A Jihadi wrote an Op Ed in yesterdays LA Times Christian Conservatives Must Not Compromise – Voters reject liberalism, an evil ideology.
Christians, in politics as in evangelism, are not against people or the world. But we are against false ideas that hold good people captive. On Tuesday, this nation rejected liberalism, primarily because liberalism has been taken captive by the left. Since 1968, the left has taken millions captive, and we must help those Democrats who truly want to be free to actually break free of this evil ideology.
In the weeks and months to come, we will hear the voices of well-meaning people beseeching the victor to compromise with the vanquished. This would be a mistake. Conservatives must not compromise with the left. Good people holding false ideas are won over only if we defeat what is false with the truth.
…
The left bewitches with its potions and elixirs, served daily in its strongholds of academe, Hollywood and old media. It vomits upon the morals, values and traditions we hold sacred: God, family and country. As we learned Tuesday, it is clear the left holds the majority of Americans, the majority of us, in contempt.
…
The nation has now resoundingly rejected the left and its agenda. We do not want to become European. We do not want to become socialist. We do not want to become secular. We are exceptional. We are unique. And we are the greatest force for good in the world, despite what the left, the terrorists or the United Nations may claim. It is for these reasons that we remain the last great hope in the world for freedom.
We continue to be that shining city set on a hill. And we fully accept the responsibility; we are proud to be the envy of the world.
Posted by: b | Nov 6 2004 11:52 utc | 1
Good luck with those lunatics…You are going to need it badly.
I just hope this deadly virus does not spread too much. It’s here in Australia but I’ll prey to MY Jesus that somehow we find a way to get rid of it…
Posted by: vbo | Nov 6 2004 12:21 utc | 2
@b @06:52
You see – this is the problem.
On the one hand, this is just another looney so-called Christian.
On the other hand, these people are set to do battle with the Age of Enlightenment.
We want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world — its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is and be not afraid of it. Conquer the world by intelligence and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it. The whole conception of a God is a conception derived from the ancient oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men.
Why I Am Not A Christian
I really can’t imagine how these peoples mind works. On the one hand they totally reject Evolution, then they elect Monkey Boy as king of their tribe.
@vbo No, I haven’t seen that particular strain of virus in Australia. In the main, we are a bunch of heathens.
Posted by: DM | Nov 6 2004 13:29 utc | 3
One has to wonder why the LA Times would print such lunacy, except to alienate all mainline Christian churches or something. And for those of you who are not religious you must understand that these people include the National Council of churches and the World council of churches on their hit list of liberals, along with pretty much all mainline churches.
I’ll be praying with vbo to the Jesus we know 🙂 I’m guessing that my friend vbo is Orthodox Christian, and you see the Orthodox church over there in those Balkan, Greek, Asia Minor places, etc. did not participate in the Inquisition or the witchhunts that these people apparently wish to revive…
Posted by: x | Nov 6 2004 13:36 utc | 4
DM I suppose you are lucky not to see it but it’s here I tell you.
First those American “Christians” [cults] are spread widely especially in NSW . Costello’s (treasurer) brother is one of the important people in one of them and they entered politic “smashing that door with their boots” by openly ordering their people for whom they must vote. Well I’ve seen it on TV how they actually filled a huge hall with youngsters [even school children] arranging religious pop concert and they say they have a huge church down there cause EVERY SUNDAY around twenty thousand people are there worshiping. Can you believe it? Have in mind that they take 10% of their follower’s income and just imagine how rich and powerful they are.
Then talking about Australian foreign policy…isn’t it obvious that Howard is fantasizing of Australia as “deputy” of the big bad sheriff (USA) and this administration is just “putting it’s finger” in to the eyes of all neighbors talking about oh so famous “ pre -emptive strikes “ to prevent terrorism. How good their intelligence is and how big mess they can make we just saw with Iraq.
And about GREED. Didn’t we just had tax cuts for the rich (how familiar) and promising distraction of Medicare and what’s left of Unions etc. And yet stealing oil from East Timor is something Australians should be ashamed for …
Not to mention detention centers for children immigrants and our own Patriot act…How Islamist are treated generally is also something to think about…
But all this is still not that bad as USA I admit…but we can easily get there. Field is laid…3 more years of great opportunities for Howard…All tho I hope he (they) is just greedy but not lunatic…that’s my hope.
I don’t know how you don’t see the virus…but then again it’s your right to see what you feel comfortable with..
Posted by: vbo | Nov 6 2004 14:05 utc | 5
So this is way it is so quiet on the old open thread. I´ll repost my last comment (sorry if you read it already):
Update on fleeing to EU:
Yesterday, EU leaders decided that in the future common immigration regulations will not be subject to veto from single member-countries. This is likely to result in a common EU immigration law in a couple of years (expect for Great Britain, Ireland and Denmark which has gotten an opt-out clause to future decisions). Wheter this means a more lax or a more severe immigration law than the sum of the present laws is anybodies guess.
Has any of the barflies in the more prominent EU-countries any guesses?
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Nov 6 2004 14:07 utc | 6
I don’t know about European’s immigration policies but generally it’s so obvious that for more then probably 15 years (as I started to follow at that point) rich developed countries closed their doors for new immigrants …unfortunately they couldn’t discriminate (yet) by having different laws for different nations so they had to reject even those from another rich countries as well as literally millions from poor countries. That’s why British & Americans can’t get to Canada or Australia easily…Also not that Britain and USA would like to lose them.
The other thing is that all off them including Italy and Germany (probably France too) NEED new immigrants in order to sustain development they are having now. This is specially true in a light of very low birth rate. Aging nation …But Europe is getting bigger and they may not need it for awhile.
Posted by: vbo | Nov 6 2004 14:31 utc | 7
@vbo
At the severe risk of further degrading this site with irrelevant banter – I will just add that I get a bit pissed-off with so-called lefties or liberals who can’t discriminate fact from fantasy.
I don’t know too much about Tim Costello – but anyone can google him – which I just did.
It seems this guy is a pretty straight Baptist who has put in a big effort over the years for Aboriginal Reconciliation – and this is a recent quote :-
“The quickest way to degrade the gospel is to link it with money and the pursuit of money. It is the total opposite of what Jesus preached. These people have learnt nothing from the mistakes made by the American televangelists,” Mr Costello said.
So what the fuck if there are a handful of born-again organizations in Melbourne or Baulkam Hills or wherever – Australia ain’t *nothing* like the USA in any way, shape or form in respect to the deep-rooted cultural and political influence of born-again Christians, and to intimate that this is so is propagating nonsense.
Again, I apologize to others for exceeding for exceeding comment bandwidth on trivia.
Posted by: DM | Nov 6 2004 14:53 utc | 8
Yeah, except we keep trying to tell you that the born agains you’re referring to are not the majority of Christians here in the US either, they’re not even the majority of Evangelicals; they don’t even have much of a voice at the National Council of Churches. But nobody seems to want to listen beyond stereotypes.
Posted by: x | Nov 6 2004 15:04 utc | 9
dm
point of clarification
not to anger
but i thought (mainly through an argument in the guardian) that evangilicals – whose tradition is entirely american – were the only religious entities that were actually growing in both australia & england & that they had bypassed numbers of other more ‘orthodox’ religions by a long distance
as i sd only source for that the guardian but i’d like clarification
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 6 2004 15:11 utc | 10
they had bypassed numbers of other more ‘orthodox’ religions by a long distance
Here you go, statistics for 2004 from the US National Council of Churches:
1. The Roman Catholic Church – 66,407,105
2. Southern Baptist Convention – 16,247,736
3. The United Methodist Church – 8,251,042
4. The Church of God in Christ – 5,499,875
5. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints – 5,410,544
6. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America –
5,038,006
7. National Baptist Convention, U.S.A.,
Inc. – 5,000,000
8. National Baptist Convention of America,
Inc. – 3,500,000
9. Presbyterian Church (USA) – 3,407,329
10. Assemblies of God – 2,687,366
11. The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod –
2,512,714
12. African Methodist Episcopal Church –
2,500,000
13. National Missionary Baptist Convention of
America – 2,500,000
14. Progressive National Baptist Convention,
Inc. – 2,500,000
15. The Episcopal Church – 2,333,628
16. Churches of Christ, Corsicana, TX – 1,500,000
17. Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America –
1,500,000
18. Pentecostal Assemblies of the World,
Inc. – 1,500,000
19. American Baptist Churches in the USA –
1,484,291
20. African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church –
1,430,795
21. United Church of Christ – 1,330,985
22. Baptist Bible Fellowship International –
1,200,000
23. Christian Churches and Churches
of Christ, Joplin, MO – 1,071,616
24. Jehovah’s Witnesses – 1,022,397
25. Church of God, Cleveland, TN – 944,857
The Evangelical right wing types (note not all Evangelicals are of the same mind as the “Christian Zionist” born against you’re talking about) are a very small minority here.
Posted by: x | Nov 6 2004 15:26 utc | 11
As a non-religious person, I’m thankful to be reminded that religion and even good-old-time religion can coexist w/ western philosophy. It’s just been my own experience, coming from a low middleclass, fairly undereducated family, that religion coincides w/ right-wing bigotry.
I guess my experience, based on what I read in this thread, is anomalous.
Posted by: slothrop | Nov 6 2004 16:55 utc | 13
An interesting set of statistics. That certainly explains the numerous conservative Catholic threads on the various political boards during this election. That may also explain Mel Gibson’s “The Passion” (does any human have that much blood?) release in an election year. It seems the Catholic church is becoming the balance wheel of religious politics in the US! Temporarily, I would presume.
Certainly the conservative Protestants and other Fundamentalists picking up the gauntlet of anti-abortion rhetoric and pro-abstinence from the Catholic Church in the past two decades is an issue that bears close inspection.
Up until the 1970’s most fundamentalist were busy waiting for Jesus to return and were quite apolitical. Most believed that no political agenda could really be in support of their faith and that at best temporary alignments and alliances could be worked out. Where Catholics met Protestants in an intimate way was throught interfaces of the Catholic Charismatic Movement and Classical and Neo-Pentecostals. This occured through the 1970’s and early 80’s and was looked upon with suspicion by both Catholic and Protestant leaders. These early uniters had again a distrust of government and political parties and were concerned about the doctrines each other held. Neo-pentecostals despised the ritual and liturgy of the mass, the worship of Mary and the attendant doctrines of Mary as Co-Redemptress, the rosary, and auricular confessions. Charismatic Catholics were nervous about pressure to leave the Catholic Church, the lack of structure of the mostly independent Neo-pentecostal churches, and their instability and frequent splits.
However, in interdenominational meetings, both informal prayer meetings and meeting through parachurch organizations, the Catholic emphasis of their anti-abortion stance bled into apolitical fundamentalist churchs both through contact in these meetings (such as the Full Gospel Businessman Fellowship International) and curious Catholics that moved into Neo-Pentecostal churches and either fellowshipped there informally, or joined. In either case, the anti-abortion issue hit these apolitical worshippers between the eyes and the adamancy of the demands of these new members and guests left no ground for compromise. Catholic women would distribute little plastic fetsuses after services and at (gulp) breakfast meetings, Protestants would be invited to Catholic protests, and in effect, this was the first cross pollenization between the demoninations on a religious right issue.
With the formation of the religious right in the late 1970s. There were two Great Awakening Conferences in 1978 and 1979 in Boston where a lot of these issue came to the attention of flocks of local pastors of Evangelical and Pentecostal Churches. The ground work was again laid for politicalization. No social issues were discussed during these meetings, resulting in protests from attending Christians with conservative doctrines but liberal social agendas.
Two years later, with Ronald Reagan secure in the White House, a massive propaganda campaign was launched to makes pastors of independent church politically active for the right wing. Indeed we witnessed the birth of the Moral Majority. Between Reagan’s Charisma and the numerous Presidential Prayer Breakfasts, Christian Leaders already primed by the abortion issue, began to swallow the Republican Elephant whole. Pastors who were cooperative in these breakfast and weekend seminars came back to their pulpits charged with the conservative agenda.
I witnessed one such sermon at Yale University when a local pastor, whose agenda was clearly apolitical a week before, return full of fire from one of these seminars, and the sermon subjects changes from holiness and divine love to the dangers of the “Liberal Welfare State,” and the “High Treason of the radical hairy legged lesbo-femiinists form the Department of Education,” to the Democrats “Ungodly Agenda” of birth control (which always leads to loose morals!) and abortion.
These events were beneath the radar of tradition denomination Christian Churches, but when investigating arson, one has to go to the point or points or origin. I watched in horror throughout the 1980’s as this conservative agenda spread from church to church on a local and national level. Like many of us, I trace the origin to the Moral Majority’s joining to the Republican Right.
As a liberal, I have to ask, what now are their vulnerabilities? I’ll list a few to chew on.
1. The burn-out factor. These church lose members rapidly if they are not united in a crisis. Some churches have meetings four nights a week plus two Sunday services. A lot of people cannot keep up, especially younger families. Some pastoral remedies are horrific. One young pastor told his congregation that there was no such thing as burn out. Only laziness.
2. Money Issues: Many of these churches require the tithe. It is not an option. I listened to one man get chewed out by his pastor for tithing the net amount of his pay check not the gross amount of his salary. The pressure is sometimes intense, and people do leave.
3. Church splits on doctrines and personalities. These are emotionally draing, painful, separate families, and are frequent.
4. One of the odd rules of church concentrating power and wealth is that is always seems to result in sexual scandal. Just wait.
5. There are many Christians that go for the ride when their churches politicize and are quietly praying for the lunacy to end.
6. Deep down inside, Fundamentalists hate and despise Catholics, Evangelicals think Fundamentalists are too rigid and stubborn, Both Fundamentalists and Evangelicals distrust Pentecostals and Charismatics, and Some Pentecostals hate other Pentecostals with varying doctrines of baptism and the trinity. Under the best circumstances, this is a very disfunctional family.
7. Don’t think for a minute that every Fundamentalist, Evangelical, and Pentecostal is comfortable being a para-political organization of the wealthy. They read the Bible, and although most have a canon within a canon (some books of the Bible fall out of popularity for decades and are rarely read and preached) eventually, certain passages will be read and re-empathized again, and the churches will find a new hobby horse to ride. Movements of various kinds have swept through American churches for centuries. This fascination with right wing politics is temporary. The Moral Majority and other such organizations have not had a smooth 25 year run. They wax and wane in Christian involvement.
8. Evil Associations: For example, if Christians ever knew the close association between Sun Myung Moon, founder of the despised Moonies cult and Bush (Jr. and Sr.) the Religious Right (huge donations to Jerry Falwell and others), and the favor Bush’s faith based initiatives show to this pernicious cult (like giving $270,000,000 to Free Teens USA, Moons Abstinence Only Sex Education Program to put his program in public schools)they will desert, and no force in the world will reconcile them to Moon. Moon claims that Jesus failed and that he is the true Christ. Christians are funny that way, and will not consciously support an adminstration that depends upon the “Anti-Christ!” The church can be a fickle ally and its religious and political leaders have to draw the line somewhere. I am quite surprised that so few know of this big time connection! It could not be a campaign issue because Moon has put big money into urban black Democrats as well.
9. Don’t give up on traditional denomination churches yet. Although their congregations are aged and they do not command much of the Christian political discourse, they are preparing to. They have the potential to aid the Democrats with a far more sophisticated use of the Bible, far greater compassion to the nation’s struggling population, and a social agenda that resonates with real American and Biblical values. If they develop a prophetic voice (as many black churches have already) that confronts warped Christian values, they can be real players.
10 Old Prejudices: Especially between fundamentalists and Catholics are bound to resurface. Evangelicals and Fundamentalists are Biblically minded. Catholics are traditionalists and liturgists. They won’t play nice for long. Eventually a fundamentalist will call the worship of Mary “of the devil,” and the games will begin. You think Sunni’s and Shi’ites are divided! Just wait!
I have a quiet morning to myself on a snowy Maine day. I’ve wanted to compose something like this for a while. Don’t expect great proofreading on my day off! And yes, I am a church historian.
Diogenes
Posted by: Diogenes | Nov 6 2004 17:32 utc | 14
Hi Diogenes;
I have one minor request of you, and that is not to forget the leftwing political activism of Catholics which is still going strong, nor the especially strong anti-war stance of the current Pope. The mainline churches tend to be less politically active in the sense of telling their parishioners who to vote for. They may be concerned with moral issues — especially when you think about what confronts chidlren in public schools and popular culture, but they generally leave people to make up their own minds about voting, politics, etc. The televangelist types organize with this goal in mind and very, very much push it explicitly. That’s a very important difference.
Posted by: x | Nov 6 2004 17:42 utc | 15
And oh yes of course you are so right about the hatred of Catholics (and others who honor saints and Mary, etc.)in among the particular right-wing fundies we’re talking about. They may have changed their ideas about Zion now that Israel exists as a country, but not about Catholics 🙂 And may I add, this is a great split among Conservatives, too.
Posted by: x | Nov 6 2004 17:45 utc | 16
@ Diogenes
Perhaps you could be persuaded to write something about the moonies. I see references to them all the time but have not really dug into it.
Posted by: dan of steele | Nov 6 2004 17:46 utc | 17
at the risk of sounding foolish, does anyone know how much of the story in “The Da Vinci Code” is based on actual events. I am about halfway thru the book and they are talking about Mary Magdalene in a way I had never heard before.
Posted by: dan of steele | Nov 6 2004 17:55 utc | 18
I’ve heard a lot of criticism of it based on its imputation of being factual, calling it quite fictionalized and ahistorical. I haven’t read it myself, but it seems there are not a few respectable scholars who call it fiction. The “Priority of Sion”, for one thing, which I have read is central to the book, was in fact a hoax.
Posted by: x | Nov 6 2004 18:09 utc | 19
Thanks for your comments. I have been tempted to write on the Moonies. I followed their antics during the 1970’s and 80’s and then lost interest when Moon was jailed for tax evasion in the 1980’s. Then his work continued with numerous front political, charitable, and religious organizations. Many individuals have worked hard to compile and update this list. The scary thing is that Moon is in his 80’s. When he dies, his trillion dollar political-religious-industrial conglomerate will be placed in the hands of his third wife and powerful early converts, mostly Korean, who are virtually unknown to Americans. I’m slowly catching up with my reading and research, but most of my publishing is in another direction. Still this interests me a lot more presently. the number of front corporations that the cult has set up are remarkable.
It is an error on my part not to acknowledge the work of left wing and anti-war Catholics and Pope John Paul II. Thanks for pointing that out. Their voices have been drowned out. Glad you spoke for them.
Posted by: Diogenes | Nov 6 2004 18:37 utc | 20
CNN China will oppose any effort to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council over the issue of Tehran’s nuclear program, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said Saturday.
Iran is eager to step up trade with China. It signed a preliminary agreement for the export of gas to China for 25 years. It also has offered China a concession to develop oil and gas fields in the Persian Gulf.
The Chinese Bloc is accepting new members. They will now play the role of the counter-weight in this formally uni-polar world. Iran and Sudan are now their vasal oil suppliers.
Posted by: MarcinGomulka | Nov 6 2004 18:54 utc | 21
Robert Parry has done investigative reporting on the Moonies.
In American Dynasty, Kevin Phillips talks about Moon financing the 2000 election president’s prayer breakfast and the “huh?” that got from some evangelicals.
Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 6 2004 18:56 utc | 22
@Diogenes, that was not just a bar snack that was a solid, satisfying meal! thanking you sincerely. I recommend a slim volume called The Radical Tradition, a selective hagiography of social-reforming saints.
@b that is one scary, scary op/ed. as soon as people start calling those they disagree with “Evil”, my back hairs go up. this could get ugly fast. and it can snowball. if these hatemongers manage to get control of various power-nexi then others will accrete around them who don’t share the ideology but will go along with it for the money, influence etc. there’s always that big floppy 50 to 70 percent who don’t have much of any principles one way or another and will recite the current party line whatever it happens to be, if it guarantees a meal ticket and freedom from the midnight knock at the door.
I particularly do not like the phrase about the Left “bewitching” with “potions and elixirs,” an obvious attempt to smear the meme of McCarthyism into the meme of literal witch-hunting, asserting that the Left is “witchy” in some way. I hope Wiccans all over the country are sitting up and taking notice.
however as a theorist I have to admit a small, detached, “observer from Mars” corner of my brain is noting with scholarly satisfaction that this demented op/ed underscores my belief that the structures and patterns of repression transcend the specifics of ideology. I could translate that entire op/ed into the language of the Commissars and the sentence structure would remain the same — only the nouns and an adjective here and there would have to be substituted.
x,
could you have mistaken “Priority of Sion” for The Protocols of the Elders of Sion
I have seen many references to the latter being fabricated by those who wished to descredit Jews.
Posted by: dan of steele | Nov 6 2004 19:03 utc | 24
Re Moon
There was a lot of chatter about this episode in Washington with some kind of coronation.
Really weird stuff.
Posted by: dan of steele | Nov 6 2004 19:11 utc | 25
[afterthought] or into 1930’s-era German for that matter. Decadent Art anyone? and of course in the German version would retain all the references to the Left, since destroying unions and murdering the Left was one of the primary agendas of the young Nazi Party (one reason why American Big Business remained friendly towards it for such an embarrassingly, shamefully long time).
dan, the two are different.
Here’s a link about The Protocols history.
Here’s a link about the Priory of Sion.
I think Dan Brown uses conspiracy theories as plot devices. We live in a time in which conspiracy theories run rampant, as they did just before the Nazis came to power, just as when the Russian Revolution began…
Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 6 2004 19:18 utc | 28
Diogenes
How would the The Southern Baptist Convention fit into your viewpoints on the politicization of the church. From what I understand, it was TSBC that makes up the bulk (16 million +)of the religious right and is primarily responsible, through Paul Weyrich, Pat Robertson, and others, of laying down the political” demands” and the methods of achieving them through the republican party. Some like Katherine Yurica are calling this Dominionism,, and have some good analysis that illustrate the political connection between the religious right and the neo-cons. I would appreciate any observations you might have.
Posted by: anna missed | Nov 6 2004 19:25 utc | 29
@x and all, this heartfelt op/ed No Longer A Christian may add some perspective to the fray. I confess to a lifelong prejudice against Christianity (probably intensified by working in astronomy and astrophysics for most of a lifetime — we’ve never really got over the Galileo thing, ya know?), and yet I have good friends who are Christians, good people, good hearts, and I cannot simply turn my back on the pain they are going through as they watch the ascendance of an ugly control-freakery which quotes text and ideas that really matter to them, to justify its hateful agenda. this is how, I think, good people who are Muslim feel when they watch the dangerous fringe of the radical Islamists — it is the heartbreak that American and European Communists suffered when the full story of the Stalinist abuses and atrocities came out and they could no longer stay in denial. it’s the grief I see in the eyes of Jewish friends whose hearts are breaking over what Israel has become and is becoming. it’s the heartbreak of hearing words that have great meaning and beauty for you, symbols that catch at your heart, bloodied and dirtied by opportunist criminals. it is the feeling I have (as an Enlightenment type) when I hear the word “science” being used in the context of crackpot racist theories, “abiotic oil,” and other scams. in a sense we are all in grief together — a great many things we believed in have been dragged into disrepute and shame.
Re – DaVinci code
Most of it is crap. Le “Canard enchainé”, the well informed political and satirical weekly (sadly not at all on the net) did a piece on the book not very long ago to comment on the many stories in the book. Even some of the “facts” are not true.
The worst of it is that the Prieuré de Sion does exist, except that it was created by a neo-nazi leaning guy (Pierre Plantard) on 7 mai 1956 ! … Le Prieuré de Sion is a “loi 1901” association (i.e. a non-profit organisation, some kind of 527 in modern parlance) …
The “méridien” in the Eglise saint Sulpice does not exist; some of the streets in Paris in the book are not in the right neighborood, etc… so don’t take the book too seriously.
Posted by: Jérôme | Nov 6 2004 21:25 utc | 31
Jerome, you’re a bit late in your review………… I read it and whilst the hero figure is what the author wants to be in a fantasy ….. it strikes cords with other stuff written.
Why would you have a beef with it anyway?
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Nov 6 2004 21:34 utc | 32
@dan of steele
I enjoyed the DaVinci Code very much, however considered it mostly entertaining fiction. Although some of the ideas, I think he got in connection to the scrolls of Nag Hammadi? and the dead sea, which have been found some decades ago. There is also a Gospel of Maria Magdalena – which I think might have inspired Brown. A good and interessting source is Elaine Pagel, I don’t remember the titles of her books. If I remember correctly she is a professor for scriptures or something and she looked mainly at the female aspect of Christianity. Very interessting reading.
Posted by: Fran | Nov 6 2004 21:54 utc | 33
CP – I was only commenting on the posts above asking if the “info” in the book had any basis in reality; it does not, for the most part. As a thriller, the book is mostly enjoyable, and it’s fun to ask yourself “could this actually be true”?
I’ve read all the books by Dan Brown, they are pleasant to read, well constructed, but the characters are somewhat simplistic and the math behind the stories is not as complex as it is made to be…
Posted by: Jérôme | Nov 6 2004 21:59 utc | 34
while we’re Playing the Number of Theocrats & the Election game, here’s another thought:
from salon.com:
Mark Crispin Miller is a media critic, professor of communications at New York University, and author, most recently, of “Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney’s New World Order.”
First of all, this election was definitely rigged. I have no doubt about it. It’s a statistical impossibility that Bush got 8 million more votes than he got last time. In 2000, he got 15 million votes from right-wing Christians, and there are approximately 19 million of them in the country. They were eager to get the other 4 million. That was pretty much Karl Rove’s strategy to get Bush elected.
But given Bush’s low popularity ratings and the enormous number of new voters — who skewed Democratic — there is no way in the world that Bush got 8 million more votes this time. I think it had a lot to do with the electronic voting machines. Those machines are completely untrustworthy, and that’s why the Republicans use them. Then there’s the fact that the immediate claim of Ohio was not contested by the news media — when Andrew Card came out and claimed the state, not only were the votes in Ohio not counted, they weren’t even all cast.
I would have to hear a much stronger argument for the authenticity, or I should say the veracity, of this popular vote for Bush before I’m willing to believe it. If someone can prove to me that it happened, that Bush somehow pulled 8 million magic votes out of a hat, OK, I’ll accept it. I’m an independent, not a Democrat, and I’m not living in denial.
And that’s not even talking about Florida, which is about as Democratic a state as Guatemala used to be. The news media is obliged to make the Republicans account for all these votes, and account for the way they were counted. Simply to embrace this result as definitive is irrational. But there is every reason to question it … I find it beyond belief that the press in this formerly democratic country would not have made the integrity of the electoral system a front page, top-of-the-line story for the last three years. I worked and worked and worked to get that story into the media, and no one touched it until your guy did.
I actually got invited to a Kerry fundraiser so I could talk to him about it. I raised the issue directly with him and with Teresa. Teresa was really indignant and really concerned, but Kerry just looked down at me — he’s about 9 feet tall — and I could tell it just didn’t register. It set off all his conspiracy-theory alarms and he just wasn’t listening.
Talk to anyone from a real democracy — from Canada or any European country or India. They are staggered to discover that 80 percent of our touch-screen electronic voting machines have no paper trail and are manufactured by companies owned by Bush Republicans. But there is very little sense of outrage here. Americans for a host of reasons have become alienated from the spirit of the Bill of Rights and that should not be tolerated.f*****af
Posted by: jj | Nov 6 2004 22:00 utc | 35
Actually Jerome…….. I found the Angels and Demons good until our hero started being the hero and the end was total crap, the encryption book wasn’t bad until the end also, the iceberg story was crap at the end also, but the Da Vinci book, hell it must be my inate Catholicism………. and inate anti Freemason etc etc etc
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Nov 6 2004 22:09 utc | 36
Unfortunate the LA Times hasn’t written more about these dangerous theocrats before the election. I suspect this was published in response to Garry Willis Op-Ed the day before in NYT ~The Day the Enlightenment Went Out.
I would apprciate feedback from those of you lucky enough to not live in America, but my thinking is that while many, if not most, West. countries may have Fundie Freaks roaming amongst the uneducated – AND REMEMBER WE ONLY HAVE 19M OUT OF 300-350M PEOPLE – the issue is to account for their political prominence not their mere existence. After all, who cares if they exist.
I suggest to all to consider that their political importance here, but not elsewhere, is an artifact of the US having a two party system. They are the answer to the Repug question of how do they gain & hold power w/an economic agenda that says Virtually None Should Get Virtually All. Tough problem, esp. when you have to get a majority. What better then, than to find a mass of losers whose only concern is licking their wounds, rationalizing their losses & hoping for better in the after-world.
In a multi-party system, you don’t need the numbers & the distribution.
Concerning distribution: Another not irrelevant note, from an interview w/law professor Jamie Raskin (@ some Univ. in DC) I heard late last wk. on Democracy Now. Outstanding, hopefully he’ll write a book, or longer article developing it. He said that US electoral system was set up at the outset to protect slavery. That’s why South is way too important in a country that obviously should be ruled by the blue-states where all the value is. That’s why electoral college was set up, giving each state 2 each for it’s senators. Take these away & the power drastically shifts. Furthermore, it’s why when the election is thrown to the House the system is even more insane – each state gets one vote. New York & Ca get the same as South Carolina. IT PROTECTED SLAVERY.
(So, we see the significance of the theocrats rising by taking over the Southern Baptist Church Association, as that gives them the Southern base to consolidate their politcal base – anti-Civil Rights fury dies out over time.)
So, arguably we could say theocracy is the legacy of slavery in a two-party political system.
Posted by: jj | Nov 6 2004 22:35 utc | 37
Many thanks for all the comments.
Here’s an article from the Washington Post about moderate voters, especially mothers, and how they gave the majority to Bush this time. I think it’s important, much more important than focusing on the far right evangelicals. I encourage everybody to read it.
Linking to the Bump in the Beltway site:
It’s the Moderates, Stupid by Mark J. Penn
Posted by: x | Nov 6 2004 22:51 utc | 38
PS DeAnander
Thanks for your very understanding and insightful post. I agree with all you say. As far as this Christian is concerned (and personally, it should be obvious that I use this word as something personal I feel and believe, but I’m not a big “institutional” type – all human run institutions are quite capable of fallibility :-), people who justify the lunacy of the settlements are simply insulting Judaism. The OT is filled with prophecy about the need for acting with justice and mercy, etc. All of what you write again is important in the context of understanding what it means to be human, what our fallibilities are, etc. In Christian practice, the whole idea of self-examination and humility is supposed to be — as psychotherapy is supposed to be — a practice that leads us to stop projecting the beam in our own eye on everyone else and understand the pitfalls of our own egomania. The byword is as old as the inscription on the portal of the Temple of Delphi which predates the Olympian Gods but which, once again, the early church adopted as its own: “Know Thyself.” That’s about the last thing we find in the control freak types! Now the question is, how do we deal best with human nature and encourage a more universal need for self-awareness?
Posted by: x | Nov 6 2004 23:09 utc | 39
@ De, 2:11 p.m.
Berlin, 1929 “Das Lied won der harten Nuss” (“Song of the Bigshot” from Happy End, music Kurt Weill, text Bertolt Brecht, English trans. Stefan Brecht (1972)
If you want to be a big shot, start by learning to be tough,
’cause you’ll never hit the jackpot till you like the going rough.
All the little shots below you can be blown away like fluff,
if they realize when they know you,
that you won’t take all their guff.
Just don’t get soft, baby,
for God’s sake never get soft, baby,
Just keep on pounding him right where it hurts the most.
And if a little shot’s big noise should cause a bother,
don’t let it get you down, I mean you’re not his father.
Just don’t get soft, baby,
for God’s sake never get soft, baby,
no ifs or buts,
go on and kick him in the guts,
go on and kick him in the guts!
Posted by: catlady | Nov 7 2004 0:22 utc | 40
what is happening in fallujah at the hands of the american military occupation is without question – murder
they have just pulverised out of existence a hospital amongst other buildings
i wilkl use again – the parallel – the wermacht – liked to think of itself as a real army (much like the american armed forces) but when they went into the east – they behaved as animals – they assisted openly & immplicity the einsatsgruppen . their warfare was based on terror, massive force & then the summary execution of anything regarded as a threat & that often meant women & children
while the ukranian & lithuanian assistants of the germans had to kill their jews one by one with axes with hammers & with stones – the american armed forces do exactly the same thing with the unarmed populations of iraq
when, in the streets of riga blood flowed & flowed, day after day night after night & the streets were covered in the blood bone & brains of its jewry, of its communists, of its gypsies – the world did nothing, nothing at all – the english & americans waiting out the war while million & millions of people were slaughtered because they were regarded as subhuman
what is happening all over iraq is the same bloody song & its tune has not changed – just the methods – instead of axes, instead of hammers, instead of stones – the american & their geewhiz technology is slaughtering the people of a soverign nation
the americans being past masters of the perversion of language calll this slaughter pacification, iraquisation but it does not hide the orgiastic pleasure taken by an administration & its armed forces in the slaughter of a people
i too read the article , in atlantic, on the green zone & in its sleazy esquirese it speaks of the suffering & cupidity of your forces rarely mentioning the toll of blood of the people of iraq
& then they wonder – why does the world hate us – i think it is implicit in all cultures that pretend to civilisation & even those who don’t – that we instinctively detest bullies even though we know their day will come & especially the nights. because as bruce springsteen one sang the night belongs to the people
do you not understand that you cannot treat other peoples – year after year decade after decade in the way that you do – the blood that is on the hands of numerous administrations & their thuggish forces is so long now that it is close now to being unpronounceable
all american technology hides the fact that what is being done is murder – when i see that image of a soldier wielding an axe on the streets of riga surrounded in blood brains & flesh – i see the american army in sovereign iraq washing the streets with their blood & their sins
& you will say of cours sept 11th – not even thinking that the same day in chile nearly thirty years before you implicity destroyed the dream of a people – their democracy & you washed their country in sins & blood & you never said you were sorry – when you slaughtered the peasantry of honduras, of colombia & especially the courageous people of nicararagua – you did nothing – because for you they are not worth your efforts.
your contempt for human life is why the world hates you & will continue to hate you because the people who have suffered that contempt will never forget though they may sometimes for good reason & bad, forgive – but they never forget
& you have accumulated so many dead & their deaths are remebered in the hearts of all those who are engaged in a struggle for human decency & a real & concrete application of democracy
& your murderers have a name – they are bush rumsfield feith wolfowitz – they are the generals of central command – they are the practitioners on the ground who like good germans follow orders that are both inhuman & injust & against the order of a real morality
but history teaches us, that one day that bill will be paid – i’m just not sure i want to be around when it is
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 7 2004 0:26 utc | 41
x
when you corrupt an administration, when you corrupt the judiciary, when your medias are corrupted by their own sense of power, when you have taken the voice from the people & replaced them with commentators/talkshow hosts who do not even have a hint of intelligence
when you practice fear on a daily level & at all levels, when you treat your populations as pavlovian dogs – placing them between the heaven & hell of their aspirations – between the disciplined structure of fear mongering & the sordidness of the pleasure to be given by culture
you cripple a people
you destroy a people
you annul the people
you dissolve the people
then those peaple are dead to the world & the world can be forgiven to being deaf to them
moral values articulated by bush or a robertson or a murdoch is a sadean device to hide the people’s suffering
what is needed now is vitality, courageous struggle & resistance to cleanse the shit from the stable of your nation. & that work can only be done by americans
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 7 2004 0:36 utc | 42
eff posted this beautiful piece from fuckthesouth at le speakeasy – its got its way –
Fuck the South. Fuck ’em. We should have let them go when they wanted to leave. But no, we had to kill half a million people so they’d stay part of our special Union. Fighting for the right to keep slaves – yeah, those are states we want to keep.
And now what do we get? We’re the fucking Arrogant Northeast Liberal Elite? How about this for arrogant: the South is the Real America? The Authentic America. Really?
Cause we fucking founded this country, assholes. Those Founding Fathers you keep going on and on about? All that bullshit about what you think they meant by the Second Amendment giving you the right to keep your automatic weapons in the glove compartment because you didn’t bother to read the first half of the fucking sentence? Who do you think those wig-wearing lacy-shirt sporting revolutionaries were? They were fucking blue-staters, dickhead. Boston? Philadelphia? New York? Hello? Think there might be a reason all the fucking monuments are up here in our backyard?
No, No. Get the fuck out. We’re not letting you visit the Liberty Bell and fucking Plymouth Rock anymore until you get over your real American selves and start respecting those other nine amendments. Who do you think those fucking stripes on the flag are for? Nine are for fucking blue states. And it would be 10 if those Vermonters had gotten their fucking Subarus together and broken off from New York a little earlier. Get it? We started this shit, so don’t get all uppity about how real you are you Johnny-come-lately “Oooooh I’ve been a state for almost a hundred years” dickheads. Fuck off.
Arrogant? You wanna talk about us Northeasterners being fucking arrogant? What’s more American than arrogance? Hmmm? Maybe horsies? I don’t think so. Arrogance is the fucking cornerstone of what it means to be American. And I wouldn’t be so fucking arrogant if I wasn’t paying for your fucking bridges, bitch.
All those Federal taxes you love to hate? It all comes from us and goes to you, so shut up and enjoy your fucking Tennessee Valley Authority electricity and your fancy highways that we paid for. And the next time Florida gets hit by a hurricane you can come crying to us if you want to, but you’re the ones who built on a fucking swamp. “Let the Spanish keep it, it’s a shithole,” we said, but you had to have your fucking orange juice.
The next dickwad who says, “It’s your money, not the government’s money” is gonna get their ass kicked. Nine of the ten states that get the most federal fucking dollars and pay the least… can you guess? Go on, guess. That’s right, motherfucker, they’re red states. And eight of the ten states that receive the least and pay the most? It’s too easy, asshole, they’re blue states. It’s not your money, assholes, it’s fucking our money. What was that Real American Value you were spouting a minute ago? Self reliance? Try this for self reliance: buy your own fucking stop signs, assholes.
Let’s talk about those values for a fucking minute. You and your Southern values can bite my ass because the blue states got the values over you fucking Real Americans every day of the goddamn week. Which state do you think has the lowest divorce rate you marriage-hyping dickwads? Well? Can you guess? It’s fucking Massachusetts, the fucking center of the gay marriage universe. Yes, that’s right, the state you love to tie around the neck of anyone to the left of Strom Thurmond has the lowest divorce rate in the fucking nation. Think that’s just some aberration? How about this: 9 of the 10 lowest divorce rates are fucking blue states, asshole, and most are in the Northeast, where our values suck so bad. And where are the highest divorce rates? Care to fucking guess? 10 of the top 10 are fucking red-ass we’re-so-fucking-moral states. And while Nevada is the worst, the Bible belt is doing its fucking part.
But two guys making out is going to fucking ruin marriage for you? Yeah? Seems like you’re ruining it pretty well on your own, you little bastards. Oh, but that’s ok because you go to church, right? I mean you do, right? Cause we fucking get to hear about it every goddamn year at election time. Yes, we’re fascinated by how you get up every Sunday morning and sing, and then you’re fucking towers of moral superiority. Yeah, that’s a workable formula. Maybe us fucking Northerners don’t talk about religion as much as you because we’re not so busy sinning, hmmm? Ever think of that, you self-righteous assholes? No, you’re too busy erecting giant stone tablets of the Ten Commandments in buildings paid for by the fucking Northeast Liberal Elite. And who has the highest murder rates in the nation? It ain’t us up here in the North, assholes.
Well this gravy train is fucking over. Take your liberal-bashing, federal-tax-leaching, confederate-flag-waving, holier-than-thou, hypocritical bullshit and shove it up your ass.
And no, you can’t have your fucking convention in New York next time. Fuck off
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 7 2004 0:45 utc | 43
Fran: A good and interessting source is Elaine Pagel, I don’t remember the titles of her books. If I remember correctly she is a professor for scriptures or something and she looked mainly at the female aspect of Christianity. Very interessting reading.
Good call… One of Elaine Pagel’s is “The Gnostic Gospels”, and I think the other is entitled “Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden”, or something like that. I’ve read them both. The Gnostic Gospels of course were banned by the Catholic Church I’m guessing at least 100 years ago, but it might be as much as 2 or 3 hundred years. It’s been a few years since I read them. Among them was the “Marian” gospel(s)…
For fun, and along the lines of suppression and bastardization of early religious texts, rites and such there is always the classic by Riane Eisler, “The Chalice and the Blade”.
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Nov 7 2004 0:59 utc | 44
if what was happening was not so cruel – this would be a burlesque – from cnn
Iraqi briefed on Falluja plans missing
Marines concerned captain could pass along information
From Karl Penhaul, embedded with the Marines
Saturday, November 6, 2004 Posted: 4:42 PM EST (2142 GMT)
U.S. Marines participate in a briefing Saturday at their base outside Falluja in Anbar province.
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NEAR FALLUJA, Iraq (CNN) — A company commander of the Iraqi security forces who received a full briefing on the expected Falluja assault is missing from a military base where U.S. and Iraqi troops are preparing for the possible operation.
The captain, a Kurd with no known ties to the Sunni city of Falluja, is thought to have taken notes from the battle briefing late Thursday. U.S. Marines and his fellow Iraqi officers found no sign of him Friday morning, except for his uniform and a weapon on his cot.
Marines are concerned that the information he knows could be passed along to insurgents. U.S. military sources believe insurgents have friends in the military and government.
The captain commands a company of about 160 men. He is among 10,000 U.S. and Iraqi forces expected to take part in the operation.
Marines say the captain’s disappearance won’t alter the tactics or timing of the Falluja operation.
Coalition officials hope the missing captain, who was not named, has merely headed home.
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 7 2004 1:03 utc | 45
@jj – At the 1787 Constitutional convention the Southern delegates, who wanted to make sure that the North wouldn’t take their “property” away from them, refused to support a Constitution that would not protect their rights to continue slavery. The issue was votes. The North complied by masking slaves as “other persons,” thus not risking arousing their mainly abolitionist constituency. Article I, Section 2, clause 3 specifies how to count them w/o naming them, refered to as the “three-fifths rule,” weighing significantly in the favor of the Southern states. Four Southern voters were more powerful than 10 Notherners. To secure this power, the electoral college used the total number of each state’s representatives and senators to determine the total number of a pool that would determine the Presidency, kicking off the “Virginia Dynasty.”
Not sure it’s gonna mean much at this point, the electoral college should have been abolished long ago…
Posted by: b real | Nov 7 2004 1:13 utc | 47
@ remembereringgiap, in re, effs post:
Thanks, I needed that.
Posted by: beq | Nov 7 2004 1:13 utc | 48
Whoa, Kate Storm:
I have a copy of “The Chalice and the Blade” on top of my stack but it’s by Glenna McReynolds? Is this not the same book you mentioneed above?
Posted by: beq | Nov 7 2004 1:22 utc | 49
rememberinggiap:
The media is not just drunk with its own power — it craves access, and it gets its ass kicked when it reports stories, for example, about the daily lives of Palestinians by powerful interest groups. It’s not just about corporate power. Dennis Bernstein of public radio (Pacifica)actually did some reporting on the lives of the Palestinians. He got dozens, perhaps hundreds, of telegrams threatening his life from fellow Jews, telling him, for example, that his parents should have been killed in the Holocaust, etc. and threatening his life. The main news programs here are terrified of this kind of fallout and they get challenged to present “the other side” if they report the mildest of reports about Israeli policy in the territories. This is the stuff that groups like AIPAC coordinate. What someone pointed out today on Juan Cole’s blog about academia is nothing compared to what the news services are subjected to. And you should hear the kind of feedback I get if I call the news channels, or fax my legislators with stories from, say, Christian Peacemakers about what they witness everyday. AIPAC also manages to get staffers in legislators’ offices. You should hear what excuses I’ve heard for why people don’t want to receive this kind of information, from both news sources and legislators’ offices. And it’s the same story for other things too, like for example the war on Yugoslavia and the sloppy reasons we went to war there (which, my European friends, was not done unilaterally you will remember and was also done by a Democratic Executive). The media listens to the powerful interest groups that can hurt them or deny them access. I don’t even want to begin to think about how news reports from abroad tend to reflect what people want to hear rather than what is really going on elsewhere. And maybe, just maybe, when you become a media star you don’t want to alienate your friends in high places that you now attend dinner parties with.
Posted by: x | Nov 7 2004 1:33 utc | 50
So was that eff piece about the South by Dennis Leary or what? Frankly I don’t call that kind of expressed hatred for an entire region of the country serious political organizing, but maybe that’s just me. I mean, there are a few Democratic voters who are actually from the South… even a couple of recent Presidents I can think of.
Posted by: x | Nov 7 2004 1:39 utc | 51
DM I admit I am not very well informed about churches and religions here in Australia or anywhere. See I am coming from a socialist country and am religious as I could be in those circumstances. But what I am talking about is what I saw on TV here and not knowing enough I still can smell something’s wrong when churches openly enter politic like some of them did here.
I am not telling that Australia is *anything* like USA yet, but I am saying I smell virus out there. I really would like that I am wrong and you are right.
I am still to read Diogenes and others and learn more…no time right now…
Posted by: vbo | Nov 7 2004 1:43 utc | 52
beq,
Since titles don’t fall under copyright laws, perhaps someone else used it as well. It’s kinda catchy. 😉
I’ve read Eisler’s book at least four times since it was published… the original paperback was an all red cover … here it is at Amazon.
Published 1988.
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Nov 7 2004 1:56 utc | 53
just read a suggestion from another corner of the web that is worth spreading …want to do direct action? start stockpiling RU486 and the morning after pill. start setting up an “underground railroad” of safehouses for deserters and draft dodgers.
Posted by: b real | Nov 7 2004 2:06 utc | 54
@ Kate Storm: Catchy, yes, this is probably just another bodice ripper. It looks like it’s all Druids and sorcerers. Someone passed it on to me awhile back. Dang, but I do have “The Alphabet Versus the Goddess”. Good night. =)
Posted by: beq | Nov 7 2004 2:14 utc | 55
Shlain! Beq… I love all his books … I still need to get the new one about Women, Time and Power.
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Nov 7 2004 2:59 utc | 56
Calling alabama!
Is Blackwill’s sudden ‘resignation’ a sign that some of that political capital has done gone up and went?
Ross, I mentioned as much at ASZ, but the photo on the WaPo article of the quartet simply begs for captioning… 😉
Where IS alabama?
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Nov 7 2004 3:29 utc | 58
Missed it Kate,
Sorry (again!) am on the road and a little discombobulated….and this two site conversation on very different topics is just way too crazy for me.
(not weird, ’cause it never got weird enough for me’, just crazy).
The stuff in Da Vinci Code is mostly complete BS. In fact, a good deal of it is just plagiarism of some “serious books” from the 1980s. If you want tinfoil-hat stuff that knows what it really is, read Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum, where all the conspiracy theories are real theories of various cranks from the last 2-300 years.
Gnostic Gospels: I doubt they were banned 300 years ago. It would mean they were basically freely circulating during the Middle Ages. They were banned and considered heretic as soon as the Catholic church had any serious power and influence, so probably as early as 300-350 AD.
South: well, screw them. After all, we should remember that in fact one of their main beef with the British, if not their major reason for seceding and getting full independance, was that UK was in the process of banning not only the slave trade, but slavery itself in all the colonies. Of course, there was also the matter that the English though that the area East of the Appalachians was good and big enough for the settlers and the rest of the continent could be left to their true and legitimate owners and native inhabitants, which was anathema for all these “we’re the New Israel and we will burn all these new Canaanite natives”.
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Nov 7 2004 4:22 utc | 60
@eff, Fuck the South – that’s Definitely Got it’s Way today!
You should send it to the LAT so they can print it to balance out today’s theocatic horseshit.
But you did forget to mention, that they can damn well provide all the cannon fodder for the wars they love so much.
There are now 10,000 US soldiers surrounding Fallujah. Rumor is they’re wearing white sheets & holding torches aloft. Someone should send Riverbend a CD of Jim Morrison’s “Light My Fire” to copy & distribute so they could blare it from the mosqueses(how the hell do you pluralize that?) to properly greet the boys.
Posted by: jj | Nov 7 2004 4:40 utc | 61
Don’t know if this has been posted here already, but it’s WELL worth the review (and serious scrutiny of the linked data) :
Evidence Mounts That The Vote Was Hacked
by Thom Hartmann
[One caveat: Ignore the specification given in the article for “total registered voters” in Dixie County, Florida. It definitely appears to be in error, from all the other, linked documentation, and will lead you to the stunningly erroneous conclusion that “128% voter turn-out” was somehow achieved there virtually unnoticed.]
And that’s just one of many. (Annie, I know, had posted quite a few here already.) A Congressional (GAO) investigation has also been requested, but *without* any eye to an actual recount! :
House Dems Seek Election Inquiry
See also: Voting: Electronic Miscounts Multiply
Last but not least, Bev Harris’s Black Box Voting has now officially “taken the position that fraud took place in the 2004 election through electronic voting machines. …”
(See link for details.)
Posted by: JMF | Nov 7 2004 5:50 utc | 62
Sometimes I get tired of posting, it becomes so difficult to decide what to post. It feels like fighting a Hydra. You cut of one head and it grows 10 more. Well anyway here some stuff to read. However, I appreciate reading some of the great posts here.
If they can’t shoot them, they poison them.
US defies protests to poison Afghan poppies
And I am so glad that global warming does not exist, or only a little so that we can get easily used to it.
Global warming ‘will redraw map of world’
Then there is this one,
“Nations do go crazy sometimes, and the progression of symptoms we’ve been exhibiting here in the Good Ol’ USA has entered rubber room territory”
And a cartoon by Jeff Danziger.
cartoon
Posted by: Fran | Nov 7 2004 6:30 utc | 63
@ Kate,
For fun, and along the lines of suppression and bastardization of early religious texts, rites and such there is always the classic by Riane Eisler, “The Chalice and the Blade”.
Thanks for the recommendation, I just put the book on my Amazon reading list, hopefully will be able to read it over Christmas.
For those who liked the DaVinci Code, there is one I liked even more. It was written about 10 years ago by Kathrine Neville and is called The Eight. It also uses the kind of symbolism Brown uses, but it is much more multilevel, it involves the OPEC, Computer, Chess, the French Revolution etc…. However I felt that Neville’s book is much more sophisticated, in a way she was able to weave a very complicated and fascinating tapestry with words. It was one of those rare fiction books that made my grey brain cells tingle. Compared to this book the DaVince Code seemed pale to me. She also wrote ‘the Magic Circle’ which was about the Nuclear industries, and a Crime story about bank corruption. Both nice books, but also pale compared to ‘the Eight’.
Posted by: Fran | Nov 7 2004 6:44 utc | 64
one interesting example of the religious right / government / military – menage a twa. Back in June(7) Billmon, via our pal Bernhard, made a series of posts on Mary (something about) Walker who led up the team of lawyers who wrote the Pentagon’s treatise on torture powers for the president. It was pointed out then a seeming moral conflict between authoring a torture treatise on one hand, and being a devout Evangelical Christian on the other. Many of Walkers statements like “It’s a travesty to be in a place of strategic importance to the world as a business or political leader and not allow God to accomplish the truly significant through you” – might indicate to some, a lack of not only a distinction between church and state (thinking wise at least) but also a sense of Christian morality pushed right to the edge of “forgivness for any act carried out by Gods will”.
Another outspoken Evangelical Christian in the Bush gang, Gen “Jerry” Boykin, critized in the press for preaching while in uniform, also happened to be be working on torture related matters not far from Mary Walker. Serving at the time as the deputy undersecretary for intellegence at the time, Boykin was ordered to “Gitmoize” the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, It was Boykins objective to fly to Guantanamo, discover interrogation methods that worked best there and send Gen Miller to Iraq with these methods for use at Abu Ghraib. Millers recomendations included the formation a new detention guard force subordinate to the Joint Interrogation Center – thus putting the military guards under the control of this new unit, as a way to prep the internees (as we have seen in the photos,etc)
Now one Lt .Col. Steven L. Jordan was activated from reservest status to set up the new Joint Interrogation Center at Abu Ghrab that maintained a linkage back to Boykin, then to his (now) boss Steven Cambone, and on up to Rumsfeld. The Taguba report has shown Jordan and other officers complicit in the hiding of prisoners from the Red Cross inspections, the so called “ghost detainees”, and for the atmosphere of chaos that seems to have been intentionally orchestrated to generate the cover and deniablity necessary for the many acts of torture taking place. There is also some compelling evidence from The Oak Creek Assembly of God webpage that would indicate that Lt.Col. Jordan was also a Pentecostal chaplain at one point mentoring another chaplain at Fort Jackson in 2003.
Now heres one example of a chain of “Christian” influence following from the formal redefinition of legal torture, through the policy implementation, down to the actual crafting of the methods and actions of torture, all within the good graces of our moral leadership. And so you have it, one of the most outrageous and morally bankrupt foreign policy meltdowns in American history happening not just under the nose of Christian oversight, but in large part, developed and activated by it. If this is just the tip of the preverbial iceburg, we’re on the Titanic without knowing it.
Posted by: anna missed | Nov 7 2004 7:48 utc | 65
@anna missed
Onward Christian Soldiers………
I think they still sing that hymn in Church
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Nov 7 2004 8:14 utc | 66
@CP
They do, but now the metaphoric has fallen like so many autumn leaves.
try http://www.forceministries.com to see them fall
Posted by: anna missed | Nov 7 2004 8:23 utc | 67
Link here, methinks
http://www.championsfc.com/flash.htm
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Nov 7 2004 8:30 utc | 69
The eplogue to the above post should read: no jail time, no indictment, no one fired, no repremand, no confessional, not one wrist slapped.
Posted by: anna missed | Nov 7 2004 9:04 utc | 70
From lies.com
Blowing Stuff Up in the Fallujah Free-Fire Zone
It was a month or two ago that I started noticing the mentions, buried deep in newspaper accounts, of airstrikes in the no-go zones in Iraq. Maybe we’ve been using such airstrikes all along, and I’ve just become more sensitive to their being mentioned, but it sure seems to me that their incidence has increased.
Blowing up people with cruise missiles and laser-guided bombs is popular with the civilian leadership, of course. It reduces the US bodycount, thereby helping Bush maintain the fiction that things are going great for our side. And even if going in with ground troops to clean up those areas turns out to be necessary, Bush wants very much to postpone that carnage until after the election, as this item in the LA Times the other day makes clear: Major assaults on hold until after US vote (cypherpunk98/cypherpunk should work for the login).
So in the meantime, we blow things up from on high. A video of a crowd in Fallujah being treated thus is available from The Memory Hole: Video of Fallujah bombing massacre. It’s worth watching, especially for the accompanying radio chatter. You may or may not enjoy it (past items of a similar nature on this site have provoked widely varying reactions), but it’s important, I think, to realize what’s being done in our name, regardless of how you feel about it.
As Jeanne points out at Body and Soul (Falluja), there’s no way to tell who those people are (er, were; now they’re bloody bits); maybe they were all insurgents, maybe they weren’t. But it’s certain that detonating bombs in the middle of a densely populated city is not the kind of thing that’s going to win a lot of hearts and minds.
Jeanne links to an interesting article in the New York Times (Terror command in Falluja is half destroyed, US says). (Side issue: This might be a good time to brush up on al-Zarqawi, since he’s the guy whose network the article talks about. See this nice rundown from Foreign Policy in Focus if recent statements by people like Dick Cheney have left you kind of fuzzy on the subject: House Republicans and Democrats unite in linking Iraq with 9/11. Scroll down to the section headed, “The Saddam–al-Zarqawi–bin Laden Connection.”)
So, it’s all very Vietnam-esque, isn’t it? Having recently watched Going Upriver, the similarity to the Vietnam war’s free-fire zones is chilling. No, we’re not that far down the slippery slope yet. But we’re definitely sliding.
Random factoid: Having watched Going Upriver, I now know where Kubrick got the line in Full Metal Jacket where the helicopter door gunner shouts, “Anyone who runs is V.C. Anyone who stands still is well-disciplined V.C.” It was from a statement by one of those testifying at the Winter Soldier Investigation. I wonder: Will we need to have a similar event a few years hence, so that young men like the one who voiced the appreciative, “Whoa, dude,” when that Fallujah street exploded will have a chance to tell their stories?
Some lessons it’s better to learn just once, I think.
I don’t know the legality in the declaration of free fire zone, but I do know what it means to the troops on the ground, and that is any man, woman, child, dog, or insect is fair game, and this would account for the high civilian casuality rates in Falluga #1 and also Najaf. There is a clear distinction here to be made between this notion of collateral damage: that is the unintentional casuality that may occur through the legitimate use of force against a known enemy position — and the deliberate and arbitrary declaration of a “free fire zone” where any civilian can be deliberatly and specifically targeted simply because they are there. This amounts to nothing more than a psuedo justification for genocide, that is apparently an attempt to broaden the definition of collatoral damage and thus make genocide in some hazy sense legal. As Pat may see the 6 year old potential message runner as legitimate target for a chain gun.
Posted by: anna missed | Nov 7 2004 10:06 utc | 72
@ anna missed
So in the meantime, we blow things up from on high. A video of a crowd in Fallujah being treated thus is available from The Memory Hole: Video of Fallujah bombing massacre. It’s worth watching, especially for the accompanying radio chatter. You may or may not enjoy it (past items of a similar nature on this site have provoked widely varying reactions), but it’s important, I think, to realize what’s being done in our name, regardless of how you feel about it.
What is more, these scenes are shown (with the sound and talk) on the news here. I do not have a TV, but a while ago when I visited some friends that was just the scene on the news of a German TV channel. And let me tell you, the reaction of all present was just pure disgust about the ugly Americans.
Posted by: Fran | Nov 7 2004 11:04 utc | 73
Interessting comment from Haaretz.
The re-election of Israel’s enemy
The United States has re-elected an enemy of Israel as its president. If George W. Bush’s next four years in office are anything like the first four, the damage he will do Israel will be all but irreversible.
…
An American president who will give Israel four more years of freedom to act as it pleases in the territories is not a friend of this country. A true friend would save Israel from itself, as some European leaders are trying to do by means of the criticism they hurl at Israeli government policy. In a situation in which Israel is not restraining itself, restraint imposed from the outside is a supreme national interest, even if it involves exerting pressure that at times can be brutal.
…
Remember when Israel used to weigh carefully every violent move it made in the territories because of its fear of America? That period ended four years ago. The leader who is responsible for the killing of 100,000 Iraqi civilians is not moved by the deeds of the Israeli occupation. And, himself being familiar only with the language of force, he identifies completely with a country where that is also the only language.
…
Posted by: Fran | Nov 7 2004 11:18 utc | 74
DM I also need to apologies for hijacking this thread from time to time and talking about Australia but these are today news:
Link to ACLU → Link to ACLU
The Federal Opposition is challenging the government to reveal whether it plans to introduce legislation restricting women’s access to abortion.
…
The Governor-General Michael Jeffrey has weighed into the debate, saying better education, improved access to contraception and a better understanding of relationships is needed to reduce abortion numbers.
…
Family First senator Steve Fielding says more information should be given to mothers considering a termination so they are fully aware of the consequences of that decision.
…
KELVIN THOMSON, SHADOW DEVELOPMENT MINISTER: It’s a but of a surprise to me to hear the Governor-General commenting on an issue of that character.
Post election, some Government MPs have called for Medicare funding to be removed for some procedures, saying there are too many terminations in Australia. Newly elected Family First Senator Steve Fielding supports an inquiry into abortion.
…
Mr Fielding today denied his party has a religious agenda. That’s contested by Labor’s Kevin Rudd, himself a devout Christian.
KEVIN RUDD, SHADOW FOREIGN MINISTER: This organisation, Family First, is, in fact, better described in my view as the Assemblies of God party because its organisational base, its personnel and its funding primarily come from a single Christian denomination.
The evangelical right played a significant role in the re-election of US President George W. Bush earlier this week. Kevin Rudd is now concerned there may be attempts to appropriate religion for political purposes in Australia.
KEVIN RUDD: We will not for one moment stand idly by while either the Liberal, the Nationals, or Family First assert that God has somehow become some wholly-owned subsidiary of political conservatism in this country.
***
This sudenly now when statistics are showing that abortion rate is down 20% in last 10 years…
Posted by: vbo | Nov 7 2004 11:57 utc | 75
Re fuck all Southerners — to me it’s the same as lumping all Christians into one stereotyped category. First the politics of hatred are limited, ignorant and ineffective. Even if they were effective, why be a part of them? That is what I find so offensive about the people who are being criticised, like the Christian Zionists. Second, I thought that it was supposed to be the “other side” that had problems with complexity (read “reality”).
Posted by: x | Nov 7 2004 13:06 utc | 76
PS having never lived in the South myself, I admit, however, I’m prone to the same prejudice, but it’s about people I see who seem to me to be so good at hating, and even pervert my religion into one of practiced hatred.
Posted by: x | Nov 7 2004 13:08 utc | 77
just fyi – the us bombing crowd in fallujah video was shown often for several days on cable news stations here in the US with sound – commentary was mixed, a sort of “well, if they were bad guys, that was good but how do we tell?” line taken by commentators
this seemed to have no particular impact in the midst of the pre-election frenzy in which the campaigns were reported in the same non-thinking way as the latest fad murder trial and seemed to flow into the “gee, war is hell” line of coverage
I did hear the cnn saturday evening anchor (can’t remember her name) repeatedly ask a military commentator how 500 lb bombs dropped on civilian neighborhoods could be precision strikes – it was a stunning little moment in which she pursued this absurdity persistently – and got no answer – we start to savor these little moments as signs that someone notices …
meanwhile the SCLM media is deep in discussion about the disconnect between the democratic party and the “heartland” – it’s much easier for them to believe that the people as a whole are as stupid as they program them to be, then to look closely at the idea of voter fraud which would shake their core beliefs in the supremacy of the american way
Posted by: Siun | Nov 7 2004 15:47 utc | 78
Fran
Thanks for the Haaretz link…….. I’d be interested to see the circulation figures for Haaretz, Jerusalem Post and Maariv (sp?).
Going to google check now.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Nov 7 2004 17:49 utc | 79
Initial Googling re Ha’aretz
Good reading
Bad new therein
“The competition moved to concentrate in the more popular end of the market. With about 70,000 copies a day and 100,000 on weekends Ha’aretz has a smaller circulation than its two major competitors. The largest is rather popular, aiming at the largest – and sometimes the lowest – common denominator. The second-largest was in the middle, until it decided to compete head-on in the popular market, thus leaving us more or less alone in the up-market sector.”
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Nov 7 2004 18:07 utc | 80
The Swiss cannot believe the mess of US voting. The stories of lost votes, over votes, corrections, re-counts, computer glitches, voter intimidation, voter complaints, voter waits, purging of electoral lists, peculiar rules, mysteries like there being more votes than registered voters – simply convince them that democracy in the US does not exist. Here, we have internet voting for cantonal matters, or vote by post, or go to polling station. It is all perfectly safe and 100% accounted for. Visa and Telekurs and others securely take care of billions of transactions daily – but in the US votes are another matter..
The perception that the endless problems are artificially created (and never corrected – 10 teen computer freaks with one adult supervisor from the UN could manage the organisation for the whole country I reckon, at low costs, moreover, ha ha!) inevitably arises. I heard one teen say: They have a phone system that works, right? You been there, Jo? That was a genuine question.
jj – fundie freaks. Thinking about this today, and after looking at some of the results, I think the media (and BushCo) are making too much of ‘moral issues’. They are pinning Bush’s (stolen) win on a groundswell of voters who are more interested in gay marriage and abortion than, say, the economy and war. That is, have forgotten their self-interest and are mobidly interested in other people’s sex lives. Very peculiar for the US (as seen from the EU, where we all know that Americans drug and drink and screw and drive too much and too fast …:) ..)
They are doing this because there is no other way to explain it – spiritual values, morals and decency must have been a top consideration. Also, it permits them to go on manipulating this dimension, and renders the division between progressives and conservatives even starker, more divisive and emotional.
From the EU, it is clear that you cannot defeat a strong and very ‘right wing’ candidate by doing right-wing LITE. Jospin, in France, lost the presidency for partly for that reason (against Le Pen and Chirac, with Chirac the final winner.) In the EU, people vote for Le-Pen type candidates for reasons that have nothing to do with people’s sex lives, religion, or ‘values’. They vote ‘agressive’ right (Vlaamse Blok, Le Pen, Blocher, Bossi, Haider.. some key words) for one reason, and one reason only:
Their economic and in a lesser measure, cultural survival is today threatened. Many cannot ascend socially any longer (education for children, jobs..), nor dominate, and unemployment hits hard (globalisation, outsourcing, etc.) The social fabric they lived in, the decisionary powers they had, the world in which they had a place, are eroded year by year. (All this applies to the middle class as well.) They find themselves parked in ugly districts, at the mercy of big corporations, big governement, endless pettifogging rules, hazardous unemployment, nasty social workers who despise – their child rearing practices, their desire to hunt and chop down trees, their hygiene, and so on. (Excuse stereotype..)
In the EU, the reaction is to vote to keep foreignors out – if cheap labor is unavailable (at home or in China, Bangladesh..), and a scapegoat can be found, they stand a chance, and may even get by without joining a Union or bothering with all that stuff. Xenophobia is rampant, and only semi-controlled by anti-racist laws etc. This explains in part the hesitant EU Gvmts. support for the specter of Islamic terrorism, US pressure to endorse their own madness accounting for the other part. Security, as a leitmotif, has been enthusiasictally adopted – as if policemen and cameras on every corner could guarantee a living wage. (Higher taxes, is all..)
In the US, fears (manipulated) and similar discontent and hate find expression in the one channel permitted. Open immigration (while questioned today by such pillars as the Sierra Club..) is still not seen as a legitimate target – the ideological rationale being the melting pot, the underlying covert reason being that to succeed in US society, one has to have cheap labor. Without cheap labor, no salvation, no Mac Mansion, no SUV and private school, unless you belong by birth to the elite, to families with big -or just adequate- money. Salvation is exploitation, punkt schluss. (period, end.)
And so, a sort of desperate folding in of anger takes place, and a return to the LaLaLand of religion and ‘values’ appears – like Victorian ladies who knew nothing about the colonies, but loved to diss, while quietly slurping lemon tea and discreetly chomping on cucumber sandwiches with poor teeth, those local savages who had dirty kitchens, “bred like rabbits” (no abortions available) and generally were not pillars of righteous Church society.
No doubt, many voted for Bush because of ‘moral issues’. However, one has to ask, what choice did they have? What moral issues did they really vote on, which did Bush address? And why?
Despair, discontent, hate, fear, find an outlet somewhere.
The Democrat failure is stark before our eyes…
Posted by: Blackie | Nov 7 2004 19:45 utc | 81
Boy Blackie your are on a roll tonight, but I totally agree with you. Wish I could formulate it just as expressively.
What I have been wondering lately about is this ‘moral value’ stuff. What are moral values. It seems to be a moral value to kill 100’000 Iraqis, death penalty seems to be another moral value, greed also seems to be a moral value and so on. The moral values those Republicans seem support basically seem to be sexual values. All in all I do not see much of value in their values.
Posted by: Fran | Nov 7 2004 19:59 utc | 82
Blackie……… couldn’t agree more regarding the US elections.
Roll over and die Democrats………….. shows that John Kerry was just an actor
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Nov 7 2004 20:00 utc | 83
Holy War: Evangelical Marines Prepare to Battle Barbarians
NEAR FALLUJAH – With US forces massing outside Fallujah, 35 marines swayed to Christian rock music and asked Jesus Christ to protect them in what could be the biggest battle since American troops invaded Iraq last year.
The marines drew parallels from the verse with their present situation, where they perceive themselves as warriors fighting barbaric men opposed to all that is good in the world.
Men with buzzcuts and clad in their camouflage waved their hands in the air, M-16 assault rifles beside them, and chanted heavy metal-flavoured lyrics in praise of Christ late on Friday in a yellow-brick chapel.
They counted among thousands of troops surrounding the city of Fallujah, seeking solace as they awaited Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s decision on whether or not to invade Fallujah.
“You are the sovereign. You’re name is holy. You are the pure spotless lamb,” a female voice cried out on the loudspeakers as the marines clapped their hands and closed their eyes, reflecting on what lay ahead for them.
The US military, with many soldiers coming from the conservative American south and midwest, has deep Christian roots.
Gott Mit Uns!
criminy. I shouldn’t have started reading news today. does anyone but me want to crawl in a hole and pull it in after them?
And now, something completely different.
Hezbollah Sends Drone Plane Over Israel
Are we getting started on reasons for attacking Iran already? hmmmmmm
Posted by: dan of steele | Nov 7 2004 21:25 utc | 85
Yep, Iran is the bad guy now. See they are sending extremists into Iraq
Posted by: dan of steele | Nov 7 2004 21:29 utc | 86
I don’t know how long the subtitle Shining on Members of the Reality-Based Community at the top of this page has been there, but it registered with me for the first time as I signed on here just now. For some reason only the title, Moon of Alabama came up and then Shining on Members of the Reality-Based Community flashed below it and then the whole page loaded. I tried reloading and the page loaded normally. Strange way for the universe to wake me up to the subtitle, if it has been there for a while. How long have I been oblivious to it b?
Anyway, I really like it. It says a lot and it instantly resonated with me as I flashed into my mind.
Posted by: Juannie | Nov 7 2004 21:36 utc | 87
“does anyone but me want to crawl in a hole and pull it in after them?”
Posted by: DeAnander | November 7, 2004 03:30 PM
My mom used that expression a couple of days ago. Fits.
Posted by: beq | Nov 7 2004 21:37 utc | 88
Anti-abortion isn’t a moral position. Ask it’s adherents who find they need one, as many do every year. It’s code for Who do those fucking bitches think they are, anyway – this is an “Ownership” Society & we own them goddamnit. Similarly “family values” means destroy the family…return to the Old Testament where a “family” is a man & his slaves….females, children, servants/slaves…..like in the MaleMuslim world today.
The garbage in the press, about the Soros party not recognizing the “importance of values” just provides cover for them to move further right. For starters, they won the election in a landslide. George Lakoff has some new bk. out discussing how they must reframe issues to show off their moral values. A good book. However, the way the party is seizing it is frightening. In that context, it should be more aptly named “Let ’em eat cake.” The issue isn’t values, it’s economics. But today, you can only discuss sex, not economics. Winning the Mid-western states is trivially easy. They need only a policy of rapidly supporting family-owned organic farming. They should do this quickly, as the cities were only able to support so many people in the age of cheap oil, so people need to be moved back to the land in a sustainable way.
Posted by: jj | Nov 7 2004 22:09 utc | 89
@DeAnander, I read that article last night. After picking myself up off the floor, I laughed. So, out of 10,000 marines encircling Fallujah, there are 35 Fundies!! Yes, and the lack of religion cost Forbes-Heinz///Kerry the election.
Posted by: jj | Nov 7 2004 22:13 utc | 90
I hope some persons tead french…
Je lis depuis des semaines vos messages et je suis très touché par nombre d’entre eux.
Je sais que Les USA ne sont pas monolithiques mais traversés par de nombreuses contractions. J’en ai la preuve avec ce site.
Depuis 3 ans votre pays connaît un accroissement substantiel du règne de la peur. Mais cette peur est présente sous différentes formes depuis des décennies.
Hannah Arendt disait en 1974 que la démocratie aux USA avait tellement été attaquée qu’elle avait changé de nature, après 15 ans de guerre de civile (qui ne disait pas son nom dans les années soixante). Même si cela se discute dans le détail, sur le fond elle avait raison. Les années soixante ont vu l’émergence d’une conscience et d’une action politique hors de toute tradition Démocrate/républicain, l’émergence d’une conscience politique des noirs, des indiens, en un mot des minorités, définition qui ne s’arrête pas à la seule question raciale ; je pourrais parler de la minorité des gays, des femmes, les communistes, etc. Après guerre, tout ce qui ressemblait de près ou de loin à un communiste a été pourchassé. Toutes ces personnes des minorités, étaient des citoyens américains (volonté de détruire l’ennemi de l’intérieur)
Tout cela a été stoppé par la destruction systématique de toute organisation menaçant l’ordre établi.
L’ordre établi est la représentation de la majorité. La majorité est la mesure / l’étalon de ce qu’est la société américaine. Dans les années 60, l’étalon USA pouvait se définir grossièrement comme ceci homme, blanc, protestant, urbain, attaché à l’histoire démocratique de son pays et aux libertés individuelles et souscrivant à l’économie de marché teinté de keynésianisme, etc.
A chaque élection depuis les années 60, La majorité est faite de tous ceux qui se reconnaissent dans cet étalon qui par définition est vide et par extension on peut dire la majorité/ l’étalon c’est personne, les minorités c’est tout le monde. Chaque minorité essayant de faire valoir sa représentation de la société démocratique. Le problème c’est que cet étalon a changé de nature petit à petit depuis trente ans sous la dominance de certaines minorités (oligarchie des riches et/ou vivant dans les sphères des pouvoirs politiques et judiciaires, conservateurs en matière de meurs, etc), toujours les mêmes (la notion : une démocratie du peuple, pour le peuple par le peuple devient toute relative). Et je pourrais dire que l’étalon d’aujourd’hui c’est : un homme, blanc, protestant born again, adepte de l’économie de marché à la Friedman, soumettant les droits du citoyen à celui de l’actionnaire (au passage le mot actionnaire ne figure nul part dans la constitution des USA). Des choses contradictoires peuvent exister dans cet étalon puisque que c’est personne. Un homme noir peut se reconnaître dans cet étalon par exemple.
Le fait d’aller voter est loin d’être une condition suffisante pour dire que nous vivons en démocratie. La démocratie est la forme la moins imparfaite dans laquelle fonctionnent de nombreuses formes de pouvoir (et le territoire qui lui est lié) et de contre pouvoir. Les usa connaissent aujourd’hui une réduction plus qu’inquiétante de ces équilibres toujours précaires de pourvoir / contre pouvoir. La réélection de Bush n’est qu’une claire manifestation que votre pays glisse petit à petit vers autre chose que je qualifierai d’émergence d’une nouvelle forme de fascisme (de nombreux écrivains ,historiens américains n’hésitent plus à dire cela devant les phénomènes et les événements que connaissent les USA aujourd’hui, certains le date de Bush, d’autres des années 70, d’autres des les années 20)
Deanander tu as terriblement raison. Votre pays glisse vers quelque chose qui commence a être très loin de ce qu’est une démocratie. La démocratie c’est l’Etat de droit, le droit à l’avortement par exemple. La coalition chrétienne est prête à tout pour que ce droit n’existe plus, ils sont prêts à substituer de nombreux droits pour les remplacer par les préceptes lus dans la bible. S’ils veulent être pour la chasteté, contre l’avortement, c’est leur droit mais qu’ils ne l’imposent pas aux autres. Le droit à l’avortement n’est pas une obligation, il est la possibilité pratique de faire un choix. En fait, les droits de l’homme ne sont qu’une pure abstraction, seule la jurisprudence compte.
Nous avons tous été abasourdi parla défaite électoral avec 3-4 millions d’écart, même en France. Au vu de ce que j’ai lu, de beaucoup d’entre vous, la situation nous/ vous plonge dans un devenir révolutionnaire, la révolution c’est le changement, changer ce que Bush&co ont bâti ou sont en train de bâtir. Et comme, nous vivons dans des sociétés de plus en plus intégré les unes aux autres ; en Europe nous sommes tout autant concerné que vous. Je pense que nous avons à comprendre, tout ceux qui se revendiquent libéraux ou de gauche, ce qui s’est passé depuis une vingtaine d’années aux usa mais aussi en europe. Pourquoi les classes populaires se sont éloignés des partis censés les représenter ?
Des personnes ont voté malgré les preuves patentes de mensonges, de corruption de Bush et cie. La guerre en Iraq est non seulement stupide, tue des milliers de personnes et n’aboutira pas à une démocratie ou pseudo démocratie ayant les mêmes intérêts que Bush&co, l’Iraq sera un second Iran.
De plus la haine qui aura été cristallisé contre les usa et l’occident, nous entraîne maintenant à coup sûr dans des décennies de conflits plus ou moins importants. Cette agression nous a fait prendre une direction historique où les conflits du XX è siècle nous apparaîtront comme des kermesses.
Mais je voudrais revenir sur le vote. Globalement, les personnes ont voté Bush:
– pour le fait qu’ils partagent les mêmes valeurs morales (application de plus en plus stricte de la bible par exemple),
– – parce que les usa (& l’europe) sont en guerre contre le terrorisme . Et ces électeurs veulent garder le même chef comme une mythologie de churchill (pourtant le contexte d’un churchill ou d’un roosvelt n’a rien de comparable avec le contexte Bush)
– En raison de la totale intoxication sur l’information relayé par foxnews, etc.
– Et d’autres raisons sans doute
Beaucoup de nouveaux électeurs ont voté Bush et non démocrate ce qui malheureusement ne me surprend pas et contre leur propre intérêt parce que le règne de la peur est tellement bien installé que beaucoup de gens sont prêts à vendre leur liberté pour avoir la paix. Cela ne date pas d’hier. Patriot act est le symbole de ce renoncement aux libertés individuelles pour la paix et le sentiment d’appartenir à une communauté dans un monde très incertain – où paradoxalement l’individualisme forcené n’en finit pas de triompher- .
Avec ce qui suit, je voudrais faire une digression qui n’est qu’un moyen de tenter de lire notre histoire commune et récente. Essayer de comprendre les événements que nous connaissons depuis la chute du mur de Berlin puisque que Reagan, Bush père, W et les néoconservateurs sont persuadés que ce qu’ils ont fait ou ce qu’ils représentent est la seule explication à la chute de tous les pays communistes. Après les communistes, on va en finir avec les dictatures musulmanes se disent-ils. Je veux juste lire notre histoire contemporaine à la lumière de la question de l’identité, de la revendication communautaire. Ce n’est pas la seule lecture qui existe, elle n’est pas parole d’évangile mais quelques historiens et philosophes ont tenté de cerner le monde contemporain pas ce biais.
Des communautés qui se caractérisent par l’intolérance de ce qui existe autour d’elles.
ce type de communauté sclérosée, fermée sur elle-même est incapable de se laisser féconder par la pluralité, la complexité de la vie qu’il l’entoure. A lire la presse conservatrice, visiter les sites de la coalisation chrétienne, lire le patriot act II, j’ai de moins en mois de doute sur la nature de la communauté que veut représenter « Bush, le croyant ». Jusqu’à la caricature je dirais que tout ce qui n’est pas cette communauté doit être éliminé d’une façon ou d’une autre. Je ne dis pas que c’est ce qui se passe actuellement aux USA mais c’est le potentiel de ce qui peut se passer. De l’Europe, je vois avec Bush et même avant j’ai vu dans l’évolution de la société américaine la construction d’un kit identitaire de ce que sont censé être les USA. Les personnes (notamment les néo-conservateurs) qui construisent ce kit identitaire (dans un but unique en fait : « prendre le pouvoir, tout le pouvoir, sous toutes ses formes ») n’hésitent pas à utiliser tout ce qu’ils peuvent pour créer la mythologie de cette identité, ils se drapent d’authenticité, reconstruisent l’Histoire selon leurs besoins. Bush&co parle de démocratie, de liberté, des valeurs universelles à l’origine de la révolution française et de l’indépendance des Etats-Unis mais tout cela est complètement vidé de son sens quand dans la même phrase il parle de la vison biblique du peuple américain( peuple élu). Je qualifierai ce type de propos de très mauvais syncrétisme d’une pensée qui n’est en faite pas hégémonique (qui n’a comme guide que le doute, la raison et la critique) et une Histoire en faite complexe avec des zones d’ombre. Voltaire, Montesquieu, d’Alembert, Diderot, Condorcet ont dû se mettre au tranxène devant un tel gâchi de leur rêve d’un humanisme éclairé par la raison. En gros Bush&co ont une pensée très, très réductrice. Mais ce type de réduction n’est pas le fruit du hasard. Il est très important de faire cette réduction pour qu’il puissent ouvrir leur propre perspective. Ce type de construction est un phénomène majeure de notre histoire récente. Nous l’avons vu apparaître dans de nombreux pays en Serbie(grande serbie historique, peuple serbe, catholique, blablabala), en Croatie, au Kosovo, en Côte d’ivoire, dans l’ex-Zaïre, au Rwanda (identités hutus, tutsis, blablablabla), etc. dans ces pays, ce processus est allé jusqu’à sa phase terminale : intolérance, racisme, volonté de prise de pouvoir à partir d’une identité culturelle sclérosée, répression, guerre, massacre. D’autres pays ont connu ou connaissent aujourd’hui ce processus sans que celui-ci aboutisse (heureusement parfois cela se règle ou reste contenu par la loi, le droit, les institutions démocratique déjà en place): La Belgique (wallons et flamands), l’Italie (la ligue lombarde, etc.), en France (avec Le Pen, les français peuple pur avec mille ans d’histoire, blablabla).
Ce processus arrive après la faillite des idéologies. La montée de ce que doit être les USA en focalisant sur le fait que vous un peuple très croyant est une réduction dangeureuse. C’est contre cela qu’il faut lutter. Ce que nous connaissons aujourd’hui avec Bush n’a pas comme seule source cette identité religieuse, les intérêts financiers et industriels (Carlyle, Halliburton, boeing, etc) y ont une place prédominante. Mais la nomination de juges ultra conservateurs à la cours suprême par Bush est un risque terrible pour la diversité des droits et les libertés publiques…
Posted by: little condorcet | Nov 8 2004 0:21 utc | 91
De: does anyone but me want to crawl in a hole and pull it in after them?
Yes. It’s that or call down the wrath of Mother the Earth upon any and all who plan, execute and support such montrous abominations…
Mother is furious.
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Nov 8 2004 3:08 utc | 96
History repeating itself?! A very interesing post by Digby.
A Very Old Story
One thing this little historical trip should show everyone is that it is nonsense to think that this cultural resentment and cultural contempt was created by Hollywood movie stars and limosine liberals from New York City. Indeed, this has been a problem since the dawn of the republic. And it isn’t a problem that will be solved by the Red States gaining and maintaining power. They have held power many times throughout our history and they were still filled with resentment toward “the north” (now “the liberal elites.”) And, it won’t be solved by adopting different stances on “moral issues,” or telling the current Democratic southern constituencies to suck it up. Maybe it’s time we looked a little bit deeper and realized that this tribal problem isn’t going to be solved by politics at all.
Also read the next post on his site also.
Therefore, I propose that after we outlaw abortion, turn over huge amounts of public money to evangelical churches and enshrine discrimination against gays into the US Constitution, we fully and publicly endorse creationism. This is an issue that hasn’t worked its way up to the forefront of a national election yet and we could actually outflank the Republicans if we get on the bandwagon right now. This could be our issue in 2008.
…
Therefore I am proposing that the official Democratic slogan for 2008 be “Shoot a Fag for Jesus.”
It’s a simple, catchy slogan that will look good on a bumperstickers, yet carry a multilateral strike: pro-guns, anti-gay, and unashamedly Christian.
…
I like it. With a pro-creationism candidate, I think we might just pull it off. Maybe. If not, there’s always mandatory church attendance and rolling back the right to vote for women and blacks. We’ve got plenty of cards left to play. We’ll get there.
I know this is sarcasm, but how far from the thruth is it really. Aren’t the democrats just rolling on their backs again? At least the politicians?
Posted by: Fran | Nov 8 2004 6:12 utc | 97
Kate and Ross K (6 Nov @ 10:12 PM, and @ 10:29 PM)…..I’ve been on the road for the past few days, and missed the Blackwill resignation entirely. Quite a move!… From the little I’ve read, Blackwill was about to be thrust forward (from the shadows where he gets things done) and outward (into the light of common day). To be identified so closely with the re-Elected one is not, on merely narcissistic grounds, very comfortable….But a resignation like this one is never merely personal; it carries a Larger Meaning–if only, for example, that the pottery is indeed broken, and that we own it, and that no one, least of all Blackwill, can trust Bush to assume the sort of commitment that this ownership entails (recall his career as a fighter pilot). And so the chauffeur has handed off the keys to the Boss Who Can’t Drive….These people aren’t very nice to each other, are they?
Posted by: alabama | Nov 8 2004 6:15 utc | 98
Another interesting post, this one by Keith Olberman.
George, John, and Warren
NEW YORK – Here’s an interesting little sidebar of our system of government confirmed recently by the crack Countdown research staff: no Presidential candidate’s concession speech is legally binding. The only determinants of the outcome of election are the reports of the state returns boards and the vote of the Electoral College.
…
Stories like these have filled the web since the tide turned against John Kerry late Tuesday night. But not until Friday did they begin to spill into the more conventional news media. That’s when the Cincinnati Enquirer reported that officials in Warren County, Ohio, had “locked down” its administration building to prevent anybody from observing the vote count there.
…
Thus the majority of the media has yet to touch the other stories of Ohio (the amazing Bush Times Ten voting machine in Gahanna) or the sagas of Ohio South: huge margins for Bush in Florida counties in which registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 2-1, places where the optical scanning of precinct totals seems to have turned results from perfect matches for the pro-Kerry exit poll data, to Bush sweeps.
…
Posted by: Fran | Nov 8 2004 6:45 utc | 99