The Family: "Elites who are submitting to the authority of an American-led fundamentalist network"

[madfloridian]

I have been noticing the tendency in our party, even in the House with the big majority...to go along with the right wing way too often. On the FISA bill, on wedge issues. The tendency to allow the rights of women to be marginalized rather than fight back. Too many fear standing up to the worst president we can remember.

One of the most destructive things done by our party in the last couple of decades is the turning away from the party's traditional constituencies.

"Simon Rosenberg, the former field director for the DLC who directs the New Democrat Network, a spin-off political action committee, says, "We're trying to raise money to help them lessen their reliance on traditional interest groups in the Democratic Party. In that way," he adds, "they are ideologically freed, frankly, from taking positions that make it difficult for Democrats to win."

The two main groups in that category are labor unions and minorities. Now even women, not a minority, are being included as too many bow to the fundamentalists.

I found a couple of recent blog conversations actually relating to this issue...abandoning your base. The first shows how in the 40s the group known as The Fellowship, The Family....did so much harm to labor groups. Read the whole interview if you can.

Focusing on The Family

This is a recent conversation between Sarah Posner of The American Prospect and Jeff Sharlet, author of the recent book...The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.

SP: So who invented this Christ that these guys connect with?

JS: It was invented in 1945, in direct response to the social gospel Christ, by Abraham Vereide (the founder of The Family). He was a Norwegian immigrant to America, and had risen pretty high in social gospel circles, working with Goodwill. He had come to the conclusion that this (social gospel) was going nowhere, because of the Great Depression, which in his mind was clearly a punishment from God, for disobedience. The greatest form of disobedience was labor organizations.

SP: So God was going to punish America for labor unions?

JS: Because we were not a religious enough nation. We needed another great awakening.

SP: How were unions indicative that we weren't spiritual enough?

JS: If you try and regulate economics, well then you're interfering with God's free will. This is of course an idea that's very attractive to the wealthy elites he starts ministering to.

SP: Vereide was the original source of the anti-union ideas?

JS: He's given a vision. He's obsessed with Harry Bridges, the great union organizer. One night in 1935, after the great strike of 1934, Vereide says God gave him a vision that Christianity has spent 2,000 years looking in the wrong direction.

SP: Helping the poor, you mean?

JS: Yes. The down and out, the suffering, the weak, and the poor. God doesn't want to have soup kitchens or social welfare programs, God doesn't like what FDR is doing. What about the up-and-out? Don't they deserve love as well? Doesn't Henry Ford need somebody to love him?

One of my favorite blogs, Talk 2 Action, has a post by Bruce Wilson which is exploring some similarities between the views of The Family and those of the DLC...which he describes as their secular counterpart. Bear in mind I am quoting him, I have not thought of it this way before.

It starts out about the Democrats who voted for FISA and their connections to both groups...but then he carries it on to other ares.

Senate Dems who voted for FISA

I am going to skip down in the post a ways. He uses data from Jeff Sharlet's archival search on The Family...said archives were closed soon after.

Many on the newly energized Democratic left have recently become disturbed or dismayed that, even after the insurgent left-powered Democratic reconquest of both branches of Congress in the 2006 election, Congress seems unwilling to oppose George W. Bush on key fronts - on FISA legislation and on Bush Administration moves to provoke a US war with Iran: because The Family has been from its inception overtly antidemocratic in nature, a study of Family influence within contemporary American politics promises to may shed considerable light on the lack of responsiveness of elected representatives, especially within the Democratic Party, to the concerns of their constituents.

As Former Special Assistant to George W. Bush David Kuo wrote in his late 2006 book Tempting Faith, "The Fellowship's reach into governments around the world is almost impossible to overstate or even grasp", and The Family's (or Fellowship's) domestic influence is mammoth as well. Rolling Stone journalist Jeff Sharlet's new book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at The Heart of American Power has provided a crucial, landmark research foundation that I'll be building on, in subsequent installations of this new, ongoing series to demonstrate the influence of The Family within contemporary American politics and within the Democratic Party itself.

Wilson continues about the common ideology between the two groups...his thoughts..I am just posting them.

A surprising number of Family members and "friends" played key roles as founding members of the DLC in 1985 and the organization's political ideology shared, from the onset, much in common with Family ideology: so much so that a case can be made that the DLC has functioned to inject a secularized version of The Family's ideology--elitist, anti-New Deal, corporatist, militaristic, deeply hostile to church-state separation--into the Democratic Party and, in the process, paralyze the Democratic Party, tying it in knots with predictably ensuing inter-party ideological disputes.

The Family is only one among a number of secretive and cultic para-church organizations that worked, for decades, to burrow into Washington's power structures--recruiting, co-opting and even converting America's top leaders to reactionary, business and corporate friendly, elitist right-wing religious views. The Unification Church, Opus Dei and the welter of ministries operated by Bill Bright's sprawling Campus Crusade For Christ (one of which, "Christian Embassy", organizes prayer cells both on Capitol Hill and within the US Pentagon) each have considerable spheres of influence. But the Family is probably the most influential of all, especially for its pretense to bipartisanship, its central, institutionalized and quasi-governmental role in American national politics and civic religion.

Wilson points out that this is the first in a series based on Sharlet's research.

This is the first in a series which will explore, building off Jeff Sharlet's new book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at The Heart Of American Power (excerpt from book and a review), recent influence of The Family within American politics and especially within the Democratic Party. Future installments in this series will cover: (1) the birth of the DLC and the ties of key DLC founders to The Family, (2) treatments of specific DLC members with extensive Family associations (3) possible Family influence in the 2000 US Presidential election (4) methods by which The Family has advanced its ideological agenda, through legislation, supported by Republican-DLC coalitions, designed to attack New Deal and social welfare programs, attack church-state separation and advance other long-term Family goals."

He is right that many of us on the "energized left" have become discouraged and dismayed with many actions of our Democrats in recent years.

It is like the terms are cycled..."leftists", "fringe", "purists", and the best one of all from last year by Al From...."noisy activists."

I look forward to the further posts by Wilson.

[baldguy]

1. Google "The Family" and "Clinton"

[KamaAina]

16. I knew that -- but note: Clinton voted against FISA

Go figure.

[msongs]

2. dems and their unenforced subpoenas lol nt

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. I heard Jeff Sharlett interviewed on the radio last week

It sounds like a fascinating book.


on edit: here is the archived interview http://www.blogtalkradio.com/fightincockflyer/2008/07/09/Wednesday-High-Noon

[madfloridian]

4. Thanks, I missed that.

I have been meaning to order the book. Maybe I will. I am still reading along on Kuo's book. It is very interesting, BTW.

[Adsos Letter]

13. I followed yer link...

and listened to the podcast...if Sharlet is accurate then this is very, very serious stuff...

[libnnc]

28. I'm listening to this now

thank you

[Adsos Letter]

5. I just yesterday received Posner's "God's Profits" and Sharlet's "The Family"

part way through Posner's work now, and then on to Sharlet's. After that it will be "Bad Moon Rising" by Gorenfeld.

My stuff from Amazon tends to come in batches.

[madfloridian]

15. I read Gorenfeld's "Bad Moon on the Rise" at Salon.

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/09/24/moon/index.html

Fascinating. From 2003.

[Jackpine Radical]

33. From the sound of it, Amazon can make it as long as they can hang on

to you, me, and my wife as customers. We're so addicte that we each have our own Prime accounts.

I got the Sharlet book, started it & set it aside for a bit because another Amazon shipment came in.

[Adsos Letter]

40. I hear ya...

I order, on average, at least $150.00 a month from them...my weakness is "enabled" by their personal recommendations list, and the ability to search inside many of their books.

However; all things considered, this is much healthier than some of my previous addictions... :D

I listened to a couple of podcasts of Sharlet being interviewed about "The Family" and then began reading the book. I can only read so much of it at a time because I get so angry and depressed.

I am a Christian of the absolute separation of Church/State variety, including stripping all of them of their tax-exempt status. I get so disgusted, enraged, and depressed over how people are using "Jesus" for political and social domination that I could just implode...

My heart can only take just so much stress... :hi:

[FredStembottom]

6. Finally.... this just may be it.

I have been writing on and off at DU for 4 years that the actions (and inactions) of our D.C Dems cannot be adequately explained by concepts like "spinelessness" and "electoral politics".

To my mind the utter lack of normal, human responses to the vast government criminality, the deflating of the Bill of Rights, the bizarre un-willingness to embrace sure-win Democratic solutions during elections........ this truly abnormal stifling of the urge to shout "fire!" in a (political)theater that actually is on fire...... this has, in my mind, slowly revealed the outlines of something unseen and unspoken that is having a profound effect on the actions of our elected Dems.

Of course, being a truck driver in Minnesota, I freely admitted that I was in no position to know what was inside this shadowy void in the hearts of so many Democrats. My best guess (and just a guess) was that the mere fact of the anthrax attacks having gone unsolved left every Dem to sit and quietly fear, well, everyone and anyone. And to become self-censoring based on each person's own private speculations about what motivated the attacker to attack; and what might cause this still-free individual to attack again. (I say private speculations because they simply can't be said out loud without appearing looney - which has the effect of making these fears darker and stronger).

But like the "black box" exercise we did in chemistry in 9th grade (wherein you divine the nature of several objects inside a sealed cardboard box from tilting and shaking it only) our D.C. Dems have have indirectly indicated - largely through what they refuse to do - that some extra little something that we truck drivers in Minnesota know nothing about has a profound, daily effect on everything they do.

Last time I wrote about this I ended by wondering if I would ever get to finally hear the astounding reason(s) for our official Dems' quite un-natural behavior during this part of our history - since only very large and unpleasant reasons seem adequate to suppress an entire political party so completely.

But a cult within the hallowed halls? That certainly fits the bill!

[kster]

11. Two crime families in charge of the country, Demliones and the Republiginoes

the two families have a contest every 2 and 4 years, 1 member from each family, D&R need to go out and prove who can raise the most money for the two crime families, the two candidates have been selected, Obama and McCain can raise the most money, by election day the crime families will have their lapdog media make the people feel divided. both families could give a shit which member wins so long as we the people appear divided at the end of the big election/contest.

Q) How do we know this?

A) Both families REMAIN SILENT about how the ballots will be counted.

Q) Who in a REAL election/contest would REMAIN SILENT about how the ballots are counted?

A) ALL the members of the two crime families who run this country!!

[defendandprotect]

24. Isn't patriarchy itself a "cult" . . . ???

And isn't organized patriarchal religion the underpinning for patriarchy--?

The 1960's was a challenge to patriarchy ---

yeah, it came in disconnected waves of anti-war groups --

African Americans overturning Segregation, Inc. --

Women pushing for an ERA amendment and an end to their oppression --

Homosexuals fighting to end their oppression ---

these groups sadly don't connect together --- AND IT DRIVES ME CRAZY!!!!



But it was overall a challenge to patriarchy -- to the culture formed by it ---

too often a culture of violence.


And we really need to discuss violence here at DU ---

Many have the impression that we are somehow stuck with violence, that it's

part of human nature. It isn't. But it does come with patriarchy.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. I've said for years that the huge fundamentalist churches springing up in every suburb

must be financed by non-local money.

When mainstream denominations start new churches in suburbs or elsewhere, they start small. The clergy are subsidized by the denomination for several years until their parish can be self-supporting, and they usually start by meeting in someone's house or renting space in a strip mall until they can afford their own building.

But these fundamentalist churches are springing up with full campuses almost overnight and are able to provide a total information and social environment.

[FredStembottom]

8. Excellent point, Lydia!

Mega-churches. One of my "favorite" subjects and, still, I had never considered the money aspect.

They really do appear already in full-flight, don't they.

How does that happen?

Thanks for lighting a spark in my brain tonight!

[madfloridian]

14. Taking money from long established local churches...

which is reaching almost a disaster point in some areas.

[libnnc]

27. as someone who grew up in an old established Methodist congregation

it has always confounded me as to how on earth these mega congregations can appear out of the blue.

I've notice it in my lifetime (like really since the early to mid '80s).

I used to chalk it up to worship style and ideology (they just put on a better "show")


This is frightening.

[madfloridian]

31. Many of them provide many services..not just sermons.

Day care, counseling, etc.

They try to be so much to so many people.

It takes money from the established churches.

[Prefer]

9. DLC = Democratic Lieberman-ish Co-opters

[bbgrunt]

10. so our agenda and movement has been

co-opted by a cult? After hearing about how rev. moon has been granted so much reverence by PTB, and now "the family" I do believe that we are living in the world of the pod people. They are about to drive the rest of us stark raving mad--and that is probably their intent.

[defendandprotect]

19. Co-option is a long standing method -- and always used --

In fact, the Democrats have been co-opting the Green Party . . . !!!

They don't like the populist messages ---

[lonestarnot]

12. Crazy mo fos that would have that opinion of Unions aren't worth spitting upon.

[Leo 9]

17. 87.5% of "Family" & DLC Affiliated Senate Democrats Voted Yes on FISA

Bruce Wilson

87.5% of "Family" & DLC Affiliated Senate Democrats Voted Yes on FISA

Posted July 15, 2008 | 01:37 PM (EST)


In early July 2008 Senate Republicans voted, with astounding conformity, in favor of the controversial electronic surveillance FISA bill update that was condemned by American civil liberties advocates across a wide range of the US political spectrum; two GOP Senators, John McCain and Jeff Sessions, abstained from voting and so 95.9 % of Republicans voted "aye" on FISA. But there was one specialized subgroup within the Democratic Party that voted with almost as much uniformity in favor of the FISA bill - Senate Democrats who belonged both to the DLC and who were members or "friends" of a shadowy fundamentalist group that's been burrowing, since the Eisenhower years, into the Washington power establishment: The Family.

This is the first in a series which will explore, building off Jeff Sharlet's new book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at The Heart Of American Power (excerpt from book and a review), recent influence of The Family within American politics and especially within the Democratic Party. Future installments in this series will cover: (1) the birth of the DLC and the ties of key DLC founders to The Family, (2) treatments of specific DLC members with extensive Family associations (3) possible Family influence in the 2000 US Presidential election (4) methods by which The Family has advanced its ideological agenda, through legislation, supported by Republican-DLC coalitions, designed to attack New Deal and social welfare programs, attack church-state separation and advance other long-term Family goals.

As Constitutional Law expert Jonathan Turley put it, shortly before the July 2008 final U.S. Senate vote on the FISA bill which expanded the power of US presidents to conduct secret surveillance of American citizens, "What the Democrats are doing here with the White House is they're trying to conceal a crime that is hiding in plain view. ... It's like all those stories where someone is assaulted on the street and a hundred witnesses do nothing. In this case, the Fourth Amendment is going to be eviscerated tomorrow, and a hundred people are going to watch it happen because it's just not their problem". Based on data I've compiled, from the controversial FISA Senate vote, one could possibly predict, with some accuracy, upcoming Senate votes establishing various components of an emerging, wildly antidemocratic legal apparatus for an American national security state. Secret government surveillance was, of course, a hallmark of Soviet Russia and it is common to many authoritarian regimes. So FISA probably serves as a very good proxy - US Senators willing to cast their votes in favor of FISA will likely be willing to support just about any legislation that's antidemocratic, at least in spirit if not directly antagonistic to the US Constitution, to come up for a Senate vote.

Overall, only 56% of Senate Democrats voted against FISA. If they had voted with such uniformity as did Republicans on FISA, the bill would not likely have cleared the Senate. But 42% of Senate Democrats, 21 in total, peeled off to join Republicans in backing the FISA bill. A weak majority of Senate Democrats associated with the Democratic Leadership Council, 55%, supported the FISA bill and DLC Democrats comprised the core of Democratic Party FISA support: 71.4%.

snip

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-wilson/875-of-family-dlc-affilia_b_112878.html

[defendandprotect]

18. According to DLC . . . Equality for All . .. is a "loser" . . . !!!! ???

How does the DLC show it's face around here --- ?
Except that the "free press" isn't showing them for what they really are . . .
sexist and racist.

Re "The Family" . . . actually Jesus was a Commie --- and they needed a fascist!

:)


I just want to clarify my comments about "sexism, racism" above . .
actually, IMO, we have to think about this more as exploitatation and start calling
it that because that's what it really is. Racism is a by-product of the debasement
of a race of people. Same in regard to myths of gender inferiority. It is really
about pariarchal exploitation.

The DLC and the Family -- though wearing disguses -- are simply patriarchy.
This is the "Daddy Party" thinking which brings us once again exploitation of
other human beings and violence -- renewed militarism.
And most of all keeping women and their values as "outsiders" and "weak."

While we have focused a great deal on the Republican connections to religoius fanatics,
we haven't really looked at what has happened in the Democratic Party.
The Catholic Church is not without influence in the Democratic Party.
If we are going to question the religous affiliations of presidential candidates ---
and I'm highly against waving one's religion around -- then I think we should also
begin to look at the situation in our Congress.


"All that does harm to labor is treason" . . . Abe Lincoln



PS: Elsewhere, Mark Crispin Miller's writings on election steals are being discussed,
while reminds that that he has pointed to Evangelicals as likely helpers in this
regard.

[libnnc]

20. kick

this is freaking me out

[madfloridian]

21. It's why we don't really matter. As David Kuo said:

"As Former Special Assistant to George W. Bush David Kuo wrote in his late 2006 book Tempting Faith, "The Fellowship's reach into governments around the world is almost impossible to overstate or even grasp", and The Family's (or Fellowship's) domestic influence is mammoth as well."

From the OP.

The powerful insiders are so powerful.

[Rhythm]

22. "Free will"?

If you try and regulate economics, well then you're interfering with God's free will. This is of course an idea that's very attractive to the wealthy elites he starts ministering to.

...and yet regulating marriage, abortion, and birth control education is somehow NOT interfering with free will?

The mind. It boggles.

[Prefer]

23. "prayer cells"

so DC is infiltrated with prayerists?

[defendandprotect]

45. We also have the "chaplains" in the Senate and the House . . . .

and we pay them with taxpayer dollars --- with full benefits ---

and somehow the Chaplain in the house was making something like $325,000 PLUS benefits--!!

For some reason he was being paid more than the guy in the Senate.

First --- IMO --- these Chaplains should be out ---

There's a chapel somewhere for the legislators which I think is also over the top --

but they could certainly hear their "prayers" and meet with a chaplain there if they wish.

Americans should not be paying for this crap.



Two other ideas --- let the Congress pay for the "Chaplains" --- and/or get volunteers on a

daily basis.

[Demeter]

25. Thank You, MF!

Thanks for both the facts and the analysis.

So many whackos, so little time.

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

26. This is really frightening

The fundy freaks are everywhere and they are not democracy's friends. :scared:

[ErinBerin84]

29. I'm reading the book about this that just came out, it's freaky as hell!

[madfloridian]

30. Is that Sharlet's book?

I am going to order it I think.

[puebloknot]

32. Thanks for this *important* post about "Family" values!

I'm reading "The Family" right now, by Sharlett. Other important ones are:

American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America
by Chris Hedges

Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right
by Mel White

The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege
by Damon Linker

American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century
by Kevin Phillips

I post these to emphasize that other important authors are addressing the same danger of a growing theocratic movement in America -- quietly embraced by many, many of our politicians, including Dems.

Bill Moyers warned us about this movement 20 years ago. But, unfortunately, then and now, to talk about this turns you into a "conspiracy theorist" of the worst kind, in the eyes of a lot of educated and rational people who just can't *go there* because it's under their radar, out of their frame of reference.

Having grown up with one group which fits into the general "Family" cloth, I saw for myself how narrow they are, and how secretive they are. Kenneth Starr is a member of the same denomination, the Church of Christ (not the United Church of Christ, of which Obama has been a member, BTW), the "overlord," one might say, of Pepperdine University, in Malibu, CA. Mr. Starr is head of an ethics program there (LOL), after having served his country to the tune of millions of dollars for trying to bring down a legally elected President over a sexual dalliance. And this group is more "liberal" and tolerant than the megachurches spring up all over.

I have been most concerned that Obama, after holding forth on his own version of "faith-based initiatives," got himself to Colorado Springs immediately thereafter to campaign. The infiltration of right wing Christianity into the Air Force Academy there, and the existence of probably the largest and most prominent megachurch in the land (remember Ted Haggard?), causes me to wonder what Obama's affiliations may be with "The Family" (aka "The Fellowship"), and the National Prayer Breakfast. I'm not bashing Obama. I'm asking reasonable questions about where the man I will likely vote for stands on this issue. Obama has pointed out to "his liberal friends" that he stands where he always has, and any concerns over separation of church and state are largely personal projections.

We need to know where our politicians stand on this issue, and whether or not they embrace and/or belong to this group. The National Prayer Breakfast (who could be against prayer *and* breakfast?) is a product of this behind-the-curtain organization, and reading Sharlett's book, "The Family," shines a strong light on what it is all about.

When I mention my concerns about the strong influence of the religious right in governance in this country -- here at DU, with some very respected writers; to my Israeli friend who lost most of her family in concentration camps in Poland; to Dem activists of my acquaintance -- I can see their eyes glaze over. They think I need to get a life and maybe get some rest because I'm just a little too intense about this subject.

It's important to understand that *underlying every major political concern we discuss here at DU -- from FISA, to election theft, to universal health care, to the future of the planet -- the religious right is pulling strings, is influencing policy in direct contravention of the principle of *separation of church and state*! Now the Department of Health and Human Services is trying to get birth control (not just the "morning after" pill) categorized as a form of abortion.

We have the right, but not the ability, to determine how every one of our politicians stands on the matter of ultra right wing religious influence in our government. We need to know that every one of them is loyal to the Constitution first, and not to biblical law (their interpretation), as the absolute determining principle in making and administering the law of the land. We are tending toward "Sharia" law in America.

Tell me I'm crazy!

[bbgrunt]

34. I for one, don't think you're crazy and I have the

same concerns about Mr. O. and his faith based iniatives--and his reversal on
FISA. His grass-roots organizing and efforts with Dean to promote a 50 state strategy gave me hope that he really does believe in democracy and the constitution. These days, however, I'm beginning to wonder.

[pollo poco]

54. wonder no more

It surprises me that The Family is news on DU.
That's why some of us nuts are so "zero tolerance" on the newly Kreepy Kristian direction of O.
Why was he allowed past the network censors, unlike Edwards and Kucinich?

Surely we all understand that a true champion of the people would not have made it this far.
All of the true populist candidates were systematically suffocated by the media, but Obama made it through.

However he started out, he had to change to become electable. It's not about the voters-he was always electable by the population.
More electable than their girl, Hillary. We threw them for a loop, but they adjusted quickly and began working on our man.
His recent moves are for the benefit of those who really control the elections.
They won't let him pass through the gates until he signifies that he will play along with the elites on their key issues.
If he was an actual man of the people, he would be out of the race. Period.

Don't worry Obamafans- I'm still voting for the blue team, and I have hopes that they will let us win this time.
But first, our candidate must become their candidate.

[Mnemosyne]

35. KnR for more visibility.. I feel sicker every day. n/t

[libnnc]

50. kicking

this is an important thread

[Mnemosyne]

52. And another. n/t

[libnnc]

36. Here's this interview from Anthony Lappe at Alternet

http://www.alternet.org/story/16167?page=5

Don't know if this has been posted yet.

I've been sucked into this for a couple of hours now and I can't remember how I found this interview

kick

[libnnc]

37. And here's that MSNBC piece

NBC News Exclusive: Political ties to a secretive religious group
Posted on Thursday, April 03, 2008 7:10 PM PT
Filed Under: Politics

By Andrea Mitchell and Jim Popkin, NBC News

For more than 50 years, the National Prayer Breakfast has been a Washington institution. Every president has attended the breakfast since Eisenhower, elbow-to-elbow with Democrats and Republicans alike. “I am really proud to carry on that tradition,” President Bush said at this year’s breakfast. “The people in this room come from many different walks of faith. Yet we share one clear conviction: We believe that the Almighty hears our prayers -- and answers those who seek Him.”

Besides the presidents and first ladies--Bill and Hillary Clinton attended in 1997--the one constant presence at the National Prayer Breakfast has been Douglas Coe. Although he’s not an ordained minister, the 79-year-old Coe is the most important religious leader you've never seen or heard.

http://deepbackground.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/04/03/857959.aspx

[libnnc]

38. And the Harper's piece

Jesus plus nothing:
Undercover among America's secret theocrats

By Jeffrey Sharlet

And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.

—Matthew 10:36

This is how they pray: a dozen clear-eyed, smooth-skinned “brothers” gathered together in a huddle, arms crossing arms over shoulders like the weave of a cable, leaning in on one another and swaying like the long grass up the hill from the house they share. The house is a handsome, gray, two-story colonial that smells of new carpet and Pine-Sol and aftershave; the men who live there call it Ivanwald. At the end of a tree-lined cul-de-sac, quiet but for the buzz of lawn mowers and kids playing foxes-and-hounds in the park across the road, Ivanwald sits as one house among many, clustered together like mushrooms, all devoted, like these men, to the service of Jesus Christ. The men tend every tulip in the cul-de-sac, trim every magnolia, seal every driveway smooth and black as boot leather. And they pray, assembled at the dining table or on their lawn or in the hallway or in the bunk room or on the basketball court, each man's head bowed in humility and swollen with pride (secretly, he thinks) at being counted among such a fine corps for Christ, among men to whom he will open his heart and whom he will remember when he returns to the world not born-again but remade, no longer an individual but part of the Lord's revolution, his will transformed into a weapon for what the young men call “spiritual war.”

“Jeff, will you lead us in prayer?”

http://harpers.org/archive/2003/03/0079525

[libnnc]

46. kicking

[libnnc]

39. Lisa Getter's 2002 LA Times piece

The Los Angeles Times, Sep 27, 2002
Showing Faith in Discretion
The Fellowship, which sponsors the National Prayer Breakfast, quietly effects political change. It acts with the blessing of many in power.

by LISA GETTER

For the last two decades, a Virginia mansion has been a private hideaway for world leaders, members of Congress, and even pop star Michael Jackson.

Located on a quiet residential street, the $4.4-million estate called Cedars sits at the highest point of the Potomac River, with spectacular views of Washington beyond the pool and tennis courts. It is owned by the Fellowship, the nonpartisan Christian group that sponsors the National Prayer Breakfast.

While the annual breakfast is a widely known event attended by a succession of U.S. presidents and foreign dignitaries, the Fellowship's part in the breakfast is low-key. Most attendees think the event is sponsored by Congress or even the president. Likewise, the Fellowship's role in diplomacy and current events has remained in the shadows. That's the way the organization wants it, for philosophical and practical reasons.

http://www.toobeautiful.org/lat_020927.html

[madfloridian]

47. That was a great article.

The original had some good pictures. I have it saved somewhere in pdf format.

[rucognizant]

41. I'll post this once again.

I have had it bookmarked since 2003, through 3 different computers; plus hard copy print out!
I found it on Wayne Madsen's website.
From time to time names I have read in (about) it have surfaced in the news, providing more dots to connect. eg. Baldacci when elected Gov of Maine, had a disclaimer, about his involvement with The Family, in the Bangor Daily News. He had stayed in their DC boarding house while serving as Rep. from Maine. I found that telling as the majority of Mainers would never have heard of the Family at that point in time!
Or maybe they would have................the leader of the American Nazi Party George Lincoln Rockwell, ( headquartered in Alexandria VA., near the Cedars. grew up in Ellsworth 32 miles from me.)

http://www.rinf.com/columnists/news/expose-the-christian-mafia-parts-1-2

[rucognizant]

42. P. S.

Good research madfloridian.........

[Time for change]

43. Why is this happening?

Why is so much of our Party moving so far right after winning so big in 2006?

[madfloridian]

44. One reason is the handpicked candidates by the two committees...

That tended to force everyone else out of the race by drying up funds or just using the party resources to promote them. In some cases here in Florida, and in others around the country....they only publicize "their" candidate and ignore the other as if they did not exist.

Usually the chosen candidate is a Blue Dog or a New Dem. Usually the one driven out of the race is more progressive.

Happens all the time. Look at Tim Mahoney in Florida, Christine Jennings in Florida. Tim was a Republican until Rahm drafted him to run as a Democrat. His recent words were "I don't owe the party anything."

Jennings has been a Democrat longer, but she was also handpicked. Jan Schneider had done well against Harris, considering the redness of the area. Jan was shunted aside by the party in 2006, Jennings is running again....Jan is running as an independent because her own party shunned her. She's a great lady, just not a millionaire to fund her own campaign.

[Lorien]

51. My neighbor is news director for WMFE in Orlando. She's been researching

a large business coalition here in town which has a program to groom new business friendly politicians for office. They boast about "bipartisanship" because their future candidates are both Democrats and Republicans, but in reality the graduates from their programs hold identical idealogical views. The aim of the coalition (obviously) is to create a truly "business friendly environment" by only offering program candidates for election; no matter who wins, the coalitions wins. I'll have to get a few more details when she returns from DC, but I believe that "the program" is nothing more than a local version of a National effort.

[madfloridian]

53. Sounds about right. Both I speak of in Florida were millionaire business people.

One president of a company, one a former bank president.

Wealthy, able to finance their own campaigns.

Jennings is running this time as well. Mahoney is up again soon, very close.

[datasuspect]

48. because they are embracing the overwhelming stupidity of the american people

and the republican playbook of "get them to hate and fear" keeps us all in check. there's only one party in this country--the corporate party.

[alarimer]

49. This is among the reasons why I have lost faith with the Democratic Party.

In fact, I identify as an independent these days more often than not. We on the left are told to hold our noses and vote for them anyway (because really what is the alternative?) but it just keeps getting worse and worse. We keep getting sold down the river. They want our votes in the primaries but abandon the actual party platform when it comes to legislation and governing. How much more should we take? Voting third party in unattractive because they seem not to have much of a chance. I guess what the greens need to do is start at the bottom and work their way up to Congress, etc., rather than running someone for President. If they have enough seats in Congress (say more than the Blue Dogs "Democrats") they might have more of an influence.

It's very disheartening.

[bertman]

55. MadFlo, you've done it again.

Kudos for enlightening us.

This is some of the scariest shit out there.

These people are TRUE BELIEVERS in every sense of the words. But they sure as hell don't believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ that I remember from many, many years of bible study.