These fundamentalists really remind of the Commie Hunters

[MaryH]

of the 50's. I really remember that time. Everyone was scared to death of the Commies. A lot of innocent people were really hurt by fanatics on witch hunts.

There were groups that formed calling themselves Freedom Fighters. And they really got wild about the whole thing. Anyone who disagreed with them was a commie.

Somehow we managed to move past that. But hatred is always so near the surface in a lot of unhappy people. Doesn't take much to let it loose.

Hopefully, sanity will get a grip here pretty soon.

[keith the dem]

1. They are the same people

They raised great amount of money by spreading fear of godless communist. when that dissolved, gays became the thing to fear. These people steal the life savings from well meaning senior citizens who watch this junk on TV. They are nothing more than the money-changers that Jesus chased from the temple.

[charlie]

2. Fundies?

The whole Republican party is revelling in the new witchhunt. It's long been their MO, and a good, dependable one. They could have an outsize effect on policy in spite of their perpetual minority status.

Accuse Dems of being "soft" on something -- crime, communism, drugs -- or being fundamentally unAmerican and watch them bumblefuck themselves. It always works.

Remember Johnson promised he wouldn't send American boys into a war that Vietnamese boys should be fighting. Yet, in just a few years, there were over a half million troops in the jungle (over 1 in every 400 Americans!) because he couldn't bear being the President Who Lost SouthEast Asia to the Commies.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Essentially, same shit, different day. Same common denominator is

the targeted group labelled "traitors", "un-American", etc. Instead of being communists, the new buzzwords will be secular humanists, unmoralistic, relative ethicism, public education, etc.

Fundamentalists have equated anyone who does not embrace their version of Christianity to be un-American as only they understand God and country in their truest form. Once ostracized and removed from society, this pariah group is ripe for persecution, first in subtle forms, later with civil rights taken away from them.

The fundies are doing the dirty work of the government, sort of in-house outsourcing. The ultimate goal: conformity without argument from individuals and dissidents. I believe that's called fascism.

[MaryH]

5. I wonder what Jerry Falwell was doing in the 50's. I

remember Oral Roberts. He had a TV show where he healed people and then they fell over backwards. And he made a bunch of money at it.
Jimmy Swaggert was probably too young then.

I think that Jews were very often the targets of these people. Jews are always the target.

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. Oh, no. Jews are their favorite people these days.

At least until armageddon, when 144,000 will honor Jaysus and the rest of us are fucked.

Christian Zionism is all about fundie power, and nothing about Jews. The moment their leaders tell them the Jews are fair game again, they won't remember why they were so supportive of us.

[no_hypocrisy]

14. Jerry F. started Thomas Road Baptist Church in 1956.

http://atheism.about.com/library/glossary/western/bldef_falwelljerry.htm

He belonged to the sect of Baptists that doggedly refused to relinquish the concept of segregation as a validly Christian lifestyle and mindset until it became politically (and legally) incorrect. He didn't give up the opinion; he just got quiet. He was the anti-Billy Graham (although there are those stories about Nixon ragging on the Jews and Graham remained silent in response).

Jews were the target in the 50's during the communist witchhunt without being specifically targeted because they were Jews. The McCarthy gang and Red Channels went after some Jews as having belonged to progressive organizations in the 30's that were communist (because no other groups were interested in fighting fascism in this country or Franco's Spain, or pro-union groups) and/or because of their intellectualism in general. There were members who weren't Jews (atheists, progressive Christians, etc.) and they were given the same treatment. But Jews seemed to be a distinctive group within these groups and thus, the same effect/result as if the government directly went after Jews.

You have no idea how terrifying this waiting-for-the-other-shoe-to-drop mentality was. Even if you didn't belong to any suspect group, if a family member (e.g., a sibling, a child) belonged to such an organization, you too might be swept up in the net. It started with either being questioned "casually" by a member of the government or you actually had to answer a subpoena. Either way, your employer and neighbors found out you were under investigation. That was enough for you to lose your job, lose your friends, and become a social pariah in the community as nobody wanted the same thing to happen to them by association with you.

[arwalden]

4. Remember The Wacko "Col. Flagg" Character From MASH?

Whenever I hear some of these fringe Christian fundies, I'm reminded of Flagg. (And sometimes the neurotic and hypocritical Maj. Burns.)

-- Allen

[MaryH]

7. Yes: Wasn't Flagg the one who was so militant and so

crazy? Was always out looking for the bad guys - and their weren't any.

[arwalden]

9. Here's A Photo

Edward Winter, who played Colonel Samuel Flagg, the paranoid CIA officer on M*A*S*H (Born: June 3, 1938, Died: March 8, 2001), only appeared in 7 episodes. He died of Parkinson's disease.

However, his insanely funny appearances were more memorable to military personnel, than all the other actors combined.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0935719/
http://www.beatlestribute.com/Colonel_Samuel_Flagg.htm

[MaryH]

10. Yes! That's who I was thinking of.

He was funny.

And so was Burns.

[Ardee]

6. Sanity begins at home

Are you so very convinced that hordes of fundamentalist Christians are coming out of the woodwork to alter the basic fabric of these United States? Are they like seven year locust to appear suddenly , devour our freedoms and then disappear until the next time?

I remember vividly the HUAC hearings, though I was quite small at the time, and I also remember the Army/McCarthy hearings where Senator Joe got his just deserts. One overly ambitious and corrupt Senator did indeed cause much in the way of hardship for many who were blacklisted, and I recall that Reagan, in his role as President of the Screen Actors Guild, lied his ass off, named names and betrayed his friends....I guess we have short memories to trust this guy with California and then the whole damn country.

But , just as those horrific witch hunts in the fifties, this current brouhaha about religious fervor has a political solution.I am beginning to believe, considering the ad nauseum threads about these (mostly mythic) hordes of Christian reformers, that this is a smokescreen serving to distract us from our real path. We have seen the Democratic Party lose election after election, lose the WH against an intellectually challenged little dwarf when Gore should have ripped him a new a*****e by speaking eloquently and truthfully.

Again in this last debacle, after four horrid years, both domestically and abroad, with a nation suffering unemployment, our infrastructure badly in need of repair, soaring gas prices, our schools doing horrid jobs with almost no tools and too few teachers, with Bush's lies fresh in all our minds the Dem's lose again! Not only do they lose the WH but they lose even more seats in both houses of congress. Why I wonder are people not asking important questions about Democratic leadership, strategies and methodologies?

Oh no, lets blame the fundamentalist bogeymen under the bed.....PUHLEEZE!

Meanwhile the Repugs have their act together , you betcha!

George W. Bush's Republican allies in Ohio have taken more than a month to certify the results in the state that decided the U.S. presidential election.
Next, they plan to hold off on any recount until after the Electoral College formalizes Bush's election to a second term, making any discoveries of discarded votes or systematic fraud largely an academic exercise.

To read the full story about the echoes of Election 2000 now being heard in Election 2004, go to Consortiumnews.com at http://www.consortiumnews.com .

[MaryH]

8. I live in the Bible Belt so I live with those hordes of

Christian Fundamentalists. I kind of don't like to call them Christian but rather Evangelicals.

I don't know the answer to who is using who? I know the Republicans think they are using the Right-wing to help them achieve their ends. But I'm not so sure it isn't the other way around.

I don't think that most Evangelicals are a threat to anybody. Most of the people I work with are really nice people. We just don't ever talk about religion or politics.

But they are very good at organizing themselves to get what they want. And they want "moral values" in society. And a bunch of other stuff - like prayer in schools - and having evolution thrown out of science class. And other stuff.

But most of the people I know are not like Oral Roberts or Falwell. They are not racist and they really believe that they are trying to live their lives like God wants them to.

[murielm99]

12. Call them Christian extremists, radical right-wing Christians,

religious bigots, fundamentalist, or something like that.

Please do not call them evangelicals, although technically they are.

But I am also an evangelical Christian, and I am not a right wing fanatic.

Evangelical means basing one's Christian faith on the four gospels of the New Testament, Protestants who who emphasize the authority of the gospel and salvation by faith and grace, not works.

Please don't lump moderate and liberal Christians with those haters.

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. The problem is, they are incapable of questioning authority.

Unlike the original Baptists, who were rebellious schismatics who denied government and church authority, the modern fundamentalists are pure authoritarian. I know many of them myself, and they are very nice people who, if ordered by the goverment to do so, would happily operate concentration camps in God's name. They are not racists, but refuse to see that they are enabling racist leaders because, well, they are the leaders, and the leaders say that God talks to them.

The fundie movement has come under the sway of evangilists who believe in Rushdoony's Dominion Theology and these nice people do not even consider what establishing a theocracy in America would do. They don't believe it will happen.

And people who read 'Mein Kampf' thought Hitler was exaggerating, too.

[Ardee]

15. Now that IS sanity

I am a bit troubled by what rights communities have, frankly. I know full well that basic inalienable rights exist and must be both protected and advanced, yet what about the rights of small communities who all believe the same things and have the same values?

I still maintain that all the brouhaha about creeping fundamentalism is distracting us all from solving the real problems......just my opinion

[MaryH]

16. A Democracy should always protect the minority.

That is one of the main purposes of a democracy.