning a woman’s breast]: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet.

Perry is calling for the congregation to gather and ordain him as their minister, a warrior for Christ on a crusade to smite the heathen.

Perry read only the part from Joel that speaks of the consecration of the warrior. In all fairness, he should have also read Joel’s description of the upcoming battle. Joel begins:

1 Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand;

2 A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.

3 A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.

Joel is speaking of a holocaust, a scorched earth and total annihilation of the enemies of Israel.

Is this the God that Perry offers us -- the Old Testament Jehovah who cheerfully murders women and children?

Is the lesson of Jesus Christ and the New Testament too radical for Rick Perry? The story of Jesus is very simple, very plain. He preached in the countryside and after three years he marched into Jerusalem and with his followers drove the moneychangers out of the Temple. For this he was arrested and crucified as an enemy of Rome.

The four gospels differ on many details of the life of Christ, but they agree unequivocally that Jesus marched into Jerusalem, drove the moneychangers out of the Temple, and was executed by Rome.

Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann wear their Christianity on their shirtsleeves. They are quite public in professing their Christian faith. Do they believe in driving the moneychangers out of the Temple? They are both protectors of the rich, and they both advocate policies that would crush the poor. The rich are bankrolling their campaigns. They would bring down the Temple before they would tax the rich.

Bachmann thinks the best way to create jobs would be to eliminate the minimum wage. Perry has created jobs in Texas by driving down wages. The Texas Independent has said, “the median hourly earnings for all Texas workers was $11.20 per hour in 2010 compared to the national median of $12.50 per hour.” Texas tied with Mississippi for the greatest percentage of minimum wage workers.

Do they believe that Jesus drove the moneychangers from the Temple as a chauffeur in their limo, because that’s clearly what they’re doing?

Jesus didn’t want people to feel sorry for the poor. He didn’t want charity and second hand clothes. He said, “I am the poor,” “I am the hungry,” “ I am the naked,” “I am the prisoner:”

35For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

36Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

37Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

38When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

39Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

40And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

41Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

42For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

43I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. (Matthew 25)

Why are Perry and Bachmann not the cursed, damned into everlasting fire? Why are they not the antichrist, the whitened sepulcher that hides corruption?

If they are going to trumpet themselves as Christians, then don’t we have the right and the responsibility to hold them accountable?

[Ed Felien is publisher and editor of Southside Pride, a South Minneapolis monthly. Read more articles by Ed Felien on The Rag Blog]

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Ruth Rosen : The New Right-Wing Christian Feminism

Women's Christian Temperance Union.In the late nineteenth century, female reformers sought to protect the family from “worldly dangers.”
The Tea Party and the new
Right-wing Christian feminism

By Ruth Rosen /July 6, 2010

Why have American women become so active in the right wing Tea Party movement? Could it be that they are drawn to the new conservative Christian feminism publicized by Sarah Palin? Without its grassroots female supporters, the Tea Party would have far less appeal to voters who are frightened by economic insecurity, threats to moral purity, and the gradual disappearance of a national white Christian culture.

Most Americans are not quite sure what to make of the sprawling right-wing Tea Party, which gradually emerged in 2009 and became a household name after it held nationwide Tea Party rallies on April 15, 2010, to protest paying taxes. Throwing tea overboard, as you may remember, is an important symbolic image of the colonial anger at Britain’s policy of “taxation without representation.”

Many liberals and leftists dismissed the Tea Party as a temporary, knee-jerk response to the recession, high employment, home foreclosures, bankruptcies, and an African American president who had saved American capitalism by expanding the government’s subsidies to the financial, real estate, and automobile industries.

Perhaps it is a temporary political eruption, but as E.J. Dionne, columnist at The Washington Post has argued, the movement also threatens the hard-won unity of the Republicans. “The rise of the tea party movement,” he writes, “is a throwback to an old form of libertarianism that sees most of the domestic policies that government has undertaken since the New Deal as unconstitutional. It typically perceives the most dangerous threats to freedom as the design of well-educated elitists out of touch with “American values.”

Who are these angry people who express so much resentment against the government, rather than at corporations? Since national polls dramatically contradict each other, I have concluded that the Tea Party movement has energized people across all classes.

One important difference, however, is race. At Tea Party rallies you don’t see faces with dark complexions. Another important distinction is that men and women are drawn to this sprawling movement for a variety of overlapping but possibly different reasons. Both men and women seem to embrace an incoherent “ideology” which calls for freedom from government, no taxes, and an inchoate desire to “take back America,” which means restoring the nation to some moment when the country was white and “safe.”

Men drawn to this movement appear to belong to a broad range of fringe right-wing groups, such as militias, white supremacy groups, pro-gun and confederacy “armies. Some of these groups advocate violence vow to overthrow the government, and have even begun to use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to spread their hatred through social media.

Women also play a decisive role in the Tea Party and now make up 55 percent of its supporters, according to the latest Quinnipiac poll. Hanna Rosin reports in Slate magazine that “of the eight board members of the Tea Party Patriots who serve as national coordinators for the movement, six are women. Fifteen of the 25 state coordinators are women.”

Why, I’ve wondered, does this chaotic movement appeal to so many women? There are many possible reasons. Some of the women in these groups are certainly women who love men who love guns and who hate the government and taxes.

Professor Kathleen Blee, who has written widely about right-wing women, suggests that there are probably more religious right-wing women than men in general, that tea party rallies may attract more women who are not working and therefore can attend them, and that the Tea Party emphasizes family vulnerability to all kinds of external danger.

Many men and women attracted to the Tea Party also belong to the Christian Identity Movement. They are right-wing Christians who promote fundamentalist views on abortion and homosexuality. But women come to the Tea Party from new and surprising venues, like the Parent-Teacher Association or groups organized specifically to elect women to political office.

As Slate magazine recently noted, “Much of the leadership and the grassroots energy comes from women. One of the three main sponsors of the Tax Day Tea Party that launched the movement is a group called Smart Girl Politics. The site started out as a mommy blog and has turned into a mobilizing campaign that trains future activists and candidates. Despite its explosive growth over the last year, it is still operated like a feminist cooperative, with three stay-at-home moms taking turns raising babies and answering e-mails and phone calls.”

Some of these religious women also have political aspirations and hope to use the Tea Party to gain leadership roles denied by the Republican Party to run for electoral office. To counter Emily’s List, which has supported liberal women for electoral politics, right-wing conservative women created the Susan B. Anthony List, which is successfully supporting right-wing women in their efforts to run for electoral office.

To blunt the impact of liberal feminists, Concerned Women for America, a deeply religious group, supports women’s efforts to seek leadership positions within the Tea Party. The Women’s Independent Forum, a more secular group of right-wing women, seeks to promote traditional values, free markets, limited government, women’s equality, and their ability to run for office.

Some of these women are drawing national attention because they have embraced a religious “conservative feminism.” Among them are evangelical Christians and, according to a recent cover story in Newsweek magazine, they view Sarah Palin -- who ran for the vice presidency in 2009, has five children and a supportive husband, describes herself as a feminist, gave up the governor’s office in Alaska to become a celebrity and millionaire -- as the leader, if not prophet of the Tea Party.

As a result, Palin is mobilizing right-wing religious women across the nation. They like that she wears make up, still looks like a gorgeous beauty queen, and yet is bold and strong minded. They don’t seem to care that she uses “Ms.” instead of Mrs. Nor are they bothered by her crediting Title IX (legislation passed in 1972 that enforced gender equality in education and sports for her athletic opportunities.

On ABC News she told her interviewer, Charles Gibson, “I’m lucky to have been brought up in a family where gender has never been an issue. I’m a product of Title IX, also, where we had equality in schools that was just being ushered in with sports and with equality opportunity for education, all of my life. I’m part of that generation, where that question is kind of irrelevant because it’s accepted. Of course you can be the vice president and you can raise a family."

Palin belongs to a group called Feminists for Life whose slogan is “Refuse to Choose.” When she described herself as a feminist at the start of her vice-presidential campaign, she explained that she was a member of this group, led by Serrin Foster, who has carved out a successful career on the lecture circuit by trying to convince young women that you can be a feminist by making the choice not to have an abortion.

When I interviewed Foster several years ago, I asked her how very poor or teenage girls were supposed to take care of these unwanted children. Since she is against taxes and government subsidies for social services, she evaded my question. She said that women should not be alone, that others should help. In the end, the only concrete solution she offered is that adoption is the best solution for these young women.


Just recently, Palin once again dubbed herself a “feminist” and set off an explosive debate about what constitutes feminism in the United States. She describes religious conservative women as “Mama Grillizies” and urges them to "rise up” and claim the cause of feminism as their own. Palin encourages her followers to launch a "new, conservative feminist movement" that supports only political candidates who uncompromisingly oppose abortion.

The response to Palin’s effort to draw women into the Tea Party varies widely. Her "sisterly speechifying," writes Jessica Valenti in The Washington Post. “is just part of a larger conservative bid for the hearts and minds of women by appropriating feminist language."

Writing in the conservative National Review Kathryn Jean Lopez responds, “Palin isn't co-opting feminism, She's reclaiming a movement that was started by Susan B. Anthony and other women who fought for the right to vote -- and were staunchly pro-life.” This is true; nineteenth century suffragists wanted to protect the status of motherhood and were against abortion.

"The "feminist" label doesn't have to be so polarizing,” argues Meghan Daum in the Los Angeles Times. “Boiled down, feminism just means viewing men and women as equals, and seeing your gender "as neither an obstacle to success nor an excuse for failure." So if Sarah Palin "has the guts to call herself a feminist, then she's entitled to be accepted as one."

Here is a great irony. Since 1980, when the backlash began attacking the women’s movement, young secular American women have resisted calling themselves feminists because the religious right wing had so successfully created an unattractive image of a feminist as a hairy, man-hating, lesbian who spouted equality, but really wanted to kill babies. Now, Palin is forcing liberal feminists to debate whether these Christian feminists are diluting feminism or legitimizing it by making it possible to say that one is a feminist.

When I read what women write on Christian women’s web sites, I hear an echo from the late nineteenth century when female reformers sought to protect the family from “worldly dangers.” Frances Willard, leader of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, urged millions of women to enter the public sphere in order to protect their families, to address the decadent consequences and casualties of capitalism, to win suffrage, and to fight for prohibition, all in the name of protecting the purity of their homes and families.

For many contemporary evangelical Christian women, their motivations are similar. They want to enter the public sphere or even run for office to eliminate abortion, protect marriage, contain sexual relations, oppose gay marriage, and clean up the mess made by the sexual revolution. All this is part of a long and recognizable female reform tradition in American history.

At Tea Party rallies, you often see women carrying signs that read “Take back America.” Not everyone is sure what that means. At the very least, however, it means taking back America from an expanding government, from taxes, and more symbolically, from the changing racial complexion of American society.

Within a few decades, the non-white population will constitute a majority of the citizens in the U.S. Many white evangelical Christians feel besieged and the women, for their part, feel they must publicly protect their families from such rapid and potentially dangerous changes. They feel that some faceless bureaucrats or immigrants or minorities, described as “they,” have taken over our society and threaten the moral purity of American society. What they don’t fear is that corporations have taken over the American government and have distorted its democratic institutions.

Washington Bureau Chief Adele Stan of AlterNet, who has 15 years of close scrutiny of the extreme right under her belt, has warned that we take the Tea Partiers seriously and dismiss them at our peril.

The Tea Party panders to fear and resentment. But they are hardly a lonely minority. A recent USA Today/Gallup survey found that 37 percent of Americans said they "approved" of the Tea Party movement. It is not a movement that Americans should ignore. History reminds us that the politics of fear and resentment can quickly turn into a dangerous and powerful political force.

But the Tea Party is not only a grassroots movement. Behind the women at the kitchen table, there is money, and plenty of it. Writing in the The New York Review of Books, Michael Tomasky reminded readers that "Money is the ultimate lubricant of politics and that the potential money supply for Tea Parties and other... contributions is virtually limitless."

Tomasky also underscores the fact that the Tea Party is not about short-term electoral victories. It’s about the long term project of resurrecting the power to protect free markets, deregulation, and for the religious right to gain political power.

Men and women may not join the Tea Party for the same reasons, but without its grassroots female supporters, the Tea Party would have far less appeal to voters who are frightened by economic insecurity, threats to moral purity, and the gradual disappearance of a national white Christian culture.

For good or ill, Christian women have moved mountains before in the American past. The abolition of slavery and the prohibition of liquor are just two examples. Now they have helped organize the Tea Party and their new conservative feminism may just affect American political culture in unpredictable ways.

Perhaps they will gain a new self-confidence and political influence by straying from the Republican Party. Or, as in the past, they may disappear into their homes and churches and become a footnote in the history of American politics. For now, it is too soon to tell how the Tea Party, let alone its female members, will fare in the future.

[Ruth Rosen, a former columnist for the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, teaches history at the University of California, Berkeley. Her most recent book is The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America.]

Source / openDemocracy

Thanks to Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog

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The Christian Right : Our Founding Fathers Would be Appalled

George Washington, the Father of our Country, is memorialized in marble -- totally ready to toga -- on the U.S. Capitol grounds (circa 1899). The statue is now in the Smithsonian. Photo from the Library of Congress / Boston College Magazine.
Today's Christian fundamentalists would have
Despised Washington, Franklin, and crew

By Harvey Wasserman / The Rag Blog / February 13, 2010

"God made the idiot for practice, and then He made the school board." --Mark Twain

Tomorrow's New York Times Sunday Magazine highlights yet another mob of extremists using the Texas school board to baptize our children's textbooks.

This endless, ever-angry escalating assault on our Constitution by crusading theocrats could be obliterated with the effective incantation of two names: Benjamin Franklin, and Deganawidah.

But first, let's do some history:

1. Actual Founder-Presidents #2 through #6 -- John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe and John Quincy Adams -- were all freethinking Deists and Unitarians; what Christian precepts they embraced were moderate, tolerant, and open-minded.


2. Actual Founder-President #1, George Washington, became an Anglican as required for original military service under the British, and occasionally quoted scripture. But he vehemently opposed any church-state union. In a 1790 letter to the Jews of Truro, he wrote: The "Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistances, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens." A 1796 treaty he signed says "the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." Washington rarely went to church and by some accounts refused last religious rites.


3. Washington was also the nation's leading brewer, and since most Americans drank much beer (water could be lethal in the cities) they regularly trembled before the keg, not the altar. Like Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, virtually all American farmers raised hemp and its variations.


4. Jefferson produced a personal Bible from which he edited out all reference to the "miraculous" from the life of Jesus, whom he considered both an activist and a mortal.


5. Tom Paine's Common Sense sparked the Revolution with nary a mention of Jesus or Christianity. His Deist Creator established the laws of Nature, endowed humans with Free Will, then left.


6. The Constitution never mentions the words "Christian" or "Jesus" or "Christ."


7. Revolutionary America was filled with Christians whose commitment to toleration and diversity was completely adverse to the violent, racist, misogynist, anti-sex theocratic Puritans whose "City on the Hill" meant a totalitarian state. Inspirational preachers like Rhode Island's Roger Williams and religious groups like the Quakers envisioned a nation built on tolerance and love for all.


8. The U.S. was founded less on Judeo-Christian beliefs than on the Greco-Roman love for dialog and reason. There are no contemporary portraits of any Founder wearing a crucifix or church garb. But Washington was famously painted half-naked in the buff toga of the Roman Republic, which continues to inspire much of our official architecture.


9. The great guerrilla fighter (and furniture maker) Ethan Allen was an aggressive atheist; his beliefs were common among the farmers, sailors, and artisans who were the backbone of Revolutionary America.


10. America's most influential statesman, thinker, writer, agitator, publisher, citizen-scientist and proud liberal libertine was -- and remains -- Benjamin Franklin. He was at the heart of the Declaration, Constitution, and Treaty of Paris ending the Revolution. The ultimate Enlightenment icon, Franklin's Deism embraced a pragmatic love of diversity. As early America's dominant publisher he, Paine, and Jefferson printed the intellectual soul of the new nation.


11. Franklin deeply admired the Ho-de-no-sau-nee (Iroquois) Confederacy of what's now upstate New York. Inspired by the legendary peacemaker Deganawidah, this democratic congress of five tribes had worked "better than the British Parliament" for more than two centuries. It gave us the model for our federal structure and the images of freedom and equality that inspired both the French and American Revolutions.

It's no accident today's fundamentalist crusaders and media bloviators (Rev. Limbaugh, St. Beck) seek to purge our children's texts of all native images except as they are being forceably converted or killed.

Today's fundamentalists would have DESPISED the actual Founders. Franklin's joyous, amply reciprocated love of women would evoke their limitless rage. Jefferson's paternities with his slave mistress Sally Hemings, Paine's attacks on the priesthood, Hamilton's bastardly philandering, the grassroots scorn for organized religion -- all would draw howls of righteous right-wing rage.

Which may be why theocratic fundamentalists are so desperate to sanitize and fictionalize what's real about our history.

God forbid our children should know of American Christians who embraced the Sermon on the Mount and renounced the Book of Revelations... or natives who established democracy on American soil long before they saw the first European... or actual Founders who got drunk, high, and laid on their way to writing the Constitution.

Faith-based tyranny is anti-American. So are dishonest textbooks. It's time to fight them both.

[Harvey Wasserman's History of the United States is at www.harveywasserman.com, along with Passions of the Potsmoking Patriots by "Thomas Paine." This article is written in honor of the spirit of Howard Zinn.]

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Conspiracy Nation : Barack Obama and the Right-Wing Demagogues

Illustration by Gino Barzizza / The Indypendent.
Conspiracy Nation:

Right-wing demagogues reach out to a supposedly beleagured white middle class, telling them they are being squeezed by parasitic traitors from above and below.

By Chip Berlet / September 18, 2009

Even before Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, the internet was seething with lurid conspiracy theories exposing his alleged subversion and treachery.

Among the many false claims: Obama was a secret Muslim; he was not a native U.S. citizen and his election as president should be overturned; he was a tool of the New World Order in a plot to merge the government of the United States into a North American union with Mexico and Canada.

Within hours of Obama’s inauguration, claims circulated that Obama was not really president because Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts scrambled the words as he administered the oath of office. A few days after the inauguration came a warning that Obama planned to impose martial law and collect all guns.

Many of these false claims recall those floated by right-wing conspiracy theorists in the armed citizens’ militia movement during the Clinton administration -- allegations that percolated up through the media and were utilized by Republican political operatives to hobble the legislative agenda of the Democratic Party.

The conspiracy theory attacks on Clinton bogged down the entire government. Legislation became stuck in congressional committees, appointments to federal posts dwindled and positions remained unfilled, almost paralyzing some agencies and seriously hampering the federal courts.

A similar scenario is already hobbling the work of the Obama administration. The histrionics at congressional town hall meetings and conservative rallies is not simply craziness -- it is part of an effective right-wing campaign based on scare tactics that have resonated throughout U.S. history among a white middle class fearful of alien ideas, people of color and immigrants.

Unable to block the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court, the right-wing media demagogues, corporate political operatives, Christian right theocrats, and economic libertarians have targeted healthcare reform and succeeded in sidetracking the public option and single-payer proposals.

A talented environmental adviser to the Obama administration, Van Jones, was hounded into resigning Sept. 5 by a McCarthyite campaign of red-baiting and hyperbole. Support for major labor law reform has been eroding.

With a wink and a nod, right-wing apparatchiks are networking with the apocalyptic Christian right and resurgent armed militias -- a volatile mix of movements awash in conspiracy theories. Scratch the surface and you find people peddling bogus conspiracy theories about liberal secular humanists, collectivist labor bosses, Muslim terrorists, Jewish cabals, homosexual child molesters and murderous abortionists.

This right-wing campaign is about scapegoating bogus targets by using conspiracy theories to distract attention from insurance companies who are the real culprits behind escalating healthcare costs.

Examples of right-wing conspiracy theories include the false claim that healthcare reform will include government bureaucrat “Death Panels” pulling the plug on grandma. Another is the claim that Obama is appointing unconstitutional project “Czars” More fraudulent conspiracy theories are being generated every week.

The core narrative of many popular conspiracy theories is that “the people” are held down by a conspiracy of wealthy secret elites manipulating a vast legion of corrupt politicians, mendacious journalists, propagandizing schoolteachers, nefarious bankers and hidden subversive cadres.

This is not an expression of a healthy political skepticism about state power or legitimate calls for reform or radical challenges to government or corporate abuses. This is an irrational anxiety that pictures the world as governed by powerful long-standing covert conspiracies of evildoers who control politics, the economy, and all of history. Scholars call this worldview “conspiracism.”

The term conspiracism, according to historian Frank P. Mintz, denotes a “belief in the primacy of conspiracies in the unfolding of history.” Mintz explains:

“Conspiracism serves the needs of diverse political and social groups in America and elsewhere. It identifies elites, blames them for economic and social catastrophes, and assumes that things will be better once popular action can remove them from positions of power. As such, conspiracy theories do not typify a particular epoch or ideology.”

When conspiracism becomes a mass phenomenon, persons seeking to protect the nation from the alleged conspiracy create counter movements to halt the subversion. Historians dub them countersubversives.

The resulting right-wing populist conspiracy theories point upward toward “parasitic elites” seen as promoting collectivist and socialist schemes leading to tyranny. At the same time, the counter-subversives point downward toward the “undeserving poor” who are seen as lazy and sinful and being riled up by subversive community organizers. Sound familiar?

Right-wing demagogues reach out to this supposedly beleaguered white middle class of “producers” and encourage them to see themselves as being inexorably squeezed by parasitic traitors above and below. The rage is directed upwards against a caricature of the conspiratorial “faceless bureaucrats,” “banksters” and “plutocrats” rather than challenging an unfair economic system run on behalf of the wealthy and corporate interests. The attacks and oppression generated by this populist white rage, however, is painfully felt by people lower on the socio-economic ladder, and historically this has been people of color, immigrants and other marginalized groups.

It is this overarching counter-subversive conspiracy theory that has mobilized so many people; and the clueless Democrats have been caught unaware by the tactics of right-wing populism used successfully for the last 100 years and chronicled by dozens of authors.

The techniques for mobilizing countersubversive right-wing populists include “tools of fear”: dualism, demonization, scapegoating, and apocalyptic aggression.

When these are blended with conspiracy theories about elite and lazy parasites, the combination is toxic to democracy.

Dualism

Dualism is simply the tendency to see the world in a binary model in which the forces of absolute good are struggling against the forces of absolute evil. This can be cast in religious or secular story lines or “narratives.”

Scapegoating

Scapegoating involves wrongly stereotyping a person or group of people as sharing negative traits and blaming them for societal problems, while the primary source of the problem (if it is real) is overlooked or absolved of blame. Scapegoating can become a mass phenomenon when a social or political movement does the stereotyping. It is easier to scapegoat a group if it is first demonized.

Teabaggers depicted progressive Austin Cong. Lloyd Doggett with devil's horns.
Demonization

Demonization is a process through which people target individuals or groups as the embodiment of evil, turning individuals in scapegoated groups into an undifferentiated, faceless force threatening the idealized community. The sequence moves from denigration to dehumanization to demonization, and each step generates an increasing level of hatred of the objectified and scapegoated “Other.”

One way to demonize a target group is to claim that the scapegoated group is plotting against the public good. This often involves demagogic appeals.

Conspiracism

Conspiracism frames demonized enemies “as part of a vast insidious plot against the common good, while it valorizes the scapegoater as a hero for sounding the alarm.” Conspiracist thinking can move easily from the margins to the mainstream, as has happened repeatedly in the United States. Several scholars have argued that historic and contemporary conspiracism, especially the apocalyptic form, is a more widely shared worldview in the United States than in most other industrialized countries.

Conspiracism gains a mass following in times of social, cultural, economic, or political stress. The issues of immigration, demands for racial or gender equality, gay rights, power struggles between nations, wars -- all can be viewed through a conspiracist lens.

Historian Richard Hofstadter established the leading analytical framework in the 1960s for studying conspiracism in public settings in his essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” He identified “the central preconception” of the paranoid style as a belief in the “existence of a vast, insidious, preternaturally effective international conspiratorial network designed to perpetrate acts of the most fiendish character.”

According to Hofstadter, this was common in certain figures in the political right, and was accompanied with a “sense that his political passions are unselfish and patriotic” which “goes far to intensify his feeling of righteousness and his moral indignation.”

According to Michael Barkun, professor of political science at Syracuse University, conspiracism attracts people because conspiracy theorists “claim to explain what others can’t. They appear to make sense out of a world that is otherwise confusing.” There is an appealing simplicity in dividing the world sharply into good and bad and tracing “all evil back to a single source, the conspirators and their agents.”

Cover Obama's back, but kick his butt

Today, when you hear the right-wing demagogues whipping up the anti-Obama frenzy, you now know they are speaking a coded language that traces back to Social Darwinist defenses of “Free Market” capitalism and to xenophobic white supremacy. The voices of Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, Coulter, Dobbs and their allies are singing a new melody using old right-wing populist lyrics. The damage they can do is great even if most of these movements eventually collapse.

The centrist Democratic spinmeisters surrounding Obama have no idea how to organize a grassroots defense of healthcare reform. That’s pathetic.

These are the three R’s of civil society: Rebut, Rebuke, Re-Affirm: Rebut false and misleading statements and beliefs without name-calling; rebuke those national figures spreading misinformation; and re-affirm strong and clear arguments to defend goals and proposed programs.

That’s exactly what President Obama did on in his nationally televised address Sept. 9.

While keeping our eyes on the prize of universal, quality healthcare, we must also prevent right-wing populism as a social movement from spinning out of control. Since Obama’s inauguration, there have been nine murders tied to white supremacist ideology laced with conspiracy theories. It is already happening here.

Since centrist Democrats are selling us out, it is time for labor and community organizers to turn up the heat. We should defend Obama against the vicious and racist attacks from the reactionary political right, but we can have Obama’s back while we are kicking his butt.

Vigorous social movements pull political movements and politicians in their direction — not the other way around. We need to raise some hell in the streets and in the suites.

Right Wing Populism

Populist movements frequently adopt conspiracy theories of power, regardless of their ideological position on the political spectrum.

In her book Populism, Margaret Canovan defined four types of political populism. Populist democracy is championed by progressives from the LaFollettes of Wisconsin to Jesse Jackson.

However, the other three types -- politicians’ populism, reactionary populism and populist dictatorship -- are antidemocratic forms of right-wing populism. These were characterized in various combinations in the 1990s by Ross Perot, Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan and David Duke -- four straight white Christian men trying to ride the same horse.

Two versions of right-wing populism are current in both the United States and Europe: one centered around “get the government off my back” economic libertarianism, coupled with a rejection of mainstream political parties, which is more attractive to the upper-middle class and small entrepreneurs. The other is based on xenophobia and ethnocentric nationalism, which is more attractive to the lower middle class and wage workers. These two groupings unite behind candidates that attack the current regime since both constituencies identify an intrusive government as the cause of their grievances.

[Chip Berlet, senior analyst at Political Research Associates, is the author of the recent study Toxic to Democracy, and is co-author with Matthew N. Lyons of Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort.]

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas leads FreedomWorks. Photo by Roger L. Wollenberg / UPI.

The movement behind the mob

By Elizabeth Henderson / September 18, 2009

Former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey chairs FreedomWorks, while Matt Kibbe, who worked for the late Lee Atwater (of Willie Horton ads notoriety), is president and CEO. When accused of encouraging “astroturf” activists to disrupt healthcare town halls, Kibbe responded, “Vocal participating was celebrated when the left would do it. When conservatives do it we’re denounced as thuggish.”

Head of the Coalition to Protect Patients’ Rights, Palmisano has wielded his title as former president of the American Medical Association, the main doctors’ lobby, to oppose a public option.

Phillips started on the astroturf scene in 1997 when he joined former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed at Century Strategies, a PR and consulting firm. Phillips was named president of Americans for Prosperity in 2006, which describes itself as “one of the premier grassroots citizen lobbyist organizations in the country.”

Scott, the former CEO of Columbia/HCA Healthcare, has shelled out $5 million of his own money to support Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, which he chairs. Also a significant donor to the GOP, Scott was head of Columbia/ HCA when it engaged in criminal practices, including bilking Medicare, leading it to be slapped with a record $1.7 billion in civil and criminal penalties.

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) was involved in the Tea Party protests in April and July and started Patients First, an anti-healthcare reform group. Other recent AFP campaigns include the Cost of Hot Air Tour -- complete with a 70-foot-tall hot-air balloon -- warning of the negative economic impact of “global warming alarmism,” and NoStimulus. com, an online petition signed by more than 450,000 “concerned citizens” protesting Obama’s stimulus bill. From 2003 to 2006, AFP received $1,181,000 from conservative foundations, including $1 million from the Koch Family Foundation.

Described by The New York Times as “lobbying... vocally against the proposed public option,” the Coalition to Protect Patient’s Rights (CPPR) states, “the government should not be involved in the private, personal discussion between a doctor and patient.” While it is unclear who pays CPPR’s bills, the Republican lobbying firm DCI Group coordinates its PR.

Founded in March 2009 to oppose Obama’s healthcare plan, Conservatives for Patients’ Rights (CPR) has launched a $20 million media campaign calling for reform that values competition between healthcare carriers, lets patients control their own coverage and rewards those who make healthy lifestyle choices. To get its message out, Conservatives for Patients’ Rights turned to CRC Public Relations (formerly Creative Response Concepts), of Swift Boat fame. When CPR is not making ads about the horrors of “rationed” care in Canada and Britain, it is sending out “town hall alert” emails and schedules of meetings. In one mobilization on July 24, CPR sent a list of more than 100 congressional town halls to the Tea Party Patriots Health Care Reform Committee listserve, about a week before the anti-healthcare demonstrations exploded.

According to Think Progress, DCI Group “has specialized in manufacturing ‘grassroots’ support — using telemarketers, PR events, and letter writing campaigns -- to achieve policy results for narrow corporate interests.” DCI clients include the Health Benefits Coalition, a trade association of HMOs that wanted to “thwart congressional action on the patients’ bill of rights,” according to The American Prospect. DCI has also worked for Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds, creating fake smokers’ rights groups to fight smoking bans. DCI has also worked for Burma’s military junta, Exxon-Mobil, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and anti-global warming campaigns.

FreedomWorks helped orchestrate this year’s tax day “Tea Parties” by doing everything from contacting conservative activists to training them on media messaging. In 2008, FreedomWorks created Angryrenter.com, which claimed to represent “renters and responsible homeowners” opposed to the “Obama Housing Bailout.” A successor to Dick Armey’s Citizens for a Sound Economy, FreedomWorks was set up to be a GOP version of MoveOn.org. Billionaire Steve Forbes is on the board of directors and funders include the Koch family, ExxonMobil, and the Scaife, Bradley and Olin foundations.

Source / The Indypendent

Thanks to Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog

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Revising History in Texas : Christ in the Classroom

Cartoon from San Francisco Sentinel.

Last week, Stephen Colbert tipped his ironic hat to the Texas State Board of Education. The board had already allowed creationism to be considered in Texas biology classes, the comedian said approvingly, and now it was pushing for more Christianity to be taught in U.S. history. But why stop there? Colbert asked. What about math? Five plus two doesn't have to equal seven — not if you're Jesus. And for that matter, what about penmanship? Why not teach students to really CROSS their T's?

There's truthiness in those jokes. Of the six people who the board appointed as “experts” to review the current curriculum, three are on record as Christian soldiers, battling to bring back a golden age of God in American government. -- Houston Chronicle.

Christian right aims to change history lessons in Texas schools

State's education board to consider adding Christianity's role in American history to curriculum

By Chris McGreal / July 23, 2009

The Christian right is making a fresh push to force religion onto the school curriculum in Texas with the state's education board about to consider recommendations that children be taught that there would be no United States if it had not been for God.

Members of a panel of experts appointed by the board to revise the state's history curriculum, who include a Christian fundamentalist preacher who says he is fighting a war for America's moral soul, want lessons to emphasize the part played by Christianity in the founding of the U.S. and that religion is a civic virtue.

Opponents have decried the move as an attempt to insert religious teachings into the classroom by stealth, similar to the Christian right's partially successful attempt to limit the teaching of evolution in biology lessons in Texas.

One of the panel, David Barton, founder of a Christian heritage group called WallBuilders, argues that the curriculum should reflect the fact that the U.S. Constitution was written with God in mind including that "there is a fixed moral law derived from God and nature," that "there is a creator" and "government exists primarily to protect God-given rights to every individual"."

Barton says children should be taught that Christianity is the key to "American exceptionalism" because the structure of its democratic system is a recognition that human beings are fallible, and that religion is at the heart of being a virtuous citizen.

Another of the experts is Reverend Peter Marshall, who heads his own Christian ministry and preaches that Hurricane Katrina and defeat in the Vietnam war were God's punishment for sexual promiscuity and tolerance of homosexuals. Marshall recommended that children be taught about the "motivational role" of the Bible and Christianity in establishing the original colonies that later became the US.

"In light of the overwhelming historical evidence of the influence of the Christian faith in the founding of America, it is simply not up to acceptable academic standards that throughout the social studies (curriculum standards) I could only find one reference to the role of religion in America's past," Marshall wrote in his submission.

Marshall later told the Wall Street Journal that the struggle over the history curriculum is part of a wider battle. "We're in an all-out moral and spiritual civil war for the soul of America, and the record of American history is right at the heart of it," he said.

Dan Quinn of the Texas Freedom Network, which describes itself as a "counter to the religious right," called the recommendations "troubling."

"I don't think anyone disputes that faith played a role in our history. But it's a stretch to say that it played the role described by David Barton and Peter Marshall. They're absurdly unqualified to be considered experts. It's a very deceptive and devious way to distort the curriculum in our public schools," he said.

Quinn says that the issue is likely to lead to a heated political battle similar to the one in which the religious right tried to force creationism onto the curriculum. While it wasn't able to inject religious theories into the classroom, the Texas school board did make changes to teaching designed to undermine lessons on evolution such as introducing views that the eye is so complex an organ it must have involved "intelligent design".

"I think, as there was with science, there's going to be a big political battle," he said.

Social studies teachers will meet shortly to consider the panel's views and make their own recommendations to the board of education which has the final say. The board is dominated by conservatives who appointed Barton and Marshall to the panel.

Other states will be watching what happens in Texas carefully as the religious right campaign seeks new ways to insert God into the classroom after the courts limited the extent to which creationist theories could intrude on the teaching of biology. But religion is not kept out of schools entirely. Many children recite the pledge of allegiance in class each morning which includes a reference to the U.S. as "one nation under God."

The panel made other recommendations.

Barton, a former vice-chairman of the state's Republican party, said that Texas children should no longer be taught about democratic values but republican ones. "We don't pledge allegiance to the flag and the democracy for which it stands," he said.

And while God may be in, some of those he influenced are out.

According to a draft of guidelines for the new curriculum, Washington, Lincoln and Stephen Fuller Austin, known as the Father of Texas after helping to lead it to independence from Mexico, have been removed from history lessons for younger children.

There's no doubt that history education needs a boost in Texas.

According to test results, one-third of students think the Magna Carta was signed by the Pilgrims on the Mayflower and 40% believe Lincoln's 1863 emancipation proclamation was made nearly 90 years earlier at the constitutional convention.

Source / Guardian, U.K.

The Rag Blog

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Scott Roeder : The Anti-Abortion Zealotry of the Radical Right

Right wing militant Scott Roeder, accused of murdering Dr. George Tiller. Photo from Sedgwick County Jail.

The [right wing] nationalists, including a more virulent white nationalist extreme, are gathering strength and getting bold, even though they are still a militant minority.

By Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog / June 4, 2009

See ‘Racism, Anti-Semitism and the Murder of Dr. Tiller’ by Leonard Zeskind, Below.

I think this is not isolated, but symptomatic of a rising problem. The rightwing camp is split between the neoliberal globalists, say Gingrich as spokesman, and the anti-global nationalists, say Dobbs, Hannity as spokesmen.

The globalists are currently weakened. But They will use legal means, but they are preparing extra-legal, armed means for taking down Obama and Democrats generally. “Rightwing Populism” is the general rubric used to fan the flames here. We have to take it seriously, and especially combat its effort to influence the working class.

This doesn't mean being alarmist or projecting conspiracies everywhere, but still exposing and thwarting it as best as we can.

Racism, Anti-Semitism and the Murder of Dr. Tiller

By Leonard Zeskind / June 2, 2009

Scott Roeder, who is being held in a Wichita jail as a person of interest in the murder of Dr. George Tiller, is widely known for his anti-abortion zealotry. Less understood is his connection to the so-called Christian common law courts and the militia movement. In the mid-1990s, Roeder associated regularly with both Kansas militiamen and he declared him self a "sovereign" citizen, immune from the responsibilities of paying taxes or driving with a registered license plate.

The notion of "organic sovereigns" was first promoted by the Posse Comitatus, best known for its tax protest politics, but imbued also with the racist and anti-Semitic ideology known as Christian Identity. According to this doctrine, Jews are satanic creatures and people of color are less-than-fully human. And the Posse found a number of devoted followers in Kansas. At an August 1983 outdoor meeting in Cheney Lake State Park, farmers mixed with Wichita residents who believed that white Christians who renounced their ties with the "Zionist-controlled" government were "sovereigns." Their rights trumped those they declared to be "Fourteenth Amendment" citizens -- meaning people of color and non-Christians. It was an arcane theory which promoters sometimes used to justify tax protest, embezzlement and larceny. But its central tenets placed it at the heart of the white nationalist movement, which contended that the United States was, or should be, a white Christian republic rather than a multi-racial democracy.

These ideas reached their apotheosis in the mid-1990s, when a group calling itself the Freemen, set up an armed encampment on a farmstead in Montana. A noticeable nest of Freemen had established itself in Kansas, and authorities noted Roeder's association with the Freemen at that time. After the Montana group surrendered in 1996, this particular iteration of white nationalism was pushed aside as other forms, some more openly national socialist in their orientation, took its place at the front of the movement.

This white Christian notion of sovereign citizenship remained strong long enough to mix with the unhappy edges of anti-abortion activism in Kansas -- including those who had staged massive sit-ins in 1991, in an attempt to shut down Dr. Tiller's clinic. In August 1997, in the Topeka state capitol building, a former Tiller clinic protester named Paula Drake, who had married a Posse Comitatus farmer, ran a "Christian common law court" similar to those convened by the Freemen. Although Ms. Drake was the obvious force behind this meeting of twenty-five mostly middle-aged men, she insisted that her husband was actually running the program. The Bible commanded that women must serve men, she told an observer. The same ideas that once motivated her to protest Dr. Tiller inspired her to "indict" judges and other government officials in her "court."

The same confluence of white nationalism with anti-abortion zealotry showed its faced in the first murder of an abortion doctor, Dr. David Gunn, in 1993 in Pennsacola. In that instance the triggerman was a Joe Regular Guy named Michael Griffin. But Griffin was heavily influenced, indeed completely under the spell of a local leader named John Burt, who admitted that he was "very active" as a Klansman in St. Augustine in the 1960s. With Burt also, attacks on Dr. Gunn were of a piece with the racist violence of a previous era.

These are not simply isolated instances. Rather they represent the tip of a social movement that is completely alienated from the culture, society and government of the multi-racial, multi-ethnic American people. Their allegiance is to another set of laws and values, one in which the color of their skin is a badge of their national identity. Not all are violent, and many hope to someday win a following among a majority of white people and reclaim the country that they believe belongs to them alone.

The presidency of Barack Obama has not stilled their passions, nor was his nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court the only motivating factors in this killing. Something much whiter and more dangerous was let loose long before last November. And we have not heard the last of it.

[Leonard Zeskind, a resident of Kansas City and a MacArthur Fellow, is the author of Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream, published by Farrar Straus and Giroux in May 2009.]

Source / The Huffington Post

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James Dobson's Mass Mailing : 'Focus on Stupidity'

Apocalyptic fearmonger James Dobson.
'Letter from 2012 in Obama’s America,': 'Toxic Cornpone.'
by Robert Weitzel / November 3, 2008

You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I’ll tell you what his ’pinions is.

Mark Twain

Mark Twain once said that “in matters concerning religion and politics a man’s reasoning powers are not above the monkey’s.” Now if the two are combined, as James Dobson’s right-wing Christian organization, Focus on the Family, did in their recent “Letter from 2012 in Obama’s America,” the bar has been lowered to somewhere between the reasoning power of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, the most poisonous biological substance known, and that of George W. Bush … the most toxic presidential substance yet known [19 percent approval rating].

Dobson’s letter from the “future” was emailed on October 22 to millions of his weekly TV and radio audience in the United States. His purpose was to scare the bejesus out of corn pone connoisseurs who devour the stuff faster than even Jesus can multiply it.

Keep in mind that the targeted readers’ “reasoning power” has already convinced them that they’re going to be Raptured—swooshed up bodily [naked as a third-rate centerfold] into heaven—moments after they initiate an apocalyptic nuclear conflagration in the Middle East, which they hope will eventually engulf the entire world. This is not a one-derivation-above-the-mean crowd, after all.

“To create man was a fine and original idea; but to add the sheep was a tautology.” Thank you, Mr. Twain.

According to the letter, a phantasmagoria of horror begins shortly after Obama takes office. Shedding his centrist campaigning skin, he is transmogrified into a far left-wing liberal antichrist. Outlandish? Keep reading.

In his first week in office Obama fires all 93 U.S. attorneys and replaces them with radical ACLU lawyers. Consequently, the Justice Department initiates criminal proceedings against nearly every member of the Bush administration.

Due to death or retirement, the Supreme Court is taken over by far left-wing radical judges (6-3 majority) who—you guessed it—begin legislating from the bench. The youthful appointees are expected to rule the country for the next 30-40 years.

Same-sex marriage becomes the law and compulsory training in gender identity in elementary school results in the firing of tens of thousands of Christian teachers accused of hate speech for refusing to speak positively about homosexuality.

The Boy Scouts choose to disband rather than obey a Supreme Court decision ordering them to hire homosexual scoutmasters to sleep with young boys in tents.

The Bible can no longer be read on radio or TV because doing so amounts to hate speech, and students cannot pray in school … not even silently while sitting outside the principal’s office.

All federal restrictions on abortion are removed and babies are killed only seconds before they can be delivered. Doctors and nurses who refuse to “murder” babies lose their licenses.

A new law mandating equal time for alternative views on public airwaves drives Rush Limbaugh types off the air, essentially shutting down conservative [hate] talk radio in America by 2010.

Commander in Chief Obama proves to be a total wimp, which emboldens Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists who eventually seize control of Iraq, imprisoning, torturing [imitation is the ultimate form of flattery] and putting to death millions of “American sympathizers” in that country.

Obama, it seems, is more interested in sending foreign aid to impoverished Third World countries in the form of food and medical aid, which does nothing but nourish and keep healthy the next generation of terrorists.

Dobson finally lets go of his tenuous grip on reality when he describes how Iran’s one nuclear missile destroys Tel Aviv and forces Israel to cede huge amounts of land to the Palestinians, leaving Israel defenseless. WHAT? Israel cede land? Israel defenseless?

“The trouble ain’t that there is too many fools, but that the lightening ain’t distributed right.” Thank you Mr. Twain.

Oh yeah, and gasoline costs $7 per gallon and only military personnel can own a gun.

Needless to say, the next four years are a living hell for the Dobson clan, much as the last eight years have been for anyone with reasoning power marginally superior to that of Twain’s pet monkey.

As a bona fide left-wing liberal atheist, who “wasted” a vote on Nader, I had mixed feelings reading Dobson’s half-baked corn pone. My initial reaction was something akin to enjoying a preposterously funny Twain satire. But then I began to get the creepy feeling I was reading an American fundamentalist version of the Nazis’1935 Nuremburg Laws, which disenfranchised German Jews and foreshadowed the murderous persecution of European Jewry.

It became clear that what I was actually reading was Focus on the Family’s back-handed glimpse of America under a ruler of their choice … say, for instance, Sarah Palin.

Win or lose this time around, Palin is the GOP’s rising star and James Dobson’s heartthrob. She’s the “real deal” of an End Times fundamentalist. Unlike President Bush—a suspected convert—she’s been stuffing her gob with apocalyptic corn pone her entire life. The only way for Palin to get to heaven with her admittedly appealing carcass intact is the Rapture route via an Armageddon avenue, which does not bode well for a survivable foreign policy.

It’s easy to poke fun at the corn pone Focus on the Family and like-mindless organizations dish out during an election. It stops being funny, however, when one realizes that for tens of millions of people this fare is their only sustenance, and this toxic repast, like the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, is the most poisonous of all substances to the body politic.

“If we would learn what the human race really is at bottom, we need only observe it in election times.” Thank you, Mr. Twain.

[Robert Weitzel is a contributing editor to Media With a Conscience. His essays regularly appear in The Capital Times in Madison, WI.]

Source / Dissident Voice

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Sarah Palin and Dominionism : Kingdom Now

Honest Questions About Sarah Palin's Religious Background
by Sherman De Brosse / The Rag Blog / October 8, 2008

The nation spent weeks scrutinizing the pronouncements of Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright and asking if Barack Obama agreed with them. Now we learn that Sarah Palin has been exposed to some religious ideas that some might consider bothersome. Mrs. Palin is clearly a sincere, Christian woman, and that is all to the good. But it is important to know how religious ideas would guide her, if she were to succeed John Mc Cain as president of the United States.

End Times

Her family rejected Roman Catholicism when she was twelve years old, and she has spent most of her life in a Pentecostal environment. The Wasilla Assembly of God, which she attended until 2002, has a strong commitment to supporting Israel and believes the fate of Israel is tied to the coming of the end times and the Rapture, when good Christians are removed from the scene to protect them from the awesome battles to come.

Reverend Tim McGraw, her pastor when she was elected mayor, said that believers are always searching for signs of end times and added that:

The idea that Sarah would take this huge influence of the worldview that really only the Bible and the relationship with Jesus opens up ... and suddenly marginalize it and put it over on the shelf somewhere and live apart from it -- that would be entirely inconsistent.

McGraw said that Palin’s premillenialism would lead her to look at what happens to Israel for signs of when the end times will occur. The founding pastor, Reverend Ed Kalnins said the current Iraq war is part of an overall divine design in which Christ serves as a demanding general. Reverend John Hagee, an ally, has the same view.

We are in a time and a season of war, and we need to think like that. We need to develop that instinct. We need to develop as believers the instinct that we are at war, and that war is contending for your faith. ... Jesus called us to die. You're worried about getting hurt? He's called us to die.

Kalnins claims God has revealed to him events that happened in people’s , and he states that "Alaska is one of the refuge states in the last days, and hundreds of thousands of people are going to come to the state to seek refuge and the church has to be ready to minister to them." He believes in intergenerational family "curses," and that certain geographical territories are possessed by demons.

Against this background, we should consider Palin’s recent comment:

Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God. . . That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan.

Governor Palin’s defenders say she just was expressing the hope that God approved the war. In context, it appears that this was a God-ordained war and part of a messianic mission.

Which was it? And the bigger question is, would Palin use her power to influence events in the Middle East to hasten the coming of the Rapture and end times?

Since 2002, she has attended the Wasilla Bible Church, whose worship is a little less extreme than her old church. It has a program to convert gays into heterosexuals through the power of prayer and works to convert Jews. Recently David Brickner, founder of Jews for Jesus, visited the congregation and discussed terrorist attacks on Israel, saying they were God’s judgment on Jews who had not embraced Christ.

The Dominionism of the New Apostolic Reformation

Dominionism means that the saved must battle to take over the world in God’s name and rule it according to Biblical principles and injunctions. Three of Palin’s four churches have ties to a dominionist movement called the New Apostolic Reformation. Reverend Dr. C. Peter Wagner of Global Harvest Ministries in Colorado Springs, is the “convening Apostle” or leading light in the movement, and he says the reformation or New Apostolic Age began in 2001. They aim for a post-denominational Christianity shaped by them. Their leaders are God’s new apostles and prophets who have greater power than the original apostles and prophets. Spiritual warriors must convert adherents of other churches and seek political power. They think the end times will see the perfection of Christianity and they will have a perfected religion to turn over to Christ, when he returns. They will be given great power and crush evil with a “rod of iron.”

The New Apostolics are busy in worldly affairs because they believe they are destined to rule. In addition they want to expel demons, physically heal others, and raise people from the dead. They believe they have the world’s only valid religious belief system. They want a post-denominational church, but it will not be warm and fuzzy as some think. People can be forced to join the new non-denominational Christianity for their own good, and other churches can be forced to stop teaching false doctrines. One official of Morningstar Ministries admits that life under their theocratic rule "may seem totalitarian at first."

They target youth to be a Joel’s Army (a distortion of an illusion in the Book of Joel) to seize political power and force non-believers to accept their version of Christianity. These churches engage in “spiritual warfare” as was depicted in the movie “Jesus Camp.” In the film, young people were trained to “take dominion” over the world. They will also purge the Christian church of elements that strongly disagree with them.

Since 2006, Governor Palin worships the Juneau Christian Center when in Juneau. It has close ties to John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel. Hagee and CUIF want to see the Dome of the Rock destroyed so the Third Temple can be built there. Juneau Christian Center’s Senior Pastor Mike Rose has said that he is convinced “We are living in the last days.”

Palin says her “home church” is the Church of the Rock in Wasilla, which also believes in Armageddonism. It is a Pentecostal church but she says she is no longer a Pentecostal. David Pepper, its pastor, said last year, "The purpose for the United States is... to glorify God. This nation is a Christian nation." Young people from this church attended “The Call/Nashville,” where they viewed the movie “Jesus Camp” and learned about corruption in the world.

Three of Sarah Palin’s churches are quite different from most Assembly of God congregations and their attackment to the New Apostolic Reformation or Third Wave is considered a heresy. They seem to be waiting for the Rapture in a different way, and some redefine it. Others think the doctrine of the Rapture is a trick of the devil to create a retreatist mentality. One NAR leader said:

. . .the church isn't going to sit and take it any more. The church isn't going to wait to be helicoptered out of the world in some rapture rescue plan. The church will stay right here and by its spiritual authority even defeat the principalities and powers in the heavenlies, dragging them to earth and putting them under their heel

Governor Palin and Witchcraft

Much has been said about a video of two ministers and Kenyan Bishop Thomas Muthee praying over Palin to protect her from the spirit of witchcrafdt. Muthee is famous for driving a witch out of Kiambu, Kenya, thus lowering the crime rate there. This occurred while she ran for governor. The bishop gave about ten sermons there. Before praying over her, he gave a sermon urging followers to “infiltrate” government, education, press, and the media.

One of her Catholic defenders noted that she said nothing while being prayed over. But the point is that these sincere Christians believe that the world is inhabited by all sorts of demons and that the powers of demons even get passed down in families, just as curses are passed down. Some demons run territories; others are in some of their enemies, and still other very powerful demons run churches they dislike.

The reverse side of believing in evil demons is the teaching that the New Apostolics have the power to heal, raise the dead, and successfully combat the forces of darkness. The New Apostolics believe people can be given special powers to fight demons, and that is what was happening there. Of the event, Governor Palin said:

As I was mayor and Pastor Muthee was here and he was praying over me, and you know how he speaks and he’s so bold. And he was praying "Lord make a way, Lord make a way. And I’m thinking, this guy’s really bold, he doesn’t even know what I’m going to do, he doesn’t know what my plans are. And he’s praying not "oh Lord if it be your will may she become governor," no, he just prayed for it. He said "Lord make a way and let her do this next step. And that’s exactly what happened.

They see some Protestant denominations as being run by demons. They especially hate Roman Catholicism, which they see as driven by a very powerful demonic force. They hate the Catholic veneration of the Virgin Mary, believing it is powered by a demonic foces associated in scripture with the pagan goddess Diana in Ephesians. Saying it was necessary to cast down the “Queen of Heaven, ” Reverend Dr. Wagner wrote: “While we were in Turkey, Doris [his wife] and I...knew that the power of the Queen of Heaven had to be broken in order for the gospel to spread in Turkey." NGR generals and “prophets of intercession” views climbed Mt. Everest in 1997, where they planted a flag honoring Jesus. God assured them he would dethrone "Mystery Babylon the Great [in Revelation], Mother of Harlots." Here the “harlot” is Mary, but more conventional dominionists and dispensationalists usually mean the word to refer to the Catholic Church. They attribute the death of Mother Theresa and the earthquake that damaged Assisi to God’s wrath. John Hagee was not lying when he said his use of the term “Whore of Babylon” did not apply to the Catholic Church. He was referring to Mary, who is also called “The Scarlet Woman” or just “Babylon.” Of course the New Apostolics have worse things to say about non-Christian religions.

Separation of Church and State and Tolerance

Dominionists simply do not believe in the separation of church and state. They want to take over and create a theocracy. No wonder they see nothing wrong in playing politics from the pulpit. Reverend Ed Kalnins, the founding pastor, has consigned critics of George W. Bush to hell. He even denounced those who criticized Bush’s handling of Katrina. He doubted that people who voted for John Kerry in 2004 will be welcomed to heaven/He said:

"I'm not going tell you who to vote for, but if you vote for this particular person, I question your salvation. I'm sorry." Kalnins added: "If every Christian will vote righteously, it would be a landslide every time."

Palin has said she will not force her religious convictions upon anyone else. We know that as candidate for governor, she wanted repeal of legislation that prohibited ministers from endorsing candidates. Of course this involves the United States Tax Code, not state action. She has also signed legislation proclaiming Christian Heritage Week. The literature attending it made it clear the founding fathers were good Christians and intended this to be a Christian nation.

Governor Palin once discussed a pipeline with a church group saying, "God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built. So pray for that." If God is for a particular pipeline venture; that closes the subject. Does God really have an opinion on a pipeline? As governor, she said that her work might go badly "if the people of Alaska's heart isn't right with God." This seems to suggest that citizens should be Bible-believing Christians.

When running for mayor, there was a stealth campaign to put a “Christian” in office and she commented on the incumbent’s church attendance. A cable station hailed her as Wasilla’s “first Christian mayor.”

While she was mayor, people were busy tearing pages out of “dirty” books in the local library and she privately raised the matter of censorship with librarian Mary Ellen Emmons. She advocated censorship again at a meeting attended by others, and it was reported in the local paper. Palin fired Emmons because she opposed censorship, but public pressure brought Emmons back. But, Emmons no longer felt comfortable there and resigned and left town.

Many have noted self-righteousness, ruthlessness, and vindictiveness in Palin’s manner of governing. Did this come from certainty that God was behind all her actions. Did God join her firing an experienced police chief who did not want weapons in bars and the municipal building and wanted bars closed at 2:30 a.m. rather than 5 a.m.

What Goes with the Territory

As a right-wing Christian Republican, we expect her to oppose abortion, stem cell research, explicit sex education, gay marriage, and advocate creationism. But does her religious extremism carry this orientation farther. Is this why she made victims of rape pay for rape kits and testing? Does the belief that the world is about to end lead her to fierce anti-environmentalism and opposition to protecting endangered species. After all the world will not be here this much longer.

Sarah claims she is not a Pentecostal and seems to be distancing herself from her religious past. We don’t want to be intolerant, but her background raises many valid questions that should come into the open. Maybe she disagrees with her ministers a great deal or never quite understood what they were saying. There is such a thing as “cultural Catholics,” and maybe there is such a thing as “cultural New Apostolics.”

Sherman De Brosse is the peudonym for a retired history professor who was once chased off the Ohio University campus for protesting the John Birch Society. He also blogs at Sherm Says and on DailyKos.

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