LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY brigidsblest)

Christian reconstructionists believe democracy is heresy and public school is satanic -- and they've got more influence than you think.

By John Sugg, Church and State. Posted August 15, 2006.

Two really devilish guys materialized in Toccoa, Ga., last month to harangue 600 true believers on the gospel of a thoroughly theocratic America. Along with lesser lights of the religious far right who spoke at American Vision's "Worldview Super Conference 2006," Herb Titus and Gary North called for nothing short of the overthrow of the United States of America.

Titus and North aren't household names. But Titus, former dean of TV preacher Pat Robertson's Regent University law school, has led the legal battle to plant the Ten Commandants in county courthouses across the nation. North, an apostle of the creed called Christian Reconstructionism, is one of the most influential elders of American fundamentalism.

"I don't want to capture their (mainstream Americans') system. I want to replace it," fumed North to a cheering audience. North has called for the stoning of gays and nonbelievers (rocks are cheap and plentiful, he has observed). Both friends and foes label him "Scary Gary."

( It gets worse... )

The link to this story is here: http://www.alternet.org/story/40318/ .

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY 1400scale)

Is the media finally starting to ask the important questions?

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/8/15/12348/4792/Front_Page/Dick_Armey_Denies_Bush_Administration_Trying_To_Provoke_quot_End_Times_quot_

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY dkmnow)

Democracy Now! is a daily staple for me, and today's program was especially good. Amy Goodman interviewed Max Blumenthal, and (naturally) discussed "Christian Zionism" at length:

"Christians United for Israel: New Christian Zionism Lobby Hopes to Rival AIPAC

"We take a look at a new recently established group called Christians United for Israel - an evangelical organization that believes supporting expansionist policies of the Israeli government is: "a biblical imperative." We speak with investigative journalist Max Blumenthal who reports they lobbied the Bush administration to adopt a confrontational posture toward Iran, refuse aid to the Palestinians and give Israel a free hand in its attack on Lebanon..."

And the segment that follows does not address Dominionism explicitly, but is of obvious relevance, with it's discussion of the "authoritarian personality" and its dangers:

Fmr. White House Counsel John Dean on Conservatives Without Conscience

"We speak with former Nixon White House counsel John Dean about his new book, Conservatives Without Conscience. In it, he warns that many of today's Republican and conservative leaders are: 'conservatives without conscience who are capable of plunging this nation into disasters the likes of which we have never known.'"

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Audio streams of Democracy Now! are available on demand from their website, and the daily programs are also repeated every four hours on Radio For Peace International -- for those many of us whose local stations do not carry it. If you have DirecTV, a Pacifica station in your neighborhood, etc., you can listen/watch DN! broadcasts live.

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The research on authoritarianism that figures so centrally in Dean's book has been ignored and actively marginalized by authorities in the "social sciences." We owe a debt of gratitude to Altemeyer, and others who have persisted in their research, despite continual rejection and censure from the status quo. Some of the best work on human development, such as "Self-Determination Theory" of Edward Deci, et al, has likewise been muted by establishment and academic bias in the service of authoritarian "tradition." It's not hard to see why -- such work is a direct threat to the authoritarian mentality.

This social phenomenon -- which figures profoundly in the machinations of the "Religious Right" as well as its "Neoconservative" twin -- has also been explored extensively from the "psychoanalytical" point of view. For a quick (if imprecise) sketch of how authoritarian "values," and their attendant sanctimony and insidious brutality, are passed from one generation to the next, I reccommend reading the 1984 Afterword to the Second Edition (scroll down past bibliography) of Alice Miller's For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence. In the book, Miller also examined the pedagogic forces that made Adolf Hitler into the man he was, and made an entire nation into his willing accomplices. A condensed version, of sorts, can be found in the article Adolf Hitler: How Could a Monster Succeed in Blinding a Nation?

These ideas are also discussed in Chris Hoffman's The Question of Evil. Despite such authors often being very accomplished in psychology, it should come as no surprise that their work is also scoffed at in academia and the professions, both conventional and "traditional" alike. It would seem that the fundamental truths about our frailties and limitations as human beings are simply an intolerable threat to those who, out of deeply instilled fear, crave posession of, and alliance with, absolute power over the lives of the masses. And for such, no known system provides such total "safety" as the fusion of commercial, religious, and governmental power -- a.k.a. "fascism."

Yes, it is happening here.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY lihan161051)

After seeing the "atheist visits a Christian family" episode, and reading the show's forum on the episode, I'm still trying to get a handle on the things that bugged me about it.

( More.. )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY wyldraven)

Bush saves cross by eminent domain

President Bush signed a bill yesterday transferring ownership by eminent domain of a 29-foot cross overlooking San Diego from the city to the federal government.
The signing rendered moot two lawsuits seeking to remove the Mount Soledad Cross, a fixture on the city's skyline since its installation on Easter 1954, as a Korean War memorial. The Justice Department will head up efforts to retain the Mount Soledad Cross and the surrounding 170 acres as a military war memorial.
"This is an attempted end run on the U.S. Constitution," said Fred Edwords, director of communications for the American Humanist Association. "That the federal government would intervene in a purely local church-state dispute is an example of election-year politics at its worst."

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY rechan)

Non-Christians need not apply.