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Our illustration is a nice fantasy. Several of those pictured have already been knocked down, and only as a result of political expediency. The Decider would have liked to keep all of them. Condi doesn’t quite fit the Father figure type, but then she ain’t no big momma neither, no how.
Our article is on the topic of Christian Fascism. It is interesting to note that Mort Sahl commented years ago that “Americans stop just short of buying Fascism.” This is true and it is why I use the term “crypto-fascism” for it. There is a Freudian element here: most Americans also want to kill their “old man.”
Seriously, there is a point where Americans resist. Since the Decider has become more of a father type than the guy they’d like to sit down and have a beer with, his popularity has decreased.
I have added endnotes to the review, using Roman numerals than the conventional Arabic ones that we use. This is a big controversy these days as people speak Arabic and lots of them don’t like the U.S. policies. In fact, some math historians want to call then “Indian Numerals,” tracing their origin to India, not to Native Americans, of course. Actually, for a long time I contended that long division was impossible using Roman Numerals until I took a graduate seminar on Renaissance Intellectual History and the Professor (I liked him, but he was one of those about whom many said “I do not want to know THAT much) contended that it could be done. I gave him an example to use, and he actually DID the damn division using Roman Numerals. I have not been the same since.
The Democratic debate was interesting if only for Gravel, candidate from Alaska. He contributed one excellent idea: After Bush vetoes the spending bill with a non-binding timetable, every single day it should be presented to the entire congress for an override. That way, every politician supporting Bush would have to go on record as opposing funding for our troops, and go on record daily.
This week it will be the Republicans and if anyone is masochistic enough to watch it, I will reserve this space for their review. I will be walking my dog, a Malemute/Coyote mix, looking for people who cross themselves.
Best line of the week: After Dick Cheney attacked him as unpatriotic, Harry Reid, the leader of the Senate, said “I’m not going to trade insults with a hatchet man with a 9% approval rating.”
*ZNet | U.S.*
*A Review of Chris Hedges' Christian Fascism*
*by Stephen Lendman; April 25, 2007*
Chris Hedges is a journalist who for two decades was a foreign
correspondent for the New York Times spending much of his time
reporting from conflict zones in El Salvador, the Middle East
and from Serbia covering the Balkan wars of the 1990s that
divided and destroyed a country under the guise of humanitarian
intervention providing cover for naked imperialism. There it
allowed NATO (meaning the US) to expand into Central and Eastern
Europe to keep predatory capitalism on the march for markets,
resources and cheap labor everywhere using wars to get them and
eliminate "uncooperative" heads of state like Slobodan Milosevic
who was kidnapped, Mafia/Mossad-style, by the ICTY kangaroo
court in the Hague, hung out to dry when he got there, and in
the end let his health deteriorate so when he died he took his
ugly truths to the grave with him.
The wars and subsequent show-trials had nothing to do with myths
about it fed us by Western media. Those wanting the truth can
find it in excellent books like Diana Johnstone's Fools'
Crusade; the extensive research and writings of Edward Herman,
Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, law professor Michael Mandel; and
the newest book out on the subject titled Travesty: The Trial of
Slobodan Milosevic and the Corruption of International Justice
by British journalist John Laughland. Edward Herman wrote a
superb review of the book in the April, 2007 issue of Z Magazine
now available in which he pointedly says "the rules of the
(illegally constituted) ICTY (established by the US and UK)
stood Nuremberg on its head" and Laughland states "instead of
applying existing international law, the ICTY has effectively
overturned it" to hide NATO's crimes and allow more of the same
playing out now in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.
The Christian Right supports these type crimes and motives for
them readers will understand from Hedges' new book. He's also
written many articles and is the author of four books including
his bestselling War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning drawing on
his experiences in the conflicts he covered describing how
people and nations behave in wartime. The book was a finalist
for the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction. His
newest book is American Fascists - The Christian Right and the
War on America published in 2007 and subject of this review.
It's an incisive examination of the huge threat extremist
Christian fascists pose to a shaky free society most people in
the US take for granted but no longer will after reading this
important book.
Hedges was educated at Colgate University and received a Master
of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School. For a time he was a
seminarian and is now a senior fellow at the Nation Institute as
well as a writer and lecturer at Princeton University where he
teaches in the Program for American Studies. He was also an
early vocal critic of the Bush administration's plan to attack,
invade and occupy Iraq characterizing war as "the most potent
narcotic invented by humankind" while professing not to be a
pacifist.
This review will cover the essence and flavor of American
Fascists beginning with some background on the Christian right,
its influence, and danger it poses that Hedges covers in
detail. He said he wrote the book out of anger and fear of the
fundamentalist Christian Right seeking to establish theocratic
dominion over society in America in the name of God and is using
the Republican party as their vehicle to do it. He compares the
movement's messianic mission to Italian and German fascism of
the last century cloaking itself in Christianity and patriotism
as their way to gain political power under theocracy's literal
meaning from the Greek words "Theos" meaning "God" and
"cratein/crasy" meaning to rule.
They're not kidding and neither is the risk they'll gain control
of government with some observers in Washington believing they
already have it including journalist/commentator Bill Moyers
saying "for the first time in our history, ideology and theology
hold a monopoly of power in Washington." Some call them "The
Christian Mafia" noting they're well-funded by and allied with
wealthy, powerful hard right businessmen like beer magnate
Joseph Coors and Amway founder Richard DeVos, Sr. Hedges calls
them American Fascists, and his powerful book leaves no doubt
how great a threat they are to our cherished liberties in a free
society now in great jeopardy. Below is an explanation of the
Christian Right and fundamentalist movement overall before
getting into the book.
The Christian Right and Its Fundamentalist Movement
The Christian or Religious Right is broadly defined to include
adherents of the radical or hard right embracing their kind of
extremist political, economic, social and religious ideology
falsely called conservative which is a relative term referring
philosophically to favoring traditional values including
libertarian ones centered on the right of everyone to be master
of his or her own fate.
Earlier, sociologist scholar Sara Diamond wrote extensively on
the rise of right wing groups in the country providing readers
with a wealth of information based on her firsthand research. In
her seminal 1995 book, Roads to Dominion, she traced the various
movements over the past 50 years identifying four types she
discovered:
1. The anti-communist conservative movement that in the 1970s
included moral traditionalism of the emerging Christian Right.
2. The racist Right including the KKK and other segregationist
groups and later the paramilitary white supremacist movement.
3. The Christian Right with its evangelical roots, and
4. Neoconservatives with roots in the Cold War and Democrat
party later finding a new home in the Republican party under
Ronald Reagan.
Diamond explained these movements involved scores of
organizations, not monolithic in beliefs, who nonetheless share
a common set of policy preferences that unite them listing three
core areas - the economy, the "nation-state in global context
(military and diplomatic)," and moral norms relating to race and
gender. The movements are also unified in their advocacy of
free-market capitalism, anticommunism (now anything left of
center), US worldwide military hegemony, traditional morality,
superiority of native-born white male Christian Americans, and
the traditional nuclear family. In addition, Diamond lists what
she calls the "three pillars of the US Right" calling them
"tendencies, not absolutes" - libertarianism, anticommunist
militarism (now all liberal/progressive/leftist non-extremist
Christian ideology), and traditionalism.
In her book, Diamond included a detailed history of the
Christian Right explaining how it came to be the largest, most
influential movement on the far right dominating policy-making
in Republican-led governments and especially the one not yet in
power under George W. Bush. She explained it all in over 300
fact-crammed pages and another 100 pages of notes and
references. It's important background information summarized
here briefly to set the stage for Hedges important account of
what the Christian Right is up to today, why it matters, and why
this dominant movement threatens freedom and democracy in
America and the values most here hold dear, including most of
the 70 million evangelicals, a minority of whom are radical
ideologues selling their dogma of hate and domination to convert
the others and destroy non-believers.
Our Secular State Founding Principles
Christians founded America believing church and state should be
separated, and Jefferson called for "a wall of separation"
between them in 1802 after freedom of religion became part of
the First Amendment to the Constitution. Today that bedrock
founding principle is jeopardized by the extremist Christian
Right. If they get their way, they'll tear down that wall with
considerable public support from the 40% in the country polls
say take the Bible literally, and nearly one-third believe in
the "rapture" as Hedges explains in his book. The notion comes
from conservative Protestant eschatology denoting the final
happening when "good Christians" on earth are saved and
"raptured" to heaven to be with Jesus in eternal immortality
while non-believers are doomed to a more hellish, less
"rapturous" fate Hedges characterizes as suffering "unspeakable
torments below."
These believers and all others are entitled to their views, but
the Constitution forbids them forcing them on others. Earlier
Supreme Courts agreed in decisions requiring a "wall of
separation" between church and state prohibiting the adoption of
any state religion and requiring government to avoid undue
involvement in religion, its trappings or expressions.
That status was put in jeopardy following the introduction in
Congress of the "Constitution Restoration Act of 2004." It was
then reintroduced in near-identical form in 2005, never passed,
and now awaits its fate in the Democrat-led 110th Congress or a
future one that may or may not let it die. If it's ever adopted
in its present form, it will turn the country into a de facto
theocracy despite its supporters' denial. Don't believe them as
getting this passed is key to the Christian Right's mission to
turn America into a fascist theocracy where constitutional law
is abolished in favor of extremist Christian dogma Dominionists
like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson and others in
the movement want to be the supreme law of the land.
In their world, under their law, practitioners of other faiths
will be lawbreakers including about 75 million non-Christians
and many others of the faith not willing to go along with their
interpretation of it. The "Constitution Restoration Act of
2005" will also deny the Supreme Court's right to challenge
anyone in or affiliated with federal, state or local government
acknowledging the Christian "God (in their canon) as the
sovereign source of law, liberty, or government." Henceforth,
any judge at any level interpreting the new law differently
would be subject to impeachment and prosecution in the United
(extremist Christian) States of (fascist) America ruled by
people like Pat Robertson and others like him.
American Fascists Masquerading as True Christians - Defiling the
Teachings of Christ, His Twelve Apostles and Others of the Faith
Hedges begins his book with a powerful quote from Blaise Pascal
that "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when
they do it from religious conviction." Until the modern era,
the best examples in Christendom were the first Crusades when
Popes like Urban II sanctioned holy wars between 1095 - 1291 to
wrest Jerusalem and the "Holy Land" from "heretic" Muslims and
later ones in the 16th century against infidels - in the name of
God.
Today in America, Dominionists are the new "crusaders" Hedges
equates with 20th century fascists because of their fanaticism.
They cloak their ideology in Christianity and patriotism as
their way to gain political power they claim is sanctioned by
the Almighty to give the movement moral legitimacy. But beneath
the surface, their doctrine is dark and foreboding posing real
dangers to a free society not to be taken lightly. It comes
from their view of Genesis 1:26-31 they interpret to mean God
gave man "dominion....over all the Earth," and that Jesus
commanded his followers to impose godly rule over everyone
denouncing people of other faiths and non-believers. The modern
blueprint for this ideology comes from the writings of RJ
Rushdoony's 1973 book, The Institutes of Biblical Law, calling
for a Christian government. It advocates torture and death for
gays, non-Christians resisting conversion, anyone committing
blasphemy, and women guilty of "unchastity before marriage."
Ideology of Radical Christian Right Fascists
Christian Right extremists advocate a frightening ideology
detailed below. It includes:
-- Racial hatred.
-- White Christian supremacy.
-- Blind adoration and obedience of the movement's leadership
while discouraging free and independent thought.
-- Male gender dominance portraying Jesus as a real man
dominating through force like a powerful warrior ignoring
fundamental Christian "thou shall not kill" doctrine. It's an
ideology of hypermasculinity centered in a male-dominated
authoritarian church and in the home where men are encouraged to
dominate their wives, and women and children are taught to submit.
Well-known Christian Right leader James Dobson built his career
on these ideas and now has a huge media empire dispensing advice
as a Christian therapist over his Focus on the Family program.
He's heard on more than 3000 radio stations and 80 TV stations
reaching 200 million people in 116 countries from his 81 acre
campus in Colorado Springs, Colorado employing 1300 people.
He's fiercely anti-choice and anti-gay and has backed political
candidates advocating abortionists be executed. He also calls
stem cell research "state-funded cannibalism" and urges
Christian parents take their children out of public schools and
put them in Christian ones teaching his ideology.
Dobson preaches male dominance calling non-submission a
violation of God's law. He also thinks murder is wrong but not
when committed against infidel Iraqis or Islamic terrorists
saying all non-believers, heretics and sinners will be consumed
in an End Times Tribulation of terrible calamities and torment
lasting seven years with non-redeemers condemned to eternal
punishment. True believers adhering to holy scriptures,
however, will be saved and "raptured" to eternal life and bliss
in heaven. But getting there means going along with what he,
End Times guru Timothy LaHaye, and other dominant Christian
Right figures like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell preach
including that they have a divine right to rule and must be obeyed.
Hedges notes that televangelists like Robertson, Benny Hill,
Paul and Jan Crouch and others "rule their fiefdoms as despotic
potentates" some adherents might think isn't God's way of doing
things. They travel with burly bodyguards in kingly luxury on
private jets; have amassed huge personal fortunes, much of it
gotten from listener subjects; and show up everywhere in
limousines with all the pomposity of heads of state and
billionaire CEOs but in their case playing God as false prophets
"clutching the cross and the Bible (offering seductively), like
Mephistopheles, to lead us to a mythical paradise and
impossible, unachievable happiness and security" provided we
surrender our will to theirs and our money too, which is one way
they get rich.
They preach a false gospel of prosperity and well-being preying
on the gullible to believe faith alone cures illness, overcomes
emotional distress, and assures financial and physical security
so there's no need for traditional secular institutions, social
service organizations and government regulatory agencies to
exist. The movement preaches those not trusting them lack
faith, that God alone is enough, and that fate is determined by
a personal relationship with Jesus Christ in a world in which
individuals surrender their will to a higher authority dictated
by the leadership. Hedges sums it up saying tyranny follows
when "fealty to an ideology becomes a litmus test for individual
worth" and a world of "miracles and magic" is the only "place to
turn for help" ruled by Christian Right extremists "grow(ing)
rich off (the vulnerable) who suffer" becoming passive in the
process.
-- Hatred of gays, the "gay agenda," and everyone in the LBGT
movement with Christian Right adherents believing "same-sex
attraction" can be cured like a virus their ideological medicine
can fix. They define the problem as "male gender deficit" for
which "reparative therapy" is the antidote gotten from a close
connection with a strong heterosexual man "comfortable in his
male role." With nonsensical ideological fervor, they believe
bonding with a straight man makes homosexuality disappear while
at the same time denouncing gays as depraved perverts and
criminals threatening all Christians.
-- Disdain for non-believers and rational intellectual inquiry.
-- Condemnation of self-criticism and debate as apostasy.
-- Frequent use of the death penalty including for abortionists,
gays, Muslim "terrorists" and other "heretics."
-- Adoration of militarism, war and apocalyptic violence.
Adherence to these notions is so extreme that in the run-up to
the Iraq conflict, many Christian Right leaders and End Times
believers preached opposing war was anti-American and contrary
to God's plan and what's written in the Bible as they interpret
it. Their many supporters in Congress include Minority Leader
John Boehner, who supports endless wars. He recently said "The
spread of radical Islamic terrorism is a threat to our nation
(and) the free world....They are (everywhere and) growing right
here in America....dedicated to killing Americans (and) our
allies, and ending freedom and wanting to impose some radical
Islamic law on the entire world." With leaders like Boehner in
Congress and the administration, it's easy to see the influence
of radical Christian fundamentalist poison infecting the body
politic and threatening everyone with it.
-- Illegalization of abortion even in the case of rape and incest.
-- Ending public education with Bush administration help
budgeting billions of dollars for extremist Christian
faith-based organizations. They renounce proved science like
evolution allowing only creationism repackaged as "intelligent
design" to be taught as well as other extremist Christian values
sold through the "big lie" to trick those in the movement to
believe mysticism and magic are facts. Hedges calls the process
a "war on truth" where the culture war front lines are in
classrooms, and the battle is one traditional educators are
losing. Core values of a free and open society are being
destroyed and replaced through a process of thought control
based on pseudoscience assaulting the real thing on everything
challenging extremist Christian ideology from creation to
HIV/AIDS to pregnancy prevention to global warming to war and peace.
It's also happening inside government alarming the nonprofit
Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) advocacy organization to
write in its March, 2004 Scientific Integrity in Policymaking
report: "There is significant evidence that the scope and scale
of the (scientifically unethical) manipulation, suppression,
misrepresentation of science by the (Christian Right dominated)
Bush administration are unprecendented."
-- A primary Christian mission to proselytize non-believers to
the faith by recruiting "soldiers in the army of Jesus Christ"
quoting Dr. D. James Kennedy of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian
Church in Coral Ridge, Florida near Fort Lauderdale, just north
of Miami. His voice is dominant in the Christian Right and
carried over the huge multimedia empire he built with his weekly
broadcasts heard and seen on more than 600 TV stations, four
cable networks and the Armed Forces Network reaching millions of
people.
He also has a six day a week radio show on 744 stations reaching
millions more preaching his radical ideology that "the Christian
view of morality (according to the Christian Right) is the
(only) one that should prevail in America" while denouncing
liberal churches and other religions as godless. He holds
workshops teaching how to sell his brand of religiosity using
the same kinds of brainwashing/marketing techniques political
and other extremist movements know work. They promise believers
eternal life while those not saved are damned to eternal punishment.
-- Rejection of secular humanist notions of reason, ethics,
social equity and justice believing a better world is possible
through good will in a free and open society.[i] Also claims
secular humanist organizations like the American Civil Liberties
Union, NAACP, National Organization for Women, Planned
Parenthood and others want to destroy a Christian America. They
further include the major TV networks (for airing sex and
violence); major newspapers and magazines; US State Department;
foundations like Rockefeller, Ford and Carnegie; the UN; the
Democrat party left/liberals; Harvard, Yale and 2000 other
universities; and all others not buying their gospel of
extremist white Christian dominionism and hate.
-- Seizing on the common denominator of pain, disillusion,
dislocation, suffering and despair felt by millions caused by a
culture of "soulless landscapes filled with strip malls and
highways" to build a mass movement of servile, unthinking
followers. They've replaced the real world of science, law and
rationality with unquestioning belief in the word of the
leadership and a glorious other utopian unreal world of
prophets, mystical signs and magical mumbo jumbo that's real to
them and in which they're "protected, loved, guided and
blessed." It promises what followers don't have - a stable home
and family, loving community, fixed moral standards, financial
and personal success, and abolition of doubt and uncertainty
based on religious vision and moral clarity. It also
frighteningly promises a final apocalyptic battle of their
"good" against all else they call "evil" exterminating the
forces believers blame on their despair after which they will
emerge victorious and saved.
-- A Christian totalitarian ethic based on a gospel of "free
-market" capitalism, militarism and intolerance of democratic
freedom of thought and action.
-- A fanatical devotion to and support for the state of Israel
as Jerusalem, and specifically the Temple Mount Muslims call the
Noble Sanctuary, is where Fundamentalist Evangelical Christians
believe the second coming of the Messiah will be and thus is the
holiest site in the world for Christians and Jews as well who
want it for a third and final Temple. Enter Rev. John Hagee of
the 18,000-strong Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas,
global TV ministry, and his Christians United for Israel (CUFI)
radical organization founded in early 2006. He's perhaps the
most extremist, bellicose and influential Christian Zionist in
America today preaching Muslims are Islamic fascists waging war
against Western civilization. His antidote is a gospel of
preemptive war against Islam in self-defense including one
against Iran now if he had his way. The danger is warmongering
hate-preachers like Hagee and others reach large audiences
convincing millions of adherents they're right.[ii]
The Dark Side of Radical Christian Morality
Hedges notes the movement's appeal is from the leadership's
promise of a moral Christian nation promising renewal. But the
message hides a darker side with Dominionists awaiting a fiscal,
social and/or political crisis great enough to end democratic
constitutional government replacing it with their vision of a
Christian fascist theocratic America. In the meantime, they
spent a generation working for this and now have great influence
at state, local and federal levels of government.
Hedges notes the movement already controls the Republican
party.[iii] In addition, Christian fundamentalists hold a majority
of seats in 18 of 50 states plus large minorities in the
others. Also, (as of the book's publication) 45 senators and
186 House members got 80 - 100% approval ratings from the three
most influential Christian Right advocacy groups: The Christian
Coalition, Eagle Forum and Family Resource Council. This
represents a dominant mass movement succeeding because
mainstream Christians and the major media aren't confronting it,
and their passivity threatens the constitutional rights of a
democratic state on life support sinking fast with help from the
Christian Right on the ascendancy.
They're influence is spread by Christian broadcasters commanding
large audiences estimated to be 141 million in the US through
radio and TV. They preach the Christian Right gospel flaunting
their wealth, power and celebrity status to show it works for
believers of the faith. They believe in unrestrained
free-market capitalism, divinely sanctioned to freely create a
global marketplace of (non-Christian, non-believing) serfs,
denied all rights, forbidden to organize, and left to the mercy
of a repressive state and corporate predators out for profit and
to be allowed to dictate wages and control the right to work.
Compassion for the less fortunate is left to individual acts of
charity and the churches with government out of it entirely and
only dedicated to social control and aggressive militarism
dictated by a warrior God (meaning Jesus) giving Christian
America the right to rule the world and assure corporate giants
can suck all the profit and life out of it. Hedges explains the
Christian Right sells an ideology believing it's a "Christian
duty to embrace the exploitation of others, to build a Christian
America where freedom means the freedom of the powerful to
dominate the weak....to bring about (their notion of ) a
Christian utopia (that when no legal or social protections
remain) it will be too late to resist (and the movement's
leadership will be in control of everything)." Their plan is to
"convince the masses to agitate for their own incarceration"
shocking as that notion sounds, but it's working.
The movement is on a "crusade"[iv] against constitutional government
working for now within the political system it wants to destroy
and remake in its own image. Awaiting the time they'll take
over, they're creating a parallel system within the existing one
in which only "Bible-believing" judges, Christian teachers, and
pseudo-reporters on Christian broadcasts are tolerated. And
only white Christian men championing their extremist doctrine
will be allowed to rule. Students are taught this ideology in
Christian schools Hedges says are the fastest growing segment of
the private school system. Textbooks used call Islam, Buddhism
and African religions "false," Hinduism "pagan," and even
Catholicism "distorted."
It's also heard on the campaign trail from candidates like
"stalwart on the Christian Right" 2006 Ohio gubernatorial losing
candidate Kenneth Blackwell who as secretary of state and
co-chair of Ohio's Committee to Reelect George Bush in 2004
"arranged" for enough votes in the state to go to the sitting
president to swing Ohio and the election for him. In his own
losing effort in 2006, he appeared at Christian Right rallies
laying out a blueprint for an authoritarian state where all
dissent is heresy yet campaigned carefully not to offend those
outside the movement by avoiding religious terminology.
Christian Right Fascism in Real Time in "Bush's Shadow Army" -
Blackwater USA
Journalist and author Jeremy Scahill characterizes Blackwater
USA as "the world's most powerful mercenary army" in his new
book about them. Like Hedges' book, it's frightening reading
needing exposure. It describes a "shadowy mercenary
company....largely off the congressional radar....having
remarkable power and protection within the US war apparatus"
with no accountability or oversight on the ground in Iraq,
(working for the State Department, not the Pentagon, with a $300
million no-bid contract), Afghanistan, on US streets and in
neighborhoods like New Orleans, and coming soon to a city and
neighborhood near you courtesy of the Gestapo-like Department of
Homeland Security. With backing from the Bush administration,
it operates outside the law and Uniform Code of Military Justice
(UCMJ) and is immune from civil lawsuits like the military.
Scahill calls Blackwater the "Bush Administration's Praetorian
Guard (along with the CIA long-serving in that capacity and that
uses Blackwater in its illegal covert operations abroad and at
home)."
Blackwater was founded in 1996 by former Navy SEAL and now
super-rich Erik Prince who's closely tied to the Christian Right
he funds and supports. It came into its own post 9/11 becoming
a dominant player in the Bush administration's "Global War on
Terror" (GLOB) now rebranded "The Long War." Today, Blackwater
employs 2300 personnel in nine countries with 20,000 or more
private mercenary contractors ready to go wherever needed and
are part of the 100,000 contractors in Iraq, 48,000 of whom are
paramilitary mercenaries. It also has a fleet of 20 aircraft
(believed to have been used covertly as part of the Bush
administration's "extraordinary renditions" of targeted
individuals), including helicopter gunships, a private
intelligence division, and operates at home on its 7000 acre
Moyock headquarters Scahill calls "the world's largest private
military base."
It's not enough for Blackwater in the burgeoning world of
privatized secret mercenary paramilitary armies coming soon to a
neighborhood near you, so the company is preparing by seeking an
environmentally sensitive protected agricultural preserve
southeast of San Diego, CA for it current expansion plans. It's
an 824 acre site in Potrero, CA surrounded by the Cleveland
Forest Blackwater wants for a military training base with 15
firing ranges for automatic and non-automatic weapons and
various types of commando-type training facilities residents
don't want near their community for obvious reasons concerning
safety. People everywhere should object, for what may endanger
one isolated community now or a larger one in New Orleans
already may threaten us all in a paramilitarized America we're
heading for locked down by Blackwater-type storm troops
enforcing Christian Right fascist dogma.
In the meantime, Blackwater is cashing in big as a war profiteer
getting huge no-bid Bush administration contracts Congress
belatedly is showing interest in wanting to oversee to eliminate
abuses. Whether it will happen, however, is problematical as
current laws on the books aren't enforced making it likely new
ones won't be either on all matters relating to foreign wars,
so-called "terrorism," or anything claimed for national
security. As long as the nation is in wars both parties support
and the Christian Right is dominant, companies like Blackwater
will thrive. With them, wars are easier to get into and harder
to end meaning the culture of militarism will grow abroad and at
home that's part of the Christian Right's agenda to impose its
extremist theocratic rule on the country where, if it happens,
democratic freedom, as we know it, is incompatible. Under it,
Blackwater's private army will be on our city streets as
thuggish paramilitary enforcers licensed to terrorize and kill
with impunity bringing to America what they're well paid to do
abroad.
"Eternal" Fascist Chickens Coming Home to Roost
A generation ago, the notion of a "global Christian empire" was
barely credible, but Hedges' ethics professor at Harvard
Divinity School, 80-year old Dr. James Luther Adams, warned back
then we'd all one day be fighting "Christian fascists." It was
when Pat Robertson and other radical televangelists began
preaching a new political religion aimed at creating a dominant
Christian world according to their extremist views. Adams was
in Germany in 1935 and 1936 and saw with horror what happened
there firsthand. Hedges says he "was not a man to use the word
'fascist' lightly." He understood before most others the
similarities of that time in Germany to what was developing here
around 1980. He saw "how the mask of religion hides irreligion
(and) our world is full to bursting with (various) faiths, each
contending for allegiance." It was a virtual "battle of faiths,
a battle of the gods who claim human allegiance."
Adams knew deep-seated resentments and bigotry exist in all
democratic societies like Weimar Germany and saw it emerging in
1980s America promoting the destruction of democracy. He feared
late in his life a movement here was on the march, more cleverly
packaged and sophisticated than in the past and this time with
no serious opposition. He saw hatreds being stoked, progressive
forces weakening, and the despair of tens of millions of
Americans losing good manufacturing and other well-paying jobs
being easy prey for smooth-talking fanatics like Pat Robertson
and Jerry Falwell promising miracles and visions of apocalyptic
glory.
Adams said then to watch the Christian Right's treatment of gays
knowing the Nazis used their "values" to repress opponents and
just days after coming to power in 1933 Hitler banned all gay
and lesbian organizations as his first target with many others
to follow. Pastor Martin Niemoller warned us in different
versions of his famous quotation listing Jews, communists and
trade unionists targeted but omitting the one Hitler chose
first. He didn't speak out because he wasn't one of them, and
when they came for him there was no one left. It was too late.
Adams explained gays in a Christian Right dominated American
would be the first "social deviants" singled out for
condemnation, disempowerment and elimination as in Nazi
Germany. Other targeted groups would follow, and we would be
next. He then warned as does Hedges that forces against
American democracy are "waiting for a moment to strike, a
national crisis that will allow them to shred the Constitution
in the name of national security." The Christian Right awaits
that time "with gleeful anticipation" wanting adherents to be ready.
Hedges warns we also must be ready quoting Alvin Toffler saying
"if you don't have a strategy you end up being part of someone
else's strategy." It means challenging the Christian Right's
gospel of hate, "exclusion, cruelty and intolerance in the name
of God" with a doctrine of life, hope and respect for the worth
and dignity of everyone, and their right to practice their
beliefs openly in a free society. That's the American dream
shared by free people everywhere. At the book's end, Hedges
says preserving it means giving up "passivity, challeng(ing)
aggressively this movement's deluded appropriation of
Christianity (and fighting back) to defend tolerance." Wishing
won't make it so. Defending democracy means working at it every
day. Today we face an imminent threat to our freedom against
which "tolerance coupled with passivity is a (deadly) vice" that
will destroy us unless we're on guard to be sure it doesn't.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen
each Saturday to the Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on
The Micro Effect.com noon US central time.
[i] Yours truly has been accused of being a secular humanist. I thereupon assumed the position of Pope of Secular Humanism and invite everyone to join my church. For a mere $100 anyone can become a priest – send money order or cashiers checks only. Each $100 gets you a higher rank such as bishop, cardinal, etc. To be an ArchBishop, send $500 with “:God is Dead” in the memo field and your certificate will be sent by UPS.
[ii] I told you Israel is a problem.
[iii] I told you Republicans were a problem.
[iv] Let’s hear it for Tamburlane; see Chris Marlowe’s play on the topic.
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