Reagan and the rise of the religious right

[starroute]

"First and foremost, Reagan was a firm adherent to Biblical prophecy; specifically, he believed that the end of the world -- the Battle of Armageddon -- was close at hand. As you know, the fundamentalists just love that eschatalogical stuff.

"While he was running for office in 1980, candidate Reagan announced during an interview with televangelist Jim Bakker that "We may be the generation that sees Armageddon." But that certainly wasn't the first time. At a 1971 banquet for California state senator James Mills, then-Governor Reagan broke it all down for the honoree during the dessert course:

" 'In the 38th chapter of Ezekiel, it says that the land of Israel will come under attack by the armies of the ungodly nations, and it says that Libya will be among them. Do you understand the significance of that? Libya has now gone Communist, and that's a sign that the day of Armageddon isn't far off.'

<snip>

"In an interview published in a December 1983 issue of People magazine, the most powerful man in the world revealed that: 'Theologians had been studying the ancient prophecies -- what would portend the coming of Armageddon -- and have said that never, in the time between the prophecies up untiI now, has there ever been a time in which so many of the prophecies are coming together. There have been times in the past when people thought the end of the world was coming, and so forth, but never anything like this.' "

http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/presidents/ronald-reagan/


"Christian Reconstructionism "began" with Orthodox Presbyterian pastor RJ Rushdoony's publication of By What Standard? in 1959, fully crystallizing as an intellectual movement with the establishment of the Chalcedon Foundation in 1965 and Rushdoony's publication of The Institutes of Biblical Law in 1973. In on-again, off-again alliances with Pat Robertson’s “Dominionists” and Falwell’s 'Moral Majority' (with whom they shared certain political aims, despite theological differences), the Reconstructionists probably attained their greatest degree of political influence in the early days of the Reagan Presidency, when 'two weeks after Reagan was inaugurated, Newsweek (Feb. 2, 1981) accurately but very briefly identified Rushdoony’s Chalcedon Foundation as the think tank of the Religious Right' (Gary North, http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north33.html)"

http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-religion/964899/posts


"But as early as 1981, Falwell, Weyrich, and Robertson were working together to build a broader and more durable alliance of the theocratic right through such vehicles as the annual Family Forum national conferences, where members of the Reagan Administration could rub shoulders with leaders of dozens of Christian right groups and share ideas with rank-and-file activists. This coalition-building continued through the Reagan years.

"Most Christian evangelical voters who had previously voted Democratic did not actually switch to Reagan in 1980, although other sectors of the New Right were certainly influential in mobilizing support for Reagan the candidate, and new Christian evangelical voters supported Republicans in significant numbers. But by 1984, the theocratic right had persuaded many traditionally Democratic but socially conservative Christians that support for prayer in the schools and opposition to abortion, sex education, and pornography could be delivered by the Republicans through the smiling visage of the Great Communicator."

http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v06n1/culwar.html


"When the leadership of the American Radical Right needs a strategy, chances are very good that the planning will occur in a meeting of the Council for National Policy (CNP). . . . The council was founded in 1981 at the initiative of John Birch Society (JBS) leaders William Cies and the late Rep. Larry McDonald (R-GA), who had recently become chairman of JBS. They brought in Christian Right leader Rev. Tim LaHaye to be the first chair of the group. Among the earliest recruits were brewer Joseph Coors, Louisiana State Rep. Woody Jenkins, and a then-obscure marine major on the staff of the National Security Council, Oliver North. By 1984, the CNP had 400 members comprised of Christian Right leaders, Reagan administration operatives, New Right election experts, militant anti-communists, pro-apartheid activists, and conservative funders."

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/Library/opposition/vol1num2/art5.htm

[Catt03]

1. I got this from another reply site

First, I must say; Ronald Reagan, Rest in Peace and condolences to the family.

Second, below:


"You have to treat him as if you were the director and he was the actor, and you tell him what to say and what not to say, and only then does he say the right thing."
--"The Mind of the President," The New York Times Magazine, October 6, 1985

'My guardian says I can't talk.''
--President Reagan explaining that he can't answer a reporter's question after his press secretary, Larry Speakes steps forward and orders the lights turned off, July 10, 1984

"an amiable dunce"
--Clark Clifford (former Defense Secretary)

"The task of watering the arid desert between Reagan's ears is a challenging one for his aides."

--Columnist David Broder

"He has the ability to make statements that are so far outside the parameters of logic that they leave you speechless"
--Patti Davis (formerly Patricia Ann Reagan), talking about her father, The Way I See It

"President Reagan doesn't always check the facts before he makes statements, and the press accepts this as kind of amusing."
--former president Jimmy Carter, March 6, 1984

"A tree's a tree. How many more do you need to look at?"
--Ronald Reagan (Governor of California), quoted in the Sacramento Bee, opposing expansion of Redwood National Park, March 3, 1966

"All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk."
--Ronald Reagan (Republican candidate for president), quoted in the Burlington (Vermont) Free Press, February 15, 1980. (In reality, the average nuclear reactor generates 30 tons of radioactive waste per year.)

"...the moral equal of our Founding Fathers."
--President Reagan, describing the Nicaraguan contras, March 1, 1985

"Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal."
--Ronald Reagan, quoted in Time, May 17, 1976

"I know all the bad things that happened in that war. I was in uniform four years myself."
--President Reagan, in an interview with foreign journalists, April 19, 1985. ("In costume" is more like it. Reagan spent World War II making Army training films at Hal Roach Studios in Hollywood.)

"I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964."
--Ronald Reagan, Los Angeles Times, June 17, 1966

"We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry every night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet."
--Ronald Reagan, TV speech, October 27, 1964

"Because Vietnam was not a declared war, the veterans are not even eligible for the G. I. Bill of Rights with respect to education or anything."
--Ronald Reagan, in Newsweek, April 21, 1980. (Wrong again.)

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From:
http://forums.washingtonpost.com/wpforums/messages?msg=1948

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. Geez, Bush II and Reagan are way too similar.

Does anybody know when Redford is coming up with The Candidate II?

I think that movie will explain it all.