On The Rise of American Fascists

I first learned about the work of Chris Hedges from Tom Boyd, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Oklahoma. Boyd, a Presbyterian minister, is one of the most highly and most widely respected educators in the state of Oklahoma. Years ago, he recommended Hedges book War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning. Naturally, with such a high recommendation, I read the book. I found it very insightful.

In that book Hedges, once a Christian seminary student, took an unflinching look at what he had observed and concluded while working as a reporter in war zones around the world.

Hedges latest book takes an unflinching look at what he observed and concluded while reporting on the Christian Right's culture war in America. This book is called American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.

Here's a link to a short essay derived from the book. The essay comes from material in the last chapter of the book. It comes from the precise section where Hedges finally succeeded in convincing me that it is no longer a stretch to couple the word "fascist" with "Christian" when describing the Christian Right. Here's a quote:

[James Luther] Adams saw in the Christian right, long before we did, disturbing similarities with the German Christian Church and the Nazi Party, similarities that he said would, in the event of prolonged social instability or a national crisis, see American fascists rise under the guise of religion to dismantle the open society. He despaired of U.S. liberals, who, he said, as in Nazi Germany, mouthed silly platitudes about dialogue and inclusiveness that made them ineffectual and impotent. Liberals, he said, did not understand the power and allure of evil or the cold reality of how the world worked. The current hand-wringing by Democrats, with many asking how they can reach out to a movement whose leaders brand them "demonic" and "satanic," would not have surprised Adams. Like Bonhoeffer, he did not believe that those who would fight effectively in coming times of turmoil, a fight that for him was an integral part of the biblical message, would come from the church or the liberal, secular elite.

His critique of the prominent research universities, along with the media, was no less withering. These institutions, self-absorbed, compromised by their close relationship with government and corporations, given enough of the pie to be complacent, were unwilling to deal with the fundamental moral questions and inequities of the age. They had no stomach for a battle that might cost them their prestige and comfort. He told me, I suspect half in jest, that if the Nazis took over America "60 percent of the Harvard faculty would begin their lectures with the Nazi salute." But this too was not an abstraction. He had watched academics at the University of Heidelberg, including the philosopher Martin Heidegger, raise their arms stiffly to students before class.

Two decades later, even in the face of the growing reach of the Christian right, his prediction seems apocalyptic. And yet the powerbrokers in the Christian right have moved from the fringes of society to the floor of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Forty-five senators and 186 members of the House before the last elections earned approval ratings of 80 to100 percent from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups -- the Christian Coalition, Eagle Forum, and Family Resource Council. President Bush has handed hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid to these groups and dismantled federal programs in science, reproductive rights and AIDS research to pay homage to the pseudo-science and quackery of the Christian right. Bush will, I suspect, turn out to be no more than a weak transition figure, our version of Otto von Bismarck -- who also used "values" to energize his base at the end of the 19th century and launched "Kulturkampf," the word from which we get culture wars, against Catholics and Jews. Bismarck's attacks, which split Germany and made the discrediting of whole segments of the society an acceptable part of the civil discourse, paved the way for the Nazis' more virulent racism and repression.

Other recent writers have coupled the terms "fascist" and "Christian," but they did so cautiously and with reserve. Hedges does so boldly and with little reservations. His experience with the ideology, propaganda and the vortex of violence in bombed-over bullet-ridden war zones around the world gives his writing a sense of urgency that is lacking in the writings of others.

I recommed both of Hedges' books, but warn readers that they may find it hard to sleep soundly when they are finished.

Confronting Lies about Church-State Separation

Fred Clarkson has posted a diary at the Daily Kos that quotes extensively from Brent Walker's speech on "Answering Ten Lies about Separation of Church and State." Daily Kos is a key part of the liberal wing of Democratic Party's netroots. It is one of the most popular sites on the Internet.

Thanks to Fred for turning the spotlight on the work of the Brent Walker and BJC for an audience that rarely finds much good to say about Baptists.

On Faith-Based Scientology

The State of New Mexico has reportedly distributed $300,000 of state tax-funds and $350,000 of federal tax-funds to an alternative treatment program for non-violent criminals. The treatment program is based on the teachings of science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard's "Scientology."

Here's a quote:

The program costs $55 per inmate per day. "There's a lot of use of sauna with the idea that you sweat out toxins in the system," said addiction expert Bill Miller, who reviewed the program at the request of the city of Albuquerque. "I don't know of any scientific basis for that. It wasn't clear to me what sort of scientific basis there was even for the conception of the program to begin with."

I thought Bill Richardson might make a viable candidate for President until I read this. Democrats have shown the same contempt for the First Amendment as Republicans. It was Bill Clinton who willingly signed "Charitable Choice" legislation that started us down this slippery slope.

Where it will end, nobody knows.

Blunders in Iraq

A national-security policy analyst writing in the Asia Times says President Bush is making a "three-front blunder" by adopting "a new strategy of fighting all three major Iraqi Arab political-military forces simultaneously."

Here's an excerpt about one of the three fronts:

One veteran military expert on Iraq, retired US Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor, said Bush's new policy is a "war against all" in Iraq and called it "a blunder of Hitlerian proportions".

Macgregor likened the policy of fighting all three Iraqi anti-occupation forces at once to Adolf Hitler's insistence on continuing a two-front war against the Soviet Union and the Allied powers during World War II, which is widely regarded as having ensured the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Macgregor is no stranger to military planning in Iraq. He led combat troops in destroying a brigade of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard troops in the most significant tank battle of Desert Storm in February 1991 and prepared a proposal for a limited-duration attack on Baghdad at the request of a personal representative of then secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld in autumn 2001.

"It is ideology pushing violence to extremes," Macgregor said of the latest turn in Bush's Iraq policy. "They are trying to reverse the damage they have already done to themselves by having built up a Shi'ite state and army. But it is too late, and it is bound to be counterproductive."

US forces defeated the Mehdi Army of 2,000 men in Najaf in August 2004. Since then, however, Muqtada has emerged as the most popular and powerful figure in Baghdad and the Shi'ite south, muscling aside the previously dominant Badr Organization. The Mehdi Army is now believed to be many times as large as it was in 2004, and it has significant support within the Iraqi security forces.

US officers in Baghdad were telling reporters last September that they opposed doing battle with the Shi'ite militia. Colonel Joseph DiSalvo, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division in eastern Baghdad, told Tom Lasseter of McClatchy News Service in December that it would be all but impossible for the US military to defeat the Mehdi Army. "You'd have to have more manpower than is feasible," said DiSalvo.

The well-informed CNN Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware has just reiterated that warning about taking on the Mehdi Army. On Wolf Blitzer's The Situation Room last Wednesday, he said US troops can no longer crush the Mehdi Army. That army, Ware observed, "is much more than just a force, it's a movement. And it has mobilized the great disfranchised, impoverished Shi'ite population". The Sadrist "genie is out of the bottle", he warned, and "it can't be put back in".

Who Pays Attention to Whistle Blowers?

CQ has published a story asking "National Security Whistle Blowers: The 'Undead'?" Here's a quote:

During the Vietnam war, a single national security whistle blower, like Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon official who leaked a classified, sordid history of U.S. machinations in Vietnam, could cause an uproar, even play a role in bringing down an administration.

Today, with so many of them walking around Washington, they’re almost ho-hum.

And nothing seems to happen despite their airing their hair-raising tales.

None have had Ellsberg’s impact or notoriety. Most Americans have never heard of any of them.

Podcast: Mitch Randall Interview

Dr. Bruce Prescott's 1-28-2007 "Religious Talk" radio interview with Mitch Randall (28 MB mp3). Mitch is the new pastor of NorthHaven Church in Norman, OK. NorthHaven is a new church affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

Among other things, we talk about Mitch's experiences at Southwestern Seminary at the time when former Southwestern Seminary President Dr. Russell Dilday was terminated by the school's fundamentalist dominated board of trustees.

America's Democracy Crumbling

U.S. Attorney General Roberto Gonzales' approval of secret renditions and torture has already undermined respect for both the U.S. Constitution and the Geneva Conventions. Now he is determined to politicize and undermine confidence in our entire federal system of justice.

McClatchy Newspapers have published a story about "Gonzales appoints political loyalists into vacant U.S. attorneys slots." The vacant slots are being created by Gonzales' purging of independent-minded prosecutors.

The foundations of this administration's concept of rule-of-law are becoming crystal clear. It is the law of the jungle: might makes right. As long as this administration holds the mechanisms of political power, it can and it will do whatever it pleases.

This administration's contempt for the rule of law and it's cynical manipulation of the institutions of constitutional democracy are criminal.

Beware of Affluenza

Reuters has published a report about a new book by British Psychologist Oliver James entitled Affluenza. Here's a quote:

"We have become addicted to having rather than being and confusing our needs with our wants," he told Reuters in an interview to mark publication on Thursday of "Affluenza."

Globe-trotting from New York to Sydney, Singapore and Shanghai via Copenhagen, Moscow and Auckland, he concluded after interviewing 240 people that "selfish capitalism" has run riot.

Bigger houses, more cars, larger televisions, younger faces -- these goals are frenetically pursued by middle-class workaholics afflicted by "Affluenza."

"Studies in lots of different nations show that if you place high value on those things, you are more likely to suffer depression, anxiety, addictions and personality disorders," he said.

The Long Road to War with Iran

Raw Story has posted an exclusive investigative report about "Escalation of US Iran Military Planning Part of a Six-Year Administration Push." The report makes it clear that preparations for war with Iran are not a response to some sudden increase of Iranian influence in Iraq. Here's a quote:

While Iran was named a part of President George W. Bush's "axis of evil" in 2002, efforts to ignite a confrontation with Iran date back long before the post-9/11 war on terror. Presently, the Administration is trumpeting claims that Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon than the CIA's own analysis shows and positing Iranian influence in Iraq's insurgency, but efforts to destabilize Iran have been conducted covertly for years, often using members of Congress or non-government actors in a way reminiscent of the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal.

What You Should Know About Kids Online

AlterNet has published a helpful article entitled "What Adults Should Know About Kids Online Networking." Here's a quote:

There are sort of four properties and one key practice that are fundamentally different online. The key practice is that you have to write yourself into being. To a certain degree we do this offline as well, whereby you have a body that you're working with that you then accessorize to hell. Online you don't have a body, you don't have a presence, you don't have anything that sort of marks your existence.

There are four functions that are sort of the key architecture of online publics and key structures of mediated environments that are generally not part of the offline world. And those are persistence, searchability, replicability, and invisible audiences. Persistence -- what you say sticks around. Searchability -- my mother would have loved the ability to sort of magically scream into the ether to figure out where I was when I'd gone off to hang out with my friends. She couldn't, thank God. But today when kids are hanging out online because they've written [themselves] into being online, they become very searchable. Replicability -- you have a conversation with your friends, and this can be copied and pasted into your Live Journal and you get into a tiff. That creates an amazing amount of "uh ohs" when you add it to persistence. And finally, invisible audiences. In unmediated environment, you can look around and have an understanding of who can possibly overhear you. You adjust what you're saying to the reactions of those people. You figure out what is appropriate to say, you understand the social context. But when we're dealing with mediated environments, we have no way of gauging who might hear or see us, not only because we can't tell whose presence is lurking at the moment, but because of persistence and searchability.

"Evangelical" Becomes a Dirty Word

USA Today has published a revealing article entitled "Can the 'E-word' Be Saved?"

After giving Baptists a bad name, fundamentalists have given Evangelicals a bad name.

Now no one claims to be an evangelical any more.

Perhaps if they had focused more on the "evangelion" (good news) and less on the "GOTV" (get-out-the-vote), the name "evangelical" would not be discredited.

Best Quote from Last Night

Like millions of other Americans, I watched the President give his 2007 State of the Union speech last night. I applaud him for his early emphasis on the historic significance of being introduced by the first female Speaker of the House.

The biggest surprise and the best quote of the evening was not in the President's speech. It was the unexpectedly straightforward criticism levelled against the Iraq war in Senator Jim Webb's Democratic Response to the President's SOTU. Here's the quote:

The President took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War, the chief of staff of the army, two former commanding generals of the Central Command, whose jurisdiction includes Iraq, the director of operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many, many others with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable -- and predicted -- disarray that has followed.

Now we need congress to free our "hostage" nation from the curse of this misbegotten war.

Underwood's Response to Baptist Covenant Critics

Associated Baptist Press has published a story entitled "Politics Not Behind Plan to Unite Baptists, Underwood says." Here's a quote:

Clinton's involvement in the celebration is merely to provide a bigger platform to the effort to unite Baptists around a positive message, Underwood said.

"I think that when he described himself as a cheerleader, I think that's a good description," he said. "But I think beyond that you have two men who, as former presidents of the United States, have a platform that very few other people in the world have."

He continued: "I think that presidents Carter and Clinton have been very generous to share their platform with a wide array of Baptists and stand on that platform and declare the good news of Jesus Christ. And I think that's a cause for celebration."

Underwood was reponding to criticisms by Richard Land and Rick Scarborough who have tried to discredit the New Baptist Covenant by charicaturizing it is as a movement within the Democratic party rather than as a movement within the Kingdom of God.

Land and Scarborough were both leading organizers of efforts to take over the SBC. They were also leading organizers of efforts by the Religious Right to take over the GOP. The Religious Right has taken over the GOP. Land and Scarborough are both leading organizers of thinly disguised get-out-the-vote campaigns for Republican candidates. It is natural for Land and Scarborough to equate movements of Baptists with secular politics. They have been doing it for more than thirty years.

Carter has been working to unify Baptists for years. SBC leaders have often been participants in dialogue sessions with Carter discussing that goal in the past. Carter's desire for Baptist unity has nothing to do with secular politics.

Bill Clinton is a Baptist, a fact that SBC leaders readily acknowledged when they were calling for his church to exercise discipline over him for marital infidelity during his presidency.

Long before Clinton got involved, SBC leaders made it clear that they have no concern for Baptist unity. Instead, they incessantly deny the spiritual fidelity of any and all Baptists who do not share their goal of unifying the GOP around the "Christian Nationalist" political agenda of the Religious Right.

Clinton's presence at the Baptist Covenant meeting served to attract additional media attention to Carter's efforts on behalf of Baptist unity. Any time two former U.S. Presidents hold a press conference, it certainly attracts attention.

For the record, by my recollection, Hillary's name was not mentioned at the meeting. Clinton did offer to work on finding a prominent Baptist politician in the GOP to speak at the convocation next year. He seemed to think that that would not be a difficult task.

Scarborough's Folly

Kudo's to Ethics Daily for exposing the incendiary rhetoric and tone of Rick Scarborough's latest fund-raising letter. Scarborough, a former fundamentalist candidate for President of the Baptist General Convention of Texas -- now a full-time organizer for the Religious Right -- blasts the "Clinton-Carter Baptist Confab" as a means of raising funds for his Dominionist Vision America organization.

Initially an organizer of young pastors for the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC, Scarborough once took credit on the front page of Jerry Falwell's Liberty Journal for organizing his Pearland Church politically to get former Republican U.S. Representative Steve Stockman elected to Congress. Scarborough's church was investigated by the I.R.S. for that boast.

Stockman, a one-term Congressman, had strong ties to militia movements and reportedly received advance notice by fax that the federal building in Oklahoma would be bombed. Stockman was defeated for his House seat by Conservative Democrat Nick Lampson, a Roman Catholic.

Lampson recently was elected to fill indicted former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's redistricted seat. DeLay was a member of First Baptist Pearland when Scarborough pastored the church.

Mid-America Weary of War

McClathchy Newspapers have published a story entitled "Opposition to Iraq War Simmers in America's Heartland." Here's a quote:

"You're not going to see anti-war demonstrations here," Jennison said. "That's not reflective of Kansas. It's not in their nature. But that doesn't mean they want their friends and relatives in the military sent back to Iraq."

Caroline McKnight, a hospital fundraiser in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, said the war has her fellow Republicans flummoxed.

"Those who are with him are barely speaking up, and everybody else is keeping their lips zipped for fear of making an enemy," said McKnight, who opposes Bush's troop-increase plan for Iraq.

"People are fit to be tied over all of this."

The story is about public sentiment in Kansas but it is also true in Oklahoma.

Baptists No Longer Dominated by Elephantine SBC

Today's Washington Post has a story about the New Baptist Covenant. Here's a quote:

The covenant would not be not a new denomination but a coalition of four historically black Baptist churches -- including the 7.5-million-member National Baptist Convention USA and the 2.5-million-member Progressive National Baptist Convention -- and several predominantly white Baptist groups, including the 1.4-million-member American Baptist Churches USA and the 500,000-member Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

Together, they have more than 20 million members, outnumbering the SBC, which was not invited to the Atlanta meeting.

"The elephant is no longer in the room. There's been a convergence of the rest of the Baptists in North America," said the Rev. Daniel Vestal, national coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a group of present and former Southern Baptists unhappy with the SBC's course.

War -- Not Surgical Strike -- Planned for Iran

Reuters is reporting that a former U.S. intelligence analyst has warned that the Bush administration is planning for war, not a surgical strike, against Iran. Here's a quote:

"I've seen some of the planning ... You're not talking about a surgical strike," said Wayne White, who was a top Middle East analyst for the State Department's bureau of intelligence and research until March 2005.

"You're talking about a war against Iran" that likely would destabilize the Middle East for years, White told the Middle East Policy Council, a Washington think tank.

Paige Patterson Strikes Again

Paige Patterson, President of Southwestern Seminary, has decided that women can no longer teach men at the Seminary. He has informed Hebrew Professor Dr. Sheri Klouda to look for another job. Here's a quote from Southwestern Trustee chair Van McClain:

Women have long taught at Southwestern outside the school of theology --in music and certain other areas. That continues. But under Dr. Patterson, the only woman still teaching in the school of theology is his wife, Dorothy. And she teaches women's studies courses that aren't attended by men, Dr. McClain said.

He added that precedent for women teaching theology in SBC seminaries is "extremely rare."

"I do not know of any women teaching in any of the SBC seminaries presently in the area of theology or biblical languages," Dr. McClain said. "In my estimation all of the seminaries have sought to be more consistent with most Southern Baptists' understanding of Scripture on the matter."

To his credit, SBC blogger Wade Burleson has written an extensive blog challenging Patterson for his overly restrictive view of the role of women. Here's a link to Burleson's blog.

A Breakthrough in Optical Processing

The holy grail in information processing is the ability to harness light waves for use in computers and fiber optics. Using light waves for information processing has proven elusive.

The Washington Post has published an article indicating that a team at the University of Rochester has demonstrated a means for harnessing light waves in a way that could prove useful for information processing. Here's a quote:

Optical image processing could allow automated comparisons of facial images from security cameras to images maintained by law enforcement officials. It could also become a valuable tool for scientists studying subtle changes in microbes or other kinds of cells over time.

Optical processing also is likely to ease the storage of holographic images directly on hardware and could lead to breakthroughs in cryptography, the science of making and breaking codes.

Krugman Predicts Two Years of "Rolling Constitutional Crisis"

Paul Krugman has written an alarming essay about the Bush administration's "Surging and Purging." He reveals that the administration, fearful of investigations into political corruption, has been purging the federal government of independent-minded prosecutors. Here's a quote:

Since the day it took power this administration has shown nothing but contempt for the normal principles of good government. For six years ethical problems and conflicts of interest have been the rule, not the exception.

For a long time the administration nonetheless seemed untouchable, protected both by Republican control of Congress and by its ability to justify anything and everything as necessary for the war on terror. Now, however, the investigations are closing in on the Oval Office. The latest news is that J. Steven Griles, the former deputy secretary of the Interior Department and the poster child for the administration's systematic policy of putting foxes in charge of henhouses, is finally facing possible indictment.

And the purge of U.S. attorneys looks like a pre-emptive strike against the gathering forces of justice.