Working towards an American theocracy
kuff (Isaac Adams)
...on this evening in January, politics and all its worldly
machinations have entered their church. Sitting in the darkness of the
front row is Sam Brownback, the Republican senator from Kansas. And
hunched over on the stage in a red leather chair is an old man named
Harald Bredesen, who has come to anoint Brownback as the Christian
right's next candidate for president.
Over the last six decades, Bredesen has prayed with so many presidents
and prime ministers and kings that he can barely remember their names.
He's the spiritual father of Pat Robertson, the man behind the
preacher's vast media empire. He was one of three pastors who laid
hands on Ronald Reagan in 1970 and heard the Pasadena Prophecy: the
moment when God told Reagan that he would one day occupy the White
House. And he recently dispatched one of his proteges to remind George
W. Bush of the divine will -- and evangelical power -- behind his
presidency.
...After little more than a decade in Washington, Brownback has managed
to position himself at the very center of the Christian conservative
uprising that is transforming American politics. Just six years ago,
winning the evangelical vote required only a veneer of bland normalcy,
nothing more than George Bush's vague assurance that Jesus was his
favorite philosopher. Now, Brownback seeks something far more radical:
not faith-based politics but faith in place of politics. In his dream
America, the one he believes both the Bible and the Constitution
promise, the state will simply wither away. In its place will be a
country so suffused with God and the free market that the social fabric
of the last hundred years -- schools, Social Security, welfare -- will
be privatized or simply done away with. There will be no abortions; sex
will be confined to heterosexual marriage. Men will lead families,
mothers will tend children, and big business and the church will take
care of all. ...
He tells a story about a chaplain who challenged a group of senators to
reconsider their conception of democracy. "How many constituents do you
have?" the chaplain asked. The senators answered: 4 million, 9 million,
12 million. "May I suggest," the chaplain replied, "that you have only
one constituent?"
Brownback pauses. That moment, he declares, changed his life. "This" --
being senator, running for president, waving the flag of a Christian
nation -- "is about serving one constituent." He raises a hand and
points above him. ...
"I am a seeker," he says. Brownback believes that every spiritual path
has its own unique scent, and he wants to inhale them all. When he ran
for the House he was a Methodist. By the time he ran for the Senate he
was an evangelical. Now he has become a Catholic. He was baptized not
in a church but in a chapel tucked between lobbyists' offices on K
Street that is run by Opus Dei, the secretive lay order founded by a
Catholic priest who advocated "holy coercion" and considered Spanish
dictator Francisco Franco an ideal of worldly power. ...
...Casting Bush and the Republican leadership as soft and muddled, he
regularly turns sleepy hearings into platforms for his vision of
America, inviting a parade of angry witnesses to denounce the
"homosexual agenda," "bestiality" and "murder."
He is running for president because murder is always on his mind: the
abortion of what he considers fetal citizens. He speaks often and
admiringly of John Brown, the abolitionist who massacred five
pro-slavery settlers just north of the farm where Brownback grew up.
Brown wanted to free the slaves; Brownback wants to free fetuses. ...
The nation's leading evangelicals have already lined up behind
Brownback, a feat in itself. A decade ago, evangelical support for a
Catholic would have been unthinkable. Many evangelicals viewed the Pope
as the Antichrist and the Roman Catholic Church as the Whore of
Babylon. But Brownback is the beneficiary of a strategy known as
co-belligerency -- a united front between conservative Catholics and
evangelicals in the culture war. Pat Robertson has tapped the
"outstanding senator from Kansas" as his man for president. David
Barton, the Christian right's all-but-official presidential historian,
calls Brownback "uncompromising" -- the highest praise in a movement
that considers intransigence next to godliness. And James Dobson, the
movement's strongest chieftain, can find no fault in Brownback. "He has
fulfilled every expectation," Dobson says. ...
Brownback doesn't thump the Bible. He reads obsessively, studying
biographies of Christian crusaders from centuries past. His learning
doesn't lend him gravitas so much as it seems to free him from gravity,
to set him adrift across space and time. Ask him why he considers
abortion a "holocaust," and he'll answer by way of a story about an
eighteenth-century British parliamentarian who broke down in tears over
the sin of slavery. Brownback believes America is entering a period of
religious revival on the scale of the Great Awakening that preceded the
nation's creation, an epidemic of mass conversions, signs and wonders,
book burnings. But this time, he says, the upheaval will give way to a
"cultural springtime," a theocratic order that is pleasant and balmy.
It's a vision shared by the mega-churches that sprawl across the
surburban landscape, the 24-7 spiritual-entertainment complexes where
millions of Americans embrace a feel-good fundamentalism.
When Brownback travels, he tries to avoid spending time alone in his
hotel room, where indecent television programming might tempt him. In
Washington, though, he goes to bed early. He doesn't like to eat out.
Indeed, it sometimes seems he doesn't like to eat at all -- his staff
worries when the only thing he has for lunch is a communion wafer and a
drop of wine at the noontime Mass he tries to attend daily. He lives in
a spartan apartment across from his office that he shares with Sen. Jim
Talent, a Republican from Missouri, and he flies home to Topeka almost
every Thursday. On the wall of his office, there's a family portrait of
all seven Brownbacks gathered around two tree stumps, each Brownback in
black shoes, blue jeans and a black pullover. The oldest, Abby, is
nineteen; the youngest, Jenna, abandoned on the doorstep of a Chinese
orphanage when she was two days old, is seven. ...
One of the little-known strengths of the Christian right lies in its
adoption of the "cell" -- the building block historically used by small
but determined groups to impose their will on the majority. Seventy
years ago, an evangelist named Abraham Vereide founded a network of
"God-led" cells comprising senators and generals, corporate executives
and preachers. Vereide believed that the cells -- God's chosen,
appointed to power -- could construct a Kingdom of God on earth with
Washington as its capital. They would do so "behind the scenes," lest
they be accused of pride or a hunger for power, and "beyond the din of
vox populi," which is to say, outside the bounds of democracy. To
insiders, the cells were known as the Family, or the Fellowship. To
most outsiders, they were not known at all.
"Communists use cells as their basic structure," declares a
confidential Fellowship document titled "Thoughts on a Core Group."
"The mafia operates like this, and the basic unit of the Marine Corps
is the four-man squad. Hitler, Lenin and many others understood the
power of a small group of people." Under Reagan, Fellowship cells
quietly arranged meetings between administration officials and leaders
of Salvadoran death squads, and helped funnel military support to Siad
Barre, the brutal dictator of Somalia, who belonged to a prayer cell of
American senators and generals. ...
They were striving, ultimately, for what Coe calls "Jesus plus nothing"
-- a government led by Christ's will alone. In the future envisioned by
Coe, everything -- sex and taxes, war and the price of oil -- will be
decided upon not according to democracy or the church or even
Scripture. The Bible itself is for the masses; in the Fellowship,
Christ reveals a higher set of commands to the anointed few. It's a
good old boy's club blessed by God. Brownback even lived with other
cell members in a million-dollar, red-brick former convent at 133 C
Street that was subsidized and operated by the Fellowship. Monthly rent
was $600 per man -- enough of a deal by Hill standards that some said
it bordered on an ethical violation, but no charges were ever brought.
...
The most bluntly theocratic effort, however, is the Constitution
Restoration Act, which Brownback co-sponsored with Jim DeMint, another
former C Streeter who was then a congressman from South Carolina. If
passed, it will strip the Supreme Court of the ability to even hear
cases in which citizens protest faith-based abuses of power. Say the
mayor of your town decides to declare Jesus lord and fire anyone who
refuses to do so; or the principal of your local high school decides to
read a fundamentalist prayer over the PA every morning; or the
president declares the United States a Christian nation. Under the
Constitution Restoration Act, that'll all be just fine. ...
Every Tuesday, before his evening meeting with his prayer brothers,
Brownback chairs another small cell -- one explicitly dedicated to
altering public policy. It is called the Values Action Team, and it is
composed of representatives from leading organizations on the religious
right. James Dobson's Focus on the Family sends an emissary, as does
the Family Research Council, the Eagle Forum, the Christian Coalition,
the Traditional Values Coalition, Concerned Women for America and many
more. Like the Fellowship prayer cell, everything that is said is
strictly off the record, and even the groups themselves are forbidden
from discussing the proceedings. It's a little "cloak-and-dagger," says
a Brownback press secretary. The VAT is a war council, and the enemy,
says one participant, is "secularism."
The VAT coordinates the efforts of fundamentalist pressure groups,
unifying their message and arming congressional staffers with the data
and language they need to pass legislation. Working almost entirely in
secret, the group has directed the fights against gay marriage and for
school vouchers, against hate-crime legislation and for "abstinence
only" education. The VAT helped win passage of Brownback's broadcast
decency bill and made the president's tax cuts a top priority. When it
comes to "impacting policy," says Tony Perkins of the Family Research
Council, "day to day, the VAT is instrumental." ...
Brownback recently muscled through the Judiciary Committee a proposed
amendment to the Constitution to make not just gay marriage but even
civil unions nearly impossible. "I don't see where the compromise point
would be on marriage," he says. The amendment has no chance of passing,
but it's not designed to. It's a time bomb, scheduled to detonate
sometime during the 2006 electoral cycle. The intended victims aren't
Democrats but other Republicans. GOP moderates will be forced to vote
for or against "marriage," which -- in the language of the VAT
communications network -- is another way of saying for or against the
"homosexual agenda." It's a typical VAT strategy: a tool with which to
purify the ranks of the Republican Party. ...
It doesn't bother Brownback that most Bible scholars challenge the idea
that Scripture opposes homosexuality. "It's pretty clear," he says,
"what we know in our hearts." This, he says, is "natural law," derived
from observation of the world, but the logic is circular: It's wrong
because he observes himself believing it's wrong. ...
Brownback doesn't demand that everyone believe in his God -- only that
they bow down before Him. ...
Cuthbert Thistlethwaite
"kuff (Isaac Adams)" wrote:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/9178374/gods_senator/?rnd=1139447903634&has-player=true&version=6.0.11.847
> http://tinyurl.com/cyxj7
. . .
> Brownback doesn't demand that everyone believe in his God -- only that
> they bow down before Him. ...
Great article; thanks.
Senator Brownback is a Roman Catholic and a true, doctrinaire stooge of
the Vatican.
I am convinced that the churches in the South are being burned by people
who have learned to *hate* religion and *hate* church by the menacing,
threatening activities of people like Brownback.
Since Brownback is a Catholic, perhaps the church-burners, who seem to
be concentrating on protestant buildings, will turn on the Catholics,
too, and pull down some statues.
Meanwhile, today is "Ashura" and moslem religionists in Chicago are up
to something downtown ( http://www.masom.com/ ); it's exactly where I
work, do I intend to show up in person and do my bit to oppose
superstition.
Cuthbert Thistlethwaite
"kuff (Isaac Adams)" wrote:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/9178374/gods_senator/?rnd=1139447903634&has-player=true&version=6.0.11.847
> http://tinyurl.com/cyxj7
. . .
> Brownback doesn't demand that everyone believe in his God -- only that
> they bow down before Him. ...
Great article; thanks.
Senator Brownback is a Roman Catholic and a true, doctrinaire stooge of
the Vatican.
I am convinced that the churches in the South are being burned by people
who have learned to *hate* religion and *hate* church by the menacing,
threatening activities of people like Brownback.
Since Brownback is a Catholic, perhaps the church-burners, who seem to
be concentrating on protestant buildings, will turn on the Catholics,
too, and pull down some statues.
Meanwhile, today is "Ashura" and moslem religionists in Chicago are up
to something downtown ( http://www.masom.com/ ); it's exactly where I
work, so I intend to show up in person and do my bit to oppose
superstition.
kuff (Isaac Adams)
Don't go bareback with the brownbacks. :-)
lanman
The most vile person who calls himself a Christian has to be the
scumbag Fred Phelps, so-called pastor from the Westboro Baptist's
Church in Topeka, KS. A new low must have been reached when he and his
extended family comprised of many lawyers started their protesting at
military funerals. I've heard they make their living provoking
families to assault them and then suing for damages. Now there's a
chuch and family that needs a night time visit.
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The Chozen Few
"lanman" <xlan...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:nq9nu1t8vm18ph15p...@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 09 Feb 2006 14:37:28 GMT, Cuthbert Thistlethwaite
> <nosil...@myface.net> wrote:
>
>>
>>"kuff (Isaac Adams)" wrote:
>>
>>http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/9178374/gods_senator/?rnd=1139447903634&has-player=true&version=6.0.11.847
>>
>>> http://tinyurl.com/cyxj7
>>
>>. . .
>>
>>> Brownback doesn't demand that everyone believe in his God -- only that
>>> they bow down before Him. ...
>>
>>Great article; thanks.
>>
>>Senator Brownback is a Roman Catholic and a true, doctrinaire stooge of
>>the Vatican.
>>
>>I am convinced that the churches in the South are being burned by people
>>who have learned to *hate* religion and *hate* church by the menacing,
>>threatening activities of people like Brownback.
>>
>>Since Brownback is a Catholic, perhaps the church-burners, who seem to
>>be concentrating on protestant buildings, will turn on the Catholics,
>>too, and pull down some statues.
>>
>>Meanwhile, today is "Ashura" and moslem religionists in Chicago are up
>>to something downtown ( http://www.masom.com/ ); it's exactly where I
>>work, do I intend to show up in person and do my bit to oppose
>>superstition.
>
> The most vile person who calls himself a Christian has to be the
> scumbag Fred Phelps, so-called pastor from the Westboro Baptist's
> Church in Topeka, KS.
The most vile person in this country, anyway. There're some avowedly
Christian cannibal armies in Africa that are even more vile than he is,
though.
> A new low must have been reached when he and his
> extended family comprised of many lawyers started their protesting at
> military funerals.
As promised on one of his websites (www.godhatesamerica.com), some members
of his group also showed up at Coretta Scott King's funeral:
http://www.southernvoice.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=5067
> I've heard they make their living provoking
> families to assault them and then suing for damages. Now there's a
> chuch and family that needs a night time visit.
I wouldn't advocate that, even for the likes of Phelps. I doubt that either
of the Kings would've, either.
The Chozen Few
"kuff (Isaac Adams)" <kuf...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1139489603.4...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/9178374/gods_senator/?rnd=1139447903634&has-player=true&version=6.0.11.847
>
> http://tinyurl.com/cyxj7
>
> ...on this evening in January, politics and all its worldly
> machinations have entered their church. Sitting in the darkness of the
> front row is Sam Brownback, the Republican senator from Kansas. And
> hunched over on the stage in a red leather chair is an old man named
> Harald Bredesen, who has come to anoint Brownback as the Christian
> right's next candidate for president.
>
> Over the last six decades, Bredesen has prayed with so many presidents
> and prime ministers and kings that he can barely remember their names.
> He's the spiritual father of Pat Robertson, the man behind the
> preacher's vast media empire.
Brownback has about as much chance as Robertson had of even winning the Rep
nomination, much less the presidency.
> He was one of three pastors who laid
> hands on Ronald Reagan in 1970 and heard the Pasadena Prophecy: the
> moment when God told Reagan that he would one day occupy the White
> House. And he recently dispatched one of his proteges to remind George
> W. Bush of the divine will -- and evangelical power -- behind his
> presidency.
I'm sure that Dubya needs reminding about a lot of things, but he's probably
got that much down by now, along with "Islam is the religion of peace."
All that text, and you didn't include the "You'll know them by their fruits"
comment...
thereactionary
for Islam and you are still an idiot.
All statistics show that church attendance has fallen over virtually
the entire history of the country and continues to fall today. This
crying wolf over the influence of the Christian right is pure bullshit.
It is always backed up with these stories about individuals, and never
with any solid evidence that the US is turning more religious.
Phaedrine
Cuthbert Thistlethwaite <nosil...@myface.net> wrote:
> "kuff (Isaac Adams)" wrote:
>
> http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/9178374/gods_senator/?rnd=113944790
> 3634&has-player=true&version=6.0.11.847
>
> > http://tinyurl.com/cyxj7
>
> > Brownback doesn't demand that everyone believe in his God -- only that
> > they bow down before Him. ...
>
> Great article; thanks.
>
> Senator Brownback is a Roman Catholic and a true, doctrinaire stooge of
> the Vatican.
>
> I am convinced that the churches in the South are being burned by people
> who have learned to *hate* religion and *hate* church by the menacing,
> threatening activities of people like Brownback.
>
> Since Brownback is a Catholic, perhaps the church-burners, who seem to
> be concentrating on protestant buildings, will turn on the Catholics,
> too, and pull down some statues.
[...]
Vatican stooge is right on target. This guy is a regular Neo-Inquisitor.
--
I fear me you but warm the starved snake,
Who, cherished in your breasts, will sting your hearts. (Henry VI, Shakespeare)
kuff (Isaac Adams)
thereactionary wrote:
> After all these years, Mullah kuff, I see that you are still pitching
> for Islam and you are still an idiot.
I'm not quite up to Mullah standards I'm afraid but I'll take your
compliment in the spirit with which it was intended.
And, yes, I'm still an idiot. You think you are not? :-)
>
> All statistics show that church attendance has fallen over virtually
> the entire history of the country and continues to fall today. This
> crying wolf over the influence of the Christian right is pure bullshit.
Hmmm, the article was rather more about the elite rather than the
sheeple. Falling church attendance doesn't indicate they've gotten any
smarter - only lazier. :-) When the lights start going out and food
gets scarce they'll be back - betcha.
And, now that you mentioned it, I'm no longer crying wolf. Too late
for that I'm afraid. Just trying to keep ya'll updated so you won't
be too surprised. No longer warning about the dam bursting - just
saying how high the water's gotten so far. :-)
> It is always backed up with these stories about individuals, and never
> with any solid evidence that the US is turning more religious.
Senators and Presidents. Yep, just individuals...
•R.L.Measures•
<thecho...@hotmail.com> wrote:
• Sounds kinda like RCC transubstantiation without the pretend.
--
€ R.L.Measures, 805-386-3734, www.somis.org
remove _ from e-mail adr
•R.L.Measures•
<thecho...@hotmail.com> wrote:
*** It is unfortunate that Dubya has not yet read the Qur'an.
The Chozen Few
"•R.L.Measures•" <r...@somis.org> wrote in message
news:r_-100206...@192.168.1.101...
Protestant also, and that's what I thought way back when I was growing up
amongst Southern fundies, but I soon learned not to express that opinion to
most other people in that vicinity. I also learned not to ask if masochists
should follow the Golden Rule. ;o)
The Chozen Few
It's unfortunate that he hasn't yet read many other books, too.
•R.L.Measures•
<thecho...@hotmail.com> wrote:
• Perhaps Laura could read it to him? Is there a picture-book version of
the Qur'an available for elementary school pupils?
•R.L.Measures•
<thecho...@hotmail.com> wrote:
• Amen to that. Organized religions are not intended for those who do
much thinking.
>I also learned not to ask if masochists
>should follow the Golden Rule. ;o)
• I suppose it depends on whether it's an S&M party or an ordinary party.
The Chozen Few
I suppose it could, depending on whether the masochist wanted to be done
unto only at S&M parties or also at ordinary parties. Anyway, I found that
asking that particular question was apparently taken by some of those
questioned as an indication that I wanted to be done unto myself. And in a
way, I suppose they were right. I mean, it's arguable that only a masochist
would even think of asking a question like that in the town where I grew up.
The Chozen Few
That Danish newspaper made a start on something like that recently, but it
wasn't well received in some quarters.
The Chozen Few
"The Chozen Few" <thecho...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:oO3Hf.3782$MJ.1496@fed1read07...
Afterthought: Tracking down a vagrant memory, I find that Larry Gonick did
something like that as one installment of his "Cartoon History of the
Universe" series (see link below). I haven't read that particular volume
myself, but I recall that the Hebrew deity in an earlier segment was called
"Yahu-Wahu," and I suppose the Islamic counterpart of that would be "Ahchoo"
or somesuch.
http://www.forf.org/news/2002/toonoffend.html
There's also a reference in that article to "a 1990 comic book version of
the Quran, the Muslim holy book, that was condemned by the Organization of
Islamic Conference." I haven't ever heard of that one before, but I'm going
to try to track down a copy.
The Chozen Few
Found it, I think: "Islam for Beginners (A Writers and Readers Documentary
Comic Book)," by N.I. Matar.
Used copies are available for only a couple of dollars. I may send one to
Dubya. ;o)
thereactionary
smarter - only lazier."
Now there is a classical case of spinning to suite your taste. Like a
good Muslim you are willing to say anything. Probably the only element
that you lack to become a full fledge Muslim loony is to start blaming
everything on the Jews.
kuff (Isaac Adams)
thereactionary wrote:
> "Falling church attendance doesn't indicate they've gotten any
> smarter - only lazier."
Hello creep. You snipped away the context. Wouldn't want people to
think you were trying any spinning funny business would you?
Here it is:
"Hmmm, the article was rather more about the elite rather than the
sheeple. Falling church attendance doesn't indicate they've gotten any
smarter - only lazier. :-) When the lights start going out and food
gets scarce they'll be back - betcha."
>
> Now there is a classical case of spinning to suite your taste.
See the ":-)" ? WTF are you raving on about?
> Like a
> good Muslim you are willing to say anything.
Then I must not be a very good one since I'm willing only to say what I
believe to be true. Not a no-spin zone exactly, but not one that
drops ":-)"s either.
> Probably the only element
> that you lack to become a full fledge Muslim loony is to start blaming
> everything on the Jews.
Not without evidence. :-)
•R.L.Measures•
<thecho...@hotmail.com> wrote:
• ouch
>And in a
>way, I suppose they were right. I mean, it's arguable that only a masochist
>would even think of asking a question like that in the town where I grew up.
• good point
•R.L.Measures•
<thecho...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>"•R.L.Measures•" <r...@somis.org> wrote in message
>news:r_-100206...@192.168.1.101...
>> In article <L23Hf.3776$MJ.3149@fed1read07>, "The Chozen Few"
>> <thecho...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>"•R.L.Measures•" <r...@somis.org> wrote in message
>>>news:r_-100206...@192.168.1.101...
>>>> In article <teMGf.3638$MJ.357@fed1read07>, "The Chozen Few"
>>>> <thecho...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>"kuff (Isaac Adams)" <kuf...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>>>>news:1139489603.4...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>I'm sure that Dubya needs reminding about a lot of things, but he's
>>>>>probably
>>>>>got that much down by now, along with "Islam is the religion of peace."
>>>>>
>>>> *** It is unfortunate that Dubya has not yet read the Qur'an.
>>>
>>>
>>>It's unfortunate that he hasn't yet read many other books, too.
>>
>> • Perhaps Laura could read it to him? Is there a picture-book version of
>> the Qur'an available for elementary school pupils?
>
>
>That Danish newspaper made a start on something like that recently, but it
>wasn't well received in some quarters.
• chortle
V S Rawat
> >> *** It is unfortunate that Dubya has not yet read the
> Qur'an.
> >
> >
> > It's unfortunate that he hasn't yet read many other books,
> > too.
>
> Perhaps Laura could read it to him? Is there a picture-book
> version of the Qur'an available for elementary school pupils?
Yes.
Try:
http://islamcomicbook.com/comics/english/pdfs/MBOE.pdf
--
The Chozen Few
"V S Rawat" <VSR...@Invalid.none> wrote in message
news:xn0eid9372f3yd000@xananews...
"Mohammed's Believe It or Else!"
LOL. Great title!
•R.L.Measures•
<VSR...@Invalid.none> wrote:
chortle. thanx
RUSSELL KINNAMAN
if they read the Quran and didn't get reaffirmed to christianity . Just
like fish to a change of water if it is gradual enough. I had to get
the fish in there somewhere.
Reaffirmation is an important to religions that is why the seventh day
was instituted. A day necessary to keep the program intact.
•R.L.Measures•
kn_russel...@webtv.net (RUSSELL KINNAMAN) wrote:
• Was Ellen White a prophet?