ce399 | research archive

Granting Rights to "Our Non-Human Brothers"

Britches, the monkey liberated from the University of California at Riverside laboratory by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) in 1985. The vivisectors had sewn the baby monkeys' eyelids together and grafted a sonar device onto her head. 

http://www.novivisezione.org/mostra/index_en.htm

A resolution heading to the Spanish parliament would grant rights to “our non-human brothers.” Following the agenda of the Great Ape Project (GAP), the proposed law would declare that apes may not be killed or arbitrarily deprived of their liberty. Reuters reports the proposal would require the government to end the involuntary use of apes in circuses, television and dangerous experiments. “There is no sound moral reason why possession of basic rights should be limited to members of a particular species,” said philosopher and GAP co-founder Peter Singer. He believes the new law could eventually “pave the way forthe extension of rights to all primates, or all mammals, or all animals.” But some opponents say the legislation amounts to extremism. Wesley Smith of the faith-based Discovery Institute wrote in his blog: “Once people accept that premise (ape rights), Judeo-Christian philosophy goes to the guillotine.” He warned that apes could become viewed as more important than some humans.

Steve Newman
Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet
July5.2008

http://www.earthweek.com/Earthweek.pdf

"Get your Ass off of my Listening Frame!"

Satan's Men in the USA

Satan's Men in the USA

"Now that's what I call prayer. " Interesting study in 'Christian Identity' Theology. Dr. Wesley Swift of Aryan Nations: Church of Jesus Christ Christian.

'Hilarious' cartoon albums: Neggers/Faggots/Kikes/Beaners/Whites/Gooks/ZOG.

The all-time classic in this political cartoon genre: I'm sick and tired of being a liberal democrat. This series of cartoons was originally created by Tom Metzger's White Aryan Resistance (WAR) in the 1980's.

For what you did in the bedroom,
You are the damned!
(raising my arm). 
Repeat:  you are the damned!
Receive your Sentence from the Lord:
For what you did in the bedroom, the sentence is Death! 
(raising my arm).
God Against Us

VOICE: Unidentified exorcist, New York, September 1980
Do you hear voices?
You do, so you are possessed.
You are a believer, born again
And yet you hear voices and you are possessed.
Ok, are you ready to give us a listen?
Put your hand over there.
We want this figured out.
Ok sister;
You have a Jezebel spirit within you
You have a spirit of grief
You have a spirit of destruction.
Jezebel,
Spirit of destruction,
Spirit of grief,
I bind you with chains of iron
I bind you out of that bounded heaven.
Loosen your hold and come out of her now.
(It’s no good our sister.)
Out. Out Jezebel.
Come out now
(Go ahead)
Out in the name of Jesus
Come out destruction
Come out destruction
Come out grief
Jezebel you are going to listen to me Jezebel
(Go ahead sister; keep going.
Jezebel will abandon you)
She was intended by God to be a virtuous woman
You have no right to her
Her husband is the head of the house
Out Jezebel. Out. Out.. Let Jesus in.
That’s right
I break your power Jezebel
Loosen your hold on her mind
Go ahead sister
Go ahead sister
Use your head
That was easy
You can sit down now.
Jezebel

The Despoiling of America: How George W. Bush Became the Head of the New American Dominionist Church/State

How Can Evil Deeds Be Reconciled With Christian Beliefs?

It’s important to understand that the founders of Dominionism are sitting on the horns of a moral dilemma: How can a leader be both good and evil at the same time? For if biblical moral proscriptions are applicable to him, he will certainly suffer some form of censure. And if proscriptions are applicable, the leader could not lie to the citizenry with impunity or do evil so that “good” could be achieved. The answer to the dilemma of how a Dominionist leader could both do evil and still maintain his place of honor in the Christian community lies in the acceptance and adoption of the Calvinistic doctrine that James Hogg wrote about in The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.  (W.W. Norton, N.Y. 1970.)

This novel, published in 1824, is concerned with psychological aberration and as such, anticipates the literature of the twentieth century. The protagonist is a young man named Robert, who drenched in the religious bigotry of Calvinism, concluded that he was predestined before the beginning of the world to enter heaven, therefore no sin he committed would be held to his account. This freed Robert to become an assassin in the cause of Christ and His Church.

Fifty years ago a variation on the concept was expressed disapprovingly as, “Once saved—always saved.” In this view, salvation had nothing to do with “good works or a holy life.” A drunk who had a born again experience would be among God’s chosen elect whether he stopped drinking or not. But the logical extension of the reasoning is the idea that Christianity could have within itself not ex-sinners but active sinners: as Christian murderers, Christian pedophiles, Christian rapists, Christian thieves, Christian arsonists, and every other kind of socio-pathological behavior possible. As we have sadly witnessed of late the concept is broadly accepted within the American churches.

But the Dominionists needed the aberrant extension of Calvinism; they believe as did Calvin and John Knox that before the creation of the universe, all men were indeed predestined to be either among God’s elect or were unregenerate outcasts. And it is at this point Dominionists introduced a perversion to Calvinism—the same one James Hogg utilizes in his The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner—its technical name is “supralapsarianism.” It means essentially that the man called from before the foundation of the world to be one of the elect of God’s people, can do no wrong. No wonder then observers noted a definite religious swing in George W. Bush from Wesleyan theology to Calvinism early in his administration.[25]

How comforting the Calvinistic idea of a “justified sinner” is when one is utilizing Machiavellian techniques to gain political control of a state. It’s more than comforting; it is a required doctrine for “Christians” who believe they must use evil to bring about good. It justifies lying, murder, fraud and all other criminal acts without the fuss of having to deal with guilt feelings or to feel remorse for the lives lost through executions, military actions, or assassinations.

If this doctrine seems too wayward to believe as it might have done had I not heard a recent interview with a Pentecostal minister—rest assured the twisted doctrine is horribly alive and thriving in America today.

The interview conducted by Brian Copeland a news talk show host for KGO, San Francisco on September 5, 2003, was with the Reverend Donald Spitz of Pensacola, Florida who is involved with a Pro Life group in Virginia and with the Army of God. The occasion was the execution of Paul Hill, another Pentecostal minister who murdered a doctor and his body guard outside an abortion clinic. Hill was caught and convicted of the crimes. Spitz admitted that he was Paul Hill’s spiritual counselor. He said Hill died with the conviction he had done the Lord’s work. Spitz who approved of the murder said, “Someone else is going to handle the publishing of Paul Hill’s book On How to Assassinate.”

Spitz believed that Hill was completely justified in murdering the physician because, according to him, “twenty-six babies’ lives were saved by the killing.”  When Copeland pointed out that the scheduled abortions for the morning of the murders would have simply been postponed to another day—and that the lives of the fetuses were only extended for a day or so, Spitz refused to accept the argument.

Not surprisingly, Spitz opposed the use of birth control methods. Copeland asked, “If a woman is raped should she be forced to carry the fetus to term?” Spitz said, “Yes.”

“What if the pregnancy will kill the mother?” Spitz replied that under no circumstances could “the baby be killed.” When Spitz was asked, “Why haven’t you gone out and killed an abortionist?” he replied calmly, “God hasn’t told me to do the killing.”

The Despoiling of America

Pat Robertson and Operation Blessing

Pat Robertson's Katrina Cash

Every cloud has a silver lining. Hurricane Katrina has devastated New Orleans, leaving thousands dead and hundreds of thousands homeless, and plunging the entire city into chaos. In the hurricane's wake, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and its director, Michael Brown, forced out of his former job at the International Arabian Horse Association, with no credentials in disaster relief, have become targets of withering criticism. Yet FEMA's relief efforts have brought considerable assistance to at least one man who stands to benefit from Hurricane Katrina perhaps more than any other individual: Pat Robertson.

With the Bush Administration's approval, Robertson's $66 million relief organization, Operation Blessing, has been prominently featured on FEMA's list of charitable groups accepting donations for hurricane relief. Dozens of media outlets, including the New York Times, CNN and the Associated Press, duly reprinted FEMA's list, unwittingly acting as agents soliciting cash for Robertson. "How in the heck did that happen?" Richard Walden, president of the disaster-relief group Operation USA, asked of Operation Blessing's inclusion on FEMA's list. "That gives Pat Robertson millions of extra dollars."

Though Operation USA has conducted disaster relief for more than twenty-five years on five continents, like scores of other secular relief groups currently helping victims of Hurricane Katrina, it was omitted from FEMA's list. In fact, only two non-"faith-based" organizations were included. (One of them, the American Red Cross, is being blocked from entering New Orleans by FEMA's parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security.) FEMA, meanwhile, has reportedly turned away Wal-Mart trucks carrying food and water to the stricken city, teams of firemen from Maryland and Texas, volunteer morticians and a convoy of 1,000 boat owners offering to help rescue stranded flood victims. While relief efforts falter in the face of colossal bureaucratic incompetence, the Bush Administration's promotion of Operation Blessing has ensured that the floodwaters swallowing New Orleans will be a rising tide lifting Robertson's boat.

Robertson recently ignited a media firestorm when he called for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez during a broadcast of The 700 Club. He has also blamed the 9/11 attacks on America's tolerance of abortion and homosexuality and declared the Supreme Court a greater threat to the United States than Al Qaeda. Robertson assiduously cultivates his celebrity with remarks like these, casting himself as a divisive bigot to his foes and a righteous prophet to his allies in Christian right circles. But there is much more to Robertson than the headline-grabbing hothead he plays on TV.

Far from the media's gaze, Robertson has used the tax-exempt, nonprofit Operation Blessing as a front for his shadowy financial schemes, while exerting his influence within the GOP to cover his tracks. In 1994 he made an emotional plea on The 700 Club for cash donations to Operation Blessing to support airlifts of refugees from the Rwandan civil war to Zaire (now Congo). Reporter Bill Sizemore of The Virginian Pilot later discovered that Operation Blessing's planes were transporting diamond-mining equipment for the African Development Corporation, a Robertson-owned venture initiated with the cooperation of Zaire's then-dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

After a lengthy investigation, Virginia's Office of Consumer Affairs determined that Robertson "willfully induced contributions from the public through the use of misleading statements and other implications." Yet when the office called for legal action against Robertson in 1999, Virginia Attorney General Mark Earley, a Republican, intervened with his own report, agreeing that Robertson had made deceptive appeals but overruling the recommendation for his prosecution. Two years earlier, while Virginia's investigation was gathering steam, Robertson donated $35,000 to Earley's campaign--Earley's largest contribution. With Earley's report came a sense of vindication. "From the very beginning," Robertson claimed, "we were trying to provide help and assistance to those who were facing disease and death in the war-torn, chaotic nation of Zaire."

(Earley is now president of Prison Fellowship Ministries, an evangelical social-work organization founded by born-again, former Nixon dirty-trickster Charles Colson. PFM has accepted White House faith-based-initiative money and is currently engaged in hurricane relief efforts in Louisiana. Earley remains a close ally of Robertson.)

Absolved of his sins, Robertson dug his heels back in African soil. In 1999 he signed an $8 million agreement with Liberian tyrant Charles Taylor that guaranteed Robertson's Freedom Gold Ltd.--an offshore company registered to the same address as his Christian Broadcasting Network--mining rights in Liberia, and gave Taylor a 10 percent stake in the company. When the United States intervened in Liberia in 2003, forcing Taylor and the Al Qaeda operatives he was harboring to flee, Robertson accused President Bush of "undermining a Christian, Baptist president to bring in Muslim rebels to take over the country."

Robertson's scheming hasn't abated one bit. He is accused of violating his ministry's tax-exempt, nonprofit status by using it to market a diet shake he licensed this August to the health chain General Nutrition Corp. (Robertson continues to advertise the shake on his personal website.) He has withstood criticism from fellow evangelicals for investing $520,000 in a racehorse named Mr. Pat, violating biblical admonitions against gambling. He was even accused of "Jim Crow-style racial discrimination" by black employees who successfully sued his Christian Coalition in 2001 for forcing them enter its offices through a back door and eat in a segregated area (Robertson has since resigned).

The Bush Administration has studiously overlooked Robertson's misdeeds. In October 2002, just months after he denounced the White House's faith-based initiative as "a real Pandora's box"--and one month before midterm elections--Robertson pocketed $500,000 in government grants to Operation Blessing. Since then, with the sole exception of his criticism of the US intervention in Liberia, Robertson has served as a willing surrogate for the Administration. His Regent University gave John Ashcroft a cushy professorship to cool his heels after his contentious tenure as US Attorney General. And Robertson's legal foundation, the American Center for Law and Justice, is spearheading the effort to rally right-wing Christian support for Judge John G. Roberts Jr.'s confirmation as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Now, as fallout from the President's handling of Hurricane Katrina threatens to derail the GOP's long-term agenda, Robertson is back at the plate for Bush, echoing the White House's line that state and local authorities--and even the disaster victims themselves--are to blame for the tragedy engulfing New Orleans.

The September 5 edition of The 700 Club included a report by Christian Broadcasting Network correspondent Gary Lane from outside the ruined New Orleans Convention Center, which had housed mostly impoverished black disaster victims throughout the weekend. "A number of possessions left behind suggest the mindset of some of the evacuees," Lane said. "They include this voodoo cup with the saying, 'May the curse be with you.' " A shot of a plastic souvenir cup from one of New Orleans's countless trinket shops appeared on the screen. "Also music CDs with the titles Guerrilla Warfare and Thugs 'R' Us," Lane stated, pointing out a pile of rap CDs strewn on the ground.

The 700 Club's featured guest was Wellington Boone, a black minister invited by Robertson to provide a counterpoint to the ubiquitous Rev. Jesse Jackson. Boone is a member of the Coalition on Revival, a Christian Reconstructionist organization that advocates replacing the US Constitution with biblical law. Throughout his career, he has distinguished himself from his black clerical colleagues with such remarks as "I believe that slavery, and the understanding of it when you see it God's way, was redemptive" and "The black community must stop criticizing Uncle Tom. He is a role model."

Though Boone's appearance on The 700 Club consisted mostly of benign appeals for "laser-beam prayer," CBN featured a separate interview with Boone on its website in which he declared, "We need to consider the culture of those people still stranded in New Orleans. The looting of property, the trashing of property, et cetera, speaks to the basic character of the people." He added, "These people who have gone through slavery, segregation and the Voting Rights Act are doing this to themselves."

Boone's appearance on The 700 Club had been preceded by an interview with Operation Blessing President Bill Horan. Horan discussed his group's activities in Biloxi, Mississippi, where it plans to set up a mobile kitchen, and in Houston, Dallas and Beaumont, Texas, where it is disbursing cash grants to numerous, mostly unspecified mega-churches, purportedly to support their work with evacuated hurricane victims.

As for the people still stranded in New Orleans who "are doing this to themselves," as Boone said, Operation Blessing has a special plan: avoid them like the plague.

"I've actually heard reports that they [the people of Mississippi] were in worse trouble" than those in New Orleans, claimed Gordon Robertson, the son of Pat Robertson and vice president of The 700 Club. "They were actually harder hit."

"Oh, absolutely," agreed Horan.

At the segment's conclusion, Gordon Robertson asked Horan, "What can people do today? If you were asking for help today, what's the number-one need?"

"It's cash. Cash is what we need more than anything," Horan pleaded. "The more cash we get, the more good we can do." And the Bush Administration, through FEMA, is doing its best to insure that Pat Robertson is getting that cash just as quickly as humanly possible.

Max Blumenthal
The Nation
Sept07.2005

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050919/blumenthal

also see:

http://ce399.typepad.com/weblog/2004/11/pat_robertson_a.html

Review of Veering Right: How the Bush Administration Subverts the Law for Conservative Causes

Twilight of Secular Democracy in America?

[Charles] Tiefer's Veering Right: A Portrait of Bush's First Term, Focusing on Ashcroft

Tiefer's first chapter is devoted to former Attorney General John Ashcroft's role during Bush's first term as the main spokesperson for the religious right. And the second chapter chronicles the war on civil liberties led by Ashcroft.

These chapters are adeptly written, but much of the material may be familiar to readers - especially readers of this site.

More important to the understanding of current events is Tiefer's chronicling of how Senate and House rule changes, combined with Karl Rove's Machiavellian tactics and strong-arming by congressional leaders Tom DeLay and Bill Frist, have all but removed Democratic party (and even centrist Republican) participation in the legislative agenda. He notes how in the rare instance when moderates of either party were able to prevail in the first Bush term, it was often due to the rules as they then existed- including the now-endangered rule permitting filibusters.

Still, there was payback: When Vietnam War veteran and multiple-amputee Max Cleland (D-Ga.) voted to end the Republican-led filibuster stalling the passage of the first homeland security bill authored by Senator Lieberman, Karl Rove masterminded Cleland's electoral defeat.

Tiefer deftly details the role of big business in the Bush Administration - including how administrative agencies have become the pawns of Bush's corporate donors.

For example, former Interior Secretary Gail Norton and Former EPA head Christie Todd Whiteman oversaw massive revisions of regulations that benefit big business and threaten the environment.

Tiefer follows the money trail. In his view, no domestic policy agenda has ever been so strongly driven by the demands of corporate donors. As payback to donors, logging and snowmobiling in national parks are now allowed and public health is sacrificed to less stringent rules for the air we breathe and the water we drink.

Tiefer traces Bush's obsession with "revamping" social security to a courting of the financial industry. Wall Street, he points out, has much to gain from Bush's plan. Pushing for "private accounts" when even many of his own party question whether they are a safe and effective way to alter Social Security may be designed more to fill campaign war chests with financial industry dollars than to institute real reform.

Traditionally, big business has given more to the party in power, but has hedged its bets by giving some to the minority party. Not anymore. Tiefer argues that Bush programs are so pro-business (and anti-everyone-else) that Republicans are now, in essence, cornering the market on contributions from corporations and those who head them.

Donors' influence, Tiefer notes, isn't limited to domestic concerns: Tiefer explains how Vice President Cheney took control of money to "rebuild" Iraq in a way that virtually removed oversight of any spending.

He also describes how no-bid contracts to Halliburton and its affiliates, Bechtel, and other big players in the Bush money machine, cost the taxpayer millions. And he chronicles how Cheney and Rumsfeld saw to it that procurement regulations were rewritten to exempt businesses from accountability.

Tiefer argues that the Bush Administration is marked by lack of accountability to the taxpayer, often achieved by amending or evading laws and regulations designed to shine light on government procurement. Indeed, he makes a persuasive case that the taxpayer-funded Coalition Provisional Authority, now disbanded but then run by Paul Bremer, was purposely created as a virtual law-free entity to do the will of the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department.

Tiefer persuasively connects this lack of accountability with the Bush administration's worship of secrecy.

(excerpt)

Veering Right: How the Bush Administration Subverts the Law for Conservative Causes
by Charles Tiefer

Elaine Cassell
Counterpunch
May21.2005

http://www.counterpunch.org/cassel05212005.html

Review of With God on their Side: How Christian Fundamentalists Trampled Science, Policy, and Democracy in George W. Bush's White House

On the first anniversary of the 11 September attacks, George W Bush gave a speech at New York's Ellis Island, gateway to the US for millions of immigrants. "The ideal of America is the hope of all mankind," he said. "That hope still lights our way. And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness has not overcome it."

The language was derived from the Gospel of John, with "America" substituted for "God".

As Jim Wallis, editor of the liberal Christian magazine Sojourners, noted: "Bush seems to make the same mistake over and over again, confusing nation, church and God". But it's not a mistake; it's a policy. As Esther Kaplan's well researched book about Christian fundamentalism in Bush's White House demonstrates, it reflects the immense power acquired in recent years by the Christian right. This well-organised and handsomely funded lobby has succeeded in taking over much of the Republican Party and provided a vital electoral base for Bush's recent victory. Kaplan's exposé is welcome - and alarming.

Under pressure from the Christian right, the independence and scientific authority of public bodies like the Centers for Disease Control have been disastrously undermined. Health information on condoms has been censored. Mainstream scientists have been removed from government advisory panels in favour of Christian ideologues. Even the National Park Service has been suborned to promote a creationist view of the geological history of the Grand Canyon.

Bush's "faith-based initiative" is, in essence, a drive to hand over social service provision to Christian evangelical outfits. It is also, Kaplan notes, a "massive privatisation scheme" - a means to cut taxes for the wealthy while giving government funds to supporters like tele-evangelist Pat Robertson.

Kaplan investigates the grassroots providers of the "abstinence-only" sex education, personally endorsed by Bush and well funded by government. Not only have they failed to reduce teen pregnancies and STDs; their central aim is not serving, but proselytising. Again and again, she encounters individuals and groups who combine self-righteousness with almost complete indifference to the impact of their favoured policies on human lives.

Bush has sent delegations full of Christian-right luminaries to UN negotiations on Aids, children's health, population policy and women's rights. At one conference, their insistence on vetoing any references to reproductive rights, and opposition to a ban on executing minors, placed them in a minority of one. Even Iran and Sudan found the US evangelicals too extreme.

Residents of the 51st state should be disturbed by this book. Yet, as Kaplan notes, religion is one of the ties binding Prime Minister to President. "Presidential aids report Bush and Blair have discussed scripture and prayed together." That's something for us all to be worried about.

With God On Their Side: How Christian Fundamentalists Trampled Science, Policy, and Democracy in George W. Bush's White House
by Esther Kaplan
The New Press. 2004

Mike Marqusee
The Independent Online
Dec28.2004

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/reviews/story.jsp?story=596453

Synopsis

"We're a Christian nation...and the enemy is a guy named Satan." - General William Boykin, Undersecretary of Defense

For four years, Americans have lived under an administration that holds twice-weekly bible classes in the White House and daily prayer meetings at the Department of Justice.  The Christian right is no stranger to Washington's corridors of power.  But an unholy combination of a born-again president, a burgeoning family-values movement, and the canny political strategies of Karl Rove has delivered to today's Christian fundamentalists an unprecedented influence over American government.

As Esther Kaplan shows in this fast-paced investigation, no condom fact sheet or obscure drug advisory panel is too small to escape the roving eyes of Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, or the many other political advisory arms of the evengelical right.  While organizations that promote family planning and sex education are the targets of relentless audits, church groups receive hundreds of millions in federal dollars for programs promoting sexual abstinence, faith-based social services and marriage training, especially for the poor.  Religious considerations even shape the government's foreign aid policies and its war on terror.  And while much of the Christian right's influence could be quickly reversed with a change in administration, Bush's crusading makeover of the federal courts may undermine women's and gay rights - and bolster a corporate agenda - for decades to come.

*The ark and the park: Under pressure from Christian fundamentalists, the National Park Service has approved the display and sale of a creationist book that claims the Grand Canyon is only a few thousand years old, created by the flood that launched Noah's ark.

*Jews or gays need not apply: To sell his faith-based initiative to Christian conservatives, President Bush made discrimination legal for religious groups receiving federal funds.  They can now legally refuse to hire Jews, gays, unmarried mothers or anyone who fails to meet their moral code.

*In league with the devil: The administration has collaborated with states it considers sponsors of terror, such as Libya and Iran, to forward an anti-abortion agenda at the UN. Meanwhile, doctors sent to restore social services in Iraq were vetted to make sure they were anti-abortion.

*Christian pork: Under President Bush, millions of dollars of faith-based and abstinence-only grants have gone straight into the pockets of religious conservatives, including major grants to right-wing evangelical outfits such as the Christian Coalition and Prison Fellowship Ministries.  Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, and Hindu organizations have yet to receive a single cent of faith-based funding.

*Watch your language: HIV prevention researchers across the country have been told by top science officials to purge words such as "gay," "anal sex," and "needle exchange" from any communications - or risk losing funds.

http://www.thenewpress.com/newbooks/godside.htm

Review of Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy

In the historic Danbury letter of January 1, 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Messrs. Nehemiah Dodge and Others, a Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association, in the State of Connecticut:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State."

Jefferson might have winced at George W. Bush's faith-based initiatives, a program that gives religious organizations government money in order to have them perform what used to be government-based social programs. Today as our political system lurches further to the right, with a Republican-dominated House and Senate and now a Republican president, we need tools to understand the political right, including the theocratic wing. One timely resource is Frederick Clarkson's "Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy."

Though Clarkson's book was published four years ago, it is even more relevant today as an information source for activists, journalists and scholars. The first step toward making sense of the theocratic, anti-democratic right is defining the problem, and Clarkson defines it precisely in his well-documented look at a wide range of religious-right groups.

According to Clarkson, the theocratic right benefits when the public either overestimates or underestimates its influence. The issue becomes unclear if people overrate the religious right as "an unstoppable force," or write it off as "a fringe element."

What theocratic groups lack in numbers, they "make up in strategy and a disciplined use of resources," says Clarkson. He quotes religious right theorist and Reconstructionist, George Grant: "Since only about 60% of the people are registered to vote and only about 35% of those actually bother to get to the polls, a candidate only needs to get the support of a small, elite group of citizens to win. It only takes about 9% to gain a governorship. And it takes a mere 7% to gain an average mayoral or city council post." Grant added that the purpose of "Christian political action is therefore an acknowledgment of the theocracy of heaven and earth."

This theocratic "Christian political action" played a part in the many attacks on President Bill Clinton. Anti-abortion activist Randall Terry and others "issued pamphlets claiming, among other things, that a vote for Clinton was a sin against God," says Clarkson.

John Whitehead, a protégé of Reconstructionist founder R. J. Rushdoony, served as one of Paula Jones' attorneys. Whitehead also wrote a book, "The Separation Illusion," saying that because Thomas Jefferson wasn't present when the First Amendment was written, his views on church/state separation are not relevant to understanding the religion clauses of the First Amendment.

What do theocrats want? Christian Reconstructionists, a severe bunch, want to oust democracy and replace it with a theocratic form of government based on "Biblical Law." Some Reconstructionist leaders propose capital punishment for blasphemy, heresy and homosexuality. They argue that the Bible (their interpretation) should rule all aspects of life including government and law.

According to Clarkson, Reconstructionist David Chilton said, "The Christian goal for the world is the universal development of Biblical theocratic republics, in which every area of life is redeemed and placed under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the rule of God's Law." Reconstructionists R. J. Rushdoony and his son-in-law Gary North have served on the advisory board for the Council for National Policy, a right-wing think-tank that has also included among its members Jerry Falwell, Paul Weyrich, former Attorney General Ed Meese and G. W. Bush campaign adviser and former Christian Coalition leader, Ralph Reed.

Reed has tried to distance himself from Reconstructionism, but according to Clarkson, the [Christian] Coalition's membership tabloid, the 'Christian American,' promoted and sold a book co-authored by Reconstructionist George Grant which advocated capital punishment for homosexuality."

Clarkson quotes Reconstructionist Gary North, "Our ideas are now in wide circulation. They no longer depend on the skills or integrity of any one person . . . We are a decentralized movement. We cannot be taken out by a successful attack on any one of our institutional strongholds or any one of our spokesmen. Our authors may come and go (and have), but our basic worldview is now complete. We have laid down the foundations of a paradigm shift."

North has also said that women who have abortions should be publicly executed, "along with those who advised them to abort their children." (Clarkson's source: Gary North, "Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism," Institute for Christian Economics, 1989, p. 627.) Clarkson also points to the many vigilante arsons and bombings of abortion clinics, and the killing of abortion providers such as Dr. David Gunn in Pensacola, Florida.

According to Clarkson, another theocratic group, the Christian Identity movement "holds that Anglo-Saxons are the lost tribe of Israel and that blacks, Jews and other non-white or non-Christian groups constitute inferior, satanic 'mud people' who will ultimately be wiped out, and that God's people, the white Aryans, will rule the world."

Another theocratic group, Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, has funneled millions to Republican politicians, including the Bush family. Moon, who has repeatedly publicly stated he is the Messiah, has had legions of church followers show up at Republican political rallies. He has his fingers in a wide range of political and social organizations, from U. S. universities to the World Anti-Communist League, "an international alliance of conservative, fascist and Nazi groups, governments and individuals."

Theocratic groups sometimes receive help from powerful conservative foundations. Clarkson notes that Reconstructionist David Chilton has advocated "jury nullification," claiming juries should find the accused not guilty if they disapprove of the law under which the accused is charged. Jury nullification is most vigorously promoted by members of the far-right, including the Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA) of Helmville Montana.

"Much of FIJA's annual budget is provided by the Pittsburgh-based Carthage Foundation, which is controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife, an heir to the Mellon family fortune and the single largest bankroller of conservative institutions in the country—from the Heritage Foundation to Paul Weyrich's National Empowerment Television," according to Clarkson. He adds that the Carthage Foundation gave FIJA $25,000 each year in 1993 and 1994.

Physicist and Nobel Laureate Andrei Sakharov said, "A state is bound to be more dangerous if it is not governed openly by the people, but secretly by political forces that are not widely known or understood." For many Americans, it is not widely understood that theocratic right-wing organizations, and certain powerful conservative foundations that support them, share a common goal: undermining democracy.

Frederick Clarkson's "Eternal Hostility" is a reader-friendly, strongly-documented guide to understanding those organizations. With George W. Bush's faith-based initiatives chipping away at the wall between church and state, now is the ideal time to learn from this gem of a resource.

Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy
By Frederick Clarkson
Publisher: Common Courage Press
Paperback - 275 pages (March 1997)
ISBN: 1567510884

Carla Binion
Online Journal
Apr03.2001

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Books___Reviews/Binion040301/ binion040301.html

James Dobson: Separation of Church and State "in the bull's-eye"

James C. Dobson, the nation's most influential evangelical leader, is threatening to put six potentially vulnerable Democratic senators "in the 'bull's-eye' " if they block conservative appointments to the Supreme Court.

In a letter his aides say is being sent to more than one million of his supporters, Dr. Dobson, the child psychologist and founder of the evangelical organization Focus on the Family, promises "a battle of enormous proportions from sea to shining sea" if President Bush fails to appoint "strict constructionist" jurists or if Democrats filibuster to block conservative nominees.

Dr. Dobson recalled the conservative efforts that helped in the November defeat of Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Senate minority leader who led Democrats in using the filibuster to block 10 of Mr. Bush's judicial nominees.

"Let his colleagues beware," Dr. Dobson warned, "especially those representing 'red' states. Many of them will be in the 'bull's-eye' the next time they seek re-election."

He singled out Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Bill Nelson of Florida. All six are up for re-election in 2006.

James Manley, a spokesman for Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the new Democratic leader, said Democrats had allowed 204 judicial appointments to move forward in Mr. Bush's first term.

"James Dobson needs to take a moment to focus on the facts," Mr. Manley said. He called Dr. Dobson a "front for the White House."

Ralph G. Neas, president of the liberal group People for the American Way, which has often opposed conservative court nominees, said, "Mr. Dobson's arrogance knows no limits." He added: "This is the kind of tactic that ultimately backfires. These senators have served their constituents well and have courageously voted their consciences. I don't think they will take kindly to threats from Mr. Dobson, and I don't think the voters will either."

Dr. Dobson's activities represent a new level of direct partisan engagement on his part. Unlike other conservative Christian leaders, Dr. Dobson owes his grass-roots following primarily to his partly clinical, partly biblical advice on matters like marriage and child-rearing. Before supporting Mr. Bush, he had never endorsed a presidential candidate.

In the aftermath of the election, some of Dr. Dobson's allies are warning their fellow evangelicals not to be seduced by political deal-making. In "an open letter to the Christian church" last month, Charles W. Colson, the born-again Nixon aide and another influential Christian conservative, warned against listing demands of the president or other elected officials.

"To think that way demeans the Christian movement," Mr. Colson wrote with his associate Mark Earley. "We are not anybody's special interest group."

In an interview in his office in Colorado Springs, Dr. Dobson acknowledged that his plunge into partisan politics had irrevocably changed his public image. "I can't go back, nor do I want to," he said. "I will probably endorse more candidates. This is a new day. I just feel a real need to make use of this visibility."

He said that despite initial concerns, his political activities did not appear to have diverted donations from Focus on the Family. He created a sister lobbying organization during the last election, and the two organizations' combined budgets grew to a projected $146 million in 2004, from about $130 million in 2003, with a target of $170 million for 2005.

Dr. Dobson said he was prepared for some disappointments from Mr. Bush. For example, he said, when the president says the country is not ready to overturn the Supreme Court precedents supporting abortion rights, "it bothers me a lot." But Dr. Dobson said he was confident that the president would appoint socially conservative nominees for the courts.

He said of Mr. Bush, "He does not take the bully pulpit and use it effectively." He added, "But when the chips are down, he does the right thing."

Dr. Dobson said he was concentrating his political activities mainly on the court. "The next battle will be over the replacement for Rehnquist," he said, referring to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who is being treated for thyroid cancer. "That is not something we can just yawn about."

He said he was hoping that Mr. Daschle's defeat would scare other Democrats. Dr. Dobson said he had been working for Mr. Daschle's defeat since August 2003, when he attended a rally to support Roy S. Moore, then chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, in his unsuccessful legal battle to keep a monument to the Ten Commandments in his courthouse. The crowd's reaction demonstrated the depth of popular resentment of liberal court decisions, Dr. Dobson said.

Spokesmen for all but one of the senators Dr. Dobson mentioned declined to comment or did not return phone calls.

David DiMartino, a spokesman for Mr. Nelson of Nebraska, said the senator was already an opponent of abortion rights and had never supported a filibuster of one of Mr. Bush's appellate nominees.

"Dr. Dobson knows that," Mr. DiMartino said. "The senator and Dr. Dobson have discussed it before. The fact that the media has the letter before the targeted senators indicates his intention has more to do with the media than with persuading anybody in the Senate."

David D. Kirkpatrick
The New York Times
Jan01.2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/01/politics/01dobson.html

Pat Robertson and the White Separatist Movement

David Duke, wearing Klan robes, attends a Klan rally in Euless, Texas in June, 1979.

One of the least-noticed aspects of [David] Duke’s [former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan 1975-1979] campaign for governor was the endorsement of Reverend Billy McCormick, the head of the Louisiana chapter of the Christian Coalition. Led by the televangelist Pat Robertson, the Christian Coalition had emerged as the most powerful grassroots force within the Republican Party. In alliance with Duke’s organization, the Christian Coalition proceeded to gain control of the GOP state organization in Louisiana. This was part of the precinct-by-precinct, state-by-state drive to take over the Republican Party across the country. Toward this end, Robertson’s foot soldiers were initially told to soft-pedal their religious message and if necessary, conceal their affiliation with the Christian Coalition, which supposedly operated as a nonpartisan, tax-exempt group.

By 1995, the Christian Coalition claimed to have more than a million and a half members. Its collaboration with Duke in Louisiana was surprising at first glance, given the former Klansman’s on going antipathy toward Israel and Jews in general, which put him at loggerheads with pro-Zionist evangelicals like Robertson. But Robertson’s support for Israel had little to do with the sincere affection for Jews, whom he viewed as “spiritually deaf” and “spiritually blind”; rather, it was predicted on end-of-world New Testament prophesy, which stipulated that all Jews must gather in the State of Israel before the Second Coming, whereupon they would be converted en masse to Christianity or killed in the battle of Armageddon.

The Christian Coalition’s sympathy  for David Duke is more understandable upon closer examination of Pat Robertson’s paranoid ideology. His bestselling 1992 book, The New World Order, purports to reveal an elaborate, centuries-old conspiracy dominated by a satanically spawned clique of Freemasons, occultist, and European bankers who just happen to have Jewish names. Refurbishing the old canard about a handful of rich Jews who backed both godless Communism and monopoly capitalism as a part of the sinister, long-range plan, the Christian Coalition commander claimed this ongoing super conspiracy was behind everything from the French and Russian Revolution to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

Robertson’s musings resembled not only anti-Jewish motifs of the past-- he listed several notorious anti-Semites in his bibliography--*but militia fables of the present. In his book and on his ubiquitous cable network, he railed against one-world government and the United Nations. Robertson’s nightly TV show, The 700 Club, also promoted the militia line on Waco and gun control. Spokesmen for the Militia of Montana appeared on this program as experts, commenting upon photos of black helicopters and other misinterpreted phenomena there were allegedly threatening American citizens. New York Times columnist Frank Rich summed it up best when he accused Pat Robertson of throwing “gasoline on the psychic fires of the untethered militias running across this country.”

Although they were both nourished by the odiferous compost of conspiracy theory and hate that has long moldered on the American margins, the Christian Coalition and the militia movement parted ways in their approach to politics. Robertson’s Christian soldiers went the mainstream electoral route, seeking to take over the system from within, while the militias picked up their guns and declared war against the “Republicrats” who ran the country at the behest of sinister, hidden forces. Like Robertson, some militia stalwarts fretted about Freemasons and the eighteenth-century Illuminati; other obsessed over the international Jewish cabal. Whether explicitly racialist or not, these conspiratorial motifs reflected the same anti-Semitic archetypes- although this was not readily apparent to most militia initiated. Such widespread ignorance shows the profound potential for hatred that lurked on the far Right fringe, where yesterday’s secret societies could easily shape-shift into ZOG.

*(When challenged by The New York Times [March 4, 1995], Robertson did not repudiate any of his anti-Semitic sources. Instead, he insisted that his book was “carefully researched [with] seven single-spaced pages” of references. One of the so-called authorities Robertson cited with Eustace Mullins, an advisory board member of the Liberty Lobby’s Populist Action Committee, who depicted the Federal Reserve as a front for a handful of sinister Jews. Described by the Spotlight as “the dean of American’s populist authors,” Mullins was a frequent speaker at Liberty Lobby events over the years. While a member of the neo-Nazi National Renaissance Party in the early 1950s, Mullin penned an article entitled “Adolf Hitler: An Appreciation,” which he never repudiated, Yet, it did not hurt Robertson’s standing as a GOP power broker to be associated with this raving Jew-baiter, who recently praised the militias as “the only organized threat to the Zionist’s absolute control of the U.S.”)

Martin A. Lee . The Beast Reawakens : Fascism's Resurgence from Hitler's Spymasters to Today's Neo-Nazi Groups & Right-Wing Extremists. Little, Brown & Company 1997. Pgs 358-360.

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion..."

US Treaty With Tripoli 1796

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Authored by American diplomat Joel Barlow in 1796, the following treaty was sent to the floor of the Senate, June 7, 1797, where it was read aloud in its entirety and unanimously approved. John Adams, haven seen the treaty, signed it and proudly proclaimed it to the Nation.

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/treaty_tripoli.html

The Cynical Relationship Between Zionists and the Christian Right

The members of the Christian Coalition of America are some of the most passionate defenders of Israel in the United States. There's just one catch: they want to convert all Jews to Christianity.

At first sight, the scene is very familiar: one that happens in Washington DC and other major American cities all the time. On the platform, an Israeli student is telling thousands of supporters how the horrors of the year have only reinforced his people's determination. "Despite the terror attacks, they'll never drive us away out of our God-given land," he says.

This is greeted with whoops and hollers and waving of Israeli flags and the blowing of the shofar, the Jewish ceremonial ram's horn. Then comes the mayor of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert, who is received even more rapturously. "God is with us. You are with us." And there are more whoops and hollers and flag-waves and shofar-blows.

This support is not offered with any ifs or buts either. The placards round the hall insist that every inch of the Holy Land should belong to Israel and that there should never be a Palestinian state. These assertions are backed up by biblical quotations. It could be a rally in Jerusalem for those Israelis who think Ariel Sharon is a dangerous softie.

But something very strange is going on here. There are thousands of people cheering for Israel in the huge Washington Convention Centre. But not one of them appears to be Jewish, at least not in the conventional sense. For this is the annual gathering of a very non-Jewish organisation indeed: the Christian Coalition of America.

And the strangest thing of all is not their support, which is a novel and important development in American politics, but the thinking that lies behind it - which is altogether more chilling to Israel's traditional supporters than all the cheers and flags would suggest. You might also describe it as downright weird.

In a country where weekly church attendance is about 20 times the level it is in Britain (40% v 2%), the relationship between religion and politics in the US is intense. And there is little doubt that, last spring, when President Bush dithered and dallied over his Middle East policy before finally coming down on Israel's side, he was influenced not by the overrated Jewish vote, but by the opinion of Christian "religious conservatives" - the self-description of between 15 and 18% of the electorate. When the president demanded that Israel withdraw its tanks from the West Bank in April, the White House allegedly received 100,000 angry emails from Christian conservatives.

A decade ago, when the president's father was in the White House, his eldest son's election-time job was to act as unofficial ambassador to this group, offer assurances that they and the administration were at one on such matters as abortion and pornography and prayer in schools, the issues they like to group together as "family values". US-Israel relations, which reached rock bottom when George Bush Sr was president and the obstreperous Yitzhak Shamir was Israeli prime minister, were never an issue.

What's changed? Not the Book of Genesis, which is what Michael Brown, the coalition's church liaison officer, quotes when you ask him to explain the support for Israel. "And I will make of thee a great nation," the Lord told Abraham, "And I will bless them that bless thee and curse them that curse thee."

On the conference floor, however, the explanation has more to do with the end of the world than the start of it. What has really changed is the emergence of the doctrine known as "dispensationalism", popularised in the novels of the Rev Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. LaHaye and Jenkins may not mean much to you or to the readers of the New York Times Book Review, but the ninth volume of their Left Behind series sold three million hardback copies in the US last year, eclipsing John Grisham.

Central to the theory - based on a reading of scripture Brown would prefer not to discuss - is the Rapture, the second coming of Christ, which will presage the end of the world. A happy ending depends on the conversion of the Jews. And that, to cut a long story very short, can only happen if the Jews are in possession of all the lands given to them by God. In other words, these Christians are supporting the Jews in order to abolish them.

Oh yes, agreed Marion Pollard, a charming lady from Dallas who was selling hand-painted Jerusalem crystal in the exhibition hall at the conference. "God is the sovereign. He'll do what he pleases. But based on the scripture, those are the guidelines." She calls herself a fervent supporter of Israel, as does Lewis Hall of North Carolina. "I believe they do have to accept the Messiah." And if they don't? "I believe they will when they know who He is. I believe that one day they are going to wake up. It might take a third world war to do that."

Meanwhile, outside the hall was Leanne Cariker from Oklahoma, carrying a placard saying "Just Say No! To A Palestinian State". Her support of Israel is based on the same premise. "The Bible says there is no way to worship God except through the son," she explains.

To add to the bizarreness of this scene, she was standing opposite another group of demonstrators: anti-Zionist Hasidic Jews from Brooklyn in long black coats, who oppose the state of Israel based on their own reading of the Bible. Confused? You should be. Poor Leanne Cariker was. "I'm not against them," she wailed. "I'm for them. I believe they're God's chosen people."

You might think these Christian activists represent the furthest shores of American politico-religious wackiness. The politicians don't think so. This conference began with a videotaped benediction straight from the Oval office. Some of the most influential republicans in Congress addressed the gathering including - not once, but twice - Tom DeLay, who is hot favourite to take over as majority leader of the House of Representatives after the midterm elections on November 5, thus becoming arguably the most powerful man on Capitol Hill.

"Are you tired of all this, are you?" he yelled to the audience. "Nooooooo!" they roared back. "Not when you're standing up for Jews and Jesus, that's for sure," he replied.

Jews habitually do not stand up for Jesus (although this conference did have a sprinkling of Messianic Jews, who do just that). But most Jewish leaders have opted to shrug, accept the Christians' support and let them whistle for their conversions. That certainly goes for Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, reportedly greeted "like a rock star" by Christian evangelicals in Jerusalem last month. More thoughtful leaders are at least concerned.

"I'm going to take the support because Israel needs it," said Rabbi Jerome Epstein, vice-president of the US's conservative (in this context middle-of-the-road) Jewish organisation, the United Synagogue. "Their theology is in a different world. We can cope with it. If I convince them not to support Israel, are they going to give up their attempt to convert Jews? No."

Not everyone accepts this. "They don't love the real Jewish people," the author Gershom Gorenberg told the CBS programme 60 Minutes. "They love us as characters in their story, in their play, and that's not who we are. If you listen to the drama that they are describing, essentially it's a five-act play in which the Jews disappear in the fourth act."

This is not something speakers at the rally are anxious to emphasise. DeLay was followed by Pat Robertson, the coalition's founder, sometime presidential candidate and the very personification of the successful American TV evangelist: blow-dried hair, stick-on smile, expensive suit, honeyed voice and certainty of tone.

Robertson prefers to dwell on Arab plans to drive Israel into the sea and the iniquity of Yasser Arafat and "his gang of thugs". But he also cites the stories of Joshua and David to prove Israel's ownership of Jerusalem "long before anyone had heard of Mohammed".

Robertson has now retired from the coalition, leaving it in the hands of Roberta Combs, a grandmother from South Carolina who has the longest and most scarlet fingernails I have ever seen. She scratches them across the table when she wants to make a point. In an interview, her most vigorous point is in support of Bush. "I think he's a great president. I think he's a caring person. First of all, he's a Christian, which I identify with. He's pro-family, he's pro-life, he's a friend of mine."

Combs is not in the Robertson league as a communicator. And when I shift the conversation round to Israel, she discovers an urgent need to attend to her toddler grandson, leaving me with her aide Michael Brown. The prevailing view is that the coalition, a powerful voice in the early 90s, is not the force it was.

This is partly held to be due to her failings, and partly to the rhetorical excesses of Robertson and his ally Jerry Falwell, leader of the Moral Majority, especially in September last year when Falwell, on Robertson's TV show, blamed the attacks on, among others, "the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians".

The other week Falwell called Mohammed a terrorist, which might have accounted for his unexplained non-appearance at the conference. But even the coalition's most tireless opponent does not sense any kind of victory. Rev Barry Lynn, himself an ordained minister and head of the pressure group Americans United for Separation of Church and State, likes to start his speeches by saying: "The good news is that the Christian Coalition is fundamentally collapsing. The bad news is that the people who ran it are all in the government." Whenever he goes over to the department of justice, he keeps running into Pat Robertson's old lawyers.

The linkage between the Christian right and the Republican party is getting ever stronger, especially in the electorally crucial states of the south and west. And Lynn is alarmed at the prospects for the midterm elections. The Republicans are quite likely to regain control of the Senate, removing the roadblock that currently stops the president appointing conservative judges ("impartial judges", according to most Republicans; "rabid rightwingers," according to their opponents) to lower courts and, when the expected vacancies arise, to the supreme court. This will give the right, and most particularly the religious right, unprecedented influence over all three branches of government in Washington.

"Karl Rove [Bush's political guru] has said publicly you cannot alienate your base. You cannot alienate that 18% of religious conservatives. You don't mess with these people," says Lynn. "They want you to be just as they are. And Bush is just as they are. He may waffle on one or two issues, such as stem-cell research. But fundamentally he comes down on their side."

In the short term this might not alter American life all that much. It might take a generation for the Supreme Court to roll back the restrictions that, for instance, forbid prayer in school. The abortion debate is for the moment dormant. Neither the churches nor the government show any sign of imposing teenage sexual abstinence any time soon. Not before, say, the conversion of the Jews.

One of the points Robertson likes to emphasise is to reject accusations that the coalition's support of Israel is a "Johnny come lately experience". "We've been with them through thick and thin," he says. This is a point made by several of his supporters, one of whom presses on me a little booklet with quotes from Christian theologians on the subject. He especially recommends the one from Jonathan Edwards, the 18th-century puritan divine. "The Jews in all their dispersions shall cast away their old infidelity," said Edwards, "and shall have their hearts wonderfully changed, and abhor themselves for their past unbelief and obstinacy. They shall flow together to the blessed Jesus."

Matthew Engel
The Guardian
Oct28.2002

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4533425-103552,00.html


Evangelical Christians and Israel

Jerry Falwell told 60 Minutes this weekend that the American Bible belt is Israel's "safety belt." What follows is an article Beliefnet ran earlier this year explaining why many evangelical Christians are so committed to Israel

Evangelical Christians have overwhelmed the White House switchboard in recent weeks with phone calls urging President Bush to continue supporting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. In early May, more than 250 Christian leaders attended a prayer breakfast at the Israeli embassy. Last week, former Christian Coalition chairman Ralph Reed announced the formation of a Christian "Stand for Israel" campaign.

There have been many recent media reports of this "strange bedfellows" relationship between Jews--here and in Israel--and the conservative Christians who love them, especially since the relationship seems to be influencing government policy. Some have explained it as a result of the declining dependence on Arab oil, which meant leaders here needn't be as allied with Arab countries. Others suggest that after Sept. 11, Americans felt an immediate, gut-wrenching identification with Israelis, who have lived with the Muslim militant threat for decades.

But the least understood, and probably most important, reason has been missed by most secular analysts. Evangelicals support Israel because of Biblical prophecy, including passages that tie the survival of Israel to the Second Coming of Jesus.

According to their reading of the Bible, God established a covenant with Abraham in the Book of Genesis. Essentially, says Beliefnet columnist Richard Land, a Southern Baptist leader with close ties to the Bush Administration, evangelicals support Israel because they believe "God blesses those that bless the Jews and curses those who curse the Jews. Consequently, we believe America needs to bless the Jews and Israel, because if we bless the Jews and support Israel, God blesses us. And if we don't, God curses us."

But it goes beyond that. The establishment--and continuation--of the State of Israel is essential to set the stage for the imminent return of Jesus. At the time of the Second Coming, these Christians believe, Jesus will descend from heaven, subdue all of Israel's enemies and take believers to heaven in what is known as the Rapture--literally, they will ascend to the clouds to be in heaven. This series of events ushers in the end-times. According to conservative Christians' reading of the Book of Revelation, this won't happen unless Israel exists in the Holy Land.

This belief is shared by most of the major evangelical leaders--among them Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, Beverly LaHaye, Jack Hayford, and Oral Roberts--all of whom are avidly pro-Israel. Even Billy Graham shares this sentiment, despite the recent dust-up over his anti-Semitic remarks in the Nixon White House.

The evangelical view of the Book of Revelation, meanwhile, has gained widespread support among the American public because of the wildly popular Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye (husband of Christian activist Beverly LaHaye) and Jerry Jenkins, which has sold more than 30 million copies in the seven years since it was launched.

This view--though not new--is having an effect. It very likely explains why President Bush hasn't pressured Israel to curb its crackdown on Palestinians in recent weeks.

According to Land, evangelicals' relationship with Jews and Israel intensified after World War II, partly because of the Holocaust but mostly because the establishment of Israel seemed to evangelicals to prove the Bible's prophecies. By the 1950s and 1960s, Land said, affinity with Israel was an "essential part" of the Southern Baptist churches he grew up in around Texas. In fact, the late W.A. Criswell, the great pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, traveled to Israel in the early 1950s and met with David Ben Gurion. Later, he often preached that Jews' return to their land was the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.

By the 1970s, Hal Lindsey wrote the best-selling book of the decade, The Late Great Planet Earth which introduced this view of biblical prophecy to a wide audience. It was a kind of non-fiction forerunner of today's Left Behind series. Lindsey translated the "fire and brimstone" of the Book of Revelation into nuclear war and wrote that the 1960s upheaval showed the end was near.

So if evangelicals believe human history is following a predetermined divine script, and they and Israel are simply playing their assigned roles, why even bother to influence the outcome of Israel's fate?

As it turns out, evangelicals are somewhat opaque on this question.

According to Land--and most evangelical scholars--Israel's existence is critical. "We're one step closer to the end-times than we were before the Jews came back into their land because my understanding of biblical prophecy is that Israel is established in the land at the time that the events of the Second Coming take place," he says.

But he--and other evangelicals--nearly always add: "The Bible tells us no man knows the hour or the day of his coming."

Deborah Caldwell
Beliefnet.com

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/106/story_10687.html

The Relationship Between The Bush Family and Rev. Sun Myung Moon

(1) Frederick Clarkson (Eternal Hostility, Common Courage Press, 1997) reports that Moon has stated his goal is the "subjugation of the American government and population." (Clarkson's source: John Judis, "Rev. Moon's Rising Political Influence: His Empire Is Spending Big Money To Try To Win Favor With Conservatives," U. S. News and World Report, March 27, 1989.)

(2) According to the same U. S. News article, Moon also said, "History will make the position of Rev. Moon clear," and that "his enemies, the American people and government will bow down before him."

(3) Clarkson reports that Moon has also said, "The entire world is our goal . . . Absolute obedience to the Father [Moon]-that one thing will bring certain victory . . . People herein America have to recognize the ability and power of Reverend Moon." (Excerpt from New Hope News, November 25, 1974, Reprinted in Frederick Miller's "Confusion at the Fronts, Part three," True Light Educational Ministry, 1996.)

(4) On May 1, 1997, Moon told a group of followers that "the country that represents Satan's harvest is America." (Unification News, June 1997.)

(5) In the 1970s, Moon was investigated by a congressional committee headed by then-U. S. Representative Donald Fraser (D-MN). Robert Boettcher was staff director of the Fraser committee. Boettcher's interviews with former Moonies revealed that Moon was "appalled" by American individualism and considered moving to Germany"where people were trained in totalism." (Robert Boettcher, "Gifts of Deceit: Sun Myung Moon, Tongsun Park and the Korean Scandal," Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980)

(6) Boettcher writes that according to former Unification church members, Moon's program to "instill discipline" included showing "Nazi films on organizing Hitler Youth."

George H. W. Bush is one of the most politically powerful defenders of Moon and the WashingtonTimes.

According to a Reuters report, ("Bush Praises Moon as 'Man of Vision,'" November 25, 1996) when Moon held a banquet in Buenos Aires celebrating his new "Spanish-language newspaper for the whole of Latin America," his guest at the event, George H. W. Bush, praised Moon's "respect for editorial independence."

Bush's speech "was full of praise" for Moon's Washington Times, according to Reuters. The report also says Bush described Moon as "the man with the vision." Reuters said Bush later traveled with Moon to neighboring Uruguay"to help him inaugurate a seminary in the capital, Montevideo. to train 4,200 young Japanese women to spread the word of his Church of Unification across Latin America."

"I want to salute Reverend Moon who is the founder of the WashingtonTimes and of the new paper here," Bush said. According to Reuters, the Washington Postreported that Bush was paid $100,000 for his Buenos Aires appearance.

Journalist Robert Parry reported in Consortium News ("Dark Side of Rev. Moon: Buying the Right") that part of Moon's strategy for gaining political influence is to approach conservative leaders when they need money. "Moon quietly infuses money and gains the leader's gratitude," writes Parry.

In order to gain power, Moon has also aligned himself with organizations further to the right than the New Right Republicans, among them the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). The WACL, according to Frederick Clarkson, is "an international alliance of conservative, fascist and Nazi groups, governments and individuals."

The head of the Unification Church in Japan was a member of the WACL board of directors. Clarkson says "the Japanese section of WACL, Shokyo Rengo, was founded in 1968 as an alliance between top Unification Church officials and leaders of the Yakuza (Japanese organized crime), notably Yoshio Kodama."

Clarkson writes that "under the leadership of retired U. S. Army General John K. Singlaub," WACL helped provide money and weapons to the Nicaraguan Contras "particularly after Congress cut off CIA-channeled funding to the Contras in 1984." Moon's front group CAUSA was one of the first groups to give the Contras "humanitarian aid." (Clarkson's source: Jon Lee Anderson and Scott Anderson, "Inside the League: The Shocking Expose of How Terrorists, Nazis and Latin American Death Squads have Infiltrated the World Anti-Communist League," Dodd, Mead and Company, 1986.)

Moon's decades of courting influential American leaders in order to gain political power in this country have been fruitful. Reporter Joe Conason said that at a Washington gathering celebrating the George W. Bush inauguration, at a "prayer luncheon" held in the Hyatt hotel ballroom on Capitol Hill on 1/19/01, Moon received an award for his "work in support of traditional family values." The featured speaker was John Ashcroft. (Conason, The New York Observer, February 12, 2001.)Tuesday ( 2/20/01), a C-Span moderator said Rev. Moon plans to promote his abstinence program in schools with the help of George W. Bush's Faith-Based Initiative program. How might that work? Frederick Clarkson points out that Moon has been trying to get his tentacles into U. S.schools to promote his rightwing views for many years.

The World Medical Health Foundation (WMHF) is Moon Front group. WMHF chief, Dr. William Bergman, once-director of Moon's Unification church, produced a slide program for schools called "The Private Plague: AIDS, Sexually Transmitted Diseases & a Strategy for our Youth at Risk." Bergman's program teaches that these diseases have roots in the "civil rights movement" which allegedly led to "moral relativism." (Clarkson's source: The Private Plague slide program manual, p. 23.)

Will Bush's Faith-Based Initiative program assist Moon in his efforts to teach your children that the civil rights movement led to moral relativism, which then led to sexually transmitted diseases?

Some Republicans have accepted Moon as part of their "family values" movement. For the Religious Right, the family values issue means support for the traditional nuclear family. However, Moon teaches recruits to abandon their biological families and to accept Moon and his wife as their "True Parents" and the UnificationChurch as their "True Family."

Clarkson says Moon has often used George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush as a "warm-up act" at his "family values" rallies. When Bush gave a series of speeches at events sponsored by Moon's wife's organization, the World Federation for World Peace (WFWP), he claimed he did not know Moon was involved. Instead, Bush praised the WFWP for its "great emphasis on family."

Bush also said, "Until I see something about the Women's Federation that troubles me, I will continue to encourage them." (Clarkson's sources: Peter McGill et al, "Ed Schreyer and the Moonies, Maclean's, October 23, 1995; Andrew Pollock, "Bush Host in Japan Tied to Rev. Moon," The New York Times, September 4, 1995.)
Here are a few items that might discourage Bush from supporting Moon's kind of family values. Robert Boettcher's investigation for the Fraser committee revealed that Moon teaches recruits that Satan works through their biological parents, and that they must accept their True Parents, Rev. Moon and his wife, and reject their "flesh" parents.

A central tenet taught to Moon recruits is "Heavenly Deception." Recruits, says Botettcher, are told the "non-Moon world is evil. It must be lied to so it can help Moon take over. Then it can become good under Moon's control." According to Boettcher, "Moon teaches that lying is necessary when one is doing God's work, whether selling flowers in the street or testifying under oath."

Boettcher reports that an aspect of another Moon tenet, the Divine Principle, is the idea that Jesus' love was weak and that he failed as a leader, because he was unable to motivate his disciples to kill for him or to die in his place. Moon claims he is taking up where Jesus left off, and, says Boettcher, Moon "sees Christian churches as furthering Satan's cause by rejecting him [Moon]."

The Moon story is about more than a megalomaniacal tyrant and his isolated followers. It is also about the fact that since George W. Bush took power, Moon benefits from Bush's Faith-Based Initiatives program. Moon also gains prestige and political influence when he is honored by Bush supporters, such as John Ashcroft and others who attended the January 19 "prayer luncheon."

Thanks to the Bush family and their imposed "dynasty," today Moon has more power to undermine American democracy and individualism. He has more power to work to "subjugate the American government and population." He has more power to try to make "his enemies, the American people and government bow down before him."

Thanks to his association with Bush, Moon now has more power to encourage "people here in America recognize the ability and power of Reverend Moon." He has more power to convince people that "the country that represents Satan's harvest is America." He has more power to lure recruits and have them "trained in totalism" and to "instill discipline" by showing his trainers "Nazi films on organizing Hitler Youth."

Moon has been able to infiltrate and gain a power base in the U. S.primarily because of one thing: secrecy. His history includes hiding his real intentions behind front groups and deceptive "advertising," whether hawking for donations, luring unsuspecting recruits or currying favor with politicians.

(Excerpts)

Carla Binion
Online Journal
Feb22.2001

Tim LaHaye: Apocalypse Pusher and The Council for National Policy

Tim LaHaye: Apocalypse Pusher

Over the last nine years, the "Left Behind" series, which is based on Dr. LaHaye's literal, bloody interpretation of the Book of Revelation, has become one of the biggest surprise hits in American popular culture. The first 11 novels have sold more than 40 million copies. The authors have unseated John Grisham as the best-selling novelists for adults and, in some places where evangelical Christians are common, the books rival the Harry Potter series in sales. Along the way, the "Left Behind" books have drawn sharp criticism for elements like their emphasis on the conversion of Jews and their focus on the brutal rule of the Antichrist, who happens to head the United Nations.

"Glorious Appearing" is the most anticipated and potentially most controversial "Left Behind" novel yet: it is the installment in which Jesus himself finally returns.

"There is not going to be anything bigger than that," said Chuck Wallington, president of the Christian Supply store in Spartanburg. He said he expected 1,000 buyers to turn up tomorrow for a book signing.

Secular stores like Books-a-Million, Barnes & Noble and Wal-Mart are planning major promotions as well. Wal-Mart has been giving away copies of the first chapter. Retailers ordered more than two million copies, more than Hillary Rodham Clinton's fast-selling memoir sold in its first six months on the market. [emphasis mine]

Some theologians call the novels a dangerous distortion of Scripture. In an interview, Joseph C. Hough Jr., president of Union Theological Seminary in New York, warned that the novels' preoccupation with the suffering that many evangelical Christians foresee for unbelievers "leads people to think that Christianity is about cosmic fire insurance."

Dr. Hough argues that the novels misconstrue Revelation to mean that there are only two sides to every question, God's and the Devil's.

"It's the same sort of vision of the world that is reflected in some of our recent presidential administrations, that there is the world of good and the world of evil, like `the axis of evil' and `the evil empire,' " he said. "The enemies of America are the enemies of God. It is very dangerous, because it leads you to do things in the expectation that everyone who is against you is evil."

In an interview last week at his home in Palm Springs, Calif., however, Dr. LaHaye, 77, said that his only agenda was spreading the Gospel, by illustrating both the gruesome perdition ahead for unbelievers and the merciful salvation awaiting faithful Christians. What's more, he said, he was merely relying on what he considers the literal meaning of the words of the Bible.

"If I invented the story, you're right, I'd be terribly arrogant," he said, "but I didn't invent the story."

Still, he acknowledged the novels reflected the conservative Christian ideology that made him a political activist earlier in his career. As a pastor in San Diego 40 years ago, he became convinced of a brewing "battle for the mind" pitting atheists on the one side against evangelical Christians on the other, he said.

To fight the battle, he founded a system of Christian schools and a Christian college in California and later joined Jerry Falwell in the Moral Majority. His wife, Beverly LaHaye, is founder of a conservative Christian organization, Concerned Women for America. But by the early 1990's, Dr. LaHaye said, he had stepped back from politics for full-time study of Biblical prophecy.

He came up with the idea of turning prophecy into fiction about 18 years ago, and he eventually teamed with Mr. Jenkins, a prolific and best-selling Christian author, to spin Bible verses into fast-paced, futuristic thrillers. Their first novel, "Left Behind," opens with a vivid description of the Rapture, the moment when many evangelical Christians believe all the born-again will abruptly disappear to heaven. In a nod to the authors' views on abortion, they describe an unborn fetus ascending from the womb to heaven as well.

The succeeding novels tick off the pivotal steps Dr. LaHaye foresees during the ensuing "tribulation," a seven-year period of turmoil and cataclysm when unbelievers have a last chance to see the light. The fictional Antichrist, a Romanian named Nicolae Carpathia, rises to power as head of the United Nations. He signs a peace treaty with Israel, setting off a seven-year countdown to the Second Coming, and he ultimately establishes a worldwide government, a brutal dictatorship and a false religion with himself at its head. Meanwhile, 144,000 Jews convert to evangelical Christianity, including one rabbi whose conversion takes place live on global television, and lead an underground "remnant" of believers who periodically recite passages of Scripture that Dr. LaHaye relies on as a road map to their future.

Dr. LaHaye said he believed that over all the series reflected the biblical truth.

"That's the way it's going to be during the tribulation period, according to Revelation, and if it happens to parallel what the seculars are trying to do today, so be it," he said.

"The Bible clearly teaches there's going to be a one-world government in the last days. And after the Rapture of the church, then that one-world government will coalesce, bringing together all the governments of the world and also bringing together all the religions of the world." He added, "The fact that we're seeing some of those things happen right now must be a wake-up call to some people to say, `Hey, we may be closer than we think.' "

To those unfamiliar with Dr. LaHaye's views of Revelation, the most striking aspect of the novels may be the bloody massacre Jesus wreaks on the Antichrist's unbelieving armies.

"Tens of thousands of foot soldiers dropped their weapons, grabbed their heads or their chests, fell to their knees, and writhed as they were invisibly sliced asunder," the authors write. "Their innards and entrails gushed to the desert floor, and as those around them turned to run, they too were slain, their blood pooling and rising in the unforgiving brightness of God."

"For believers, we really are looking forward to the glorious appearing," said Steve Nelson, a Southern Baptist minister in Gallatin, Tenn., and fan of the series. "We know from reading the Word that we win in the end, and this is the winning round coming up."

David Kirkpatrick
The New York Times,Pg A1
Mar29.2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/29/books/29BOOK.html?pagewanted=1

Tim LaHaye and The Council for National Policy

In the last two decades, Tim LaHaye has emerged as not only the theological brains behind the best-selling Left Behind series, but also as one of the most influential figures in the American Christian Right. Indeed, when the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals decided to name the most influential evangelical leader of the past 25 years, they chose not Billy Graham, Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, but Tim LaHaye, in large part because of his work in evangelical politics. Not only is LaHaye an influential preacher and interpreter of prophecy and revelation, he has also become a remarkably powerful force in domestic and now even international politics through the highly secretive Council for National Policy, founded in 1981. Called by some "the most powerful conservative group you've never heard of," the CNP includes among its members Reverends Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, Jesse Helms, Tom DeLay, Oliver North, Christian Reconstructionist R.J. Rushdoony and, formerly, John Ashcroft (himself a Pentecostal Christian). Recent speakers at the Council's highly private meetings have included Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, and Timothy Goeglein, deputy director of the White House Office of Public Liaison. Although the group initially focused primarily on domestic agendas like abortion and homosexuality, LaHaye's Council has recently begun to turn to larger international issues such as U.S. policy in the Middle East and the state of Israel.

Published from 1995-2004, the Left Behind series has provided a key outlet for spreading LaHaye's political agendas to a massive audience of American readers. The twelve-volume story is not simply an evangelical reading of the Apocalypse, but also a Christian Right perspective on contemporary global politics.

[...]

George W.'s religiosity became even more explicit, however, once he decided to run for president in the 2000 election. As he confided to James Robinson, he believed that he in fact been called by God himself to he lead the United States: "I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can't explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me God wants to me to do it." As he considered the prospect of his candidacy, Bush met frequently with evangelical leaders. In October 1999, in fact, he addressed LaHaye's Council for National Policy -- though there is a much difference of opinion as to what he actually said in that particular address, which was recorded but has never been publicly released.

Hugh Urban
CounterPunch
Nov18.2004

http://www.counterpunch.org/urban11182004.html