Foot Soldiers for RW Religious Fascism.

[bluedawg12]

Thanks to Sapphocrat over at the Lavender Liberal, whose article mentioned the must read book by Chris Hedges, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America http://news.lavenderliberal.com/2008/11/18/mormon-lesso... /

That led to this chilling article Chris Hedges, excerpted from Harpers, in 2005.

The article was written in 2005, but the people Hedges writes about are still around, they are still activist right wingers, they are known as the base of the repug party.

Check out the full Harpers article it’s fascinating reading.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070311031441/http://www.harpers.org/FeelingTheHate.html

Soldiers of Christ
Feeling the hate with the National Religious Broadcasters
Posted on Monday, May 30, 2005.
By Chris Hedges.

Since the reelection of George W. Bush in November, the rhetoric on the Christian right has grown triumphal and proud; rumors of spiritual war are abroad in the heartland, and fervent whispers of revolution echo among the pews and folding chairs of the nation's megachurches. I have traveled to Anaheim, California, to observe the rising power of the evangelical political movement at first hand. Orange County, along with Colorado Springs, is a center of the new militant Christianity, and it is here, among friends, that the National Religious Broadcasters association—which brings together some 1,600 Christian radio and television broadcasters, who claim to reach up to 141 million listeners and viewers—is holding its annual convention.

<snip>

“Today, the calls for diversity and multiculturalism are nothing more than thinly veiled attacks on anyone willing, desirous, or compelled to proclaim Christian truths,” he says. “Today, calls for tolerance are often a subterfuge, because they will tolerate just about anything except Christian truth.

<snip>

I can't help but recall the words of my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, Dr. James Luther Adams, who told us that when we were his age, and he was then close to eighty, we would all be fighting the “Christian fascists.”

He gave us that warning twenty-five years ago, when Pat Robertson and other prominent evangelists began speaking of a new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking control of all major American institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government, so as to transform the United States into a global Christian empire.
<snip>

Adams told us to watch closely the Christian right's persecution of homosexuals and lesbians. Hitler, he reminded us, promised to restore moral values not long after he took power in 1933, then imposed a ban on all homosexual and lesbian organizations and publications. Then came raids on the places where homosexuals gathered, culminating on May 6, 1933, with the ransacking of the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin. Twelve thousand volumes from the institute's library were tossed into a public bonfire. Homosexuals and lesbians, Adams said, would be the first “deviants” singled out by the Christian right. We would be the next.

[Duke Newcombe]

1. I wonder if the professor truly understands what "Fascism" is.

Folks who have lived under actual Fascist regimes could be educational to hear from.

[midnight]

2. You asked a good question, and so here is what I found.

Fascist movements promote violence between nations, political factions, and races as part of social Darwinist and militarist views that violence between these groups is natural and a part of evolution and a perpetual conflict.<9> In the view that violence is a natural part of survival, fascists believe only the strong can and should survive by being healthy, vital, and aggressive through conquering and eliminating the weak and the degenerate.<10><11><12>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

fas·cism 1

often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control <early instances of army fascism and brutality http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism

[bluedawg12]

4. Thank you for your research.

It does seem like the rabbidy right wing, as mentioned in this article promoted religious fascism when they promoted the idea that there is no room for diversity, that the “values” of this country are one and the same with their narrow definition of American values, when they crossed from theological debates into the realm of right wing political activism.

One might say, well that’s all philosophical, where are the jackbooted thugs that seem to be emblematic of fascists?

Well, we find them in verbal attacks on those who are different, for example the fear bating ad campaign that surrounded Hate8.

We find them in formal hate groups that deface certain houses of worship, blow up night clubs, attack people for just appearing to be gay and more recently, now that they are out of controlling power we get a whiff of the possible next phase, when guys like Sean Insannity has some kind of poll about revolution on his web site ( heard it on KO, I haven’t a link and don’t want to visit) when there are rw groups that openly promote, and have for years, the idea of breaking up the Union with talk of succession, which is out there again and more prominent than ever and we hear it in their plans when they speak of dominating all aspects of culture, including institutions and government.

I seem to recall that Oklahoma legislators just passed some Mini-succession law. :eyes:

This is fascist thinking, enshrining the right to hate at the expense of providing justice for hate crimes:

http://web.archive.org/web/20070311031441/http://www.harpers.org/FeelingTheHate.html
>>Wright promises the audience that as the new president of NRB he will fight to block the passage of hate-crime legislation, something many Christian broadcasters fear might be used to halt their attacks on gays and lesbians.

“For the first time in history, representatives and senators may pass hate-crime legislation,” he says, “which is one step to oppose what you do as against the law.

“If we had to give equal time to every opposing viewpoint, there would be no time to proclaim the truth that we have been commanded to proclaim,” he says. “We will fight the Fairness Doctrine, tooth and nail. It could be the end of Christian broadcasting as we know it if we do not.”

<snip>
He reminds us, quoting theologian Peter Berger, that “ages of faith are not marked by dialogue but by proclamation” and that “there is power in the unapologetic proclamation of truth. There is power in it. This is a kingdom of power.” When he says the word “power,” he draws it out for emphasis. He tells the crowd to shun the “persuasive words of human wisdom.” Truth, he says, does “not rest in the wisdom of men but the power of God.” Then, in a lisping, limp-wristed imitation of liberals, he mocks, to laughter and applause, those who want to “share” and be sensitive to the needs of others.
<<

[bluedawg12]

5. Oopsie, just reread the reply *blush* secede is the word I needed

as in secession, not succession. :rofl:

What a dawg-bone headed mistake. And all these #!!#@11! words that sound alike. No fair. :P

Sadly, this is not the first, nor I suspect the last time I misspell this (or any other) word. English is very odd, very odd. :eyes:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/secede

secede
Main Entry: se·cede
Pronunciation: \si-ˈsēd\
Function: intransitive verb
Inflected Form(s): se·ced·ed; se·ced·ing
Etymology: Latin secedere, from sed-, se- apart (from sed, se without) + cedere to go —
Date: 1749
: to withdraw from an organization (as a religious communion or political party or federation)
— se·ced·er noun

secession

Main Entry: se·ces·sion
Pronunciation: \si-ˈse-shən\
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin secession-, secessio, from secedere
Date: 1604
1 : withdrawal into privacy or solitude : retirement
2 : formal withdrawal from an organization

succession
2 entries found.

succession

succession duty

Main Entry: suc·ces·sion
Pronunciation: \sək-ˈse-shən\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French or Latin; Anglo-French, from Latin succession-, successio, from succedere
Date: 14th century
1 a: the order in which or the conditions under which one person after another succeeds to a property, dignity, title, or throne b: the right of a person or line to succeed c: the line having such a right
2 a: the act or process of following in order : sequence b (1): the act or process of one person's taking the place of another in the enjoyment of or liability for rights or duties or both (2): the act or process of a person's becoming beneficially entitled to a property or property interest of a deceased person c: the continuance of corporate personality d: unidirectional change in the composition of an ecosystem as the available competing organisms and especially the plants respond to and modify the environment
3 a: a number of persons or things that follow each other in sequence b: a group, type, or series that succeeds or displaces another
— suc·ces·sion·al \-ˈsesh-nəl, -ˈse-shə-nəl\ adjective
— suc·ces·sion·al·ly adverb

[bluedawg12]

3. Could you elaborate on what you mean? How do you understand fascism?