Every progressive should read this article about the religious right.

[Maat]

Here is the link to the "Mother Jones" expose on the Religious Hardright. Every progressive should take time to read it.


quote:
George W. Bush has called Reconstruction-influenced theoretician Marvin Olasky “compassionate conservatism’s leading thinker,” and Olasky served as one of the president’s key advisers on the creation of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Bush also invited Reconstructionist Jack Hayford, a key figure in the Promise Keepers men’s group, to give the benediction at his first inaugural. Deposed House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, though his office won’t comment on his religious views, governs with what he calls a “biblical worldview”—one of Reconstruction’s signature phrases. And, for conspiracy buffs, two heavy contributors to the Chalcedon Foundation—Reconstruction’s main think tank—are Howard Ahmanson and Nelson Bunker Hunt, both of whose families played key roles in financing electronic voting machine manufacturer Election Systems & Software. Ahmanson is also a major sponsor of ultraconservative politicians, including California state legislator and 2003 gubernatorial candidate Tom McClintock.

Yet for all its influence, Reconstruction is almost invisible to the media and secular society. Atlanta is ground zero for most Reconstruction activity—home office to DeMar’s publishing house and home district to movement prophet Larry McDonald, who served four terms in Congress in the 1970s and 1980s—but the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has done only one major article on the movement. The entire Lexis-Nexis database includes only 43 articles from all of the U.S. media that make reference to Reconstruction, and only a handful of those explore the movement. “A hundred years ago, newspapers published the sermons preachers preached on Sunday,” notes Ed Larson, a University of Georgia historian. “Everyone knew what the Baptists believed, or the Lutherans or the Presbyterians. That’s no longer the case. And it has worked to the benefit of Reconstructionists as they doggedly pursued their goal.”

Reconstructionists aren’t shy about what exactly it is they are pursuing: “The long-term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise,” Gary North, a top Reconstruction theorist, wrote in his 1989 book, Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism. “Those who refuse to submit publicly…must be denied citizenship.”
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/12/a_nation_under_god.html


On edit:
I'm with the Religious Left (the Religious Leftier, as Colbert would say, the Relgious Progressive. I'm not a Christian, in the conventional sense, I'm a Religious Scientist, believing Spirit is both within and without). On this special day, I wish my progressive Christian brothers and sisters well, as well as the rest of the DUers!

[AuntPatsy]

1. Excellent article, I really wish there would be more live programs

showcasing the dangers these groups represent, some people just don't like to read and everyone needs to be made aware.

[Donkeykick]

2. Man! Is This Scary Or What!

And, for conspiracy buffs, two heavy contributors to the Chalcedon Foundation—Reconstruction’s main think tank—are Howard Ahmanson and Nelson Bunker Hunt, both of whose families played key roles in financing electronic voting machine manufacturer Election Systems & Software. Ahmanson is also a major sponsor of ultraconservative politicians, including California state legislator and 2003 gubernatorial candidate Tom McClintock.

[sam sarrha]

3. here is another good link... LINK>>

http://www.insider-magazine.com/ChristianMafia.htm

[CanonRay]

4. I read it...scared the hell out of me.

[beam me up scottie]

5. It's worth reading again, Maat.

But the marquee pitchman of the day was Moore. Ruggedly handsome , with the military bearing he acquired at West Point, Moore has gained a rock-star following on the Christian right—a Moses to lead the chosen from a godless society. The judge has a stunning memory for long literary passages and judicial opinions, and he chants them in the singsongy, down-home style of Southern demagogues from Theo Bilbo to George Wallace—“God” is “Gawud,” with an upward lilt. When he proclaimed that “God is still sovereign, no matter what federal judges say,” the crowd tittered and applauded. When he intoned that “there is no right to sodomy in the Constitution,” they cheered. When he roared that unless judges “acknowledge God,” they “should be impeached,” the righteous noise shook the rafters.

***********

The Old Testament—with its 600 or so Mosaic laws—is the inflexible guide for the society DeMar and other Reconstructionists envision. Government posts would be reserved for the righteous, as long as they are male. There would be thousands of executions a year, with stoning a preferred method because it would turn the deaths into “community projects,” as movement theologian North has noted. Sinners in line for the death penalty would include women who commit adultery or lie about their virginity, blasphemers, witches, children who strike their parents, and gay men (lesbians, however, would be spared because no specific reference to them can be found in the Books of Moses). DeMar told me that among Reconstructionists he is considered something of a liberal, because he’d execute gays only if they were caught indulging in sodomy. “I’m happy to just drive them back into the closet,” he said.

***********

Besides facilitating evangelism, Reconstructionists believe, government should largely be limited to building and maintaining roads, enforcing land-use contracts, and ensuring just weights and measures. Unions would not exist, and neither would unemployment benefits, Social Security, and environmental protection laws. Public schools would disappear; one of the movement’s great successes has been promoting homeschooling programs and publishing texts used by tens of thousands of homeschooling families. And, perhaps most importantly, the state is “God’s minister,” as DeMar puts it in Liberty at Risk, “taking vengeance out on those who do evil.” A major task for the government key Reconstructionists envision is fielding armies for conquest in the name of Jesus.

***********

At the heart of Rushdoony’s argument were two biblical passages. Genesis 1:28 commands men to have “dominion” over “every living thing.” And in Matthew 28:18-20, the “Great Commission,” Jesus commands his followers to proselytize to the world. Thus was born dominion theology. (Not all dominionists are Reconstruction apostles—but the differences are a matter of theological finesse, and political strategies are largely indistinguishable.) Adam and Eve broke their covenant with God, and Satan seized dominion. Christian Reconstruction claims it has a reconstituted covenant with God and the right to a new dominion in his name.

In this worldview, the mandate for Christians is not just to live right or to help their neighbors: They are called upon to take over or eliminate the institutions of secular government.

This is what sets Reconstruction apart from the conventional Christian right and gives it a key advantage in organizing.

*puke smilie and emphasis mine



Thanks for the timely reminder about where we're going if we don't ALL stand up and fight the American Taliban.


I wish you well, Maat.:hug:

[pretzel4gore]

6. larry mcdonald...KAL 007

poor bugger in the wrong place at wrong time, sorta the barb olsen of the regan era...
http://www.wavelengthtoronto.com/regulars/matrix/02_01.html

snip>
That was a can of worms leading back to the Reagan team in the White House from earlier activities when Reagan was governor in California, where he also played a significant role in preventing the extradition and providing a haven for witnesses subpoenaed in the Kennedy assassination case by New Orleans DA Jim Garrison. Being on the doomed Korean Air Lines 007 conveniently neutralized Congressman MacDonald, who would not live to publically discuss these extremely sensitive structures and arrangements that shape what we read about as news.

To end this New Year's installment of The Matrix, we wish to quote New Orleans DA Jim Garrison from an interview in 1969: "We... are in great danger of slowly evolving into a proto-fascist state. It will be a different kind of fascist state from the one the Germans evolved; theirs grew out of depression and promised bread and work while ours, curiously enough, seems to be emerging from prosperity. But in the final analysis, it's based on power and the inability to put human goals and human conscience above the dictates of the state... Of course, you can't spot this trend... The test is: What happens to the individual who dissents? In Nazi Germany, he was physically destroyed; here, the process is more subtle, but the end results can be the same . . . Huey Long once said, 'Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.' I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security."
<snip

[longship]

7. This is a must read.

If you care about your country, you have to understand what is really happening in the Republican Party. This article tells you what the Republican Party has become. When I was involved in Democrat politics in Kansas--in the midst of the Bible belt--in the 1980's and 1990's the Republicans were a scarey, scarey bunch, *openly* advocating theocracy. The fact that this same bunch of folks has a direct channel into the highest placed people in the country, those who hold power in all three branches of government, is damned frightening.

Another good read is Kevin Phillips recent article in The Nation,
Theocons and Theocrats

These are the people who control the country, control the agenda, control the legislative process, control our priorities.

They must be stopped *NOW*.

[Maat]

8. Thanks for the Phillips piece link.

I had read the Madsen piece; it was VERY scary.

And the information about the Congressman and Jim Garrison is VERY scary.

What a den of monsters - those who hold power and sway now!

And I have a bunch of relatives in their clutches!

[NMMNG]

9. I get MOJO by subscription and read this when it originally came out

It was both frightening and infuriating. These people are batsh*t crazy control-freaks who want to take over the US. The longer the current party is at the helm, the more danger we are in. The biggest joke of all is that they claim we're fighting Iraq to protect ourselves against "religious extremists". :crazy: